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.

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.