Category Archives: Stem Cell Videos

CTVNews.ca Staff Published Friday, Aug. 17, 2012 8:36AM EDT

A Toronto research team hopes to make hip and knee replacements a thing of the past as it explores the growth of new human cartilage using stem cells.

With an estimated four million Canadians suffering from arthritis, and that number expected to grow to seven million by 2031, doctors are hoping to use the stem cells to treat the deterioration of cartilage in joints. Although hip and knee replacements are a great operation, they improve patients lives in terms of pain, quality and function, theyre not your own joint, Dr. Nizar Mahomed told CTVs Canada AM on Friday. They dont last forever and they bring risks and limitations.

Mahomed, an orthopedic surgeon at Torontos Western Hospital, said 45,000 hip and knee replacement surgeries are performed in Canada each year. Many of the surgeries are to treat the damage left by arthritis, which he said is caused by aging, obesity and injuries.

The incident of arthritis increases with age, so as our population ages the prevalence of arthritis is going to continue to increase.

Mahomed and his colleagues are one of the first research teams in the world that have been able to grow human cartilage.

The team is now embarking on the next stage of the study, which will see the new tissue used in animals.

If we actually make it work in animals then one day well be able to bring it back into patients, said Mahomed.

He added that stem cells hold much hope for medicine in the future as studies are looking at using the cells to regenerate cardiac tissue and in the treatment of nerve and spinal cord injuries.

Mahomed said he hopes within five to 10 years the new technology can be used in human patients while putting an end to joint replacement surgeries.

Original post:
New research uses stem cells as possible treatment for arthritis

Even after 18 years of frozen storage, human embryos can still produce viable stem cells for drug screening and biomedical research.

By Hayley Dunning | August 16, 2012

Cryopreservation of embryos in fertility centers is common, and concerns over damage to the embryo during thawing were largely allayed by the birth of a healthy boy in 2010 from 20-year old cryopreserved embryo. Last week (August 10), researchers in Thailand reported in BioResearch Open Access that they successfully induced the growth of stem cells from a set of 17- and 18-year-old frozen embryos.

The embryos were thawed, then cultured to the blastocyst stage and co-cultured with human foreskin fibroblasts which acted as feeder cells to maintain the growth of embryonic stem cells. The team used the same method to induce stem cells to grow from fresh embryos for comparison, and in cells from both sources they found similar levels of pluripotency.

The importance of this study is that it identifies an alternative source for generating new embryonic stem lines, using embryos that have been in long-term storage, BioResearch Open Access Editor-in-Chief Jane Taylor told Asian News International.

By Cristina Luiggi

A postdoctoral research fellow at Emory University falsifies stem cell research data.

By Megan Scudellari

Human embryonic stem cells swiftly kill themselves in response to DNA damage.

By Edyta Zielinska

Read this article:
Embryonic Stem Cells Survive Freezing

Neural stem cells (green) in the hippocampus huddle around a neuron (purple), listening for stray signals.

In 2000, a team of neuroscientists put an unusual idea to the test. Stress and depression, they knew, made neurons wither and die particularly in the hippocampus, a brain area crucial for memory. So the researchers put some stressed-out rats on an antidepressant regimen, hoping the mood boost might protect some of those hippocampal neurons. When they checked in a few weeks later, though, the team found that rats hippocampuses hadnt just survived intact; theyd grown whole new neurons bundles of them. But thats only the beginning of our tale.

By the time 2009 rolled around, another team of researchers was suggesting that human brains might get a similar hippocampal boost from antidepressants. The press announced the discovery with headlines like, Antidepressants Grow New Brain Cells although not everyone agreed with that conclusion. Still, whether the principle applied to humans or not, a far more basic question was begging to be answered: How, exactly, does a brain tell new cells to form?

Well, through synapses, of course, you might answer and thatd be a very reasonable guess. After all, synapses are how most neurons talk to each other: electrochemical information is squirted from a tiny tendril of one neuron into the tip of a tendril on another; and cells throughout most of the brain share essentially this same mechanism for passing signals along: The signals coming out of Neuron As synapses keep bugging Neuron B by stimulating its synapses, until finally Neuron B caves under peer pressure and bugs Neuron C with the signal and so on.

There are, however, two significant exceptions to this system.

