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Neil Segil (Photo by Chris Shinn)

Neil Segil Stem Cell Travel Scholarship

A fund has been set up to commemorate our friend and colleague Professor Neil Segil. Recognizing Neil’s passion for science and education, we are delighted to announce that applications are now being …

Pink test tube (Photo by Chris Shinn)

2023–2024 Broad Collaborative Challenge Grant for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Fellows

USC Stem Cell invites applications for the Broad Collaborative Challenge Grant for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Fellows. The goal of the program is to stimulate new interdisciplinary stem cell research across the USC community, and to provide a means of enhancing student/postdoc creativity and independence. Proposals should be initiated by graduate students and/or postdoctoral fellows. An additional goal of this program is to stimulate future K- or F-series NIH training grant proposals, or other parent lab collaborative grant opportunities.

From left, study authors Jiya Eerdeng, Ivon Garcia, Rong Lu, Charles Bramlett, Mary Vergel-Rodriguez, and Yeachan Lee (Photo by Bowen Wang)

Why does a leukemic mutation not always lead to leukemia? A new clue from a mouse study at USC

Why do some people with a genetic mutation associated with leukemia remain healthy, while others with the same mutation develop the blood cancer? In a new study published in Blood, scientists from …

From left, Denis Evseenko and Jay Lieberman (Photo by Sergio Bianco)

Potential relief for osteoarthritis moves to clinical trial after animal studies

A team of researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC have found a drug with the potential for curbing painful hyperinflammation from osteoarthritis, according to results of an animal study. …

Researcher in the lab (Photo by Chris Shinn)

2023 Request for Proposals: Broad Clinical Research Fellow Program

A gift from The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation established the Eli and Edythe Broad Clinical Research Fellows at USC. We plan to fund up to 3 positions, and successful applicants will …

At the lab bench (Photo by Chris Shinn)

2023 Call for Applications: CIRM Clinical Research Fellowship in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine

We have a 2-year position available for a clinical trainee who is interested in conducting research related to stem cell biology and/or regenerative medicine in one of the leading labs at USC. …

One-week-old zebrafish with jaw cartilage in blue, tendons in magenta and jaw muscles in white. (Image by Hung-Jhen (Olivia) Chen/Crump Lab)

How to assemble a complete jaw

A USC-led team of scientists has made a drool-worthy discovery about how tendons and salivary glands develop in the jaw. Their results are published in a new study in Developmental Cell. In …

Yulia Shwartz

For USC Stem Cell scientist Yulia Shwartz, science gives her goosebumps

When USC Stem Cell scientist Yulia Shwartz experiences the thrill of scientific discovery, she often thinks of a line that Charles Darwin wrote in The Voyage of the Beagle: “every traveller must …

Human induced motor neurons. Motor neurons are green, and neurons are purple. (Image courtesy of the Ichida Lab)

USC Stem Cell-led studies point the way to broadly effective treatments for ALS

Each year in the U.S., 5,000 patients receive a diagnosis of ALS, an incurable neurodegenerative disease that will likely kill them within two to five years. In the quest to find a …

The new lab’s collaborative structure promises to play a key role in the development of groundbreaking advancements in health care. (Photo/Steve Cohn)

New USC/CHLA cGMP Lab opens to accelerate next-generation cell therapy

A new laboratory designed to advance early-stage research into lifesaving, commercially viable therapies was celebrated on the USC Health Sciences Campus Tuesday night. Housed at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, the …

USC COMPASS program

COMPASS grant application open for undergraduates

We are pleased to announce that the application for the COMPASS scholarship is open! The USC COMPASS Program: Creating Opportunities through Mentorship and Partnership Across Stem Cell Science is a multidisciplinary collaboration …

Rong Lu Lab (Photo by Chris Shinn)

Why multipotent progenitor cells matter for patients receiving bone marrow transplants

When patients receive bone marrow transplants, they are infused with complex admixtures of many different cell types with the power to regenerate their blood and immune systems. In a new study in …

DNA (Image by Christoph Bock/Max Planck Institute for Informatics)

How to rewind the clock on arthritic cartilage … stat!

A new study in Aging Cell describes how a key protein, called Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (STAT3), might turn back the clock on aging cartilage that leads to osteoarthritis. …

Neuronal specification is compromised in Zfp462 deleted cells. Immunofluorescence images of wildtype (WT) and Zfp462 deleted (Zfp462 KO) cells during neural differentiation. The neuronal lineage marker SOX1 is shown in green and the endodermal lineage marker FOXA2 is in magenta. Non-neural cells are detected during the neural differentiation of Zfp462 KO cells. © Bell Lab / NCB /IMBA.

Weiss-Kruszka syndrome and the failure to establish neuronal identity

Weiss-Kruszka syndrome is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by craniofacial anomalies, developmental delay, and autistic features. Researchers at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the …

Thomas Lozito and Donald the crested gecko (Photo by Sergio Bianco)

A Tale of tails: How reptile regeneration could help humans

“I’ve always been interested in science and in lizards. I got my first pet lizard when I was around 4 years old, and it was love at first sight,” says Thomas Lozito, …

From left, Cheryl Mae Craft, Justin Ichida and Dean Carolyn Meltzer (Photo by Greg Grudt/ Steve Cohn)

Justin Ichida honored as the inaugural John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation Associate Professor of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at USC

In March 2020, Justin Ichida, PhD, was appointed to a prestigious endowed professorship at Keck School of Medicine of USC through a generous philanthropic gift from the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation. …

(Image courtesy of Getty Images)

Method developed by Children’s Hospital Los Angeles researchers automates brain cell mapping

Neuroscience graduate students at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles have developed an automated method that could save time and work for laboratories around the country by streamlining the process of identifying and mapping …

Professor Justin Ichida leads a class for USC's stem cell master's students (Photo by Chris Shinn)

Scholarships change lives in USC’s stem cell master’s program: Five students’ stories

For one scholarship recipient in the master’s program in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, USC is just close enough to his mother’s house to commute and save on rent. For another, …

(Photo courtesy of Megan Rexius-Hall)

Saving lives: Heart attack on a chip

Megan McCain has always enjoyed building and fixing things. She also has long been fascinated by cells in the human body and how they work together to achieve important tasks, like how …

Kuo-Chang (Ted) Tseng from the Crump Lab and Michelle Hung from the Ichida Lab enjoy a beachside brainstorm.

Scientists feel the sand between their toes at the retreat for USC’s stem cell department

A pair of young scientists picked up a piece of driftwood and thoughtfully traced a series of letters in the wet sand of Ventura Beach. The word “microglia”—referring to the immune cells …