Studying how stem cells move in the body is a critical step to understanding cancer. Researchers have just provided a window into this process by building a machine that beams flatworms with x-rays that kill just enough stem cells to allow the others to move freely around while being tracked.
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Stem cells are the blank slate on which all the specialized cells in our bodies are built, and finding ways to revert adult cells back to that stage can help fight a whole range of illnesses. Now scientists at the Scripps Research Institute have found human antibodies that can perform the function.
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US Marshals recently seized five vials of a smallpox vaccine from a stem cell treatment center in California. The action was undertaken on behalf of the FDA, which followed up the seizure with a larger announcement targeting the “unscrupulous clinics” selling unproven stem cell treatments.
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If stem cells can do everything from growing skulls to generating new heart tissue, you'd think they'd also be able to help regrow hair on balding heads. In fact, they soon might be able to do just that. Researchers have now created a way to activate the stem cells found in dormant hair follicles.
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A human clinical trial examining the safety and efficacy of a "functional cure" for type 1 diabetes is currently underway. The trials involve a device containing stem cells being implanted into a patient with the disease.
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The key to living longer may reside deep in our brains. In a major breakthrough for our understanding of how the brain controls aging, scientists managed to both speed up and slow down the aging process in mice by disrupting the volume of neural stem cells found in the hypothalamus.
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For the first time ever, blood-producing stem cells have been generated in a lab. Two separate teams of researchers have come up with differing ground-breaking methods to generate these important blood-forming cells, paving the way for an unlimited supply of lab-made blood for transfusions.
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Researchers have developed a miniature version of a lung in a dish, called an "organoid," that functions just like a real, full-size lung. These mini organs aren't designed for transplants, but rather as a research tool to study human disease and test drugs that could regenerate damaged tissue.
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One of the many problems with heart attacks is that when the heart heals afterwards, it grows non-beating scar tissue over the part of the heart that was damaged. There may be hope, however, as scientists have created a new patch that allows the heart to heal more completely.
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Surgery is sometimes required for torn rotator cuffs, although the weakened tendons will frequently just tear again after the operation. Now, however, scientists have developed a method of regenerating rotator cuff tendons, using a polymer mesh seeded with stem cells.
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