Can Adult Stem Cells Do It All?

freeman submitted, created time 1 year 4 months (www.sciam.com)

Stem cells have been hailed by scientists as the great hope to one day prevent, halt and even reverse damage from diabetes, spinal cord injuries and degenerative diseases. But researchers complain that political roadblocks are keeping them from determining the full potential of these cells.

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PGD may harm embryonic viability, stem-cell harvesting

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 4 months (www.nytimes.com)

A study presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology shows that embryos grown from post-PGD blastocysts have a lower chance of growing successfully into a baby.

The focus of the article is on older women seeking children, but it also has ramifications for stem cells, which we learned some months ago can be grown from the daughter cells of PGD blastomeres.

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Transcriptional networks in embryonic stem cells

seanangel submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.cellstemcell.com)

"Stem cell fate is governed by the integration of intrinsic and extrinsic positive and negative signals upon inherent transcriptional networks. To identify novel embryonic stem cell (ESC) regulators and assemble transcriptional networks controlling ESC fate, we performed temporal expression microarray analyses of ESCs after the initiation of commitment and integrated these data with known genome-wide transcription factor binding

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Stem cell therapies without tears

angelfish submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.newscientist.com)

There's no need for embryonic stem cells." It is the likely response of those who oppose any interference with human embryos to the exciting news that adult mouse cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic state by boosting the activity of just four critical genes.Maybe The eventual goal of the latest work is to derive stem cell lines genetically matched to patients...

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Stem cell genes may provide medicine's dream ticket

Reviver submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.newscientist.com)

"GENE therapy meets stem cells. That is the wave of the future, if the recent annual meeting of the American Society of Gene Therapy in Seattle is any guide. There was a palpable buzz around efforts to correct diseases by targeting therapeutic genes to stem cells already resident in the body.Stem cells have obvious appeal as targets for gene therapy, in which genes are inserted into an individual's cells in order to treat a disease

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Embryonic Stem Cells Mimicked Without Embryos

Luneetty submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.livescience.com)

In a leap forward for stem cell research, three independent teams of scientists reported Wednesday that they have produced the equivalent of embryonic stem cells in mice using skin cells without the controversial destruction of embryos.

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Stem cells: From adult to embryo

DanyC submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.newscientist.com)

It is stem cell research's ultimate prize - stem cells made from an individual's own cells without the need for a donated egg or embryo. Now, three research groups claim to have done just that - by reprogramming adult mouse cells into cells that are virtually indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells (ESCs). If they can repeat their success in humans, hopes are high that such cells could one day be used to regenerate healthy tissues in people with a range of illnesses.

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