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"Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells" (2007), by Junying Yu et al.
On 2 December 2007, Science published a report on creating human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from human somatic cells: "Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells." This report came from a team of Madison, Wisconsin scientists: Junying Yu, Maxim A. Vodyanik, Kim Smuga-Otto, Jessica Antosiewicz-Bourget, Jennifer L. Frane, Shulan Tian, Jeff Nie, Gudrun A. Jonsdottir, Victor Ruotti, Ron Stewart, Igor I. Slukvin, and James A. Thomson.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
Barack Obama Executive Order 13505, November 2008
On 20 November 2009 Democrat Barack Obama replaced Republican George W. Bush as president of the United States. Obama soon initiated changes to Bush's 2001 executive order concerning scientific research involving human stem cells. Stem cell research remains a controversial issue in the US. Some individuals consider it immoral to experiment with an embryo because they regard embryos as human beings from the moment of conception, while others believe stem cell research could lead to great scientific advancements.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal
Thomson, et al. v. Thompson, et al. (2001)
Thomson, et al. v. Thompson, et al. was a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on 8 May 2001 as Civil Action Number 01-CV-0973. This lawsuit was filed in hopes of gaining injunctive relief against a moratorium on the federal funding of stem cell research. The plaintiffs in the case were seven prominent scientists who performed embryonic stem cell research and three patients: James Thomson, Roger Pedersen, John Gearhart, Douglas Melton, Dan Kaufman, Alan Trounson, Martin Pera, Christopher Reeve, James Cordy, and James Tyree.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal
Nightlight Christian Adoptions, et al. v. Thompson, et al. (2001)
Nightlight Christian Adoptions et al. v. Thompson et al. was a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on 8 March 2001. The suit was filed because Nightlight Christian Adoptions, a frozen embryo adoption agency, felt that the Guidelines for Research Using Human Pluripotent Stem Cells published by the National Institutes for Health were unlawful and violated the restrictions on human embryo research put into place by the Dickey-Wicker Amendment. Additional plaintiffs with this suit were the Christian Medical Association, adult stem cell researcher Dr.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal, Reproduction
"Generation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Using Recombinant Proteins" (2009), by Hongyan Zhou et al.
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are studied carefully by scientists not just because they are a potential source of stem cells that circumvents ethical controversy involved with experimentation on human embryos, but also because of their unique potential to advance the field of regenerative medicine. First generated in a lab by Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka in 2006, iPSCs have the ability to differentiate into cells of all types.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
"Alternative Sources of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells" (2005), by Leon Kass and the President’s Council on Bioethics
Human pluripotent stem cells are valued for their potential to form numerous specialized cells and for their longevity. In the US, where a portion of the population is opposed to destruction of human embryos to obtain stem cells, what avenues are open to scientists for obtaining pluripotent cells that do not offend the moral sensibilities of a significant number of citizens?
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications, Ethics
HeLa Cell Line
The HeLa cell line was the first immortal human cell line that George Otto Gey, Margaret Gey, and Mary Kucibek first isolated from Henrietta Lacks and developed at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1951. An immortal human cell line is a cluster of cells that continuously multiply on their own outside of the human from which they originated. Scientists use immortal human cell lines in their research to investigate how cells function in humans.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Experiments, People, Ethics
George W. Bush Executive Order 13455, June 2007
On 20 January 2001, Republican George W. Bush was sworn in as the forty-third president of the United States, replacing Democrat William J. Clinton. During his eight years in office, Bush issued many executive orders, often altering previous policy. By signing Order 13435 on 22 June 2007, he changed how stem cell research would be performed in America.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal
"Generation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells without Myc from Mouse and Human Fibroblasts" (2007), by Masato Nakagawa et al.
In November 2007, Masato Nakagawa, along with a number of other researchers including Kazutoshi Takahashi, Keisuke Okita, and Shinya Yamanaka, published "Generation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells without Myc from Mouse and Human Fibroblasts" (abbreviated "Generation") in Nature. In "Generation," the authors point to dedifferentiation of somatic cells as an avenue for generating pluripotent stem cells useful for treating specific patients and diseases.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications, Experiments
John D. Gearhart
John D. Gearhart is a renowned American developmental geneticist best known for leading the Johns Hopkins University research team that first identified and isolated human pluripotent stem cells from human primordial germ cells, the precursors of fully differentiated germ cells. Born in Western Pennsylvania, Gearhart lived on the family farm located in the Allegheny Mountains for the first six years of his life.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
South Korea's Bioethics and Biosafety Act (2005)
The South Korean government passed the Bioethics and Biosafety Act, known henceforth as the Bioethics Act, in 2003 and it took effect in 2005. South Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare proposed the law to the South Korean National Assembly to allow the progress of biotechnology and life sciences research in South Korea while protecting human research subjects with practices such as informed consent. The Bioethics Act establishes a National Bioethics Committee in Seoul, South Korea.
Format: Articles
Hematopoietic Stem Cells
The discovery of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) provided a pioneering step in stem cell research. HSCs are a type of multipotent adult stem cell, characterized by their ability to self-renew and differentiate into erythrocyte (red blood cell) and leukocyte (white blood cell) cell lineages. In terms of function, these cells are responsible for the continual renewal of the erythrocytes, leukocytes, and platelets in the body through a process called hematopoiesis. They also play an important role in the formation of vital organs such as the liver and spleen during fetal development.
Format: Articles
Subject: Processes
Purkinje Cells
Purkinje cells, also called Purkinje neurons, are neurons in vertebrate animals located in the cerebellar cortex of the brain. Purkinje cell bodies are shaped like a flask and have many threadlike extensions called dendrites, which receive impulses from other neurons called granule cells. Each cell also has a single projection called an axon, which transmits impulses to the part of the brain that controls movement, the cerebellum. Purkinje cells are inhibitory neurons: they secrete neurotransmitters that bind to receptors that inhibit or reduce the firing of other neurons.
