Cloning And Stem Cell News, Research and Resources - January 2008 Archives

Stem cell therapy studies for stroke, cerebral palsy prepare for clinical trials (1/31/2008)

Finding answers about optimal dosage and timing for stem cell therapy in adults with strokes and newborns with ischemic injuries is a goal of two new federally funded studies. ...> Full Article

Engineers Use Blood's Hydrodynamics To Manipulate Stem, Cancer Cells (1/30/2008)

A tiny, implantable device has pulled adult stem cells out of a living rat with a far greater purity than any present technique. ...> Full Article

Stem cells treatment for brittle bones in the womb (1/30/2008)

The extraordinary results of an in utero stem cell treatment could lead to a new treatment for babies with brittle bones, as well as a range of other disabling conditions, according to a maternal-fetal medicine researcher, now based at The University of Queensland (UQ). ...> Full Article

Cancer drug activates adult stem cells (1/29/2008)

Potential treatment for osteoporosis and other degenerative conditions ...> Full Article

New research into scar-free healing (1/28/2008)

New research from the University of Bristol shows that by suppressing one of the genes that normally switches on in wound cells, wounds can heal faster and reduce scarring. This has major implications not just for wound victims but also for people who suffer organ tissue damage through illness or abdominal surgery. ...> Full Article

Key Bone Building Pathway Identified in Mice (1/28/2008)

Researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, University of California, San Francisco, and Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease have uncovered a biochemical signaling pathway that leads to the formation of abnormally large bones in mice. For humans, the discovery may provide clues to both childhood bone formation and osteoporosis -- the loss of bone in old age -- as well as a path to improved osteoporosis treatments. The research is detailed in a paper in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ...> Full Article

Stem cell firm selects Newcastle for European base (1/28/2008)

A leading Korean biotechnology company has opened its European division at Newcastle University to develop its stem cell research programme. ...> Full Article

Study probes stance on animal-to-human transplants (1/27/2008)

A study has found people who would benefit from animal-to-human transplants (xenotransplants), baulk at the idea of receiving organs from animals otherwise destined for their dinner plate. ...> Full Article

Protein that controls hair growth also keeps stem cells slumbering (1/27/2008)

Like fine china and crystal, which tend to be used sparingly, stem cells divide infrequently. It was thought they did so to protect themselves from unnecessary wear and tear. But now new research from Rockefeller University has unveiled the protein that puts the brakes on stem cell division and shows that stem cells may not need such guarded protection to maintain their potency. ...> Full Article

Turning on adult stem cells may help repair bone (1/26/2008)

Potential new approach to treating osteoporosis, other degenerative conditions ...> Full Article

Adult Stem Cells Beneficial in Heart Failure Recovery (1/26/2008)

A study in the Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology published by Wiley-Blackwell shows that administration of adult bone marrow stem cells (BMC) and mesenchymal stems cells (MSC) can aid in the recovery of myocardial infarction (MI) - commonly known as heart attack - and consequently increase survival rates. ...> Full Article

Cell printing pioneer shortlisted for major prize (1/25/2008)

A professor who developed technology that allows tailor-made tissues and bones to be grown has been shortlisted for a major international prize that recognises world changing ideas. ...> Full Article

Adult stem cell application effective in treatment of peripheric vascular disease (1/24/2008)

Multipotent adult progenitor stem cells extracted from bone marrow, and known as MAPCs, have proved to be effective in the regeneration of blood vessel tissue and also in muscle tissue when treating peripheric vascular disease ...> Full Article

The RNA Drug Revolution: A New Approach To Gene Therapy (1/24/2008)

RNA interference (RNAi) represents an innovative new strategy for using small RNA molecules to silence specific genes associated with disease processes, and a series of review articles describing the state-of-the-art and potential therapeutic applications of RNAi and microRNAs will begin with two review papers in the January 2008 issue of Human Gene Therapy. ...> Full Article

