http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have made a significant discovery in understanding the way human embryonic stem cells function. http://www.physorg.com/news160314968.html Biology Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:56:46 EST news160314968 In a study featured on the cover of the May issue of The FASEB Journal, researchers describe how they are able to reprogram human adult skin cells into other cell types in order to decipher the elusive mechanisms underlying reprogramming. To demonstrate their point, they transformed human skin cells into mouse muscle cells and vice versa. This research shows that by understanding the regulation of cell specialization it may be possible to convert one cell type into another, eventually bypassing stem cells. http://www.physorg.com/news160305025.html Biology Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:10:41 EST news160305025 Driven mostly by hope, two California families will travel more than 6,000 miles to China for an experimental stem-cell treatment for their children. http://www.physorg.com/news160222416.html Medicine & Health Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:14:15 EST news160222416 The new technique solves one of the most challenging safety hurdles associated with personalized stem cell-based medicine because for the first time it enables scientists to make stem cells in the laboratory from adult cells without genetically altering them. This discovery has the potential to spark the development of many new types of therapies for humans, for diseases that range from Type 1 diabetes to Parkinson's disease. http://www.physorg.com/news159712335.html Biology Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:32:57 EST news159712335 In a recent study, U.S. researchers have reprogrammed cells found in circulating blood into cells that are molecularly and functionally indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells, a revolutionary achievement that provides a readily accessible source of stem cells and an alternative to harvesting embryonic stem cells. The findings were prepublished online in Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology. http://www.physorg.com/news159456325.html Medicine & Health Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:25:43 EST news159456325 A university lecturer in Japan has succeeded in regenerating hair on mice using embryonic stem cells, an achievement that could pave the way for the development of treatments for conditions including hair loss, it has been learned. http://www.physorg.com/news159441080.html Medicine & Health Mon, 20 Apr 2009 10:11:55 EST news159441080 (AP) -- When President Barack Obama eased limits on taxpayer-funded embryonic stem cell research, the big question became how far scientists could go. Friday, the government answered: They must use cells culled from fertility clinic embryos that otherwise would be thrown away. http://www.physorg.com/news159347034.html Biology Sun, 19 Apr 2009 08:05:39 EST news159347034 (AP) -- When President Barack Obama eased limits on taxpayer-funded embryonic stem cell research, the big question became how far scientists could go. Friday, the government answered: They must use cells culled from fertility clinic embryos that otherwise would be thrown away. http://www.physorg.com/news159194009.html Biology Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:34:07 EST news159194009 Investigators at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have developed a protocol to rapidly differentiate human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) into neural progenitor cells that may be ideal for transplantation. The research, conducted by Alexei Terskikh, Ph.D., and colleagues, outlines a method to create these committed neural precursor cells (C-NPCs) that is replicable, does not produce mutations in the cells and could be useful for clinical applications. The research was published on March 13 in the journal Cell Death and Differentiation. http://www.physorg.com/news158850679.html Medicine & Health Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:13:25 EST news158850679 A team of UCSF researchers has for the first time used tiny molecules called microRNAs to help turn adult mouse cells back to their embryonic state. These reprogrammed cells are pluripotent, meaning that, like embryonic stem cells, they have the capacity to become any cell type in the body. http://www.physorg.com/news158770530.html Biology Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:56:05 EST news158770530 Scientists from the University of Wisconsin, USA, report in the journal Development the successful generation from human embryonic stem cells of a type of cell that can make myelin, a finding that opens up new possibilities for both basic and clinical research. http://www.physorg.com/news158475622.html Biology Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:00:51 EST news158475622 Researchers at Oregon State University have found one gene in the human body that appears to be a master regulator for skin development, in research that could help address everything from skin diseases such as eczema or psoriasis to the wrinkling of skin as people age. http://www.physorg.com/news157136390.html Medicine & Health Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:00:30 EST news157136390 Deafness affects more than 250 million people worldwide. It typically involves the loss of sensory receptors, called hair cells, for their "tufts" of hair-like protrusions, and their associated neurons. The transplantation of stem cells that are capable of producing functional cell types might be a promising treatment for hearing impairment, but no human candidate cell type has been available to develop this technology. http://www.physorg.com/news157035388.html Biology Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:56:51 EST news157035388 Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have learned that a protein called Shp2 plays a critical role in the pathways that control decisions for differentiation or self-renewal in both human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). http://www.physorg.com/news156619552.html Biology Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:26:24 EST news156619552 Faced with a new federal policy that opens the door for more embryonic stem cell research, conservatives have geared up for a political battle at the national and state level that goes to the core of their beliefs about the sanctity of human life. http://www.physorg.com/news156451856.html Biology Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:51:40 EST news156451856 (AP) -- A showdown is shaping up in some of the nation's most conservative states over embryonic stem cell research, as opponents draw language and tactics from the battle over abortion to counter President Barack Obama's plan to ease research restrictions. http://www.physorg.com/news156013060.html Biology Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:58:21 EST news156013060 US President Barack Obama will on Monday sign an executive order reversing Bush administration