Category Archives: Arizona Stem Cells

Robert Clayton Robbins, head of the Texas Medical Center, was named Tuesday as top choice for president of the University of Arizona.

The Board of Regents selected Robbins in Phoenix following interviews with him and one other candidate Monday.

Robbins will meet the campus community and the public at a forum Wednesday afternoon. The regents will vote next week formally to make him an offer, and contract negotiations will begin. A final vote on the contract is expected April 6, based on a timeline the regents released last week.

Robbins, who serves as president and chief executive officer at the Texas Medical Center, said at a press conference Tuesday he was eager to get on the road to Tucson. He said his top priority will be the UA's students.

"I look forward to meeting them, working with them, and helping them be prepared for this new world that were living in now," he said. "Its changing rapidly, and as the university family weve got to treat each one of them like our own children and help them be prepared for not just the four years they spend on campus, but the next 40 years of their life."

The announcement was delayed by more than an hour late Tuesday afternoon as members of the Board of Regents met privately to select their top candidate. Regent Bill Ridenour, who headed the search committee, said the delay was not a sign of disagreement.

"We just wanted to be very thorough," Ridenour said. "When you get nine people in a room that have differing thoughts, you want to make sure that you give those people every opportunity because its important, we think, that we be unanimous. So we are, and we are, and were excited."

Robbins is a cardiac surgeon who joined the Texas Medical Center as its president and CEO in 2012. In that time, he introduced five research initiatives centered on innovation, genomics, regenerative medicine, health policy and clinical research. The Texas Medical Center is the largest medical complex in the world, a press release said.

Dr. Robbins comprehensive experience as both a visionary leader and highly-respected physician, as well as his evident talent for advancing research, innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development will serve the University of Arizona and our state well, regents' President Eileen Klein said in a press release.

As a surgeon, Robbins has focused on acquired cardiac diseases with a special expertise in the surgical treatment of congestive heart failure and cardiothoracic transplantation. His research work includes the investigation of stem cells for cardiac regeneration.

The other finalist was Sethuraman Panch Panchanathan, executive vice president and chief research and innovation officer at Arizona State University.

Current UA President Ann Weaver Hart will step down after her successor is chosen. Hart will take a one-year sabbatical leave and return to the UA as a professor in the College of Education.

She became the university's first female president in 2012 and announced last year she would not seek renewal of her contract in 2018.

Read this article:
Robert Clayton Robbins Top Choice for UA President - Arizona Public Media

March 8, 2017 Just as Elon University gets its president search off the ground with the help of a recruiting boutique, the University of Arizona has selected its 22ndpresident with assistance fromR. William Funk & Associates.

The firm recently presented two finalist candidates: Dr. Robert Robbins, CEO of Texas Medical Center, and Sethuraman Panchanathan, Arizona State Universitys VP of research. Yesterday, the school announced it selected Dr. Robbins to fill its top leadership post. He replaces Ann Weaver Hart, who decided not to seek an extension to her current contract as president.

Recruiting firm founder and president R. William Funk led the assignment. His firm has recruited more presidents to AAU land-grant universities than any other search firm. He expertise extends to recruiting leaders to universities with major health science and medical centers.

Dr. Robbins joined the Texas Medical Center, as president and CEO, in 2012. Since then, he has significantly enhanced its commitment to collaboration, introducing five cross-institutional research initiatives centered on innovation, genomics, regenerative medicine, health policy and clinical research.

Recruitment of Academia Presidents RisingReduced state funding, rising tuition costs, soaring student debt and decreased federal research funding have all contributed to a dramatic rise in the role search firms are playing in the recruitment of university presidents and chancellors.

An internationally recognized cardiac surgeon, Dr. Robbins has focused his clinical efforts on acquired cardiac diseases with a special expertise in the surgical treatment of congestive heart failure and cardiothoracic transplantation. His research work includes the investigation of stem cells for cardiac regeneration, cardiac transplant allograft vasculopathy, bioengineered blood vessels and automated vascular anastomotic devices.

Prior to joining the Texas Medical Center, Dr. Robbins served as professor and chairman of the department of cardiothoracic surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine, founding director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, president of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation, president of the Western Thoracic Surgical Association, president of the American Heart Association Western States Affiliate, president of the Bay Area Society of Thoracic Surgeons, and chair of the American Heart Association Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia Council, among other roles.

He was also elected to the Houston branch of the Dallas Federal Reserve board in 2015; to the board of directors of the Welch Foundation in 2014, where he currently serves as treasurer; and as the president of the American Heart Association Southwest Affiliate in 2016.

Dr. Robbins comprehensive experience as both a visionary leader and highly-respected physician, as well as his evident talent for advancing research, innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development, will serve the University of Arizona and our state well, said Eileen Klein, president of the Arizona board of regents. I look forward to the possibility of collaborating with Dr. Robbins to advance the University of Arizona and achieve aggressive goals for the state of Arizona.

