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Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Dopamine-Producing Neurons The new research describes the implantation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to replace dopamine-producing neurons destroyed by Parkinson’s disease. Such cells not only survive the grafting procedure and manufacture dopamine, but send out their branching fibers through the neural tissue to make distant connections in the brain, just like their naturally-occurring counterparts. Credit: Shireen Dooling for the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University Neurodegenerative diseases cause neuronal damage and destruction, wreaking havoc on both mental and physical health. Parkinson’s disease, which affects over 10 million people worldwide, is no exception. The most noticeable...

J. Hanna/Weizmann InstituteImproved recipe. After 6 days of reprogramming, nearly 100% cells that lack Mbd3 (right) have become reprogrammed (yellow). Few unaltered cells (left) have made the transition, remaining red. Given the right instructions in the lab, mature cells can turn back into embryoniclike ones that researchers covet, but the process is frustratingly slow and inefficient. By removing a molecular brake, scientists have now figured out how to reprogram cells with almost 100% efficiency.In a process called cellular reprogramming, researchers increase the expression of four genes in skin, blood, or other mature cells to turn them into induced pluripotent stem...

Sagrario Ortega/Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), MadridPregnant with possibilities. Cells reprogrammed in living mice (green) can contribute to both the placenta and body tissues of a developing mouse. Cells Reprogrammed in Living Mice Researchers have discovered a surprisingly effective way to “reprogram” mature mouse cells into an embryolike state, able to become any of the body’s cell types. Their recipe: Let the transformation happen in a living animal instead of a petri dish. The finding could help scientists better understand how reprogramming works and it may one day help breed replacement tissues or organs in the lab—or in patients.In...

'Mini-brains' help researchers to study neurological diseases in living human tissue. With the right mix of nutrients and a little bit of coaxing, human stem cells derived from skin can assemble spontaneously into brain-like chunks of tissue. Researchers provide the first description and application of these ‘mini-brains’ today in Nature1. “It’s a seminal study to making a brain in a dish,” says Clive Svendsen, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study. “That’s phenomenal.” A fully formed artificial brain might still be years away, he notes, but the pea-sized neural clumps developed...

In a technical tour de force, Japanese researchers created eggs and sperm in the laboratory. Now, scientists have to determine how to use those cells safely — and ethically. Since last October, molecular biologist Katsuhiko Hayashi has received around a dozen e-mails from couples, most of them middle-aged, who are desperate for one thing: a baby. One menopausal woman from England offered to come to his laboratory at Kyoto University in Japan in the hope that he could help her to conceive a child. “That is my only wish,” she wrote. The requests started trickling in after Hayashi published the...

Scientists have grown rudimentary teeth out of the most unlikely of sources, human urine. The results, published in Cell Regeneration Journal, showed that urine could be used as a source of stem cells that in turn could be grown into tiny tooth-like structures. The team from China hopes the technique could be developed into a way of replacing lost teeth. Other stem cell researchers caution that that goal faces many challenges. Teams of researchers around the world are looking for ways of growing new teeth to replace those lost with age and poor dental hygiene. Stem cells - the master...

A multinational team of scientists led by Prof Benjamin Blencowe from the University of Toronto has identified proteins that play a key role in controlling pluripotency, which may mean a potential breakthrough in producing the so-called induced pluripotent stem cells.Colonies of the induced pluripotent stem cells (Boston University Center for Regenerative Medicine) Induced pluripotent stem cells can be of great value for medical research because they can flexibly develop into many different types of cells. However, producing these cells is challenging because the proteins that control their generation are largely unknown.The team discovered the proteins using the splicing code developed...

Silencing extra chromosome in cell cultures could lead to new treatments for the disorder. The insertion of one gene can muzzle the extra copy of chromosome 21 that causes Down’s syndrome, according to a study published today in Nature1. The method could help researchers to identify the cellular pathways behind the disorder's symptoms, and to design targeted treatments. “It’s a strategy that can be applied in multiple ways, and I think can be useful right now,” says Jeanne Lawrence, a cell biologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, and the lead author of the study. Lawrence and...

Cells self-organize and grow into functional organs after transplantation. Transplanting tiny 'liver buds' constructed from human stem cells restores liver function in mice, researchers have found. Although preliminary, the results offer a potential path towards developing treatments for the thousands of patients awaiting liver transplants every year. The liver buds, approximately 4 mm across, staved off death in mice with liver failure, the researchers report this week in Nature1. The transplanted structures also took on a range of liver functions — secreting liver-specific proteins and producing human-specific metabolites. But perhaps most notably, these buds quickly hooked up with nearby blood...

