Latest Stem Cell Research

Regulated Segregation of Kinase Dyrk1A during Asymmetric Neural Stem Cell Division Is Critical for EGFR-Mediated Biased Signaling

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Sacri R. Ferron, Natividad Pozo, Ariadna Laguna, Sergi Aranda, Eva Porlan, Mireia Moreno, Cristina Fillat, Susana de la Luna, Pilar Sánchez, María L. Arbonés, Isabel Fariñas. Stem cell division can result in two sibling cells exhibiting differential mitogenic and self-renewing potential. Here, we present evidence that the dual-specificity kinase Dyrk1A is part of a mol....

Oxygen in Stem Cell Biology: A Critical Component of the Stem Cell Niche

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Ahmed Mohyeldin, Tomás Garzón-Muvdi, Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa. The defining hallmark of stem cells is their ability to self-renew and maintain multipotency. This capacity depends on the balance of complex signals in their microenvironment. Low oxygen tensions....

Hypoxia Signaling in Hematopoietic Stem Cells: A Double-Edged Sword

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Patrick J. Pollard, Kamil R. Kranc. Although hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) reside in hypoxic niches, the significance of hypoxia signaling in HSCs remains unclear. In this issue of Cell Stem Cell, Takubo et al. (2010) and S....

Functional Diversity of ESC-Derived Motor Neuron Subtypes Revealed through Intraspinal Transplantation

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Mirza Peljto, Jeremy S. Dasen, Esteban O. Mazzoni, Thomas M. Jessell, Hynek Wichterle. Cultured ESCs can form different classes of neurons, but whether these neurons can acquire specialized subtype features typical of neurons in vivo remains unclear. We show here that mouse ESCs can....

The STATs on Naive iPSC Reprogramming

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Jacob H. Hanna. Pluripotency can be induced in somatic cells via ectopic expression of defined transcription factors. In this issue of Cell Stem Cell, Yang et al. (2010) demonstrate that Lif/Stat3 signalin....

The Orphan Drug Act and the Development of Stem Cell-Based Products for Rare Diseases

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Scott N. Freeman, Kathryn A. Burke, Menfo A. Imoisili, Timothy R. Coté. The Orphan Drug Act encourages the development of products for rare diseases and conditions. Many conditions that stand to benefit from stem cell-based products are rare diseases. We address the O....

Chromatin Structure and Gene Expression Programs of Human Embryonic and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Matthew G. Guenther, Garrett M. Frampton, Frank Soldner, Dirk Hockemeyer, Maya Mitalipova, Rudolf Jaenisch, Richard A. Young. Knowledge of both the global chromatin structure and the gene expression programs of human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) should provide a robust means to a....

Generation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Using Recombinant Proteins

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Hongyan Zhou, Shili Wu, Jin Young Joo, Saiyong Zhu, Dong Wook Han, Tongxiang Lin, Sunia Trauger, Geoffery Bien, Susan Yao, Yong Zhu, Gary Siuzdak, Hans R. Schöler, Lingxun Duan, Sheng Ding.

Transient Inactivation of Rb and ARF Yields Regenerative Cells from Postmitotic Mammalian Muscle

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Kostandin V. Pajcini, Stephane Y. Corbel, Julien Sage, Jason H. Pomerantz, Helen M. Blau. An outstanding biological question is why tissue regeneration in mammals is limited, whereas urodele amphibians and teleost fish regenerate major structures, largely by cell cycle reentry. Upon in....

Hematopoietic Stem Cell Quiescence Promotes Error-Prone DNA Repair and Mutagenesis

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Mary Mohrin, Emer Bourke, David Alexander, Matthew R. Warr, Keegan Barry-Holson, Michelle M. Le Beau, Ciaran G. Morrison, Emmanuelle Passegué. Most adult stem cells, including hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), are maintained in a quiescent or resting state in vivo. Quiescence is widely considered to be an essential protective mechanism fo....

Polycomb Group Proteins Set the Stage for Early Lineage Commitment

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Lauren E. Surface, Seraphim R. Thornton, Laurie A. Boyer. Precise control of gene expression patterns is critical for the specification of cellular diversity during metazoan development. Polycomb group (PcG) proteins comprise a class of transcriptional m....

The Distinct Metabolic Profile of Hematopoietic Stem Cells Reflects Their Location in a Hypoxic Niche

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Tugba Simsek, Fatih Kocabas, Junke Zheng, Ralph J. DeBerardinis, Ahmed I. Mahmoud, Eric N. Olson, Jay W. Schneider, Cheng Cheng Zhang, Hesham A. Sadek. Bone marrow transplantation is the primary therapy for numerous hematopoietic disorders. The efficiency of bone marrow transplantation depends on the function of long-term hematopoietic stem cells....

