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Other News |
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Articles from the PHG Foundation Newsletter
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Articles from the PHG Foundation Newsletter
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Warnings about unlicensed cord blood collection
The UK Human Tissue Authority (HTA) has issued an official warning that unlawful collections of umbilical cord blood have been taking place in the UK, and that such instances ‘may compromise safety and quality standards’ (see press release). Cord blood banking is growing in popularity ...
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Official definition of human embryonic stem cells widened in US
The official definition of human embryonic stem (HES) cells in US National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines is to be broadened from those ‘derived from the inner cell mass of blastocyst stage human embryo’ (ie. from embryos that have reached the blastocyst stage at four or fiv ...
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Improved cord blood transplantation to treat leukaemia
A paper in Nature Medicine has been has been heralded as a major advance for bone marrow transplantation, reporting a new way of manipulating cord blood stem cells to expand their numbers without causing differentiation from stem cells into normal blood cells (which are unsuitable for tran ...
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Technique allows efficient gene targeting in human stem cells
Creating mouse models of numerous human diseases – known as ‘knock-out’ mice – has been possible for many years, by disrupting the particular gene of interest (see previous news). However, due to numerous differences between murine and human biochemistry and physiology, in pr ...
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New toolkit for stem cell research and regulation
A new UK Stem Cell Tool Kit has been launched as a reference tool for anyone developing programmes of human (but not animal) stem cell research and manufacture for clinical applications. The hope is that this portal will help streamline and accelerate the process of clinical translation from resear ...
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Governments and stem cell research
In the US, regulators have approved thirteen new lines of human embryonic stem (HES) cells for use by federally-funded researchers, with many more new lines expected to be approved soon if they are found to meet ethical requirements (see BBC news). The current NIH Guidelines for Human Stem Cell R ...
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Inquiry into synthetic biology, stem cells and genetic engineering
The new Science and Technology Committee of the UK House of Commons has launched a Bioengineering Inquiry, with a specific focus on ‘how the UK can maintain a globally competitive position in emerging and existing bioengineering research fields’. The specific areas of interest are synthe ...
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Haematopoietic stem cell gene therapy for ALD
French researchers have reported the results of a new form of gene therapy used to treat patients with the genetic neurodegenerative disease X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD). Caused by mutations in the ABCD1 gene that prevent the formation of normal ALD protein, patients develop progressive loss ...
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Move towards regulation of stem cell therapeutics
Speaking at the recent World Stem Cell Summit, president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Irving Weissman reportedly announced that the creation of a new committee to regulate companies offering unproven stem cell therapies (see Nature news blog). The panel of lawyers, eth ...
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Chromosome protection mechanism wins 2009 Nobel Prize
Americans Elizabeth Blackburn (University of California San Francisco), Carol Greider (Johns Hopkins School of Medicine) and Jack Szostak (Howard Hughes Medical Centre, Harvard) jointly share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009 “for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by ...
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