Читать книгу The SAGE Encyclopedia of Stem Cell Research - Группа авторов - Страница 57

April 27, 1890:The Australian-born scientist Walter Heape performs the first embryonic transfer with mammals, successfully transferring an embryo from the womb of a mother rabbit to the womb of a surrogate rabbit.1902:The German scientist Hans Spemann demonstrated that all the information necessary to create a new organism was contained within a single embryonic cell of a salamander, but as that development progressed and the cells became differentiated, the cells lost this ability.June 1, 1909:The Russian American scientist Alexander Maximow presents a lecture at the Hematological Society of Berlin introducing the concept of stem cells as the common ancestors of different cellular elements in the blood.1935:The German scientist Hans Spemann receives the Nobel Prize for his work on the organizer effect, describing how embryonic induction allows cells to influence the development of nearby cells.1951:Dr. George Gay grows the first HeLa cells, taken from a cancer patient named Henrietta Lacks. The HeLa cell line is notable for the fact that, unlike most cell lines that can be expected to die out within a limited period, the HeLa cell line has continued to grow and divide for over 60 years.1952:Robert Briggs and Thomas Joseph King successfully clone a tadpole, using nuclear transfer, a technique first proposed in 1928 by Hans Spemann.1959:First successful use of stem cell transplants in humans, in three separate studies all involving hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs; immature blood cells through bone marrow grafting; E. Donnall Thomas and colleagues use syngeneic grafts (from identical twins) to treat two leukemia patients, George Mathé and colleagues perform allogeneic (from a separate individual who is not an identical twin) bone marrow transplants on five patients accidentally exposed to irradiation, and McGovern and colleagues treat a leukemia patient with autologous (from the patient) bone marrow cells.February 1961:Working at the Ontario Cancer Institute, James A. Hill and Ernest A. McCullough prove that stem cells exist in the bone marrow of mice and have the key properties of self-renewal and the potential to become any type of blood cell.June 1966:R. J. Cole, Robert G. Edwards, and John Paul isolate embryonic stem cells (ESCs) from the pre-implantation blastocysts of a rabbit. 1967:As a university student, Ian Wilmut spends a summer working in the laboratory of E. J. Chris Polge at the University of Cambridge, and becomes fascinated with the process by which an organism develops from a single cell. He later becomes famous when, working with Keith Campbell, his research leads to the birth of Dolly, a sheep born through cloning.1968:First successful use of bone marrow transplantation to treat patients with leukemia or hereditary immunodeficiency: success due to presence of HSCs in the marrow graft, which can reconstitute blood and immune systems after myeloablation.1974:The U.S. Congress imposes moratorium on federal funding for clinical research on embryonic tissue and embryos, which remains in place until 1993.1974:The first transgenic mouse is created by Rudolf Jaenisch and Beatrice Mintz, who successfully change the DNA of lab mice by injecting DNA from a virus into mouse blastocysts. They observed that the genetic material from the virus becomes integrated into the mouse cells, thus preparing the way for the creation of animal models of human diseases using genetically modified mice.1975:The British scientists Martin Evans and Gail Martin demonstrate that embryonal carcinoma cells are pluripotent and can differentiate into all three primary types of germ layer: ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm.1978:The first human baby created by IVF (in vitro fertilization), Louise Brown, is born in the United Kingdom. The physiologist Robert Edwards, whose research played a key role in developing IVF, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2010.June 23, 1980:Candice Reed, born at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, becomes the first IVF baby born in Australia.1981:Nature announces that two research groups, working independently, successfully derived embryonic stem cells from the inner cell mass cells of the blastocyst in mice; one group is led by Martin Evans at the University of Cambridge (UK), the other by Gail Martin at the University of California, San Francisco.1987:Peter Hollands demonstrates the first therapeutic in vivo (in a living animal) use of ESCs: injection of ESCs restores lost bone marrow stem cells in lethally irradiated mice.1988:Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide, a collaborative network of stem cell donor registries and cord blood banks, founded in Leiden (The Netherlands) to facilitate sharing of HLA phenotype and other information to physicians of patients who need a hematopoietic stem cell transplant.1989:Martin F. Pera and colleagues create a clonal line of human embryonic stem cells. Although the cells in this line include tissues from the three primary germ layers, the cells have different numbers of chromosomes (aneuploid) than do normal cells, and they also have limited ability to differentiate.1992:Yasuko Matsui and colleagues announce successful isolation of mouse embryonic