Tumor-Initiating Cells Are Rare in Many Human Tumors

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Kota Ishizawa, Zeshaan A. Rasheed, Robert Karisch, Qiuju Wang, Jeanne Kowalski, Erica Susky, Keira Pereira, Christina Karamboulas, Nadeem Moghal, N.V. Rajeshkumar, Manuel Hidalgo, Ming Tsao, Laurie Ailles, Thomas K. Waddell, Anirban Maitra, Benjamin G. Neel, William Matsui. Tumor-initiating cells (TICs) are defined by their ability to form tumors after xenotransplantation in immunodeficient mice and appear to be relatively rare in most human cancers. Recent data in m....

BRCA1 Basal-like Breast Cancers Originate from Luminal Epithelial Progenitors and Not from Basal Stem Cells

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Gemma Molyneux, Felipe C. Geyer, Fiona-Ann Magnay, Afshan McCarthy, Howard Kendrick, Rachael Natrajan, Alan MacKay, Anita Grigoriadis, Andrew Tutt, Alan Ashworth, Jorge S. Reis-Filho, Matthew J. Smalley. Breast cancers in BRCA1 mutation carriers frequently have a distinctive basal-like phenotype. It has been suggested that this results from an origin in basal breast epithelial stem cells. H....

Stat3 Activation Is Limiting for Reprogramming to Ground State Pluripotency

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Jian Yang, Anouk L. van Oosten, Thorold W. Theunissen, Ge Guo, Jose C.R. Silva, Austin Smith. The cytokine leukemia inhibitory factor (Lif) sustains self-renewal of mouse embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells by activating Jak kinase and the transcription factor Stat3. Here we inves....

Polycomb Group Proteins: Multi-Faceted Regulators of Somatic Stem Cells and Cancer

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Martin Sauvageau, Guy Sauvageau. Polycomb Group (PcG) proteins are transcriptional repressors that epigenetically modify chromatin and participate in the establishment and maintenance of cell fates. These proteins play important ....

Female Human iPSCs Retain an Inactive X Chromosome

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Jason Tchieu, Edward Kuoy, Mark H. Chin, Hung Trinh, Michaela Patterson, Sean P. Sherman, Otaren Aimiuwu, Anne Lindgren, Shahrad Hakimian, Jerome A. Zack, Amander T. Clark, April D. Pyle, William E. Lowry, Kathrin Plath. Generating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) requires massive epigenome reorganization. It is unclear whether reprogramming of female human cells reactivates the inactive X chromosome (Xi), a....

Cancer Cell of Origin: Spotlight on Luminal Progenitors

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Christine L. Chaffer, Robert A. Weinberg. Does basal type breast cancer arise from oncogenic transformation of a basal cell type? In this issue of Cell Stem Cell, Molyneux et al. (2010) investigate the provenance of the basal-type ....

Regulation of the HIF-1α Level Is Essential for Hematopoietic Stem Cells

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Keiyo Takubo, Nobuhito Goda, Wakako Yamada, Hirono Iriuchishima, Eiji Ikeda, Yoshiaki Kubota, Haruko Shima, Randall S. Johnson, Atsushi Hirao, Makoto Suematsu, Toshio Suda. Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are sustained in a specific microenvironment known as the stem cell niche. Mammalian HSCs are kept quiescent in the endosteal niche, a hypoxic zone of the bone marr....

Myc Represses Primitive Endoderm Differentiation in Pluripotent Stem Cells

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:30:13 GMT

Keriayn N. Smith, Amar M. Singh, Stephen Dalton. The generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provides a novel method to facilitate investigations into the mechanisms that control stem cell pluripotency and self-renewal. Myc has prev....

The Orphan Drug Act and the Development of Stem Cell-Based Products for Rare Diseases

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Tumor-Initiating Cells Are Rare in Many Human Tumors

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Polycomb Group Proteins: Multi-Faceted Regulators of Somatic Stem Cells and Cancer

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Polycomb Group Proteins Set the Stage for Early Lineage Commitment

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Hypoxia Signaling in Hematopoietic Stem Cells: A Double-Edged Sword

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Cancer Cell of Origin: Spotlight on Luminal Progenitors

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Editors' Notes

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

(none)

The STATs on Naive iPSC Reprogramming

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Microarraying for Mechanosensivitity

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

David V. Schaffer. In a recent issue of Science, Gilbert et al. combine biomaterial microarrays with lineage tracking to demonstrate that muscle stem cell survival is sensitive to the microenvironment's mecha....

The Distinct Metabolic Profile of Hematopoietic Stem Cells Reflects Their Location in a Hypoxic Niche

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Regulated Segregation of Kinase Dyrk1A during Asymmetric Neural Stem Cell Division Is Critical for EGFR-Mediated Biased Signaling

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

BRCA1 Basal-like Breast Cancers Originate from Luminal Epithelial Progenitors and Not from Basal Stem Cells

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Regulation of the HIF-1α Level Is Essential for Hematopoietic Stem Cells

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Functional Diversity of ESC-Derived Motor Neuron Subtypes Revealed through Intraspinal Transplantation

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Stat3 Activation Is Limiting for Reprogramming to Ground State Pluripotency

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Toward a Knowledge of Causes

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Elaine Fuchs.

