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Scientists steer the development of stem cells to regenerate and repair organs
2024-12-20 - 2024-12
Investigators from Cedars-Sinai and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have identified a new way to deliver instructions that tell stem cells to grow into specific bodily structures, a critical step in eventually regenerating and repairing tissues and organs.
The scientists engineered cells that form structures called "synthetic organizers." These organizers provided instructions to the stem cells through biochemical signals called morphogens, which stimulated and enabled the stem cells to grow into specific complex tissues and organ-like assemblies.
The research was conducted with mouse embryonic stem cells, and the findings were published in Cell.
"We can use these synthetic organizers to push the stem cells toward making different parts of the early embryo or toward making a heart or other organs," said Ophir Klein, MD, Ph.D., co-corresponding author of the study, executive vice dean of Children's Health and executive director of Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children's.
In one instance, scientists were able to induce the stem cells to begin to form a mouse body that stretched from head to tail, similar to regular embryonic development in the womb. In another instance, the scientists were able to spur the stem cells to generate a large heart-like structure complete with a central chamber and a regular beat, along with a network of early blood vessels.
"This type of synthetic organizer cell platform provides a new way to interface with stem cells and to program what they develop into," said Wendell Lim, Ph.D., co-corresponding author and professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at UCSF.
"By controlling and reshaping how stem cells differentiate and develop, it might allow us to grow better organs for transplantation or organoids for disease modeling and eventually utilize it to drive tissue regeneration in living patients."
To steer organizer cells and control stem cell development, the scientists uploaded genetic codes into the cells and engineered two key features in the cells.
First, they instructed the cells to stick to the stem cells in the form of a node or a shell clustering around the clump of stem cells. Second, the investigators engineered the organizer cells to produce specific biochemical signals crucial to inducing early embryonic development.
To effectively and precisely control the organizer cells, researchers developed a chemical switch within the cells, allowing scientists to turn the delivery of instructions to stem cells on or off. Additionally, they installed a "suicide" switch to eliminate the organizer cells when needed.
"These synthetic organizers show that we can provide more refined developmental instructions to stem cells by engineering where and when specific morphogen signals are provided," Lim said. "The organizer cells carry both spatial information and biochemical information, thus giving us an incredible amount of control that we have not had before."
Stem cells head to the clinic: treatments for cancer, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease could soon be here
2024-12-20 - 2024-12
The study is one of more than 100 clinical trials exploring the potential of stem cells to replace or supplement tissues in debilitating or life-threatening diseases, including cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, heart failure and some eye diseases. It’s a different approach from the unapproved therapies peddled by many shady clinics, which use types of stem cell that do not turn into new tissue.
All the trials are small and focus mainly on safety. And there are still substantial challenges, including defining which cells will be most fit for which purposes and working out how to bypass the need for immunosuppressant drugs that stop the body from rejecting the cells but increase the risk of infections.
Still, the flurry of clinical studies marks a turning point for stem-cell therapies. Following decades of intense research that has at times triggered ethical and political controversy, the safety and potential of stem cells for tissue regeneration is now being widely tested. “The rate of progress has been remarkable,” says stem-cell specialist Martin Pera at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. “It’s just 26 years since we first learnt to culture human stem cells in flasks.”
Researchers expect some stem-cell therapies to enter the clinic soon. Treatments for some conditions, they say, could become part of general medicine in five to ten years.
Finding a source
Cassy’s symptoms began with a small, persistent tremor in his fingers when he was just 44. The characteristic motor symptoms of Parkinson’s are driven by the degeneration of dopamine-producing neurons called A9 cells in the brain’s substantia nigra. Drugs that replace the missing dopamine are effective, but have side effects including uncontrolled movements and impulsive behaviors. And as the disease progresses, the drugs’ efficacy wanes and the side effects worsen.
The idea of replacing the degenerated dopaminergic cells has a long history. During development, pluripotent ES cells, which have the potential to become many cell types, turn into the specialized cells of the brain, heart, lungs and so on. Theoretically, transplanted stem cells could repair any damaged tissue.
Parkinson’s lent itself to testing that theory. The first transplant of such cells took place in Sweden in 1987 using neurons from the developing brains of fetuses from terminated pregnancies, the only source of immature, or progenitor, neural cells at the time. Since then, more than 400 people with Parkinson’s have received such a transplant — with mixed results. Many people saw no benefit at all, or had debilitating side effects. But others improved so much that they no longer needed to take dopaminergic drugs.
