Stem Cells
Future of heart medicine: Stem cells to grow cardiac muscle and smaller medical implants
If heart transplantation - 50 years after Christiaan Barnard carried out the first operation - has become routine, what exactly ...
Era of unregulated stem cell therapies may be coming to an end
Is the Wild West of stem cell therapies coming to an end? Newly released guidelines from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) suggest ...
Gene therapy creates boy’s replacement skin from his stem cells
Doctors treated a 7-year-old boy’s devastating genetic skin disease—junctional epidermolysis bullosa—by genetically modifying his stem cells to create a new ...
How epigenetics is linked to drug resistance
Scientists at Vanderbilt University say they have discovered a nongenetic cause of resistance to cetuximab, a therapeutic that is used ...
Unapproved stem cell therapy leaves elderly women blind
[E]ye doctors based primarily at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami had published a widely covered report describing three eerily similar cases: ...
Parkinson’s stem cell treatment shows promise in monkeys–human trials next
Japanese researchers report promising results from an experimental therapy for Parkinson’s disease that involves implanting neurons made from ‘reprogrammed’ stem ...
‘Unscrupulous’ stem cell clinics targeted in FDA crackdown
The Food and Drug Administration announced a crackdown on dangerous stem cell clinics...while at the same time pledging to ease the path to approval ...
Male sterility may be correctable through stem cell treatments, if mice studies lead to human cure
A common genetic cause of male infertility has been overcome in mice using a technique that creates healthy sperm in ...
Are cardiac stem cells a ‘fountain of youth’?
Cardiac stem cells derived from young hearts helped reverse the signs of aging when directly injected into the old hearts ...
‘Tissue paper’ made from organs could repair damage, restore function
Scientists have created paper-like biomaterials from organs such as the ovaries, uterus, heart, liver and muscle that are thin and ...
CRISPR revolution: How scientists are turning gene-editing hype into food and medical breakthroughs
The powerful gene-editing tool is becoming ubiquitous, appearing in the media with ever increasing frequency. But it's more than just ...
Stem cell implants could provide ‘functional cure’ for type 1 diabetes
Last week, two people with type 1 diabetes became the first to receive implants containing cells generated from embryonic stem cells to ...
Life’s DNA blueprint: Rewriting yeast genome could help design better drugs and improve stem cell therapy
Scientists have long been able to make specific changes in the DNA code. Now, they’re taking the more radical step ...
Fountain of youth? Stem cells show promise in slowing aging, rejuvenating brain — in mice
Stem cells in the brain could be the key to extending life and slowing ageing. These cells — which are ...
NIH website markets questionable stem cell treatments, then retreats
Potentially dangerous stem cell treatments are being marketed on a website the federal government established to help patients find experimental ...
Surviving the cure: Stem cell transplant that saved a patient’s life now poses mortal threat
A few months before completing medical school in 2003, Lukas Wartman was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a blood ...
Organs from stem cells: Are we getting close?
The concept behind tissue engineering is simple: grow the patient's stem cells in the laboratory, add them to a scaffold ...
Stem cell treatments can be dangerous: ‘Call to action’ targets ‘medical tourism’
An international team of medical experts recently published a global call to action in Science Translational Medicine in an effort to curb ...
Hunting for DNA: Piecing together autism’s genetic puzzle
It’s been 10 years since Michael Wigler had a breakthrough revelation in autism genetics...[when he] reported that ‘de novo’ mutations — those that ...
Stem cell therapy relying on patient’s own unhealthy heart may be dangerous
A new study at Tel Aviv University shows that stem cell therapy, one of the few treatments available to patients ...
Creating ‘leaks’ in blood vessels could aid in drug delivery
The endothelial cells that line blood vessels are packed tightly to keep blood inside and flowing, but scientists have discovered ...
Multiple sclerosis research boosted by modeled brain cells
Researchers at The Salk Institute have developed a way to grow vital brain cells called astrocytes from stem cells, a potential breakthrough ...
Is it possible to stop our muscles and bones from deteriorating as we age?
With age, the form and function of our bones and muscles drop off, putting us as increased risk for frailty ...
Back to life: Can controversial stem cell treatment revive brain-dead patients?
For any given medical problem, it seems, there’s a research team trying to use stem cells to find a solution...But ...
Leukemia treatment using lab-grown blood ‘tantalizingly close’
A bone marrow transplant is often the only chance for survival [for patients with leukemia and other blood disorders]...Unfortunately, like ...
Parkinson’s target of China’s first clinical trial using embryonic stem cells
In the next few months, surgeons in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou will carefully drill through the skulls of people ...
Controlling gene expression with light may lead to disease treatments
Researchers in UC Santa Barbara’s departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology have gotten a step ...