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 …
CHLA joins CureWorks collaborative to accelerate development of immunotherapy treatments for childhood cancers
Seattle Children’s, with participating members Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Children’s National Health System and BC Children’s Hospital, has launched CureWorks, an international collaborative of leading academic children’s hospitals determined to accelerate the …
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 …
When it comes to balancing the immune system, some blood stem cells are better than others
In your body, blood stem cells produce approximately 10 billion new white blood cells, which are also known as immune cells, each and every day. Even more remarkably, if some of these …
USC’s Kella Vangsness paints stem cells as superheroes
With captions by Kella Vangsness “As an artist and scientist, I cannot help but imagine stem cells as ‘superheroes’ fighting against ‘villains’ of disease,” said Kella Vangsness, who is graduating from USC …
Gift boosts lung disease research at the Keck School
Pioneering research on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of advanced lung disease is being strengthened at the Keck School of Medicine of USC thanks to generous support from the Hastings Foundation.
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 …
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?
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 …
Paula Cannon and Elyn Sacks named Distinguished Professors
Paula Cannon, PhD, and Elyn Saks, PhD, JD, have been named Distinguished Professors by USC President C. L. Max Nikias. USC Provost Michael Quick, PhD, announced the appointments in a Feb. 13 …
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles joins national consortium to study use of stem cells in treating a rare cardiac defect
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is announcing participation in the first-ever clinical trial using stem cells from umbilical cord blood to delay or even prevent heart failure in children born with a rare …
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 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 …
Deep sea creatures provide a guiding light in the quest to develop cancer-fighting therapies
A team of scientists at the Keck School of Medicine of USC is looking to some deep sea dwellers to create a better way to develop cancer-fighting therapies. Harnessing the power of …
USC scientist Susana Cavallero dedicates her heart to vascular stem cell research
Pursuing her passion for cardiovascular research, Susana Cavallero has journeyed from her hometown of Polvaredas in Saladillo, Argentina, to Buenos Aires to Los Angeles, where she is an assistant professor of research …
Broad Fellows look to stem cells to treat heart disease and hearing loss
When it came time to select this year’s Broad Fellow, the award committee couldn’t pick just one. Instead, they bestowed the honor on two talented postdoctoral researchers in USC Stem Cell laboratories: …
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 …
Creating new heart muscle out of stem cells? This grad student is doing it
In a narrow room not much larger than a closet, Joycelyn Yip reaches behind a glass shield to lower a pipette to a plate of silicon-coated glass. Swaddled in a sterile white …
David Warburton among USC professors named fellows of esteemed scientific society
Five USC scientists and one Keck School of Medicine of USC physician have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an honor awarded to AAAS members by …
A Zika surprise: African strain can do more damage than Asian strain
The Zika virus has spread to 44 countries, with thousands infected and thousands of babies born with microcephaly, a rare complication that causes small heads. But even though research dollars are being …