Latest Pluripotency Stories

A single adult cell from one of the most impressive masters of regeneration in the animal kingdom "“ the planarian "“ is all it takes to build a completely functional new worm, researchers have learned. The study provides the first hard evidence that adult planarians harbor pluripotent stem cells "“ cells capable of producing the diverse range of tissue types necessary to build a complete animal.Distributed throughout the worm body, the newfound cells appear to have the same all-purpose...

Stem cells are considered by many to be promising candidate sources of cells for therapies to regenerate and repair diseased tissues. There are two types of stem cell considered in this context: embryonic stem (ES) cells, which are derived from early embryos; and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are derived by reprogramming cells of the body such that they have the ability to generate any cell type. Recent data indicate that ES and iPS cells are molecularly different, raising the...

Discoveries will advance medicine and human healthA scientist at the Gladstone Institutes has made two significant stem-cell discoveries that advance medicine and human health by creating powerful new approaches for using stem cells and stem-cell-like technology.In two papers being published on April 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Sheng Ding, PhD, reveals novel and safer methods not only for transforming embryonic stem cells into large numbers of brain cells with...

MADISON, Wis., April 13, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Cellular Dynamics International (CDI), the world's largest producer of tissue cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines, today announced it has strengthened its intellectual property (IP) portfolio by licensing patented definitive endoderm differentiation technology from ViaCyte, Inc., a stem cell company focused on diabetes therapy. CDI will apply this patented methodology in the development and production of iCell®...

A paper published by Cell Press in the April 8th issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell reveals a new and more efficient method for reprogramming adult mouse and human cells into an embryonic stem cell-like state and could lead to better strategies for developing stem cells for therapeutic use.The ability to reprogram adult cells into cells that resemble embryonic stem cells has tremendous potential for both stem cell research and regenerative medicine. "Previous studies have demonstrated...

Move over, newts and salamanders. The mouse may join you as the only animal that can re-grow their own severed limbs. Researchers are reporting that a simple chemical cocktail can coax mouse muscle fibers to become the kinds of cells found in the first stages of a regenerating limb. Their study, the first demonstration that mammal muscle can be turned into the biological raw material for a new limb, appears in the journal ACS Chemical Biology.Darren R. Williams and Da-Woon Jung say their...

PARIS, April 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Cellectis (Alternext: ALCLS), the genome engineering specialist, has announced today that its subsidiary Ectycell has signed an agreement with the Caisse des Depots (a French financial institution) for a planned capital investment of euro 12M, in two steps, reserved in equal parts to Cellectis and Caisse des Depots. This agreement should start no later than January 31, 2012, and is subject to the achievement of certain technical conditions. Following...

MADISON, Wis., March 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Cellular Dynamics International (CDI) announced today that their two-year collaboration with Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) to substantiate CDI's iCell® Cardiomyocytes as a predictive tool for assessing the potential cardiotoxic effects of developing drug candidates was completed early and is now transitioning into a standard supply agreement. Moving forward, iCell Cardiomyocytes, induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived human heart...

PARIS, March 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Cellectis (Alternext: ALCLS), the genome engineering specialist, and Etablissement Francais du Sang (EFS), the only civilian blood transfusion service in France, announce that StemRed, an ambitious collaborative program to produce red blood cells from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) has started on March 1. This program, which also involves Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC), Bertin Technologies and CECS (Centre d'Etude des Cellules...

In the past few months, a slew of papers have indicated that the therapeutic potential of a promising type of stem cell, called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, might be limited by reprogramming errors and genomic instability. iPS cells are engineered by reprogramming fully differentiated adult cells, often skin cells, back to a primitive, embryonic-like state. Given these problems, a team of researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham), Chung-Ang...