Spring Break
UConn finds two new stem cell lines
Kate Monohan
Issue date: 2/23/09 Section: News
UConn has made a breakthrough in stem cell research by finding two new human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines at the UConn Health Center in Farmington. The new lines were named CT-1 and CT-2, and have been distributed to colleagues in-state and beyond, according to Dr. Ren-He Xu, director of the UConn Stem Cell Core Lab.
"We want to have the University of Connecticut be one of the leading institutions in the world when it comes to stem cell research, that's our goal," said Marc Lalande, director of the UConn Stem Cell Center.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Harvard University, and University of California, San Francisco, are the only other universities to have found new hESC lines in the United States.
"Human embryonic stem cell lines are made from donated frozen embryos," Lalande said. "You pick out some cells from inside these embryos, put them in a dish or tube with a fluid, which is called medium. If everything works right, they [the cells] start to divide and they keep dividing, and dividing, and dividing and that's called a cell line."
Cell lines provide insight to the process of early human development. They can also help cure numerous diseases like cancer, heart disease, Parkinson's, and birth defects, according to the National Institutes of Health's Web site.
This breakthrough is bittersweet for UConn scientists - it happened just prior to UConn cloning scientist Xiangzhong "Jerry" Yang's death. Yang died on Feb. 5 of salivary gland cancer.
Yang was the director for the Center for Regenerative Biology at UConn, and was instrumental in getting the UConn Stem Cell Core Lab assembled in 2006.
"Everything that's going on now was built on his initial discoveries," Lalande said. "[Yang] was a pioneer stem cell researcher at the University of Connecticut."
In 1999, Yang became the first scientist to clone a mammal (a cow) in the U.S. He was working toward cloning human embryos for stem cell research, but did not get the chance to see his goal reached.
"We want to have the University of Connecticut be one of the leading institutions in the world when it comes to stem cell research, that's our goal," said Marc Lalande, director of the UConn Stem Cell Center.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Harvard University, and University of California, San Francisco, are the only other universities to have found new hESC lines in the United States.
"Human embryonic stem cell lines are made from donated frozen embryos," Lalande said. "You pick out some cells from inside these embryos, put them in a dish or tube with a fluid, which is called medium. If everything works right, they [the cells] start to divide and they keep dividing, and dividing, and dividing and that's called a cell line."
Cell lines provide insight to the process of early human development. They can also help cure numerous diseases like cancer, heart disease, Parkinson's, and birth defects, according to the National Institutes of Health's Web site.
This breakthrough is bittersweet for UConn scientists - it happened just prior to UConn cloning scientist Xiangzhong "Jerry" Yang's death. Yang died on Feb. 5 of salivary gland cancer.
Yang was the director for the Center for Regenerative Biology at UConn, and was instrumental in getting the UConn Stem Cell Core Lab assembled in 2006.
"Everything that's going on now was built on his initial discoveries," Lalande said. "[Yang] was a pioneer stem cell researcher at the University of Connecticut."
In 1999, Yang became the first scientist to clone a mammal (a cow) in the U.S. He was working toward cloning human embryos for stem cell research, but did not get the chance to see his goal reached.
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phyl franklin
posted 2/28/09 @ 4:09 AM EST
Recent scientific developments have revealed that stem cells derived from the bone marrow, travel throughout the body, and act to support optimal organ and tissue function. (Continued…)
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