Founded in 1885, the University of Arizona was the first university in theArizona Territory. It includes theBanner University Medical Center Tucson, which operates a separate four-year M.D. collegein downtownPhoenix.Total enrollment is more than 42,100 students, with the largest freshmen class in its history at 8,100 students in 2015. The school offers 334 fields of study leading to bachelors, masters, doctoral, and professional degrees.

Emergence of Physician Leaders

The emergence of physician leaders is part of a trend centered on the unpredictability that both physicians, health systems and academic centers now face. In response, these organizations are taking steps to revise criteria for who they want to lead them forward and what the qualifications incoming leaders should have .. Heres some further reading from Hunt Scanlon Media.

Why Physician Leaders are Now Trending Due to uncertainty and volatility in the U.S. healthcare sector, physician leaders are better positioned to relate, communicate and navigate changes on the horizon. To executive recruiters specializing in the sector, these professionals are the new standard-bearers who bring vision and new ways of thinking.

R. William Funk & Associates is an executive search firm specializing in higher education executive recruitment. The firm, located in Dallas, TX, has conducted more than 400 searches for university and college presidents and chancellors over the last 35 years.

Among the nearly 70 currently sitting presidents Mr. Funk has helped recruit, many are seated at some of the nations most respected universities. Heres a sampling: Michael V. Drake, president of Ohio State University; Max Nikias, president of the University of Southern California; Carol Folt, chancellor of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Teresa Sullivan, president of the University of Virginia; Bernadette Gray-Little, chancellor of the University of Kansas; Robert Barchi, president of Rutgers University; Mitch Daniels, president of Purdue University; James Clements, president of Clemson University; and G.P. Peterson, president of Georgia Tech.

Academic Search Roundup

A number of institutions of higher education have been replacing top leaders over the past year.Heres a roundup of recent recruiting activity in the education and academic sector, taken from theHunt Scanlon Media newswire archives:

Contributed by Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor, Hunt Scanlon Media

Go here to see the original:
R. William Funk Lands New Leader for University of Arizona - Hunt Scanlon Media (press release)

Rubby De La Rosa had already undergone Tommy John surgery. So when his right elbow became an issue again, he had a tough decision to make.

He could have the surgery again and risk that it might not be as effective the second time around. Or he could venture down another avenue.

Either way, his career was at stake.

De La Rosa was in his second season as a Diamondback when it was interrupted in September by a familiar pain in his elbow.

His rookie season with the Dodgers in 2011 was cut short for the same reason. He ended up having his first Tommy John procedure.

So when the issue arose again last season, he and Dr. James Andrews who performed De La Rosas first Tommy John surgery discussed the options. They decided stem-cell therapy would be more effective than a second surgery. De La Rosa then received one stem cell injection in late September and another in December.

He has been playing catch and said he feels 100-percent healthy, but he will not begin throwing off the mound until mid-March.

What I see from it right now, its working, said De La Rosa, who will be 28 years old March 4. No more pain, no more soreness. Just waiting for my time.

Dr. Keith Jarbo is an orthopedic surgeon with OrthoArizona who specializes in elbow surgery. Jarbo, who has performed many Tommy John surgeries to repair the ulnar collateral ligament, said the procedure is less effective the second time around.

Stem-cell therapy has become more popular in orthopedics over the past five to 10 years, Jarbo said. Some doctors even use it in addition to Tommy John surgery to accelerate the healing process. He said stem cells are used because they are pluripotent, meaning they can develop into every type of cell that makes up the body.

They have a lot of the growth factors that are necessary for healing, Jarbo said. We think they can be important adjuncts for healing.

However, there is a risk. Jarbo said there is no research that compares the efficacy of stem-cell therapy to that of Tommy John surgery. With the lack of research, Jarbo said one doctor may be using different types of stem cells than another.

He said he doesnt use stem cells and wont until there is more research that shows it is effective. Until then, he cant assure his patients that stem-cell therapy will produce a ligament that has similar characteristics to what it did before the injury.

Its high-risk in the sense that we dont know exactly what its going to do, Jarbo said. We think that it promotes healing, but we dont know exactly what growth factors are within or whats going to happen.

I dont think youre necessarily getting a new, better tissue as if youre developing a robot. Youre really just trying to get good healing and strong appropriate tissue, whether thats with surgery or not.

Jarbo estimated Andrews conducts over 100 Tommy John surgeries per year. He said doctors like Andrews may be helpful in researching stem-cell therapys effectiveness if they can use stem cells on half of their patients and compare the results with the half that received Tommy John surgery.

De La Rosa is part of a group of trendsetters. Last season, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim pitchers Garrett Richards and Andrew Heaney both received stem cell injections to stave off Tommy John surgery. Heaney ended up needing the surgery anyway.

