Category Archives: Stem Cell Treatments

OCEANSIDE, Calif., Oct. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Health Link Medical Center, a national leader in regenerative interventional orthopedics and advanced biological cell therapies, today announced the planned opening of their new location in Mill Valley, California in October 2012. Health Link Medical Center's Oceanside, California clinic is currently California's only provider of Regenexx orthopedic platelet and autologous stem cell procedures.

Regenexx Procedures offer non-surgical treatment options for common joint injuries and degenerative conditions, such as osteoarthritis. The procedures utilize a patient's own stem cells to help heal damaged tissues, tendons, ligaments, bone, or cartilage. Regenexx patients experience less downtime and avoid the lengthy and painful rehabilitation periods that follow surgery.

"We're excited for the opportunity to bring Regenexx Procedures to the San Francisco area," said Dr. Norman Deitch, CEO of Health Link Medical Center. "Patients regularly travel across the country for the opportunity to receive these leading non-surgical treatments. This expansion makes them conveniently accessible to the millions of individuals in northern California."

The Mill Valley Center will include a biological cell laboratory, capable of the advanced laboratory processing of platelets and stem cells required for the same-day procedures. Paul Handleman, D.O., has joined Health Link with an extensive interventional orthopedic background and has been in practice in Marin County, California for more than 15 years. Dr. Handleman has undergone advanced training at the Regenexx / Centeno-Schultz home clinic in Broomfield, Colorado.

Regenexx Procedures are currently performed at Health Link's Oceanside, CA. location. The Mill Valley Center opening is slated for October 2012 and Health Link is already scheduling patients for the new location. For more information, visit http://www.healthlinkcenter.com or call 800-281-3757.

About Health Link Medical Center

Based in Oceanside, California, Health Link Medical Center is a leader in regenerative interventional orthopedics and advanced biological cell therapies. Health Link is California's first provider of Regenexx Stem Cell and Blood Platelet Procedures. Learn more at http://www.healthlinkcenter.com.

About Regenexx and the Regenexx Physician Network

Regenexx Procedures offer non-surgical treatments for joint injuries and degenerative conditions. For more information on Regenexx Procedures and the Regenexx Physician Network, visit: http://www.regenexx.com

Contact:

More here:
Health Link Medical Center Introduces the Regenexx™ Orthopedic Stem Cell Treatments to the San Francisco Area

By Jeffrey M. O'Brien, contributor

Stem cells stored in liquid nitrogen at Advanced Cell Technology in Marlborough, Mass.

FORTUNE -- Imagine yourself the proud but rueful owner of an ancient Jaguar. Every day you dread the uncertainty that comes with trying to get from here to there -- there, more often than not, being the shop. No sooner does one ailment find repair than another appears. At best, it's a slow, uncomfortable ride. Lonely too. There's really no one around who fully understands your plight.

That is how Patricia Riley describes life in a 95-year-old body. Riley, who reached that milestone birthday last St. Patrick's Day, lives alone in the same 1,100-square-foot house in Plainfield, Conn., that she's called home for 64 years, having survived her husband (heart disease), a daughter (breast cancer), and every friend she ever had. "All the people I knew have all gone, Jeffrey," she says in a quivering voice laced with melancholy. "They've all died. I go to church and I never see people my age." Her remaining family includes two daughters, five grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren, including my two young sons. In a nod to her French-Canadian heritage, we call her Mme.

Mme attributes her longevity to good genes, but she clearly owes a debt to modern medicine. Over the years she's had a cholecystectomy, a hysterectomy, esophageal surgery, a stroke, and ulcerative colitis. Lately she relies on a cane and a walker, and her daily regimen includes pain pills for arthritis, two inhalers for asthma, high-blood-pressure meds, a statin, vitamins, digestion aids, and an anti-anxiety drug that she calls "my nerve pill." Her vision also comes courtesy of medical science. Three years ago Mme was diagnosed with a form of age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, a disease of the back of the retina that is the leading cause of vision loss in the developed world. The ophthalmologist gave her a choice: a needle into her eyeballs every six weeks, or blindness. Mme opted for the injections and now receives shots of an off-label cancer drug called Avastin, which has demonstrated efficacy in halting the progress of her type of AMD. Holding the ailment at bay is all she can hope for. "I'll have to go for as long as I live," she says. "It's just a treatment -- it's not a cure."

