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Digestion and Metabolism News
(Illustration courtesy of CHLA); featured image for Tracy Grikscheit: engineering new organs from living cells

Tracy Grikscheit: engineering new organs from living cells

Article courtesy of CHLA.org Tracy Grikscheit, MD, is a fixer. In the operating room at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, she specializes in helping babies born with severe bowel dysfunction. She’s one of …

Finley and Mumenthaler team up, using their different skills to lead the fight against colorectal cancer (Illustrated by: Tracie Ching); featured image for National Cancer Institute award to support research on colorectal cancer at USC

National Cancer Institute award to support research on colorectal cancer at USC

A grant from the National Cancer Institute will advance researchers from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the Keck School of Medicine of USC in their fight against colorectal cancer. Stacey …

The core research facilities at USC's stem cell research center serve the scientific community throughout Southern California. (Photo by Sergio Bianco)

USC Stem Cell acquires two instruments to advance state-of-the-art cell sorting

When it comes to sorting cells or other small particles, there’s no better place to do so than USC. The university’s Flow Cytometry Facility recently acquired two top-of-the-line cell sorters, the BD …

USC researchers are focusing on a protein that is associated with our body clocks to see if it affects disease onset. (Illustration courtesy of iStock); featured image for Disease risk seen in disrupted biological clock

Disease risk seen in disrupted biological clock

USC scientists report that a novel time-keeping mechanism within liver cells that helps sustain key organ tasks can contribute to diseases when its natural rhythm is disrupted.

Ellis Meng and Michael Waterman are 2018 fellows in the National Academy of Inventors. (Photos courtesy of USC Viterbi School of Engineering); featured image for Ellis Meng and Mike Waterman elected fellows of the National Academy of Inventors

Ellis Meng and Mike Waterman elected fellows of the National Academy of Inventors

Ellis Meng, a professor of biomedical engineering and electrical engineering, who holds the Gabilan Distinguished Professorship in Science and Engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, and University Professor, Michael Waterman, …

Tracy Grikscheit (Image courtesy of CHLA); featured image for Tracy Grikscheit awarded $1.3 million to study stem cell therapy for liver failure

Tracy Grikscheit awarded $1.3 million to study stem cell therapy for liver failure

Currently, the only therapy for metabolic liver disease is an organ transplant. Tracy Grikscheit MD, an attending physician and regenerative medicine scientist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, hopes to change that reality. …

The Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Symposium sparked collaborations. (Photo by Sergio Bianco); featured image for USC researchers converge at the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Symposium

USC researchers converge at the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Symposium

“The field of stem cell biology is one of our great convergence opportunities,” said USC Provost Michael Quick, addressing an audience of biologists, chemists, physicists, engineers, clinicians and many others. This diverse …

Valter Longo (USC Photo; Illustration by Time); featured image for TIME names Valter Longo one of the 50 Most Influential People in Health Care of 2018

TIME names Valter Longo one of the 50 Most Influential People in Health Care of 2018

USC Leonard Davis School Professor Valter Longo, director of the USC Longevity Institute and USC Stem Cell principal investigator, has been named one of TIME’s the 50 Most Influential People in Health …

Andy McMahon (Photo by Phil Channing); featured image for USC Stem Cell scientist Andy McMahon and collaborators tune into the organ concert

USC Stem Cell scientist Andy McMahon and collaborators tune into the organ concert

Every minute of every day, your organs are using a complex language to communicate with each other about the basic physiological processes necessary for life—everything from blood pressure regulation to pH balance …

Human gametes (Image by Karl-Ludwig Poggemann); featured image for All about egg freezing: A Q&A with Dr. Richard J. Paulson, USC Fertility

All about egg freezing: A Q&A with Dr. Richard J. Paulson, USC Fertility

If you’re not going to complete your family by age 35, it’s time to freeze your eggs, according to Dr. Richard J. Paulson, director of USC Fertility. Egg freezing offers a shot …

Engineered mouse cells (Image courtesy of Leonardo Morsut); featured image for Synthetic “tissues” build themselves

Synthetic “tissues” build themselves

How do complex biological structures—an eye, a hand, a brain—emerge from a single fertilized egg? This is the fundamental question of developmental biology, and a mystery still being grappled with by scientists …

Kidney (Image by Lori O'Brien/Andy McMahon Lab, illustration by Mira Nameth)

Growing hope: New organs? Not yet, but stem cell research is getting closer

If you lose a limb, it’s lost for life. If you damage a kidney, you won’t grow a new one. And if you have a heart attack, the scars are there to …

Tubular networks developing in a mammalian kidney (Image by Tracy Tran/Andy McMahon Lab); featured image for Growing hope: What are stem cells, and how does USC use them?

Growing hope: What are stem cells, and how does USC use them?

Stem cell therapies have accelerated at a promising pace, but how do they work? And what are stem cells?

A global project at the Bridge Institute at the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience aims to one day curb the worldwide rise of diabetes. (Illustration by Yekaterina Kadyshevskaya); featured image for Scientists launch global effort to find the next diabetes drug

Scientists launch global effort to find the next diabetes drug

USC researchers have launched a massive scientific effort to construct a detailed, virtual 3-D model of the pancreatic beta cell and its components — a global project that aims to one day …

From left, stem cell researchers Andres Matias Lebensohn, Maxwell Z. Wilson, Seth Shipman, Pulin Li and Yejing Ge (Photo by Cristy Lytal); featured image for At USC’s Junior Faculty Mini-Symposium, stem cell scientists build to understand

At USC’s Junior Faculty Mini-Symposium, stem cell scientists build to understand

When physicist Richard Feynman died in 1988, he left a message scrawled across his chalkboard: “What I cannot create, I do not understand.” Twenty years later, scientists in a very different field …

Valter Longo (Photo by John Skalicky); featured image for What to know about fasting, aging, the “longevity diet” and when you should eat

What to know about fasting, aging, the “longevity diet” and when you should eat

Biochemist Valter Longo has devoted decades to discovering connections between nutrition and successful aging. He runs the Longevity Institute at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, which aims to extend healthy …

Bérénice Benayoun (Photo courtesy of the USC Davis School of Gerontology); featured image for Bérénice Benayoun studies possibility of rejuvenating genes

Bérénice Benayoun studies possibility of rejuvenating genes

Bérénice Benayoun, assistant professor at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and principal investigator with USC Stem Cell, explores the role of epigenetics—the ways that genes turn “off” or “on”—in the …

Embryonic stem cells (Image/courtesy of Qi-Long Ying); featured image for Subtle cues can dictate the fate of stem cells

Subtle cues can dictate the fate of stem cells

If you’ve seen one GSK3 molecule, do not assume that you have seen them all. A new study in Developmental Cell reveals important differences in two similar forms of GSK3, which, in …

Immune cells (highlighted in yellow) in the mouse colon that are the proposed target of TNFR2-activating therapy in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) (Image courtesy of D. Brent Polk); featured image for Study to examine how tumor necrosis factor works to reduce intestinal inflammation

Study to examine how tumor necrosis factor works to reduce intestinal inflammation

D. Brent Polk, MD, AGAF, an investigator at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, has been awarded $1.5 million by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the NIH for …

Toshio Miki (Photo by Cristy Lytal); featured image for Stem cells offer hope for children with Hurler syndrome

Stem cells offer hope for children with Hurler syndrome

Without enzyme replacement therapy or a blood or marrow transplant, children born with Hurler Syndrome usually die before they reach 10 years old. Hurler Syndrome is a rare genetic disease that leaves …