Category Archives: Stem Cell Research

March 27, 2012

According to a new study, using a patients own bone marrow may help repair damaged areas of the heart caused by heart failure.

Researchers found that left ventricular ejection fraction increased by 2.7 percent in patients who received stem cell therapy.

The study, which was presented at the American College of Cardiologys 61st Annual Scientific Session, revealed that the improvement in ejection fraction correlated with the number of CD34+ and CD133+ cells in the bone marrow.

This is the kind of information we need in order to move forward with the clinical use of stem cell therapy, Emerson Perin, MD, PhD, director of clinical research for cardiovascular medicine at the Texas Heart Institute and the studys lead investigator, said at the event.

The study included 92 patients who were randomly selected to receive stem cell treatment or placebo. The patients all had chronic ischemic heart disease and an ejection fraction of less than 45 percent along with heart failure.

Doctors placed a catheter in the hearts left ventricle to inject 3 ccs, or 100 million stem cells, into an average of 15 sites of the stem cell patients hearts.

The doctors used electromechanical mapping of the heart to measure the voltage in areas of the heart muscle and create a real-time image of the heart.

With this mapping procedure, we have a roadmap to the heart muscle, said Dr. Perin. Were very careful about where we inject the cells; electromechanical mapping allows us to target the cell injections to viable areas of the heart.

The trial was designed to determine whether left ventricular end systolic volume and myocardial oxygen consumption improved in patients who received stem cell treatment.

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Cell Therapy Improves Damaged Heart In Study

Public release date: 26-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Tara Womersley tara.womersley@ed.ac.uk 44-131-650-9836 University of Edinburgh

A breakthrough using cutting-edge stem cell research could speed up the discovery of new treatments for motor neurone disease (MND).

The international research team has created motor neurones using skin cells from a patient with an inherited form of MND.

The study discovered that abnormalities of a protein called TDP-43, implicated in more than 90 per cent of cases of MND, resulted in the death of motor neurone cells.

This is the first time that scientists have been able to see the direct effect of abnormal TDP-43 on human motor neurons.

The study, led by the University of Edinburgh's Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neurone Disease Research, was carried out in partnership with King's College London, Colombia University, New York and the University of San Francisco.

MND is a devastating, untreatable and ultimately fatal condition that results from progressive loss of the motor nerves motor neurones that control movement, speech and breathing.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran, of the University of Edinburgh, said: "Using patient stem cells to model MND in a dish offers untold possibilities for how we study the cause of this terrible disease as well as accelerating drug discovery by providing a cost-effective way to test many thousands of potential treatments."

The study, funded by the MND Association, is published in the journal PNAS

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Stem cell study aids quest for motor neurone disease therapies

Houston researchers are reporting that adult stem cells have a modest benefit in younger patients with heart failure, the first large-scale evidence that the controversial yet promising new therapy can be developed to help millions of people with the disease.

In a study presented at a cardiology conference Saturday, Texas Heart Institute doctors presented results of a clinical trial showing that cells derived from patients' own bone marrow produce a small but significant increase in the heart's ability to pump oxygen-rich blood.

"This study moves us one step closer to being able to help patients with severe heart failure who lack other alternatives," said Dr. James Willerson, president of the Texas Heart Institute and the study's principal investigator. "It also points to a future in which stem cells regenerate the heart."

The study did not find improvements in a number of heart function measures, but Willerson and other study leaders said it yielded key information about the specific adult stem cells with the greatest therapeutic potential. The trial used a number of stem cell types.

Transplants limited

About 6 million people in the United States have heart failure, a progressive and eventually fatal disease in which the heart loses the ability to effectively pump sufficient amounts of blood to the body's organs. Better therapy is needed because the limited availability of donor hearts makes transplants an option for only about 2,300 people in the United States annually.

Adult stem cells have become the subject of studies for a variety of conditions - the Texas Heart Institute has many involving the heart - since laboratory research in the late 1990s showed they have the ability to grow into most any kind of tissue. This is the first intermediate-stage study in the United States, characterized by multiple centers and many dozens of patients.

