Articles in the Stem Cells Category
Stem Cells »
Back in April, Bruce Conklin visted us to discuss stem cells, specifically using iPS cells to be grown into mature adult heart cells to screen drugs. One of the steps in this approach is discovering the specific cardiac cells that are “masters” i.e. the cardiac stem cells.
Scientists this week announced the discovery of a set of cardiac stem cells that express a protein, Islet 1, that give rise to other heart cells. The scientists were able to generate these cardiac master cells from human embryonic stem cells, then isolated the …
Stem Cells »
The 8 minute video below is a great primer on pluripotent stem cells, the main piece of our discussion this month. Just a couple years ago, researchers in Japan were able to take human skin cells, have them express certain genes in order to return to a stem cell state. Research in this area is just beginning; we don’t know if these induced pluripotent stem cells function as embryonic stem cells.
The short term promise of these iPSC is in drug development. Specifically, growing these iPSCs into adult mature cells …