First U.S. Trial Transplants Stem Cells to Investigate Prevention of Leg Amputations (1/23/2008)

A Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine researcher has launched the first U.S. trial in which a purified form of subjects' own adult stem cells was transplanted into their leg muscles with severely blocked arteries to try to grow new small blood vessels and restore circulation in their legs. ...> Full Article

Cloned Human Embryo Created From Skin Cells (1/23/2008)

Stemagen, a privately held embryonic stem cell research company, announced January 17 it has become the first in the world to create, and meticulously document, a cloned human embryo using somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). ...> Full Article

UC Irvine's stem cell facility proposal ranks high in first round of funding evaluations (1/22/2008)

Second stage of CIRM funding process will look at community support ...> Full Article

Stem-cell Transplantation Improves Muscles In Muscular Dystrophy Animal Model, Researchers Report (1/21/2008)

Using embryonic stem cells from mice, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have prompted the growth of healthy -- and more importantly, functioning -- muscle cells in mice afflicted with a human model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. ...> Full Article

Study Gives Insight Into Hair Growth (1/20/2008)

Researchers at USC have identified a new mechanism that controls the activation of stem cells during hair regeneration. ...> Full Article

Hybrid embryo research approved (1/19/2008)

Stem cell scientist, Dr Lyle Armstrong has been given permission to use animal eggs in research which aims to lead to the development of new therapies for debilitating human conditions such as Parkinson's Disease and strokes. ...> Full Article

Study Reports Successful Cloning of Human Embryo Using Adult DNA (1/18/2008)

Key Step Toward Developing Embryonic Stem Cell Lines for Therapeutic Cloning ...> Full Article

Researchers identify mechanism that controls activation of stem cells during hair regeneration (1/17/2008)

Researchers at the University of Southern California have identified a novel cyclic signaling in the dermis that coordinates stem cell activity and regulates regeneration in large populations of hairs in animal models. The signaling switch involves bone morphogenetic protein (Bmp) pathway, according to the study that will be published in the Jan. 17 issue of the journal Nature. ...> Full Article

Investment banker donates $20 million to fund Stanford's stem cell research, therapeutic efforts (1/16/2008)

Banker upset government won't fund scientific inquiries, decides to do it himself. ...> Full Article

Beating Heart Created In Laboratory: Method May Revolutionize How Organ Tissues Are Developed (1/15/2008)

University of Minnesota researchers have created a beating heart in the laboratory. ...> Full Article

BERT tells ERNI it's time to grow a brain (1/13/2008)

Scientists have discovered how two proteins ­called BERT and ERNI interact in embryos to control when different organ systems in the body start to form, deepening our understanding of the development of the brain and nervous system and stem cell behaviour. ...> Full Article

Study holds new promise for patients recovering from spinal injuries (1/13/2008)

Spinal cord damage blocks the routes the brain uses to send messages to the nerve cells that control walking. For years, doctors believed that the only way injured patients could walk again was to regrow the long nerve highways that link the brain and base of the spinal cord. ...> Full Article

NYU Medical Center Awarded 1 Million Stem Cell Grant from New York State (1/13/2008)

NYU Medical Center has received a grant of $1 Million from the Empire State Stem Cell Board, which-established in 2007 by Governor Eliot Spitzer-announced its first awards today. The award will be used to supplement funding for work already underway in NYU School of Medicine's Helen and Martin Kimmel Center of Stem Cell Biology, as well as to acquire state-of-the art equipment and to create training programs to attract more researchers to the stem cell field. ...> Full Article

Human Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Created Without The Destruction Of Embryos (1/13/2008)

Breakthrough Approach Improves Efficiency to Levels Reported in the Conventional Stem Cell Derivation Techniques ...> Full Article

New Treatment Boosts Bone Healing and Re-Growth (1/12/2008)

A drug originally used to treat iron poisoning can significantly boost the body's own ability to heal and re-grow injured bones, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). ...> Full Article