D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said De La Rosa seems encouraged by his health.

We just know that Rubby is in a really good place, hes been throwing the ball really well hes smiling, and hes back to himself, which is always a good sign for him, he said.

Diamondbacks pitching coach Mike Butcher said stem-cell therapy is unpredictable, but seems to helping De La Rosa.

Its obviously helped out Rubby, Butcher said. The results have been good so far; he feels great. Now its just a matter of working toward the progression of where we can get him off the mound.

Jarbo said the largest risk with using stem-cell therapy may be that players are rushed back to action through an accelerated rehab program.

However, De La Rosa has been patient throughout his now five-month recovery.

He hopes it means the end of his elbow pain.

Its frustrating because sometimes you want to pitch but you cannot pitch because theres a lot of soreness, he said. When you do it right and you get hurt and everything switches, now you cant pitch with your whole motion and you have to limit a lot of things.

You get bad pitching.

The rest is here:
D-backs' De La Rosa counting on stem-cell therapy to avoid second Tommy John - Arizona Sports (registration) (blog)

Ali Brivanlou slides open a glass door at the Rockefeller University in New York to show off his latest experiments probing the mysteries of the human embryo.

"As you can see, all my lab is glass just to make sure there is nothing that happens in some dark rooms that gives people some weird ideas," says Brivanlou, perhaps only half joking.

Brivanlou knows that some of his research makes some people uncomfortable. That's one reason he has agreed to give me a look at what's going on.

His lab and one other discovered how to keep human embryos alive in lab dishes longer than ever before at least 14 days. That has triggered an international debate about a long-standing convention (one that's legally binding in some countries, though not in the U.S.) that prohibits studying human embryos that have developed beyond the two-week stage.

And in other experiments, he's using human stem cells to create entities that resemble certain aspects of primitive embryos. Though Brivanlou doesn't think these "embryoids" would be capable of developing into fully formed embryos, their creation has stirred debate about whether embryoids should be subject to the 14-day rule.

Brivanlou says he welcomes these debates. But he hopes society can reach a consensus to permit his work to continue, so he can answer some of humanity's most fundamental questions.

"If I can provide a glimpse of, 'Where did we come from? What happened to us, for us to get here?' I think that, to me, is a strong enough rationale to continue pushing this," he says.

For decades, scientists thought the longest an embryo could survive outside the womb was only about a week. But Brivanlou's lab, and one in Britain, announced last year in the journals Nature and Nature Cell Biology that they had kept human embryos alive for two weeks for the first time.

That enabled the scientists to study living human embryos at a crucial point in their development, a time when they're usually hidden in a woman's womb.

"Women don't even know they are pregnant at that stage. So it has always been a big black box," Brivanlou says.

Gist Croft, a stem cell biologist in Brivanlou's lab, shows me some samples, starting with one that's 12 days old.

"So you can see this with the naked eye," Croft says, pointing to a dish. "In the middle of this well, if you look down, there's a little white speck it looks like a grain of sand or a piece of dust."

Under a microscope, the embryo looks like a fragile ball of overlapping bubbles shimmering in a silvery light with thin hairlike structures extending from all sides.

Croft and Brivanlou explain that those willowy structures are what embryos would normally extend at this stage to search for a place to implant inside the uterus. Scientists used to think embryos could do that only if they were receiving instructions from the mother's body.

"The amazing thing is that it's doing its thing without any information from mom," Brivanlou says. "It just has all the information already in it. That was mind-blowing to me."

The embryos they managed to keep alive in the lab dish beyond seven days of development have also started secreting hormones and organizing themselves to form the cells needed to create all the tissues and organs in the human body.

The two scientists think studying embryos at this and later stages could lead to discoveries that might point to new ways to stop miscarriages, treat infertility and prevent birth defects.

"The only way to understand what goes wrong is to understand what happens normally, or as normally as we can, so we can prevent all of this," Brivanlou says.

The 14-day cutoff

But Brivanlou isn't keeping these embryos alive longer than 14 days because of the rule.

"The decision about pulling the plug was probably the toughest decision I've made in my scientific career," he says. "It was sad for me."

The 14-day rule was developed decades ago to avoid raising too many ethical questions about experimenting on human embryos.

Two weeks is usually the moment when the central nervous system starts to appear in the embryo in a structure known as the "primitive streak."

It's also roughly the stage at which an embryo can no longer split into twins. The idea behind the rule is, that's when an embryo becomes a unique individual.

But the rule was initiated when no one thought it would ever be possible to keep embryos growing in a lab beyond two weeks. Brivanlou thinks it's time to rethink the 14-day rule.

"This is the moment," he says.

Scientists, bioethicists and others are debating the issue in the U.S., Britain and other countries. The rule is law in Britain and other countries and incorporated into widely followed guidelines in the United States.

Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University, advocates revisiting the rule. It would allow more research to be done on embryos that are destined to be destroyed anyway, he says embryos donated by couples who have finished infertility treatment.

"Given that it has to be destroyed," Hyun says, "some would argue that it's best to get as much information as possible scientifically from it before you destroy it."

But others find it morally repugnant to use human embryos for research at any stage of their development and argue that lifting the 14-day rule would make matters worse.

"Pushing it beyond 14 days only aggravates what is the primary problem, which is using human life in its earliest stages solely for experimental purposes," says Dr. Daniel Sulmasy, a Georgetown University bioethicist.

The idea of extending the 14-day rule even makes some people who support embryo research queasy, especially without first finding another clear stopping point.

Hank Greely, a Stanford University bioethicist, worries that going beyond 14 days could "really draws into question whether we're using humans or things that are well along the path to humans purely as guinea pigs and purely as experimental animals."

Embryo alternative: "Embryoids"

So as that debate continues, Brivanlou and his colleagues are trying to develop another approach. The scientists are attempting to coax human embryonic stem cells to organize themselves into entities that resemble human embryos. They are also using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are cells that behave like embryonic stem cells, but can be made from any cell in the body.

Brivanlou's lab has already shown that these "embryo-like structures" or "embryoids" can create the three fundamental cell types in the human body.

But the scientists have only been able to go so far using flat lab dishes. So the researchers are now trying to grow these embryonic-like structures in three dimensions by placing stem cells in a gel.

"Essentially, we're trying to, in a way, to re-create a human embryo in a dish starting from stem cells," says Mijo Simunovic, another of Brivanlou's colleagues.

In early experiments, Simunovic says, he has been able to get stem cells to "spontaneously" form a ball with a "cavity in its center." That's significant because that's what early human embryos do in the uterus.

Simunovic says it's unclear how close these structures could become to human embryos entities that have the capability to develop into babies.

"At the moment, we don't know. That's something that's very hot for us right now to try to understand," Simunovic says.

Simunovic argues the scientists are not "ethically limited to studying these cells and studying these structures" by the 14-day rule.

There's a debate about that, however.

"At what point is your model of an embryo basically an embryo?" asks Hyun, especially when the model seems to have "almost like this inner, budding life."

"Are we creating life that, in the right circumstances, if you were to transfer this to the womb it would continue its journey?" he asks.

Dr. George Daley, the dean of the Harvard Medical School and a leading stem cell researcher, says scientists have been preparing for the day when stem-cell research might raise such questions.

"I think what prospects people are concerned about are the kinds of dystopian worlds that were written about by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World," Daley says. "Where human reproduction is done on a highly mechanized scale in a petri dish."

Daley stresses scientists are nowhere near that, and may never get there. But science moves quickly. So Daley says it's important scientists move carefully with close ethical scrutiny.

The latest guidelines issued by the International Society for Stem Cell Research call for intensive ethical review, Daley notes.

Brivanlou acknowledges that some of his experiments have produced early signs of the primitive streak. But that's a very long way from being able to develop a spinal cord, or flesh and bones, let alone a brain. He dismisses the notion that the research on embryoids would ever lead to scientists creating humans in a lab dish.

"They will not get up start walking around. I can assure you that," he says, noting that full human embryonic development is a highly complex process that requires just the right mix of the biology, physics, geometry and other factors.

Nevertheless, Brivanlou says all of his experiments go through many layers of review. And he's convinced the research should continue.

"It would be a travesty," he says, "to decide that, somehow, ignorance is bliss."

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Scientists doing embryo research are facing some sensitive questions over a new generation of scientific experiments, questions like how long should scientists be allowed to keep human embryos alive in their labs to study them? And should entities that they create from stem cells resembling human embryos be treated the same way? NPR's health correspondent Rob Stein visited a lab that's at the forefront of this provocative research, and he brings us now the first of two reports.

ROB STEIN, BYLINE: So what are we going to see first?

ALI BRIVANLOU: A human embryo that is attached and grown for 13 days in a petri dish.

STEIN: Ali Brivanlou runs the lab at The Rockefeller University in midtown Manhattan.

So this is an embryo that - where you were able to keep it alive in the laboratory...

BRIVANLOU: Exactly.

STEIN: ...Up until day...

BRIVANLOU: Day 13.

STEIN: And had it been done before?

BRIVANLOU: Never.

STEIN: For decades, scientists thought the longest an embryo could survive outside the womb was only about half that long - only about a week tops. So this is the first time scientists can actually see living human embryos at this crucial stage of development and study them at a time when they're usually hidden in a woman's womb.

BRIVANLOU: And women don't even know they are pregnant at that stage, so it has always been a big black box.

STEIN: Brivanlou arranged for one of his colleagues to show me.

