Category Archives: Cell Medicine

Nobel laureate Shinya Yamanaka warned patients on Tuesday about unproven "stem cell therapies" offered at clinics and hospitals in a growing number of countries, saying they were highly risky.

The Internet is full of advertisements touting stem cell cures for just about any disease -- from diabetes, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, eye problems, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to spinal cord injuries -- in countries such as China, Mexico, India, Turkey and Russia.

Yamanaka, who shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine on Monday with John Gurdon of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, Britain, called for caution.

"This type of practice is an enormous problem, it is a threat. Many so-called stem cell therapies are being conducted without any data using animals, preclinical safety checks," said Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan.

"Patients should understand that if there are no preclinical data in the efficiency and safety of the procedure that he or she is undergoing ... it could be very dangerous," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Yamanaka and Gurdon shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery that adult cells can be transformed back into embryo-like stem cells that may one day regrow tissue in damaged brains, hearts or other organs.

"I hope patients and lay people can understand there are two kinds of stem cell therapies. One is what we are trying to establish. It is solely based on scientific data. We have been conducting preclinical work, experiments with animals, like rats and monkeys," Yamanaka said.

"Only when we confirm the safety and effectiveness of stem cell therapies with animals will we initiate clinical trials using a small number of patients."

Yamanaka, who calls the master stem cells he created "induced pluripotent stem cells" (iPS), hopes to see the first clinical trials soon.

"There is much promising research going on," he said.

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Nobel prize winner in medicine warns of rogue 'stem cell therapies'

JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, to the 2012 Nobel Prizes. The first was awarded today for groundbreaking work in reprogramming cells in the body.

Ray Suarez looks at those achievements.

MAN: The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute has today decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine,2012 jointly to John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka.

RAY SUAREZ: The two scientists are from two different generations and celebrated today's announcement half-a-world apart.

But today they were celebrated together for their research that led to a groundbreaking understanding of how cells work.

Sir John Gurdon of CambridgeUniversity was awarded for his work in 1962. He was able to use specialized cells of frogs, like skin or intestinal cells, to generate new tadpoles and show DNA could drive the formation of all cells in the body.

Forty years later, Dr. Yamanaka built on that and went further. He was able to turn mature cells back into their earliest form as primitive cells. Those cells are in many ways the equivalent of embryonic stem cells, because they have the potential to develop into specialized cells for heart, liver and other organs.

Dr. Shinya Yamanaka is currently working at KyotoUniversity. Embryonic stem cells have had to be harvested from human embryos, a source of debate and considerable controversy.

For Gurdon, the prize had special meaning. At a news conference in London, he recalled one schoolteacher's reaction to his desire to study science.

JOHN GURDON, co-winner, Nobel Prize For Medicine or Physiology: It was a completely ridiculous idea because there was no hope whatever of my doing science, and any time spent on it would be a total waste of time, both on my part and the part of the person having to teach him. So that terminated my completely -- completely terminated my science at school.

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Stem Cell Scientists Gurdon and Yamanaka Win Nobel Prize in Medicine

John Gurdon (left) and Shinya Yamanaka showed how to reprogram cells into their embryonic states.

J. Player/Rex Features; Aflo/Rex Features

The discovery that cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic-like state has won this years Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for two leading lights of stem-cell research: John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka.

Reprogrammed cells regain pluripotency, the potential to differentiate into many mature cell types. Many researchers hope that cells created in this way will eventually be used in regenerative medicine, providing replacement tissue for damaged or diseased organs. The field has become one of the hottest in biology, but the prizewinners discoveries were not without controversy when they were made.

Gurdon, who is based at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, UK, was the first person to demonstrate that cells could be reprogrammed, in work published 50years ago1. At the time, scientists believed that cellular specialization was a one-way process that could not be reversed. Gurdon overturned that dogma by removing the nucleus from a frog egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus from a tadpoles intestinal cell. Remarkably, the process was able to turn back the cellular clock of the substitute nucleus. Although it had already committed to specialization, inside the egg cell it acted like an eggs nucleus and directed the development of a normal tadpole.