Treatments, not cures. This, in a nutshell, is the MO of our health care system, and it's precisely the reason that regenerative medicine -- and stem cell therapy in particular -- has been the subject of so much hope and hype over the past decade or so. Stem cell therapies promise to empower a body to fight ailments by enabling it to build new parts. Think about growing new neurons or heart tissue. Think about the difference between perpetually slathering that old Jag with Bondo and having it heal itself overnight in the garage.

MORE:Stem cell dollars: California leads the way

While stem cells have ignited plenty of religious outrage and political grandstanding, behind the headlines the underlying science has been advancing the way science often does -- by turns slowly and dramatically. To be clear, the earliest stem cell therapies are almost certainly years from distribution. But so much progress has been made at venerable research institutions that it now seems possible to honestly discuss the possibility of a new medical paradigm emerging within a generation. Working primarily with rodents in preclinical trials, MDs and Ph.D.s are making the paralyzed walk and the impotent virile. A stem cell therapy for two types of macular degeneration recently restored the vision of two women. Once they were blind. Now they see! Some experts assert that AMD could be eradicated within a decade. Other scientists are heralding a drug-free fix for HIV/AIDS. Various forms of cancer, Parkinson's, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and ALS have already been eradicated in mice. If such work translates to humans, it will represent the type of platform advancement that comes along in medicine only once in a lifetime or two. The effect on the economy would be substantial. Champions of stem cell research say it would be on the order of the Internet or even the transistor.

The obstacles along the road from lab rat to human patients are many, of course, but the biggest by far is money. With the dramatic events in the lab, you might think that a gold rush would be under way. That's far from true. Long time horizons, regulatory hurdles, huge R&D costs, public sentiment, and political headwinds have all scared financiers. Wall Street isn't interested in financing this particular dream. Most stem cell companies that have dared go public are trading down 90% or more from their IPOs. Sand Hill Road is AWOL. The National Venture Capital Association doesn't even have a category to track stem cell investments.

Big Pharma would seem to be the most obvious benefactor. The drug companies understand the complexities (and billion-dollar outlays) involved in bringing therapies to market. A few drug companies have kicked the tires on stem cells over the years, but waiting for them to undo the current model is akin to banking on Big Oil to rethink energy. They may do it, but it's unlikely to be by choice. Which leaves stem cell researchers begging for state and federal grants at a time scientific funding is under siege.

Read this article:
The great stem cell dilemma

CARLSBAD, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 25, 2012) - International Stem Cell Corporation ( OTCQB : ISCO ) (www.internationalstemcell.com) ("ISCO" or "the Company") a California-based biotechnology company, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted the Company a patent for a method of creating pure populations of definitive endoderm, precursor cells to liver and pancreas cells, from human pluripotent stem cells.This patent is a key element of ISCO's metabolic liver disease program and allows the Company to produce the necessary quantities of precursor cells in a more efficient and cost effective manner.

The patent, 8,268,621, adds to the Company's growing portfolio of proprietary technologies relating to the development of potential treatments for incurable diseases using human parthenogenetic Stem Cells (hpSC).Human parthenogenetic stem cells are unique pluripotent stem cells that offer the possibility to reduce the cost of health care while avoiding the ethical issues that surround the use of fertilized human embryos.Aside from the Company's current liver disease program, this new patented method can be used as a route to create pancreatic and endocrine cells that could be used in future studies of diabetes and other metabolic disorders.

ISCO currently has the largest collection of hpSC including cell lines which immune match the donor, as is the case with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), and cell lines which immune-match millions of individuals and potentially reduce tissue rejection issues.The Company is focusing its therapeutic development efforts on three clinical applications where cell and tissue therapy is already proven but where there currently is an insufficient supply of safe and efficacious cells: Parkinson's disease, inherited/metabolic liver diseases and corneal blindness.

