“Latest Stem Cells News”

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem discovered a method to potentially eliminate the tumor-risk factor in utilizing human embryonic stem cells, said the university on Wednesday.
The researchers’ work paves the way for further progress in the promising field of stem cell therapy, said the press release of the university sent to Xinhua.

According to the release, human embryonic stem cells are theoretically capable of differentiation to all cells of the mature human body (and are hence defined as “pluripotent“).
This ability, along with the ability to remain undifferentiated indefinitely in culture, make regenerative medicine using human embryonic stem cells a potentially unprecedented tool for the treatment of various diseases, including diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and heart failure.

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Former Vice President Al Gore Endorses Trans-Pacific Collaboration to Promote Use of Patient Cells for Drug Discovery and Development and Cell-Based Therapies iZumi Bio, Inc., and Kyoto University‘s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA), today announced a collaboration to promote the basic research, development and application of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell technology – a form of cellular reprogramming which originated in Japan – with the goal of advancing drug discovery and enabling cell-based therapies.

“Stem cell research holds great promise for the creation of new therapies that could revolutionize the treatment of disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and muscular dystrophy. The discovery that iPScell technology brings, that “stem cell-like” cells can be generated from a small amount of human skin rather than from embryos, opens a new door for stem cell research and its application to therapeutic discovery,” said Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States and a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Noting that Science Magazine named cellular reprogramming the “breakthrough of the year” in 2008, Gore concluded, “The partnership between these two leading organizations is a critical step in furthering this research and turning stem cell research into therapeutic realities sooner.”

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One factor, not four like a majority of biologists throughout the world have said up until now, is sufficient to convert an adult stem cell into a cell that is similar to an embryonic stem cell. A recipe that is much more simple than what the scientific community has believed has been discovered by Hans Schöler and his colleagues, who include Italians ,Vittorio Sebastiano and Luca Gentile, from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Germany. The study, published in February’s edition of Cell, shows for the first time that nerve stem cells taken from an adult mouse can assume the characteristics of embryonic stem cells with the addition of only one transcription factor, or one gene that controls the activity of other genes.

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A new method to reprogram adult cells making them similar to stem cells has been discovered. The key protein in the discovery is Wnt, already known to scientists for its involvement in numerous phases of development in vertebrates and invertebrates. The study, conducted by the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM) in Naples by Maria Pia Cosma, was published in the online version of Cell Stem Cell magazine. The study involved various types of adult cells including fibroblasts, thymus cells, and neural precursor cells, which were fused with embryonic stem cells in the presence of the Wnt protein. Following the manipulation, the adult cells transformed into undifferentiated cells (pluripotent) able to give rise to cells and tissues different from their initial programming.

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The Australian Stem Cell Centre (ASCC) through StemCore, its national facility for the provision of stem cells and advice, continues to build a world class Australian stem cell research community. For the first time in Australia, young researchers will be trained in the techniques of growing and using human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells in research.

iPS cells, discovered in 2006 when Japanese scientists reprogrammed ordinary skin cells into versatile stem cells, have made a significant impact on Australian research and are recognised as one of the most important developments in stem cell research in recent times. By offering the long-term prospect of personalised and disease specific cell lines being available for treating disease, testing medicines and for research purposes, they represent a new and innovative way for scientists to study and understand disease and development.

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The great promise of induced pluripotent stem cells is that the all-purpose cells seem capable of performing all the same tricks as embryonic stem cells, but without the controversy.

However, a new study published this week (Feb. 15) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences comparing the ability of induced cells and embryonic cells to morph into the cells of the brain has found that induced cells — even those free of the genetic factors used to program their all-purpose qualities — differentiate less efficiently and faithfully than their embryonic counterparts.

The finding that induced cells are less predictable means there are more kinks to work out before they can be used reliably in a clinical setting, says Su-Chun Zhang, the senior author of the new study and a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.

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