Obesity is on the rise worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 2 billion adults are currently overweight and 650 million of them have obesity. A study from the University of South Australia found that some types of obesity can lead to a reduction in the brain’s gray matter and investigated its association […]
Understanding how resistance to chemotherapy occurs could lead to better anticancer treatments. Persister cells in tumors can contribute to this resistance. Cancer can recur when a subset of tumor cells called persister cells survive chemotherapy. Most of these cells are non-dividing (quiescent) in the presence of therapeutic drugs, but a rare subpopulation can re-enter the […]
Malignant stem cells in the gut secrete factors that promote the differentiation of neighboring stem cells, thereby aiding the replacement of normal stem cells by those with cancer-promoting mutations. In recent years there has been growing recognition that the surrounding tissue environment affects the natural selection of these mutation-driven characteristics. The effects of interactions between […]
A stem cell drug was approved for market authorization for the first time in history. Prochymal (remestemcel-L) is also the first drug approved for the treatment of acute graft vs host disease (GvHD) in children. GvHD is a devastating complication of bone marrow transplantation that kills almost 80% of all affected children, many of which […]
A transplanted stem cell’s engagement with a pathologic niche is the first step in its restoration of homeostasis to that site. Inflammatory chemokines are constitutively produced in such a niche; their binding to receptors on the stem cells helps direct the cell’s pathotropism (attraction of drugs or in this case cells toward diseased structures). Neural […]
Researchers in the United Kingdom have confirmed that a stem cell transplant has cured a second person of HIV. In 2007, Timothy Ray Brown became the first person ever whom doctors declared to be cured of HIV. At the time, they referred to him as the Berlin patient. After his diagnosis in the 1990s, he […]
Adult stem cells reside in niches that maintain, regulate and protect them. Fresh light has now been shed on how the need for protection has driven changes in the locations of these niches during evolution. The type of cells that we have in a given tissue or system are tissue specific stem cells that have […]
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells that can be isolated from various adult tissues such as the bone marrow, umbilical cord, adipose, peripheral blood, liver and tooth root. MSCs bring new enthusiasm for regenerative medicine and immune disorder-related diseases because they are convenient to isolate, have strong self-renewal abilities and have multipotent differentiation abilities. […]
The oral cavity is colonized by billions of bacteria, fungi, and even viruses, now known as oral microbiomes. It is well known that the oral microbial community includes pathogenic bacteria and probiotics, and that the homeostasis of oral microbiomes plays a crucial role in maintaining the well being and healthy status of a human. There […]
Stem cells are currently believed as the next future in medicine, due to their considerable therapeutic and biotechnological benefits in treating significant diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases. Beside the use of stem cells in cell based therapies, stem cells applications are extended to the screening of new drugs and toxins and […]