BRIVANLOU: I ask him to make sure that he has a real sample for you to see with your own eyes so that you can appreciate the beauty in their own glory. It's really one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life.

STEIN: Brivanlou's colleague Gist Croft pulls out some samples. Turns out, he's going to show me several embryos, starting with one that's 12 days old.

GIST CROFT: So you can see this with the naked eye. In the middle of this well, if you look down, there's a little white speck that looks like a grain of sand or a piece of dust in this well right here. I don't know if you can - can you see that?

STEIN: Yeah, it looks like a tiny little white translucent dot.

CROFT: That's it.

STEIN: Croft carefully places it on a big microscope and pulls a heavy black curtain closed.

CROFT: Would you like to look through the microscope?

STEIN: Yeah.

BRIVANLOU: OK.

STEIN: Croft helps me bring the embryo into focus.

Oh, yeah, I can see...

CROFT: Better?

STEIN: I can see the - oh, wow. Wow, that's, like, kind of beautiful.

It is quite stunning. It looks like a fragile ball of overlapping bubbles that's sort of shimmering in a silvery light, but it's also a little, well, funny looking.

So that looks like a (laughter) well, I mean, it kind of just looks like a - kind of a translucent hairy ball actually.

CROFT: Yes.

STEIN: Croft and Brivanlou get excited that I noticed what looked like little hairs reaching out from all sides because that's exactly what scientists would expect embryos to do at this stage if they were in the womb - search for just the right spot to nestle in.

CROFT: They're doing the reaching out and attaching that they normally do into uterus cells, but here they're doing it onto plastic.

STEIN: Wow, so they're behaving like they would - this embryo is behaving like it would if it was actually in the womb.

CROFT: That's right. It's reproducing certain key features of what it's normally doing in the womb.

STEIN: Scientists thought embryos could only do that sort of thing if they were getting instructions from their mother's body about what to do next - not all alone in some plastic dish.

BRIVANLOU: The amazing thing is that it's doing its thing without any information from mom - completely unexpected to me. It just has all the information already in it. That was mind-blowing to me.

STEIN: The embryos also start pumping out hormones and start organizing themselves, all by themselves, to form the cells needed to create all the tissues and organs that make up the human body. So Brivanlou and his colleagues think they could learn lots of things by studying them that could help stop miscarriages, treat infertility, prevent birth defects.

BRIVANLOU: The only way to understand what goes wrong is to understand what happens normally or as normally as we can so we can prevent all of this.

STEIN: But that would mean studying embryos beyond 14 days and Brivanlou can't keep these embryos alive any longer to keep studying them. Why? Because of a rule that says scientists should not conduct experiments on human embryos that are more than 14 days old. So Brivanlou decided he had no choice but to pull the plug on these experiments.

BRIVANLOU: The decision about pulling the plug was probably the toughest decision I've made in my scientific career. It was sad for me. It was sad.

STEIN: The 14-day rule was adopted decades ago to avoid raising too many ethical questions. It's a guideline in the U.S. but law in some other countries. Fourteen days is when the central nervous system starts forming, starting with something called the primitive streak. It's also usually when an embryo can't split into twins anymore. So the idea is that's when it truly becomes an individual. But that was before anyone thought it would ever be possible to go beyond two weeks. So Brivanlou says it's time to rethink the 14-day rule.

BRIVANLOU: It's time to reopen that debate. This is the moment. I think we are here. It would be a travesty to decide that somehow ignorance is bliss.

STEIN: And Brivanlou's not alone. There's a big debate about this going on in the United States, Britain and other countries. Insoo Hyun is a bioethicist at the Case Western Reserve University. He points out that these are embryos that were donated for research by couples who were finished with infertility treatments.

INSOO HYUN: You have to realize that with these embryos they are being used for research. That decision has been made. Now, the question is how long can you study them before they have to be destroyed? So given that it has to be destroyed, some would argue that it's best to get as much information as possible scientifically from it before you destroy it.

STEIN: Now, some people think it's morally repugnant to use human embryos for any kind of research at any stage of their development. And lifting the 14-day rule, that would just make matters worse. But the idea of extending the 14-day rule even makes some people who support embryo research uncomfortable, especially without first coming up with another clear stopping point. Hank Greely is a bioethicist at Stanford.

HANK GREELY: Unless there was something really important we could learn from doing research with human embryos, I wouldn't allow research beyond 14 days because at some point experimentation with it seems to really draw into question whether we're using humans or things that are well along the path to humans purely as guinea pigs and purely as experimental animals.

STEIN: So as that debate continues, Brivanlou and his colleagues are trying something else. They're using stem cells to create things that resemble primitive human embryos in their lab, but that's controversial too. Rob Stein, NPR News, New York.

View post:
Embryo Experiments Reveal Earliest Human Development, But Stir Ethical Debate - KNAU Arizona Public Radio

The two finalists for president of the University of Arizona will interview with the Board of Regents in private sessions Monday, followed by a Tuesday private session to select the top candidate.

