Search Results for: single-cell

COVID Traps Alveoli Cells in a Curious Progenitor State, Squelching Lung Regeneration

normal lung alveoli indicating examples at1 and at2 cells

Mere weeks into the COVID pandemic, stunning graphics began to appear depicting the path of devastation of SARS-CoV-2 through a human lung. It’s only recently that we’ve come to understand what, exactly, is happening on a cellular level. The new view is thanks to single-cell RNA-sequencing, which analyzes the abundance of messenger RNAs in individual …

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Weekly reads: oncodevelopmental factors, iPSC cancer vaccine, more

stem cell vaccine paper ouyang et al

One of my main research interests is in oncodevelopmental factors. These include factors that are important both for normal stem cell biology and development as well as driving cancer when misregulated. One example includes the MYC family of proto-oncogenes. When I was a postdoc I got especially interested in trying to understand the normal role …

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Weekly reads: Stem cells for vision loss & recommended pubs

stem cells for vision loss ribeiro et al

I’m going to start off today’s recommended reads post with some stem cells for vision developments. I had some fun the last 2 weeks as people sent in their entries for our $100 stem cell picture contest. I’ll announce the winner this week. It’s going to be hard to choose given the great entries. Stem …

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Weekly reads: embryo pubs stir things up, organoids crying, & more

organoids tear glands sm

This was an unusual week in that three papers in a sense collided together related to embryo production and growth, raising new research possibilities but also serious ethical questions. New research: what is an embryo & what is not? The first two Nature papers reported generating the most realistic models of human embryos from scratch …

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New lab-grown blastoids are strikingly similar to human embryos

blastoids nature paper figure 2

A new word has been added to the lexicon of human stem cell research – blastoids, aka “blastocyst-like structures.” Unlike the familiar three-layered embryo that emerges during the third week of prenatal development, the earlier blastocyst resembles a fluid-filled soccer ball, with a smear of cells on the interior face destined to develop into the …

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Weekly reads: stem cells for spina bifida & diabetes trials, pubs

arthur the dog helps test stem cells for spina bifida

It’s always great when there’s good news in the stem cell field and a new trial of stem cells for spina bifida here at UC Davis School of Medicine is very encouraging. So I’ll lead off with this story. Stem cells for spina bifida This pioneering work is led by Drs. Diana Farmer and Aijun …

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Recommended reads: jobs, FDA letter, & The Niche new look

the body building fda letter the niche

During the week as I’m doing other stuff I keep my eyes open for interesting things to read, including over the weekend about stem cell research, COVID, CRISPR, and more for The Niche weekly recommended reads. This week a lot was going as we updated The Niche site to our new theme and format. I …

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Weekly The Niche reads: lab-grown embryos & thymus, more

es cells embryos matrigel the niche sm

Today’s The Niche recommended weekly reads post includes both primary papers and also a few media pieces. I’m especially interested in the first piece on making more complex embryo-like structures from ES cells. This is a long way from just making embryoid bodies or EBs. At the end of the post I discuss an article …

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Can Gene-Edited Stem Cells Treat Cystic Fibrosis?

human-IPS-cells-made-in-Knoeplfer-lab-stained-for-TRA-160

Drugs that restore the shape of the errant protein behind cystic fibrosis (CF) have, over the past eight years, helped the majority of patients, who have certain mutations. Gene-corrected stem cells might offer a “mutation agnostic” option to CF. CF results from a glitch in a glycoprotein with the unwieldy name “cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance …

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OCT4-SOX DNA dance, PRC2, a noisy competition & more cell weekly reads

EMBO-J-2020-Fig-3b-Salazar-Roa-et-al

What’s new in the stem cell, cell therapy, and regenerative medicine world as well as biomedical science more generally including cancer? There’s quite a bit of news as reflected in media pieces and new pubs. Today’s post is focused on pubs that just came out. For last week’s recommended reads see here. Oct4-Sox2 Nucleosome Binding …

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