restrictions on federal funding for stem-cell research, a senior administration official said. http://www.physorg.com/news155587890.html Biology Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:52:07 EST news155587890 Researchers reporting in the March 6th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, have developed a new way to produce human embryonic-like stem cells that are free of the viruses used to insert the key ingredients. They showed they could make those embryonic-like cells by reprogramming cells taken from people with unexplained (or idiopathic) Parkinson's disease. http://www.physorg.com/news155480031.html Biology Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:54:33 EST news155480031 Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a protein complex important in controlling whether embryonic stem cells retain their ability to become any cell in the body - a quality called pluripotency - or instead embark on a pathway of maturation and specialization. The finding is an important advance in the quest by scientists to harness the unique abilities of embryonic stem cells to treat disease and generate replacement tissue for the body. http://www.physorg.com/news155236964.html Medicine & Health Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:23:38 EST news155236964 A Johns Hopkins engineer is trying to coax human stem cells to turn into networks of new blood vessels that could someday be used to replace damaged tissue in people with heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses. http://www.physorg.com/news154201708.html Medicine & Health Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:49:10 EST news154201708 (PhysOrg.com) -- Research scientists in Bonn, Germany, have succeeded in deriving so-called brain stem cells from human embryonic stem cells. These can not only be conserved almost indefinitely in culture, but can also serve as an inexhaustible source of diverse types of neural cell. The scientists have also shown that these neural cells are capable of synaptic integration in the brain. Their results have been published in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.physorg.com/news154109921.html Biology Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:19:07 EST news154109921 (PhysOrg.com) -- A little more than a year after University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists showed they could turn skin cells back into stem cells, they have pulsating proof that these "induced" stem cells can indeed form the specialized cells that make up heart muscle. http://www.physorg.com/news153679352.html Medicine & Health Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:42:59 EST news153679352 The simple recipe scientists earlier discovered for making adult stem cells behave like embryonic-like stem cells just got even simpler. A new report in the February 6th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, shows for the first time that neural stem cells taken from adult mice can take on the characteristics of embryonic stem cells with the addition of a single transcription factor. Transcription factors are genes that control the activity of other genes. http://www.physorg.com/news153059473.html Biology Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:31:44 EST news153059473 Since the cloning of Dolly the Sheep over a decade ago, somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) has been considered a promising way to generate human, patient-specific stem cells for therapeutic applications. The shortage of human donor eggs has led to efforts to substitute animal oocytes. http://www.physorg.com/news152802480.html Biology Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:08:34 EST news152802480 For the first time, UCLA researchers have reprogrammed human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into the cells that eventually become eggs and sperm, possibly opening the door for new treatments for infertility using patient-specific cells. http://www.physorg.com/news152264594.html Biology Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:43:57 EST news152264594 Experiments at Johns Hopkins have found that the gradual maturing of embryonic cells into cells as varied as brain, liver and immune system cells is apparently due to the shut off of several genes at once rather than in individual smatterings as previous studies have implied. http://www.physorg.com/news151508246.html Medicine & Health Sun, 18 Jan 2009 13:37:26 EST news151508246 (PhysOrg.com) -- A research team led by Nancy Speck, PhD, Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, has identified the location and developmental timeline in which a majority of bone marrow stem cells form in the mouse embryo. The findings, appearing online this week in the journal Nature, highlight critical steps in the origin of hematopoietic (or blood) stem cells (HSCs), says senior author Speck, who is also an Investigator with the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at Penn. http://www.physorg.com/news150731605.html Biology Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:53:25 EST news150731605 A Boston University School of Medicine-led research team has discovered a more efficient way to create induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells, derived from mouse fibroblasts, by using a single virus vector instead of multiple viruses in the reprogramming process. The result is a powerful laboratory tool and a significant step toward the application of embryonic stem cell-like cells for clinical purposes such as the regeneration of organs damaged by inherited or degenerative diseases, including emphysema, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and Alzheimer's Disease. http://www.physorg.com/news150558593.html Biology Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:49:53 EST news150558593 Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and at UC-San Francisco have succeeded in isolating stem cells from human testes. The cells bear a striking resemblance to embryonic stem cells - they can differentiate into each of the three main types of tissues of the body - but the researchers caution against viewing them as one and the same. http://www.physorg.com/news150397024.html Biology Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:57:04 EST news150397024 James Thomson knew that to send a cell back to its past was no trivial matter. Like generations of biologists, the University of Wisconsin-Madison stem cell pioneer had been taught that development was a one-way street; it began with an embryo and finished with all the mature cells that make up the body. Yet in the summer of 2007, Thomson and scientists around the globe were racing to do what once had been thought impossible: to reverse the natural process and return old cells to their embryonic origin. They sought the healing potential of embryonic stem cells - immortal in a lab dish, able to become any cell in the body - but without the controversial destruction of human embryos. http://www.physorg.com/news150098009.html Medicine & Health Fri, 02 Jan 2009 05:53:29 EST news150098009