An object of the present invention is to provide a medium that comprises fewer protein components and enables the maintenance of pluripotent stem cells in an undifferentiated state. The culture medium for pluripotent stem cells comprises a GSK3 inhibitor (A) and a DYRK inhibitor (B).

Methods for de-differentiating or altering the life-span of desired recipient cells, e.g., human somatic cells, by the introduction of cytoplasm from a more primitive, less differentiated cell type, e.g., oocyte or blastomere are provided. These methods can be used to produce embryonic stem cells and to increase the efficiency of gene therapy by allowing for desired cells to be subjected to multiple genetic modifications without becoming senescent. Such cytoplasm may be fractionated and/or subjected to subtractive hybridization and the active materials (sufficient for de-differentiation) identified and produced by recombinant methods.

Provided are methods for treating or preventing vasculopathy in a subject in need thereof, comprising administering to the subject a prostacyclin and a mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) or a MSC-conditioned culture medium or administering to the subject a MSC or a MSC-conditioned culture medium that has treated with prostacyclin. Pharmaceutical compositions suitable for such treatments are also provided.

Methods and systems are provided which permit extraction of a dicot embryo of a dicot seed without damage to the dicot embryo. Methods disclosed herein provide embryos for uses in plant breeding and research procedures.

The present invention provides a method for producing recombinant growth factors using an algal expression system, which offers advantages over traditional platforms, and the algae-derived growth factors can be used to formulate cell culture media for mammalian cells without the risk of pathogen contamination or endotoxins.

Provided herein are methods and systems for co-differentiating differentiatable cells in a population of differentiatable cells into two or more different cell lineages. In some embodiments, the methods and systems use light- or chemically-activatable recombinases to drive expression of one or more transcription factors and/or differentiation factors.