September 22, 2011
Berkeley Bioengineering Assistant Professor Irina Conboy has achieved a breakthrough in regenerative medicine, reprogramming muscles to form new muscle cells.
The research exposed muscle progenitor cells, a kind of differentiated stem cell, to chemicals that signaled the mature cells to start dividing again and not to die, growing new muscle. The new muscle cells were injected into mice, contributing to early signs of muscle repair.
This method shows great promise in the treatment of degenerative diseases, and will continue to move toward refinement and human testing.
The study, by Conboy and lead author Preeti Paliwal, a UC Berkeley post-doctoral researcher in bioengineering, was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine and published in the Sept. 23 issue of the journal Chemistry & Biology.
Read the full story at the UC Berkeley NewsCenter.