Wise Young from Rutgers gave yesterday’s Friday Evening Lecture here at MBL and it left me, frankly, much more optimistic about stem cell research than I’ve been in in some time. Particularly interesting to me is the notion that potentially all somatic cells have the ability, under the right circumstances, to become stem cells and subsequently to repair an organ. While this was clearly speculation, the mere fact that investigators are thinking this way now, I think bodes well for the field.
The most interesting result that he talked about wasn’t even from his lab. It was the observation that radial glia in the developing neocortex can sometimes, bud off a neuron, which then makes it way along the radial glia, guided to its target in the conventional fashion. But this really throws our classical perspectives on six-layer cortex development for a loop–the radial glia are essentially becoming stem cells–if I understood Professor Young correctly–rather than simply being the guidance system that we were taught about in grad school.
The photo should be captioned: what MBL scientists and their kids, do in their down time. It was taken right out my window here at the Swope Conference Center.
Discoverers and Discoveries 