Gurdon was a graduate student at the University of Oxford, UK, when he did the work. He received his doctorate in 1960 and went on to do a postdoc at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, leaving his frogs in Europe. He did not publish the research until two years after he got his PhD, once he was sure that the animals had matured healthily. I was a graduate student flying in the face of [established] knowledge, he says. There was a lot of scepticism.

Mammalian cells did not prove as amenable to this process, known as cloning by nuclear transfer, as frog cells. It was nearly 35years before the first cloned mammal Dolly the sheep was born, in 1996. Dolly was the only live birth from 277 attempts, and mammalian cloning remained a hit-and-miss affair.

Scientists were desperate to improve the efficiency of the system and to understand the exact molecular process involved. That is where Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, Japan, made his mark. Yamanaka who was born the year that Gurdon published his formative paper used cultured mouse cells to identify the genes that kept embryonic cells immature, and then tested whether any of these genes could reprogram mature cells to make them pluripotent.

In the mid-2000s, the stem-cell community knew that Yamanaka was close. I remember when he presented the data at a 2006 Keystone symposium, says Cdric Blanpain, a stem-cell biologist at the Free University of Brussels. At that time he didnt name them and everyone was betting what these magic factors could be.

A few months later, attendees at the 2006 meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in Toronto, Canada, packed out Yamanakas lecture. The audience waited in silence before he announced his surprisingly simple recipe: activating just four genes was enough to turn adult cells called fibroblasts back into pluripotent stem cells2. Such induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells could then be coaxed into different types of mature cell types, including nerve and heart cells.

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Cell rewind wins medicine Nobel

JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, to the 2012 Nobel Prizes. The first was awarded today for groundbreaking work in reprogramming cells in the body.

Ray Suarez looks at those achievements.

MAN: The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute has today decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine,2012 jointly to John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka.

RAY SUAREZ: The two scientists are from two different generations and celebrated today's announcement half-a-world apart.

But today they were celebrated together for their research that led to a groundbreaking understanding of how cells work.

Sir John Gurdon of CambridgeUniversity was awarded for his work in 1962. He was able to use specialized cells of frogs, like skin or intestinal cells, to generate new tadpoles and show DNA could drive the formation of all cells in the body.

Forty years later, Dr. Yamanaka built on that and went further. He was able to turn mature cells back into their earliest form as primitive cells. Those cells are in many ways the equivalent of embryonic stem cells, because they have the potential to develop into specialized cells for heart, liver and other organs.

Dr. Shinya Yamanaka is currently working at KyotoUniversity. Embryonic stem cells have had to be harvested from human embryos, a source of debate and considerable controversy.

For Gurdon, the prize had special meaning. At a news conference in London, he recalled one schoolteacher's reaction to his desire to study science.

JOHN GURDON, co-winner, Nobel Prize For Medicine or Physiology: It was a completely ridiculous idea because there was no hope whatever of my doing science, and any time spent on it would be a total waste of time, both on my part and the part of the person having to teach him. So that terminated my completely -- completely terminated my science at school.

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Stem Cell Scientists Gurdon and Yamanaka Win Nobel Prize in Medicine

British researcher John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan won this years Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for the discovery that mature, specialised cells of the body can be reprogrammed into blank slates that can become any kind of cell.

The prize committee at Stockholms Karonlinska institute said the discovery has revolutionised our understanding of how cells and organisms develop.

The discoveries of Gurdon and Yamanaka have shown that specialised cells can turn back the developmental clock under certain circumstances, the committee said. These discoveries have also provided new tools for scientists around the world and led to remarkable progress in many areas of medicine.

Recent winners of Nobel Prize in Medicine

The medicine award was the first Nobel Prize to be announced this year. The physics award will be announced on Tuesday, followed by Chemistry on Wednesday, literature on Thursday and the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

The economics prize, which was not among the original awards, but was established by the Swedish central bank in 1968, will be announced on Oct. 15. All prizes will be handed out on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobels death in 1896.

