NEWS and OPINIONS
This Widely-Used Antidepressant Could Be a Powerful New Weapon Against Cancer
By By Tiare Dunlap, University of California - SciTechDaily - Antidepressants help immune cells fight cancer. They may improve therapy effectiveness. A commonly prescribed antidepressant may also strengthen the body’s defenses against cancer, according to new research...
Rebuilding a liver with the help of macrophages
by Alejandra Manjarrez, PhD - Exploring Drug Discovery and Development = Macrophage-based therapies for liver cirrhosis are entering clinical trials, but key challenges remain before they become a viable treatment. Macrophages — key players of the immune system —...
Spaceflight Accelerates Human Stem Cell Aging, UC San Diego Researchers Find
By UC San Diego Today - Findings reveal space-induced genetic, mitochondrial and inflammatory stress in blood-forming stem cells, offering insight into aging and risk of disease during long-duration space travel. Researchers from University of California San Diego...
The Promise of Stem Cells: From Healing Hearts to Protecting Pandas
by Andrea Lius, PhD - The Scientist - Researchers bank on stem cells to study developmental biology, understand oral cancer, regenerate organs, and save species on the brink of extinction. Stem cells can self-renew and differentiate into a wide variety of cell types,...
Universal plug-and-play CAR-T cell therapy could transform cancer immunotherapy
by University of Chicago Medical Center - MedicalXpress - Researchers at the University of Chicago have developed a "universal" chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) platform that offers enhanced safety, adaptability, and the potential to overcome long-standing barriers in...
Stopping time in cells exposes life’s fastest secrets
By The University of Osaka - Science Daily - Researchers from The University of Osaka develop time-deterministic cryo-optical microscopy, which freezes cells with millisecond precision, enabling accurate, high-resolution visualization of transient moments during...
Stanford Breakthrough: Stem Cell Transplants Without Toxic Chemo or Radiation
By By Erin Digitale, Stanford Medicine - SciTechDaily - A Phase 1 clinical trial has shown that an antibody developed at Stanford Medicine can prepare patients for stem cell transplantation while avoiding toxic side effects. A phase 1 clinical trial has demonstrated...
World’s first spinal cord transplant to take place in Israel, could allow patients to walk again
By PESACH BENSON/TPS - The Jerusalem Post - Tel Aviv University announced on Wednesday that the surgery will take place in Israel, marking a historic milestone in regenerative medicine. Israel is preparing to perform the world’s first-ever human spinal cord implant...
Stem cell-derived dopamine neurons improve depression-like behaviors in mice
by Justin Jackson - Phys.org - MedicalXpress - The Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, reports that human stem cell-derived A10-like midbrain dopaminergic neurons integrate into mouse mesocorticolimbic circuits and suppress anxiety and depression...
New activated cell therapy to treat osteoarthritis
By Sarah Nesbella - Colorado State University - Osteoarthritis (OA) affects over 550 million people worldwide, and there still aren’t effective treatments to stop the continued joint inflammation and cartilage destruction caused by OA. The lifetime likelihood of...
In cell therapy, cost is a hot issue. The industry might need a cold solution.
by Michael Gibney - PharmaVoice - The first cell therapy approved by the FDA, Dendreon’s Provenge for prostate cancer, had a bumpy start on the market in 2010, as the autologous treatment was logistically difficult to manufacture and administer, and thus also to...
Stem cell discovery could be key to healing tough-to-fix fractures
By Penn Medicine - The ability of a newly understood stem cell originating in skeletal muscle to turn into bone could hold the key to bone healing after catastrophic fractures. When bones break and there is extreme tissue loss—such as after a car accident or a...