About International Stem Cell Corporation

International Stem Cell Corporation is focused on the therapeutic applications of human parthenogenetic stem cells (hpSCs) and the development and commercialization of cell-based research and cosmetic products.ISCO's core technology, parthenogenesis, results in the creation of pluripotent human stem cells from unfertilized oocytes (eggs) hence avoiding ethical issues associated with the use or destruction of viable human embryos.ISCO scientists have created the first parthenogenetic, homozygous stem cell line that can be a source of therapeutic cells for hundreds of millions of individuals of differing genders, ages and racial background with minimal immune rejection after transplantation. hpSCs offer the potential to create the first true stem cell bank, UniStemCell. ISCO also produces and markets specialized cells and growth media for therapeutic research worldwide through its subsidiary Lifeline Cell Technology (www.lifelinecelltech.com), and stem cell-based skin care products through its subsidiary Lifeline Skin Care (www.lifelineskincare.com). More information is available at http://www.internationalstemcell.com.

To receive ongoing corporate communications via email, visit: http://www.b2i.us/irpass.asp?BzID=1468&to=ea&s=0

To like our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter for company updates and industry related news, visit: http://www.facebook.com/InternationalStemCellCorporation and http://www.twitter.com/intlstemcell

Safe harbor statement

Statements pertaining to anticipated developments, the potential use of technologies to develop therapeutic products and other opportunities for the company and its subsidiaries, along with other statements about the future expectations, beliefs, goals, plans, or prospects expressed by management constitute forward-looking statements. Any statements that are not historical fact (including, but not limited to statements that contain words such as "will," "believes," "plans," "anticipates," "expects" or "estimates") should also be considered to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, risks inherent in the development and/or commercialization of potential products and the management of collaborations, regulatory approvals, need and ability to obtain future capital, application of capital resources among competing uses, and maintenance of intellectual property rights. Actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements and as such should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect the company's business, particularly those mentioned in the cautionary statements found in the company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The company disclaims any intent or obligation to update forward-looking statements.

View post:
International Stem Cell Corp Granted Key Patent for Liver Disease Program

James A. Thomson, VMD, PhD, founder of human pluripotent stem cells, to give opening lecture

Newswise LOS ANGELES Sept. 17, 2012 Leading scientists and clinicians from across the nation will discuss the latest findings on potential stem cell treatments for diabetes and eye diseases at the second Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Scientific Symposium.

WHO: Stem cell scientists, clinicians and industry leaders.

The symposium is being hosted by the Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute, led by Clive Svendsen, PhD. The institute brings together basic scientists with specialist clinicians, physician scientists and translational scientists across multiple medical specialties to convert fundamental stem cell studies to therapeutic regenerative medicine.

FEATURED RESEARCH: The symposiums morning session will feature an overview of the current state of stem cells and diabetes, including efforts to start the first clinical trials with stem cells for the treatment of diabetes. Other research to be presented includes an update on regenerative medicine approaches to treating macular degeneration, a progressive deterioration of the eye that causes gradual loss of vision. This will include an update from Gad Heilweil, MD, on a key, stem-cell clinical trial on macular degeneration at the University of California Los Angeles.

WHEN: Sept. 21, 2012 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thomsons lecture begins at 8:40 a.m.

WHERE: Harvey Morse Auditorium Cedars-Sinai Medical Center 8700 Beverly Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90048

How to register: http://www.cedars-sinai.edu/RMI

Media Contact: Members of news media interested in attending or learning more about the presentations should contact Media Specialist Nicole White at nicole.white@cshs.org or 310-423-5215.

More:
Leading Stem Cell Scientists to Focus on Diabetes, Eye Diseases at Cedars-Sinai Symposium

September 16, 2012

Christine Wood/Staff Writer

Five-year-old Rylan Johnstone will be heading to China in just two weeks with his mom and grandma, who hope the stem cell treatments he gets there might cure his blindness.

The family leaves on Sept. 23, bound for the Beike Biotech Centre in Guangzhou. During a three-week stay at the centre, Rylan will receive three packets of stem cells by intravenous. Then the family will wait to see what happens.

Beike claims the stem cells help the body repair itself, resulting in cures for things like brain injuries, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and optic nerve damage in some patients.

It varies. Some people dont see any real improvement while theyre there. Other parents have said their kids suddenly start pointing at something, and they realize its light, Rylans grandma Alison Johnstone said. And its supposed to keep working for up to two years so it varies. Ive heard people whose kids have excelled at everything but sight. So we dont have any expectations, and we know theres that 20 to 25 per cent that really wont see a lot so we have to be prepared for that. But in saying that, if we didnt try, wed regret it.

