SAN BRUNO, Calif., June 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Twenty years ago this month, CBR (Cord Blood Registry) in partnership with the University of Arizona, processed the first cord blood stem cell sample in the world to be stored specifically for family use. Since 1992, the number of conditions treated with cord blood stem cells has greatly expanded, and so has CBR. Today, CBR is the largest family cord blood bank in the world with more than 425,000 samples in storage a population the size of a major city like Miami. What distinguishes the "city of individuals" with newborn stem cells banked at CBR is the exclusive opportunity to participate in a growing number of ground-breaking clinical trials. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120620/SF27549-INFO) (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120216/AQ54476LOGO) "As the leader and innovator in family banking, we believe every newborn deserves a healthy future and that we have a responsibility to lead the way," said Heather Brown, vice president of scientific & medical affairs at CBR. "Looking back, the creation of our bank allowed families for the first time to preserve a genetically-related source of newborn stem cells, ready and available if needed for a lifesaving transplant to regenerate a person's immune system after radiation or chemotherapy. … Continue reading →

Japanese scientists have used induced stem cells to create a liver-like tissue in a dish. Although they have yet to publish their results and much work remains to be done, the achievement could have big clinical implications. If the results bear out, they would also constitute a significant advance in the ability to coax stem cells to self-organize into organs. Induced pluripotent stem cells could be a useful source of human organs such as livers. STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY The work was presented by Takanori Takebe, a stem-cell biologist at Yokohama City University in Japan, at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in Yokohama last week. It blew my mind, said George Daley, director of the stem-cell transplantation programme at the Boston Childrens Hospital in Massachusetts, who chaired the session. It sounds like a genuine advance, says Stuart Forbes, who studies liver regeneration at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Forbes, who also works as a consultant for Scotlands liver-transplantation unit, says that the advance could one day help to avoid the bleak outcome currently experienced by the many patients who dont survive long enough to get a new liver. But the liver described by Takebe … Continue reading →

Image: NASA, Johnson Space Center From Nature magazine Japanese scientists have used induced stem cells to create a liver-like tissue in a dish. Although they have yet to publish their results and much work remains to be done, the achievement could have big clinical implications. If the results bear out, they would also constitute a significant advance in the ability to coax stem cells to self-organize into organs. The work was presented by Takanori Takebe, a stem-cell biologist at Yokohama City University in Japan, at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in Yokohama last week. It blew my mind, said George Daley, director of the stem-cell transplantation programme at the Boston Childrens Hospital in Massachusetts, who chaired the session. It sounds like a genuine advance, says Stuart Forbes, who studies liver regeneration at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Forbes, who also works as a consultant for Scotlands liver-transplantation unit, says that the advance could one day help to avoid the bleak outcome currently experienced by the many patients who dont survive long enough to get a new liver. But the liver described by Takebe has a long way to go before that. Takebe told how … Continue reading →

Mesenchymal Stem Cells (hMSCs) cultured on a Polyacrylamide gel for 7 days: Cells stained in blue are ALP positive which is a marker for osteogenic differentiation, while the cells that contain red oil droplets underwent adipogenic differentiation. Credit: Bojun Li and Prof. Viola Vogel / ETH Zurich (Phys.org) -- Researchers were positive: a substrates softness influences the behaviour of stem cells in culture. Now other researchers have made a new discovery: the number of anchoring points to which the cells can adhere is pivotal. How stem cells differentiate is evidently not so much a question of the stiffness of the substrate upon which they thrive, as the cells mechanical anchoring on the substrate surface. This is shown in a study recently published in Nature Materials by researchers from various European universities, including ETH Zurich. Since 2006 the research community has been convinced that stem cells can feel the softness of materials they grow upon. Scientists mainly drew this conclusion from correlations between the softness of the substrate and the cells behavior. The new research project, to which ETH-Zurich professor Viola Vogel and her doctoral student Bojun Li made a key contribution, has come to another conclusion. It reveals that the … Continue reading →