After 15 years of trial-and-error work, Melton shows in Cell how stem cell-derived beta cells made in his lab respond appropriately to glucose challenges when transplanted into mice. Non-human primate animal trials are currently underway at the University of Illinois. "It was gratifying to know that we could do something that we always thought was possible," said Melton, "but many people felt it wouldn't work. If we had shown this was not possible, then I would have had to give up on this whole approach. Now I'm really energized." Read the press release. The work was praised by media around the world: Washington Post, CBS News, WBUR, National Geographic  

A 7-year-project to develop a barcoding and tracking system for tissue stem cells has revealed that the billions of blood cells that we produce each day may not be made not by blood stem cells, but rather blood progenitor cells. The researchers hypothesize that blood comes from stable populations of different long-lived progenitor cells that are responsible for giving rise to specific blood cell types, while blood stem cells likely act as essential reserves. Read the paper in Nature or the press release.

The list is adapted by a lecture Lensch gave at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research Summer Scholars Program. Question 1: What is the central point the authors are trying to prove? Read carefully to determine whether the authors actually get there or fall short and/or over-interpret results.