News

Cambridge researchers are taking part in the world’s first clinical trial of red blood cells that have been grown in a laboratory for transfusion into another person. The manufactured blood cells were grown from stem cells from donors. The red cells were then transfused into volunteers in the RESTORE randomised controlled clinical trial. This is th…

Clinical trial for new stem cell-based Parkinson’s disease treatment to move forwardCambridge researchers will play a key role in clinical trials of a new treatment that involves transplanting healthy nerve cells into the brains of patients with Parkinson’s disease.The Swedish Medical Products Agency has granted approval for the trial to proceed; e…

University of Cambridge scientists this week demonstrate dramatic differences in the ability of Zika Virus to attack parallel stem cell populations in the developing brain and in malignant brain tumours. The mechanisms uncovered could be important for preventing birth defects and for treating brain tumours in the future.Dr. Harry Bulstrode, working…

This month, CSCI welcomes two new scientists to join the group of 29 PIs conducting stem cell research in Cambridge. Dr Maria Duque-Correa  started her own research group at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease at the University of Cambridge in January 2022, and will continue her research on infectious diseases, …

Last week, the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute (CSCI) welcomed paediatric patients and their families to the Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre for a visit, where they made Play-Doh cells in petri dishes, practiced pipetting samples, and took a tour of the labs with the Milner Therapeutics Institute. Patients of Dr Matthias Zilbauer (Department of Paedi…

Last month at the Royal Society in London, CSCI scientists Professor David Rowitch and Professor Benjamin Simons were invited to sign the charter of Royal Fellowship, finalising their induction into the Royal Society. While they were initially elected as Fellows in May 2021, the official ceremony was delayed by COVID-19. The Royal Society has been …

The discovery of 14 inherited genetic changes which significantly increase the risk of a person developing a symptomless blood disorder associated with the onset of some types of cancer and heart disease is published today in Nature Genetics. The finding, made in one of the largest studies of its kind through genetic data analysis on 421,738 people…

A cross-species analysis of energy metabolism in mammalian embryogenesisCells of the early mammalian embryo face a unique challenge: to produce large numbers of progeny quickly while regulating appropriate cell differentiation in a short amount of time. The regulation of energy metabolism is crucial for these processes, both to supply energy for pr…

Scientists have identified the biochemical signals that control the emergence of the body pattern in the primate embryo. This will guide work to understand birth defects and pregnancy loss in humans.The study also provides a crucial reference for foetal tissue generation in the lab. Such tissue is in short supply but is needed for drug screening an…

Our body produces one trillion new blood cells each day, a process driven by rare haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPC) inside the bone marrow. A new paper demonstrates that even rarer HSPCs with unique features also exist in other human organs. This work, from the Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute (CSCI) and the Department of Ha…

Researchers discover how leukaemia-associated gene mutations steadily commandeer blood cell production over a lifetime, and how these changes relate to ageing and cancer development.New research has uncovered how genetic mutations hijack the production of blood cells in different periods of life. Scientists at the Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell I…

Researchers have discovered how genetic mutations accumulated slowly over a lifetime lead to dramatic changes in blood formation after 70, providing a new theory for ageingNew research has uncovered how genetic changes that accumulate slowly in blood stem cells throughout life are likely to be responsible for the dramatic change in blood production…

Dr Richard Tyser will join Cambridge Stem Cell Institute as a Principal Investigator this summer, bringing his expertise on the emergence of form and function during early heart development. Dr Tyser is coming from his post at the University of Oxford in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, where in 2018 he received a British Heart F…

A new study was published today (10 March) in Cell Stem Cell, answering a question that’s been sitting unanswered for over thirty years. The research, led by Professor Simón Méndez-Ferrer’s Lab at Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute (CSCI), finally identified Interleukin-6 as a driver of an important switch that links the nervous system and …

Research finds identifiers that can speed the process of in-vitro platelet productionA new paper from the Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute (CSCI) and the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform has identified previously unknown markers of cells called megakaryocyte progenitors. This discovery will lead to better understanding of these important…