Leung Lab Blog

was awarded jointly to Sir John Gurdon and Shinya Yamnaka

“for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent”

They also won the Lasker Award in 2009.

Retinal Development

1. Salbreux G, Barthel LK, Raymond PA, Lubensky DK. Coupling mechanical deformations and planar cell polarity to create regular patterns in the zebrafish retina. PLoS Comput Biol. 2012 Aug;8(8):e1002618. Epub 2012 Aug 23. PubMed PMID: 22936893; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3426565.
2. Chen M, Wang K, Lin B. Development and degeneration of cone bipolar cells are  independent of cone photoreceptors in a mouse model of retinitis pigmentosa. PLoS One. 2012;7(8):e44036. Epub 2012 Aug 31. PubMed PMID: 22952865.
3. He J, Zhang G, Almeida AD, Cayouette M, Simons BD, Harris WA. How variable clones build an invariant retina. Neuron. 2012 Sep 6;75(5):786-98. PubMed PMID: 22958820.
   • Commentary: Chen Z, Li X, Desplan C. Deterministic or stochastic choices in retinal neuron specification. Neuron. 2012 Sep 6;75(5):739-42. PubMed PMID: 22958814.

Eye disease

1. Murakami Y, Matsumoto H, Roh M, Suzuki J, Hisatomi T, Ikeda Y, Miller JW, Vavvas DG. Receptor interacting protein kinase mediates necrotic cone but not rod cell death in a mouse model of inherited degeneration. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Sep 4;109(36):14598-603. Epub 2012 Aug 20. PubMed PMID: 22908283.
2. Kohl S, Coppieters F, Meire F, Schaich S, Roosing S, Brennenstuhl C, Bolz S, van Genderen MM, Riemslag FC; the European Retinal Disease Consortium, Lukowski R, den Hollander AI, Cremers FP, De Baere E, Hoyng CB, Wissinger B. A Nonsense Mutation in PDE6H Causes Autosomal-Recessive Incomplete Achromatopsia. Am J Hum Genet. 2012 Sep 7;91(3):527-532. Epub 2012 Aug 16. PubMed PMID: 22901948.
3. Manzini MC, Tambunan DE, Hill RS, Yu TW, Maynard TM, Heinzen EL, Shianna KV, Stevens CR, Partlow JN, Barry BJ, Rodriguez J, Gupta VA, Al-Qudah AK, Eyaid WM, Friedman JM, Salih MA, Clark R, Moroni I, Mora M, Beggs AH, Gabriel SB, Walsh CA. Exome Sequencing and Functional Validation in Zebrafish Identify GTDC2 Mutations as a Cause of Walker-Warburg Syndrome. Am J Hum Genet. 2012 Sep 7;91(3):541-7. PubMed PMID: 22958903.

Genetics

1. Schmitt MW, Kennedy SR, Salk JJ, Fox EJ, Hiatt JB, Loeb LA. Detection of ultra-rare mutations by next-generation sequencing. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Sep 4;109(36):14508-13. Epub 2012 Aug 1. PubMed PMID: 22853953.
2. Papers related to ENCODE
   • Genome Research
   1. Schaub MA, Boyle AP, Kundaje A, Batzoglou S, Snyder M. Linking disease associations with regulatory information in the human genome. Genome Res. 2012 Sep;22(9):1748-59. PubMed PMID: 22955986.
   2. Stamatoyannopoulos JA. What does our genome encode? Genome Res. 2012 Sep;22(9):1602-11. PubMed PMID: 22955972.
   3. Frazer KA. Decoding the human genome. Genome Res. 2012 Sep;22(9):1599-601. PubMed PMID: 22955971.
   1. Nature (with links to Genome Research papers)
      1. Skipper M, Dhand R, Campbell P. Presenting ENCODE. Nature. 2012 Sep6;489(7414):45. doi: 10.1038/489045a. PubMed PMID: 22955612.
      2. Ecker JR, Bickmore WA, Barroso I, Pritchard JK, Gilad Y, Segal E. Genomics: ENCODE explained. Nature. 2012 Sep 6;489(7414):52-5. doi: 10.1038/489052a. PubMed PMID: 22955614.
      3. ENCODE Project Consortium, Bernstein BE, Birney E, Dunham I, Green ED, Gunter C, Snyder M. An integrated encyclopedia of DNA elements in the human genome.Nature. 2012 Sep 6;489(7414):57-74. doi: 10.1038/nature11247. PubMed PMID: 22955616.
      4. Thurman RE, et al., The accessible chromatin landscape of the human genome. Nature. 2012 Sep 6;489(7414):75-82. doi: 10.1038/nature11232. PubMed PMID: 22955617.
      5. Neph S, et al., An expansive human regulatory lexicon encoded in transcription factor footprints. Nature. 2012 Sep 6;489(7414):83-90. doi: 10.1038/nature11212. PubMed PMID:22955618.
      6. Gerstein MB, et al., Architecture of the human regulatory network derived from ENCODE data. Nature. 2012 Sep 6;489(7414):91-100. doi: 10.1038/nature11245. PubMed PMID: 22955619.
      7. Djebali S, et al., Landscape of transcription in human cells. Nature. 2012 Sep 6;489(7414):101-8. doi: 10.1038/nature11233. PubMed PMID: 22955620.

