The Berkeley Stem Cell Center supports research and teaching in stem cell biology, engineering, and medicine at UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Children's Hospital and Research Center at Oakland. Activities sponsored by the Center include seminars, roundtables, and an annual retreat. The Center's CIRM funded Shared Stem Cell Research Laboratories in Stanley Hall and LSA provide investigators with fully equipped stem cell tissue culture and flow cytometry facilities and outstanding technical expertise. Its CIRM Center of Excellence, located in the Li Ka-Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, provides additional state of the art laboratory space and core facilities for tissue culture and flow cytometry, as well as molecular and cellular and whole animal imaging. Through its CIRM training program, the Center annually awards stem cell research fellowships to 16 highly talented pre-doctoral, postdoctoral, and physician scientists in training. The Siebel Stem Cell Institute - UC Berkeley supports stem cell research collaborations between Berkeley Stem Cell Center and Stanford University investigators, and provides funding to bring notable visiting scholars to campus. Original post: Berkeley Stem Cell Center - Research UC Berkeley … Continue reading →

Californias taxpayer-funded $3 billion stem cell research program, officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, is spending money at the rate of $22,000 an hour, and expected to run out of cash in three years, reports Capitol Weekly. The multi-billion-dollar bond borrowing was authorized by state voters in 2004 after elite scientists and Hollywood stars, including Parkinsons sufferer Michael J. Fox and quadriplegic Christopher Reeve, argued in a $34 million ballot campaign that medical miracles were just around the corner. They teased the public, Jim Lott, an ex-vice president of the Hospital Association of Southern California and critic of the program told Capitol Weekly. They teased us with Proposition 71. And they did not deliver on the tease, and I dont want them to be able to get away with that again. Additional funding sought by the institute, critics say, should be conditioned on reforming the way cash grants are handed out, which currently go overwhelmingly to those affiliated with institutions who control seats on the stem cell groups board. We need to do this in a more responsible and accountable way, according to Lott. As the battle for new money ramps up, UCSDs Sanford Stem Cell Clinical … Continue reading →

Researchers are working to revive a radical treatment for Parkinson's disease. The treatment involves transplanting healthy brain cells to replace cells killed off by the disease. It's an approach that was tried decades ago and then set aside after disappointing results. Now, groups in Europe, the U.S. and Asia are preparing to try again, using cells they believe are safer and more effective. "There have been massive advances," says Claire Henchcliffe, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. "I'm optimistic." "We are very optimistic about ability of [the new] cells to improve patients' symptoms," says Viviane Tabar, a neurosurgeon and stem cell biologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Henchcliffe and Tabar joined several other prominent scientists to describe plans to revive brain cell transplants during a session Tuesday at the International Society for Stem Cell Research meeting in Boston. Their upbeat message marks a dramatic turnaround for the approach. During the 1980s and 1990s, researchers used cells taken directly from the brains of aborted fetuses to treat hundreds of Parkinson's patients. The goal was to halt the disease. Parkinson's destroys brain cells that make a substance called dopamine. Without enough dopamine, nerve cells can't … Continue reading →

SCIENTISTS at Beijings Tsinghua University are leading the world in inducing in-vitro differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into follicle-like cells. The breakthrough is expected to help the study of premature ovarian failure and improve assisted reproductive technology. The achievement of the research team led by Professor Kehkooi Kee was published in the latest issue of academic journal Nature Communications. The research showed the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into follicle-like cells can be achieved under the combined action of two RNA-binding proteins specifically expressed in germ cells, DAZL and BOULE, and growth factors GDF9 and BMP15. Kee, a Malaysian Chinese scientist, said that unlike somatic cells, germ cells can transmit the genetic chromosomes of the father and mother to the next generation. In the genetic process, germ cells undergo unique meiosis and genetic recombination. How do the germ cells regulate this process? How do they keep the balance between passing the genes to the next generation and creating a diverse genome? That is the most interesting question for me in this field of study, said Kee. However, scientists must overcome difficulties. Although they can obtain some human germ cell samples by patient agreement, the sample size is far … Continue reading →