'Scrawny' Gene Keeps Stem Cells Healthy

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - 19:21 in Biology & Nature

Stem cells are the body's primal cells, retaining the youthful ability to develop into more specialized types of cells over many cycles of cell division. How do they do it? Scientists have identified a gene, scrawny, that appears to be a key factor in keeping a variety of stem cells in their undifferentiated state. Understanding how stem cells maintain their potency has implications for basic biology and also for medical applications.

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