NIH grants spur new stem cell research in the Department of Medicine
Cutbacks in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding have made the climate for new research challenging. Three studies from investigators in the Department of Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of …
Min Yu and Rong Lu explore how one bad cell spoils the bunch
Principal investigators Min Yu, MD, PhD, and Rong Lu, PhD, had plans to collaborate long before they were both recruited to the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the …
Viral molecules responsible for causing AIDS-related cancer
Using a rat stem cell model, USC researcher S. J. Gao, PhD and colleagues have identified a critical cancer-causing component in the virus that causes Kaposi’s sarcoma, the most common cancer among …
Valter Longo seeks a recipe for longevity
Video by the USC Davis School of Gerontology Valter Longo, PhD, principal investigator with USC Stem Cell, is out to prove that gerontology is a young man’s game — just like rock …
USC and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles launch imaging lab for translational research
With the launch of the Translational Biomedical Imaging Lab (TBIL), investigators at the University of Southern California (USC) and The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles moved us closer to a …
Hedgehog’s long snout finds a cure
In 1993, the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) funded three researchers through one of the program’s prestigious Research Grants to work jointly on patterning of the mid-hindbrain region of the vertebrate embryo. …
Healthy stem cells can create benign tumors in jaw
A new study from the Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC published in Cell Stem Cell illustrates how changes in cell signaling can cause ordinary stem cells in the jaw to start …
USC researchers grow organs to unlock secrets of how cancer tumors grow
Using three-dimensional organ creation, Keck Medicine of University of Southern California (USC) researchers aim to discover clues to metastatic cancer growth by developing a first-ever integrated bioengineered/computational model of metastatic color cancer. …
Pfizer’s J. Jean Cui explains modern drug discovery
Only five percent of potential cancer drugs make it from phase I clinical trail to FDA approval, but J. Jean Cui, PhD, associate research fellow at Pfizer, beat the odds. Cui visited …
USC researcher reveals how to better master stem cells’ fate
USC scientist Qi-Long Ying and a team of researchers have long been searching for biotech’s version of the fountain of youth — ways to encourage embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and epiblast stem …
Magnetic treatment for high-risk neuroblastoma proves less than attractive
Removing tumor cells with a magnet? It may sound strange, but researchers at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) and their colleagues recently explored whether this technique can create better outcomes for patients …
First Zilkha Alzheimer’s Mini-Symposium examines vascular system connections
Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, and more than five million Americans live with the disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Conquering Alzheimer’s was the …
Businessman invests in stem cell research at USC
Chinese businessman Yong Chen has pledged $1 million to USC stem cell researcher Qi-Long Ying to support his future “eureka moments.” “When I talked to Mr. Chen, I told him that groundbreaking …
A special protein helps embryonic stem cells keep their options open
In the ongoing quest to understand how embryonic stem cells (ESCs) retain their ability to differentiate into virtually any kind of cell, USC faculty member Qi-Long Ying and a team of researchers …
USC announces winners of first Regenerative Medicine Initiative awards
Three newly assembled disease teams within USC Stem Cell will take the early steps this year that might lead to future stem-cell based therapies for certain forms of deafness, bone defects and …
A genetic catch-22 promotes and prevents liver cancer
Can the same gene prevent and promote cancer? When it comes to liver cancer, the gene that codes for P53, a protein found in humans and many other animals, involves this catch-22. …
USC study sheds light on stem cell reprogramming
Researchers are learning how to turn regular cells into stem cells, a process called reprogramming. However, some of the mechanisms of the process remain unknown, such as why only a small proportion of the cells can be reprogrammed. Researchers have at least part of the answer: the structure of genes.
Common genetic disease linked to father’s age
Scientists at USC have unlocked the mystery of why new cases of the genetic disease Noonan syndrome are so common—a mutation, which causes the disease, disproportionately increases a normal father’s production of …
New method to treat chemo-related jaw bone necrosis
Over the last decade, osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) has emerged as a devastating and debilitating condition of cancer patients receiving high doses of antiresorptive chemotherapy (bisphosphonates and denosumab). ONJ currently has …
Interview with Sir John Gurdon
Sir John Gurdon, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist whose experiments in the field of cloning laid the foundation for modern stem cell research, visited the USC Health Sciences Campus on May 16. He …