Oxidative Stress

1. Mukaigasa K, Nguyen LT, Li L, Nakajima H, Yamamoto M, Kobayashi M. Genetic Evidence of an Evolutionarily Conserved Role for Nrf2 in the Protection against Oxidative Stress. Mol Cell Biol. 2012 Sep 4. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22949501.

Stem cells

1. Sancho-Martinez I, Baek SH, Izpisua Belmonte JC. Lineage conversion methodologies meet the reprogramming toolbox. Nat Cell Biol. 2012 Sep 3;14(9):892-9. doi: 10.1038/ncb2567. PubMed PMID: 22945254.
2. Loh KM, Lim B. Epigenetics: Actors in the cell reprogramming drama. Nature. 2012 Aug 30;488(7413):599-600. doi: 10.1038/488599a. PubMed PMID: 22932382.

Medicine

1. Asch DA, Volpp KG. What business are we in? The emergence of health as the business of health care. N Engl J Med. 2012 Sep 6;367(10):888-9. Epub 2012 Aug 30. PubMed PMID: 22931228.
2. Fani Marvasti F, Stafford RS. From sick care to health care–reengineering prevention into the U.S. system. N Engl J Med. 2012 Sep 6;367(10):889-91. PubMed PMID: 22931257.
3. Barnes KA, Kroening-Roche JC, Comfort BW. The developing vision of primary care. N Engl J Med. 2012 Sep 6;367(10):891-3. PubMed PMID: 22931258.
4. Baker M. Doctors back circumcision. Nature. 2012 Aug 30;488(7413):568. doi: 10.1038/488568a. PubMed PMID: 22932355.
5. Nature Outlook HPV
   1. Crow JM. HPV: The global burden. Nature. 2012 Aug 30;488(7413):S2-3. doi: 10.1038/488S2a. PubMed PMID: 22932437.

Nutrition

1. Maxmen A. Calorie restriction falters in the long run. Nature. 2012 Aug 30;488(7413):569. doi: 10.1038/488569a. PubMed PMID: 22932356.

Ethics, Social and Legal Issues

1. Greenland P, Fontanarosa PB. Ending honorary authorship. Science. 2012 Aug 31;337(6098):1019. PubMed PMID: 22936744.

Stem cells

1. Nakano T, Ando S, Takata N, Kawada M, Muguruma K, Sekiguchi K, Saito K, Yonemura S, Eiraku M, Sasai Y. Self-formation of optic cups and storable stratified neural retina from human ESCs. Cell Stem Cell. 2012 Jun 14;10(6):771-85. PubMed PMID: 22704518.
2. Cyranoski D. Tissue engineering: The brainmaker. Nature. 2012 Aug 23;488(7412):444-6. doi: 10.1038/488444a. PubMed PMID: 22914148.
   • An interesting article about Dr. Sasai who leads the team to make the eye cup from human ESCs as described above and from mouse ESCs, among many other interesting discoveries!