germ cells, which have properties similar to embryonic stem cells.January 1993:Newly elected president Bill Clinton instructs Donna Shalala, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to remove the ban on embryonic research.1995:Congress bans federal funding for research on embryos, but leaves it unclear whether this ban applies to cells already derived from an embryo.November 1995:James A. Thomson and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin derive the first non-human embryonic stem cells, from rhesus monkeys, suggesting that embryonic stem cells could also be derived from humans.1996:According to an April 2013 report by EuroStemCell, in 1996 only 0.4 percent of scientific publications (4,402 publications) concerned stem cells. Both the raw number and the proportion grew rapidly over the followings years, so that in 2012, 12,193 publications about stem cell research were published (1 percent of all scientific publications).July 5, 1996:The first mammal clone, the sheep Dolly, is produced through the nuclear transfer of adult cells by the research team of Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell. Critics of cloning note that Wilmut and Campbell required 277 nuclear transfers in order to produce one live sheep.1998:M. J. Shamblott and colleagues announce successful derivation of pluripotent stem cells from cultured human primordial germ cells.November 5 and November 10, 1998:James A. Thomson at the University of Wisconsin, and John D. Gearhart at Johns Hopkins University report almost simultaneously that they have successfully isolated human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). Despite the therapeutic potential of hESCs, which can become any type of cell in the human body and thus offer hope for currently intractable conditions such as Parkinson’s Disease and spinal cord injury, the announcement is not without controversy due to the origins of the cells used in the research. Thomson’s team worked with cells from human embryos created in vitro (“in glass,” i.e., in the laboratory) while Gearhart’s team obtained their stem cells from human fetal tissue.2000:Martin F. Pera, Alan Trounson, Ariff Bongso, and colleagues working in Singapore and Australia derive human embryonic stem cells from donated blastocysts. These cells have normal karyotypes, can proliferate in vitro for extended periods, and cause teratomas in immune-deficient mice.August 2000:The National Institutes of Health (NIH) legal department advises that NIH may fund research on cells derived from blastocysts, but may not fund the derivation of the cells themselves (which may be performed by private companies).December 2000:Mouse experiments by Timothy Brazelton and colleagues at Stanford University discover that HSCs can transform themselves to neuronal cells, demonstrating a plasticity (ability to become other types of cells than blood cells) which could have important therapeutic implications. This research has been challenged on several grounds but research continues because of the ready availability of HSCs (every person could serve as their own donor, making hESCs unnecessary).2001:In Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology issues Human Embryonic Stem Cell Guidelines. Japan also passes a law regulating human cloning techniques.2001:In Great Britain, Parliament amends the 1990 Human Fertilization and Embryology Act in order to allow some research on human embryos. The UK Stem Cell Bank is founded the following year, and in 2005, the UK Stem Cell Initiative is created to encourage both private and public funding of stem cell research.June 20, 2001:President George W. Bush vetoes, for the second time, a measure which would have lifted restrictions on hESC studies. This decision places him in opposition to most American voters and many members of the Republican party. In response to the Bush veto, Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pledged to support federal funding for hESC studies if elected.July 2001:The Jones Institute, a private infertility clinic in Norfolk, Virginia, announces that it has created embryos from donated gametes (reproductive cells).August 9, 2001:President George W. Bush, in a speech on prime-time national television, announces federal research funding will be available for the first time for hESC research, but that such research would be limited to the estimated 60 pre-existing stem cell lines.November 2001:NIH invites proposals for stem cell research and releases a list of 74 acceptable stem cell lines; many of the lines are not suitable for human trials because they have been grown in mouse media.November 25, 2001:Advanced Cell Technology, a private company in Worcester, Massachusetts, announces that it has cloned human embryos from adult cells, creating cells which are a perfect genetic match for the donor.2002:The United Kingdom announces that stem cell research is a scientific priority and allocates an additional 40 million pounds to support stem cell research.January 2003:Nine funding agencies form the International Stem Cell Forum (ISCF) to encourage international collaboration and promote increased funding for stem cell research; as of January 2004, 14 agencies from 13 countries have joined the ISCF.2004:Annual report of the International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry reports