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Stem cell researchers win Nobel medicine prize

British scientist John Gurdon and Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine Monday for experiments separated by almost 50 years that provide deep insight into how animals develop and offer hope for a new era of personalized medicine.

Their findings have revolutionized our understanding of how cells and organisms develop, the Nobel committee said in the prize announcement.

In 1962, Gurdon wowed the world of biology by cloning a frog via a clever technique. He transplanted the genetic material from an intestinal cell of one frog into the fertilized egg cell from another. The egg developed into a tadpole, proving that all of the genetic instructions needed to turn an embryo into an adult exist even in so-called adult cells of the body the specialized cells that make up skin, muscle, nerves and other tissues.

In 2006 and 2007, Yamanaka extended that insight by turning back time on individual cells from both mice and humans. By sprinkling four genes on ordinary skin cells, Yamanaka discovered a virtual fountain of youth for cells: Any type of cell, he found, could be reverted to a young, embryonic state. These induced embryonic cells behave much like the ethically contentious stem cells gleaned from human embryos. They can be grown into many other types of tissues but without having to destroy any embryos.

The breakthrough offered hope that someday, skin cells could be harvested from a patient, sent back in time to an embryonic state, and then grown into replacement tissues such as heart muscle or nerve cells.

Yamanakas breakthrough has spawned a huge research global effort to turn these induced pluripotent stem cells, as theyre called, into therapies tailored to individual patients for a wide range of ailments, including heart disease, some forms of blindness, Parkinsons disease and many other disorders.

The first human trials of such therapies could begin next year, Yamanaka told the journal Nature earlier this year. He said eye diseases present an attractive target for the first tests.

On Monday, Yamanaka credited his co-laureate for making his advances possible. This field has a long history starting with John Gurdon, he said in a brief telephone interview posted on the Nobel Prize Web site. Yamanaka noted he was born in 1962 the year Gurdon published his pivotal frog experiments.

A surgeon by training, Yamanaka, who splits his time between Japans Kyoto University and the University of California, San Francisco, said treating patients has always been his aim. My goal all my life is to bring this stem cell technology to the bedside, to patients.

But the therapeutic potential of induced stem cells remains in question. Some experiments show the cells may form tumors, prompting skepticism that they will ever be safe enough to treat heart disease, Parkinsons disease and many other conditions where specific cells of the body break down.

Originally posted here:
Nobel Prize for medicine awarded to Gurdon, Yamanaka for stem cell discoveries

The Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for 2012 was awarded jointly to British scientist John B. Gurdon and Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka for their work in stem cell research, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm announced Monday.

The announcement opens the prestigious award season for this year while the speculation over literature and peace prizes is rife.

"These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and specialization of cells," the Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute said in a statement on its website.

We now understand that the mature cell does not have to be confined forever to its specialized state. Textbooks have been rewritten and new research fields have been established. By reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy," the statement said.

Gurdon discovered in 1962 that the specialization of cells is reversible. Yamanaka discovered more than 40 years later in 2006 how the intact mature cells in mice could be reprogrammed to become immature stem cells. These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and cellular specialization, the institute has said.

Gurdon was born in 1933 in Dippenhall, the U.K, and received his Doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1960 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology. Gurdon is currently at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge.

Yamanaka was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1962 and received his MD in 1987 at Kobe University and was trained as an orthopedic surgeon. Yamanaka obtained his PhD at Osaka University in 1993. Yamanaka is currently Professor at Kyoto University and is also affiliated to the Gladstone Institute.

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Nobel Prize In Medicine Awarded To Stem Cell Researchers

8 October 2012 Last updated at 09:58 ET By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

Two pioneers of stem cell research have shared the Nobel prize for medicine or physiology.

John Gurdon from the UK and Shinya Yamanaka from Japan were awarded the prize for changing adult cells into stem cells, which can become any other type of cell in the body.

Prof Gurdon used a gut sample to clone frogs and Prof Yamanaka altered genes to reprogramme cells.

The Nobel committee said they had "revolutionised" science.

