Unexpected cells have been found in the protective membranes that enclose the brain, the so called meninges. These ‘neural progenitors’ — or stem cells that differentiate into different kinds of neurons — are produced during embryonic development. These findings show that the neural progenitors found in the meninges produce new neurons after birth — highlighting the importance of meningeal tissue as well as these cells’ potential in the development of new therapies for brain damage or neurodegeneration.

A major cause of pulmonary fibrosis, a mysterious and deadly disease that scars the lungs and obstructs breathing, has now been pinpointed by scientists. The disease, which has no known cure, appears to result from the failure of special lung stem cells that help airways recover from injury, the investigators report.

Scientists have developed a gel for growing miniaturized body organs that can be used in clinical diagnostics and drug development. Organoids are miniature organs that can be grown in the lab from a person’s stem cells. They can be used to model diseases, and in the future could be used to test drugs or even replace damaged tissue in patients.

Scientists can now grow 3-D models of lungs from stem cells, creating new ways to study respiratory diseases, report scientists.

As part of an international clinical trial, researchers at the Sheffield Teaching Hospital recently reported interesting developments in multiple sclerosis therapy. Using the patients’ own blood stem cells, the scientists were able to reboot their immune system, therefore preventing autoreactive immune cells from further attacks on their fragile nervous system.

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers successfully boosted the regeneration of mature nerve cells in the spinal cords of adult mammals — an achievement that could one day translate into improved therapies for patients with spinal cord injuries.

For people with a type of jaw joint disorder that results from loss of cartilage, the only treatments available address symptoms but do not repair the damaged tissue. Now, a new study of mice suggests stem cells already present in the jaw joint could be manipulated to repair it.

The underlying cause of male infertility is unknown for 30 percent of cases. In a pair of new studies, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine determined that the reproductive homeobox (RHOX) family of transcription factors — regulatory proteins that activate some genes and inactivate others — drive the development of stem cells in the testes in mice. The investigators also linked RHOX gene mutations to male infertility in humans. The mouse study is published September 27 by Cell Reports and the human study was published September 15 byHuman Molecular Genetics.