Need For Standardization in Stem Cell Research Highlighted in AAAS Webinar
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.
News & Commentaries
Advances in Imaging Techniques Help Drive Stem Cell Research Forward
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.
Neural stem cells lacking FoxO transcription factors live fast and die young
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
Hair Follicles Help Probe Basic Tenets of Stem Cell Biology
The very nature of stem cells—rare cell types that seem to infrequently divide—makes asking basic questions about their division cycles a challenge.
Tumor Suppressor Genes Provide Clues to Reprogramming
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.
Random versus deterministic input into stem cell lineage choice
"Everything ... depends on these and only on these: A set of fixed, deterministic laws. A purely random set of accidents." -- Marvin Minsky
Stem cell maintenance factors represent potential therapeutic targets for cancer
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.
Genomic approaches provide insights into the molecular basis of pluripotency
Nuclear reprogramming demonstrates the potential for reversability in cellular differentiation.