Neural stem cells control their own fate

To date, it has been assumed that the differentiation of stem cells depends on the environment they are embedded in. A research group at the University of Basel now describes for the first time a mechanism by which hippocampal ...

Growing stem cells faster on seaweed

Alginate forms a kind of supporting skeleton in the cell walls of certain kinds of algae. Fraunhofer scientists use the gel-like mass from Chilean seaweed as the substrate for stem cells. They can flexibly adjust the pore ...

Blocking differentiation is enough to give cells 'stemness'

Though immune therapy and regenerative medicine are promising areas of research for future medical therapies, they are limited today by the difficulty of creating stem cells, and scientists around the world are searching ...

Reprogramming the oocyte

(Phys.org)—Among other things, the egg is optimized to process the sperm genome. The cytoplasmic factors that make this possible also give the egg the ability to reprogram the nuclei from other kinds of cells if these nuclei ...

How a female X chromosome is inactivated

In female mammals, one of the two X chromosomes is inactivated. Thanks to research using special stem cells, geneticists at ETH Zurich have been able to provide detailed insight into the molecular mechanism behind this inactivation ...

How adult fly testes keep from changing into ovaries

New research in flies shows how cells in adult reproductive organs maintain their sexual identity. The study, publishing online on November 13 in the Cell Press journal Developmental Cell, also identified a mutation that ...

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