Angela C. H. McDonald
Angela is a PhD student in the Stem Cell and Developmental Biology program at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. She is currently utilizing pluripotent stem cells to understand the genetic regulation of endoderm development. As an avid supporter of public science education, she co-founded the high school outreach initiative StemCellTalks sits on numerous public education committees including the International Society for Stem Cell Research Public Education Committee and the Stem Cell Network Public Outreach Committee.
Posts by: Angela
Stem cells: the fountain of fertility?
I periodically indulge myself in the personal lives of the Seattle Grace Hospital staff on Grey’s Anatomy. I am particularly fond of the character Dr. Addison Montgomery, world-class neo-natal surgeon. After enduring some juicy relationship drama, Addison decides to have a baby, which sends her on a journey to California where she visits a fertility […]
Will stem cells eventually outperform pharmaceuticals or will they come to Big Pharma’s rescue?
You don’t have to follow pharmaceutical industry news to know that this summer has been a disappointing one for Alzheimer’s research. Many major media outlets covered the failure of potential Alzheimer’s drug bapineuzumab (Pfizer/Johnson & Johnson) in Phase II/III clinical trials, announced earlier this summer. Another disappointment came late last month with the report of […]
Airway epithelial cells created from human patients could provide a powerful drug-screening tool for Cystic Fibrosis
If you tuned into the evening news on Monday night (at least here in Canada), you would have seen my PhD supervisor Janet Rossant, discussing a recent advancement in stem cell differentiation. Amy Wong, post-doctoral fellow in the Rossant lab, created a protocol for differentiating human pluripotent stem cells into mature airway epithelial cells. The […]
Scientists lose the paper cranes and become experts in nucleic acid origami for siRNA delivery
It takes precision, focus and persistence to perfect the art of origami. So perhaps it is no accident that researchers have needed to apply the same skills to overcome challenges in siRNA delivery, right down to the folding. A couple of years ago, my fellow blogger Paul Krzyzanowski introduced us to RNA interference (RNAi) technology. […]
Lessons in pluripotency from ISSCR 2012
Pluripotency describes the potential of a stem cell to differentiate into any cell type in the body. Embryonic stem cells derived from the early pre-implantation embryo are pluripotent as well as their engineered counterparts, iPSCs (induced pluripotent stem cells). Many labs have focused on understanding the gene regulatory networks maintaining pluripotency. This knowledge allowed Kazutoshi […]
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