Neural Cell News Volume 4.26 | Jul 7 2010

Signaling through BMPR-IA Regulates Quiescence and Long-Term Activity of Neural Stem Cells in the Adult Hippocampus 
Here, researchers show that bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling is active in hippocampal neural stem cells, downstream of BMPR-IA. [Cell Stem Cell]

Work-Life Balance: Brain Stem Cells Need Their Rest, Too
Scientists have identified the signal that prevents stem cells from proliferating, protecting the brain against too much cell division and ensuring a pool of neural stem cells that lasts a lifetime. [Press release from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies discussing online prepublication in Cell Stem Cell]

Gene Regulating Human Brain Development Identified
A team of scientists has identified a single gene that seems to be a master regulator of human brain development, guiding undifferentiated stem cells down tightly defined pathways to becoming all of the many types of cells that make up the brain. [Press release from the University of Wisconsin-Madison discussing online prepublication in Cell Stem Cell]

Our Brains Are More Like Birds Than We Thought
A new study finds that a comparable region in the brains of chickens concerned with analyzing auditory inputs is constructed similarly to that of mammals. [Press release from UC San Diego Health System discussing online prepublication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA]

Wireless Chip in Brain to Control Prosthetic Limbs
A team of researchers has been awarded a 1.2 million pound grant by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) to develop a chip which can be implanted in the brain.  The chip will be wirelessly connected to prosthetic limbs. It will collect data from neuron activity in the brain, and send the information wirelessly to move prosthetic arms or legs. [University of Leicester Press Release]

Human Melanoma-Initiating Cells Express Neural Crest Nerve Growth Factor Receptor CD271
Researchers show that in melanomas, tumor stem cells can be isolated prospectively as a highly enriched CD271+ melanoma tumor stem cell population using a process that maximizes viable cell transplantation. [Nature]

Sparse Coding and High-Order Correlations in Fine-Scale Cortical Networks
Researchers analysed the scale-dependent structure of cortical interactions by using maximum entropy models to characterize multiple-tetrode recordings from primary visual cortex of anaesthetized macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatta). [Nature]

Muscle Dysfunction Caused by a K(ATP) Channel Mutation in Neonatal Diabetes Is Neuronal in Origin
While the diabetes arises from suppressed insulin secretion by overactive K(ATP) channels in pancreatic beta cells, the source of the motor phenotype is unknown. Using mice carrying a human Kir6.2 mutation (V59M) targeted to either muscle or nerve, researchers show that analogous motor impairments originate in the central nervous system rather than in muscle or peripheral nerves. [Science]

Serotonergic Neurons Mediate Dyskinesia Side Effects in Parkinson’s Patients with Neural Transplants
Using in vivo brain imaging, researchers show excessive serotonergic innervation in the grafted striatum of two patients with Parkinson’s disease, who had exhibited major motor recovery after transplantation with dopamine-rich fetal mesencephalic tissue but had later developed off-medication dyskinesias. [Science]

Pax6 Is a Human Neuroectoderm Cell Fate Determinant
Here, researchers show that Pax6 is uniformly expressed in early neuroectoderm cells of human fetuses and those differentiated from human embryonic stem cells. [Cell Stem Cell]

What Can Pluripotent Stem Cells Teach Us About Neurodegenerative Diseases?
Here, researchers discuss the challenges of generating specific neural cell subtypes from pluripotent stem cells, the use of pluripotent stem cells to model both cell-autonomous and non-cell-autonomous mechanisms of neurodegeneration, whether adult-onset neurodegeneration can be emulated in short-term cultures and the hurdles of cell replacement therapy. [Nat Neurosci]

Competitive Regulation of Synaptic Ca2+ Influx by D2 Dopamine and A2A Adenosine Receptors
Researchers combined optogenetics, two-photon microscopy and glutamate uncaging to examine D2R-dependent modulation of glutamatergic synaptic transmission in mouse striatopallidal neurons. [Nat Neurosci]

The Nuclear Import of Frizzled2-C by Importins-Beta11 and Alpha2 Promotes Postsynaptic Development
Researchers found that Frizzled2-C localization to muscle nuclei required the nuclear import factors Importin-beta11 and Importin-alpha2 and that this pathway promoted the postsynaptic development of the subsynaptic reticulum, an elaboration of the postsynaptic plasma membrane. [Nat Neurosci]

Metabolic Cost as a Unifying Principle Governing Neuronal Biophysics
Researchers compared the energy needed to produce action potentials singly and in trains for a wide range of channel densities and kinetic parameters and examined which combinations of parameters maximized spiking function while minimizing energetic cost. [Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A]

