Scientists at The University of Manchester are striving to discover how the body's natural sugars can be used to create stem cell treatments for heart disease and nerve damage – thanks to a £370,000 funding boost.

The extraordinary results of an in utero stem cell treatment could lead to a new treatment for babies with brittle bones, as well as a range of other disabling conditions, according to a maternal-fetal medicine researcher, now based at The University of Queensland (UQ).

A man from the Sunshine Coast, in south-east Queensland, who was paralysed in a motorcycle accident almost two years ago, hopes to walk again after receiving a controversial stem cell treatment in India.

Rats paralyzed due to loss of blood flow to the spine returned to near normal ambulatory function six weeks after receiving grafts of human spinal stem cells (hSSCs), researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine report. The study, led by Martin Marsala, M.D., UC San Diego professor of anesthesiology, is published in the June 29, 2007 issue of the journal Neuroscience, which is now online.