PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 28-May-2014 Contact: Robert Miranda cogcomm@aol.com Cell Transplantation Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair Tampa, Fla. (May 28, 2014) To be suitable for medical transplantation, one idea is that human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) need to remain "undifferentiated" i.e. they are not changing into other cell types. In determining the best way to culture hESCs so that they remain undifferentiated and also grow, proliferate and survive, researchers have used blood cell "feeder-layer" cultures using animal-derived feeder cells, often from mice (mouse embryonic fibroblasts [MEFs]). This approach has, however, been associated with a variety of contamination problems, including pathogen and viral transmission. To avoid contamination problems, a Brazilian research team has investigated the use of human menstrual blood-derived mesenchymal cells (MBMCs) as feeder layers and found that "MBMCs can replace animal-derived feeder systems in human embryonic stem cell culture systems and support their growth in an undifferentiated stage." The study will be published in a future issue of Cell Medicine, but is currently freely available on-line as an unedited early e-pub at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/cm/pre-prints/content-CM1019silvadosSantos. "Human embryonic stem cells present a continuous proliferation in an undifferentiated state, resulting in an unlimited amount of cells with the potential to differentiate … Continue reading →

May 27, 2014 Image Caption: Stanford School of Medicine researchers, working with scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, have made discoveries about the ways in which T cell receptors (shown in bright red) recognize invaders in the body. Credit: Eric Smith & K. Christopher Garcia By Glenn Roberts Jr., Stanford University A study led by researchers at Stanfords School of Medicine reveals how T cells, the immune systems foot soldiers, respond to an enormous number of potential health threats. X-ray studies at the Department of Energys SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, combined with Stanford biological studies and computational analysis, revealed remarkable similarities in the structure of binding sites, which allow a given T cell to recognize many different invaders that provoke an immune response. The research demonstrates a faster, more reliable way to identify large numbers of antigens, the targets of the immune response, which could speed the discovery of disease treatments. It also may lead to a better understanding of what T cells recognize when fighting cancers and why they are triggered to attack healthy cells in autoimmune diseases such as diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Until now, it often has been a real mystery which antigens T cells are … Continue reading →