A recent study in Cancer Research reports that a new medication made up of a well-known diabetes cure Metformin and an anti-cancer agent may become the best cancer inhibitor so far. Full story

Researchers at the Stanford University claim that fat removed during liposuction surgery can be used as a valuable source of stem cells. Fat cells are ready to be reprogrammed into stem cells right away without preliminary growing in the lab for several weeks. Skin cells that are often used to produce stem cells must be grown from three to four weeks before they can be ... Full story

Until lately the master cells that stimulate the growth of breast cancer cells have been regarded as invincible to chemotherapy. Although the cancer treatment technology was developing, there was surprisingly little headway in targeting those master cells in many kinds of cancer. Full story

Scientists from Matsumoto Dental University, Japan, have managed to grow hair out of embryonic stem cells. Scientists extracted stem cells from the teeth of mice embryos and combined them with embryonic stem cells which form the basis of skin cells. This "stem cells mix" was placed into an incubator. Full story

The study published by US biologists in Science magazine says that it is now possible to extract cells that become the fat tissue from the walls of blood vessels. New findings will help in the treatment of diabetes and obesity as well as improve wound healing. Progenitor cells of the fat tissue are mature stem cells. Unlikely embryonic stem cells that turn into any cell type, they can develop into different cell types within only one tissue – fat tissue in this case. Full story

Australian government issued the world’s first license for human embryo cloning. The cloning process will be performed by local in vitro fertilization company Sydney IVF. At the present moment, though, the license allows only development of early-stage embryos, known as therapeutic cloning, since embryo implantation into the womb is restricted by law. During the cloning process the scientists are going to use somatic cell nuclear transfer technique, in which nucleus of a donor somatic cell is removed, and then replaced with a nucleus containing required DNA information. It is to be recalled that the same technique was used when cloning Dolly in 1996. Full story

In about 30 years sterility problem will be completely solved. But that’s not the half of it. Any person, regardless of age, will be able to have babies. The enquiry is that in the near future we will not need even human sex cells to create a human embryo. Skin cells will be good enough for the job. This opinion belongs to a biologist from the University of Medical Biology in Singapore – Davor Solter. Full story