Tag Archives: major

More versatile approach to creating stem cells discovered

Now, in this week’s issue of Cell Stem Cell, the Salk Institute’s Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte and his colleagues show that the recipe for iPSCs is far more versatile than originally thought. For the first time, they have replaced a gene once thought impossible to substitute, creating the potential for more flexible recipes that should speed the adoption of stem cells therapies…

Suspicions confirmed: Brain tumors in children have a common cause

The findings are published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Genetics. Brain cancer is the primary cause of cancer mortality in children. Even in cases when the cancer is cured, young patients suffer from the stress of a treatment that can be harmful to the developing brain. In a search for new target structures that would create more gentle treatments, cancer researchers are systematically analyzing all alterations in the genetic material of these tumors…

Improved outlook for immune-based therapies: Assay identifies T cells most capable of fighting infections and cancers

Scientists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have developed the first assay for living T cells that can quantify how strongly the cells’ receptors bind to their targeted antigen. Optimal binding strength or "structural avidity" is thought to be the most important predictor of success in adoptive transfer therapies…