Category Archives: Stem Cell Research

April 18, 2014 Brett Smith for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online In a significant breakthrough a team of scientists from California and Seoul, South Korea have been able to create viable stem cells from an adult donor that perfectly match the donors DNA, according to a new report in the journal Cell Stem Cell. The development, referred to as therapeutic cloning, involves the production of embryonic cells for scientific purposes and many object to this type of research based on moral or religious grounds. Debate over this type of work was stoked in 1997 with the announcement that it was used to create the clone of a sheep, called Dolly. In 2005, the United Nations called for a ban on cloning and the United States government currently prohibits the use of federal dollars for cloning research. The scientists behind the latest development, which was partially funded by the government of South Korea, acknowledged that if the embryos in their study were implanted in a uterus they could have developed into a fetus. Without regulations in place, such embryos could also be used for human reproductive cloning, although this would be unsafe and grossly unethical, study author Dr. Robert Lanza, chief scientist … Continue reading →

Stem Cell Research Club'14 Primer Ain Shams Faculty of Medicine Annual Conference'35 Ahmed M. Elesawi. By: Ahmed Elesawi … Continue reading →

Scientists have replicated one of the most significant accomplishments in stem cell research by creating human embryos that were clones of two men. The lab-engineered embryos were harvested within days and used to create lines of infinitely reproducing embryonic stem cells, which are capable of growing into any type of human tissue. The work, reported Thursday in the journal Cell Stem Cell, comes 11 months after researchers in Oregon said they had produced the world's first human embryo clones and used them to make stem cells. Their study, published in Cell, aroused skepticism after critics pointed out multiple errors and duplicated images. In addition, the entire effort to clone human embryos and then dismantle them in the name of science troubles some people on moral grounds. The scientists in Oregon and the authors of the new report acknowledged that the clones they created could develop into babies if implanted in surrogate wombs. But like others in the field, they have said reproductive cloning would be unethical and irresponsible. The process used to create cloned embryos is called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT. It involves removing the nucleus from an egg cell and replacing it with a nucleus from a … Continue reading →

Scientists have moved a step closer to the goal of creating stem cells perfectly matched to a patient's DNA in order to treat diseases, they announced on Thursday, creating patient-specific cell lines out of the skin cells of two adult men. The advance, described online in the journal Cell Stem Cell, is the first time researchers have achieved "therapeutic cloning" of adults. Technically called somatic-cell nuclear transfer, therapeutic cloning means producing embryonic cells genetically identical to a donor, usually for the purpose of using those cells to treat disease. But nuclear transfer is also the first step in reproductive cloning, or producing a genetic duplicate of someone - a technique that has sparked controversy since the 1997 announcement that it was used to create Dolly, the clone of a ewe. In 2005, the United Nations called on countries to ban it, and the United States prohibits the use of federal funds for either reproductive or therapeutic cloning. The new study was funded by a foundation and the South Korean government. If confirmed by other labs, it could prove significant because many illnesses that might one day be treated with stem cells, such as heart failure and vision loss, primarily affect … Continue reading →

Researchers say they have made powerful stem cells from both young and old adults using cloning techniques, and also found clues about why it is so difficult to do this with human beings. The team, at Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology and the Institute for Stem Cell Research in Los Angeles, say they used the cloning methods to create the stem cells to match a 35-year-old man and a 75-year-old man. They used a bit of skin from each man, took the DNA from the skin cells and inserted it into the egg cell of a female donor, and grew very early embryos called blastocysts, the team reports in the journal Cell Stem Cell. Cells from these embryos closely match the men and could, in theory, be used to make near-identical tissue, blood or organ transplants for the men. If verified, it would be only the second confirmed time someones been able to use cloning methods to make human embryonic stem cells, considered the bodys master cells. Therapeutic cloning has long been envisioned as a means for generating patient-specific stem cells that could be used to treat a range of age-related diseases, said Dr. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer for Advanced … Continue reading →

Is Silly Putty The New Secret Ingredient For Stem Cell Research? Scientists have found that the key ingredient in Silly Putty grows better motor neurons (spinal cord cells) that are ten times larger than cells grown by oth... By: 1OneMinuteNews … Continue reading →

Jesse stem cell research speech via YouTube Capture. By: Jesse Rollins … Continue reading →

TED Talk Stem Cell Research By: Komatsuzaki Aran … Continue reading →

New York, NY (PRWEB) April 15, 2014 The Tisch MS Research Center of New York (Tisch MSRCNY) today announced that they surpassed their campaign goal on Indiegogo.com to raise funds for their FDA-Approved Phase I Clinical Stem Cell Trial. The funding will be directly applied to the study and stem cell research at Tisch MSRCNY. The target of $300K was met and surpassed within the allotted four weeks of the campaign's launch raising a total amount of $317,540. We are overwhelmed and grateful for the generosity shown by our community of patients and friends, stated Dr. Saud A. Sadiq, Chief Research Scientist at Tisch MSRCNY and the studys principal investigator. He added, Funding is like oxygen for research. Without financial support, our research into regenerative therapy cannot survive. As a non-profit,Tisch MS Research Center chose Indiegogo as a perfect platform since it has not received federal, state, or corporate funding to cover costs of this study. The crowd sourcing website heightened awareness and introduced new philanthropists to the Centers mission to repair the damage caused by multiple sclerosis. The show of support has been tremendous, but our work is not done, said David Greenstein, Chairman of the Board of Directors … Continue reading →

Kimimasa Mayama/EPA/Alamy At a press conference last week, Haruko Obokata insisted that her contentious technique does work. The lead author of two hotly debated stem-cell papers made a tearful plea for forgiveness last week after her employer found her guilty of misconduct. Haruko Obokata, a researcher at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe, Japan, struggled to answer questions about errors in the papers, which described how simple stressors such as acid or pressure could reprogram mature cells into an embryonic-like state. But that did not stop her from insisting that the reports were not fraudulent and that the phenomenon described in them is real. Her comments have left observers wondering about the outcome of a controversy that has raged since the papers were published in Nature in January1, 2. Clarity on the claimed creation of STAP cells (for stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency) now awaits three key events, all expected in the next few months. Stem-cell scientists hope that one of these a replication attempt based on Obokatas protocol, by Hitoshi Niwa, a co-author of the papers who also works at the CDB will be conclusive. This looks like a rigorous protocol that hopefully will settle the question … Continue reading →