Topic description and stories

Stem cells, the 'building blocks' for every type of cell in the body, have tremendous potential to improve human health.

Enhanced CRISPR lets scientists explore all steps of health and disease in every cell type

29 Nov 2016

Researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge have created sOPTiKO, a more efficient and enhanced inducible...

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Dish Life: a Cambridge Shorts film

21 Nov 2016

Science is demanding as well as exciting. Dish Life , the final of four Cambridge Shorts films, compares the task of raising stem cells in the lab to...

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Basal cell carcinoma in mouse tail epidermis derived from a single mutant stem cell

Where did it all go wrong? Scientists identify ‘cell of origin’ in skin cancers

08 Jul 2016

Scientists have identified for the first time the ‘cell of origin’ – in other words, the first cell from which the cancer grows – in basal cell...

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abstract blood cells

Anatomy of a decision: mapping early development

06 Jul 2016

In the first genome-scale experiment of its kind, researchers have gained new insights into how a mouse embryo first begins to transform from a ball...

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Imaging a human embryo in the absence of maternal tissues - day 10 (left) and day 11 (right)

Scientists develop human embryos beyond implantation stage for first time

04 May 2016

A new technique that allows embryos to develop in vitro beyond the implantation stage (when the embryo would normally implant into the womb) has been...

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Embryo development: Some cells are more equal than others even at four-cell stage

24 Mar 2016

Genetic ‘signatures’ of early-stage embryos confirm that our development begins to take shape as early as the second day after conception, when we...

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Colonies of human naïve embryonic stem cells grown on mouse feeder cells

Scientists develop very early stage human stem cell lines for first time

04 Mar 2016

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have for the first time shown that it is possible to derive from a human embryo so-called ‘naïve’...

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Framed Embroidery Kidney

Opinion: Can organs have a sexual identity?

24 Feb 2016

Golnar Kolahgar (Gurdon Institute) discusses the suggestion that the stem cells which allow our organs to grow “know” their own sexual identity.

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Wheelchair

Spinal injury and ‘biorobotic control’ of the bladder

16 Feb 2016

There are many challenges facing people with spinal cord injury – and walking again is often the least of their problems. Cambridge research could...

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Mouse embryo yolk sac with human pluripotent stem cells (green) incorporated

Stem cells likely to be safe for use in regenerative medicine, study confirms

18 Dec 2015

Cambridge researchers have found the strongest evidence to date that human pluripotent stem cells – cells that can give rise to all tissues of the...

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A human embryo at the blastocyst stage, about six days after fertilization, viewed under a light microscope.

Opinion: How close are we to successfully editing genes in human embryos?

17 Dec 2015

Azim Surani (Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute) discusses gene editing of the human germline.

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Vitamin D could repair nerve damage in multiple sclerosis, study suggests

07 Dec 2015

A protein activated by vitamin D could be involved in repairing damage to myelin in people with multiple sclerosis (MS), according to new research...

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