Click here to read Stem Cells 101, an overview of stem cell research

The February edition of Neurosurgery reports that animal experiments in brain-injured rats have shown that stem cells injected via the carotid artery travel directly to the brain, greatly enhancing functional recovery. (Medical News Today)

An 83-year-old Belgian woman is able to chew, speak and breathe normally again after a machine printed her a new jawbone. Made from a fine titanium powder sculpted by a precision laser beam, her replacement jaw has proven as functional as her own used to be before a potent infection, called osteomyelitis, all but destroyed it (New Scientist)

Treating stroke patients with stem cells taken from their own bone marrow appears to safely help them regain some of their lost abilities, two small new studies suggest. (US News and World Report)

Skin cells have been converted directly into cells which develop into the main components of the brain, by researchers studying mice in California. (BBC News)

This is how the military might treat burned faces in 2017: A mask, worn for several months, that’s layered with sensors, actuators and a regenerative elixir — including stem cells — to regrow missing facial tissue. (Wired)

Scientists have successfully replicated Alzheimer’s disease neurons with stem cells for the first time in a landmark, multi-year study – an achievement that may lead to critical new understanding of the disease, the scientists said. (Fox News)

The first published results of trials using cells derived from human embryonic stem cells appear to show they have passed an initial safety hurdle. (Medical News Today)

South Korea’s government drug agency cleared the way Thursday for commercial sales of what it called the world’s first approved medicine using stem cells collected from other people. (AFP)

For the first time ever, stem cells from umbilical cords have been converted into other types of cells, which may eventually lead to new treatment options for spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis, among other nervous system diseases. (Medical News Today)

Researchers in California are attempting to make an artificial testicle that will produce human sperm. (ABC News)

Stem Cells (Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2012) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:

• “Our Top 10 Developments in Stem Cell Biology over the Last 30 Years” by Lyle Armstrong, Majlinda Lako, Noel Buckley, Terry R.J. Lappin, Martin J. Murphy, Jan A. Nolta, Mark Pittenger and Miodrag Stojkovic, 2-9.

• “Embryonic Stem Cells Versus Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: The Game Is On” by Mira C. Puri and Andras Nagy, 10-14.

• “Concise Review: Genomic Stability of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells” by Kristen Martins-Taylor and Ren-He Xu, 22-27.

• “The Magic Act of Generating Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: Many Rabbits in the Hat” by Gustavo Mostoslavsky, 28-32.

• “Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Versus Embryonic Stem Cells: Close Enough or Yet Too Far Apart?” by Josipa Bilic and Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, 33-41.

• “Cord Blood Banking, Transplantation and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell: Success and Opportunities” by Mahendra Rao, Lars Ahrlund-Richter and Dan S. Kaufman, 55-60.

Surgeons in Sweden have replaced the cancerous windpipe of a Maryland man with one made in a laboratory and seeded with the man’s cells. (NY Times)

In the future, patients in need of perfectly matched neural stem cells may not need to look any further than their own eyes. (Medical News Today)

Stem cells from cord blood “re-educated” the immune system T cells of people with type 1 diabetes so their pancreas started producing insulin again, thereby reducing the amount of insulin they needed to inject. (Medical News Today)

China has ordered a halt to all unapproved stem cell treatments and clinical trials, state media reported on Tuesday, as Beijing seeks to rein in the largely untested stem cell therapies now on offer across the country. (Fox News)

The Food and Drug Administration voiced concern on Monday that the hope that patients have for cures, not yet available, may leave them vulnerable to unscrupulous providers of stem cell treatments that are illegal and potentially harmful. (Medical Daily)

For the first time, scientists have produced monkeys composed of cells taken from separate embryos. (BBC News)

They are the modern equivalent of snake oil merchants: clinics that charge desperately ill people thousands for unproven stem cell “cures”. Now the US federal government is cracking down on one of the most notorious – and the defendants include a scientist at a leading research university. (New Scientist)

Many U.S. fertility clinics don’t tell egg donors that embryos made from their eggs may end up being used in stem cell research, according to a new government survey. (Reuters)

Injecting younger cells into aging bodies could help people live longer — and stronger — at least according to new research performed on mice. (ABC News)

Stanford University School of Medicine investigators have shown that iPS cells, viewed as a possible alternative to human embryonic stem cells, can mirror the defining defects of a genetic condition - in this instance, Marfan syndrome - as well as embryonic stem cells can. (Medical News Today)