UC Santa Barbara was awarded over half a million dollars from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to support an interdisciplinary investigation to develop novel, as well as build upon existing, stem cell tools and technologies that will help provide a foundation for future clinical applications.
UCSB stem cell researchers, working with Minerva Biotechnologies, recently reported that a cleaved form of MUC1, a transmembrane mucin protein aberrantly expressed in most solid human tumors, acts as a growth factor receptor on undifferentiated human embryonic stem cells. Lead author Sherry Hikita and coworkers show that activation of MUC1* stimulates growth of hESC and therefore may prove useful in culture and maintenence of hESC cell lines.
The UCSB Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering Co-Directors and other UCSB stem cell researchers discuss the promise of, as well as problems with, using stem cells for regenerative medicine in this Convergence issue, which also features a separate, in-depth interview with Co-Director Prof. Dennis Clegg.
UC Santa Barbara has been awarded $3.2 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) in support of the development of a state-of-the-art facility in the newly established Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering at UCSB.
For 2008 Jamie Thomson was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world due to the creation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, the significance of which is summarized in this article.
Jamie Thomson and several other UCSB professors were elected to the National Academy of Sciences, as is discussed in this article.