News tagged with embryonic stem cells
Parkinson's disease: Study of live human neurons reveals the disease's genetic origins
Parkinson's disease researchers at the University at Buffalo have discovered how mutations in the parkin gene cause the disease, which afflicts at least 500,000 Americans and for which there is no cure.
Feb 07, 2012 |
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New study makes key finding in stem cell self-renewal
A University of Minnesota-led research team has proposed a mechanism for the control of whether embryonic stem cells continue to proliferate and stay stem cells, or differentiate into adult cells like brain, liver or skin.
Feb 06, 2012 |
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Chaos in the cell's command center
A defective operating system is never a good thing. Like computers, our cells depend on operating systems to drive normal functions. Gene expression programs comprise the software code our cells rely on, with each cell type ...
Feb 01, 2012 |
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Researchers turn skin cells into neural precusors, bypassing stem-cell stage
Mouse skin cells can be converted directly into cells that become the three main parts of the nervous system, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The finding is an extension of a previous ...
Jan 30, 2012 |
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Cambridge team first to grow smooth muscle cells from patient skin cells
A Cambridge University research team has for the first time discovered a method of generating different types of vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) - the cells which make up the walls of blood vessels - using cells from ...
Medicine & Health / Cardiology
Jan 26, 2012 |
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Therapeutically useful stem cell derivatives in need of stability
Human stem cells capable of giving rise to any fetal or adult cell type are known as pluripotent stem cells. It is hoped that such cells, the most well known being human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), can be used to generate ...
Jan 24, 2012 |
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Vision improves modestly in patients after human embryonic stem cells transplants
(Medical Xpress) -- Researchers at UCLA's Jules Stein Eye Institute and colleagues who successfully transplanted specialized retinal cells derived from human embryonic stem cells into the eyes of two legally ...
Jan 24, 2012 |
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Study: Stem cells may aid vision in blind people
The first use of embryonic stem cells in humans eased a degenerative form of blindness in two volunteers and showed no signs of any adverse effects, according to a study published by The Lancet on Monday.
Jan 23, 2012 |
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Saving the snow leopard with stem cells
(PhysOrg.com) -- The survival of the endangered snow leopard is looking promising thanks to Monash University scientists who have, for the first time, produced embryonic stem-like cells from the tissue of ...
Jan 23, 2012 |
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A first: Brain support cells from umbilical cord stem cells
For the first time ever, stem cells from umbilical cords have been converted into other types of cells, which may eventually lead to new treatment options for spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis, among other nervous ...
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jan 17, 2012 |
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World's first chimeric monkeys are born
Researchers have produced the world's first chimeric monkeys. The bodies of these monkeys, which are normal and healthy, are composed of a mixture of cells representing as many as six distinct genomes. The ...
Jan 05, 2012 |
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Study finds iPS cells match embryonic stem cells in modeling human disease
(Medical Xpress) -- Stanford University School of Medicine investigators have shown that iPS cells, viewed as a possible alternative to human embryonic stem cells, can mirror the defining defects of a genetic condition — ...
Dec 13, 2011 |
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Survey reveals scientists have trouble accessing human embryonic stem cell lines
The promise of stem cell research for drug discovery and cell-based therapies depends on the ability of scientists to acquire stem cell lines for their research.
Dec 12, 2011 |
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Study unlocks origins of blood stem cells
A research team led by Nancy Speck, PhD, professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has discovered a molecular marker for the immediate ...
Dec 09, 2011 |
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Scientists use animal-free reagents to create clinical-grade neurons from skin cells
(Medical Xpress) -- Using a specially designed facility, UCLA stem cell scientists have taken human skin cells, reprogrammed them into cells with the same unlimited property as embryonic stem cells, and then ...
Dec 09, 2011 |
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Embryonic stem cell
Embryonic stem cells (ES cells) are stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of an early stage embryo known as a blastocyst. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4–5 days post fertilization, at which time they consist of 50–150 cells.
Embryonic Stem (ES) cells are pluripotent. This means they are able to differentiate into all derivatives of the three primary germ layers: ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm. These include each of the more than 220 cell types in the adult body. Pluripotency distinguishes ES cells from multipotent progenitor cells found in the adult; these only form a limited number of cell types. When given no stimuli for differentiation, (i.e. when grown in vitro), ES cells maintain pluripotency through multiple cell divisions. The presence of pluripotent adult stem cells remains a subject of scientific debate; however, research has demonstrated that pluripotent stem cells can be directly generated from adult fibroblast cultures.
Because of their plasticity and potentially unlimited capacity for self-renewal, ES cell therapies have been proposed for regenerative medicine and tissue replacement after injury or disease. However Diseases treated by these non-embryonic stem cells include a number of blood and immune-system related genetic diseases, cancers, and disorders; juvenile diabetes; Parkinson's; blindness and spinal cord injuries. Besides the ethical concerns of stem cell therapy (see stem cell controversy), there is a technical problem of graft-versus-host disease associated with allogeneic stem cell transplantation. However, these problems associated with histocompatibility may be solved using autologous donor adult stem cells or via therapeutic cloning.
For more information about Embryonic stem cell, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
