Regenerative Medicine

A new experimental treatment could help treat end-stage liver disease – by growing tiny new livers elsewhere in the patient’s bodies. The technique, pioneered by cell therapy company LyGenesis, is due to begin human clinical trials within weeks.

Researchers have found that the “mother” of stem cells, known as totipotent stem cells, have a much slower rate of DNA replication, which helps improve their differentiation efficiency. This could lead to major breakthrough for regenerative medicine.

Animals like axolotls can regrow fully functional replacements for lost limbs. In a breakthrough new study, scientists have demonstrated how one dose of a drug cocktail can regrow lost limbs in frogs that don’t normally have regenerative abilities.

After an injury, nerves struggle to regrow completely, leaving patients with reduced mobility and sensation. In tests on rats, researchers have now demonstrated a way to improve nerve repair using proteins from the support network around cells.

A new type of artificial scaffold encourages regenerating neurons to grow towards one another and bridge busted connections more efficiently, offering new hope for healing damaged spinal cords and restoring communication links between the brain and body.

Spotted salamanders are unique among vertebrates, in that they're the only ones whose embryos have an algae living inside them. Scientists are now hoping that a better understanding of this symbiotic relationship could lead to new drugs for humans.

Lizards can regrow their tails, but the new tail isn't quite perfect. Scientists have now used stem cell therapy to let lizards grow better tails – bones, nerves and all – in an advance that could have implications for better wound healing in humans.

The heart has a limited capacity to heal itself, so heart attack survivors often have further episodes. Now, scientists have grown heart cells from stem cells, embedded them onto microspheres and injected them into damaged hearts to help repair them.

Researchers at Salk Institute have uncovered a mechanism by which stem cells can help regenerate muscles. The discovery could provide a new drug target for repairing muscles after injury or rebuilding muscle mass lost during the normal aging process.

Once it's been injured, the protective cartilage in our knees and other joints heals very slowly – if at all. A new injectable gel, however, could both reinforce the tissue after it's been damaged, and encourage new cartilage to grow over top of it.

By investigating the genetic underpinnings behind tooth formation in early human development, a team of scientists in Japan has uncovered clues about how they might be regenerated in adults suffering from congenital conditions.

Unfortunately there isn’t much that doctors can do to repair the damage after a spinal cord injury. But UCLA researchers have shown in tests in mice that injections of a porous scaffold material can help the body patch up the damage.