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Guest:
Dr. Carla Kim is a Professor in the Division of Hematology/Oncology and Pulmonary Respiratory Diseases at Children’s Hospital Boston, as well as in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and in the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. Her research involves characterizing the biology of stem cells in the normal lung and in lung cancer using a combination of mouse genetics, cell biology and genomics approaches. Her lab has also developed 3D lung organoid systems that makes it possible to derive specialized lung cells from lung stem cells and interrogate the crosstalk between specialized cell types in the healthy and diseased lung.
Resources and Links
Human Blood Cells Can Be Directly Reprogrammed into Neural Stem Cells – Researchers have established an approach for direct differentiation of somatic cells into expandable neural progenitor cells.
Stem Cell-Derived Neurons Stop Seizures and Improve Cognitive Function – Transplantation of hiPSC-derived neural cells into the hippocampus of rats who have experienced prolonged seizures can greatly reduce the frequency of spontaneous recurrent seizures.
How Sperm Stem Cells Maintain Their Number – Sperm stem cell numbers are achieved through competition for a limited supply of self-renewal-promoting fibroblast growth factors.
Researchers Discover Control Mechanism for Melanoma Skin Cancer – Tissue-resident memory T cells control the growth of melanomas in mice for the life of the animal, which likely equates to decades of protection in humans.
Age-Related Remodelling of Oesophageal Epithelia by Mutated Cancer Drivers – Researchers find that alcohol consumption and smoking substantially accelerate mutations in cancer driver genes with age.
Photo Reference: Courtesy of Dr. Carla Kim
