Tag Archives: embryonic

First clinical trial: Embryonic stem cells for spinal repair

News: Stem Cells    October 13, 2010
Normally clinical trials, especially Phase 1 clinical trials (the ‘do no harm’ test) are not considered particularly auspicious. Lots of drugs and procedures never make it through this first step. Nor is a Phase 1 trial normally the stuff of media coverage. A Phase 1 trial of embryonic stem cells is another matter. Just when [...]
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Stem Cells: Using RNA to reprogram adult cells

News: Stem Cells    October 11, 2010
To get around the problems of developing stem cells from embryonic material (problems mostly associated with ethical and religious considerations), biologists are researching a number of ways to produce stem cells from adult cells. Keep in mind that adult cells, for example skin or muscle cells, have already ‘set’ their form and function. Returning them [...]
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Induced stem cells: Not such good news…

News: Stem Cells    February 15, 2010
It’s one of the hazards of reading science journalism, most of the news is positive – this advance, that breakthrough, etc. It’s easy to get the impression that a particular science – in this case research that creates pluripotent stem cells from adult (non-embryonic) cells – is rushing headlong to great things. It might be, [...]
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Research finding: Possibly a new way to create stem cells

News: Stem Cells    January 9, 2010
Let’s describe this research backwards – from (potential) result to experiment. One of the most important areas of stem cell research involves how to make stem cells, bypassing the need for extracting and maintaining (controversial) embryonic stem cell lines. So far there have been two approaches. One way is to introduce adult cell nuclei into [...]
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