Adult Stem Cell Doc Blog

Cells isolated from the eye that many scientists believed were retinal stem cells are, in fact, normal adult cells, investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have found. If retinal stem cells could be obtained, they might provide the basis for treatments to restore sight to millions of people with blindness caused by retinal degeneration. Stem cells are immature cells capable of producing large numbers of adult cells, such as retinal cells.

A team of scientists from the Morgridge Institute for Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports that it has created induced human pluripotent stem (iPS) cells completely free of viral vectors and exotic genes. By reprogramming skin cells to an embryonic state using a plasmid rather than a virus to ferry reprogramming genes into adult cells, the Wisconsin group's work removes a key safety concern about the potential use of iPS cells in therapeutic settings.

Cardium Therapeutics (NYSE Amex: CXM) today reported on an NIH-funded, pre-clinical study conducted by independent researchers at the University of Cincinnati entitled