Format: Articles
Subject: Theories
Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Experiments by Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka in 2006 and 2007
In 2006, Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka reprogrammed mice fibroblast cells, which can produce only other fibroblast cells, to become pluripotent stem cells, which have the capacity to produce many different types of cells. Takahashi and Yamanaka also experimented with human cell cultures in 2007. Each worked at Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan. They called the pluripotent stem cells that they produced induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) because they had induced the adult cells, called differentiated cells, to become pluripotent stem cells through genetic manipulation.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments
California Proposition 71 (2004)
The California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act, also called Proposition 71, was a ballot
initiative proposed by California voters in 2004 to allocate three billion dollars of state
funds for stem cell research over ten years. Endorsed by California scientists and
patient-advocates, Prop 71 passed on 2 November 2004, amending the state constitution to make
stem cell research a constitutional right. In addition, Prop 71 led to the creation of the
California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), in San Francisco, California to allocate
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal
Embryonic Differentiation in Animals
Embryonic differentiation is the process of development during which embryonic cells specialize and diverse tissue structures arise. Animals are made up of many different cell types, each with specific functions in the body. However, during early embryonic development, the embryo does not yet possess these varied cells; this is where embryonic differentiation comes into play. The differentiation of cells during embryogenesis is the key to cell, tissue, organ, and organism identity.
Format: Articles
Subject: Processes
The US President's Council on Bioethics (2001-2009)
The US President's Council on Bioethics was an organization headquartered in Washington D.C. that was chartered to advise then US President George W. Bush on ethical issues related to biomedical science and technology. In November 2001, US President George W. Bush created the President's Council on Bioethics (PCB). Convened during a nationwide cloning and embryonic stem cell research debate, the Council stated that it worked to address arguments about ethics from many different perspectives.
Format: Articles
Subject: Organizations, Legal, Ethics
Matthew Howard Kaufman (1942–2013)
Matthew Kaufman was a professor of anatomy at the University of Edinburgh, in Edinburgh, UK, who specialized in mouse anatomy, development, and embryology during the late twentieth century. According to the The Herald, he was the first, alongside his colleague Martin Evans, to isolate and culture embryonic stem cells. Researchers initially called those cells Evans-Kaufman cells. In 1992, Kaufman published The Atlas of Mouse Development, a book that included photographs of mice development and mice organs over time.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
Shoukhrat Mitalipov and Masahito Tachibana’s Mitochondrial Gene Replacement in Primate Offspring and Embryonic Stem Cells (2009)
Shoukhrat Mitalipov, Masahito Tachibana, and their team of researchers replaced the mitochondrial genes of primate embryonic stem cells via spindle transfer. Spindle replacement, also called spindle transfer, is the process of removing the genetic material found in the nucleus of one egg cell, or oocyte, and placing it in another egg that had its nucleus removed. Mitochondria are organelles found in all cells and contain some of the cell’s genetic material. Mutations in the mitochondrial DNA can lead to neurodegenerative and muscle diseases.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments
Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cells (UCBSC)
Umbilical cord blood (UCB) stem cells are hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) that are recovered from the blood of the umbilical cord and placenta after birth. Umbilical cord blood is rich in cells that express the CD34 molecule, a surface protein that identifies cells as stem cells. Prior to the discovery of UCB stem cells, it was standard procedure to discard the umbilical cord and placenta; now much effort is devoted to raising public awareness and to encouraging people to store or donate cord blood.
Format: Articles
Subject: Processes, Reproduction
Translational Developmental Biology
Translational developmental biology is a growing approach to studying biological phenomena that explicitly aims to develop medical therapies. When discussing the generation of new therapies it is often argued that they will emerge as a "translation" from "fundamental biology." Although translational research is not a new term, "translational developmental biology" has been steadily gaining popularity as discoveries in cell and developmental biology, particularly those involving stem cells, provide a basis for regenerative medicine.
Format: Articles
Subject: Theories
"On the Permanent Life of Tissues outside of the Organism" (1912), by Alexis Carrel
'On the Permanent Life of Tissues outside of the Organism' reports Alexis Carrel's 1912 experiments on the maintenance of tissue in culture media. At the time, Carrel was a French surgeon and biologist working at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City. In his paper, Carrel reported that he had successfully maintained tissue cultures, which derived from connective tissues of developing chicks and other tissue sources, by serially culturing them.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments
Methylmercury and Human Embryonic Development
Methylmercury (MeHg) is an organic form of mercury that can damage the developing brains of human fetuses. Women who consume methylmercury during pregnancy can bear children who have neurological issues because methylmercury has toxic effects on the nervous system during embryonic development. During the third week of gestation, the human nervous system begins to form in the embryo. During this gestational period, the embryo's nervous system is particularly susceptible to the influence of neurotoxins like methylmercury that can result in abnormalities.
Format: Articles
Subject: Reproduction, Disorders
The Effects of Bisphenol A on Embryonic Development
Bisphenol A (BPA) is an organic compound that was first synthesized by Aleksandr Dianin, a Russian chemist from St. Petersburg, in 1891. The chemical nomenclature of BPA is 2,2-bis (4-hydroxyphenyl) propane. The significance of this synthesized compound did not receive much attention until 1936, when two biochemists interested in endocrinology, Edward Dodds and William Lawson, discovered its ability to act as an estrogen agonist in ovariectomized, estrogen-deficient rats.
Format: Articles
Subject: Disorders, Reproduction