What are coral stem cells? It turns out that even corals have stem cells and they can grow new corals.
Six years ago I found myself in the lucky position of snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Stem cells were not on my mind. I did notice large areas of bleached and dead coral. That part was somewhat depressing. With rising global ocean temperatures and other hazards, how might coral reefs be saved or restored?
The world’s coral reefs might be reseeded via coral stem cells. Let’s start there. There’s a surprising twist kind of flipping this coral regeneration thing on its head too for people.
Coral stem cells
Stem Cell Transplants Offer New Hope for Saving the World’s Corals, Technology Networks. “Stem cell transplants from heat-resilient corals could revive sensitive corals.” Check out this interesting website on restoring coral.
The bonus interesting element to this story is that on the flip side there’s a coral-based regenerative biologics therapy for people with knee issues.
Stem cells for diabetes
- Stem cells head to the clinic: treatments for cancer, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease could soon be here, Nature. The headline here is a problem. Why? The “soon” in there is the issue. While there is some prospect of a diabetes cell therapy (e.g., via Vertex stem cells for diabetes), that might still not be “soon”, overall this title is too exuberant. Ditch the “soon” part.
- Stem cells reverse type 1 diabetes, Nature. I feel this headline could also have used some improvement like some descriptors. Otherwise it incorrectly suggests stem cells can treat diabetes in a broad sense. Here’s the Cell research article: Transplantation of chemically induced pluripotent stem-cell-derived islets under abdominal anterior rectus sheath in a type 1 diabetes patient. It’s just one patient, but it is encouraging.
More stem cell reads
- Years after donating a kidney, Alabama woman receives one from a pig, WaPo.
- It seems like more people are having facial nerve problems, possibly related to COVID. This article caught my eye: Enhancing facial nerve regeneration with scaffold-free conduits engineered using dental pulp stem cells and their endogenous, aligned extracellular matrix, Journal of Nerve Cell Engineering.
Blast from the past: Robin Smith interview from 2013
Interview with NeoStem CEO Robin Smith Part 1. This piece from early 2013 is like a time capsule. Somehow VSELs are still around. Robin Smith now leads the Cura Foundation, which has worked with the Vatican on adult stem cell meetings. Smith is also a leader at The Stem for Life Foundation.