Stroke. “… injections of beta-hCG, a hormone that triggers the growth of neural stem cells.”

March 10, 2010 – 10:01 pm

A Release from the University of California – Irvine has informed:

  • “A clinical research trial of a new treatment to restore brain cells damaged by stroke has passed an important safety stage, according to the UC Irvine neurologist who led the effort.”

    More from the Release dated March 10, sourced from University of California – Irvine:
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Artificial periosteum. “The sock-like sheath on the outside of the bone is a habitat for stem cells …”

March 9, 2010 – 10:34 pm

Melissa Knothe Tate, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering from Case Western Reserve University, and Ulf Knothe, Orthopedic Surgeon from the Cleveland Clinic, have reported the development of ‘… an artificial sleeve that spurs fast healing when a car wreck, bomb blast or disease leaves too little cover.’

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Anesthesia. “… research team discovered, by chance, a link between stem cell loss and …”

March 8, 2010 – 9:14 am

Professor Klas Blomgren, from the Queen Silvia Children’s Hospital, Sweden, has said:

  • “Paediatric anaesthetists have long suspected that children who are anaesthetised repeatedly over the course of just a few years may suffer from impaired memory and learning …”
  • “This is a theory that is also supported by foreign research.”

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Transferable findings. Oct4 transcription factor. “… gene that is essential for maintaining pluripotency, and is what makes egg cells, as well as embryonic stem cells and early embryos, potentially immortal.”

March 8, 2010 – 9:14 am

According to a Release dated March 8, sourced from Max-Planck-Gesellschaft:

  • “… scientists have puzzled over to what extent the findings of studies on the embryonic stem cells (ES cells) of mice are transferable to humans.”
  • “It is certainly true that human and mouse ES cells are both pluripotent.”
  • “That means they are capable of forming any of the body’s cell types, numbering more than 200 in all.”
  • “And both types of cells have an active Oct4 transcription factor, for example.”
  • “This is the gene that is essential for maintaining pluripotency, and is what makes egg cells, as well as embryonic stem cells and early embryos, potentially immortal.”
  • “In other aspects, though, as scientists have known for some time now, human and mouse ES cells differ enormously.”
  • “Certain signalling substances that can be used to turn mouse cells into liver, nerve or muscle cells, for instance, produce either no effect or totally different effects in human ES cells.”

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Bone marrow. ‘While further studies are needed to demonstrate that stem cells can harbor the HIV virus, the study results confirm that HIV targets some long-lived progenitor cells ….’

March 8, 2010 – 9:14 am

Researchers from the University of Michigan have reported ‘… a new reservoir for hidden HIV-infected cells that can serve as a factory for new infections. The findings, which appear online March 7 in Nature Medicine, indicate a new target for curing the disease so those infected with the virus may someday no longer rely on AIDS drugs for a lifetime.’

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Pluripotent cells from inner cell mass of pre-implantation blastocysts. “… capacity to undergo indefinite rounds of self-renewing cell division and differentiate into all the cell lineages …”

March 7, 2010 – 7:29 pm
  • “Embryonic stem (ES) cells are pluripotent cells isolated from the inner cell mass of the pre-implantation blastocyst.”1
  • “They have the capacity to undergo indefinite rounds of self-renewing cell division and differentiate into all the cell lineages of the developing embryo.”

Researchers from John Hughes Bennett Laboratory, Queen’s Medical Research Institute, University of Edinburgh, in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom; have presented an article titled: “The culture of mouse embryonic stem cells and formation of embryoid bodies.”

The researchers from John Hughes Bennett Laboratory, Queen’s Medical Research Institute, University of Edinburgh, have also noted:

  • “In suspension culture, ES cells will differentiate into aggregates known as embryoid bodies in a manner similar to the early embryo.”
  • “This culture system therefore provides a useful model to study the relatively inaccessible stages of mammalian development.”
  • “We describe methods for the routine maintenance of mouse embryonic stem cells in culture, assays of stem cell self-renewal potential in monolayer culture and the generation of embryoid bodies to study differentiation pathways.”
(1) Jackson M, Taylor AH, Jones EA, Forrester LM: The culture of mouse embryonic stem cells and formation of embryoid bodies. Methods Mol Biol. 2010;633:1-18.
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ES and iPS cells. Cryopreservation. “… feeder-free cryopreservation and the expansion of present and future applications of human ES and iPS cells.”

March 7, 2010 – 12:26 am
  • “… a simple and efficient human embryonic stem (ES) and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells cryopreservation protocol.”

Researchers from Department of Stem Cells and Developmental Biology, Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology, ACECR, Tehran, Iran; Department of Developmental Biology, University of Science and Culture, ACECR, Tehran, Iran; Department of Molecular Systems Biology, Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology, ACECR, Tehran, Iran; and Department of Systems Biology, Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute of Iran, Karaj, Iran; have presented an article titled: “An efficient and easy-to-use cryopreservation protocol for human ES and iPS cells.” 1

The researchers Tehran, Iran, and Karaj, Iran, have also noted:

