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Tag: Harvard Stem Cell Institute
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Health
Stem cell lines created from discarded IVF embryos
Human embryos that are discarded every day as medical waste from in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics could be an important source of stem cells for research, according to a team of Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston. Some of the embryos created during IVF are deemed “clinically useless” because of imperfections, but…
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Health
Harvard researchers achieve stem cell milestone
Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have successfully turned back the clock on human skin cells, causing them to revert to an embryonic stem cell-like state from which they can become any cell in the body. The work, published online Sunday (Dec. 23) by the journal Nature, is an independent report similar to the stem cell…
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Health
Researchers in Japan and Wisconsin report major advance in stem cell research
“The field is moving at lightning speed,” said Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) Co-Director Doug Melton in response to just-published papers by Japanese researchers and researchers at the University of Wisconsin reporting reprogramming adult human skin cells to produce cells similar to human embryonic stem cells. But Melton and other researchers are cautioning that…
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Health
Flier hails new, cooperative era in Harvard science
Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier Friday evening issued a call for new approaches to advance the fight against disease, embracing cross-institutional collaborations at Harvard as a way to bring new thinking to old problems. Flier, the keynote speaker at the Fourth Annual Tony and Shelly Malkin Stem Cell Symposium at the Harvard Club of…
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Health
Media can’t separate stem cell science from politics
Stem cells, politics, “fairness,” and what one participant termed “the disintegration of traditional journalism,” were all on the bill at Thursday night’s Public Forum titled “Stem Cells and the Media,” hosted by the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. A panel of four science journalists who have devoted a great deal of time to covering the stem…
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Health
Nine Harvard faculty members win NIH’s Pioneer, Innovator Awards
Nine Harvard researchers “well-positioned to make significant – and potentially transformative – discoveries in a variety of areas,” ranging from brain development to reprogramming stem cells, have been awarded special funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grants, announced Tuesday (Sept. 18), total $15 million over the next five years. They will be…
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Health
Major progress toward cell reprogramming
Two Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers and scientists at Whitehead Institute and Japan’s Kyoto University have independently taken major steps toward discovering ways to reprogram cells in order to direct their development – a key goal in developmental biology and regenerative medicine. Additionally, the group led by Kevin Eggan, an HSCI principal faculty member…
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Campus & Community
Authors fight misinformation on stem cell science
California’s Proposition 71, which committed the state to raising $3 billion for stem cell research, was a public policy ‘atom bomb that shifted the embryonic stem cell research debate from ‘whether to ‘how, the author of a book on the issue said Monday (Dec. 11). Michael Bellomo, author of ‘The Stem Cell Divide: The Facts,…
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Campus & Community
Research reveals how stem cells build a heart
Master cells that give rise to the three main cell types in a human heart have been discovered by Harvard Stem Cell Institute scientists working independently at two Harvard-affiliated hospitals. Together they found that a single progenitor stem cell differentiates into cells that cause a heart to beat, that make up its internal surface, and…
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Campus & Community
Growth of spinal nerves is improved
Nerves that control the highest level of voluntary movements have been isolated and secrets of their growth revealed for the first time. During development, these nerves extend themselves from the brain to all levels of the spine with the help of a potent growth factor called IGF-1. This factor is well known to scientists. However,…
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Health
Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers granted approval
After more than two years of intensive ethical and scientific review, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers at Harvard and Children’s Hospital Boston have been cleared to begin experiments using Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) to create disease-specific stem cell lines in an effort to develop treatments for a wide range of now-incurable conditions afflicting…
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Campus & Community
Stem cell issues discussed at Barker
The second in a series of gatherings described by Michael Sandel as “conversations that transcend the areas that we normally populate” was a far cry from the first such conversation, conducted a month earlier. The “Between Two Cultures” series, co-sponsored by the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) and the Humanities Center, is intended to foster…
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Campus & Community
Adult cells transformed into stem cells
Harvard researchers fused adult skin cells with embryonic stem cells in such a way that the genes of the embryonic cells reset the genetic clock of the adult cells, turning them back to their embryonic form. Such adult-cum-embryo cells, taken from people with juvenile diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other genetic diseases, could reveal how such…