Zurich, Switzerland – ETH researchers have discovered a new mechanism that brain cells use to protect themselves from protein aggregates. Such aggregates play a key role in Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. This new finding might provide the basis for new therapeutic approaches. It is published in Science Translational Medicine.
Research led by scientists at Harvard and the Broad Institute has optimized the process of making human brain ‘organoids’ – miniature 3D organ models – so they consistently follow growth patterns observed in the developing human brain.
Researchers can use this reproducible experimental system to test drugs for neuropsychiatric diseases like autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia directly in human tissues.
Why do some cancer cells evade therapy? To understand this problem, we need to "look" at the molecular machinery inside the cancer cells that regulates their ability to grow, stay alive, and divide, producing more cells. Scientists have identified many mechanisms within this machinery and they have designed drugs and other treatments that interfere with them, blocking their ability to divide, or even killing them. Clearly, these treatments are not able to kill all the cells within a tumor.
A new study by researchers at the University of Virginia and other institutions has discovered a type of pigment cell in zebrafish that can transform after development into another cell type. David Parichy, the Pratt-Ivy Foundation Distinguished Professor of Morphogenesis in UVA's Department of Biology, said that researchers in his lab noticed that some black pigment cells on zebrafish became gray and then eventually white. When they looked closer, they found dramatic changes in gene expression and pigment chemistry.
Bethesda, MD, USA – A study of influenza virus transmission in Nicaraguan households reveals new insights into the type of immune responses that may be protective against influenza virus infection, report investigators. The findings could help scientists design more effective influenza vaccines and lead to the development of novel universal influenza vaccines. The research was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.
Help for patients with sickle cell disease may soon come from gene editing to fix the mutation that causes the disease and boost the patient’s own protective fetal hemoglobin.New research shows that using CRISPR-Cas9 and a corrective short DNA template to repair the sickle cell mutation in a patient’s hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) could be efficient and safe.
In mice whose sense of smell has been disabled, a squirt of stem cells into the nose can restore olfaction, researchers report today (May 30) in Stem Cell Reports. The introduced “globose basal cells,” which are precursors to smell-sensing neurons, engrafted in the nose, matured into nerve cells, and sent axons to the mice’s olfactory bulbs in the brain.
In ongoing research to find a treatment for acute kidney injury, Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) scientists have further advanced a promising approach using therapeutic factors produced by stem cells by creating a more efficient delivery method that would improve tissue regeneration. WFIRM researchers wanted to determine if any of the growth factors could lead to kidney function recovery. They developed a gel-based system that contained a cocktail of stem cell derived growth factors.
Scientists from The University of Queensland’s Diamantina Institute have revealed the difference between a stem cell and other blood vessel cells using gene-sequencing technology.
Washington, DC, USA – What if doctors had a remote control that they could use to steer a patient’s own cells to a wound to speed up the healing process? Although such a device is still far from reality, researchers reporting in the ACS journal Nano Letters have taken an important first step: They used near-infrared light and an injected DNA nanodevice to guide stem cells to an injury, which helped muscle tissue regrow in mice.
