Using the gene editing technology CRISPR, scientists have shed light on a rare, sometimes fatal syndrome that causes children to gradually lose the ability to manufacture vital blood cells.
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A new method that leads to the formation of specialized tissue cells could improve the understanding of neurodegenerative diseases, inflammatory diseases and cancer.
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Since highly versatile human stem cells were discovered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison nearly 20 years ago, their path to the market and clinic has been slowed by a range of complications.
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Researchers from Cardiff University and Université Libre de Bruxelles have identified how the function of a key gene significantly impacts nerve stem cell growth, and how it can lead to abnormal brain development in unborn ...
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Stem cell research holds huge potential for medicine and human health. In particular, human embryonic stem cells (ESCs), with their ability to turn into any cell in the human body, are essential to the future prevention and ...
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Imagine being able to take cells from your skin, transform them into other types of cells, such as lung, brain, heart or muscle cells, and use those to cure your ailments, from diabetes to heart disease or macular degeneration. ...
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Ophir Klein is growing teeth, which is just slightly less odd than what Jeffrey Bush is growing – tissues that make up the face. Jason Pomerantz is growing muscle; Sarah Knox is growing salivary glands; and Edward Hsiao ...
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Chemicals found in cigarette smoke have been shown to damage foetal liver cells.
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Everyone seems to be excited about stem cells. Their excellent promise as a treatment for a range of diseases and injuries mean almost guaranteed coverage for research. While some types of stem cells are already being used ...
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A new Northwestern Medicine study, published in Genes and Development, has identified two DNA elements crucial to the activation of a set of genes that drive the early development of embryos, and which also play an important ...
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Embryonic stem cells (ES cells) are stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of an early stage embryo known as a blastocyst. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4–5 days post fertilization, at which time they consist of 50–150 cells.
Embryonic Stem (ES) cells are pluripotent. This means they are able to differentiate into all derivatives of the three primary germ layers: ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm. These include each of the more than 220 cell types in the adult body. Pluripotency distinguishes ES cells from multipotent progenitor cells found in the adult; these only form a limited number of cell types. When given no stimuli for differentiation, (i.e. when grown in vitro), ES cells maintain pluripotency through multiple cell divisions. The presence of pluripotent adult stem cells remains a subject of scientific debate; however, research has demonstrated that pluripotent stem cells can be directly generated from adult fibroblast cultures.
Because of their plasticity and potentially unlimited capacity for self-renewal, ES cell therapies have been proposed for regenerative medicine and tissue replacement after injury or disease. However Diseases treated by these non-embryonic stem cells include a number of blood and immune-system related genetic diseases, cancers, and disorders; juvenile diabetes; Parkinson's; blindness and spinal cord injuries. Besides the ethical concerns of stem cell therapy (see stem cell controversy), there is a technical problem of graft-versus-host disease associated with allogeneic stem cell transplantation. However, these problems associated with histocompatibility may be solved using autologous donor adult stem cells or via therapeutic cloning.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
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