(University of Louisville) At the time when Dr. Roberto Bolli received word that he was awarded a $12.8 million grant renewal from the National Institutes of Health for one research project, five patients in another of his clinical trials have reached the successful endpoint of their participation.

(University of California – Los Angeles Health Sciences) Stem cell researchers at UCLA have uncovered for the first time why adult human cardiac myocytes have lost their ability to proliferate, perhaps explaining why the human heart has little regenerative capacity.

(American Institute of Physics) By extending his pioneering acoustical work that applied sound waves to generate droplets from fluids, Dr. Utkan Demirci and his team at Harvard Medical School’s (Brigham and Women’s Hospital) Bio-Acoustic Mems in Medicine Laboratory report encouraging preliminary results at an early and crucial point in a stem cell’s career known as embroid body formation. Their research results appear in the journal Biomicrofluids, published by the American Institute of Physics.

(University of California – San Diego) An international team of scientists led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have used induced pluripotent stem cells derived from patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to reveal for the first time how reduced levels of a specific protein may play a central role in causing at least one inherited form of the disease.

(University of Western Ontario) The University of Western Ontario is pleased to announce this year’s recipient of the J. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine is Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch, a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Robarts Research Institute at Western’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, has been awarding this prestigious international prize to leading scientists since 1985.

(Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres) Researchers of the Max Delbrück Center have discovered what enables embryonic stem cells to differentiate into diverse cell types and thus to be pluripotent. This pluripotency depends on a molecule — E-cadherin — hitherto primarily known for its role in mediating cell-cell adhesion. If E-cadherin is absent, the stem cells lose their pluripotency. The molecule also plays a crucial role in the reprogramming of body cells into pluripotent stem cells.

An innovative experimental treatment for boosting the effectiveness of blood stem-cell transplants with umbilical cord blood has a favorable safety profile in long-term studies. The initial testing made use of zebrafish models. File photo by Justin Ide/Harvard Staff Photographer

An innovative experimental treatment for boosting the effectiveness of blood stem-cell transplants with umbilical cord blood has a favorable safety profile in long-term animal studies, according to Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), and Children’s Hospital Boston (CHB).

Analysis of long-term safety testing in nonhuman primates, published online by the journal Cell Stem Cell in a new section called “Clinical Progress,” revealed that a year following transplant umbilical cord blood units treated with a signaling molecule called 16,16-dimethyl PGE2 reconstituted all the normal types of blood cells, and none of the animals receiving treated cord blood units developed cancer. Wolfram Goessling is the first author of the paper; his HSCI colleague Trista North is the senior author.

The results of long-term safety studies in mice were previously submitted to the Food and Drug Administration to gain permission for a Phase I clinical trial under an investigational new drug (IND) application. Principal investigator Corey Cutler, a Dana-Farber transplant specialist, initiated the trial in 2009 at Dana-Farber and Massachusetts General Hospital. The IND is sponsored by Fate Therapeutics Inc. of San Diego.

Goessling and North were postdoctoral fellows in the laboratory of co-author Leonard Zon, a stem cell researcher at CHB and a scientific founder of Fate Therapeutics, when they hit upon 16,16-dimethyl PGE2 while looking for compounds that could regulate the production of hematopoietic stem cells (blood stem cells). The initial testing made use of zebrafish models.

“This is the first time a compound discovered in zebrafish has received a nod from the FDA for a clinical trial,” said Goessling.

One of the limitations of cord blood as a transplant source is that the cells engraft, or “take,” in the recipient’s bone marrow more slowly than matched donor cells form bone marrow. In addition, there is a higher failure rate for cord blood transplants. Thus there is a need for ways to improve the speed and quality of cord blood transplantation.

The research was supported by funding from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, the National Institutes of Health, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Researchers from Biotech Research & Innovation Centre (BRIC) at University of Copenhagen have now identified a gene-family that is essential for regulating the differentiation potential of stem cells and normal development. The results are published in the current issue of Cell.

How stem cells work

All living organisms, including human beings, consist of a number of specialised cell types that all originate from the same type of primal cell; the embryonic stem cell. Stem cells can develop into any type of cell through a carefully regulated process referred to as cellular differentiation. During differentiation, specific genes are switched on while other genes are switched off. The genes that are activated during differentiation determine which type of cell the stem cell will become. The result is that cells in a particular organ, e.g. a liver, only express genes specific to that organ.

What the research showed

Director of BRIC, Professor Kristian Helin led the research team consisting of Jesper Christensen, Karl Agger and Paul Cloos. Last year, the same research group published an article in Nature on how a group of Jumonji proteins regulate the growth of cancer cells and are involved in the development of specific cancer types.

BRIC’s new results show that a different subgroup of Jumonji proteins is essential for cellular differentiation. The Jumonji enzymes can turn off, or inactivate, particular genes that play an important part in embryogenesis. The conclusions are based on studies of the nematode (roundworm) C. elegans and studies of mouse embryonic stem cells. The C. elegans studies were carried out in collaboration with another of BRIC’s research groups, led by Associate Professor Lisa Salcini.

How can the results be used?

The BRIC researchers are currently developing inhibitors to the Jumonji proteins. Their aim is to use these inhibitors to treat cancer patients with increased levels of the Jumonji proteins.

Contact: Professor Kristian Helin, phone: +45 35 32 56 66 / e-mail: kristian.helin @ bric.dk