Combating Sickle Cell Disease with Cord Blood Stem Cells
June 19 is designated as World Sickle Cell Day. The international observance provides an opportunity to heighten awareness of the formidable public health challenge presented by the common, non-malignant blood disorder.
Sickle cell disease is a genetic disorder in which the body produces abnormally shaped red blood cells. The sickled or c-shaped red blood cells can block blood vessels, reducing blood flow in many parts of the body. This process results in tissue and organ …
Light Coaxes Stem Cells to Repair Teeth: Noninvasive Laser Therapy Could Radically Shift Dental Treatment
Harvard-led team is the first to demonstrate the ability to use low-power light to trigger stem cells inside the body to regenerate tissue, an advance they reported in Science Translational Medicine. The research, led by Wyss Institute Core Faculty member David Mooney, Ph.D., lays the foundation for a host of clinical applications in restorative dentistry and regenerative medicine more broadly, such as wound healing, bone regeneration, and more.
The team used a low-power laser to …
Jun
MS Mice Regain Ability to Walk After Stem Cell Therapy
Multiple sclerosis is an often disabling disease of the central nervous system that interrupts information between the brain and the body. Now, in mice crippled by a similar autoimmune disease, scientists have shown that they were able to walk and run after their spinal cords were implanted with human stem cells.
The researchers – from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), University of Utah and University of California-Irvine – say their findings could potentially lead to …
May
Patient Stem Cells Used to Make ‘Heart Disease-on-a-Chip’
Harvard scientists have merged stem cell and ‘organ-on-a-chip’ technologies to grow, for the first time, functioning human heart tissue carrying an inherited cardiovascular disease. The research appears to be a big step forward for personalized medicine, as it is working proof that a chunk of tissue containing a patient’s specific genetic disorder can be replicated in the laboratory.
The work, published in Nature Medicine, is the result of a collaborative effort bringing together scientists from …
Daughter Donates Corneal Stem Cells to Give Mom Better Vision
Debra Astrug was struggling. She couldn’t read or drive, she worried about crossing the street to get the mail, and she couldn’t draw.
“I’m an artist, and I couldn’t draw. I couldn’t at all,” said the 57-year old Elgin woman, whose vision had been deteriorating for six years, becoming blurry as the result of graft versus host disease, which was a side effect of a successful bone marrow transplant from her sister in 1996 to …