Black Group Investment Partners with Zenzic Oasis to Advance Stem Cell Therapy for Personalised Medicine
2024-12-27 - 2024-12
Black Group Investment Partners with Zenzic Oasis to Advance Stem Cell Therapy for Personalised Medicine
SINGAPORE - Media Outreach Newswire - 27 December 2024 - Black Group Investment Holding Pte Ltd (Black Group) and Zenzic Oasis Holding Pte Ltd (Zenzic Oasis) today announced that they have signed an investment and strategic partnership agreement with the goal of expanding the use of cell-based therapeutic solutions, including personalised treatments.
Under the terms of the agreement, Black Group Investment Holding will invest in the commercialisation of Zenzic Oasis’ stem cell technologies, including induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Dr. Lim Kah Meng, the founder of Zenzic Oasis, is widely recognised for his breakthrough research on placental stem cells, which has led to the development of highly sought-after commercial products in the field of regenerative medicine. The partnership will further advance the commercialisation of these stem cell therapies by leveraging Black Group’s regional distribution networks and hospitality expertise.
Both companies will work together to bring these innovative stem cell-based products to regional markets, with a focus on personalised treatments.
Black Group will oversee the scaling, manufacturing, and distribution of stem cell therapies, ensuring accessibility and quality control of the products through a broadly accessible channel. “We are excited to partner with Black Group to accelerate the commercialisation of our stem cell-based innovations,“ said Dr. Lim Kah Meng. “This partnership will allow us to bring life-changing therapies (via clinical or validation trials) or wellness solutions to patients suffering from some of the most challenging medical conditions, and improving lives through personalised medicine.”
Black Group Investment Partners with Zenzic Oasis to Advance Stem Cell Therapy for Personalised Medicine
'It was so easy to give people more years of life'
2024-12-28 - 2024-12
A man has given his stem cells twice in the space of a decade to help save the lives of two people.Brad Green, from Sheffield, was inspired to sign the Anthony Nolan stem cell register at the age of 20 after a school friend's dad was diagnosed with leukaemia.
Mr Green said he did not expect being called to donate just two weeks later and was even more surprised when he was told he was a match for a second person earlier this year.
He is now one of 0.7% of donors to have given his stem cells twice.
Speaking of his first experience, Mr Green, now 31, said he remembered thinking: "God, how easy was that?""Because it's anonymous and because you don't really see the impact it's having first hand, you're sitting there thinking, 'well, I've done my bit, now I can go home'," the father-of-one said.
"But actually, at that point, it's that patient's start of his journey to recovery."
Mr Green initially did not know who had received his stem cells but later learned the patient was John Herries, who had been diagnosed with an aggressive type of blood cancer.
The pair eventually went on to meet and to this day keep in touch via email.Mr Herries, who is 59 and a beach lifeguard from north Devon, said: "It was a real pleasure to meet Brad and his parents."We're genetic twins so it was interesting to see if we looked the same – we didn't."The Anthony Nolan charity supports people with blood cancer and blood disorders. The register was established in 1974.Earlier this year, nearly a decade after his first donation, Mr Green received another call from the charity telling him he was a match for a second person.
Donors in the UK can only give stem cells twice to two different patients, though Mr Green said if he could, he would continue to donate."For me, it was just so easy for what you're actually getting in return, which is potentially giving somebody a load more years of life with family and friends," he said."I can't do it a third time, but I would do it three, four, five times over if it was possible."Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.
Indian American Doctors Organisation Spearheads Stem Cell Registration Drive
2024-12-30 - 2024-12
He American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), a non-profit organization that represents over 35,000 Indian American physicians, has started an initiative for bone marrow and stem cell registration across the US. AAPI has partnered with America’s National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) to increase the Indian donor pool.
“Patients with leukaemia and lymphoma need bone marrow or blood stem cell transplant to survive. Finding matching donors for cancer patients are difficult, especially for those of Indian and South Asian ethnicity. This drive, in which dozens of local AAPI chapter leaders, members and volunteers across the US have participated, is to increase the limited pool of donors and create awareness among more youth and adults to enrol,” Dr Satheesh Kathula, an oncologist based in Dayton, Ohio and the president of AAPI for the 2024-2025 term, told the Times of India.
