“Latest Stem Cells News”

For decades, biology textbooks have been clear – our traits are the product of our genes. But a new study by Yale University researchers published Dec. 26 in Nature Genetics suggests another mechanism can regulate variations of traits even in genetically identical individuals.

A particular type of RNA works in concert with a common protein to protect organisms from harmful genetic variations without the help of genes, reports Haifan Lin, director of the Yale Stem Cell Center, professor of cell biology and genetics and senior author of the paper.

“This mechanism may help explain how ordinary cells such as fibroblasts can be converted to stem cells and why some cancers develop at random,” Lin said.

The theory that factors other than genes are responsible for an organism’s traits, or phenotype, has been around for almost 70 years but has only gained steam in the past decade. For instance, cloned animals are often born with different colors than the animals that are the source of their DNA. But what causes these changes remained unclear.

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Before going ahead and explaining the possibilities that are on the verge of development based on the regenerative capabilities of a stem cell, let us first understand what a stem cell is actually. Stem cells are the basic group of cells that have the extremely potent capability of regenerating themselves. The process through which they regenerate themselves is known as mitotic cell division and after the division, the previously unspecialized cells turn into specialized cells for specific organs through cellular differentiation.

These cells are not found in unicellular organisms, but are found in varying quantities within all multi cellular organisms. Embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells are the two types of stem cells that are present inside all mammals naturally. The function of the embryonic stem cells is to differentiate and form all of the embryonic organs and tissues. As adult stem cells, they are more given towards repairing organ cells, but they constantly contribute to regeneration by helping the natural renewal of skin and blood.

As the stem cells in a human being possess regenerative properties along with the ability to form specialized cells, they have been a great prospect for achieving ground breaking technological progress in the field of medical science since 1960, when Ernest A. McCulloch and James E. Till started it all in the University of Toronto.

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Men with type 1 diabetes may be able to grow their own insulin-producing cells from their testicular tissue, say Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) researchers who presented their findings today at the American Society of Cell Biology’s 50th annual meeting in Philadelphia.

Their laboratory and animal study is a proof of principle that human spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) extracted from testicular tissue can morph into insulin-secreting beta islet cells normally found in the pancreas. And the researchers say they accomplished this feat without use of any of the extra genes now employed in most labs to turn adult stem cells into a tissue of choice.

“No stem cells, adult or embryonic, have been induced to secrete enough insulin yet to cure diabetes in humans, but we know SSCs have the potential to do what we want them to do, and we know how to improve their yield,” says the study’s lead investigator, G. Ian Gallicano, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Cell Biology and director of the Transgenic Core Facility at GUMC.

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Researchers for the first time have been able to demonstrate fully functional complex tissues of human organs i.e. intestines, obtained using stem cell technology, which finds applications in laboratory research as well as medical purposes. The paper was published in the journal Nature.

“This is the first study to demonstrate that human pluripotent stem cells in a petri dish can be instructed to efficiently form human tissue with three-dimensional architecture and cellular composition remarkably similar to intestinal tissue,” said Dr. James Wells, a leading researcher at the Medical Center’s Children’s Hospital of Cincinnati. “The hope is that our ability to turn stem cells into intestinal tissue will eventually be therapeutically beneficial for people with diseases such as necrotizing enterocolitis, inflammatory bowel disease and short bowel syndromes,” – he added

Stem cells have been of great interest to scientists and doctors, as they have the ability to transform into any cell type in the body, which are of more than 200 types. Unfortunately, the adult body is almost devoid of these cells, and a significant number are formed only at the stage of embryonic development. For this reason, in recent years a number of methods have been developed for producing cells with the properties of stem cells from tissues of the adult human body. These cells, called induced pluripotent, are obtained by reprogramming of skin cells.

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Aileen Anderson and Brian Cummings led the pre-clinical studies for the neural stem cell treatment

A therapy developed by Aileen Anderson and Brian Cummings of UC Irvine’s Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center in collaboration with researchers at StemCells Inc. will be the basis of the world’s first clinical trial using human neural stem cells to treat spinal cord injury.

Swissmedic, the Swiss regulatory agency for therapeutic products, has authorized a Phase I/II clinical trial for chronic spinal cord injury, cases in which inflammation has stabilized and recovery has reached a plateau.

The trial will utilize StemCells Inc.’s proprietary purified human neural stem cells and will be conducted at the University of Zurich’s University Hospital Balgrist, one of the world’s leading medical centers for spinal cord injury and rehabilitation.

It’s designed to assess both safety and preliminary efficacy in patients with varying degrees of paralysis who are between three and 12 months post-injury at the time of transplantation. Enrollment is expected to begin in early 2011.

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Steven Goldman, M.D., Ph.D.

Scientists have created a way to isolate neural stem cells – cells that give rise to all the cell types of the brain – from human brain tissue with unprecedented precision, an important step toward developing new treatments for conditions of the nervous system, like Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases and spinal cord injury.

The work by a team of neuroscientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center was published in the Nov. 3 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. Neurologist Steven Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Neurology, led the team.

The latest paper marks a six-year effort by Goldman’s team to develop a better way to isolate pure preparations of neural stem cells directly from the human brain. These stem cells can renew themselves and have the potential to become a number of brain cell types – for instance, oligodendrocytes that might help people with multiple sclerosis, or neurons to help people with Parkinson’s disease. But after the first few months of human embryonic development, they become rare in the brain, and it’s challenging for scientists to find, isolate and manipulate them. Yet those challenges must be met if stem cells are to live up to their promise as treatments for a host of human diseases of the nervous system.

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