A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience
Medical breakthrough for cancer patients
Patients could soon be transfused with blood made from their own skin in a breakthrough that could revolutionise cancer treatments and solve the blood donor shortage. Scientists have shown that ordinary skin cells can effectively be converted into adult blood cells in the laboratory.
If only we could control our own with just a flip of a switch
Chandra Tucker shines a blue light on yeast and mammalian cells in her Duke University lab and the edges of them start to glow. The effect is the result of a light-activated switch from a plant that has been inserted into the cell.
Continue reading… “Plant’s Light Switch Can Control Cells”
A microscope image shows neurons created from pluripotent stem cells using modified RNA.
A Harvard researcher has developed a way to make pluripotent stem cells that solves several of the major impediments to using them to treat human diseases.
New technique turns biological clock back.
A new fertility technique could herald the end of the ‘ biological clock — by allowing women to have babies well into their 50s and 60s. The treatment, to be unveiled at the World Congress of Fertility and Sterility conference in Munich, Germany, uses injections of stem cells to restore egg production.
Continue reading… “New Fertility Treatment to Turn Back Biological Clock”
Drill monkeys are on the brink of extinction.
Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, and San Diego Zoo have collaborated to create stem cells from the skin cells a dead drill monkey, an endangered monkey native to Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and Cameroon.
Before and after shots that show the success of the stem cell technique.
Dozens of people whose eyes were severely damaged in chemical accidents have had their sight restored with transplants of their own stem cells.
Continue reading… “Stem Cells Help Restore Sight to Burn Victims”
The results might eventually lead to replacement lungs for patients.
In a first for medical science, rats were able to breathe and oxygenate their blood using lungs that had been grown in the lab. This a major step toward being able to grow replacement organs.
Continue reading… “Rats Breathe with First Functional, Lab Grown Lungs”
A decellularised rat liver retaining its network of blood vessels.
Scientists have grown a liver in a laboratory, offering fresh hope to hundreds of thousands of patients with diseased and damaged organs. It raises the prospect of those in need of transplants one day being offered livers that are ‘made to order’.
Continue reading… “‘Grow-Your-Own’ Liver – Scientists Produce Liver from Stem Cells”
Scientists perfected turning stem cells into the delicate hairs found in the inner ear.
A cure for deafness could be on the horizon after scientists created specialised ear cells in the lab. Grown in their thousands, the delicate hairs could one day be transplanted into the inner ear, restoring hearing to millions.
Researchers use a bioreactor, left, to house and help cultivate material, right, that evolves into a bone.
If a lover breaks your heart, tissue engineers can’t fix it. But if sticks and stones break your bones, scientists may be able to grow custom-size replacements. Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, a professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, has solved one of many problems on the way to successful bone implants: how to grow new bones in the anatomical shape of the original.
Continue reading… “Scientists Learning To Grow Custom-Size Bone Implants”
UCL scientists and surgeons have led a revolutionary operation to transplant a new trachea into a child, using the child’s own stem cells to rebuild the airway in the body.
An international research team led by Columbia University Medical Center successfully used mouse embryonic stem cells to replace diseased retinal cells and restore sight in a mouse model of retinitis pigmentosa. This strategy could potentially become a new treatment for retinitis pigmentosa, a leading cause of blindness that affects approximately one in 3,000 to 4,000 people, or 1.5 million people worldwide.
Continue reading… “Stem Cells Restore Sight in Mouse Model of Retinitis Pigmentosa”