The first exception was discovered a few years ago, as scientists got more and more curious about the role of neuroglia (also known as just glia), synapse-less cells that many had assumed were just there to serve as structural support for neurons. A 2008 study showed that glia help control cerebral blood flow, and research in 2010 demonstrated that some glia cells known as astrocytes actively listen for and respond to certain neurotransmitter messages. These so-called quiet cells are actually pretty loud talkers once you learn to tune in to their chatter.

The second exception to the synapse rule is even more mysterious in large part because its a brand-new discovery: As the journal Nature reports, a team led by Hongjun Song at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have found that neural stem cells listen in on the stray chemical signals that leak from synapses.

You can imagine neural stem cells as being sort of neural embryos depending on the surrounding conditions, they can develop into neurons or into glia. And heres whats strange about the way these cells communicate: They respond not to any single synaptic signal, but to the overall chemical vibe of their environment to chronic feelings of stress, for instance. By way of response, they may morph into neurons or glia or even tell the brain to crank out some all-new cells.

Neural stem cells seem to be particularly interested in the chemical GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) a neurotransmitter thats known to be involved in inhibiting signals from other neurons. When scientists artificially block these stem cells GABA receptors from receiving messages, the cells wake up and start replicating but when those GABA signals are allowed to reach the receptors, the stem cells stay dormant.

In this case, Song explains, GABA communication keeps the brain stem cells in reserve, so if we dont need them, we dont use them up.

Continued here:
What Your Neural Stem Cells Aren't Telling You

ALBANY, New York, August 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

A new market report has been published by Transparency Market Research (http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com) titled "Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) and Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs)Market - Global Scenario, Trends, Size, Growth and Industry Analysis, 2011-2018." Globally, CTCs and CSCs Market is estimated to reach USD 7.9 billion by 2018. The study shows that in the overall CTCs and CSCs global market, the U.S. is expected to maintain its lead position in terms of revenue till 2018. The global market for cancer diagnostics based on Circulating Cancer Cells (CTCs) was estimated at USD 1.0 billion in 2011.

Browse the full report athttp://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/circulating-tumor-cells-ctcs-and-cancer-stem-cells-cscs-market.html

The rising prevalence of diseases like cancer and the reimbursement support by regulatory bodies in developed countries like United States and Europe are the major factors driving the growth of the CTCs and CSCs market. Though the currently used detection method lacks sensitivity or specificity to track all CTCs particularly the ones that have lost characteristic epithelial features, there is still good scope for pharmaceutical companies in the CTCs and CSCs field. The various sub-types of cancer may have their own classes and it creates an opportunity in the future.

Increase in cancer mortality rate in the past few years and an increase in number of cancer patients offers an opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to enter this sector. Every one person out of eight has the potential of getting affected by cancer and it is estimated that 12 to 37 lives can be saved daily with the help of CTCs and CSCs.

The major geographic markets for CTCs and CSCs are the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. accounted for more than 50% of the worldwide CTCs and CSC market in 2011.

Related & Recently Published Reports by Transparency Market Research

Prostate Cancer Market

Weight Loss Industry

Osteoporosis Market

Read more from the original source:
Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) and Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs) Market is Expected to Reach USD 7.9 billion by 2018 ...

Chennai, Aug 14 (IBNS)

Stem cells derived from the umbilical cord are known to have the potential to treat over 75 serious medical conditions.

To enhance awareness, LifeCell partnered with model and actor Lisa Ray, who had undergone successful stem cell therapy for treatment of blood cancer.

Lisa continues to endorse the brand.

Whilst India is the worlds largest birthing country, the penetration of the stem cell storage has been a dismal 0.2pc compared to the global average which is between 5pc in the US to as high as 25pc in Singapore.

LifeCell said it believes that poor awareness rate and per capita income are the primary reasons for low penetration in the Indian market, yet is optimistic that India would soon reach the global benchmarks.

Mayur Abhaya, Managing Director and CEO said, When we launched our services in 2004 the medical fraternity was not even aware of the concept of stem cell banking. It was our responsibility to create awareness amongst both the doctors and the expectant parents about its enormous scope in the future."

The stem cell storage industry is growing at a rate of 30-40pc per year. More and more innovative services have been launched in the space of stem cell preservation such menstrual blood banking. (IBNS)

See the article here:
LifeCell gets 50,000 customers in stem cells banking

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Verastem, Inc., (VSTM) a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing drugs to treat breast and other cancers by targeting cancer stem cells, today reported financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2012, and also commented on certain corporate accomplishments and plans.

