March 2014 HSCI Community Newsletter
The Harvard Stem Cell Matrix
Upcoming Events
 Boston Single-Cell Network
April 1, 4:30-6:00 PM

IP Strategies forHealth Sciences Startups
April 1, 6:00-8:00 PM

HSCI Kidney Program Interlab
April 2, 4:30-6:00 PM

HSCI Technology Series
Part 1: iPS Characterization and Differentiation
April 7, 12:00-1:00 PM
Webinar option available
Announcements
HSCI launches new website! Includes HSCI Community Hub with latest announcements, jobs, and other resources.

HSCI call for proposals:
P01 Pilot Grants 2014

Register to present a poster at the HSCI Annual Retreat in May.
Jobs
Research Technician II
Brack Lab - Massachusetts General Hospital CRM

Bioinformatics Specialist
Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Regenerative Medicine

Research Technician
Raje Lab - Massachusetts General Hospital, Center for Regenerative Medicine/Cancer Center
Media Mentions
2/19/14
Harvard Gazette
Wolfram Goessling, MD, PhD, and Trista North, PhD, find new role for nitric oxide in liver repair that could help treat Tylenol overdose.

2/20/14
Science NOW
Albert Edge, PhD, finds which cells become sound-sensing cells in mammalian hearing loss.
Defining Standards for Stem Cells
Kevin Kit Parker, PhD, and collaborators identify a set of 64 crucial parameters by which to judge stem cell-derived cardiac myocytes.

What makes a "good" stem cell, one that can reliably be used in drug development, and for disease study? Until now, there have been no standards, no criteria, by which to test these ubiquitous cells for their ability to faithfully adopt characteristics that make them suitable substitutes for patients for drug testing.

New parameters by Kit Parker and colleagues, published in Stem Cell Reports, make it possible, for perhaps the first time, for scientists and pharmaceutical companies to quantitatively judge and compare the value of the countless commercially available lines of stem cells. Read the whole story.
Alzheimer's in a Dish
Tracy Young-Pearse, PhD, and collaborators generate iPS cells from patients with early-onset Alzheimer's.

The research, published in Human Molecular Genetics, confirmed what had long been observed in mouse models--that the mutations associated with early-onset Alzheimer's disease are directly related to protein cleavage errors that cause a rise in amyloid-beta (Aβ) protein 42, which all people produce but somehow clump together to form plaques in Alzheimer's patients.

 

In addition, Young Pearse's team used two different antibodies--one of which has been in clinical trials for Alzheimer's---to neutralize the effects of amyloid-beta and showed that you're able to rescue changes in tau. Read the whole story

HSCI Team Stars in Cell Video
Richard Gregory, PhD, Fernando Camargo, PhD, and Masaki Mori, MD, PhD, find connection between miRNAs and the Hippo pathway.

 

Reporting in Cell, a collaboration between Gregory and Camargo revealed that the Hippo-signaling pathway and its downstream target YAP regulate miRNA biogenesis in a cell-density-dependent manner, which may be responsible for the widespread miRNA repression commonly observed in human cancers. Watch the video on YouTube.  

Identifying the Cause of Relapse
David Langenau, PhD, and Jessica Blackburn, PhD, use single-cell analysis to find common culprit in acute leukemia relapse.

 

The research team identified a mutation in human cases of acute lymphoblastic leukemia that makes individual cancer cells particularly aggressive. The research, published in  Cancer Cell, could translate into improved patient care strategies for this particular blood cancer, which typically affects children but is more deadly in adults. Read on.