Category Archives: Cell Therapy

The South African Chamber of Commerce offered a glimpse into the world of stem-cell therapy at a seminar in Bangkok.

Don Margolis from Repair Stem Cells Institute in the United States was the featured speaker at the Aug. 20 workshop at the Rembrandt Hotel & Towers, lecturing on the facts and fiction about stem cells.

Margolis stated that stem-cell therapy might become the healing method of the future. Meanwhile, major successes have already been made with cancer or problems with the heart, the lungs, the vocal cords, brain, kidneys, and blood. Unfortunately, there are no significant successes in liver disease or bone disease. In this therapy stem cells are used and for many years is the treatment of choice for various types of cancers, such as leukemia. Either endogenous hematopoietic stem cells or those of a donor (postnatal tissue) can be used for adoptive cell transfer.

Group photo (front seated from left) guest speaker Don Margolis and Ragil Ratnam of Pure Growth Asia. (Standing from left) Antony Brown, Chartering Executive of Light House navigation, Elfi Seitz, executive editor of Pattaya Blatt, Allan Riddel, Linda Reay Amazon Colours and General Manager Eric Hallin.

These multipotent blood stem cells, of which colonies of both white as well as red blood cells were cultivated, had already been discovered in 1963 by the Canadian scientists James Till, Ernest McCulloch and Lou Siminovitch. Some years before the first bone marrow transplant was performed in 1957.

Since the 1990s, many more kinds of stem cells were discovered, isolated and characterized. To date, however, is not sufficiently clear how the different types of stem cells are connected and which biological potential they have. In recent years new discoveries have been made in this area and new and promising fields in medical research have been opened. It is also possible to use stem cells from unborn animals (prenatal tissue), such as sheep, as is done in Germany for the last 70 years. For this, however, the embryo may only be a certain age, because the stem cells usually have a lower rate of division and a more limited differentiation potential. Its also possible to get stem cells from the umbilical cord or bone marrow. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, whilst adult stem cells probably have a more limited differentiation potential.

Research work is currently still trying to answer fundamental questions like how these stem cells can be induced into certain cell types to replace damaged tissue in order to replace damaged tissue (cell replacement therapy). Other issues include the migration behavior (migration of the cells to a specific location after successful transplantation) or the formation of cell-protective factors (cytokines, growth factors), which are supposed to preserve existing functional tissue from further decline or even regenerate it (regenerative medicine).

In recent years embryonic stem cells have raised many ethical as well as scientific concerns (embryonic stem cells). Although they can be differentiated in almost all body cells (and thus would be universally applicable), for the time being their use is limited. This is due to their high rate of cell division, which is desirable for the propagation of the cells, but at the same time constitutes an increased risk for the development of malignant tumors.

Still, more than 300 Parkinsons patients have been treated with some success worldwide.

Stem cells from the uterine fluid were isolated just recently. They are mostly cells of epithelial origin that are shed during the development of the fetus. They can be obtained directly from the amniotic fluid and be propagated in vitro.

View original post here:
Pattaya Mail

Swastik - Stem Cell Therapy in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) - 23-06-2014
stem cell india, stem cell therapy india, stem cell in india, stem cell therapy in india, india stem cell, india stem cell therapy.

By: Stem Cell India

More:
Swastik - Stem Cell Therapy in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) - 23-06-2014 - Video

Stem Cell Therapy Professional Football Player
James Lee a Professional Football player is back in action thanks to stem cell therapy and Dr. Dennis M. Lox MD. Dr. Lox | http://www.drloxstemcells.com | (844) 440...

By: Dr. Lox

View original post here:
Stem Cell Therapy Professional Football Player - Video

JIJI PRESS/AFP/Getty Images

Masayo Takahashi is the first to implant tissue derived from induced pluripotent stem cells into a person.

