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WASHINGTON -- Shinya Yamanaka, a scientist at Kyoto University, loved stem-cell research. But he didn't want to destroy embryos. So he figured out a way around the problem. In a paper published five years ago in Cell, Yamanaka and six colleagues showed how "induced pluripotent stem cells" could be derived from adult cells and potentially substituted, in research and therapy, for embryonic stem cells. This week, that discovery earned him a Nobel Prize, shared with British scientist John Gurdon. But the prize announcement and much of the media coverage missed half the story. Yamanaka's venture wasn't just an experiment. It...

Hormone-producing gland can be created from (mouse) embryonic stem cells. A series of achievements have stoked excitement about the potential of regenerative medicine, which aims to tackle diseases by replacing or regenerating damaged cells, tissues and organs. A paper in Nature today1 reports another step towards this goal: the generation of working thyroid cells from stem cells. Sabine Costagliola, a molecular embryologist at the Free University of Brussels, and her team study the development of the thyroid gland, which regulates how the body uses energy and affects sensitivity to other hormones. Their research shows that thyroid function can be re-established...

Two scientists who have fought a 3-year, losing court battle to block federal funding for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research have now taken their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Yesterday, attorneys for the plaintiffs in Sherley v. Sebelius filed what's known as a writ of certiorari with the land's highest court. In their 36-page petition(PDF), they ask the court to consider two questions that were raised when a federal appeals court ruled against them in August. One is whether the appeals court should have relied on its own earlier, split decision finding that federally funded hESC research doesn't...

The discovery that cellular development is not a one-way street has earned this year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. John B. Gurdon, a developmental biologist at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and Shinya Yamanaka, a stem cell researcher at Kyoto University in Japan and the Gladstone Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, have won the prize for their discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to resemble the versatile cells of a very early embryo. These so-called pluripotent cells have the ability to become any of...

John B. Gurdon of the U.K. and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan shared this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in so-called cellular reprogramming, which has unleashed a wave of advances in everything from cloning to the possible treatment of diseases using stem cells.... It also allows scientists to create human embryonic stem cells without having to destroy human embryos, sidestepping an approach that has long been fraught with ethical controversies. Most important, perhaps, it has significantly advanced the prospect of using a patient's own mature cells to create fresh tissue and treat disease.

THE HYPOTHESIS In Type 2 diabetes, insulin-producing cells revert to an earlier developmental state. THE INVESTIGATORS Chutima Talchai and Dr. Domenico Accili, Columbia University... The hormone insulin helps shuttle glucose, or blood sugar, from the bloodstream into individual cells to be used as energy. But the body can become resistant to insulin, and the beta cells of the pancreas, which produce the hormone, must work harder to compensate. Eventually, the thinking goes, they lose the ability to keep up. “We used to say that the beta cells poop out,” said Alan Saltiel, director of the Life Sciences Institute at the...

Enlarge Image Who's your mommy? These adult mice grew from oocytes, or immature eggs, derived in vitro from induced pluripotent stem cells. Credit: Mitinori Saitou and Katsuhiko Hayashi Want baby mice? Grab a petri dish. After producing normal mouse pups last year using sperm derived from stem cells, a Kyoto University team of researchers has now accomplished the same feat using eggs created the same way. The study may eventually lead to new ways of helping infertile couples conceive. "This is a significant achievement that I believe will have a sustained and long-lasting impact on the field of reproductive...

Dr. Tracy Grikscheit held a length of intestine in her gloved hands, examining it inch by inch as if she were checking a bicycle tube for leaks... --snip-- Dr. Grikscheit’s work is at the forefront of efforts in laboratories around the world to build replacement organs and tissues. Although the long-sought goal of creating complex organs like hearts and livers to ease transplant shortages remains a long way off, researchers are having success making simpler structures like bladders and windpipes, thanks to advances in understanding stem cells... --snip-- This kind of seeding of scaffolds with cells is a common approach...

In this image of mouse embryonic fibroblasts undergoing reprogramming, each colored dot represents messenger RNA associated with a specific gene that is active in cells being reprogrammed. Red dots represent... Several years ago, biologists discovered that regular body cells can be reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells — cells with the ability to become any other type of cell. Such cells hold great promise for treating many human diseases. These induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are usually created by genetically modifying cells to overexpress four genes that make them revert to an immature, embryonic state. However, the procedure works in only...

Japanese researcher plans cache of induced stem cells to supply clinical trials. Progress toward stem-cell therapies has been frustratingly slow, delayed by research challenges, ethical and legal barriers and corporate jitters. Now, stem-cell pioneer Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan plans to jump-start the field by building up a bank of stem cells for therapeutic use. The bank would store dozens of lines of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, putting Japan in an unfamiliar position: at the forefront of efforts to introduce a pioneering biomedical technology. A long-held dream of Yamanaka’s, the iPS Cell Stock project received a boost...