“In the US, about 25% of the doctors are immigrants and of that number the majority are Indian Americans. Indian American physicians hold key positions not just in healthcare but also in research, academia and administration. Many serve in critical positions in underserved areas,” Dr Kathula, who has is a recipient of the US Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award for 2023-2024, said.
Started over four decades back, to fight discrimination against foreign doctors, in granting licences, by some US states, AAPI has emerged a prominent professional organisation working as a social, educational, political and advocacy platform for Indian American doctors, Dr Kathula said. The AAPI Young Physicians section and AAPI Medical Students, Residents and Fellows section are focussed on Indian American medical and dental students, residents and fellows, and physicians-in-training. “We support and encourage the younger generation of Indian American doctors in many ways including communication, legislation, collaboration and education. Addressing the increasing shortage of physicians, we are trying to increase recruitment and encouraging more younger generation members to join our organisation. We provide opportunities for students, including those coming from India, to present research papers and have also been advocating for legislative reforms to ease the residency pathway for international medical graduates,” Dr Kathula said.
While AAPI is committed to promoting medical education and supporting young physicians’ knowledge base through continuing medical education, enhancing their careers, and empowering them to play a key role in healthcare advocacy and community service; the organisation also plays an important role in providing a channel between US law makers and its members. “AAPI advocates for policies that expedite green card processes for doctors on H1 visas,” Dr Kathula said.
He was at the helm in conceptualising and organising the AAPI Global Healthcare Summit in New Delhi last October and feels that the topics that were covered, including prevention strategies f
Stem Cell Donation: Woman's emotion at making 'one-in-800' match
2025-01-01 - 2025-01
When Kilkeel woman Alana Campbell signed up to become a potential stem cell donor she knew the odds of being matched with someone in need were against her.But after her nephew Robin was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder almost 15 years ago and needed a life saving stem cell transplant, she felt she had to do something.Remarkably, within six months of registering, she was informed she was a "perfect match" for a woman in France.
"I have to say I actually cried. I try not to cry now," she said.
Robin's parents feel very lucky they were able to find a stem cell donor for him when he was three years old and incredibly sick.No-one in the family was a match but they were able to find one a bit further afield."It was an Italian donor, that's all we know. We don't know anything more," said Robin's dad Geoffrey Calvert."We would love to know who he was or anything like that."
But regardless of who he was, they know if he hadn't signed up to be a donor Robin might not be around today. Currently the odds of becoming a match for someone who needs a stem cell donation is about one-in-800.
Michael Gallagher, from the Blood Cancer Charity DKMS, said it needed more people to register as donors to give others a higher chance of survival."Back in 2019, we saw close to 100,000 people register with us and now we're getting half of that," she said.He said each year there were hundreds of people across the UK who were told there was no match for them. Now that Alana has seen stem cell donation from both sides she is passionate about getting others to sign up.She remembers the day she made her donation and there was someone waiting "with one of those little suitcases you take on the plane".She said it was like something out of a film.All she ever knew was that the woman she helped was in her 50s and very ill.She got a phone call the following year telling her she was still alive."It was a very emotional journey. I would do it again tomorrow," she said.
Scientists Have Grown a Human Spine in a Lab
2025-01-03 - 2025-01
Scientists have officially grown a notochord—the tissues that act as the “GPS for the developing embryo” by guiding the formation of the spine and nervous system. Previous attempts to create a notochord from human stem cells have failed because scientists didn’t have a firm grasp on the ideal timing of the introduction of certain biological “ingredients” to spur growth. Now that they have grown a notochord—albeit a simple one—the researchers hope this lab-grown spinal tissue will give us insights into spine-related birth defects and other intervertebral discs (the cushy tissue that lies between our vertebrae).When people say “grow a backbone,” they usually don’t mean it literally. But scientists at The Francis Crick Institute in London recently took the challenge to heart and successfully developed human stem cells models with notochord tissue. During the development of an embryo, this rod-like tissue acts as a kind of crucial scaffold, and helps dictate where cells should build out the spine and nervous system.
