Good Stem Cell Journal or Review Articles

[TheCatHerder]

Hey

So I am looking at interviewing at a lab that does a significant amount their research with stem cells and i am wondering if anyone knows of journal articles or reviews that are good foundation to understanding the basic principles of the field and where the field is heading.


Thanks

TheCatHerder

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[rhesuspieces]

anything in Cell is good...and depending on the kinds of stem cells the lab works with should read Yamanaka's original paper on iPSCs. Yamanaka also wrote a pretty good review. Nature has some good reviews; however, they can tend towards the sensational. Avoid anything in popular science magazines or news magazines, as I'm sure you already know.

I took a class on stem cells last semester so if you want I can PM you some more references.

 

[rhesuspieces]

OK here are the papers referenced in the introductory lecture of my stem cells class at King's College London:

Blow N: Stem cells: in search of common ground. Nature. 2008;451(7180):855-858.

Smith A: A glossary for stem‐cell biology. Nature. 2006;441(7097):1060.

Blow N: Stem cells: finding the right path. Nature Methods 2008;5(12):1061-1068.

Smith KP, Luong MX, Stein GS: Pluripotency: Toward a gold standard for human ES and iPS cells. J Cell Physiol. 2009;220(1):21‐29.

Cyranoski D. Stem cells: 5 things to know before jumping on the iPS bandwagon. Nature. 2008;452(7186):406‐408.

Baker M: Stem cells: Fast and furious. Nature. 2009;458(7241):962‐5.

Yamanaka S: A fresh look at iPS cells. Cell 2009;137(1):13‐17.

Skottman H, Narkilahti S, Hovatta O: Challenges and approaches to the culture of pluripotent human embryonic stem cells. Regenerative Medicine. 2007;2(3):265‐73.

Also some papers on neurogenesis and the clinical use of stem cells:

Regeneration of the central nervous system using endogenous repair mechanisms. Okano H, Sakaguchi M, Ohki K, Suzuki N, Sawamoto K. J Neurochem. 2007,102(5):1459-65

Björklund & Lindvall ‘Cell replacement therapies for central nervous system disorders’ (2000) Nature Neuroscience 3: 537‐544.

Martino & Pluchino (2006) ‘The therapeutic potential of neural stem cells’ Nature Rev Neurosci 7: 395‐406

Tavazoie et al (2008) ‘A specialized vascular niche for adult neural stem cells.’ Cell Stem Cell 3:279‐288

 

[fredxc]

I recommend a textbook called "Essentials of Stem Cell Biology" (Editor: Robert Lanza). Any medical library should have it. It is a good overview of a variety of topics and each chapter has a list of references at the end, should you feel like diving deeper.

 

[TheCatHerder]

This a great starting place. Thanks to both of you that answered.

If anyone else has any suggestions, I am still very interested.

 

[IvyHopeful20]

This is not a biology course. Don't read textbooks and don't read random articles. Jesus, I can't believe people are telling you to do that. It's a massive waste of time.

OP, your smartest bet would be to read the papers that the lab has put out, and if you don't understand a term or a pathway or anything else, look that part up. Then look at the papers that are referenced by the papers your lab puts out. Look over and understand the purpose of all the techniques used and how it relates to the hypothesis that your lab is making.

That's how you learn in a research lab (or prepare for one). You'll impress your interviewer much mroe if you can talk about their research intelligently than if you read a chapter from some random cell bio book that may or may not be related to what the PI is doing in his lab. Chances are, it has nothing to do with what he's doing since things are so specialized that the level of detail needed rarely makes the textbook.

 

[CoolWhipp]

Read the Yamanaka paper only if they do iPSCs. Otherwise just read on stem cells briefly, and read the papers from the lab. At least read the abstracts.

 

[rhesuspieces]

This is not a biology course. Don't read textbooks and don't read random articles. Jesus, I can't believe people are telling you to do that. It's a massive waste of time.

OP, your smartest bet would be to read the papers that the lab has put out, and if you don't understand a term or a pathway or anything else, look that part up. Then look at the papers that are referenced by the papers your lab puts out. Look over and understand the purpose of all the techniques used and how it relates to the hypothesis that your lab is making.

That's how you learn in a research lab (or prepare for one). You'll impress your interviewer much mroe if you can talk about their research intelligently than if you read a chapter from some random cell bio book that may or may not be related to what the PI is doing in his lab. Chances are, it has nothing to do with what he's doing since things are so specialized that the level of detail needed rarely makes the textbook.

The OP asked for articles to help him/her understand the basic principles of the field. I'm assuming he/she has enough common sense to have already read papers the lab has put out.

 

[TheCatHerder]

The OP asked for articles to help him/her understand the basic principles of the field. I'm assuming he/she has enough common sense to have already read papers the lab has put out.

Yes I have read the labs papers. I just wanted to get more background on iPS cells beyond this lab's specific focus of research. If anyone has any other good review articles they would recommend regarding iPS or stem cells i am still open to suggestions.

 

[CoolWhipp]

Well I can't think of any papers to read off hand but there is that one HIV CCR5 mutant paper, which is pretty awesome. They got a HIV patient and created iPS cells from a differentiated cell type and then did homologous recombination for the CCR5 gene with a mutated version that doesn't allow viral entry. That person is now HIV free, according to whatever tests they did.

And there are tons of iPS related research on disease modeling. I think there are 20 lines already, so pick your disease.

I'm sure you can pubmed them, afterwards. iPS is huge so I think you may want to be more specific in your search.