The idea of therapy involving adult stem cells formerly was considered non-controversial, a more ethical alternative to destroying embryos to obtain their stem cells. But it has come under fire recently because it is increasingly being used outside of research studies and for profit, particularly in Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry received it last year for his ailing back. The unregulated activity has prompted complaints to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a Texas Medical Board draft policy requiring oversight for any use of experimental drugs.

3.1 percent increase

The new study, presented at an American College of Cardiology conference and to be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, involved 92 patients at five locations - two-thirds at the Texas Heart Institute - whose hearts were pumping at less than 45 percent of capacity and could not be treated with surgery. Doctors injected patients' own stem cells or placebos into their hearts.

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Houston study shows stem-cell's potential for heart treatment

Public release date: 24-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Beth Casteel bcasteel@acc.org 240-328-4549 American College of Cardiology

CHICAGO -- A new study found that using a patient's own bone marrow cells may help repair damaged areas of the heart caused by heart failure, according to research presented today at the American College of Cardiology's 61st Annual Scientific Session. The Scientific Session, the premier cardiovascular medical meeting, brings cardiovascular professionals together to further advances in the field.

Millions of Americans suffer from heart failure, the weakening of the heart muscle and its inability to pump blood effectively throughout the body. If medications, surgery, or stents fail to control the disease, doctors often have few treatment options to offer.

This is the largest study to date to look at stem cell therapy, using a patient's own stem cells, to repair damaged areas of the heart in patients with chronic ischemic heart disease and left ventricular dysfunction. Researchers found that left ventricular ejection fraction (the percentage of blood leaving the heart's main pumping chamber) increased by a small but significant amount (2.7 percent) in patients who received stem cell therapy. The study also revealed that the improvement in ejection fraction correlated with the number of CD34+ and CD133+ cells in the bone marrow information that will be helpful in evaluating and designing future therapies and trials.

"This is the kind of information we need in order to move forward with the clinical use of stem cell therapy," said Emerson Perin, MD, PhD, director of clinical research for cardiovascular medicine at the Texas Heart Institute and the study's lead investigator.

This multi-center study was conducted by the Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Research Network and took place between April 2009 and 2011. At five sites, 92 patients were randomly selected to receive stem cell treatment or placebo. The patients, average age 63, all had chronic ischemic heart disease and an ejection fraction of less than 45 percent along with heart failure and/or angina, and were no longer candidates for revascularization.

"Studies such as these are able to be completed much faster because of the team approach of the network," said Sonia Skarlatos, PhD, deputy director of the division of cardiovascular sciences at the National, Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, and program director of the network.

Bone marrow was aspirated from the patients and processed to obtain just the mononuclear fraction of the marrow. In patients randomly selected to receive stem cell therapy, doctors inserted a catheter into the heart's left ventricle to inject a total of 3 ccs comprising 100 million stem cells into an average of 15 sites that showed damage on the electromechanical mapping image of the heart. Dr. Perin said the procedure is relatively quick and painless, involving only an overnight stay at the hospital.

The study used electromechanical mapping of the heart to measure the voltage in areas of the heart muscle and create a real-time image of the heart.

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Stem cell therapy possibly helpful in heart failure patients

The Vatican has abruptly cancelled a controversial stem-cell conference that was set to be attended by the Pope next month.

The Third International Congress on Responsible Stem Cell Research, scheduled for 2528 April, was to focus on clinical applications of adult and reprogrammed stem cells. But a number of the invited speakers, including Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine in San Francisco, and keynote speaker George Daley, a stem-cell scientist at Children's Hospital Boston in Massachusetts, are involved in research using human embryonic stem cells, which the Catholic Church considers unethical. The previous two congresses had also included scientists who worked on such cells, without generating much controversy.

Pope Benedict XVI was scheduled to hold an audience at the conference, which has now been cancelled.

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Father Scott Borgman, secretary of the Church's Pontifical Academy for Life, one of the conference organizers, says that logistical, organizational and financial factors forced the cancellation, which was announced on 23 March. The academy weighs in on bioethical and theological issues that are relevant to Church teachings.

The Catholic News Agency, an independent news service based in Englewood, Colorado, quoted an unnamed academy member who called the cancellation an enormous relief to many members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, who felt that the presence on its program of so many speakers, including the keynote speaker, committed to embryonic stem cell research, was a betrayal of the mission of the Academy and a public scandal.