The Japanese Health Ministry has approved the first human clinical trial involving induced pluripotent stem cells (know as iPSCs), which are taken from a patient’s epithelial tissue for use elsewhere in his body. The trial will remove skin cells from six adults who suffer from age-related macular degeneration; scientists at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe will then attempt to develop the cells into retinal tissue for transplant back to each patient’s eyes. The outcome of the treatment is by no means assured; the trial will take four years to complete, and as the National Institutes of Health...

The January special issue of Cell Research on Stem Cell Biology brings together the latest reviews and articles in the field. Together with the accompanying web focus, Cell Research delves into our current understanding and investigates recent advances in various aspects of stem cell biology, cell reprogramming, and their relevance to diseases.Special Issue on Stem Cell Biology

At present, there are three small human safety embryonic stem cell studies. All deal with macular degeneration-type conditions. And now, a human trial looks to soon get underway in Japan using induced pluripotent stem cells, that is, stem cells made from a patient’s own skin or other tissues. From the Nature News story: Having already received IRB approval at her home institution, Takahashi can now move towards the final step before patient recruitment: getting health ministry approval.  She’s expected receive that in time for starting the trials during this fiscal year, ending March 2014. The trial will enroll six patients...

16 hours ago TOKYO — Researchers in Japan said Wednesday they have succeeded in growing human kidney tissue from stem cells for the first time in a potential breakthrough for millions with damaged organs who are dependent on dialysis. Kidneys have a complex structure that is not easily repaired once damaged, but the latest findings put scientists on the road to helping a diseased or distressed organ fix itself. Kenji Osafune of Kyoto University said his team had managed to take stem cells -- the "blank slates" capable of being programmed to become any kind of cell in the body...

Stem cells derived from patients with disorders, such as these Parkinson’s cells, could foster drug screening to find treatments and also provide researchers a valuable tool to study disease. Europe certainly believes in the promise of stem cells.A joint public-private collaboration between the European Union and Europe’s pharmaceutical industry, called the StemBANCC project, will spend nearly 50 million euros to create 1,500 pluripotent stem cell lines. But the initiative’s goal isn’t to find a stem cell-based cure for diabetes or Alzheimer’s disease. They hope instead that their stem cell lines will prove to be faster and more effective drug screens...

The chief medical ambition of those who study stem cells has always been that the cells would be used to repair and regenerate damaged tissue. That's still a long way off, despite rapid progress exemplified by the presentation of the Nobel Prize next week to Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University for a key stem-cell breakthrough. But there's another, less well known application of stem cells that is already delivering results: disease modeling. Dr. Yamanaka used a retrovirus to insert four genes into a mouse cell to return it to a "pluripotent" state—capable of turning into almost any kind of cell....

The discovery that cellular development is not a one-way street has earned this year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. John B. Gurdon, a developmental biologist at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and Shinya Yamanaka, a stem cell researcher at Kyoto University in Japan and the Gladstone Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, have won the prize for their discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to resemble the versatile cells of a very early embryo. These so-called pluripotent cells have the ability to become any of...

Enlarge Image Who's your mommy? These adult mice grew from oocytes, or immature eggs, derived in vitro from induced pluripotent stem cells. Credit: Mitinori Saitou and Katsuhiko Hayashi Want baby mice? Grab a petri dish. After producing normal mouse pups last year using sperm derived from stem cells, a Kyoto University team of researchers has now accomplished the same feat using eggs created the same way. The study may eventually lead to new ways of helping infertile couples conceive. "This is a significant achievement that I believe will have a sustained and long-lasting impact on the field of reproductive...

In this image of mouse embryonic fibroblasts undergoing reprogramming, each colored dot represents messenger RNA associated with a specific gene that is active in cells being reprogrammed. Red dots represent... Several years ago, biologists discovered that regular body cells can be reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells — cells with the ability to become any other type of cell. Such cells hold great promise for treating many human diseases. These induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are usually created by genetically modifying cells to overexpress four genes that make them revert to an immature, embryonic state. However, the procedure works in only...

Japanese researcher plans cache of induced stem cells to supply clinical trials. Progress toward stem-cell therapies has been frustratingly slow, delayed by research challenges, ethical and legal barriers and corporate jitters. Now, stem-cell pioneer Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan plans to jump-start the field by building up a bank of stem cells for therapeutic use. The bank would store dozens of lines of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, putting Japan in an unfamiliar position: at the forefront of efforts to introduce a pioneering biomedical technology. A long-held dream of Yamanaka’s, the iPS Cell Stock project received a boost...

A cutting-edge method developed at the University of Michigan Center for Arrhythmia Research successfully uses stem cells to create heart cells capable of mimicking the heart's crucial squeezing action. The cells displayed activity similar to most people's resting heart rate. At 60 beats per minute, the rhythmic electrical impulse transmission of the engineered cells in the U-M study is 10 times faster than in most other reported stem cell studies. An image of the electrically stimulated cardiac cells is displayed on the cover of the current issue of Circulation Research, a publication of the American Heart Association. For those suffering...