Not Just a Cushion: An Active Role for the Cerebrospinal Fluid
The cerebral cortex is the thin layer of nerve cells covering the brain, immediately adjacent to the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in which it floats. This cushioning fluid provides mechanical and immunological protection to the brain inside the hard skull. But recent work from Harvard Stem Cell Institute Principal Faculty Member Christopher Walsh and colleagues demonstrates that the CSF has a more active role than simply being a pillow for the brain; it also contains a library of proteins important to neuronal development...
SCORE! – Genetics Scorecards Afford a New Generation of Stem Cell Screening Techniques
Embryonic stem (ES) and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have the capacity to differentiate into any type of fetal or adult cell. They represent a powerful set of research tools with the potential to bring sweeping advances to the study of complex diseases, cell-based drug screenings, transplant medicine techniques, and other pressing medical applications. A better understanding of variation among these cells is necessary to fully harness their research potential, as is a manageable,...
To an untrained observer, the electrical storm that takes place over the brain’s neural network seems a chaotic flurry of activity. But as neuroscientists understand it, the millions of neurons are actually engaged in a sort of tightly choreographed dance, a tango of excitatory and inhibitory neurons. How is...
While we often look to stem cell research models to help us better understand disease, new work by HSCI Principal Faculty member Bjorn Olsen, PhD, and colleagues takes the opposite approach. Their recent research explores a mechanism at play in the rare disease known as fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) that transforms endothelial cells into stem-like cells. FOP is characterized by bone formation in areas outside of the skeleton. The researchers found a surprising source for these pathological bone and cartilage cells. Instead of originating...
It has long been a given that adult humans — and mammals in general — lack the capacity to grow new nephrons, the kidney’s delicate blood filtering tubules, which has meant that dialysis, and ultimately kidney transplantation, is the only option for the more than 450,000 Americans who have kidney failure.... Read more about Adult kidney stem cells found in fish
To an untrained observer, the electrical storm that takes place over the brain’s neural network seems a chaotic flurry of activity. But as neuroscientists understand it, the millions of neurons are actually engaged in a sort of tightly choreographed dance, a tango of excitatory and inhibitory neurons. How is...
It has long been a given that adult humans — and mammals in general — lack the capacity to grow new