Word: stemness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Stem cell research in the U.S. took a big leap forward Tuesday when the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) announced that it would begin recruiting women to donate eggs that scientists will then use to generate human embryonic stem cells...
...first reported program launched by an academic institute to use fresh eggs in somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) to create stem cells. That's the technique that South Korean scientists claimed they had used to create nearly a dozen stem cell lines from diseased patients before admitting earlier this year that their results had been fabricated. HSCI will recruit donors first from the Boston area, Dr. Kevin Eggan, one of the lead investigators, told reporters. Although egg donors to IVF clinics are paid, HSCI decided not to compensate donors for the stem cell studies, to be sure that the women...
...goal of the studies will be to create disease-specific stem cells from patients; these cells could eventually lead to new treatments for conditions ranging from diabetes to Alzheimer's. "We're excited using SCNT as a way forward where in essence we can move the study of disease from patients to Petri dish," said Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, whose own son was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, guiding his decision to focus his experiments on that disease first. He will take the donated eggs, remove their nuclei and replace them with skin cells taken...
...another set of studies, Dr. Geroge Daly, a professor at Children's Hospital, will use excess embryos from IVF and remove stem cells from them to study blood diseases such as sickle cell anemia and bone marrow disorders. These will not be tailored to individual patients, but could provide valuable information about how these conditions work...
...Eggan, a principal faculty member at HSCI, will work with Melton on diabetes and also generate stem cells to study nerve diseases such as Lou Gehrig's disease...