that over 27,000 patients annually are treated by blood stem cell transplantation, for various cancers, hereditary diseases, and bone marrow failure.March 2004:Hwang Woo-Suk and colleagues at Seoul National University announce in the prestigious journal Science that they successfully cloned patent-specific stem cells using somatic nuclear transfer. Because the embryos were cloned in order to produce stem cells, rather than for reproduction, this reported success reopens the debate about therapeutic cloning (cloning cells for the purpose of treating human disease). Hwang’s previous research had been in genetically-modified livestock, and he claimed to have successfully cloned two cows in 1999, although he provided no scientific data to back up this claim.June 25, 2004:New Jersey becomes the first state to fund stem cell research, as legislators create the Stem Cell Institute of New Jersey and allocate it $9.5 million in state funding.Fall 2004:Prompted by the use of human embryos produced by in vitro fertilization (IVF), the Connecticut Law Review publishes a forum including contributions by Ann Kiessling, Julien I. Sirois, Keith E. Latham, and Christine Sapienza that attempts to clarify terminology regarding embryos as well as the ethical and moral issues relating to research using them.November 2, 2004:Partly as a response to federal research funding restrictions, California becomes the second state to allocate funding for stem cell research, as voters approve Proposition 71. This bill creates the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which is allocated $3 billion in taxpayer funding over 10 years.January 1, 2005:Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell announces that she will recommend that the state budget include a special fund to support stem cell research in Connecticut. The state budget, passed in June, includes $100 million to support stem cell research over 10 years.May 23, 2005:The Starr Foundation announces awards of $50 million to support stem cell research at Weil Medical College of Cornell University, Rockefeller University, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, all in New York City.May 31, 2005:The State of Connecticut Stem Cell Advisory Committee allocates $19.78 million in stem cell research funds to researchers from Yale, Wesleyan, and the University of Connecticut. These are the first grants from Connecticut’s Stem Cell Research Fund, which was created in 2005 and is charged with allocating approximately $100 million to support stem cell research by the year 2015.June 2005:Hwang Woo-Suk and colleagues publish an article in Science claiming that they have created 11 human embryos from somatic cells from different donors. He claims to have developed a more efficient process which uses fewer eggs to create more hESCs.July 13, 2005:Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich issues an executive order which creates the Illinois Regenerative Institute for Stem Cell Research, which will award $10 million in state funds to support stem cell research. This makes Illinois the fourth state, and the first midwestern state, to allocate public funds to stem cell research.August 18, 2005:Colin McGuckin, Nico Forraz and colleagues at Kingston University (UK) announce discovery of cord-blood-derived embryonic-like stem cells (CBEs, which appear to be more versatile than adult stem cells (found in bone marrow) although less versatile than hESCs. This discovery could skirt ethical objections to hESC research with cells derived from embryos, because umbilical cord blood can be acquired without destruction of human life.September 19, 2005:Brian Cummings, Aileen Anderson, and Colleagues at the University of California-Irvine announce that they successfully used adult neural stem cells to repair spinal cord damage in mice. The mice receiving neural stem cells showed improvement in coordination and walking ability, suggesting the research may lead to therapies to aid humans with spinal cord injuries.September 21, 2005:Floridians for Stem Cell Research and Cures, Inc., an advocacy group for stem cell research, propose a ballot initiative requiring the state of Florida to spend $200 million in state funds over the next 10 years in support of stem cell research. On September 23, Citizens for Science and Ethics, Inc., a group opposing stem cell research, files a petition which would amend Florida’s state constitution to prohibit embryonic stem-cell research.November 2005:Gerald Schatten a former colleague of Hwang Woo-Suk now at the University of Pennsylvania, announces there were ethical irregularities in Hwang’s procurement of oocyte (egg) donations used in his research. Roh Sung-il, a close collaborator, announces at a press conference on November 21 that oocyte donors had been paid $1400 each for their eggs. On November 24, Hwang announces that he will resign from his post due to the scandal.December 16, 2005:New Jersey becomes the first state to allocate public funds for hESC research, as the State Commission on Science and Technology grants $5 million to 17 research projects, most located at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Rutgers University, and Princeton University.December 29, 2005:A Seoul National University investigation of the work of Hwang Woo-Suk concludes that all 11 stem cell lines claimed in