An international team of researchers has conducted a long-term experiment aboard the International Space Station to test the effect of space radiation on mouse embryonic stem cells. Their findings will contribute to helping ...
Space Exploration
Oct 19, 2022
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62
Layers of gene control allow DNA to flexibly add new information. Genes and their genetic switches are organized into functional units to turn genes on or off just as needed. Disrupting these units can lead to disease, but ...
Cell & Microbiology
Oct 05, 2022
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111
A key protein for converting adult stem cells into cells that resemble embryonic stem cells has been visualized in unprecedented detail by an international team of researchers around Hans Schöler and Vlad Cojocaru of the ...
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 22, 2022
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16
Just two weeks after announcing the development of a mouse embryo model, complete with beating hearts and the foundations for a brain and other organs, from mouse stem cells, researchers in the laboratory of Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 08, 2022
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107
Space is a hostile, extreme environment. It's only a matter of time before ordinary people are exposed to this environment, either by engaging in space tourism or by joining self-sustaining colonies far away from Earth.
Space Exploration
Sep 07, 2022
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12
Studying the role of mitochondria—the specialized structures within cells responsible for energy production—in metabolic diseases has been difficult because of a lack of animal models with the necessary mitochondrial ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 25, 2022
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4
In what's reported as a world-first achievement, biologists have grown mouse embryo models in the lab without the need for fertilized eggs, embryos, or even a mouse—using only stem cells and a special incubator.
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 05, 2022
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62
A single chemical is key to controlling when hair follicle cells divide, and when they die. This discovery could not only treat baldness, but ultimately speed wound healing because follicles are a source of stem cells.
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 25, 2022
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341
Researchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have developed a first-of-its-kind roadmap detailing how stem cells become sensory interneurons—the cells that enable ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 20, 2022
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120
Researcher Dhruv Sareen's own stem cells are now orbiting the Earth. The mission? To test whether they'll grow better in zero gravity.
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 17, 2022
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188
Embryonic stem cells (ES cells) are stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of an early stage embryo known as a blastocyst. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4–5 days post fertilization, at which time they consist of 50–150 cells.
Embryonic Stem (ES) cells are pluripotent. This means they are able to differentiate into all derivatives of the three primary germ layers: ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm. These include each of the more than 220 cell types in the adult body. Pluripotency distinguishes ES cells from multipotent progenitor cells found in the adult; these only form a limited number of cell types. When given no stimuli for differentiation, (i.e. when grown in vitro), ES cells maintain pluripotency through multiple cell divisions. The presence of pluripotent adult stem cells remains a subject of scientific debate; however, research has demonstrated that pluripotent stem cells can be directly generated from adult fibroblast cultures.
Because of their plasticity and potentially unlimited capacity for self-renewal, ES cell therapies have been proposed for regenerative medicine and tissue replacement after injury or disease. However Diseases treated by these non-embryonic stem cells include a number of blood and immune-system related genetic diseases, cancers, and disorders; juvenile diabetes; Parkinson's; blindness and spinal cord injuries. Besides the ethical concerns of stem cell therapy (see stem cell controversy), there is a technical problem of graft-versus-host disease associated with allogeneic stem cell transplantation. However, these problems associated with histocompatibility may be solved using autologous donor adult stem cells or via therapeutic cloning.
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