If Tianli “Sheldon” Ding needed any confirmation that he was on the right path in life, he got in the form of a diagnosis: leukemia. When Ding was an undergraduate in college, stem cells in his blood betrayed him and turned cancerous. What happened next only made him more determined to study stem cells and Read More…

Over the years, everyone loses a few brain cells. A study led by scientists from USC Stem Cell and the USC Neurorestoration Center presents evidence that adults can replenish at least some of what they’ve lost by generating new brain cells, and that this process is dramatically altered in patients with long-term epilepsy. The findings Read More…

USC Stem Cell postdoctoral trainee Aswathy Ammothumkandy vividly recalls when the tour guide shared the story of Dolly the cloned sheep during her ninth-grade field trip to the regional science center in her home town of Kozhikode, India. From that moment on, Ammothumkandy set her heart on a career in biotechnology. “I thought that this Read More…

Higher exposure to air pollution is strongly associated with cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, especially for people with certain genetic risk factors for the disease. Exactly how pollution interacts with these genes to increase dementia risk is still unknown, but clues may be found in how stem cells within the brain undergo aging, according to Read More…

If you feel your brain power diminishing as you advance into middle age and beyond, blame your neural stem cells. In a new study published in Cell Stem Cell, a team led by USC Stem Cell scientist Michael Bonaguidi demonstrates that neural stem cells—the stem cells of the nervous system—age rapidly. “There is chronological aging, Read More…

Even though a fruit fly doesn’t have ears, it can hear with its antennae. In a new study published in the journal Development, USC Stem Cell scientists describe how adult flies can regenerate sensory hearing cells in their antennae, and how studying flies can provide a new way to understand and develop treatments for the Read More…

The Broad Innovation Award is bringing together three collaborators at USC: Michael Bonaguidi; Robert Chow, a professor of physiology and neuroscience, and biomedical engineering; and Jonathan Russin, an assistant professor of neurological surgery and associate surgical director for the USC Neurorestoration Center. Their project focuses on finding new approaches to treating epilepsy by studying neural Read More…

For the first time ever, the City of Los Angeles hosted the world’s largest stem cell conference. By choosing Los Angeles as the host city for this major annual meeting, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) acknowledged the city’s growing importance as a hub for the biosciences, as well as the world-class research Read More…

Growing stem cells isn’t just something faculty do in the lab. Michael Bonaguidi is one of eight faculty in the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine recently welcomed new babies into their families—more than half of them within the past year. Here, Dr. Bonaguidi and other faculty parents share their joy and wisdom Read More…