You'll find a brace of posts at the Scientist reporting on the Keystone meeting on stem cells held at the end of last month.

Stem cells: Ethics before science

Her conclusion? That stem cell scientists are not ethicists, but they have more knowledge about stem cell science, and therefore a duty to explain what they are doing to the general public.

Sending stem cells back in time

Scientists at the University of Central Florida have devised a creative way to obtain stem cells with embryonic properties -- by coaxing mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to return to their roots, and display embryonic qualities.

More reprogramming clues - maybe

One of the biggest holy grails in biology involves finding a means to generate pluripotent and infinitely replicating stem cells without generating an embryo. One Japanese team presented some potent clues last night at the Keystone conference on stem cell biology -- but stem cell researchers will need a few more bread crumbs before they can put this potentially exciting information to use.

Using the liver to make the pancreas

A series of experiments appeared to suggest that it might be possible to convert liver cells into pancreas cells using Pdx-1, which is essential for the formation of the pancreas. The researchers administered Pdx-1 to mice, and discovered little clusters in the liver that looked like beta cells, at which point they "got very excited," Slack said. However, they soon found similar clusters in the biliary system of untreated mice, which made things even more exciting -- it presented what they believe is the first evidence that mice may carry naturally-occurring beta cells outside of the pancreas.

Epi-embryonic stem cells?

Ursula Manuelpillai at the Monash Institute of Medical Research in Victoria, Australia presented a poster in which they detail the potential of human amniotic epithelial cells (HAECs) in the inner membrane that protects the fetus during pregnancy.

The researchers exposed HAECs to factors that nudge them to differentiate into cell types. Indeed, the cells displayed markers that suggest they differentiated into a variety of cells, such as astrocytes, neurons, hepatocytes, and pancreatic cells. "I'm not saying the cells are pluripotent, but they certainly have the markers of pluripotency," Manuelpillai told me.

Glimpses of stem cell medicine

In a study involving nearly 200 people blinded after burns depleted their stores of limbal stem cells, stem cell transplants corrected the vision of the majority of patients, even several years after the operation. Another man with epidermolysis bullosa (EB), a disease in which the slightest trauma causes major damage to the skin, received transplants of his own genetically corrected epidermal stem cells, and experienced major improvements in the areas that received the transplant.

...

Ronald McKay from the National Institutes of Health estimated that as early as within the next several months, researchers might obtain dopamine neurons from human embryonic stem cells -- a potentially major advance for people diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Interesting stuff, and good that the blogs were not put behind the great wall of paid registration when the gates closed once more.

Technorati tags: stem cell research, regenerative medicine

Posted by Reason at April 7, 2006 9:19 PM | TrackBack (1)