The decision will be announced at a Tuesday press conference, the regents said in a press release. That candidate will meet the community at a public forum Wednesday on campus.

"The finalist will have an opportunity to meet with students, faculty, staff and members of the public during a moderated question and answer session," the regents' press release said.

Interviewing for the job Monday will be Sethuraman Panch Panchanathan, executive vice president and chief research and innovation officer at Arizona State University, and Robert Clayton Robbins, president and chief executive officer at the Texas Medical Center.

The board is seeking a replacement for Ann Weaver Hart, who announced last year she will not seek renewal of her contract past its 2018 expiration. The regents have said Hart will step down once a new president is ready to come on board, anticipated by this summer.

The press release said the regents hope to meet March 13 to finalize their selection, followed by contract negotiations and a final agreement to be voted on and announced at an April 6 regents' meeting.

Panchanathan is responsible for advancing research, innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development at ASU. During his tenure, ASU has been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as No. 1 on its Most Innovative Schools list for two consecutive years.

He is a computing and informatics expert and is director of the center for "cognitive ubiquitous computing." He was founding director of the ASU School of Computing and Informatics and was instrumental in founding the Biomedical Informatics Department at ASU.

Robbins is a cardiac surgeon who joined the Texas Medical Center as its president and CEO in 2012. In that time, he introduced research initiatives on innovation, genomics, regenerative medicine, health policy and clinical research. The Texas Medical Center is the largest medical complex in the world, the press release said.

As a surgeon, Robbins has focused on acquired cardiac diseases with a special expertise in the surgical treatment of congestive heart failure and cardiothoracic transplants. His research work includes the investigation of stem cells for cardiac regeneration.

The regents used a search firm to find candidates for the position, and news media reports said two internal candidates were among those considered. They were identified as UA Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Andrew C. Comrie and Joaquin Ruiz, vice president for innovation and dean of the UA College of Science.

Hart became UA president in July 2012, the first woman in the position. She came from Temple University in Philadelphia, where she was president, and before that, was president of the University of New Hampshire.

Under agreement with the Board of Regents, Hart will retain her salary of $475,000 a year, take a one-year leave of absence upon stepping down as university president and will be a professor in the College of Education when she returns.

The rest is here:
Interviews for UA President Monday; Announcement Wednesday - Arizona Public Media

SCOTTSDALE, AZ--(Marketwired - February 28, 2017) - Lattice Biologics Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: LBL) (LBLTF) ("Lattice Biologics" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it is part of a new public-private initiative, the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute ("ARMI").

ARMI will receive approximately $80 million from the federal government, which will be combined with more than $200 million in non-federal cost share, to establish the Advanced Tissue Biofabrication Manufacturing USA Institute. Headquartered in Manchester, New Hampshire, this new Institute brings together a consortium of nearly 100 partner organizations from industry, government, academia and the non-profit sector to develop next-generation manufacturing processes and technologies for life-saving cells, tissues and organs.

This effort will provide support to help bridge the gap between basic/early research and product development by advancing and scaling critical biofabrication technologies, and will provide shared assets to help entities access cutting edge capabilities and equipment.

In collaboration with key individuals at ASU Biodesign in Tempe, Arizona, Lattice Biologics is developing products, which include the use of scaffolds derived from human tissue that can 1) support ingrowth of tissue progenitor cells (notably, stem cells), 2) direct and preserve the phenotypes of engrafted cells and 3) enhance healing times and improve patient outcomes. Underlying these efforts is the use of ECM (extracellular matrix) secreted by stem cells and/or harvested from various tissues including muscle, adipose and placenta, to develop game-changing technologies in the field of regenerative medicine.

As an emerging leader in the field of cellular therapies and tissue engineering, Lattice Biologics will play an important role in ARMI's mission to develop innovative manufacturing capabilities by sharing strategic research and development efforts, provide source biomaterial for testing and bring together cross-disciplinary research players in the biomedical and academic communities.

About the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University:

The ASU Biodesign Institute plays a critical role in advancing the research mission of Arizona State University; specifically, to conduct use-inspired research, fuse intellectual disciplines and value entrepreneurship. The Biodesign Institute is a hub of 21st century innovation, with the Biodesign Institute's convergent technologies and fields of research focusing on biomedicine and health outcomes, sustainability and security.

About ARMI:

Headquartered in Manchester, New Hampshire, ARMI is the 12th Manufacturing USA Institute. It brings together a consortium of nearly 100 partners from across industry, government, academia and the non-profit sector to develop next-generation manufacturing processes and technologies for cells, tissues and organs. ARMI will work to organize the current fragmented domestic capabilities in tissue biofabrication technology to better position the U.S. relative to global competition. For more information on ARMI, please visit http://www.ARMIUSA.org.

