The Week: Most Recent stem-cells

The stem-cell breakthroughs that won the Nobel Prize: A guide

By The Week Staff — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 12:36:00 -0400

On Monday, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to two biologists for their breakthroughs in the field of stem-cell research — two discoveries that happened 44 years apart. The honors go to Britain's Sir John B. Gurdon and Japan's Shinya Yamanaka for their pioneering work with the life-shaping cells, which can be reprogrammed to create any kind of tissue in the body. Here, a concise guide to Gurdon and Yamanaka's contributions to the field of medicine:

What were they awarded the prize for?
Both discoveries "concern the manipulation of living cells," says Nicholas Wade at The New...

Repairing a broken heart... with skin

By The Week Staff — Fri, 25 May 2012 07:42:00 -0400

For the first time ever, scientists have successfully transformed ordinary skin tissue into cells for the beating heart, a procedure that could lead to promising new therapies for recovering heart attack victims. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 5.8 million Americans have suffered from heart failure, with an additional 670,000 diagnosed each year. Here, a concise guide to the breakthrough that has cardiologists buzzing:

How did researchers do it?
Scientists took skin cells from two older patients who had suffered from heart failure and, in a Petri dish, they genetically...

Treating heart attacks with stem cells: The 'biggest breakthrough' yet?

By The Week Staff — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:20:00 -0500

Here's one way to mend a broken heart: Researchers from the University of Louisville, Kentucky, used cardiac stem cells to repair the damaged heart muscles of patients who had experienced severe heart attacks. Some call the findings, which were published in the journal Lancet, the field's "biggest breakthrough in a generation." Here's what you should know:

Wait, this treatment helps after a heart attack?
It does. Usually, the recovery phase after a heart attack is dangerous because of the possibility of heart failure, says Britain's Telegraph. Heart failure — which is often linked with...

How safe is Peyton Manning's stem cell therapy?

By The Week Staff — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:06:00 -0400

Indianapolis Colts star quarterback Peyton Manning said over the summer that he would do "everything I can to get my health back," after a bulging disc in his neck benched him for the foreseeable future. Apparently, the future Hall of Famer really meant it. According to Fox's Jay Glazer, Manning flew to Europe on a private jet in early September for an experimental stem-cell treatment that's not approved in the U.S. Here's what you should know:

What did Manning have done to his neck?
Doctors "took some fat cells, probably out of his belly," put them in a culture, and injected them into Manning...

Could a Planet of the Apes-style revolt actually happen?

By The Week Staff — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 11:40:00 -0400

In the new movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes, scientists working on a cure for Alzheimer's disease fiddle with the brains of chimpanzees, inadvertently creating a new breed of ape with human-like intelligence — and very aggressive tendencies. Now, a real-life group of British scientists is warning that unregulated experimentation on animals could someday create just that kind of scenario, with equally disastrous consequences. Here's what you need to know:

What kind of research is being conducted now?
It's at a much simpler level than what's usually shown in sci-fi movies. For example...

Can stem cells cure baldness?

By The Week Staff — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 07:30:00 -0500

Scientists may have finally discovered a cure for baldness. Yes, snake oil salesmen have been offering spurious "guaranteed" hair-loss treatments for generations, but a professor in Germany, Roland Lauster, may have come up with a fool-proof method — using stem cells. Here, a brief guide:

How will this cure for baldness work?
Lauster, a scientist at Berlin Technical University, says he's been able to regrow hair follicles from stem cells — the body's multipurpose cells that can be grown into any tissue in the human body. Such cells may be implanted onto the scalp, say researchers, so...

Building a better human

By The Week Staff — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:50:00 -0400

How has technology affected human biology?
The transformation has just begun, but it has already produced startling results. Researchers, for example, have created the equivalent of an ink-jet “printer’’ that uses tubes of cells instead of an ink cartridge to create thin layers of human skin. In time, the technique will help burn victims heal using skin produced from their own cells. Researchers have “printed” a mouse heart, which momentarily beats on its own after receiving an electric shock. In labs around the world, scientists are progressing toward radical new medical...

Obama's stem-cell setback: What's next?

By The Week Staff — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 07:15:00 -0400

Federal judge Royce Lamberth surprised everyone by striking down President Obama's 2009 executive order expanding U.S. government financing for research on embryonic stem cells. Such funding, he ruled, violates the 1995 Dickey-Wicker Amendment against using federal money to destroy embryos. Obama vowed to appeal the ruling, but it immediately threw into doubt millions of dollars in federal funds and dozens of ongoing research projects. So what happens now? Here are six theories:

1. The ruling won't survive the appeal
Lamberth's ruling will be "difficult to square... with Supreme Court precedent...