  • “This protocol involves the use of Rho-associated kinase (ROCK) inhibitor, Y-27632, for the feeder-free dissociated cells.”
  • “The addition of ROCK inhibitor to both pre- and post-thaw culture media enhanced the cloning efficiency.”
  • “The presence of Y-27632 in Matrigel further increased the cloning efficiency.”
  • “As compared with other available protocols for human ES and iPS cells cryopreservation, our protocol differs in the technical simplicity, high cloning efficiency and post-thawing passaging.”
  • “We believe that this protocol could be a generally applicable and robust platform for feeder-free cryopreservation and the expansion of present and future applications of human ES and iPS cells.”
  • “The treatment with ROCK inhibitor, cell harvesting and the freezing-thawing process usually takes about 2 h excluding overnight incubation at -80 degrees C.”
(1) Baharvand H, Salekdeh GH, Taei A, Mollamohammadi S: An efficient and easy-to-use cryopreservation protocol for human ES and iPS cells. Nat Protoc. 2010 Mar;5(3):588-94. Epub 2010 Mar 4.
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Adult stem cells. “… stem-cell-active growth factors that not only stimulate stem cell expansion but also orchestrate differentiation of these stem cells into their mature progeny …”

March 4, 2010 – 2:25 pm

Dr Jason Butler, Senior Investigator from Weill Cornell Medical College, has said:

  • “We are the first group to demonstrate that endothelial cells elaborate a repertoire of stem-cell-active growth factors that not only stimulate stem cell expansion but also orchestrate differentiation of these stem cells into their mature progeny …”
  • “For example, we have found that expression of specific stem-cell-active factors, namely Notch-ligands, by the endothelial cells lining the wall of working blood vessels promote proliferation of the blood-forming stem cells.”
  • “Inhibition of these specific factors on the endothelial cells resulted in the failure of the regeneration of the blood-forming stem cells.”
  • “These findings suggest that endothelial cells directly, through expression of stem-cell-active cytokines, promote stem cell reconstitution.”

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hES cell lines. Shanaghai. China.

March 3, 2010 – 9:21 pm
  • “Human embryonic stem (hES) cells are pluripotent cells derived from the inner cell mass of blastocysts.”1
  • “Their unique properties of self-renewal and pluripotency make them an attractive tool for basic research as well as a potential cell resource for therapy.”
  • “However, each hES cell line demonstrates different identity.”
  • “It is desirable to obtain more fully characterized hES cell lines with newly developed technologies associated with hES cell culture.”

Researchers from Key Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology, Institute of Health Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences/Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China; have presented an article titled: “Efficient derivation of Chinese human embryonic stem cell lines from frozen embryos.”

The researchers from Shanghai, China; have also noted:

  • “… experience of efficient derivation of three new Chinese hES cell lines (SHhES2, SHhES3, and SHhES4) from in vitro fertilization discarded embryos donated by women with polycystic ovary syndrome.”
  • “These cell lines were derived under conditions minimizing exposure to animal components and maintained at an undifferentiated state for long-term culture.”
  • “They retained a normal karyotype and expressed ALP, OCT4, SOX2, SSEA-4, TRA-1-60 and TRA-1-81.”
  • “RT-PCR analysis also revealed high expression levels of pluripotency markers such as OCT4, LEFTY A, SOX2, TDGF-1, THY1, FGF4, NANOG, and REX1.”
  • “When suspended in low-attachment culture dishes, embryoid bodies formed and were comprised of various differentiated cell types from all three embryonic germ layers.”
  • “However, well-shaped teratomas were only harvested from line SHhES2, not from SHhES3 and SHhES4, indicating that the differentiation ability in vivo differs among the three cell lines.”
  • “Collectively, the three new hES cell lines were established and fully characterized.”
  • “The effort paves the way toward generating hES cell lines without contamination by animal components.”
(1) Li C, Yang Y, Lu X, Sun Y, Gu J, Feng Y, Jin Y: Efficient derivation of Chinese human embryonic stem cell lines from frozen embryos. In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Anim. 2010 Feb 26; (Article in Press)
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Reprogramming. Human fibroblasts to pluripotent stem cells. “… avoids DNA integration and may be developed to replace the use of DNA vectors in the formation of iPS.”

March 3, 2010 – 8:33 pm
  • “Reprogramming of differentiated cells into induced pluripotent cells (iPS) was accomplished in 2006 by expressing four, or less, embryonic stem cell (ESC) – specific transcription factors.”1
  • “Due to the possible danger of DNA damage and the potential tumorigenicity associated with such DNA damage, attempts were made to minimize DNA integration by the vectors involved in this process without complete success.”

Researchers from Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel; Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, Israel; and Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel; have presented an article titled: “Reprogramming of human fibroblasts to pluripotent stem cells using mRNA of four transcription factors.”

The researchers from Rehovot, Tel-Hashomer and Tel-Aviv; have also noted:

  • “We used RNA synthesized in vitro from cDNA of the same reprogramming four transcription factors.”
  • “After transfection of the RNA, we show intracellular expression and nuclear localization of the respective proteins in at least 70% of the cells.”
  • “We used five consecutive transfections to support continuous protein expression resulting in the formation of iPS colonies that express alkaline phosphatase and several ESC markers and that can be expanded.”
  • “This method completely avoids DNA integration and may be developed to replace the use of DNA vectors in the formation of iPS.”
(1) Yakubov E, Rechavi G, Rozenblatt S, Givol D: Reprogramming of human fibroblasts to pluripotent stem cells using mRNA of four transcription factors. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2010 Feb 24; (Article in Press)
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