The family started fundraising for the trip and stem cell treatments last September and with the help of local and off-Coast donations have been able to put away $36,000 just enough to fund the trip.

We are just so thankful. People have helped us from Texas, the Interior of B.C., across Canada, the Sunshine Coast, Powell River. Youd be shocked where we got money from. People just were so generous all across Canada, Johnstone said. People who didnt have hardly any money still found $5, $10 to give to Rylan, which is just unbelievable. Well never, ever forget this, and in some way we just have to pay it forward.

The family gained attention from Coast Reporter last year, and their story was also picked up by the current affairs show 16:9 on Global TV, giving the Johnstones a wider audience for their fundraiser dubbed Rylans Fight For Sight.

And sight isnt the only thing the Johnstones are hoping for they also hope the stem cell treatments will improve Rylans mobility and speech and lessen his symptoms of autism.

Originally posted here:
Rylan heads to China soon

Scientists in England say they have successfully restored hearing in deaf gerbils using stem cell treatments that could eventually help people with certain types of hearing disorders.

"We have the proof of concept that we can use human embryonic stem cells to repair the damaged ear," said the lead researcher, Marcelo Rivolta, a stem-cell biologist at the University of Sheffield, in a study published in the journal Nature.

More than 275 million people have moderate-to-profound hearing loss according to Nature, and many of those cases are due to a breach in the connection between the inner ear and the brain.

In this study, Rivolta and his team were able to make the first real link between the inner ear and the central nervous system using stem cells implanted in 18 gerbils with complete hearing loss in one ear.

The gerbils were made deaf with a drug that killed nerve cells transmitting information from the ear to the brain.

With further research, experts say the treatment used on the gerbils could be applied to cases of deafness in humans, but not before much more research is conducted.

"I think [applying this treatment to humans] is a ways down the line," said Richard Altschuler, a developmental biologist with the Kresge Hearing Research Institute at the University of Michigan, who has worked on similar studies in the U.S.

"We need to see a more robust connection to the central nervous system," said Altschuler in a phone interview on Thursday. "But it's a step," he said. "It helps to identify a population and source of stem cells, it helps to establish a protocol for differentiating the cells into an appropriate niche and space in the cochlea, and it shows that they can make connections to the central nervous system, something that hasn't been shown before until now."

Originally posted here:
Stem Cells Restore Hearing In Deaf Gerbils

Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

Embryologist Ric Ross holds a dish with human embryos at the La Jolla IVF Clinic February 28, 2007 in La Jolla, California.

Two clinical trial patients, paralyzed with chronic spinal cord injuries, have regained some sensation after undergoing stem cell treatments led by a California biotech company and researchers from the University of Zurich.

The clinical trials by Newark, California-based StemCells, Inc involved three patients, two of whom regained some feeling after scientists injected them with purified human neural stem cells.

The neural stem cells are essentially adult stem cells that can renew and replicate into cells of the nervous system. They were derived from donated fetal brain cells, which dont require the controversial destruction of embryos, a company spokesman said.

The news comes ten months after another California biotech company Menlo-Park-based Geron Corporation surprised and disappointed many in the field when it abandoned its stem cell division including its highly-touted research into an embryonic stem cell treatment for spinal cord injuries.

The three patients in the University of Zurich trials had suffered complete injury to the thoracic - or chest-level spinal cord, which left each them with no function or feeling below the injury.

Four to nine months after their injuries, scientists at the University of Zurich transplanted 20 million stem cells into each patient's spinal column at the point of injury.

Six months after treatment, two of the patients can feel heat, electrical and touch stimuli below the location of the injury, according to results presented by researchers this week at the 51st annual International Spinal Cord Society meeting in London.

The reappearance of sensation was deemed rather unexpected by Dr. Armin Curt, principal investigator for the clinical trial at the Spinal Cord Injury Center at Balgrist University Hospital, University of Zurich.

Link:
Novel stem cell treatment helps paralyzed patients feel again

The following is a script of "Stem Cell Fraud" which aired on Jan. 8, 2012, and was rebroadcast on Aug. 26, 2012. Scott Pelley is the correspondent. Oriana Zill and Michael Rey, producers.

