BUFFALO, N.Y. — For a rich source of stem cells to be engineered into new blood vessels or skin tissue, clinicians may one day look no further than the hair on their patients’ heads, according to new research published earlier this month by University at Buffalo engineers.
“Engineering blood vessels for bypass surgery, promoting the formation of new blood vessels or regenerating new skin tissue using stem cells obtained from the most accessible source — hair follicles — is a real possibility,” said Stelios T. Andreadis, Ph.D., co-author of the paper in Cardiovascular Research and associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Researchers from other institutions previously had shown that hair follicles contain stem cells.
Continue reading ‘Stem Cells from Hair Follicles May Help “Grow” New Blood Vessels’
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Analysis identifies potential new therapeutic targets
An international team that included scientists from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today reported it has identified six more genetic variants involved in type 2 diabetes, boosting to 16 the total number of genetic risk factors associated with increased risk of the disease. None of the genetic variants uncovered by the new study had previously been suspected of playing a role in type 2 diabetes. Intriguingly, the new variant most strongly associated with type 2 diabetes also was recently implicated in a very different condition: prostate cancer.
The unprecedented analysis, published today in the advance online edition of Nature Genetics, combined genetic data from more than 70,000 people. The work was carried out through the collaborative efforts of more than 90 researchers at more than 40 centers in Europe and North America.
“None of the genes we have found was previously on the radar screen of diabetes researchers,” said one of the paper’s senior authors, Mark McCarthy, M.D., of the University of Oxford in England. “Each of these genes, therefore, provides new clues to the processes that go wrong when diabetes develops, and each provides an opportunity for the generation of new approaches for treating or preventing this condition.” Continue reading ‘Major collaboration uncovers surprising new genetic clues to diabetes’
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