Stem cells

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Embracing a nano-size silken promise

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

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Nobel Prize awarded to Robert Koch Foundation Laureate

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.

Global Use and Availability of Treatment Involving Transplantation of Blood Stem Cells

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…

New horizons in Nuclear Medicine therapy

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.

Nanotechnology to accelerate bone growth

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…

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Herceptin destroys breast cancer stem cells

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.

Genes that controll ES-cell fate identified

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.

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Secret disclosed about self-healing embryos

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.

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Stem Cell therapy repairs lungs in mice

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.

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