Category Archives: Cell Medicine

8 October 2012 Last updated at 09:58 ET By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. British scientist John Gurdon told a news conference he still keeps a bad report given to him by his school science teacher Two pioneers of stem cell research have shared the Nobel prize for medicine or physiology. John Gurdon from the UK and Shinya Yamanaka from Japan were awarded the prize for changing adult cells into stem cells, which can become any other type of cell in the body. Prof Gurdon used a gut sample to clone frogs and Prof Yamanaka altered genes to reprogramme cells. The Nobel committee said they had "revolutionised" science. The prize is in stark contrast to Prof Gurdon's first foray into science when his biology teacher described his scientific ambitions as "a waste of time". "I believe Gurdon has ideas about becoming a scientist; on his present showing this is quite ridiculous; if he can't learn simple biological facts he would have no chance of doing the work of a specialist, and it would be a sheer waste of time, both on his part and of those who would … Continue reading →

Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and John Gurdon of Britain won the Nobel Prize on Monday for work in cell programming, a frontier that has nourished dreams of replacement tissue for people crippled by disease. The two scientists found that adult cells can be transformed back to an infant state called stem cells, the key ingredient in the vision of regenerative medicine. "Their findings have revolutionised our understanding of how cells and organisms develop," the Nobel jury declared. "By reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy." Among those who acclaimed the award were Britain's Royal Society, Ian Wilmut, "father" of Dolly the cloned sheep, and a leading ethicist, who said it eased a storm about the use of embryonic cells. Stem cells are precursor cells which differentiate into the various organs of the body. They have stirred huge excitement, with hopes that they can be coaxed into growing into replacement tissue for victims of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other diseases. Gurdon, 79, said he was grateful but also surprised by the honour, since his main research was done a half-century ago. In 1962, he discovered that the DNA code in the … Continue reading →

John Gurdon (left) and Shinya Yamanaka showed how to reprogram cells into their embryonic states. J. Player/Rex Features; Aflo/Rex Features The discovery that cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic-like state has won this years Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for two leading lights of stem-cell research: John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka. Reprogrammed cells regain pluripotency, the potential to differentiate into many mature cell types. Many researchers hope that cells created in this way will eventually be used in regenerative medicine, providing replacement tissue for damaged or diseased organs. The field has become one of the hottest in biology, but the prizewinners discoveries were not without controversy when they were made. Gurdon, who is based at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, UK, was the first person to demonstrate that cells could be reprogrammed, in work published 50years ago1. At the time, scientists believed that cellular specialization was a one-way process that could not be reversed. Gurdon overturned that dogma by removing the nucleus from a frog egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus from a tadpoles intestinal cell. Remarkably, the process was able to turn back the cellular clock of the substitute nucleus. Although it had already committed … Continue reading →

Regenerative medicine, a field that didn't exist 20 years ago and contains techniques seemingly straight out of science fiction, could be the next big thing in Virginia's biotechnology sector. That's the opinion of Roy Ogle, an expert in the field who works at Old Dominion University as head of its new school of Medical Diagnostic and Translational Sciences. So what is regenerative medicine? Simply put, it's the process of re-growing human cells to repair damaged tissues and organs. In a meeting Thursday hosted by the Virginia Biotechnology Association, Ogle and Brian Pollok, principal of Rapidan BioAdvisors, discussed one of the field's newest developments: induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs. Let's go back to high school biology: Perhaps you remember embryonic stem cells. These cells can differentiate into different types of cells skin, blood, bone, muscle before a baby is born. But their use in scientific research has become controversial and difficult. So scientists needed a new way to develop stem cells. iPSCs are already formatted cells that are "induced," or returned, to their original state as a stem cell. Then that stem cell can be reprogrammed to become a different type of cell. For example, a researcher can take a … Continue reading →

Regenerative medicine, a field that didn't exist 20 years ago and contains techniques seemingly straight out of science fiction, could be the next big thing in Virginia's biotechnology sector. That's the opinion of Roy Ogle, an expert in the field who works at Old Dominion University as head of its new school of Medical Diagnostic and Translational Sciences. So what is regenerative medicine? Simply put, it's the process of re-growing human cells to repair damaged tissues and organs. In a meeting Thursday hosted by the Virginia Biotechnology Association, Ogle and Brian Pollok, principal of Rapidan BioAdvisors, discussed one of the field's newest developments: induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs. Let's go back to high school biology: Perhaps you remember embryonic stem cells. These cells can differentiate into different types of cells skin, blood, bone, muscle before a baby is born. But their use in scientific research has become controversial and difficult. So scientists needed a new way to develop stem cells. iPSCs are already formatted cells that are "induced," or returned, to their original state as a stem cell. Then that stem cell can be reprogrammed to become a different type of cell. For example, a researcher can take a … Continue reading →