Imaging

1. Small A. Faster and more versatile tools for super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 28;9(7):655-6. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2079. PubMed PMID: 22743767.
2. Weber M, Huisken J. Omnidirectional microscopy. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 28;9(7):656-7. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2022. PubMed PMID: 22743768.
3. Schindelin J, Arganda-Carreras I, Frise E, Kaynig V, Longair M, Pietzsch T, Preibisch S, Rueden C, Saalfeld S, Schmid B, Tinevez JY, White DJ, Hartenstein V, Eliceiri K, Tomancak P, Cardona A. Fiji: an open-source platform for biological-image analysis. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 28;9(7):676-82. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2019. PubMed PMID: 22743772.
4. Kankaanpää P, Paavolainen L, Tiitta S, Karjalainen M, Päivärinne J, Nieminen J, Marjomäki V, Heino J, White DJ. BioImageXD: an open, general-purpose and high-throughput image-processing platform. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 28;9(7):683-9.doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2047. PubMed PMID: 22743773.
5. de Chaumont F, Dallongeville S, Chenouard N, Hervé N, Pop S, Provoost T, Meas-Yedid V, Pankajakshan P, Lecomte T, Le Montagner Y, Lagache T, Dufour A, Olivo-Marin JC. Icy: an open bioimage informatics platform for extended reproducible research. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 28;9(7):690-6. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2075. PubMed PMID: 22743774.
6. Eliceiri KW, Berthold MR, Goldberg IG, Ibáñez L, Manjunath BS, Martone ME, Murphy RF, Peng H, Plant AL, Roysam B, Stuurmann N, Swedlow JR, Tomancak P, Carpenter AE. Biological imaging software tools. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 28;9(7):697-710. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2084. PubMed PMID: 22743775.
7. Ronneberger O, Liu K, Rath M, Rueß D, Mueller T, Skibbe H, Drayer B, Schmidt T, Filippi A, Nitschke R, Brox T, Burkhardt H, Driever W. ViBE-Z: a framework for 3D virtual colocalization analysis in zebrafish larval brains. Nat Methods. 2012  Jun 17;9(7):735-42. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2076. PubMed PMID: 22706672.
8. Lubeck E, Cai L. Single-cell systems biology by super-resolution imaging and combinatorial labeling. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 3;9(7):743-8. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2069. PubMed PMID: 22660740; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3418883.
9. Tomer R, Khairy K, Amat F, Keller PJ. Quantitative high-speed imaging of entire developing embryos with simultaneous multiview light-sheet microscopy. Nat Methods. 2012 Jun 3;9(7):755-63. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2062. PubMed PMID: 22660741.
10. The quest for quantitative microscopy. Nat Methods. 2012 Jul;9(7):627. PubMed PMID: 22930824.
11. Schneider CA, Rasband WS, Eliceiri KW. NIH Image to ImageJ: 25 years of image analysis. Nat Methods. 2012 Jul;9(7):671-5. PubMed PMID: 22930834.

Systems Biology

1. Karr JR, Sanghvi JC, Macklin DN, Gutschow MV, Jacobs JM, Bolival B Jr, Assad-Garcia N, Glass JI, Covert MW. A whole-cell computational model predicts phenotype from genotype. Cell. 2012 Jul 20;150(2):389-401. PubMed PMID: 22817898; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3413483.
   • Commentary: Freddolino PL, Tavazoie S. The dawn of virtual cell biology. Cell. 2012 Jul 20;150(2):248-50. PubMed PMID: 22817888.

Genomics/Genetics

1. Kong A, Frigge ML, Masson G, Besenbacher S, Sulem P, Magnusson G, Gudjonsson SA, Sigurdsson A, Jonasdottir A, Jonasdottir A, Wong WS, Sigurdsson G, Walters GB, Steinberg S, Helgason H, Thorleifsson G, Gudbjartsson DF, Helgason A, Magnusson OT, Thorsteinsdottir U, Stefansson K. Rate of de novo mutations and the importance of father’s age to disease risk. Nature. 2012 Aug 23;488(7412):471-5. doi: 10.1038/nature11396. PubMed PMID: 22914163.
   • A new study that shows the older the father is, the more the mutations that he will pass to the next generation!
   • News: Callaway E. Fathers bequeath more mutations as they age. Nature. 2012 Aug 23;488(7412):439. doi: 10.1038/488439a. PubMed PMID: 22914142.
   • Commentary: Kondrashov A. Genetics: The rate of human mutation. Nature. 2012 Aug 23;488(7412):467-8. doi: 10.1038/488467a. PubMed PMID: 22914161.
2. Schuster-Böckler B, Lehner B. Chromatin organization is a major influence on regional mutation rates in human cancer cells. Nature. 2012 Aug 23;488(7412):504-7. PubMed PMID: 22820252.

