Category Archives: Stem Cell Research

Durham, NC (PRWEB) June 11, 2013 The path to bringing a new drug to market is, simply put, a rocky one. Not only is it estimated to take over 12 years at an average price tag running anywhere between US $800 million and US $2 billion, but more often than not the new drug never makes it through the process. But now a research team reports that it has developed a way to speed up the process. Their work, which involves the creation of a highly stable and sensitive liver stem cell model, is reported in the latest issue of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine. Liver toxicity is the second most common cause of human drug failure, explained David Hay, Ph.D., of the University of Edinburghs MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, who led the team made up of university colleagues and scientists from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton, N.J. But one major bottleneck in safety testing new drugs has been finding a routine supply of good quality primary human hepatocytes from the desired genetic background. Scientists have long believed that finding an efficient way to force pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) to develop into hepatocytes liver cells could be the way around the problem. … Continue reading →

Yields optimized stem cell growth and expansion per passage to accelerate research and discovery BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world leader in serving science, today introduced the Thermo Scientific HyClone HyCell-STEM and HyCell-STEM-FF stem cell culture media, designed to optimize the expansion rate of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) per passage for cell culture applications including cell signaling, drug discovery and therapeutic research. The new HyCell-STEM media solutions will be showcased this week at the 11thAnnual International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) conference at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Booth #637. With the introduction of HyCell-STEM and HyCell-STEM-FF, we are offering researchers solutions that increase the rate of stem cell expansion while preserving cell morphology, stemness and pluripotency. Further, scientists may anticipate outstanding recovery after thaw, following cryopreservation of cells. There are exciting discoveries being made in the stem cell area today, and researchers demand the highest quality products to increase yields and integrity of their cell cultures, said Roberta Morris, business director for Thermo Fisher Scientific. With the introduction of HyCell-STEM and HyCell-STEM-FF, we are offering researchers solutions that increase the rate of stem cell expansion while preserving cell morphology, … Continue reading →

Public release date: 11-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Tara Womersley tara.womersley@ed.ac.uk 44-131-650-9836 University of Edinburgh Drug development for a range of conditions could be improved with stem cell technology that helps doctors predict the safety and the effectiveness of potential treatments. Medical Research Council scientists at the University of Edinburgh have been able to generate cells in the laboratory that reach the gold standard required by the pharmaceutical industry to test drug safety. The researchers used stem cell technology to generate liver cells which help our bodies to process drugs. They found that the cells were equally effective, reaching the same standard, as cells from human liver tissue currently used to assess drug safety. These human cells used in drug testing are in short supply and vary considerably due to different donors. As a result they are not an ideal source for drug development. The stem cell based technique developed in Edinburgh, addresses these issues by offering a renewable production of uniform liver cells in the laboratory. Dr David Hay of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, said: "Differing genetic information plays a key role in how patients' livers … Continue reading →

CARLSBAD, Calif., June 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --Life Technologies Corporation (LIFE) today launched the TaqMan hPSC Scorecard Panel, a first-of-its-kind characterization assay that establishes a standardized benchmark against which researchers can now evaluate pluripotency and trilineage differentiation potential in human embryonic (ES) and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell lines. Life will showcase the technology during the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) conference in Boston June 12-15. Until now, scientists have evaluated pluripotency the potential for ES and iPS cells to differentiate into any cell type with laborious, costly and non-standardized methods that provide ambiguous results. Additionally, their inability to accurately determine cell lines' propensity to differentiate into one of the three primary cell germ layers has contributed to major hurdles that impede stem cell technology from moving into the clinic. The TaqMan hPSC Scorecard Panel, however, relies on a specific range of gene expression levels identified at Harvard University to accurately characterize cell lines in two critical areas: pluripotency and lineage bias. The panel is also being offered with cloud-based software for rapid data analysis and data sharing among research collaborators. "The rapid advancements in stem cell research over the last few years have created a need for more … Continue reading →

080422 Stem Cell Evening Welcome 640x480 By: wippsinfo … Continue reading →

bone marrow stem cells used for back pain Brenda Goodman writing in Healthday reported, "Medical researchers are trying a new treatment for low back pain. Their hope is that harvesting and then re-in... By: Nathan Wei … Continue reading →

By Traci Pedersen Associate News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on June 8, 2013 Conditions that are difficult to study such as schizophrenia, autism and Alzheimers can now be analyzed safely and effectively with an innovative method designed to retrieve mature brain cells from reprogrammed skin cells, according to research published in the journal Stem Cell Research. Obviously, we dont want to remove someones brain cells to experiment on, so re-creating the patients brain cells in a petri dish is the next best thing for research purposes and drug screening, said research leader Gong Chen, Ph.D., professor of biology at Penn State University. The most exciting part of this research is that it offers the promise of direct disease modeling, allowing for the creation, in a petri dish, of mature human neurons that behave a lot like neurons that grow naturally in the human brain. Chen believes that the method could lead to customized treatments for individual patients based on their own genetic and cellular information. He said that, in previous research, scientists had found a way to reprogram skin cells from patients to become unspecialized or undifferentiated pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). A pluripotent stem cell is a … Continue reading →

The Market for Primary Cells Stem Cell-Derived Cells: Current and Future Opportunities This study of the academic and pharma/biotech sectors in North America and Europe provides an analysis of the market for primary cells and an assessment of t... By: BioInformaticsLLC … Continue reading →

Stem Cell Research on Autism Sloan Ferron. By: Sloan Ferron … Continue reading →

A Newport Beach nonprofit donated $150,000 toward stem cell research that could slow or reverse heart damage in patients, including those with a specific muscular dystrophy condition, the organization announced last week. Coalition Duchenne gave the money to a Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute team developing a treatment that could help treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients who develop heart disease, according to a news release from the coalition. Boys with Duchenne are born with damage to their hearts that worsens over time, according to Dr. Ron Victor, associate director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute. "If we can use stem cells to slow or stop heart damage, it could help stall progression of the disease," he said in a prepared statement. The institute's experimental treatment involves removing a raisin-size piece of heart muscle that is used to grow the stem cells. Researchers have seen an average 50% reduction in muscle damage following a heart attack when those cells are injected back into the patient, according to the release. "Each year, 20,000 boys are born with Duchenne," said Catherine Jayasuriya, who founded Coalition Duchenne in 2010 after her son was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy associated with the disease. "Many do not live into their 20s … Continue reading →