Stem Cells with Potential to Regenerate Injured Liver Tissue Identified

sea-maid submitted, created time 1 month 3 weeks (www.sciencedaily.com)

A novel protein marker has been found that identifies rare adult liver stem cells, whose ability to regenerate injured liver tissue has the potential for cell-replacement therapy. For the first time, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine led by Linda Greenbaum, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, have demonstrated that cells expressing the marker can differentiate into both liver cells and cells that line the bile duct.

This discovery could have serious implication for transplants and regenerative medicine

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Be still my beating stem cell heart

sea-maid submitted, created time 7 months 4 weeks (www.newscientist.com)

There's a new recipe in the embryonic stem cell cookbook. Scientists have announced the creation of a human master heart cell, able to transform into all the different cells that make up a beating heart. In this study, the scientists have begun experiments to transform iPS cells into the heart cells.

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Ghost heart has a tiny beat

jane2007 submitted, created time 11 months 3 weeks (www.nature.com)

This is a significant research that it will help thousands of people escape form cardiac tissue. Rat hearts, stripped of their cells by detergents, have been used as a scaffold to engineer a bioartificial heart, which can amazingly pump a little like the original organ. One day, it will be used to repair heart damage or even generate new hearts for transplantation.

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Good News:Transplants Without Tears

Rare split-liver transplant aids baby

collapsar submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.cnn.com)

Liver Splitting won't work in many cases; estimated 1,000 livers a year eligible, now a 21-year-old recipient agreed to give part of her new liver to ailing 8-month-old. And the doctors hope to make now-rare practice more common, target pediatric needs. Split-liver donation is different. It divides an organ donated when someone dies, to try to save two lives with one donation.

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Organ donation trend sparks worry

BIOBOSS submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.msnbc.msn.com)

The number of kidneys, livers and other body parts surgeons are harvesting through a controversial approach to organ donation has started to rise rapidly, a trend that is saving the lives of more waiting patients but, some say, risks sacrificing the interests of the donors.

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Tuskegee's ghosts: Fear hinders black marrow donation

dovechocolate submitted, created time 1 year 11 months (www.cnn.com)

People suffering from leukemia generally need bone marrow, and the matched one is more likely in ethnic groups. So for the marrow-needed Africa-American, it is not a good news because the African-American organ donation numbers is far from enough.One reason, the African-American fear and mistrust of U.S. medical system.

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