THE 2012 Nobel Prize season opens with the pick for the medicine award, marking the start of a week of announcements and speculation over who will collect the literature and peace prizes. The medicine prize will be announced in Stockholm at 11:30am (2030 AEDT) at the earliest. With the awards committees keeping mum on their choices, Nobel watchers are left to play a guessing game. Swedish media have suggested the medicine prize could go to Japan's Shinya Yamanaka and Britain's John Gurdon for their research in nuclear reprogramming, a process that instructs adult cells to form early stem cells which can then be used to form any tissue type. James Till of Canada could also be honoured for his related work on blood stem cells. Other medicine fields cited as worthy of Nobel recognition this year are epigenetics, which studies how genes respond to their environment, and optogenetics, where researchers can turn on or off a nerve cell, for example in a fruit fly or a mouse, to reprogram the brain. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, perhaps the most watched of the prestigious awards, will be revealed Friday in Oslo, and the five-member Norwegian Nobel committee has 231 … Continue reading →

AFP Monday, Oct 08, 2012 STOCKHOLM - The 2012 Nobel Prize season opens Monday with the pick for the medicine award, marking the start of a week of announcements and speculation over who will collect the literature and peace prizes. The medicine prize will be announced in Stockholm at 11:30 am (0930 GMT) at the earliest. With the awards committees keeping mum on their choices, Nobel watchers are left to play a guessing game. Swedish media have suggested the medicine prize could go to Japan's Shinya Yamanaka and Britain's John Gurdon for their research in nuclear reprogramming, a process that instructs adult cells to form early stem cells which can then be used to form any tissue type. James Till of Canada could also be honoured for his related work on blood stem cells. Other medicine fields cited as worthy of Nobel recognition this year are epigenetics, which studies how genes respond to their environment, and optogenetics, where researchers can turn on or off a nerve cell, for example in a fruit fly or a mouse, to reprogramme the brain. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, perhaps the most watched of the prestigious awards, will be revealed Friday in … Continue reading →

Hopes of a cure for infertility in humans were raised Friday after Japanese stem cell researchers announced they had created viable eggs using normal cells from adult mice. The breakthrough raises the possibility that women who are unable to produce eggs naturally could have them created in a test tube from their own cells and then planted back into their body. A team at Kyoto University harvested stem cells from mice and altered a number of genes to create cells very similar to the primordial germ cells that generate sperm in men and oocytes -- or eggs -- in women. They then nurtured these with cells that would become ovaries and transplanted the mixture into living mice, where the cells matured into fully-grown oocytes. They extracted the matured oocytes, fertilised them in vitro -- in a test tube -- and implanted them into surrogate mother mice. The resulting mice pups were born healthy and were even able to reproduce once they matured. Writing in the US journal Science, which published the findings, research leader professor Michinori Saito said the work provided a promising basis for hope in reproductive medicine. "Our system serves as a robust foundation to investigate and further … Continue reading →

Hopes of a cure for infertility in humans were raised Friday after Japanese stem cell researchers announced they had created viable eggs using normal cells from adult mice. The breakthrough raises the possibility that women who are unable to produce eggs naturally could have them created in a test tube from their own cells and then planted back into their body. A team at Kyoto University harvested stem cells from mice and altered a number of genes to create cells very similar to the primordial germ cells that generate sperm in men and oocytes -- or eggs -- in women. They then nurtured these with cells that would become ovaries and transplanted the mixture into living mice, where the cells matured into fully-grown oocytes. They extracted the matured oocytes, fertilised them in vitro -- in a test tube -- and implanted them into surrogate mother mice. The resulting mice pups were born healthy and were even able to reproduce once they matured. Writing in the US journal Science, which published the findings, research leader professor Michinori Saito said the work provided a promising basis for hope in reproductive medicine. "Our system serves as a robust foundation to investigate and further … Continue reading →

ST. LOUIS, Oct. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (SIAL) announced today that Sigma Life Science, its innovative biological products and services research business, has launched Stemline Pluripotent Culture Medium, a novel human pluripotent stem cell culture medium that provides a consistent environment for the long-term maintenance and growth of healthy pluripotent stem cells. The new medium performs equivalently to the industry's leading medium and provides academic and pharmaceutical stem cell research labs with a substantially lower cost alternative to higher priced media. Additional information and sample requests of the Stemline Pluripotent Culture Medium are available at http://www.sigma.com/stemlinepsc. "The exorbitant cost of media for pluripotent stem cells is a universal complaint from the stem cell research community. Our Stemline Pluripotent Culture Medium performs equivalently to the leading medium for maintaining pluripotency and optimal growth rates, and is produced more efficiently than traditional media, resulting in lower costs. For example, a typical academic lab that consumes three 500 mL bottles of media per week could save at least $12,000 annually using our new Stemline medium. A high-throughput pharmaceutical development team that consumes 20 liters of media weekly could save more than $160,000 annually," said John Listello, Market Segment Manager for Regenerative Medicine … Continue reading →