How do temporal variations in protein concentrations affect biology? It’s a question that biologists have only recently begun to address, and the findings are increasingly showing that random temporal changes in the amount of certain proteins play a direct and significant role on biological processes.

They’ve been called the “special forces” of the immune system: invariant natural killer T cells. Although there are relatively few of them in the body, they are more powerful than many other immune cells.

Our body makes antibodies to fight infections. But the synthetic versions of these molecules could hold the key to stimulating the body’s ability to regenerate.

The development of new bone can be a multistep process: first, stem cells differentiate into cartilage cells. Next, the cartilage cells become bone cells. But that’s not all: the cells must experience some mechanical stresses during the transformation in order to transform efficiently from stem cells to bone cells.

Scientists have created miniature brains from stem cells that developed functional neural networks. Despite being a million times smaller than human brains, these lab-grown brains are the first observed to produce brain waves that resemble those of preterm babies.

Medical researchers have grown ‘miniature kidneys’ in the laboratory that could be used to better understand how kidney diseases develop in individual patients. These kidney organoids were grown outside the body from skin cells derived from a single patient who has polycystic kidney disease. This method has paved the way for tailoring treatment plans specific to each patient, which could be extended to a range of kidney diseases.

Scientists say the results have far reaching implications for how we understand the aging process, and how we might develop much-needed treatments for age-related brain diseases.

Researchers have recently developed a multipronged approach for concurrently rejuvenating both the muscle cells and vascular systems of the heart by utilizing two types of stem cells. The findings give hope to develop a new treatment for repairing hearts damaged by myocardial infarction, as an alternative to heart transplant.

Japanese scientists have developed an efficient method of successfully generating hair growth in nude mice. The new method can be scaled up and therefore shows great potential for clinical applications in human hair regenerative therapy.

A phase I clinical trial is the first research monitored by the Food and Drug Administration that demonstrates the potential of regenerative therapy for hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) through collecting, processing and injecting an infant’s own stem cells directly into the heart at the time of surgery.