It is not unusual for babies to be born with congenital heart defects. This is because the development of the heart in the embryo is a process which is not only extremely complex, but also error-prone. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have now identified a key molecule that plays a central role in regulating the function of stem cells in the heart. As a result, not only could congenital heart defects be avoided in future, but new ways of stimulating the regeneration of damaged hearts in adults may be opened up....

While scientists hotly debate the existence of cancer stem cells, three related new studies, all conducted on mice, provide some supporting evidence. Stem cells are the foundation for healthy cell growth in the body. Some researchers believe that malignant stem cells also exist—so-called cancer stem cells that generate tumors and resist treatment by simply re-growing afterward. "Cancer stem cells are still controversial, but with progress in studies like these, it's less about whether they exist and more about 'what does this mean?'" said Dr. Max Wicha, director of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, who is familiar with the...

A court decision on 23 July could help to tame the largely unregulated field of adult stem-cell treatments. The US District Court in Washington DC affirmed the right of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate therapies made from a patient’s own processed stem cells. The case hinged on whether the court agreed with the FDA that such stem cells are drugs. The judge concurred, upholding an injunction brought by the FDA against Regenerative Sciences, based in Broomfield, Colorado...

Enlarge Image Beyond in vitro? A new study suggests that ovarian stem cells may not replace traditional IVF techniques (shown). Credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock A handful of "rainbow" mice have persuaded some researchers that biology textbooks don't need to be rewritten quite yet. A study of the animals—rodents genetically engineered to display a variety of colorful fluorescent markers in select cells—indicate that they don't have stem cells that continue making new egg cells after birth, a conclusion that supports a long-held but recently questioned tenet of mammalian reproductive biology. Yet those who have challenged that belief aren't backing down, claiming the...

A cutting-edge method developed at the University of Michigan Center for Arrhythmia Research successfully uses stem cells to create heart cells capable of mimicking the heart's crucial squeezing action. The cells displayed activity similar to most people's resting heart rate. At 60 beats per minute, the rhythmic electrical impulse transmission of the engineered cells in the U-M study is 10 times faster than in most other reported stem cell studies. An image of the electrically stimulated cardiac cells is displayed on the cover of the current issue of Circulation Research, a publication of the American Heart Association. For those suffering...

Enlarge Image Ring of protection. In experiments, myelin produced by injected human neural stem cells (green) formed protective sleeves around the nerve fibers in mouse brains (red). Credit: RIKEN CDB; StemCells Inc. YOKOHAMA, JAPAN—For more than a decade, stem cell therapies have been touted as offering hope for those suffering from genetic and degenerative diseases. The promise took another step toward reality last week with announcements here at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) that two groups are moving forward with human clinical research, one focusing on a rare genetic neurological disease and...

Enlarge Image Root killer. Cancer-like stem cells treated with the antipsychotic drug thioridazine (right) are scarce compared with control cells. Credit: E. Sachlos et al., Cell, 149 (8 June), ©2012 Elsevier Inc. A well-known drug for treating schizophrenia may be a cancer killer, too. In lab studies, the drug wiped out a precursor to leukemia cells without harming normal cells. That means it could give doctors a long-sought way to eliminate every trace of leukemia in patients so that the cancer can never come back. Even though surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation can get rid of a tumor or leukemia...

Cardiomyocytes, the workhorse cells that make up the beating heart, can now be made cheaply and abundantly in the laboratory. Writing this week (May 28, 2012) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of Wisconsin scientists describes a way to transform human stem cells -- both embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells -- into the critical heart muscle cells by simple manipulation of one key developmental pathway. The technique promises a uniform, inexpensive and far more efficient alternative to the complex bath of serum or growth factors now used to nudge blank slate stem cells to...

By the time Dr. Spencer Misner had carved away the dead and diseased flesh from Bobby Rice’s right foot last year, little remained other than bones and tendons. “I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t look real. It looked like something out of a movie,” recalled Rice, a Whitfield County resident. Today, the ankle has almost completely healed. It looks like Rice had simply scraped it. And Rice’s foot has largely healed, too. Misner credits cutting-edge stem cell treatments for saving Rice’s foot and leg.

Michael J. Fox, whose turn from Parkinson’s disease patient to scientific crusader made him one of the country’s most visible advocates for stem cell research, now believes the controversial therapy may not ultimately yield a cure for his disease, he told ABC’s Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview. There have been “problems along the way,” Fox said of stem cell studies, for which he has long advocated. Instead, he said, new drug therapies are showing real promise and are “closer today” to providing a cure for Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative illness that over time causes the body to become rigid...