Lattice Biologics Ltd.

Guy Cook, Chief Executive Officer Telephone No: (480) 563-0800

About Lattice Biologics Ltd.:

Lattice Biologics Ltd. is an emerging precision medicine leader in the field of cellular therapies and tissue engineering, with an emphasis on bone, skin, and cartilage regeneration. As a manufacturer of the highest quality allografts, Lattice is focused on next generation products to improve surgical outcomes.

Versatile allografts for a variety of surgical applications:

The Company is currently exploring new technologies in regenerative and personalized medicine:

Lattice Biologics operates headquarters, laboratory and manufacturing facilities in Scottsdale, Arizona as well as offices in Toronto Ontario. The Company maintains all necessary licensures to process and sell its tissue engineered products within the U.S. and internationally. This includes Certificates to Foreign Governments from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and registrations for 29 countries, which allow the export of bone, tendon, meniscus, ligament, soft tissue, and cartilage products outside of the U.S.

Lattice Biologics (TSX VENTURE: LBL) (LBLTF) became a publicly traded company on January 4, 2016.

Read More

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information:

Certain information contained in this news release constitutes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the 'safe harbour' provisions of Canadian securities laws. All statements herein, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "potential", "future", "expected", "could", "possible", "goal", "intends", "will" or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, without limitation: information pertaining to the Company's strategy, plans, or future financial performance, such as statements with respect to participation in the ARMI, future revenues or products, and other statements that express management's expectations or estimates of future performance. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Lattice to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of factors and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management as of the date such statements are made, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. The factors and assumptions that could prove to be incorrect, include, but are not limited to: that market prices will be consistent with expectations, the continued availability of capital and financing, and that general economic, market and business conditions will be consistent with expectations. The forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. We disclaim any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

Subscribe to Lattice News UpdatesFollow us on Twitter: @LatticeBio

Go here to see the original:
Lattice Biologics Participates in $300 Million Public-Private Initiative, the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing ... - Yahoo Finance

Come See Sonoran Living Live!

Sonoran Living is looking for LIVE studio audiences! Reservations are available for FREE via e-mail: slviewers@abc15.com.

Taping schedule:The show airs live daily. Currently we are only booking audiences for the first Friday of the month. Sign up for our audience!Please send us an email with name(s), date you would like to be in the audience, contact person, e-mail and contact phone number.

What are the age requirements?You must be 18 years or older to attend a taping of Sonoran Living Live.

Should I bring my ID to the studio?Yes, you must have a valid photo ID to enter the studio.

How many seats can I reserve?Group tickets are available.

How long will the taping last?The show will air live for one hour from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.

What time do I need to arrive for the taping?8:30 a.m. Late-comers will not be admitted.

Where is the studio?ABC15 Studios,515 N. 44th Street, Phoenix, AZ

Here is the original post:
Source of Health shows how stem cells can help heal joint pain - ABC15 Arizona

To paraphrase an age-old saying: If at first you don't succeed, well, dust off the historic launch pad and try another liftoff.

Not as catchy as the original, perhaps, but certainly fitting for SpaceX, which succeeded Sunday on its second launch attempt at NASA's Launch Complex 39A, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The first attempt, scrubbed Saturday with just 13 seconds before liftoff, was foiled by concerns over an anomaly discovered in the rocket's steering system.

The issue was "99% likely to be fine," Elon Musk, founder of the private space company, tweeted Saturday, "but that 1% chance isn't worth rolling the dice. Better to wait a day."

On Sunday, however, the launch went smoothly. Not only did SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lift off without a hitch, its first stage also returned to land right back on a platform on Earth. Shortly afterward, the Dragon spacecraft it was carrying detached as planned from the rocket.

While there's nothing particularly rare about the 5,500 pounds of cargo strapped into that spacecraft which is destined for the International Space Station the pad it took off from has quite a backstory: Launch Complex 39A was the site that sent the first humans to the moon in the 1969 Apollo 11 mission.

It was the pad for a number of NASA's most important missions from its early days sending people to space, to the three decades of the space shuttle program.

Now the pad, which hadn't been used since that program ended in 2011, is getting dusted off for a new era "as a spaceport open for use by public and commercial missions to space," NPR's Rae Ellen Bichell reported for our Newscast unit.

As we noted Saturday, NASA says SpaceX's resupply mission packs supplies and materials for more than a few experiments:

"Science investigations launching on Dragon include commercial and academic research investigations that will enable researchers to advance their knowledge of the medical, psychological and biomedical challenges astronauts face during long-duration spaceflight.

"One experiment will use the microgravity environment to grow stem cells that are of sufficient quality and quantity to use in the treatment of patients who have suffered a stroke. A Merck Research Labs investigation will test growth in microgravity of antibodies important for fighting a wide range of human diseases, including cancer."

