Category: Hematopoietic (25)
Brain Endothelium for Expanding Hematopoietic Stem Cells
Baltimore, MD - Expansion of human hematopoietic stem cells in the absence of differentiation would allow for development of autologous bone marrow transplants in a safe and reproducible manner. The problem is that to date, no protocol for expanding human hematopoietic stem cells has really been able to translate properly into the clinic. In a recent paper (Cheng X et al. Human brain...
No blood from muscle?
Villejuif, France - The concept of cellular plasticity has attracted many followers, as well as many critics. On the one hand, papers used to be published suggesting various forms of transdifferentiation, for example neurons becoming blood cells, or hematopoietic stem cells becoming cardiomyocytes. On the other hand, some...
Throwing Fuel on the Bone Marrow to Cardiac Fire
[Watch the Video] There are currently many clinical trials using bone marrow stem cells for regeneration of cardiac muscle. However, many scientists love to argue whether the bone marrow is actually differentiating into heart tissue, or if the bone marrow is simply providing "trophic" support. This video tries to discuss some of these issues.
Suppressor Stem Cells
Baltimore, Maryland - In the late 1960s to early 1970s, a type of immune regulatory cell called the "natural suppressor" cell was believed to exist associated with areas of hematopoiesis. Subsequent characterization of these cells revealed that they actually possess myelopoietic properties and inhibited immunity through secretion of factors such as TGF-beta and...
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Mesenchymal Gene Therapy
Busan, Korea - The period of pancytopenia after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. Accordingly, growth factors, such as G-CSF have been developed clinically to reduce the period of neutropenia so as to minimize the risk of infection during the immunosuppressed state. Since mesenchymal stem cells are known to secrete numerous...
ES to Blood: Role of TPO
San Diego, California - The role of the mpl ligand thrombopoietin (TPO) in upregulating production of megakaryocytes is established in the literature. Interestingly, it is also noted that TPO may have functions at inducing self-renewal of early hematopoeitic stem cell progenitors. In a recent study, the ability of TPO, as well as...
Giving Hematopoiesis a Hand
New York, NY - Despite the introduction of various types of mutation-specific kinase inhibitors into the field of hematology/oncology, the only curative approach for many of the leukemias still resides in bone marrow or hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Drawbacks of this approach are the need for myeloablation of the recipient, followed by post transplant immune suppression to...
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ES to HSC
Madison, Wisconsin - Amongst the various ES technologies that WARF has title to, one particularly interesting one is generation of hematopoietic stem cells from embryonic stem cells. Although others have demonstrated that this is feasible using human embryonic stem cells, the process appears to be more...
FGF-2 reduces SDF-1
Bethesda, MD - Numerous types of leukemias are associated with secretion of the cytokine fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2). These leukemias are also associated with splenomegaly, hepatomegaly, and extramedullary hematopoiesis. In a recent paper (Nakayama et al. Effect of fibroblast growth factor 2 on stromal cell-derived factor 1 production by bone marrow stromal cells and...
Embryonic to Mesenchymal Stem Cell Differentiation
Madison, Wisconsin - ES cells are very useful since they can be genetically modified to overexpress specific genes, or alternatively, specific genes can be deleted. In a recent publication (Trivedi et al. Simultaneous generation of CD34 primitive hematopoietic cells and CD73 mesenchymal stem cells from human embryonic stem cells...