I think the only interpretation is that we are being censored. It is very disappointing that they are unwilling to hear the truth, says Trounson. He had hoped to provide a balanced perspective on the potential clinical applications of stem cells, both adult and embryonic.

Meanwhile, some European scientists, who had called for a boycott because they believed the conference unfairly maligned embryonic stem cell research, cheered its cancellation.

Daley says that he took his invitation as an indication that the conference would be open to discussion of all aspects of stem-cell research.There are many areas of fundamental agreement about stem-cell research, such as the need to prove the safety and effectiveness of stem-cell medicines through legitimate clinical trials before allowing direct marketing to patients, he adds.

Borgman says that the academy asked speakers to limit their discussions to adult stem cells. However, Daley says he was asked not to make embryonic stem cells the focus of his talk, but he planned to discuss them for historical context.

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Vatican calls off stem-cell conference

HOUSTON -

Doctors from the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital have found that patients with heart failure may be able to repair the damaged areas of the heart with stem cells from the patient's own bone marrow.

Doctors presented the findings at the American College of Cardiologys 61st Annual Scientific Session Saturday.

The results are from a multi-center clinical study that measured the possible benefits of using a patients own bone marrow cells to repair damaged areas of the heart suffering from severe heart failure, a condition that affects millions of Americans.

The study, which was the largest such investigation to date, found that the hearts of the patients receiving bone marrow derived stem cells showed a small but significant increase in the ability to pump oxygenated blood from the left ventricle, the hearts main pumping chamber, to the body.

The expectation is that the study will pave the way for potential new treatment options and will be important to designing and evaluating future clinical trials.

This is exactly the kind of information we need to move forward with the clinical use of stem cell therapy, said Emerson Perin, MD, PhD, Director of Clinical Research for Cardiovascular Medicine at THI, and one of the studys lead investigators.

The bone-marrow derived stem cells are helpful to the injured heart when they are themselves biologically active, added Dr. James T. Willerson, the studys principal investigator and President and Medical Director of THI.

This study moves us one step closer to being able to help patients with severe heart failure who have no other alternatives.

The study was conducted by the Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Research Network, the national consortium to conduct such research funded by the National Institutes of Healths National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

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Stem cell, heart heath study

03-24-2012, 13h30

CHICAGO (AFP)

Patients with advanced heart disease who received an experimental stem cell therapy showed slight improvements in blood pumping but no change in most of their symptoms, US researchers said Saturday.

Study authors described the trial as the largest to date to examine stem cell therapy as a route to repairing the heart in patients with chronic ischemic heart disease and left ventricular dysfunction.

Previous studies have established that the approach is safe in human patients, but none had examined how well it worked on a variety of heart ailments.

The clinical trial involved 92 patients, with an average age of 63, who were picked at random to get either a placebo or a series of injections of their own stem cells, taken from their bone marrow, into damaged areas of their hearts.

The patients -- 82 of whom were men -- all had chronic heart disease, along with either heart failure or angina or both, and their left ventricles were pumping at less than 45 percent of capacity.

None of the participants in the study were eligible for revascularization surgery, such as coronary bypass to restore blood flow, because their heart disease was so advanced.

Those who received the stem cell therapy saw a small but significant boost in the heart's ability to pump blood, measuring the increase from the heart's main pumping chamber at 2.7 percent more than placebo patients.

The treatment worked best in the youngest patients, those under 62, according to the analysis which was done after six months of treatment.

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Stem cell treatment could repair heart damage

The departure of three University of Nebraska regents this year and the re-election campaign of a fourth is reviving debate over a controversial issue some believe should be laid to rest.

Two of the three departing regents, Chuck Hassebrook of Lyons and Jim McClurg of Lincoln, opposed a proposal considered by the Board of Regents in November 2009 that would have limited embryonic stem cell research at the University of Nebraska Medical Center to only cell lines approved under former President George W. Bush. Expansion had become a possibility since President Barack Obama relaxed the Bush guidelines.

Hassebrook and McClurg joined two other regents in killing the proposal by voting against the four who supported it. Pro-life activists believe embryonic stem cell research is morally wrong because harvesting the stem cells requires destroying an embryo.

