Medical School researchers John E. Wagner, M.D., and Jakub Tolar, M.D., Ph.D.--in collaboration with researchers in Oregon, the United Kingdom, and Japan--have used stem cells from bone marrow to repair the skin of children with a fatal skin disease called recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB).
It's the first time researchers have shown that bone marrow-derived stem cells can repair the skin and upper gastrointestinal tract and alter the natural course of the disease. Until now, bone marrow has only been used to replace diseased or damaged marrow.
In most ways, 16-year-old Molly Nash is a typical teenager. She argues with her parents. She bickers with her younger brother and sister (but admits to loving them, too). And she is a budding actress, recently portraying Chip the teacup in Beauty and the Beast.
The science that came together 10 years ago to give Molly these opportunities was revolutionary, controversial, and for her family, intensely personal.
Most major medical discoveries don’t happen in a single lab; they result from close collaboration across multiple institutions. That’s why it was big news when University of Minnesota researchers learned in October that they had received a sevenyear collaboration grant to help develop the high-potential field of stem cell therapy. With the grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), University researchers will partner with a research...
As a career-long faculty member at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Leo Furcht, M.D., has had a front-row seat for many breakthroughs in stem cell science over the last few decades. A resident in the Class of 1975, Furcht has conducted his own research on cancer stem cells. He also is a past president of the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology, a national group of biomedical...
When Jay and Lonni Mooreland of Folsom‚ Calif.‚ heard about the experimental epidermolysis bullosa (EB) treatment being developed at the University of Minnesota‚ they knew they wanted their infant daughter‚ Sarah‚ to have it. They also knew the treatment would be risky. Only two other people had undergone the blood and marrow transplant (BMT) aimed at curing the devastating skin disease. On top of that‚ 9-month-old Sarah had had some...
Packed into the hollows of your bones, pulsing through your arteries and veins, are millions of immature cells that play a very big role in keeping you alive. Known as hematopoietic stem cells, or HSCs, these cells produce the blood cells that carry oxygen, keep you from bleeding to death, and defend you against incursions by bacteria, viruses, and other adversaries. HSCs are also the stars of blood and marrow...
For many years, John Kersey, M.D., has been the face of the University of Minnesota Cancer Center. Both as a groundbreaking researcher and as the center’s founding director, he played a key role in bringing together researchers and clinicians from across the University to transform cancer research and patient care. So when Kersey stepped down as director in March, his colleagues thought they knew why. And they were right. Kersey...
When asked to name Dr. John Kersey’s single greatest quality, those who know him well list several: honesty, fairness, and a collaborative spirit. “John’s legendary skill is listening to what people are interested in and then pulling them together to work toward a common goal,” says Tucker LeBien, Ph.D., deputy director of the University of Minnesota Cancer Center, who has worked with Kersey for 30 years. “I’ve never witnessed anyone...
Jonathan Slack, Ph.D., is one of those self-described science addicts. A native Brit, he finished his first degree in biochemistry at Oxford and quickly became inspired by one of the world’s oldest questions: How do embryos develop from eggs? His scientific curiosity led him to the rarefied field of developmental biology. And in 1986 he became the first to identify an inducing factor called the fibroblast growth factor in the...
The University’s internationally acclaimed blood and marrow transplantation (BMT) program has established a research and clinical care partnership with Manipal Hospital in Bangalore, India—the first arrangement of its kind for the University’s physician practice plan, University of Minnesota Physicians. Led by Daniel Weisdorf, M.D., professor of medicine and chair of the University’s adult BMT program, the partnership aims to increase scientific collaboration and training opportunities for students and physicians from Minnesota and India and to provide...
Using minimally invasive robotic surgery equipment, researchers have successfully repaired damaged heart tissue in pigs with injections of stem cells. The cells were successfully transplanted in six of seven cases. Subsequent studies showed that the cells took hold in the heart and function improved. The research team, co-led by Doris Taylor, Ph.D., professor of physiology and holder of the Medtronic Bakken Chair in Cardiovascular Repair, used a combination of skeletal myoblasts—or...
It’s a Wednesday afternoon, and things are hopping at the McGuire Translational Research Facility. In one of the 30 offices lining the south side of the four-story building, a faculty member in the Division of Infectious Diseases and International Medicine is tapping intently at a keyboard. Just down the hall, through doors that open to a long, day-lit laboratory, a student pipettes liquid into a rack full of tubes, preparing...
A group of University of Minnesota researchers has discovered a new population of cells in human umbilical cord blood that have the properties of primitive stem cells. This is significant because cord blood is generally known to contain stem cells that can only produce cells found in blood. The new findings, however, identify a small population of cord blood cells with the characteristics of stem cells that have the potential...
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