Harvard stem cell scientists have found that cells known primarily for tempering immune response also exist in injured muscle tissue, an unexpected role for regulatory T cells.

Regulatory T cells, or Tregs for short, accumulate in the skeletal muscles of mice after injury or after the animals developed muscular dystrophy, the researchers found. Their...

Harvard Stem Cell researchers and collaborators have shown that they can grow unlimited quantities of intestinal stem cells, then stimulate them to develop into nearly pure populations of different types of mature intestinal...

Harvard stem cell researchers have successfully coaxed stem cells to become kidney tubular cells, a significant advance toward one day using regenerative medicine, rather than dialysis and transplantation, to treat kidney failure. The findings are published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).... Read more about HSCI researchers generate kidney tubular cells from stem cells

... Read more about The next stage of leukemia drug development

HSCI Executive Committee member Lee Rubin is one of seven scientists selected by biotech leader Biogen Idec to identify and develop new approaches for treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) - more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Rubin and the other six scientists at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Rockefeller will form a consortium to bring to bear their complementary research interests, talents, and areas of expertise on the hitherto untreatable and fatal neurodegenerative disease.

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A new finding by Harvard stem cell biologists turns one of the basics of neurobiology on its head by demonstrating that it is possible to turn one type of already differentiated neuron into another within the brain.... Read more about HSCI researchers turn one form of neuron into another in the brain

The New York Stem Cell Foundation has announced the 2013 RFA for Innovator Awards for Early Career Investigators in Translational Stem Cell Research, and for the first time, is open to researchers at accredited academic institutions from throughout the world (subject to eligibility).  The goal of these awards is to support the best young researchers working on bold and innovative projects with the potential to transform the field of stem cell research and advance...

Application Deadline: Wednesday, April 1, 2013

Congratulations and thank you to the 2013 HSCI Image Contest winners!

This week the New York Times published an article announcing a $240M investment by Astra Zeneca in Moderna Therapeutics, a start-up company founded by HSCI Principal Faculty Derrick Rossi. As the Times says, "It is one of the largest ever initial payments in a pharmaceutical industry licensing deal that does not involve a drug already being tested in clinical trials." 

The idea behind the company started several years ago when HSCI funded a project in Rossi's lab focused on using modified RNA to reprogram stem cells. Not only was this successful and a breakthrough in itself,...

When the organizers of the upcoming World Regenerative Medicine Congress recently asked scientists and executives across the world in the stem cell and regenerative medicine fields to name “the most influential people in the global stem cell and cell therapy field,” two of HSCI’s leaders were in the top 11.

Doug Melton, HSCI’s Co-Director and Co-Founder, was named number five on the list of the world’s top 50 “Stem Cell Influencers.”  Melton, who is also co-chair of Harvard’s Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, was cited as “one of the driving forces behind...

HSCI's Kevin Eggan has been named a member of a new Stem Cell Research Consortium established by the Cure Alzheimer's Fund. The six consortium scientists, at academic research institutions in the US and Israel will be using techniques pioneered by Eggan, an HSCI Principal Faculty member and a professor in Harvard's Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, to study in the laboratory the neurons created from the cells of patients at high genetic risk of developing Alzheimer's.

This approach is one of our best shots at understanding common forms of Alzheimer’s and, once...