Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cells Technologies

UCLA scientists have developed a new strategy to efficiently isolate, mature and transplant skeletal muscle cells created from human pluripotent stem cells, which can produce all cell types of the body. The findings are a major step towards developing a stem cell replacement therapy for muscle diseases including Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which affects approximately 1 in 5,000 boys in the U.S. and is the most common fatal childhood genetic disease.

For the more than 1 million Americans who live with type 1 diabetes, daily insulin injections are literally a matter of life and death. And while there is no cure, a Cornell-led research team has developed a device that could revolutionize management of the disease.

By combining engineered polymeric materials known as hydrogels with complex intestinal tissue known as organoids – made from human pluripotent stem cells – researchers have taken an important step toward creating a new technology for controlling the growth of these organoids and using them for treating wounds in the gut that can be caused by disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Atelerix, a spin-out from Newcastle University, is offering the transformative hydrogel technology for the storage and transport of viable cells including stem cells and cell-based assays at ambient temperatures. This overcomes the barriers presented by the current need for cryo-shipping as it is simple, cell-friendly and offers immediate access to stem cell therapy.

Chemotherapy has a lot of terrible side effects and thats partly because the drugs being used to fight cancer also attack healthy cells. Figuring out a way to deliver drugs to tumors without affecting healthy tissue is a challenge and a problem that researchers are trying to solve.

Bioengineers from the University of California, San Fransisco (UCSF) have figured out how to create bowls, coils, and ripples out of actual, living tissue. The researchers manipulated active cells from both mice and humans into folding themselves in ways that occur during natural development.

Despite a warning from the federal government about do-it-yourself gene therapy, two companies say they’ll continue offering DNA-altering materials to the public.

Every life-saving therapy or advance in medicine begins with a scientist posing a simple question, “I wonder if…?” Today the governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) invested more than $16.4 million to help researchers find answers to questions that could one day lead to new therapies for leukemia, respiratory problems, and a devastating skin disease that affects children.

What will be the big developments in the stem cell and regenerative medicine field in 2018? Below are the top 20 predictions in no particular order. As usual, there is a combination of science and news/policy predictions.

Early evidence suggests that gene therapy developed at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital will lead to broad protection for infants with the devastating immune disorder X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency