Human Stem Cell Use: iPS Cell
New Cell Lines for Huntington’s Disease
Huntington’s disease (HD) is a devastating neurodegenerative disease with a 1/10,000 disease risk that always leads to death. These numbers do not fully reflect the large societal and familial cost of HD, which requires extensive caregiving and has a 50% chance of passing the mutation to the next generation. Current treatments treat some symptoms but […]
Protein transduction of transcription factors: a non-genetic approach to generate new pluripotent cell lines from human skin.
More than 100,000 patients await for organ transplants nationwide this year. The ground-breaking discovery of new pluripotent human stem cell lines (iPS) derived from skin fibroblasts using a core of 3-5 transcription factors opens the door to patient-derived pluripotent stem cells and new approaches to organ and tissue replacement. Patient-derived stem cells could have an […]
Epigenetic gene regulation during the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells: Impact on neural repair
Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) have the potential to become all sorts of cells in human body including nerve cells. Moreover, hESCs can be expanded in culture plates into a large quantity, thus serving as an ideal source for cell transplantation in clinical use. However, the existing hESC lines are not fully characterized in terms […]
Using Human Embryonic Stem Cells to Understand and to Develop New Therapies for Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a progressive incurable disease that robs people of their memory and ability to think and reason. It is emotionally, and sometimes financially devastating to families that must cope when a parent or spouse develops AD. Unfortunately, however, we currently lack an understanding of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) that is sufficient to drive […]
Modeling Human Embryonic Development with Human Embryonic Stem Cells
Stem cells have entered the public consciousness as “cells that can do anything” and have been hailed as a panacea in the fight against disease, aging and cancer. Unfortunately, we have only scratched the surface in understanding these cells. Some of the things we think we know are that: embryonic stem cells hold great promise […]
Reprogramming Differentiated Human Cells to a Pluripotent State
If the therapeutic potential of human embryonic stem (ES) cells is to be realized, the ability to produce pluripotent stem cells with defined genetic backgrounds is essential. Pluripotent cells, through differentiation, have the ability to become any cell type. For basic and applied research, access to human ES cells derived from patients with specific diseases […]
RUNX1 in maintenance, expansion, and differentiation of therapeutic pluripotent stem cells
Recent technical advancements in human embryonic stem cell (ESC) and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) production have revolutionized their potential applications in regenerative medicine. However, a remaining big hurdle in this process is the need for efficient, effective, and stable generation of specific cell types from such stem cells for therapeutic usage. The ultimate goal […]
TCF-3: A Wnt Pathway Effector and Nanog Regulator in Pluripotent Stem Cell Self-Renewal
Despite the enormous potential for human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) for development of new treatments for human disease, there still remain important gaps in our knowledge about the molecular mechanisms regulating establishment and maintenance of the pluripotent state. Improved understanding of fundamental mechanisms regulating pluripotency could improve the […]
Cellular Reprogramming: Dissecting the Molecular Mechanism and Enhancing Efficiency
Pluripotent stem cells have a remarkable potential to develop into virtually any cell type of the body, making them a powerful tool for the study or direct treatment of human disease. Recent demonstration that induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells may be derived from differentiated adult cells offers unprecedented opportunities for basic biology research, regenerative medicine, […]
Systemic Protein Factors as Modulators of the Aging Neurogenic Niche
Approaches to repair the injured brain or even prevent age-related neurodegeneration are in their infancy but there is growing interest in the role of neural stem cells in these conditions. Indeed, there is hope that some day stem cells can be used for the treatment of spinal cord injury, stroke, or Parkinson’s disease and stem […]