The Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission has awarded $8.5 million to 29 projects that will explore how human stem cells can regenerate heart tissue, treat muscular dystrophy and sickle cell disease, and aid diabetes management, among other medical conditions. The awards, made through the state-funded Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund, are intended to accelerate work by researchers and startup companies using human stem cells to advance medical treatments. "We want to accelerate the transformation from science and technology to commercial products and clinical treatments," said Dan Gincel, the fund's executive director. The initiative has awarded $139 million to 400 projects since it was established in 2006. The fund and commission are managed by TEDCO, the Maryland Technology Development Corp. The grants support projects at various stages, from discovery and gathering data, through clinical trials and steps toward commercialization. As more projects move closer to commercialization, TEDCO expects to accelerate the pace of the fund's awards, said Gincel, who is also TEDCO's vice president of University Partnerships. The $8.5 million awarded this month was part of the state's fiscal 2017 budget. The budget for fiscal year 2018, which starts July 1, includes $8.2 million for stem cell research, Gincel said. This … Continue reading →

May 16, 2017 by David Stacey Credit: University of Western Australia Research led by The University of Western Australia has discovered a new, simple and less expensive way of growing human stem cells. Using hydrogel, a gel with a gradient that can be used to mimic the stiffness of human body tissues, the researchers were able to generate positive outcomes for the growth of stem cells. Dr Yu Suk Choi from UWA's School of Human Sciences at The University of Western Australia led the international collaboration which also included researchers from the University of California, San Diego (USA) and Max Planck Institute for Medical Research (Germany). "Stem cells work by using the 'stiffness' of surrounding tissue as a gauge to identify the way they need to behave in a particular environment in the human body," Dr Choi said. "By using hydrogel to mimic the stiffness of tissue, we found we could 'trick' the stem cells into behaving in particular ways to help them grow and encourage the cells to behave in positive, regenerative ways. "Hydrogel is simple and inexpensive to produce and could have a wide range of applications in biology labs that don't always have the infrastructure available to … Continue reading →

KXAN.com Patients call stem cell bill passage a game changer | KXAN.com KXAN.com AUSTIN (KXAN) A controversial medical treatment is one step closer to becoming law in Texas. One state lawmaker made a last-ditch effort to save the bill ... and more » See the original post here: Patients call stem cell bill passage a game changer | KXAN.com - KXAN.com … Continue reading →

A new study from Lund University in Sweden shows that the behaviour of stem cells in plants and animals is surprisingly similar. The researchers were able to produce mathematical equations that reveal very small differences in the behaviour of the proteins. The results can hopefully be used in stem cell research involving humans. The plant and animal kingdoms were separated through evolution more than 1.6 billion years ago. It is surprising that the interactions between the handful of key genes that control the fate of each stem cell are so similar in both cases, says Carsten Peterson, professor at the Faculty of Science at Lund University. Carsten Peterson is one of the researchers behind the recent study on differences and similarities between animal and plant stem cells. With a background in theoretical physics, he and his colleagues have tackled the stem cells from a different perspective, which proved successful. By formulating mathematical equations, the researchers have performed a detailed study of the proteins that are central to the stem cells in mammals and plants. The proteins are linked to the genes that control the stem cells. In particular, the researchers have studied how these proteins mutually affect one another through … Continue reading →

May 15, 2017 Near-infrared light is used to precisely engineer stem cells into tissue. Credit: University of California - Santa Barbara Nothing beats nature. The diverse and wonderful varieties of cells and tissues that comprise the human body are evidence of that. Each one of us starts out as a mass of identical, undifferentiated cells, and thanks to a combination of signals and forces, each cell responds by choosing a developmental pathway and multiplying into the tissues that become our hearts, brains, hair, bones or blood. A major promise of studying human embryonic stem cells is to understand these processes and apply the knowledge toward tissue engineering. Researchers in UC Santa Barbara's departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology have gotten a step closer to unlocking the secrets of tissue morphology with a method of three-dimensional culturing of embryonic stem cells using light. "The important development with our method is that we have good spatiotemporal control over which cellor even part of a cellis being excited to differentiate along a particular gene pathway," said lead author Xiao Huang, who conducted this study as a doctoral student at UCSB and is now a postdoctoral scholar in … Continue reading →