Latest Pluripotency Stories

FINDINGS: Tweaking the levels of factors used during the reprogramming of adult cells into induced pluriopotent stem (iPS) cells can greatly affect the quality of the resulting iPS cells, according to Whitehead Institute researchers. This finding explains at least in part the wide variation in quality and fidelity of iPS cells created through different reprogramming methods. RELEVANCE: Like embryonic stem cells, iPS cells can become any cell type in the body, a characteristic that could...

An international study, published today in the prestigious journal Nature Biotechnology, reveals more about human pluripotent stem cells and their genetic stability and has important implications for the development of therapies using these cells. Scientists from the University of Melbourne, University of NSW and CSIRO contributed to this study, which examined how the genome of 138 stem cell lines of diverse ethnic backgrounds changed when the cells were grown in the laboratory....

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Fate Therapeutics, Inc. announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted a patent covering the novel stem cell modulator commonly known as Thiazovivin. U.S. Patent No. 8,044,201 entitled "Stem Cell Cultures" claims Thiazovivin, a small molecule Rho-associated kinase (ROCK) inhibitor, as well as compositions and cell culture media comprising Thiazovivin. Thiazovivin is crucial to the efficient generation of human...

Human pluripotent stem cells, which can develop into any cell type in the body, rely heavily on glycolysis, or sugar fermentation, to drive their metabolic activities. In contrast, mature cells in children and adults depend more on cell mitochondria to convert sugar and oxygen into carbon dioxide and water during a high energy-producing process called oxidative phosphorylation for their metabolic needs. How cells progress from one form of energy production to another during development...

In principle, stem cells offer scientists the opportunity to create specific cell types—such as nerve or heart cells—to replace tissues damaged by age or disease. In reality, coaxing stem cells to become the desired cell type can be challenging, to say the least. In a paper published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, scientists at the University of Georgia describe a method that—in a single step—directs undifferentiated, or...

The possibility that functional, three-dimensional tissues and organs may be derived from pluripotent cells, such as embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), represents one of the grand challenges of stem cell research, but is also one of the fundamental goals of the emerging field of regenerative medicine. Developmental biology has played a central role in informing such efforts, as it has been shown that stem cell differentiation can be directed to follow a...

Inserm's AVENIR "Genomic plasticity and aging" team, directed by Jean-Marc Lemaitre, Inserm researcher at the Functional Genomics Institute (Inserm/CNRS/Université de Montpellier 1 and 2), has recently succeeded in rejuvenating cells from elderly donors (aged over 100). These old cells were reprogrammed in vitro to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and to rejuvenated and human embryonic stem cells (hESC): cells of all types can again be differentiated after this genuine "rejuvenation"...

MADISON, Wis., Oct. 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Cellular Dynamics International (CDI) today announced that it was named as the overall Gold winner in The Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards. The Wall Street Journal 2011 Technology Innovation Awards are determined by a panel of independent judges who evaluated significant innovations that occurred in 2010. Six-hundred-five applicants competed for the award in 16 categories. Of these, the panel chose 35 winners and runners-up....

Ordinarily, embryonic stem cells exist only a day or two as they begin the formation of the embryo itself. Then they are gone. In the laboratory dish, however, they act more like perpetual stem cells – renewing themselves and exhibiting the ability to form cells of almost any type, a status called totipotency. Dr. Thomas Zwaka, associate professor in the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center at Baylor College of Medicine, and his colleagues here and abroad showed that...

(Ivanhoe Newswire) – Can researchers predict the future of stem cells by knowing how they begin?  Dr.Thomas Zwaka, associate professor in the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center at Baylor College of Medicine, and his colleagues examined the cells of mice and showed that laboratory-grown cells express a protein called Blimp1, which represses differentiation to specific or regular tissue cells during germ cell development. Embryonic stem cells exist only a day or two as they begin...