“Many scientists believe that human embryonic stem cells — basic cells that can develop into any tissue or organ in the body — hold the key to curing diseases like cancer, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. In the latest installment of our “Visionaries” series, we take a look at the work of a man who has spent his career harnessing the power of stem cells to heal patients.” To listen to the radio broadcast, click here.

Using a new, stem cell-based, drug-screening technology that could reinvent and greatly reduce the cost of developing pharmaceuticals, researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) have found a compound that is more effective in protecting the neurons killed in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) than are two drugs that failed in human clinical trials after large sums were invested in them.... Read more about New use for stem cells identifies a promising way to target ALS

The Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) Cardiovascular Program invites applications for the 2013 cycle of Development Grants. The purpose of this funding program is to provide resources for innovative projects with the goal of generating new approaches that could fundamentally advance the biology of heart regeneration.... Read more about 2013 HSCI call for proposals – Cardiovascular Program pilot grants

 The Harvard Stem Cell Institute is co-sponsoring the 11th Annual International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Annual Meeting. The five-day conference has drawn nearly 4,000 people to the Boston-area, all to discuss the latest stem cell science in laboratories around the world.... Read more about ISSCR annual meeting - HSCI speakers Thursday, June 13, 2013

The Harvard Stem Cell Institute is co-sponsoring the 11th Annual International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Annual Meeting. The five-day conference has drawn nearly 4,000 people to the Boston-area, all to discuss the latest stem cell science in laboratories around the world.... Read more about ISSCR Annual Meeting - HSCI speakers Friday, June 14, 2013

Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers have identified in the most aggressive forms of cancer a gene known to regulate embryonic stem cell self-renewal, beginning a creative search for a drug that can block its activity.... Read more about Researchers find therapeutic potential in ‘undruggable’ target

HSCI Co-Director David Scadden, MD, and Affiliated Faculty member Xi He, PhD, have each won two-year, half-million dollar competitive grants – and industry sponsorship, from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC), which oversees the state’s $1 billion Life Sciences Initiative.

The two HSCI scientists were two of the four finalist groups in the third round of MLSC’s Cooperative...

Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) succeeded in using reprogrammed human stem cells to make working blood vessels in mice that can survive for as long as nine months. The blood vessels were created with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from the mature skin cells of both healthy adults and individuals with type 1 diabetes.... Read more about Long-lasting blood vessels generated from human iPS cells

Eight years ago, two former Stanford University postdoctoral fellows, one of them still in California and the other at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) in Cambridge, began exchanging theories about why patients with leukemia stop producing healthy blood cells. What was it, they asked, that caused bone marrow to stop producing normal blood-producing cells?... Read more about Cross-country collaboration leads to new model of leukemia development

Ten years ago, scientists announced the end of the Human Genome Project, the international attempt to learn which combination of four nucleotides—adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine—is unique to homo sapien DNA. This biological alphabet helped...

An international scientific collaborative led by the Harvard Stem Cell Institute’s Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD, has discovered why women who give birth in their early twenties are less likely to eventually develop breast cancer than women who don't, triggering a search for a way to confer this protective state on all women.... Read more about Predicting individual breast cancer risk may be possible

... Read more about New Animation to Benefit HSCI – see the YouTube video

The Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) has entered into a strategic partnership with Evotec AG to identify compounds that prevent or slow down the loss of motor neurons, which is characteristic of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.... Read more about Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Evotec collaborate to advance ALS research

A group of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers, and collaborators at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have found a way to use stem cells as drug delivery vehicles.

The researchers inserted modified strands of messenger RNA into connective tissue stem cells—...