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Two Cambridge institutes have today been confirmed as major research centres by biomedical research charity Wellcome, receiving continued support for a further five years.   ̽��ֱ��centres will be co-funded by Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and the Medical Research Council (MRC) respectively.

Researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have created sOPTiKO, a more efficient and enhanced inducible CRISPR genome editing platform. Today, in the journal Development, they describe how the freely available single-step system works in every cell in the body and at every stage of development. This new approach will aid researchers in developmental biology, tissue regeneration and cancer.

Science is demanding as well as exciting. Dish Life, the final of four Cambridge Shorts films, compares the task of raising stem cells in the lab to the challenge of looking after a gang of unruly kids. In conversation with real-life children, scientists show how tricky it is to work with these ‘super cells’.

Scientists have identified for the first time the ‘cell of origin’ – in other words, the first cell from which the cancer grows – in basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer, and followed the chain of events that lead to the growth of these invasive tumours.

In the first genome-scale experiment of its kind, researchers have gained new insights into how a mouse embryo first begins to transform from a ball of unfocussed cells into a small, structured entity. Published in Nature, the single-cell genomics study was led by the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

A new technique that allows embryos to develop in vitro beyond the implantation stage (when the embryo would normally implant into the womb) has been developed by scientists at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge allowing them to analyse for the first time key stages of human embryo development up to 13 days after fertilisation. ̽��ֱ��technique could open up new avenues of research aimed at helping improve the chances of success of IVF.

Genetic ‘signatures’ of early-stage embryos confirm that our development begins to take shape as early as the second day after conception, when we are a mere four cells in size, according to new research led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and EMBL-EBI. Although they seem to be identical, the cells of the two day-old embryo are already beginning to display subtle differences.

Scientists at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have for the first time shown that it is possible to derive from a human embryo so-called ‘naïve’ pluripotent stem cells – one of the most flexible types of stem cell, which can develop into all human tissue other than the placenta.

Golnar Kolahgar (Gurdon Institute) discusses the suggestion that the stem cells which allow our organs to grow “know” their own sexual identity.

There are many challenges facing people with spinal cord injury – and walking again is often the least of their problems. Cambridge research could help patients take control of their lives once more.