The point of no return: Chromatin enforces cell fate decisions

Stem cells balance self-renewal with differentiation into mature cells. A fundamental and intriguing question is when during the process of maturation a cell reaches a "point of no return," losing its capacity to self-renew ...

Taking a closer look at genetic switches in cancer

Many things go wrong in cells during the development of cancer. At the heart of the chaos are often genetic switches that control the production of new cells. In a particularly aggressive form of leukemia, called acute myeloid ...

Targeting cancer's 'queen bees' with better tissue modeling

In many types of cancer, standard chemotherapy cures only a fraction of patients. Treatments are often too toxic to normal cells and they fail to selectively kill cancer's stem cells, which can survive treatment and, like ...

Moving beyond embryonic stem cells: Encouragement on the horizon

For nearly two decades, the medical world and the American public have grappled with the lightning-rod topic of stem cells, in particular the controversy surrounding cells from human embryos. But when researchers four years ...

Researchers parse the origins of hematopoietic stem cells

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a gene and a novel signaling pathway, both critical for making the first hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in developing vertebrate embryos. ...

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