Myc Represses Primitive Endoderm Differentiation in Pluripotent Stem Cells

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Female Human iPSCs Retain an Inactive X Chromosome

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:19 GMT

New antibody-combination therapy developed at Stanford boosts human lymphoma cure rate in mouse models

Krista Conger — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

More than half of laboratory mice with human non-Hodgkin's lymphoma are cured by a treatment involving just two monoclonal antibodies, according to a new study.

Stem cell ruling puts researcher's project in limbo

Chris Vaughan — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Promising work by Joanna Wysocka, PhD, has been thrown into an uncertain limbo by a recent injunction suspending federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research.

Judge halts federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

A federal judge issued an injunction halting the Obama stem cell guidelines from being used and potentially stopping all federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research. Irv Weissman calls the ruling "profound and disturbing."

Purified blood stem cells improve success of bone marrow transplants in mice, study shows

Chris Vaughan — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

A new study shows that mice receiving purified blood stem cells are less prone to complications from bone marrow transplants than mice receiving stem cells plus purified T cells.

FDA greenlights first clinical trial of embryonic stem cell therapy

Christopher Vaughan — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The US Food and Drug Administration gave the OK to proceed with the first trial of an embryonic stem cell therapy. The trial, sponsored by Geron, involves Stanford and other research centers.

Scientists develop new way to grow adult stem cells in culture

Krista Conger — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Researchers have found that growing muscle stem cells on a synthetic matrix that mimics the elasticity of real muscle allows the cells to maintain their self-renewing properties.

Arsenic shows promise as cancer treatment, study finds

Krista Conger — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

A new study shows a form of arsenic that has been used for a decade to treat a particular type of leukemia may also be useful in treating a variety of other cancers.

Stem cell scientists launch effort to prevent fraudulent treatment

Krista Conger — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Researchers are issuing warnings about unproven stem cell therapies being marketed on the Internet and have launched a website to educate and protect patients seeking such treatments.

Melanoma-initiating cells identified by study

Krista Conger — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Scientists have identified a cancer-initiating cell in human melanomas. The finding is significant because the existence of such a cell in the aggressive skin cancer has been a source of debate.

$5.6 million awarded for stem cell research at Stanford

Krista Conger — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Four Stanford researchers were awarded $5.6 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to study how to overcome the immune rejection of tissues derived from stem cells.

Aiming to cure deafness, scientists first to create functional inner-ear cells

Tracie White — Thu, 13 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Researchers have found a way to develop mouse cells that look and act just like the animal's inner-ear hair cells -- the linchpin to our sense of hearing and balance -- in a petri dish.

State stem cell agency awards $4.3 million to three Stanford researchers

Krista Conger — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Three Stanford researchers were awarded about $4.3 million by the state stem cell agency to support investigation into human stem cell biology and cellular differentiation.

Study first to analyze individual's genome for risk of dozens of diseases, potential responses to treatment

Krista Conger — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

For the first time, researchers have used a healthy person's complete genome sequence to predict his risk for dozens of diseases and how he will respond to several common medications.

Antifungal medicine shown to slow tumor growth in mice study

Krista Conger — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

A common antifungal medication can slow tumor growth in mice. The drug, called itraconazole, inhibits a molecular pathway important during both fetal development and cancer progression.

Computational feat speeds finding of genes to milliseconds instead of years

Chris Vaughan — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Computer scientist Debashis Sahoo, PhD, has devised a way to take two known genes and then, in a fraction of a second, find new genes involved in the same developmental pathway.

Scientists first to identify wide variety of genetic splicing in embryonic stem cells

Krista Conger — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Variations in the ways a gene is spliced have been linked to the unprecedented developmental flexibility, or pluripotency, exhibited by embryonic stem cells.

Weissman discusses how cancer stem cells evade body's defense mechanisms at AAAS meeting

Krista Conger — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Stem cell expert Irving Weissman, MD, hosted a symposium of leading stem cell researchers and bioethics experts to discuss the latest scientific advances in the field.

Virus-free technique enables scientists to easily make stem cells pluripotent, moving closer to possible human therapies

Krista Conger — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Tiny circles of DNA are the key to a new and easier way to transform stem cells from human fat into induced pluripotent stem cells for use in regenerative medicine.

Dramatic transformation: Researchers directly turn mouse skin cells into neurons, skipping IPS stage

Krista Conger — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Scientists have succeeded in the ultimate switch: transforming mouse skin cells in a laboratory dish directly into functional nerve cells with the application of just three genes.

Scientists identify protein that keeps stem cells poised for action

Krista Conger — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Researchers have identified a protein that helps stem cells balance the ability to quickly become more specialized cell types while preventing them from changing too early.