Development

1. Lefebvre JL, Kostadinov D, Chen WV, Maniatis T, Sanes JR. Protocadherins mediate dendritic self-avoidance in the mammalian nervous system. Nature. 2012 Aug 23;488(7412):517-21. PubMed PMID: 22842903; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3427422.

Stem cells

1. Chen J, Pei D. Reprogramming in suspension. Nat Methods. 2012 Apr 27;9(5):449-51. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1989. PubMed PMID: 22543375.

Genomics

1. Clarke L, Zheng-Bradley X, Smith R, Kulesha E, Xiao C, Toneva I, Vaughan B, Preuss D, Leinonen R, Shumway M, Sherry S, Flicek P; The 1000 Genomes Project Consortium. The 1000 Genomes Project: data management and community access. Nat Methods. 2012 Apr 27;9(5):459-462. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1974. PubMed PMID: 22543379; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3340611.

Eye disease

1. Pearson RA, Barber AC, Rizzi M, Hippert C, Xue T, West EL, Duran Y, Smith AJ, Chuang JZ, Azam SA, Luhmann UF, Benucci A, Sung CH, Bainbridge JW, Carandini M,Yau KW, Sowden JC, Ali RR. Restoration of vision after transplantation of photoreceptors. Nature. 2012 May 3;485(7396):99-103. PubMed PMID: 22522934.

Genetic disease

1. Whalley K. Neurodevelopmental disorders: Reversing the fragile X phenotype. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2012 May 3. doi: 10.1038/nrn3255. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22551664.

Systems biology

1. Zhu J, Sova P, Xu Q, Dombek KM, Xu EY, Vu H, Tu Z, Brem RB, Bumgarner RE, Schadt EE. Stitching together Multiple Data Dimensions Reveals Interacting Metabolomic and Transcriptomic Networks That Modulate Cell Regulation. PLoS Biol. 2012 Apr;10(4):e1001301. Epub 2012 Apr 3. PubMed PMID: 22509135; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3317911.

Medicine

1. Freedman ND, Park Y, Abnet CC, Hollenbeck AR, Sinha R. Association of coffee drinking with total and cause-specific mortality. N Engl J Med. 2012 May 17;366(20):1891-904. PubMed PMID: 22591295.
• The more the coffee you drink, the longer you live!
• News coverage, from Huffington Post: “Coffee Drinkers Live Longer, Claim Scientists (Although They’re Not Quite Sure Why…) “

Neuroimaging/ Connectomics

1. Wedeen VJ, Rosene DL, Wang R, Dai G, Mortazavi F, Hagmann P, Kaas JH, Tseng WY. The geometric structure of the brain fiber pathways. Science. 2012 Mar 30;335(6076):1628-34. PubMed PMID: 22461612.

Neuroscience

1. Rogulja D, Young MW. Control of sleep by cyclin A and its regulator. Science. 2012 Mar 30;335(6076):1617-21. PubMed PMID: 22461610.
2. Koch C. Newsmaker interview: Christof Koch. A vision of how mouse vision can reveal consciousness’ secrets. Interview by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee. Science. 2012 Mar 23;335(6075):1426-7. PubMed PMID: 22442452.
3. Morris RG, Takeuchi T. Neuroscience. The imaginary mind of a mouse. Science. 2012 Mar 23;335(6075):1455-6. PubMed PMID: 22442473.
4. Bardin J. Neuroscience: Making connections. Nature. 2012 Mar 21;483(7390):394-6. doi: 10.1038/483394a. PubMed PMID: 22437591.

Behaviour

1. Shohat-Ophir G, Kaun KR, Azanchi R, Heberlein U. Sexual deprivation increases ethanol intake in Drosophila. Science. 2012 Mar 16;335(6074):1351-5. PubMed PMID:22422983.
   
• Commentary: Zars T. Physiology. She said no, pass me a beer. Science. 2012 Mar 16;335(6074):1309-10. PubMed PMID: 22422968.

Philosophy of Science

1. Bodemer N, Ruggeri A. Finding a good research question, in theory. Science. 2012 Mar 23;335(6075):1439. PubMed PMID: 22442459.