his 2005 paper were fabricated.2006 (calendar year):Over 1100 articles on ESC research are published, a nearly 10-fold increase from 140 in 1997.January 11, 2006:Science retracts both of Hwang Woo-Suk’s papers due to scientific misconduct and fraud. On January 12, Hwang holds a press conference to apologize but does not take responsibility for the fraud claiming that members of his scientific team sabotaged his work.April 2006:Maryland allocates $15 million in state funding for ESC research, beginning in July 2006, through passage of the Stem Cell Research Act.May 12, 2006:South Korea indicts scientist Hwang Woo-Suk on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and bioethics violations. Three of his collaborators are also charged with fraud.June 21, 2006:Florida Governor Jeb Bush, speaking at the annual biotechnology Industry Organization meeting, announces his disapproval of hESC research. Bush further announces that no stem cell research will be performed at any Florida university, nor at the Scripps Research Institute in Palm Beach, Florida.July 2006:ES Cell International in Singapore becomes the first company to commercially produce hESCs which are suitable for clinical trials; vials of stems cells are offered for sale on the internet for $6,000.July 18, 2006:Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) publishes an editorial in the Washington Post announcing his support for federal funding of stem cell research, in opposition to President Bush’s policy. Frist also announces that he sees no contradiction between stem cell research and his pro-life beliefs.July 19, 2006:President Bush vetoes a bill, passed by the House in 2005 and the Senate in July 2006, which would expand federal funding for hESC research. August 2006:Working at Tokyo University, Shinya Yamanaka and Kazutoshi Takahashi create the first iPS cells (induced pluripotent stem cells) by introducing four genes into mouse skin cells; the resulting cells have properties similar to embryonic stem cells. In 2007, Yamanaka and Takahashi successfully produce iPS cells using human cells.August 23, 2006:Scientists from the private company Advanced Cell Technology announce they have developed a technique that allows them to remove a single cell from an embryo. The embryo is not harmed in the process and the cell can then be grown in the lab, circumventing ethical objections to hESC research which requires the destruction of embryos.November 7, 2006:Missouri voters pass Amendment 2, a constitutional amendment that states that any human embryonic stem cell research or treatment allowed by the federal government will also be allowed in Missouri. The narrow victory (51–49 percent) galvanizes opposition to the bill, much of which is centered on their contention that it would allow human cloning.November 28, 2006:In the wake of the Hwang Woo-Suk scandal, a panel led by John I. Brauman recommends changes in the procedures used to review papers submitted for publication in Science. The changes recommended include flagging high-visibility papers for further review, requiring authors to specify their individual contributions to a paper, and online publication of more of the raw data on which papers are based.2007:The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to Mario R. Capecchi, Sir Martin J. Evans, and Oliver Smithies, for their work on altering mouse embryonic stem cells.January 7, 2007:Dr. Anthony Atala of Wake Forest University and colleagues from Wake Forest and Harvard Universities report the discovery of amniotic–fluid-derived stem cells (AFS), which seem to hold similar promise to hESCs. The researchers reported that AFS could be extracted without harm to mother or child, thus avoiding some of the moral controversies regarding hESCs.February 28, 2007:Governor Chet Culver of Iowa signs the “Iowa Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative,” a bill which ensures that Iowa researchers will be allowed to conduct stem cell research and that Iowa patients will have access to stem cures and therapies. The bill also prohibits human cloning.March 11, 2007:An article in the Baltimore Sun newspaper reports that wording had been changed in a bill before the Maryland legislature, replacing the word “embryo” with “certain material,” in an effort to get the bill to pass.March 31, 2007:New York passes a budget for the Fiscal Year 2008 which includes an appropriation of $100 million for stem cell and regenerative medicine research. The funds will be distributed through the Empire State Stem Cell Trust, which will be funded at $50 million per year for ten years after the initial appropriation of $100 million.April 11, 2007:Richard K. Burt and colleagues report success in treating Type I diabetics in Brazil with stem cells taken from their own blood. The experimental procedure, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, has allowed the diabetics to stop taking insulin for as long as three years.May 30, 2007:California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Canada’s Premier of Ontario Dalton McGuinty announce an agreement between Canada’s International Regulome Consortium and the Stem Cell Center at the University of California-Berkeley to coordinate research. McGuinty also announced the creation of the Cancer Stem Cell Consortium, which will coordinate and fund cancer stem cell