Laijun Lai, an Associate Research Professor at the University of Connecticut is currently doing research to find treatment for cancers, autoimmune deficiencies and genetic diseases through the use of T cells and stem cells. The first area of his research focuses on gene engineering approaches to treating cancers and autoimmune diseases. Lais research has resulted in two patents and several grants from NIH, the American Cancer Society and the Connecticut Regenerative Medicine Fund. We are very excited with our results. We believe that our research will eventually lead to the new approach in the treatment of cancer, autoimmune diseases or genetic diseases, such as (DGS), Lai said. The progression of cancerous tumors is accompanied by a very significant suppression of the immune system, which interferes with the bodys ability to send an effective immune response in order to eliminate chemotherapy, Lai said. In terms of autoimmune disease, disorders develop when the immune system targets and destroys the bodys own tissues, Lai said. Therefore, the study investigates new approaches to enhance T cell function for use in the treatment of cancer, while also looking for new ways to inhibit T cell function to treat autoimmune disease, Lai said. Several T cell … Continue reading →

April 6, 2017 -- A stem cell treatment for autism shows promise, according to a new study, but the investigators and other experts emphasize that the therapy is still in the early stages and much more research is needed. The Duke University study included 25 children, ages 2-6, with autism and assessed whether a transfusion of the youngsters' own umbilical cord blood containing rare stem cells would help treat their autism, CNN reported. Behavioral improvements were reported in 70 percent of the patients, according to the study in the journal Stem Cells. A second, larger trial is now underway and the researchers hope they will find a long-term treatment for autism, CNN reported. Some experts say many unanswered questions remain and the study authors agree much more work needs to be done. This initial trial was a safety study, meaning doctors and the children's families knew the therapy was being administered and there was no comparison between treated and non-treated children. "Some children, who were not speaking very much, had big increases in their vocabulary and their functional speech," study author Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, head of the Robertson Clinical and Translational Cell Therapy Program, told CNN. "Many children were able … Continue reading →

Its tough being a kid, when No seems to be the primary component in an adults vocabulary. Dont jump on the bed, Dont touch the hot pan, and, my personal favorite as a parent, No, you may not color your sister with permanent markers. Being a young, developmentally impressionable cell is also no picnic. How to choose what developmental path to follow? Should it become a nerve cell, a skin cell, a muscle cell? Now stem cell researcher Marius Wernig, MD, along with postdoctoral scholarMoritz Mall, PhD, and former postdoctoral scholar Michael Kareta, PhD,have shown that young would-be neural cells also live in a culture of no in the form of a powerful repressor protein called Myt1l that actively blocks all other cell fates including skin, heart, lung and liver. They published their results yesterday in Nature. As I explained in our release: The study marks the first identification of a near-global repressor that works to block many cell fates but one. It also suggests the possibility of a network of as-yet-unidentified master regulators specific to each cell type in the body. Myt1l works in conjunction with another protein that channels the developing cell into the neural cell fate by … Continue reading →