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Can stem cells end the need for blood donors?

In a previous post, Chris Kamel recently reviewed the Nature article about direct creation of blood progenitors from skin fibroblasts as discovered by Mick Bhatia’s research group. The fascinating thing about this article is the potential for enabling autologous...

Making livers in the lab

In 2009, surgeons transplanted 2,155 organs — nearly a quarter of which were livers – from live or deceased donors into grateful recipients. Sadly, another 3,796 Canadians remained on the transplant wait list, and 249 died while waiting, according to the...

The tell-tale heart: Firefly genes for stem cell tracking

As mentioned in a previous post, in order to fully understand what’s happening when stem cells are used for in clinical or in vivo research, we need some way to track them, preferably in a non-invasive manner. This can be done with either reporter genes or some...

RNA-induction: A new method for iPS cell production

The reprogramming of differentiated adult cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells is accomplished by the expression of a small number of key genes. This is typically done by introducing DNA either by transfection or with viral vectors. Current methods,...