Ethics, Social and Legel Issues

1. Must try harder. Nature. 2012 Mar 28;483(7391):509. doi: 10.1038/483509a.PubMed PMID: 22460859.
2. Begley CG, Ellis LM. Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research. Nature. 2012 Mar 28;483(7391):531-3. doi: 10.1038/483531a. PubMed PMID: 22460880.
3. Incidental benefits. Nature. 2012 Mar 21;483(7390):373. doi: 10.1038/483373a. PubMed PMID: 22437569.
4. Hayden EC. DNA donor rights affirmed. Nature. 2012 Mar 21;483(7390):387. doi: 10.1038/483387a. PubMed PMID: 22437587.

Systems Biology

1. Weinstein JN. Drug discovery: Cell lines battle cancer. Nature. 2012 Mar 28;483(7391):544-5. doi: 10.1038/483544a. PubMed PMID: 22460893.
2. Barretina J, Caponigro G, Stransky N, Venkatesan K, Margolin AA, Kim S, Wilson CJ, Lehár J, Kryukov GV, Sonkin D, Reddy A, Liu M, Murray L, Berger MF, Monahan JE, Morais P, Meltzer J, Korejwa A, Jané-Valbuena J, Mapa FA, Thibault J, Bric-Furlong E, Raman P, Shipway A, Engels IH, Cheng J, Yu GK, Yu J, Aspesi P Jr, de Silva M, Jagtap K, Jones MD, Wang L, Hatton C, Palescandolo E, Gupta S, Mahan S, Sougnez C, Onofrio RC, Liefeld T, MacConaill L, Winckler W, Reich M, Li N, Mesirov JP, Gabriel SB, Getz G, Ardlie K, Chan V, Myer VE, Weber BL, Porter J, Warmuth M, Finan P, Harris JL, Meyerson M, Golub TR, Morrissey MP, Sellers WR, Schlegel R, Garraway LA. The Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia enables predictive modelling of anticancer drug sensitivity. Nature. 2012 Mar 28;483(7391):603-7. doi: 10.1038/nature11003. PubMed PMID: 22460905.
3. Garnett MJ, Edelman EJ, Heidorn SJ, Greenman CD, Dastur A, Lau KW, Greninger P, Thompson IR, Luo X, Soares J, Liu Q, Iorio F, Surdez D, Chen L, Milano RJ, Bignell GR, Tam AT, Davies H, Stevenson JA, Barthorpe S, Lutz SR, Kogera F, Lawrence K, McLaren-Douglas A, Mitropoulos X, Mironenko T, Thi H, Richardson L, Zhou W, Jewitt F, Zhang T, O’Brien P, Boisvert JL, Price S, Hur W, Yang W, Deng X, Butler A, Choi HG, Chang JW, Baselga J, Stamenkovic I, Engelman JA, Sharma SV, Delattre O, Saez-Rodriguez J, Gray NS, Settleman J, Futreal PA, Haber DA, Stratton MR, Ramaswamy S, McDermott U, Benes CH. Systematic identification of genomic markers of drug sensitivity in cancer cells. Nature. 2012 Mar 28;483(7391):570-5. doi: 10.1038/nature11005. PubMed PMID: 22460902.
4. Pujadas E, Feinberg AP. Regulated noise in the epigenetic landscape of development and disease. Cell. 2012 Mar 16;148(6):1123-31. PubMed PMID: 22424224.

Eye disease

1. Zhang J, Benavente CA, McEvoy J, Flores-Otero J, Ding L, Chen X, Ulyanov A, Wu G, Wilson M, Wang J, Brennan R, Rusch M, Manning AL, Ma J, Easton J, Shurtleff S, Mullighan C, Pounds S, Mukatira S, Gupta P, Neale G, Zhao D, Lu C, Fulton RS, Fulton LL, Hong X, Dooling DJ, Ochoa K, Naeve C, Dyson NJ, Mardis ER, Bahrami A, Ellison D, Wilson RK, Downing JR, Dyer MA. A novel retinoblastoma therapy from genomic and epigenetic analyses. Nature. 2012 Jan 11;481(7381):329-34. doi: 10.1038/nature10733. PubMed PMID: 22237022; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3289956.

Medicine

1. Vaidyanathan G. Redefining clinical trials: the age of personalized medicine.  Cell. 2012 Mar 16;148(6):1079-80. PubMed PMID: 22424218.