We made significant advances in our therapeutic programs during the second quarter, said Christoph Westphal, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Verastem. The acquisition of the Phase 2-ready focal adhesion kinase inhibitors from Pfizer accelerates this key cancer stem cell-targeting program by approximately 12-18 months, and we are now positioned to initiate a potential registration study in mesothelioma next year.

Recent Accomplishments

Our significant recent accomplishments include the following:

Focal Adhesion Kinase (FAK) Inhibition

Dual PI3K/mTOR Inhibition

Corporate

Second Quarter 2012 Financial Results

As of June 30, 2012, Verastem had cash, cash equivalents and investments of $104.3 million compared to $56.8 million on December 31, 2011.

Read more:
Verastem Reports Second Quarter 2012 Financial and Corporate Results

Public release date: 13-Aug-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, August 13, 2012Even after being frozen for 18 years, human embryos can be thawed, grown in the laboratory, and successfully induced to produce human embryonic stem (ES) cells, which represent a valuable resource for drug screening and medical research. Prolonged embryonic cryopreservation as an alternative source of ES cells is the focus of an article in BioResearch Open Access, a new bimonthly peer-reviewed open access journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The article is available free online at the BioResearch Open Access website.

Kamthorn Pruksananonda and coauthors from Chulalongkorn University and Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand, demonstrated that ES cells derived from frozen embryos have a similar ability to differentiate into multiple cell typesa characteristic known as pluripotencyas do ES cells derived from fresh embryos. They present their findings in the article "Eighteen-Year Cryopreservation Does Not Negatively Affect the Pluripotency of Human Embryos: Evidence from Embryonic Stem Cell Derivation."

"The importance of this study is that it identifies an alternative source for generating new embryonic stem lines, using embryos that have been in long-term storage," says Editor-in-Chief Jane Taylor, PhD, MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

###

About the Journal

BioResearch Open Access is a bimonthly peer-reviewed open access journal that provides a new rapid-publication forum for a broad range of scientific topics including molecular and cellular biology, tissue engineering and biomaterials, bioengineering, regenerative medicine, stem cells, gene therapy, systems biology, genetics, biochemistry, virology, microbiology, and neuroscience. All articles are published within 4 weeks of acceptance and are fully open access and posted on PubMedCentral. All journal content is available online at the BioResearch Open Access website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Tissue Engineering, Stem Cells and Development, Human Gene Therapy and HGT Methods, and AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available at the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. website.

See the article here:
Human embryos frozen for 18 years yield viable stem cells suitable for biomedical research

Figure 1: iPSCs cultivated atop a 'feeder' layer of mouse embryonic fibroblasts (top left) maintain expression of a fluorescent pluripotency marker (top right; green). However, these cells also thrive (bottom left) and maintain their pluripotency (bottom right) when grown on a glutaraldehyde-fixed feeder cell layer. Image reproduced under the terms of the CCAL, with copyright shared by Yue et al

Stem cells are renowned for their capacity to develop into a wide range of mature cell types but they cannot maintain this flexibility on their own. In the body, neighboring cells help maintain this pluripotent state. But to grow these cells in culture, scientists have had to devise a variety of specialized techniques.

This is especially true for embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are ESC-like cells derived from adult tissue. To preserve their pluripotency, these cells have typically been grown atop a supporting layer of feeder cells. Now, a strategy developed by a team led by Yoshihiro Ito at the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Wako, promises to make ESC and iPSC cultivation considerably easier.

Feeder cells provide valuable growth factors for stem cells but also make culture complicated and create opportunities for contaminationan especially serious concern for clinical applications. Early attempts to isolate the key features of feeder cells have fallen short. It was difficult to culture stem cells on growth-factor immobilized substrates, says Ito. Feeder cells provide a complex microenvironment that cannot simply be replaced with one or several growth factors.

As an alternative, the researchers subjected feeder cell layers to chemical fixation treatments that killed the cells while physically preserving them and maintaining their external structure largely intact. This resulted in a robust cell culture surface that retained virtually all of the features with which stem cells would typically interact. Mouse iPSCs maintained their pluripotent state even after extensive cultivation on feeder cells that had previously been fixed with either formaldehyde (FA) or glutaraldehyde (GA). GA fixation is a harsher treatment, but Ito and colleagues noted that GA fixed cells also provided a superior substrate, and this GA-fixed layer was robust enough to be washed and reused.