Regent Randy Ferlic of Omaha, who supported the proposal to limit the research, also will leave the Board of Regents after this year. Bob Whitehouse of Papillion, who opposed the measure, is seeking re-election. Ten candidates are seeking the three retiring regents' seats, and candidate, Larry Bradley, is challenging Whitehouse.

Pro-life advocates said they see opportunity in the departure of two of the regents who opposed limiting stem cell research, but they aren't ready to say they'll ask like-minded regents to reintroduce a proposal to limit the research.

"That would be a place we could stand to gain if we had pro-lifers in the race who we're willing to endorse," said Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director of Nebraska Right to Life.

Nebraska Right to Life endorsed McClurg during his regents campaign, and Schmit-Albin said she believed he would have supported limiting embryonic stem cell research. When he voted against the proposal, however, Nebraska Right to Life ended its support of him, she said.

The group has become more careful in choosing candidates to endorse, Schmit-Albin said, sending out surveys to candidates and incumbents seeking re-election before the primary. It has yet to receive responses from those surveys, she said, so Nebraska Right to Life has yet to endorse any candidates this year.

Schmit-Albin said some regents candidates have contacted the group seeking endorsement, but she declined to name them. She said the group wouldn't endorse Whitehouse because he voted against the stem cell proposal in November 2009.

"He already has a record," she said.

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Stem cell controversy could see new life with regent election shuffle

SATURDAY, March 24 (HealthDay News) -- An innovative approach using patients' own bone marrow cells to treat chronic heart failure came up short in terms of effectiveness, researchers report.

Use of stem cell therapy to repair the slow, steady damage done to heart muscle and improve heart function is safe, but has not been shown to improve most measures of heart function, the study authors said.

"For the measures we paid most attention to, we saw no effect, there is no question about that," said researcher Dr. Lemuel Moye, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston.

"Ultimately, this is going to pay off handsomely for individuals and for public health in general, but it's going to take years of work," Moye said. "We are the vanguard looking for new promising lines of research."

While the hoped-for results didn't materialize, there appeared to be a small improvement in some patients, he said. "When we looked at another commonly used measure of heart function called ejection fraction, or the strength of the heart's pumping, that's where all the action was," Moye noted.

It's hard to know which measures of heart function to look at, Moye explained. "We have had some difficulty with that," he said.

Future research will look at other measures of heart function, pay more attention to the characteristics of the cells that are injected and determine which cells are best, he added.

Cardiac cells and other types of specially prepared cells are available now that were not accessible when this study started in 2009, Moye pointed out.

The results of the trial, which was sponsored by the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, were to be presented Saturday at the American College of Cardiology's annual meeting in Chicago. The report was also published online March 24 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

For the study, Moye and colleagues worked with 92 patients, average age 63 and mostly male, who had heart failure with and without chest pain. They were randomly assigned to receive either an injection of 100 million bone marrow cells from their own bone marrow, or an inactive placebo. Patients in both groups also received aggressive medical therapy.

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Stem-Cell Trial Failed to Treat Heart Failure

Published: March. 22, 2012 at 4:15 PM

LANSING, Mich., March 22 (UPI) -- Republican state legislators say the University of Michigan could lose some funding if it does not answer questions about stem cell research.

Language was attached to last year's budget that requires the university to inform the legislature how many stem cell lines it has created and has on hand as well as numbers of embryos and research projects.

Lawmakers on a subcommittee dealing with the issue accused university officials of "thumbing their nose" at the Legislature, the Detroit Free Press reported.

They have said the university could be stripped of some state aid.

"If we roll over, I think it will have a precedent effect, and we'd be really weakening the power of the Legislature," said state Rep. Kevin Cotter, a Republican from Mount Pleasant.

The university is the only one in the state involved in stem cell research. President Mary Sue Coleman said the university sent 50 to 60 pages of information on stem cell research because officials wanted to put the numbers in context. But legislators complain the specific numbers the university is required to give were not there.

"We believe it's just not possible to boil down this incredibly important work to a series of data points," said Rick Fitzgerald, a university spokesman. "We are emphatic about putting our stem-cell research in the context of its potential to cure diseases and save lives. That's what we did when we provided a bit more information than what the Legislature sought."

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U. of Mich. in row on stem cell research