The prize is in stark contrast to Prof Gurdon's first foray into science when his biology teacher described his scientific ambitions as "a waste of time".

When a sperm fertilises an egg there is just one type of cell. It multiplies and some of the resulting cells become specialised to create all the tissues of the body including nerve and bone and skin.

It had been though to be a one-way process - once a cell had become specialised it could not change its fate.

In 1962, John Gurdon showed that the genetic information inside a cell taken from the intestines of a frog contained all the information need to create a whole new frog. He took the genetic information and placed it inside a frog egg. The resulting clone developed into a normal tadpole.

The technique would eventually give rise to Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal.

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Stem cell experts win Nobel prize

The 2012 Nobel Prize for medicine has been awarded to stem cell researchers John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka of Britain and Japan. They take the first Nobel prize of the year, with a flurry to follow over the next week.

Judges in Stockholm said on Monday that the medicine prize had been awarded to the researchers "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent," saying that this discovery had "revolutionized our understanding of how cells and organisms develop."

Gurdon and Yamanaka are stem cell researchers who are seeking ways to obtain embryonic stem cells - a kind of genetic blank slate, cells that can be 'programmed' to take on many different forms and perform different functions - from the cells of an adult. Embryos themselves are another more controversial source of stem cells.

"We are trying to find ways of obtaining embryo cells from the cells of an adult," Gurdon writes on his Gurdon Institute website. "The eventual aim is to provide replacement cells of all kinds starting from usually obtainable cells of an adult individual."

The British scientist also said such a system was advantageous because the stem cells could be obtained from the patient themselves, reducing the risk of rejection when they were employed as a treatment.

The medals will be doled out in December, the winners named in the next few days

Stem cells appear to have potential to treat a wide range of illnesses, with a major barrier to the research the ethical implications of obtaining the cells from unborn foetuses.

A busy week in the Swedish capital

This year's laureates in the field of physics will be named on Tuesday, with chemistry following on Wednesday and perhaps the most famous Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded on Friday. As is tradition, there is no set date for the Nobel Prize for Literature - but that will almost certainly fill the gap in the schedule on Thursday. The economics prize winner or winners will be named on October 15.

All the prizes will be awarded in Stockholm simultaneously at a December 10 ceremony.

Originally posted here:
Stem cell pioneers win Nobel medicine honors

Two scientists who discovered the developmental clock could be turned back in mature cells, transforming them into immature cells with the ability to become any tissue in the body pluripotent stem cells are being honored with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

The Nobel Prize honoring Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka was announced today (Oct. 8) by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Th duo's work revealed what scientists had thought impossible. Just after conception, an embryo contains immature cells that can give rise to any cell type such as nerve, muscle and liver cells in the adult organism; these are called pluripotent stem cells, and scientists believed once these stem cells become specialized to carry out a specific body task there was no turning back.

Gurdon, now at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, England, found this wasn't the case when in 1962 he replaced the nucleus of a frog's egg cell with the nucleus taken from a mature intestinal cell from a tadpole. And voila, the altered frog egg developed into a tadpole, suggesting the mature nucleus held the instructions needed to become all cells in the frog, as if it were a young unspecialized cell. In fact, later experiments using nuclear transfer have produced cloned mammals. [5 Amazing Stem Cell Discoveries]

Then in 2006, Yamanaka, who was born in 1962 when Gurdon reported his discovery and is now at Kyoto University, genetically reprogrammed mature skin cells in mice to become immature cells able to become any cell in the adult mice, which he named induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). Scientists can now derive such induced pluripotent stem cells from adult nerve, heart and liver cells, allowing new ways to study diseases.

When Yamanaka received the call from Stockholm about his award, he was doing housework, according to an interview with the Nobel Prize website. "It is a tremendous honor to me," Yamanaka said during that interview.

As for his hopes for mankind with regard to stem cells, he said, "My goal, all my life, is to bring this technology, stem cell technology, to the bedside, to patients, to clinics." He added that the first clinical trials of iPS cells will begin next year.

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Stem Cell Discoveries Snag Nobel Prize in Medicine