Research from the University of Southern California (USC) has discovered a new mechanism to allow embryonic stem cells to divide indefinitely and remain undifferentiated. The study, which will be published in the May 22 issue of the journal Nature, also reveals how embryonic stem cell multiplication is regulated, which may be important in understanding how to control tumor cell growth.

Studies of how cancer cells spread have led to a surprising discovery about the creation of cells with adult stem cell characteristics, offering potentially major implications for regenerative medicine and for cancer treatment.

While it has long been known that embryonic stem cells have the ability to develop into any kind of tissue-specific cells, the exact mechanism as to how this occurs has heretofore not been demonstrated.

Association determines fate in embryonic stem cells, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers in a report that appears in the current issue of the journal Nature Cell Biology.

Stem cell researchers at UCLA were able to grow functioning cardiac cells using mouse skin cells that had been reprogrammed into cells with the same unlimited properties as embryonic stem cells.

Fully mature, differentiated B cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic-stem-cell-like state, without the use of an egg according to a study published in the April 18 issue of Cell.

Stem cell researchers from UCLA used a high resolution technique to examine the genome, or total DNA content, of a pair of human embryonic stem cell lines and found that while both lines could form neurons, the lines had differences in the numbers of certain genes that could control such things as individual traits and disease susceptibility.

A protein known as REST blocks the expression of a microRNA that prevents embryonic stem cells from reproducing themselves and causes them to differentiate into specific cell types, scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the journal Nature.

UC Irvine researchers have discovered a dramatically improved method for genetically manipulating human embryonic stem cells, making it easier for scientists to study and potentially treat thousands of disorders ranging from Huntington’s disease to muscular dystrophy and diabetes.

A new study demonstrates for the first time that embryonic stem cells can be used to create functional immune system blood cells, a finding which is an important step in the utilization of embryonic stem cells as an alternative source of cells for bone marrow transplantation.

According to a paper published in the journal Stem Cells, an American group has succeeded in inserting cell nuclei from human skin cells into human enucleated oocytes and to stimulate these new cells to undergo cell division in the laboratory.

While the object of cell transplantation is to improve ventricular function, cardiac cell transplantation has had limited success because of poor graft viability and low cell retention.