A new hypothesis for how we as humans evolved from single cell organisms. We all come from unicellular organisms. However, it is still unclear how we evolved into such complex multicellular organisms with the same DNA building blocks. This new research suggests that the key to explaining the evolution of multicellular organisms may come from…
Engineering New Treatments For Diabetes
Scientists at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have engineered new beta cells using what we know about normal development to replace missing cells that cause diabetes. They did this by using what we know of normal development to recreate new beta cells in a petri dish!!
What are the RASopathies?
Did you know that cells talk to each other? It turns out their secret language is the key to our development, and is also implicated in cancer and rare diseases called RASopathies. Find out what the RASopathies are and how research for these rare diseases could help cancer patients! This video was produced in collaboration…
Progress and Promise of Stem Cell Research: Breast Cancer
Did you know that cancer cells have an invisibility cloak that prevents them from being recognized by the immune system? Scientists are making cancer cells vulnerable to the immune system by removing the cells’ invisibility cloak!! This is what our newest video in the series Progress and Promise of Stem Cell Research is all about!!…
Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation: How missing “sugar trees” cause a rare disorder
Learn about the underlying biology of Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (PMM2-CDG), what treatment options are available, and how you can make a difference to fill a very urgent gap. This video was produced with support from the Amour Fund. To make a contribution towards PMM2-CDG research, please visit: http://www.alphaepsilonomega.org/foundation/amour/
Progress and Promise of Stem Cell Research: HIV
What is the newest research being pursued to treat HIV? In this video, you will learn about a new technology being tested to make immune cells HIV resistant. This video was produced in collaboration with Americans For Cures and explains how stem cell research, funded by California’s Proposition 71: the California Stem Cell Research and…
Right on Target: Precision Medicine to Treat Rare Tumors
Precision medicine is the practice of using a cancer cell’s DNA to guide therapy. Learn how scientists have used precision medicine to treat rare brain tumors. This video was produced in collaboration with Malak Abed and her team in Boston.
CRISPR: A Word Processor for Editing the Genome
Since the discovery of DNA’s fundamental role in building and sustaining life, scientists have dreamed of having the ability to easily edit DNA in very precise ways. This video explores how a group of scientists made a major breakthrough in understanding the bacterial immune response, called the CRISPR/Cas system, and discovered a way to utilize…
The Science-Policy Cycle: Managing the threat of antibiotic resistance
What do antibiotics do? What’s all the fuss about antibiotic resistance? Is it really a problem? In this video, we use the example of antibiotic resistance to learn how science can inform policy and guide future treatments. This video was produced with the Science Policy Group at UCSF.
Discovering the cell’s radar: How cells sense their environment
While postdoctoral fellows at the NIH, Joe Goldstein and Michael Brown were presented with a young patient with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), a disease characterized by high LDL cholesterol and atherosclerosis. Scientific curiosity along with a desire to help these patients led Brown and Goldstein to dedicate themselves to understanding the biological basis for FH. This…