News and Opinions

By Sulagna Ghosh, Ralda Nehme & Lindy E. Barrett Nature Communications While there are a growing number of human pluripotent stem cell repositories, genetic diversity remains limited in most collections and studies. Here, we discuss the importance of incorporating...

By Max Delbrook Center A big step toward producing rhino gametes To save the northern white rhinoceros from extinction, the BioRescue team is racing to create lab-grown egg and sperm cells of the critically endangered subspecies. The team has now reported a milestone...

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org A team of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and University of California, Los Angeles, working with a colleague from Vilnius University, has found evidence of thousands of phages with DNA strands that should allow them to...

By Megan Molteni - Stat News He Jiankui, the Chinese biophysicist who created the first gene-edited children, had been quiet since completing a three-year prison sentence in April, leaving many to wonder whether he had plans to return to scientific research. Earlier...

By Penn Today Penn Medicine researchers laud the early results for CAR T therapy in lupus patients, which point to broader horizons for the use of personalized cellular therapies. Engineered immune cells, known as CAR T cells, have shown the world what personalized...

by Rameesha Sajwar - Wonderful Engineering Gene-editing technology CRISPR has been used to remove genes from immune system cells to make them better at fighting cancer. Recently, PACT Pharma and UCLA have used CRISPR to remove and add genes to these cells to help them...

CIRM-funded USC+CHLA Alpha Clinic boosts capacity for clinical and translational research, community outreach, training and manufacturing By Wayne Lewis - Keck School of Medicine of USC The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state’s stem cell...

by Kelsey A. Rankin, Alison Mosier-Mills, Walter Hsiang & Daniel H. Wiznia - BMC Archives of Public Health Abstract Secret shopper studies are particularly potent study designs that allow for the gathering of objective data for a variety of research hypotheses,...

by by Kerstin Wagner, Leibniz-Institut für Alternsforschung - Fritz-Lipmann-Institut e.V. (FLI) - Phys.org Image: Hematopoietic stem cells age very heterogeneously. The TAZ protein, a co-activator of the Hippo signaling pathway, can protect blood stem cells from...

by Takahiro Tanimoto, Kentaro Endo, Yuriko Sakamaki, Nobutake Ozeki, Hisako Katano, Mitsuru Mizuno, Hideyuki Koga & Ichiro Sekiya - Scientific Reports Abstract The possibility that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can adhere to partial defects or degenerative areas...

By By Cade Hildreth, BioInformant Palo Alto, CA – Greenstone Biosciences, Inc. (“Greenstone Bio”), a commercial-stage computational biology company, announces that the Company has received a DISC0 grant funding from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine...

By Charles Piller - Science image caption: There are two hallmarks of Alzheimer’s dementia, amyloid-beta protein deposits known as plaques among brain cells (yellow-orange bundles), and tangles of a protein called tau inside neurons (wiry objects inside the neuron),...

By Terry Gross -  NPR news Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee still remembers the first cell he cultured: It was an immune cell from a mouse, and he had grown it in a petri dish. As he examined it through a microscope, the cell moved, and Mukherjee was fascinated. "I could...

The new model cells aid in the study of early embryonic development. by KU Leuven - SciTechDaily Professor Vincent Pasque and his colleagues at KU Leuven have used stem cells to create a new kind of human cell in the lab. The new cells closely mirror their natural...

Markers of nerve damage fell significantly in most patients after transplant by Marisa Wexler - Multiple Sclerosis News Today Autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant (aHSCT) reduces markers of nerve fiber and myelin damage in people with relapsing-remitting MS...

By Greg Slabodkin, ScienceBoard Editor in Chief The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has elevated and reorganized its Office of Tissues and Advanced Therapies (OTAT) to a “Super Office” within the Center of Biologics Research and Evaluation (CBER) to meet its...

An experiment tests whether the gene-editing technology can stop the virus from replicating, which would ultimately wipe out the infection. By Wired.com In July, an HIV-positive man became the first volunteer in a clinical trial aimed at using Crispr gene editing to...

University of Edinburgh - Eurekalert.org Leprosy is one of the world’s oldest and most persistent diseases but the bacteria that cause it may also have the surprising ability to grow and regenerate a vital organ. Scientists have discovered that parasites associated...

By Jim Cornall -  Labiotech.eu Sierra Space and University of California San Diego, one of the world’s top 15 research universities and a leader in microgravity research, have formed a new agreement with the goal of defining the future of human health care research in...

UK scientists have begun the first clinical trial of lab-grown red blood cells, with the hope that they survive longer in volunteers than donated blood cells. By Ed Cara - Gizmodo An important clinical trial is now underway in the UK. The study is the first to...