Stem cell self-sufficiency – making normal and malignant niches

February 10, 2011

I’ve written before about how stem cells can make their own niches. I’d like to expand this topic and summarize some recent findings. I’m going to talk about stem cell self-sufficiency as an ability of stem cells to make or modify the niche for themselves. In vitro studies The first studies in vitro described this [...]

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Cells – radioprotectors

January 21, 2011

Intro When I give to my mice a lethal dose of irradiation, sometimes I think what actually kill them without bone marrow transplant? We all know that irradiation kills rapidly dividing (actively cycling) cells – progenitors in the bone marrow and gut. We also know that a significant fraction of organ-specific adult stem cells is [...]

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Current trends in cancer stem cells – phenotypic plasticity

December 29, 2010

One of the last trends in the battle between cancer stem cell and clonal evolution proponents and opponents is that “they are not mutually exclusive”. Peace. Is problem solved now? We are coming to realizing the great cancer complexity in which applying just one universal theory of tumor progression sounds elusive. On top of this [...]

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Human CD34-negative hematopoietic stem cells

December 18, 2010

CD34 is a commonly used and clinically significant marker for human hematopoietic progenitors and stem cells. Flow cytometric separation of distinct subsets within the CD34+ population is used to create a comprehensive map of human hematopoietic progenitor and stem cells. The possibility of separating different progenitor/ stem cell subsets could be used in clinic for [...]

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Can we uncouple stemness and carcinogenesis?

December 4, 2010

I keep asking this question and trying to find an answer again and again. It is important if we’re going to use cells as a medicine in safe settings. The last two decades of research have unveiled remarkable similarities between malignant cells and stem cells. It becomes more evident with development of the cancer stem [...]

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The decade of stem cell plasticity – transdifferentiation buzz

November 23, 2010

I clearly remember the time when at the beginning of the new millennium the era of stem cell plasticity or transdifferentiation was declared. Three “transdifferentiation papers” made a big buzz as “Breakthrough of the Year” according to Science journal: bone marrow turned in muscle and liver cells, neural stem cells turned into hematopoietic tissue. It [...]

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Correlation of CD34+ cell dose with engraftment kinetics

November 11, 2010

CD34 is the most frequently currently used marker for estimation of engraftment success and suitability of the graft in hematology-oncology. Remarkably, almost everyone in the clinic associates this marker with hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) activity and function. Indeed, there is an HSC population within CD34+ cells, but a very tiny one. Recently, Weissman group has [...]

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The value of stem cells in commercial cell therapeutic products

October 29, 2010

We are all so excited about the possibility of using stem cells for therapy. There is no doubt, stem cells have a huge therapeutic potential. But potential could be very different from reality. I was trying to find any commercial stem cell product available on the market, but didn’t succeed in my search. Well, maybe [...]

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Top 5 stem cell retractions

October 21, 2010

News about scandalous stem cell paper retraction from Nature journal blew up in the mass media last week. This event reminded me about some other “big stem cell retractions” in the past. I’ve picked five of the most interesting cases in my opinion and to share with you today. All of them were “big”, scandalous [...]

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Trends in hematopoietic stem cell expansion 2010

October 12, 2010

As many of you know, I’m highly interested in this topic and proposed a thread “Do we really need hematopoietic stem cell expansion for clinical use?”. I’ve got only one comment on the blog, but 117 comments on LinkedIn (International Society for Stem Cell Research group) and about 10 comments in Google Buzz. The discussion [...]

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