Stem cells

1. Cherry AB, Daley GQ. Reprogramming Cellular Identity for Regenerative Medicine. Cell. 2012 Mar 16;148(6):1110-1122. Epub 2012 Mar 15. PubMed PMID: 22424223.

Career

1. Perkel JM Ph D. Run your lab on dollars a day! Biotechniques. 2012 Mar;52(3):141-143. PubMed PMID: 22401545.
2. Blow N Ph D. Reflections on the modern lab. Biotechniques. 2012 Mar;52(3):145-147. PubMed PMID: 22401546.

In my last post, I provided several links to general introductions of stem cells. In this post, I will share several documentaries that show how bad people are taking advantage of desperate patients who have heard stem cells therapy may give them a last hope.

II. Desperate patients and people who take advantage of their situation

1. BBC Panorama – Stem Cells & Miracles (2009)

This is part 1 of the show; here are the links to part 2 and part 3.

2. CBS 60 Minutes – Stem Cell Snake Oil (2010)

This is part 1 of the show; here are the links to part 2, part 3 and part 4.

3. CBS 60 Minutes – Stem cell fraud (2012)

Evolution

1. Ramani AK, Chuluunbaatar T, Verster AJ, Na H, Vu V, Pelte N, Wannissorn N, Jiao A, Fraser AG. The majority of animal genes are required for wild-type fitness. Cell. 2012 Feb 17;148(4):792-802. PubMed PMID: 22341449.
2. Loehlin DW, Werren JH. Evolution of shape by multiple regulatory changes to a growth gene. Science. 2012 Feb 24;335(6071):943-7. PubMed PMID: 22363002.

Psychology and human behaviour

1. Pazda AD, Elliot AJ, Greitemeyer T. Sexy red: Perceived sexual receptivity mediates the red-attraction relation in men viewing woman. J Exp Soc Psychol. 2012; 48: 787-790
• Commentary in Science Now: The red-dress effect.
2. Cohen S, Schulz MS, Weiss E, Waldinger RJ. Eye of the Beholder: The Individual and Dyadic Contributions of Empathic Accuracy and Perceived Empathic Effort to Relationship Satisfaction. J Fam Psychol. 2012 Feb 27. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22369462.
• Commentary in NPR: Upset Men And The Happy Women Who Love Them.
• Deep insights from the article (quoted from the NPR commentary):

Men like it when women let them know when they’re happy. Women like it when men share their anger and frustration.

Evidently we women see a man’s willingness to share negative feelings as a sign that he’s invested in the relationship. Cohen says: “That’s telling her something about his availability to engage in the conflict.”

Men feel exactly the opposite about those moments of conflict: They see it as a threat to the relationship. Instead, Cohen says, “They do derive satisfaction when their girlfriends or wives are happy.”

Stem cells/ development

1. White YA, Woods DC, Takai Y, Ishihara O, Seki H, Tilly JL. Oocyte formation by mitotically active germ cells purified from ovaries of reproductive-age women. Nat Med. 2012 Feb 26;18(3):413-21. doi: 10.1038/nm.2669. PubMed PMID: 22366948; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3296965.
• News from Nature: Egg-making stem cells found in adult ovaries: Discovery could pave the way for new fertility treatments and a longer reproductive life.

Stem cells/ regeneration

1. Makkar RR, Smith RR, Cheng K, Malliaras K, Thomson LE, Berman D, Czer LS, Marbán L, Mendizabal A, Johnston PV, Russell SD, Schuleri KH, Lardo AC, Gerstenblith G, Marbán E. Intracoronary cardiosphere-derived cells for heart regeneration after myocardial infarction (CADUCEUS): a prospective, randomised phase 1 trial. Lancet. 2012 Feb 13. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22336189.
• News coverage by the BBC

Genetics/Genomics

1. MacArthur DG, Balasubramanian S, Frankish A, Huang N, Morris J, Walter K, Jostins L, Habegger L, Pickrell JK, Montgomery SB, Albers CA, Zhang ZD, Conrad DF, Lunter G, Zheng H, Ayub Q, DePristo MA, Banks E, Hu M, Handsaker RE, Rosenfeld JA, Fromer M, Jin M, Mu XJ, Khurana E, Ye K, Kay M, Saunders GI, Suner MM, Hunt T, Barnes IH, Amid C, Carvalho-Silva DR, Bignell AH, Snow C, Yngvadottir B, Bumpstead S, Cooper DN, Xue Y, Romero IG; 1000 Genomes Project Consortium, Wang J, Li Y, Gibbs RA, McCarroll SA, Dermitzakis ET, Pritchard JK, Barrett JC, Harrow J, Hurles ME, Gerstein MB, Tyler-Smith C. A systematic survey of loss-of-function variants in human protein-coding genes. Science. 2012 Feb 17;335(6070):823-8. PubMed PMID: 22344438.
• Commentary: Quintana-Murci L. Genetics. Gene losses in the human genome. Science. 2012 Feb 17;335(6070):806-7. PubMed PMID: 22344433.

