News

Assistant professor of neuroscience and SCRMC faculty member, Darcie Moore, is one of two recipients of 2019 Shaw Scientist Awards from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. Moore is studying adult stems cells in an area of the brain important for learning and memory. A decrease in these cells over time is associated with cognitive decline, so Moore is exploring how stress and aging change the process by which the cells divide.

At least three Madison-area clinics are offering stem cell injections for joint pain, joining hundreds of clinics around the country promoting stem cell therapies for a variety of disorders — some of which federal regulators have tried to …

These days, scientists can collect a few skin or blood cells, wipe out their identities, and reprogram them to become virtually any other kind of cell in the human body, from neurons to heart cells.

The journey from skin cell to another type of functional cell involves converting them into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are similar to the developmentally immature stem cells found in embryos, and then coaxing them to mature into something different.

‘Bad guy’ fibrocytes could help rebuild damaged tissue
May 8, 2019 By Susan Lampert Smith

Could a blood cell type responsible for scarring and diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis be repurposed to help engineer healthy tissue?

A new study by a University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health researcher shows that someday, fibrocytes may be used for regenerative therapies for people who need to have their vocal folds or other tissues rebuilt after damage or loss.

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are among the most important tools in modern biomedical research, leading to new and promising possibilities in precision medicine. To create them requires transforming a cell of one type, such as skin, into something of a blank slate, so it has the potential to become virtually any other kind of cell in the body, useful for regenerative therapies for everything from heart disease to diabetes.

SCRMC Faculty member Rupa Sridharan, assistant professor of cell and regenerative biology, studies the epigenetics of cell fate. By examining and manipulating which of a cell’s genes are expressed, she seeks to understand how the cell transitions from one type to another. “We start off with cells that are completely differentiated, meaning they can only do one thing,” explains Sridharan. “For example, a skin cell can only be a barrier, a lung cell can only help us breathe, whereas a pluripotent cell has the potential to become any of those cells.”

SCRMC Faculty members, Judith Kimble (/Biochemistry) is honored by receiving a WARF-named professorship, and Weibo Cai (Radiology / Medical Physics), is honored with an H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship. Congratulations to both of these fine researchers and teachers.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has developed a promising new cell therapy with potential to improve tissue healing after orthopedic injuries. The new cell therapy, recently described in the journal Stem Cells, accelerated the recovery of ruptured Achilles tendons in a rodent model, and may similarly aid other healing tissues, shortening the time until these structures regain functional strength.

In a study published today (April 15, 2019) in the journal Nature Methods, a team led by University of Wisconsin–Madison associate professor of cell and regenerative biology and chemistry SCRMC member Ying Ge reports the development of a novel strategy capable of extracting and driving hard-to-reach proteins into water solution where they can be effectively studied using mass spectrometry, a powerful analytical technique. The new approach promises a trove of biological insights and, importantly, may help identify therapeutically relevant proteins and provide new disease diagnostic techniques.

The transcription factor GATA-2 is critical regulator of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) development and function, and mutations in the enhancer region of GATA2 are linked to blood disorders. In this episode, Emery Bresnick and colleagues develop and characterize a mouse model that harbors a human disease-associated GATA2 enhancer mutation. In this model, hematopoietic development and function were normal unless the animals were exposed to a secondary stress that necessitated blood cell regeneration. The results of this study provide important insight into GATA-2-dependent pathogenesis.