This is the first stem cell model to contain a notochord, which is a big deal, considering their central role in early embryonic development. The results of the study were published earlier this week in the journal The notochord acts like a GPS for the developing embryo, helping to establish the body’s main axis and guiding the formation of the spine and nervous system,” James Briscoe, senior author of the study, said in a press statement. “Until now, it’s been difficult to generate this vital tissue in the lab, limiting our ability to study human development and disorders.” In order to create this human notochord, the scientists had to rely on some help from our fellow vertebrate friends. First, they analysed chicken embryos, and compared them to mice and monkeys—animals closer to our particular branch on the tree of life. With this information, the researchers could develop the timing and sequence of molecular signals needed to create a stem cell model with notochord tissue. Because this is a stem cell model rather than a full-blown embryo, the cells (according to the researchers) create a “trunk-like structure” that extends 1 to 2 millimetres in length. Although not the most substantial of spines, this minuscule structure crucially contained all of the neural tissues and bone stem cells correctly arranged in a pattern just like those found in human embryos.
1st stem cell therapy, new HIV drug approved
2025-01-04 - 2025-01
China's top drug regulator has recently approved the nation's first stem cell therapy to treat a type of complication associated with bone marrow transplant, as well as a novel HIV drug that only requires two shots yearly.The National Medical Products Administration said on Thursday that it granted conditional approval to an injection from the domestic drugmaker Platinum Life to treat patients aged 14 and above who suffer a rare disease called acute graft-versus-host disease and do not respond to regular steroid therapy.
Acute graft-versus-host disease, or aGVHD, typically hits patients who have just undergone a stem cell transplant due to severe blood condition. The disease is one of the primary reasons for death following transplantation.The homegrown therapy is the first mesenchymal stromal cell treatment that has gained the green light on the Chinese mainland. The approval was issued through an accelerated market registration track designed for novel or urgently needed medicines.Stem cell therapy utilizes the differentiation and self-renewal capacity of stem cells to repair tissues and treat diseases. It represents a booming research field being studied worldwide to treat a variety of illnesses, including diabetes, Parkinson's disease and cancer.
In China, the nation's first drug manufacturing license for stem cell treatment was issued in late May by the Beijing Municipal Medical Products Administration to Platinum Life.Chen Jiekai, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, said that the issue of the license constitutes a key step toward clinical applications of stem cell treatment and signals the establishment of a complete supervision procedure for this kind of novel therapy.During an academic conference held in Guangzhou, Guangdong province in early December, he said that there are hundreds of clinical research projects on stem cell treatment across the nation and a total of 141 hospitals have registered with a national medical research platform in preparation for carrying out stem cell clinical studies, local media reported.Also on Thursday, China approved lenacapavir, a long-acting HIV drug made by global biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, according to the administration and the company.The treatment is approved to treat HIV patients who have multidrug resistance and cannot have their viral load effectively suppressed under available drug regimens.It was first approved in Europe and the United States in 2022 and research is underway to test its potential in preventing infection
Applications of artificial intelligence in regenerative dentistry: promoting stem cell therapy and the scaffold development
2025-01-05 - 2025-01
Tissue repair represents a critical concern within the domain of dentistry. On a daily basis, countless individuals seek dental clinic services due to inadequate dental care. Many of the treatments that patients receive have unfavorable side effects. The employment of innovative methodologies, including gene therapy, tissue engineering, and stem cell (SCs) applications for regenerative purposes, has garnered significant interest over the past years. In recent times, artificial intelligence, particularly neural networks, has emerged as a topic of considerable attention among many medical professionals. Artificial intelligence possesses the capability to analyze data patterns through learning algorithms. Research opportunities in the rapidly expanding field of health sciences have been made possible by the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Though its uses are not restricted to these situations, artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve and accelerate many aspects of regenerative medicine research and development, especially when working with complicated patterns. This review article is to investigate how artificial intelligence might be used to enhance regenerative processes in dentistry by using scaffolds and stem cells, in light of the continuous advances in artificial intelligence in the fields of medicine and tissue regeneration. It highlights the difficulties that still exist in this developing sector and explores the possible uses of AI with a particular emphasis on dentistry practices.
