Why Are Stem Cells So Hot?

April 1st, 2005 Most of the opposition to stem cells stem from the assumption that human embroys are required for stem cell production. However recent research indicates other viable sources (like placenta) of stem cells.

March 25th, 2006 According to latest news flash scientists have found mice testicles can yield embryonic stem cell like cells. A team in Germany has successfully grown mouse ESC-like cells from spermatagonial stem cells which normally turn into sperm.

August 24th, 2005 A new type of cell discovered in umbilical-cord blood promises to overcome the ethical and legal dilemmas surrounding the use of embryonic stem cells. International researchers who discovered the cells - called cord-blood-derived-embryonic-like stem cells, or CBEs - have found a way to mass produce them.

April 1st, 2005 The biocavity laser can show scientists the inner workings of a single cell. Paul Gourley and his colleagues at Sandia proved the laser could do that by studying cancer cells.

August 25th, 2005 Executive Summary: There aren’t any. The first potential alternative is a promising breakthrough in the biotech world of stem cell research with the news that Harvard scientists reported taking skincells to generate embryonic stem cells.

April 14th, 2005 While the rest of the world is cautiously experimenting with stem cell therapy, Russian clinics and beauty salons have claimed that they are already using both adult and embryonic stem cells to treat everything from wrinkles to Parkinson's disease to impotence. Scientists warn that while stem cells are still being researched in laboratories, treatment by clinics claiming to use stem cells may cost patients their health and fortunes.

August 24th, 2005 A Korean husband-and-wife scientist team has made headway in adult stem cell research by discovering a gene in charge of differentiating the parent cells in human bodies. “Up until now, researchers have dug up many factors involved in the differentiation of adult stem cells.

March 16th, 2005 A report on Viacell Inc. approach to cure diabetes.

July 13th, 2005 Implanted Fetal Stem Cells Survive 16 Months and Multiply 10 Times as Fast as Adult Stem Cells Young Lives gets fighting chance with Umbilical Cord Blood Transplants Cord Blood may become Key Source of Stem Cells Illinois Stem Cell Research gets $10 million India’s Apollo to set up Stem Cell Therapy Centres World Stem Cell Map Stem Cell Therapy For Spinal Injury

April 13th, 2005 News-Medical-Net reports In an Australian first, UNSW researchers have developed three clones of cells from existing human embryonic stem cells. The breakthrough could lead to new treatments for conditions such as diabetes, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury.

November 8th, 2007 Now this is something for religious bigots, who oppose embryonic stem cell research on ethical grounds (logically unsustainable but when have bigots listened to logic?), to chew upon. Latest research on cancer indicates that the dominant mechanism of cancer cells is to behave like early embryonic stem cells.

March 23rd, 2005 "Positron Emission Tomography is being installed at AIIMS next month, through which we will get the final proof of our work on heart patients. All the patients would be screened for finding how viable our work was and would also study various heart tissues of the patients metabolically," Dr P Venugopal, director AIIMS, said.  "We also plan to inject stem cells directly into the pancreatic arteries of patients suffering from diabetes," he says.

July 21st, 2006 Dr. Charles Hux, MD, high risk Ob/Gyn and a geneticist, commented on the stem cell veto by US President Mr. Bush and the impact of stem cell research.

May 20th, 2005 Korean Scientists lead by Woo Suk Hwang and Shing Yong Moon of Seoul National University in Korea have successfully generated new lines of human embryonic stem cells that are exact genetic matches for individual patients, according to a new study. The researchers derived stem cells from patients with spinal cord injury, a congenital immune disorder and juvenile diabetes.

April 27th, 2005 Stanford scientists (Yuichi Hori1, Xueying Gu, Xiaodong Xie, Seung K. Kim) were able to transform "brain-derived human neural progenitor cells" (read stem cells from brain) to glucose responsive insulin producing cells after subjecting them to signals that regulate islet development.