June 24, 2009

Just three years after the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine awarded its first round of research grants, the funding has resulted in the 300th research paper logged by grantees – and it’s by UCI scientists Hans Keirstead and Tom Lane (shown). The study found that transplanted cells derived from human embryonic stem cells were able to repair some damage in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis. In people with MS, the immune system attacks the insulation – called myelin – that covers and protects neurons of the brain and spinal cord. Transplantation helped re-form the myelin coating on damaged cells. The study was published in late May in the Journal of Neuroimmunology