Scientists Tap Amniotic Fluid For Stem Cells (1/12/2008)

Scientists from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School have reported success in using otherwise discarded amniotic fluid as a source of stem cells from which they have created muscle, bone, fat, blood vessel, nerve and liver cells in the laboratory. ...> Full Article

Protein in Human Hair Shows Promise for Regenerating Nerves (1/11/2008)

A protein found in human hair shows promise for promoting the regeneration of nerve tissue and could lead to a new treatment option when nerves are cut or crushed from trauma. ...> Full Article

University to receive state money for stem cell research (1/11/2008)

The Rockefeller University is one of 25 institutions to receive a combined $14.5 million from New York state to fund stem cell research and training. The funds, which are part of a multi-year $600 million initiative overseen by the newly created Empire State Stem Cell Board, will fund new shared equipment and services to support research in more than a dozen Rockefeller labs working to understand the mechanisms of stem cells. ...> Full Article

The construction of heart modelling leads path to new therapies (1/10/2008)

Heart disease is still a major killer, especially in the western world, but new therapies based on stem cells and other techniques could now be imminent. Progress is being held back however by the difficulty testing new therapies on human heart tissue, with animal models being only of limited value owing to differences in structure and activity. The only solution in the absence of real human models is to create computerised "in-silico" models that simulate the real heart and enable possible drugs and therapies to be tested without risk to people. Although this is still some way off becoming a reality, substantial progress has been made, and the next steps were plotted at a major workshop held recently by the European Science Foundation (ESF). ...> Full Article

Freeze-Dried Tendon Implants Prove Effective In Early Studies (1/9/2008)

Potential to Restore Range of Motion, Accelerate Healing after Hard-to-Treat Injuries ...> Full Article

Georgia State conference will address controversies in stem cell research (1/8/2008)

When scientists announced nearly 10 years ago they had isolated human cells with the potential to become virtually any type of cell or tissue in the body, a storm of controversy followed. ...> Full Article

Mechanism by which Signaling Pathways Regulate Growth and Differentiation of Adult Muscle Stem Cells is Revealed (1/8/2008)

During muscle regeneration, which is a natural response to injury and disease, environmental cues cause adult muscle stem cells (satellite cells) to shift from dormancy to actively building new muscle tissue. Although the signaling pathways controlling muscle regeneration are fairly well known, how these signals lead to altered chromatin structure remains undiscovered. A group of scientists at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, CA, analyzed the mechanism by which certain cellular signaling cues cause epigenetic modifications when released within the regenerative microenvironment, thus controlling the expression of genes that regulate growth and differentiation of muscle stem cells that repair injured muscle. ...> Full Article

Scientists restore walking after spinal cord injury (1/7/2008)

Spinal cord damage blocks the routes that the brain uses to send messages to the nerve cells that control walking. Until now, doctors believed that the only way for injured patients to walk again was to re-grow the long nerve highways that link the brain and base of the spinal cord. For the first time, a UCLA study shows that the central nervous system can reorganize itself and follow new pathways to restore the cellular communication required for movement. ...> Full Article

Scientists test the safety of experimental drug for vision loss (1/6/2008)

In a first-of-its-kind safety research study, University of Florida researchers have injected an anti-inflammatory compound into the eye of a person with a sight-robbing disease. ...> Full Article

Growing Artificial Skin From Hair Roots (1/5/2008)

There is new hope for patients with chronic wounds: euroderm GmbH and the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI in Leipzig have been granted approval to produce artificial skin from patients' own cells. ...> Full Article

Researchers reveal the functioning of a genetic switch that plays crucial role in muscle stem cells (1/4/2008)

New research published in Nature Cell Biology has revealed that a master muscle stem cell gene called Pax7 controls the development of new muscle tissue by regulating how certain genes are switched from a silent state to an active state. ...> Full Article