research, and announced an initial donation of $30 million Canadian from the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research to fund the consortium.June 6, 2007:Rudolf Jaenisch and colleagues at the Whitehead Institute, affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, announce in Nature that they have succeeded in manipulating mature mouse stem cells so they have the properties of ESCs. In the same issue of Nature, Shinya Yamanaka and colleagues at Kyoto University announce that they have developed a method to reprogram stem cells in mice back to the embryonic state, so they may then develop into different body cells similarly to hESCs. If this technique is adaptable to human cells, it would allow researchers to bypass most of the controversy involved with the use of hESCs which are derived from human embryos.June 20, 2007:President Bush vetoes legislation that would have allowed federally funding ESC research using cells from embryos from fertility clinics which would be destroyed anyway. At the same time, Bush issued an executive order encouraging federal support of research aimed at creating stem cells without destroying embryos.August 3, 2007:Kitai Kim, George G. Daley, and their colleagues at Children’s Hospital, Boston, report in the journal Cell Stem Cell that Hwang Woo-Suk, the discredited Korean researcher, did have one significant research result which appears to be genuine. The Children’s researchers determined that Hwang’s purposed ESCs were produced by parthenogenesis (virgin birth) from unfertilized eggs, a result since achieved by other researchers as well.November 6, 2007:New Jersey voters reject a ballot measure which would have allowed the state to borrow $450 million to fund stem cell research. Defeat of the initiative is attributed to the state’s worsening fiscal condition and a vocal alliance of conservatives, anti-abortion activists, and representatives of the Catholic church who oppose stem cell research.November 14, 2007:Shoukhrat Mitalipov and colleagues at the Oregon Health and Science University’s national Primate Research Center announce in Nature that they have successfully derived ESCs by reprogramming genetic material from the skin cells of rhesus macaque monkeys.November 20, 2007:The journals Cell and Science carry reports of discoveries by two independent teams of scientists which reprogram human skin cells to have the characteristics of hESCs. One team is led by Shinya Yamanaka, who reported success for the same procedure in mouse experiments in 2006; the other is led by James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.December 2007:Rudolf Jaenisch, working at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT, demonstrates that iPS cells could be reprogrammed to treat sickle cell disease in mice.2008:According to an April 2013 report by EuroStemCell, only 108 scientific publications regarding human embryonic stem cells were published in 2008; by 2012, this number increased to 1,071, a compounded growth rate of 77 percent.January 14, 2008:Doris Taylor and colleagues at the University of Minnesota report success in creating a beating rat heart by injecting cells from newborn rats into the valves and outer structure of a dead rat heart.January 17, 2008:Andrew J. French and colleagues report in Stem Cells that they have successfully used somatic cell nuclear transfer to produce cloned human embryos from adult skin cells.February 20, 2008:Scientists at Novocell, a private biotechnology company located in San Diego, announce that they have successfully used hESCs to control diabetes in mice whose own insulin-producing cells had been destroyed.April 2008:Rudolf Jaenisch, working at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT, demonstrates that iPS cells reprogrammed to act as neurons could be used to treat Parkinson Disease symptoms in animal models.November 13, 2008:The United Kingdom passes the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, amending the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Among its provisions are banning sex selection of embryos other than for medical reasons; recognizing the right of same-sex couples to parent children through donated embryos, sperm, or eggs; and recognizing the state’s right to regulate the in vitro creation of human and human-admixed embryos, the latter referring to embryos created for research purposes using both human and animal genetic material. January 2010:Working at Stanford University, Marius Wernig creates functional neurons in vitro from converted mouse skin cells.February 2010:Rebecca Skloot publishes The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a biography of the woman whose cells produced the HeLa line commonly used in scientific research. Skloot’s book won numerous awards and sparked public discussion over informed consent and other ethical questions in scientific research.March 2010:The organization EuroStemCell is founded, with funding from the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme, as a partnership among stem cell researchers, clinicians, ethicists, journalists, and educators.August 2010:Working at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, California, Deepak Srivastava creates mouse heart cells by reprogramming non-muscle mouse cells.October 2011:In Bruestle vs. Greenpeace, the European Court