by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

In a city where so many cultures seek spiritual reawakening, scientists in Jerusalem are harvesting their own type of rebirth, as they develop more ways to save lives through the use of undifferentiated stem cells.  

The laboratories of Israeli universities boast some of the newest advancements in molecular biology, and two potentially life-changing stem cell projects are unfolding at Hebrew University – Hadassah Medical School.

Fixing what was once thought to be irreversible, one of the teams is now capable of repairing neural birth defects, according to their leader, Joseph Yanai, professor of biology at Hadassah Medical School and adjunct professor at Duke University Medical School. The second team, led by Hadassah professors Howard Cedar and Yehudit Bergman, says they are unraveling the mechanism that locks cells into differentiated tissue types and reverting them back to their stem cell origins, so that the cells are viable for future disease repair in multiple organs.

While neither team can predict when their discoveries will be implemented in human lives, both teams are impressed with the rapid progress.

“It’s developing fast,” Yanai said.   Continue reading…