Its awesome, its amazing, Im thrilled, Ive been waiting for this, says Jeanne Loring, a stem-cell biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. She is one of several researchers around the world to welcome the news that a Japanese woman with visual impairment had become the first person to receive a therapy derived from stem cells known as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

A lot rides on this trial. If the procedure proves safe, it could soften the stance of regulatory bodies in other nations towards human trials of iPS cells, and it could pave the way for treatments for other conditions, such as Parkinsons disease and diabetes. It could also cement Japan, recently plagued by a stem-cell scandal, as a frontrunner in iPS-cell research.

Pioneered in 2006 by Shinya Yamanaka, now director of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Applications at Kyoto University, iPS cells are created by inserting certain genes into the DNA of adult cells to reprogram the cells back to an embryonic-like state. The cells can then be turned into almost any tissue type, much as embryonic stem cells can. But because iPS cells can be derived from a patients own tissue, the hope is that they will dodge some of the controversial aspects and safety concerns of those derived from embryos.

In 2012, Yamanaka received a Nobel prize for his work, and the field has now matured, with teams across the world champing at the bit to test therapies based on iPS cells in people. Loring, for example, uses the cells to create dopamine-producing neurons as a potential therapy for Parkinsons disease, and says that she will start clinical trials as soon as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives the go-ahead.

Still, tissues made from iPS cells carry their own concerns, and that had stopped any country from approving them for a clinical trial. The bodys immune system could attack them, or they might contain some cells that are still in the pluripotent state and cause cancerous growths although Loring points out that this has not happened with human trials of therapies based on embryonic stem cells, for which the same concerns would apply.

In July 2013, however, Japans regulatory authorities gave the go-ahead for a team led by ophthalmologist Masayo Takahashi at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe to collect cells to be used in a clinical iPS-cell pilot study.

Her team took skin cells from the first patient, a woman in her seventies who had retinal damage owing to a condition known as age-related macular degeneration. The researchers then reprogrammed the skin cells into iPS cells and coaxed the unspecialized cells into becoming retinal tissue. On 8September, Takahashi provided evidence that those cells were genetically stable and safe, a prerequisite for them to be transplanted into the eye. The procedure took place four days later, and RIKEN has reported that the patient experienced no serious side effects.

In this instance, the womans vision is unlikely to improve. However, researchers around the world are watching to see whether the cells stop the retina from deteriorating further and whether any side effects develop. Should the woman experience serious consequences, iPS-cell research could be set back years, much as gene therapy was in 1999 when a patient died in a trial that attempted to use a modified gene to correct a type of liver disease. That wakes me up at night, Loring admits.

View original post here:
Japan stem-cell trial stirs envy

ABC Ralph Bright harvests stem cells using the liposuction.

Serious questions have been raised about a stem cell doctor working in Western Sydney who charges $9,000 per procedure and uses methods that are untested by clinical trials.

An investigation by the ABC's 7.30 program has revealed that Dr Ralph Bright bought his liposuction-based technology from an American company.

The US company is now the subject of a multi-million dollar fraud action, which has revealed the cells being marketed as live were in fact dead.

Dr Bright, of Macquarie Stem Cells, is a former GP and self-taught cosmetic surgeon.

He has been working with stem cells for four years, treating more than 400 patients, including the late model Charlotte Dawson, cricketer Geoff Lawson and Olympic volleyballer Kerri Pottharst.

Dr Bright has licensed his methods to other practitioners around the country and because they use the patients' own cells he is not regulated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

Stem cells are often hailed as a miracle cure, but the nation's top stem cell scientists are warning that buyers should beware of these sorts of procedures, which are yet to be subjected to clinical trials.

Professor of Stem Cell Science at the University of Melbourne, Martin Pera, said almost all stem cell therapy was experimental.

"Actually, this whole science of cell therapy is relatively new and it's very, very important to understand that," he said.

Read the original here:
Stem cell harvesting methods used by Sydney doctor Ralph Bright untested by clinical trials