(CBS News) There's no greater desperation than to be told that you, or your child, has a disease for which there is no hope. Many people with incurable illness look forward to the promise of stem cells. Stem cells have the potential to turn into any kind of cell and, in theory, they could repair damaged cells, though, scientists tell us that we are years away from realizing that dream.

There is no stem cell miracle today, so con men, have moved in to offer the hope that science cannot. Just look online and you will find hundreds of credible looking websites offering stem cell cures in overseas clinics.

Two years ago we began investigating stem cell charlatans. We worked with patients suffering from incurable diseases, and we discovered con men, posing as doctors, conducting dangerous medical experiments.

[Scott Pelley: You know, Mr. Stowe, the trouble is that you're a con man.]

Our report started a federal investigation and since that story, we have been digging into the rapidly growing trade in fake stem cell cures. As we reported last January, we've found something even more alarming: illegal stem cell transplants that are dangerous and delivered to your doorstep. They are scams that often bilk the desperate out of their last dollar of savings and their last ounce of hope.

[Brandon Susser: I know you're tired.]

Adam and Brandon Susser are 11-year-old twins. Adam has cerebral palsy, his brain was damaged by a lack of oxygen before he and his brother were born.

Gary Susser: He's confined to a wheelchair. He needs assistance with all his daily living activities from cleanliness to feeding, to clothing.

Gary and Judy Susser have searched for anything that might improve on the judgment handed down by Adam's doctors.

Go here to see the original:
Stem Cell Fraud: A "60 Minutes" investigation

Unproven, Risky Treatments Mislead Patients to Seek Cutting-Edge Therapy

There's a dark side to stem cells: bogus treatments that prey on patients' hopes when mainstream medicine has little to offer.

Stephen Byer stepped far outside typical medical care when his son, Ben, had ALS. He took Ben to China for stem cell-like treatments, and later helped hundreds of people do the same, believing it would help them.

The unproven procedure could have killed Ben. It didn't -- but it also didn't work. Ben later died of ALS. So did the ALS patients Byer now regrets helping get the treatment.

Why take the chance? For Byer, it started with misleading promises online.

"The Internet, while increasing communication, has spawned a horde of charlatans and creeps," Byer says. "We were suckered into one of the earlier forms of stem cell chicanery."

But not everyone who seeks unapproved stem cell treatments feels ripped off. Even though the stem cell treatments Dawn Gusty got in Tijuana, Mexico, didn't ease her multiple sclerosis, she doesn't look back with regret.

That moment -- when hope surpasses science, and when someone claims to be able to bridge that gap -- may be one of the riskiest for patients to handle. And it's one of the most alarming for stem cell experts.

"It is a very dangerous situation," says Joshua Hare, MD, director of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute at the University of Miami.

Make no mistake: Hare is all for scientific stem cell research. His concern, he says, is "hype" that glosses over an inconvenient fact: There are no new approved stem cell therapies.

More here:
Stem Cell Treatments: False Hope Warning Signs

Photo by Rachel Denny Clow, Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times file Cristina Rodriguez sits with her dogs Coby (left) and Flower at her home. Rodriguez's friends and family will have a recruitment event Saturday to find a bone marrow match for the 31-year-old former Zumba instructor, who has non-Hodkgin lymphoma.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Former Zumba instructor Cristina Rodriguez leads a flash mob at La Palmera mall in December 2010, a month before she stopped teaching because she developed a pain in her hip. She later was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Photo by Rachel Denny Clow, Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times file Cristina Rodriguez, who raised awareness about the importance for Hispanics to donate bone marrow and stem cells, now needs a donation herself.

CORPUS CHRISTI Cristina Rodriguez once counted herself among the lucky blood cancer patients who could survive on chemotherapy and stem cell treatments from their own bone marrow.

Buoyed by this blessing, she advocated for less fortunate Hispanics who needed transplants.

Now, the Corpus Christi woman who raised awareness about the importance for Hispanics to donate bone marrow and stem cells needs a donation herself.

It was an ironic twist of fate made worse by her understanding of the cold hard facts: Hispanics have a harder time finding matching donors than do other ethnicities.

"I knew the statistics and all that so I'm like, 'Oh great. I'm another statistic basically,' " she said.

Follow this link:
Woman who once advocated for more Hispanic bone marrow donors needs donation herself