Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found that mature, specialized cells naturally regress to serve as a kind of de facto stem cell during the fruit-fly life cycle. The surprising discovery counters the common belief that the ability to form new cell types or tissues wanes as a cell becomes more specialized. Harnessing this type of developmental backtracking in adult human cells would allow researchers to explore new avenues for treating many human diseases. The research is published online Aug. 1 in Science Express.

Harvard and Columbia scientists have for the first time used a new technique to transform an ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease) patient's skin cells into motor neurons, a process that may be used in the future to create tailor-made cells to treat the debilitating disease. The research - led by Kevin Eggan, Ph.D. of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Chief Scientific Officer of the New York Stem Cell Foundation - will be published July 31 in the online version of the journal Science .

Fat removed from the lower abdomen and inner thigh through liposuction was found to be an excellent source of stem cells, with higher stem cell concentrations than other areas of the body, reports a Brazilian-based study in August's Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery , the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). This is the first study of its kind to examine whether fat tissues from different areas of the body vary in stem cell concentration. In the study, 23 female patients having liposuction in at least four different body areas agreed to have their fat isolated for adult stem cells and analyzed to determine stem cell concentrations. The body areas that were liposuctioned were: lower abdomen, upper abdomen, inner knee, inner thigh, flank and hips. The study results found a significant difference in stem cell concentrations in different areas of the body. A major finding was that the concentration of stem cells was greatest in the lower abdomen and inner thighs. Interestingly, stem cell concentration in the lower abdomen was five times greater than in the upper abdomen.

Scientists at The University of Manchester are striving to discover how the body's natural sugars can be used to create stem cell treatments for heart disease and nerve damage - thanks to a £370,000 funding boost. All cells that make up the tissues of the body - such as skin, liver, brain and blood - are surrounded by a layer of sugars that coat the cells. These sugars help the cells to know what type of cell they are and to respond to the other cells which surround them and the chemical messages that pass between cells.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that the Notch protein helps human embryonic stem cells "decide" their own fate, a finding which may eventually be useful in programming cells for the development of stem cell therapies. Their results are reported in the May 2008 issue of Cell Stem Cell . Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) receive signals from neighboring cells instructing them either to grow more of themselves or become other cell types, including the three types that make up the developing embryo or type that becomes the placenta. Researchers are just beginning to understand the many signals involved in committing hESCs to different fates.

A researcher at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory has pinpointed stem cells within the spinal cord that, if persuaded to differentiate into more healing cells and fewer scarring cells following an injury, may lead to a new, non-surgical treatment for debilitating spinal-cord injuries. The work, reported in the July issue of the journal PLoS (Public Library of Science) Biology , is by Konstantinos Meletis, a postdoctoral fellow at the Picower Institute, and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Their results could lead to drugs that might restore some degree of mobility to the 30,000 people worldwide afflicted each year with spinal-cord injuries.

For the first time, researchers have successfully grown functional human blood vessels in mice using cells from adult human blood and bone marrow donors -- an important step in developing clinical strategies to grow tissue, researchers report in Circulation Research: Journal of the American Heart Association. This research could eventually lead to treatments for heart attack, acute injuries, wound healing and may facilitate growing new organs. The research could also enhance tissue engineering -- growing new organs for later implantation into patients, another medical research field that needs good sources of microvascularization to develop.

Children with sickle cell disease often face severe pain, organ damage, recurrent strokes and repeated, prolonged hospital stays. Although there are medical interventions that can lessen the symptoms, there is no cure. In an effort to change that, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine. in St. Louis are leading a nationwide, multicenter clinical trial to determine the effectiveness of transplanting blood stem cells from unrelated donors into children with severe sickle cell disease.

Kansas State University researchers are working on a method of delivering cancer drugs that promises to be more efficient and reduce the side effects. The researchers are using stem cells isolated from Wharton's jelly, the substance that cushions blood vessels in the umbilical cord. These types of stem cells can be harvested noninvasively and therefore are not controversial. Deryl Troyer, professor of anatomy and physiology at K-State's College of Veterinary Medicine, said the stem cells display a sort of homing ability in that they tend to travel to tumors and other pathological lesions. The researchers are using these stem cells as delivery systems by loading the cells with nanoparticles that contain anti-cancer drugs.

Researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center have demonstrated for the first time that transplanted muscle stem cells can both improve muscle function in animals with a form of muscular dystrophy and replenish the stem cell population for use in the repair of future muscle injuries. The study was designed to test the concept that skeletal muscle precursor cells could function as adult stem cells and that transplantation of these cells could both repair muscle tissue and regenerate the stem cell pool in a model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The research is published in the July 11 issue of Cell . The data from this new study demonstrate that regenerative muscle stem cells can be distinguished from other cells in the muscle by unique protein markers present on their surfaces. The authors used these markers to select stem cells from normal adult muscle and transferred the cells to diseased muscle of mice carrying a mutation in the same gene affected in human Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Scientists have identified about two dozen genes that control embryonic stem cell fate. The genes may either prod or restrain stem cells from drifting into a kind of limbo, they suspect. The limbo lies between the embryonic stage and fully differentiated, or specialized, cells, such as bone, muscle or fat. By knowing the genes and proteins that control a cell's progress toward the differentiated form, researchers may be able to accelerate the process - a potential boon for the use of stem cells in therapy or the study of some degenerative diseases, the scientists say. Their finding comes from the first large-scale search for genes crucial to embryonic stem cells. The research was carried out by a team at the University of California, San Francisco and is reported in a paper in the July 11, 2008 issue of Cell .

BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc., a leading developer of adult stem cell technologies and therapeutics, has completed a preclinical study in collaboration with the W.M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. The study conducted at the Keck Center was an effort to repair spinal cord injuries in animals through the transplantation of Brainstorm's neurotrophic factor (NTF) adult stem cells. The results showed a positive trend of the NTF cells in the male animals.

Cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins have a profound effect on an elite group of cells important to brain health as we age, scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have found. The new findings shed light on a long-debated potential role for statins in the area of dementia. Neuroscientists found that statins, one of the most widely prescribed classes of medication ever used, have an unexpected effect on brain cells. Researchers looked at the effects of statins on glial progenitor cells, which help the brain stay healthy by serving as a crucial reservoir of cells that the brain can customize depending on its needs. The team found that the compounds spur the cells, which are very similar to stem cells, to shed their flexibility and become one particular type of cell.

Researchers have shown that they can put mouse embryonic stem cells to work building the heart, potentially moving medical science a significant step closer to a new generation of heart disease treatments that use human stem cells. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report in Cell Stem Cell that the Mesp1 gene locks mouse embryonic stem cells into becoming heart parts and gets them moving to the area where the heart forms. Researchers are now testing if stem cells exposed to Mesp1 can help fix damaged mouse hearts.

In recent years, stem cell researchers have become very adept at manipulating the fate of adult stem cells cultured in the lab. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies achieved the same feat with adult neural stem cells still in place in the brain. They successfully coaxed mouse brain stem cells bound to join the neuronal network to differentiate into support cells instead. The discovery, which is published ahead of print on Nature Neuroscience 's website, not only attests to the versatility of neural stem cells but also opens up new directions for the treatment of neurological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, stroke and epilepsy that not only affect neuronal cells but also disrupt the functioning of glial support cells.