Development

1. Inaba M, Yamanaka H, Kondo S. Pigment pattern formation by contact-dependent depolarization. Science. 2012 Feb 10;335(6069):677. PubMed PMID: 22323812.

Funding

1. Mervis J. U.S. budget. Science spared brunt of ax in budget request. Science.  2012 Feb 17;335(6070):783-4. PubMed PMID: 22344417.

Academic career

1. Kaminski D, Geisler C. Survival analysis of faculty retention in science and engineering by gender. Science. 2012 Feb 17;335(6070):864-6. PubMed PMID: 22344445.

Delta-Notch

1. Luo H, Jin K, Xie Z, Qiu F, Li S, Zou M, Cai L, Hozumi K, Shima DT, Xiang M. Forkhead box N4 (Foxn4) activates Dll4-Notch signaling to suppress photoreceptor cell fates of early retinal progenitors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Feb 8. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22323600.

Stem Cells

1. Robinton DA, Daley GQ. The promise of induced pluripotent stem cells in research and therapy. Nature. 2012 Jan 18;481(7381):295-305. doi: 10.1038/nature10761. PubMed PMID: 22258608.

Imaging

1. Miller EW, Lin JY, Frady EP, Steinbach PA, Kristan WB Jr, Tsien RY. Optically monitoring voltage in neurons by photo-induced electron transfer through molecular wires. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Feb 7;109(6):2114-9. Epub 2012 Jan 24. PubMed PMID: 22308458.

Eye Disease

1. Beltran WA, Cideciyan AV, Lewin AS, Iwabe S, Khanna H, Sumaroka A, Chiodo VA, Fajardo DS, Román AJ, Deng WT, Swider M, Alemán TS, Boye SL, Genini S, Swaroop A, Hauswirth WW, Jacobson SG, Aguirre GD. Gene therapy rescues photoreceptor blindness in dogs and paves the way for treating human X-linked retinitis pigmentosa. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Feb 7;109(6):2132-7. Epub 2012 Jan 23. PubMed PMID: 22308428.

Genomics

1. Kaiser J. Cell biology. Donation spurs a cell observatory–and bigger plans. Science. 2012 Feb 3;335(6068):514. PubMed PMID: 22301289.
2. Normile D. Genomics. China’s sequencing powerhouse comes of age. Science. 2012 Feb 3;335(6068):516-9. PubMed PMID: 22301291.
3. Brar GA, Yassour M, Friedman N, Regev A, Ingolia NT, Weissman JS. High-resolution view of the yeast meiotic program revealed by ribosome profiling. Science. 2012 Feb 3;335(6068):552-7. Epub 2011 Dec 22. PubMed PMID: 22194413.
4. Iverson V, Morris RM, Frazar CD, Berthiaume CT, Morales RL, Armbrust EV. Untangling genomes from metagenomes: revealing an uncultured class of marine Euryarchaeota. Science. 2012 Feb 3;335(6068):587-90. PubMed PMID: 22301318.

From Washington Post:

For the first time, an experimental treatment made from human embryonic stem cells has shown evidence of helping someone, partially restoring sight to two people suffering from slowly progressing forms of blindness.

In short, the authors of this study that is just published in Lancet differentiated human embryonic stem cells (hESC) into retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), a key eye tissue that is often affected in retinal degeneration. Then, they transplanted these RPE cells into two patients suffering from Stargardt’s disease and age-related macular degeneration. The purpose of the trial was to find out whether this procedure is safe. Interestingly, there was a pleasant surprise that both patients seem to have some improvements in eye sight. While there is still a lot to do before stem cells therapy will become widely applicable as a general treatment, this finding is an encouraging first sign.

Reference

Embryonic stem cell trials for macular degeneration: a preliminary report [Lancet][pdf]