of Justice rules that inventions and technologies based on human embryonic stem cells cannot be patented within the European Union.2012:Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka are jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in creating induced pluripotent stem cells.April 2012:Deepak Srivastava demonstrates, in animal research, that heart function following a heart attack can be improved by reprogramming scar tissue from the heart attack into beating heart cells.June 2012:Steven Finkbeiner and members of the International Huntington’s Disease consortium develop the first human cell-culture model of Huntington’s Disease.October 4, 2012:Mitinori Saitou and colleagues at Kyoto University announce that they have successfully reprogrammed mouse stem cells to create egg precursor cells. When mixed with cells from female mice, these cells developed into eggs, which were then fertilized by IVF and grew into normal baby mice.April 2013:According to a report by EuroStemCell, over the years 2008 through 2012, publications about stem cell research were cited 50 percent more often than the average for all scientific papers. In 2008, publications about embryonic stem cell research had an impact factor of 1.80 (meaning that on average each publication was cited in 1.80 other publications). Papers about human embryonic stem cells had an even higher impact factor, although it declined slightly over the years, from 2.35 in 2008 to 2.08 in 2012. Countries with the highest publication activity concerning stem cell research include Singapore (80 percent higher than the global average), Italy (65 percent higher), the United States (61 percent higher), Japan (53 percent higher), and Israel (52 percent higher).May 16, 2013:Shoukhrat Mitalipov and colleagues at Oregon Health and Science University report that they have produced human embryonic stem cells by reprogramming human skin cells.July 20, 2013:Robin Ali and colleagues at University College London demonstrate that light-sensitive retinal cells, created in the lab from stem cells, can be integrated into the eye cells of blind mice. This research suggests that similar treatments might be developed for humans who have become blind through retinal damage.August 5, 2013:In an event televised by the BBC, Mark Post, a physiologist at Maastricht University, presents the world’s first hamburger made from lab-grown beef. Post said his purpose was to create meat for human consumption while avoiding the global pollution caused by conventional beef production.January 29, 2014:Haruko Obokata and colleagues, working in Kobe, Japan, announce that they have developed a simple and quick way to create stem cells by treating animal cells with an acidic solution. However, other researchers were unable to duplicate her work and, in April 2014, Obokata is found guilty of misconduct due to discrepancies in her work. February 1, 2014:Researchers working at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco announce in the journal Cell Stem Cell that they have successfully used transplants of stem cells in mice to replace damaged pancreas cells. If successfully translated to humans, this suggests that future stem cell research may be able to provide a cure for Type I diabetes.March 28, 2014:New Scientist reports that, in a survey of stem cell researchers from around the world, over half felt that they were subject to greater scrutiny than researchers in other scientific fields, but that most felt this did not affect their work. However, a minority (16 percent) said that they also felt pressure to publish results of their work too quickly, and a smaller minority (3 percent) said they felt pressure to behave unethically, for instance to falsity or augment data for a publication.May 2014:A team of researchers at ReNeuron, a company in Guildford, U.K., report that stroke patients treated by having stem cells injected into their brains show measurable improvements one year later, with higher quality of life, and lower disability, handicap, and dependency.July 2014:Two papers published in Nature, which claimed that the authors had produced embryonic-like stem cells by dipping adult cells into an acid bath, are retracted. The author, from the Riken Institute in Kobe, Japan, withdrew the papers after no independent team was able to reproduce their results, and after public scrutiny revealed many flaws including manipulated pictures and mislabeled images in the papers.November 2014:Foteini Hassiotou and colleagues report that stem cells in breast milk can be transmitted from mother to offspring in mouse models. Their results suggest that the stem cells in breast milk can enter the offspring’s blood via their stomach, and play a functional role in the offspring’s life.January 15, 2015:Researchers at Stanford University, led by Charles Chan and David Lo, publish an article in Cell reporting their discovery of the stem cell that gives rise to bone, cartilage, and stroma, the latter being part of the bone marrow. The team, working with mice, also charted the chemical signals that create skeletal stem cells and steer their development into different tissue types.March 2015:Timothy Kieffer and colleagues report successful results from an experiment combining human stem cell transplantation and antidiabetic drugs in treating Type 2 diabetes in a mouse model.