The Research

A drug treatment that mimics fasting can also provide the same benefit, study finds.... Intestinal stem cells from mice that fasted for 24 hours, at right, produced much more substantial intestinal organoids than stem cells from mice that did not fast, at left. Credit: Maria Mihaylova and Chia-Wei Cheng     A s people age, their intestinal stem cells begin to lose their ability to regenerate. These stem cells are the source for all new intestinal cells, so this decline can make it more difficult to recover from gastrointestinal infections or other conditions that affect the intestine. In fasting mice, cells begin breaking down fatty acids instead of glucose, a change that stimulates the stem cells to become more regenerative. The researchers found that they could also boost regeneration with a molecule that activates the same metabolic switch. Such an intervention could potentially help older people recovering from GI infections or cancer patients undergoing chemot...

, Credit: Northwestern University Specially programmed stem cells demonstrated the potential to regenerate lost muscle mass in muscular dystrophy, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in Nature Communications.   Scientists reprogram stem cells to regenerate muscle in muscular dystrophy Images showing MiPs inducing regeneration of both heart and muscle tissue (green), and subsequent destruction of regenerated tissue when the MiPs are turned off by the molecule AP20187.  Elizabeth McNally, MD, Ph.D., the Elizabeth J. Ward Professor of Genetic Medicine, was a co-author on the study and Mattia Quattrocelli, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in McNally's lab, was one of the study's co-senior authors. Muscular dystrophy is a genetic disease characterized by the progressive loss of both skeletal and cardiac muscle mass. While there is no cure, physical therapy or medication can offer relief for symptoms, and recent advancements in induced pluripotent stem c...