Introduction:
Recently, AI has grown in a number of ways thanks to developments in needs of computer hardware, software, and algorithms. Artificial intelligence is a field of computer science that lets machines work and solve problems in the same way as people do. Due to the feasibility of mimicking cognitive functions and tidning error experiences for performance enhancement; this technology has risen in popularity in the medical and dental sectors (Bays et al., 2023; Nelson et al., 2020). Advancements in other subsections of AI like machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), and natural language processing (NLP) have enhanced the possible uses of AI in delivering efficient diagnostic, therapeutic and regenerative medicine solutions (Lauriola et al., 2022). ML being a subcategory of AI uses coded data and comes up with improved patterns out of the results it produces by learning from the mistakes it makes through iterative changes (Alam, 2021; Kaul et al., 2020). A subcategory of ML, deep learning applies artificial neural networks based on human cortical ones, including their connections and functions as carries and processors of information (Liu et al., 2020; Qayyum et al., 2020). DL uses artificial neural networks, which are based on the structure of neurons, and data processing occurs in layers, working with data in numeric form to conduct analyses on large and various datasets. This makes it possible for DL algorithms to
India needs stem cell donor registry
2025-01-07 - 2025-01
Childhood cancer remains a significant global health challenge, with over three lakh new cases reported annually. India contributes more than 50,000 of these cases, placing it among the countries with the highest burden. Leukaemia, the most common childhood cancer in India, accounts for about 30% of cases.
Adding to this burden is thalassemia, which impacts approximately 10% of global cases. These diseases, along with other conditions like sickle cell disease, bone marrow failure, primary immune deficiency disorders, and rare metabolic disorders represent a burden of diseases that require advanced treatment options.Over the years, medical advancements have introduced transformative therapies, and one of the most impactful among them is stem cell therapy.
Stem cell therapy, also known as bone marrow transplantation (BMT), offers a life-saving treatment option. This procedure replaces diseased or damaged cells with healthy stem cells, restoring the body’s ability to produce blood cells. With survival rates exceeding 90% for transplants performed using fully matched sibling donors, BMT stands as one of the most effective cures available. However, the success of stem cell transplants depends on finding compatible donors, which is a significant challenge.
Challenges
India requires approximately one lakh transplants annually, yet only around 2,000 are performed due to the limited availability of compatible donors. One of the primary challenges contributing to this shortage is the low number of registered donors. India has only six lakh registered donors, and the chances of finding a match are low. Only 30% of patients find donors within their families, leaving the rest reliant on unrelated donors from registries, a resource India severely needs to improve.
Automated iPS cell production to start in Japan in April
2025-01-08 - 2025-01
KYOTO –
Following its success in automating the process of creating induced pluripotent stem cells, Kyoto University's CiRA Foundation will start producing iPS cells from patients' own cells utilizing the automated culture system in April.
Under a project aimed at making iPS cells — which theoretically can develop into almost all organs — widely available for regenerative medicine by drastically reducing the production cost, the foundation has successfully created the stem cells in a month using a German-made immune cell production apparatus in which a healthy person's blood, reagents and specific genes were mixed.
From April, the foundation will automatically make autologous iPS cells and turn them into, among others, heart muscle and nerve cells at a new facility in the city of Osaka. The iPS cell-derived cells will be frozen with liquid nitrogen and stored for later safety and efficacy studies.
Immune rejection-free cell transplantation therapies are made possible by the use of autologous iPS cells, which the foundation calls "my iPS cells." But it takes about six months and costs some ¥50 million ($316,000) to manually create iPS cells from a patient's own cells and differentiate them into a specific cell type to treat the patient's disease.
For the time being, the new facility, Uehiro Laboratory for my iPS Cell Research, will be equipped with four units of the German system and produce enough cells for 20 people a year.
But it plans to have 200 units of automated production equipment in total in a decade by developing Japanese-made systems jointly with Canon and Panasonic so it can expand the cell supply capacity to 1,000 people while cutting the production cost to ¥1 million per patient.
"We hope to increase treatment options by making rejection-free autologous cell therapies available to many patients," said Masayoshi Tsukahara, the foundation's research and development chief.
Adam Devine is putting his health first — from trying stem cell treatments to shedding 30 pounds
2025-01-09 - 2025-01
From starring in the Pitch Perfect franchise to entertaining audiences as a stand-up comedian, Adam Devine is a pro at making people laugh. But fans of the funnyman might not realize that Devine has battled health challenges stemming from a terrifying childhood accident in which he was struck by a cement truck. These struggles came to a head about three years ago.
“I just started having all kinds of pain and weird spasms, and at one point, the doctors told me that I had stiff-person syndrome,” the Workaholics star tells Yahoo Life. “So, I thought I was dying right before my son was born, and [later] I found out I don't have stiff-person syndrome, and they couldn't figure it out, and they finally just landed on 'your childhood accident has finally caught up to you.'”