The researchers were pleasantly surprised to find that mouse iPSCs grown in this manner were virtually indistinguishable from those cultured by traditional methods (Fig. 1). Feeder cells were believed to secrete proteins or other compounds that maintain the growth of undifferentiated stem cells, says Ito. But fixed cells lose this secretion capability, which shows that providing the right contact microenvironment is more important for iPSCs. Given how rugged the fixed cell layers are, he anticipates that this approach could offer a commercially viable cell culture tool once it has been tested and optimized for cultivation of human iPSCs.

More information: Yue, X.-S., Fujishiro, M., Nishioka, C., Arai, T., Takahashi, E., Gong, J.-S., Akaike, T. & Ito, Y. Feeder cells support the culture of induced pluripotent stem cells even after chemical fixation. PLoS ONE 7, e32707 (2012). http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0032707

Provided by RIKEN

Follow this link:
Stem cells thrive on superficial relationships

Researcher find master cells also key for abstract thought and planning ahead Breakthrough could lead to new treatments for autism

By Mark Prigg

PUBLISHED: 13:00 EST, 9 August 2012 | UPDATED: 13:00 EST, 9 August 2012

A newly-discovered type of stem cell could be the key to higher thinking in humans, research suggests.

Scientists have identified a family of stem cells that may give birth to neurons responsible for abstract thought and creativity.

The cells were found in embryonic mice, where they formed the upper layers of the brains cerebral cortex.

Researchers hope the breakthrough could lead to new treatments for disorders such as autism

In humans, the same brain region allows abstract thinking, planning for the future and solving problems.

Previously it was thought that all cortical neurons - upper and lower layers - arose from the same stem cells, called radial glial cells (RGCs).

The new research shows that the upper layer neurons develop from a distinct population of diverse stem cells.

See the original post:
Scientists find the stem cells that drive our creativity

ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2012) Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have identified a new stem cell population that may be responsible for giving birth to the neurons responsible for higher thinking. The finding also paves the way for scientists to produce these neurons in culture -- a first step in developing better treatments for cognitive disorders, such as schizophrenia and autism, which result from disrupted connections among these brain cells.

Published in the August 10, 2012 issue of the journal Science, the new research reveals how neurons in the uppermost layers of the cerebral cortex form during embryonic brain development.

"The cerebral cortex is the seat of higher brain function, where information gets integrated and where we form memories and consciousness," said the study's senior author Ulrich Mueller, a professor and director of the Dorris Neuroscience Center at Scripps Research. "If we want to understand who we are, we need to understand this area where everything comes together and forms our impression of the world."

In the new study, Mueller's team identified a neural stem cell in mice that specifically gives rise to the neurons that make up the upper layers of the cerebral cortex. Previously, it was thought that all cortical neurons -- those making up both the lower and upper layers -- came from the same type of stem cell, called a radial glial cell, or RGC. A neuron's fate was thought to be determined by the timing of its birth date. The Scripps Research team, however, showed that there is a distinct stem cell progenitor that gives rise to upper layer neurons, regardless of birth date or place.

"Advanced functions like consciousness, thought, and creativity require a lot of different neuronal cell types and a central question has been how all this diversity is produced in the cortex," said Santos Franco, a senior research associate in Mueller's laboratory and first author of the paper. "Our study shows this diversity already exists in the progenitor cells."

Peeling Back the Onion Layers

In mammals, the cortex is made up of six distinct anatomic layers holding different types of excitatory neurons. They are not the uniform layers of a cake, but rather, they are more like the layers wrapped around an onion. The smaller lower layers, on the inside, host neurons that connect to the brain stem and spinal cord to help regulate essential functions such as breathing and movement. The larger upper layers, closer to the outer surface of the brain, contain neurons that integrate information coming in from the senses and connect across the two halves of the brain.

The upper layers are a "relatively young invention," evolutionarily speaking, having been greatly expanded during primate evolution, said Mueller. They give humans in particular the unique abilities to think abstractly, plan for the future and problem-solve.

For the last two decades, scientists have believed that the fate of cerebral cortex neurons was determined by their birth date because each layer is formed in a time-dependent manner. The lower layer neurons form in the center of the "ball" first, and then the cells that will become the upper layers form last, migrating through the lower layers.

"So the model was that there is a stem cell in the center of the ball that generates the different types of neurons in successive waves," said Mueller. "What we now show is that there are at least two different populations of RGCs and potentially more."

Original post:
Neuroscientists find brain stem cells that may be responsible for higher functions, bigger brains