Reuters reports that NASA is also carefully monitoring the launch by SpaceX, which it "hired to fly cargo to the station after the shuttle program ended." The news service says NASA wants "to learn more about SpaceX's operations before it clears the company to fly NASA astronauts on SpaceX rockets."

The rest is here:
On Second Attempt, SpaceX Launches Rocket At NASA's Historic Pad - KNAU Arizona Public Radio

February 18, 2017 at 1:00 am | By Lisa Turpin Special to the News-Press

National Donor Day, observed on Feb. 14, is a great time to register as an organ, eye, and tissue donor or to make an appointment to donate blood or platelets.

What could show more love on Valentines Day than the act of giving ones body to help another?

Whether you are a living donor of blood products, stem cells, kidney or liver, register with your state as an organ donor, or make the decision for your loved one to be a donor, you are truly giving the gift of life.

Nationally, more than 119,000 people are waiting for an organ transplant, including 2,091 children.

That doesnt include the number waiting for a bone marrow (stem cell) matched donor which is much more complicated to find.

Significant progress continues in the advancement of transplantation medicine with goals of lengthening life spans, restoring function, appearance, and quality of life.

But it still takes the generosity of donors and their loved ones to make a transplant possible.

Claudia Swigart of Pinehurst believes the true value of organ donation is the gift of time.

In her case, fifteen years with her husband Wendell that she, their five combined children, thirteen grandchildren, and twelve great-grandchildren may not have had.

Wendell and his three siblings all had Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD), an inherited condition causing cysts to form in the kidney causing damage and kidney failure.

Wendell worked in the mine here in the Valley, shares Claudia.

He found out he had Polycystic Kidney Disease when he was thirty-four and he was careful, he exercised, ate healthy and never smoked. He didnt have any kidney problems until he was sixty-three and had to have open heart surgery.

The surgery was hard on Wendell and his lungs collapsed, he nearly died and it put his kidneys in distress.

He started dialysis after that and was eventually put on the kidney transplant list to receive a transplant at Sacred Heart Medical Center.

The dialysis center in Pinehurst had not opened, so Claudia drove Wendell to Coeur dAlene two times a week for three-hour treatments.

Claudia shared, I am so thankful they opened a dialysis center here. Its exhausting enough to be on dialysis without the traveling.

But there is more to this story.

We always liked telling everyone we could about what happened because we knew God had His hand in the plan, explains Claudia.

They normally traveled to Arizona in their camper for the winter.

Wendell would arrange to have dialysis at the center in Arizona instead of Coeur dAlene.

Well, in 2001 we were planning on leaving so Wendell called to remove himself from the transplant list while we were gone. But, when he called to arrange dialysis at the center in Arizona, they were full! said Claudia.

Since Wendell couldnt have dialysis in Arizona, they were forced to stay home which meant he remained on the transplant list.

Just a few weeks later we got the call! Claudia exclaimed.

Wendell was told he had a matched kidney on the way from a donor in Alaska.

Wendell was sixty-five at the time and he asked if there were any younger people waiting for transplants, anyone still raising young kids who needed it more than he did. His doctor knew he was that kind of man and firmly told him that it was Wendells kidney and he was taking it!

Wendells kidney was such a good match he never experienced any problems or symptoms of rejection.

The transplant coordinators said that the Swigarts could write a letter to the donors family in Alaska if they wanted to have communication with them or thank them.

We wrote a letter to the family two months later and Wendell told them he would take real good care of the kidney, Claudia said.

Wendell did take great care of himself but unfortunately fought esophageal cancer unrelated to his kidneys and passed away in March of 2016 at the age of 80.

The donors family never wrote back, so they do not know the identity of the donor, but Claudia and Wendell were glad they sent the thank-you letter.

We went back to Arizona the year after the transplant and didnt have to worry about dialysis any more. We may never have gotten to do that and he sure wouldnt have had the life he had without the generosity of the donor and their family.

Wendell Swigart had 15 extra quality years with his bride and they celebrated their forty-sixth wedding anniversary before his passing.

Statistics say that only three out of 1,000 people who die are candidates for organ donation, and thats if their families agree to donation.

Even if you register as a donor, it is still up to your family to make the final decision.

Making your family aware that you want to be a donor is the most important thing you can do. For more information visit http://www.donatelife.net or http://www.Organize.org.

Continued here:
Shoshone News Press - Columns, Giving the Gift of Life ~ National ... - Shoshone News Press

KJZZ

Tiny Fish Makes A Big Splash In Arizona Medical Research KJZZ For Han, they provide a handy way to study treatments for metastasis the process in which cancer cells break away from a source tumor and form new tumors elsewhere in the body. The key lies in embryonic stem cells called neural crest cells. As they ... and more »

Read more:
Tiny Fish Makes A Big Splash In Arizona Medical Research - KJZZ