While many stem cell scientists are basking in the afterglow of induced pluripotency, and working on ways to de-differentiate and re-differentiate cells, a few researchers are already thinking about a shortcut.
Many stem cell biologists have experienced the frustration: you do an experiment; your lab mate at the next bench does the same. But the two of you get different results.
A 57-year-old man, suffering seizures and headaches, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2005. Doctors at the City of Hope cancer center in Duarte, California, removed the mass, but knew his cancer was of a type likely to return.
Research teams from Harvard Medical School in Boston and Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, found that deleting FoxO genes in mice resulted in NSCs that initially proliferated overtime, but ultimately were unable to provide normal level
The very nature of stem cells—rare cell types that seem to infrequently divide—makes asking basic questions about their division cycles a challenge.
Researchers are finding ways to make more induced pluripotent stem cells, faster. The catch: it requires turning off some of the cell's key tumor suppressors—a risky proposition for cells researchers hope to someday transplant into patients.
Cancer stem cells are capable of initiating and sustaining a tumor. Current cancer therapies may fail, leaving patients prone to recurrence because the cancer stem cells have not been eradicated.
Nuclear reprogramming demonstrates the potential for reversability in cellular differentiation.