The Long-Term Survival of In Vitro Engineered Nervous Tissue Derived from the Specific Neural Differentiation of Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells
Researchers have established stable and long-term three-dimensional culture conditions which can be used to model long latency and complex neurodegenerative diseases. [Biomaterials]

UC San Diego Geneticist Heading New Center Focused on Advancing the Understanding and Management of Mental Illness
Jonathan Sebat, PhD, a pioneering young geneticist whose focus is psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, has been named the first chief of the Beyster Center for Molecular Genomics of Neuropsychiatric Diseases at the University of California, San Diego. [UC San Diego Health System Press Release]

NeoStem Adds Distinguished Researcher to its World-Class Scientific Advisory Board
NeoStem, Inc. announced that it has appointed Roberto Bolli, M.D., to its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Bolli has produced an immense body of stem-cell research, including work emphasizing the ability of very small embryonic-like stem cells (VSELs) to regenerate and repair after myocardial infarction. [NeoStem, Inc. Press Release]

Ariadne to Collaborate in 7.5M Euro Neuromuscular Disease Consortium to Find Biomarkers
Ariadne announces a new collaboration with the BIO-NMD consortium led by Professor Alessandra Ferlini at the University of Ferrara, Italy. BIO-NMD is a three year EU-funded research project concentrating on the search for non-invasive biomarkers in people with Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies and Collagen VI myopathies. [PRWeb]

Top Computational Neuroscientists Visit Yale
About 135 scientists gathered in New Haven to discuss the latest advances in computational neuroscience at the Sloan-Swartz Centers 2010 Summer Meeting. [Yale University Press Release]

GSK and Aptuit Finalize Agreement for Aptuit to Acquire GSK’s Research Operations in Italy
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Aptuit, Inc. announced that they have finalized an agreement for Aptuit to acquire operations at GSK’s Medicines Research Centre in Verona, Italy. [Aptuit, Inc. Press Release]

Five Teams Advance to Final Round in DIADEM Challenge
The Allen Institute for Brain Science, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University are announcing the names of five teams of finalists in an international scientific challenge designed to speed development of new computational tools to accurately and automatically reconstruct the shape of brain cells. [Howard Hughes Medical Institute Press Release]

Research Budgets Face Austerity in 2012
The National Institutes of Health and other life sciences and biomedical research funding agencies will need to trim their budgets for 2012, which are to be planned over the summer, to satisfy a White House that is now stressing deficit reduction and belt-tightening after two years of stimulus funding-boosted research budgets. [The Office of Management and Budget, United States]

The Reality of Human Stem Cell Research in Europe
A new report from the European Science Foundation examines the key scientific questions for human stem cell research in the context of the rapidly emerging field of regenerative medicine. [European Science Foundation, European Union]

Strong Medicine for French Research
The medical-research adviser to France’s president aims to shift power and money to universities. [National Research Agency, France]

Meeting of the National Advisory Council for Healthcare Research and Quality [Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, United States]

Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission – Public Meeting Notice [Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission, United States]

Requests for Information: National Institute of Mental Health, 38113 [2010-16035] [National Institutes of Health, United States]

Extension of Expiration Date and Additional Receipt Dates for RFA-AI-10-014: Ancillary Studies in Immunomodulation Clinical Trials (R01) (NOT-AI-10-035) [National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, United States]

EVENTS

Translational Cancer Medicine 2010 – USA
July 11-14, 2010
San Francisco, United States

United Kingdom National Stem Cell Network (UKNSCN) Annual Scientific Conference
July 12-14, 2010
Nottingham, United Kingdom

Select Biosciences 3rd Annual Stem Cells Europe Conference
August 24-25, 2010
Edinburgh, Scotland

Joint Metastasis Research Society – American Association of Cancer Research Conference on Metastasis and the Tumor Microenvironment
September 12-15, 2010
Philadelphia, United States

Stem Cells USA & Regenerative Medicine Congress 2010
September 13-15, 2010
Philadelphia, United States

4th American Association of Cancer Research International Conference on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development
September 27-30, 2010
Denver, United States

6th International Symposium on Neuroprotection and Neurorepair
October 1-4, 2010
Rostock, Germany

2010 World Stem Cell Summit
October 4-6, 2010
Detroit, United States

Translational Cancer Research for Basic Scientists
October 17-22, 2010
Boston, United States

Fraunhofer Life Science Symposium 2010
October 29-30, 2010
Leipzig, Germany

Stem Cell Society Singapore Symposium 2010: Translating Science to Therapy
November 2-3, 2010
Singapore City, Singapore

40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience 2010
November 13-17, 2010
San Diego, United States

Stem Cell Network 10th Annual Scientific Meeting
November 22-24, 2010
Calgary, Canada

Visit our events page to stay up to date with the latest events in the cell, gene and immunotherapy community.

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