Epigenetics Mediates Immortality of Adult Stem CellsDecember 13, 2014What would you do to ensure your immortality? Drink a potion? Cast a spell? Or even set out on an expedition to find the fountain of youth? Researchers from the Adult Stem Cell Technology Centre in Boston, USA have discovered that adult stem cells in the mouse have another more intricate strategy towards living forever […]
Newly Evolved Ribozyme Is Proof-of-principle for the Origin of LifeDecember 13, 2014Life is complicated. While that does apply to ordering your daily caffeine fix at Starbucks, what we’re talking about here is darwinian, entropy-defying, self-replicating life. Just to store, read, and apply genetic information requires 3 different types of molecules: DNA, RNA, and proteins. That makes it tough to imagine how life could ooze into being in […]
Reprogramming to Pluripotency: Lessons from the EggDecember 8, 2014Have you ever wish you could just clone yourself? How much more work you’d be able to get done in a day! While creating an exact copy of yourself that knows everything you do is still very much in the realms of science fiction, cloning human cells is a reality. The first big leap came […]
T Cell Blockade Offers Safe Haven for Stem Cell TransplantsDecember 6, 2014As if human embryonic stem cells didn’t have enough trouble already making it through governmental legislation, they also face rejection from another source: the immune system. In their latest study, Herman Waldmann and his team of talented immunologists from the University of Oxford report a simple strategy to induce long-lasting immune tolerance to stem cell […]
Stem Cells Out of Position – A New Paradigm for Colorectal Cancer?December 5, 2014Colorectal cancer is, unfortunately, a common condition, making up 10% of global cancer cases. Therefore, a full understanding of the initiation and development of these tumor types should improve diagnosis and treatment decisions. A recent study from the University of Oxford has identified a potentially important mechanism of colorectal tumor formation that not only challenges current […]
