It was a interesting week in the stem cell sector, with new releases about MSCs, exosomes, Sertoli cells, and more. Check out this coverage of the stem cell industry and let me know what you think?
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), 29.1 million people or 9.3% of the U.S. population has diabetes, including an estimated 8.1 million who are undiagnosed. One small but powerful company working in this area is AltuCell, a company whose mission is to find a cure to diabetes. In a recent peer-review article published in the journal Xenotransplantation (September 2016), AltuCell’s medical lead Dr. Giovanni Luca reported a preclinical breakthrough utilizing microencapsulated Sertoli cells to establish reversal of diabetes in a mouse model. An important voice in support of the recent findings was Dr. David White of the Schulich School of Medicine who released an article about the breakthrough titled, “A Cure for Type 2 Diabetes?”
What are Exosomes? The Exosome Revolution is Here
What are exosomes? This is an important question, because exosomes have recently exploded in popularity. Although exosomes were discovered more than 30 years ago, it was not until recently that the scientific community began to give credit to exosomes for a range of promising traits. Ten years ago in 2006, there were only 76 articles published about exosomes. Today, there are more than 4,400 articles published about exosomes, of which 1,088 (~25%) were released in the 2016 calendar year. Clearly, there has been an explosion of interest in exosomes, making it important for the scientific community to understand the functionality and importance of these nano-sized vesicles. [Read more…]
