RESEARCH ROUND-UP - JULY 2006

Research Round-up is a new feature on Ben's Stem Cell News summarizing developments in stem cell research every month. Here is a summary of significant stem cell research and science news developments that occurred in July 2006:

• July 2 - Researchers at University of Toronto have developed novel technology to extract a large number of human umbilical cord stem cells

• July 3 - UCLA Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles reported they developed T-cells From Human Embryonic Stem Cells

• July 4 - University of Toronto researchers published a study that identifies the method the body employs to repair the heart and provides new therapies to stimulate cardiac regeneration and prevent heart failure in patients who have suffered a heart attack.

• July 4 - Researchers at Toronto General Hospital have revealed the 'SOS' distress signal that mobilizes specific heart repair cells from the bone marrow to the injured heart after a heart attack.

• July 9 - The Journal of Clinical Investigation published a study finding that injecting or mobilizinng bone marrow stem cells into injured heart muscle during or after a heart attack would be able to regenerate heart muscle lost due to injury.

• July 10 - Scientis at the University of New Caslte Upon Tyne demonstrated for the first time that sperm grown from embryonic stem cells can be used to produce offspring.

• July 12 - Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Michigan have developed a treatment that helps spinal cord nerves regrow after injury in rats.

• July 12 - Case Western Reserve University scientists in Cleveland devised a way to make nerve fibers grow a "bridge" across gaps in rats' damaged spinal cords.

• July 17 - Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Michigan announced the development a treatment that helps spinal cord nerves regrow after injury.

• July 17 - Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute isolated rare cancer stem cells that cause leukemia in a mouse model of the human disease.

• July 20 - A study by UC Irvine researchers found that rats with either mild or severe spinal cord injuries that were transplanted with a treatment derived from human embryonic stem cells suffered no visible injury or ill effects as a result of the treatment itself.

• July 21 - Scientists at Duke University Medical Center demonstrated they can grow human stem cells in the laboratory by blocking an enzyme that naturally triggers stem cells to mature and differentiate into specialized cells, and successfully increased the number of stem cells by 3 to 4 fold.

• July 24 - Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles announced they have transformed adult stem cells taken from human adipose – or fat tissue – into smooth muscle cells

• July 28 - ES Cell International-A Singapore biotech company--announced it has produced and stored six new human embryonic stem cell lines suitable for use in clinical trials

• July 31 - Researchers at the University of Minnesota successfully used robotic surgery to deliver a stem cell treatment to damaged heart tissue in pigs, potentially paving the way for use in stem cell heart treatments in humans