Nothing new has been invented in heart failure in the last 15 years, according to Christian Homsy, CEO of Belgian-based Cardio3 Biosciences. This explains the excitement surrounding an emerging treatment among cardiologists, patients and investors.
Japanese scientists have cracked open a freaky new chapter in the sci-fi-meets-stem-cells era. A group in Yokohama reported it has grown a primitive liver in a petri dish using a person's skin cells.
Numerous cardiac muscle cells die following myocardial infarction, due to reduced blood flow in the affected muscle areas. What remains is a scar, which also mechanically affects cardiac pumping. The muscle itself has no, or hardly any, capacity to regenerate itself.
Artificial vascular trees, the growing of heart tissue, nerve regeneration: The World Congress of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) held in Vienna this October offered an impressive display of current developments in tissue reconstruction and regeneration, Michael Krassnitzer reports
The Robert Koch Foundation congratulates Professor Shinya Yamanaka, the 2008 Robert Koch Award laureate, on being awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The award to Yamanaka brings the number of Robert Koch Foundation laureates to receive a Nobel Prize to 11 since 1962.
A team of scientists from Johns Hopkins and other institutions report that restoring tiny, hair-like structures to defective cells in the olfactory system of mice is enough to restore a lost sense of smell.
‘The egg timer test’ is widely used to help determine how long a woman can expect to remain fertile. Lately it has shown even greater potential for clinical use as a biomarker for ovarian viability.
Could bone marrow cells prolong life? Recruitment of 3,000 patients will begin across the EU later this year for the BAMI (Bone Marrow Cells in Acute Myocardial Infarction) study, which will test whether stem cells taken from bone marrow and administered after a heart attack will prolong life. Mark Nicholls reports
A team of researchers at Rigshospitalet has found a new and simple way of detecting testicular cancer before it starts. This discovery will benefit patients in both Denmark and abroad.
Interested parties that can successfully navigate the evolving regulation of stem cell research stand to gain significant scientific and commercial advantage.
Every year in Germany, four million wounds leave a legacy of 30 000 amputations and six billion Euros in treatment costs. These shocking figures drew wound experts to the Pflege Kongress 2012 (2012 Care Congress) held in Berlin.
Susanne Werner reports on the views and revelations of international researchers gathered to deliberate the future potential of reprogrammed human adult stem cells and personalised medical treatments
An examination of the world-wide use of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), which involves transplantation of blood stem cells derived from the bone marrow or blood, finds that there are significant differences in transplant rates between countries and continental regions by indication and donor type, and that HSCT is most frequently used in countries with higher gross national…
Radionuclide therapy has been rapidly developing for the last 20 years, due to the availability of new carrier molecules and radionuclides. For some years the clinical efficacy has been modest with a low percentage of objective responses and no survival benefit because, most often, the patients had large tumor burden.
This year's AACC, held in conjunction with the Canadian Society for Clinical Chemists, and the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science, featured around 200 educational sessions and drew in over 18,000 delegates and exhibitors from almost 100 countries.
Thanks to cell therapy, researchers have found new ways to understand and potentially treat heart diseases and degenerative conditions such as Parkinson's and cancer. The role of imaging is becoming more and more important, especially in understanding the action of transplanted cells in situ.
In recent years, stem cells have become a hot topic of investigation with studies suggesting revolutionary medical benefits due to their ability to be converted into selected types of newly generated cells. Scientists have now come up with a way to help accelerate bone growth through the use of nanotubes and stem cells. This could lead to quicker and better recovery, for example after orthopedic…
Since the completion of the 13-year human genome project in 2003, molecular scientists have been delving deeper into the world of cells.
The SlideCollector 48 enables the seamless integration of non-contact Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) and single-cell AmpliGrid assay technology into one continuous, automated workflow. This ensures the highest levels of sample purity for applications in immunobiology, genetics, cancer research, stem cell research and forensics.
The HER2 gene causes a very aggressive kind of breast cancer. It influences the number of cancer stem cells and therefore as well the spreading of metastases. The University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center now made the discovery that the drug Herceptin can drastically reduce the amount of the stem cell population in HER2 positive-breast cancer.
Scientists have identified about two dozen genes that control embryonic stem cell fate. The genes may either prod or restrain stem cells from drifting into a kind of limbo, they suspect. The limbo lies between the embryonic stage and fully differentiated, or specialized, cells, such as bone, muscle or fat.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Now a molecular genetics research team around Prof Naama Barkai found out that an inhibitor molecule channels the morphogenic substances within the injured embryo so that new growing tissues and organs are developing in the right proportions.
Hair follicles, long disregarded by researchers, except in the cosmetic industry, may turn out to be `the fountain of youth´, according to Andreas Emmendörffer, CEO of German biotech firm Euroderm.
Andrea Martini and Joerg Larsen, of the Institute for Roentgendiagnostics, Braunschweig Teaching Hospitals, Germany, discuss nanotechnology, hybrid imaging and the quest for a personalised medicine.
At the Annual Congress of the European Respiratory Society (ERS), which took place in Stockholm, September 15-19, 2007, researchers from the Imperial College London, UK, presented their study about the successful implantation of lung cells grown from embryonic stem cells into the lungs of mice. In future, this method could be used for the treatment of human lung diseases.