Now, Devine is laser-focused on his well-being, going to physical therapy three times a week and undergoing bodywork — which can include acupuncture treatments and chiropractic therapy — twice a week in addition to “stretching all day long.” He's even traveled to Medellin, Colombia, for stem cell therapy. Along the way, he's learned a lot about what it means to put your health first. Here's what we can learn from him.
Be willing to go the distance for your health
Devine says his pain got so bad for a while that he could hardly walk or stand. “I was on a trip to New York about this time last year for my podcast, This Is Important," he recalls. “We went on a podcast tour, and my guys, Blake [Anderson], Anders [Holm] and Kyle [Newacheck] from Workaholics were like, ‘Let's walk here.’ And I tried, and I walked a block, and I'm like, ‘I'm gonna catch a cab.’ And it was only three blocks away. So I caught a cab, and the cab driver was like, ‘No, what are you doing? Just walk.’ And I'm like, ‘I can't, man.That's a moment Devine can’t help but think of when he explains why he made the trip to South America to undergo stem cell therapy to treat his pain. “I had a few friends that have done it, and I had my doctors look into it, because I didn't know anything about stem cells,” says the actor. “They were like, ‘On the record, we don't do that here in the States. I can't say that you should do it, but off the record, if I were you, I would take advantage of this opportunity and go do it.’ So I went to this clinic called BioXcellerator and did the stem cells.It’s been about two months since his treatment, and Devine is already feeling a little better. “I’m able to hold my son a little longer,” he says. “I'm able to take longer walks. I'm able to stand a little longer.Sometimes you need to change tack After putting on extra weight during his wife Chloe Bridges’s pregnancy, Devine, who recently partnered with MyFitnessPal, set out to lose 30 pounds. But he soon learned that exercise alone was no longer enough to get his 41-year-old body back on track.
“We were arguing over what's the better pizza — Pizza Hut or Domino's — and I’m like, ‘Let’s get both, and then let’s also get Papa John
Youthful Brain Stem Cells Linked to Autism and Brain Cancer
2025-01-10 - 2025-01
They made the discovery while taking a broad genomic survey of human brain cells from the first two decades of life. Many brain diseases begin during different stages of development, but until now we haven’t had a comprehensive roadmap for simply understanding healthy brain development,” said Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, professor of neurology at UCSF and co-corresponding author of the paper“Our map highlights the genetic programs behind the growth of the human brain that go awry during specific forms of brain dysfunction.”The study measured gene expression in cells taken from donated brain samples. The researchers kept track of the original location of each cell to help explain how the brain creates connections.
In addition to the discovery of an early stem cell that could explain the genetics of glioblastoma in adulthood, the data contained hints about the origins of autism. The researchers have published the data as a resource for the field to use for understanding a wide range of other brain disorders. Our study paints one of the most detailed pictures of human brain development,” said Li Wang, PhD, postdoctoral researcher in Kriegstein’s laboratory and co-first and co-corresponding author of the paper.
“Theories based on observations in the clinic and laboratory can now be tested against this hard data, and we’re excited to see what else the field can do with it.”Samples reveal a treasure trove Most studies of the developing brain are carried out in animal models, which are at best loose proxies for the human brain. The team, also led by co-first author Cheng Wang, PhD, and co-corresponding author Jingjing Li, PhD, wagered that valuable new insights could be made by studying the human brain itself. They worked with the National Institutes of Health’s NeuroBioBank and local hospitals associated with UCSF to obtain brain samples. These samples, donated from 27 individuals from early life through adolescence, were sent to UCSF and analyzed for gene expression in thousands of individual cells. Gene expression refers to how DNA, stored in chromosomes, is copied into RNA – short-lived genetic messages – which are then used as a template for building proteins. By measuring RNA, the researchers could peer into the behavior of those cells.“RNA degrades quickly, and you need to have very pristine tissue in order to get usable data,” Kriegstein said It was a huge advance for Li and his colleagues to perform such high-resolution genomic tests on this tissue, and we thank the community for supporting such critical research by donating this precious tissue.”The researchers analyzed which parts of each chromosome were available for expressing genes in each cell. They also labeled where each cell had been taken from in the brain. The scientists focused on cells taken from the front and the back of the cerebral cortex, regions that in humans are responsible for learning, memory and language. RNA alone doesn’t tell the entire story of a cell’s behavior,
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