Category Archives: Stem Cell Videos

A virus infection Stephanie Connor acquired during pregnancy put her unborn daughter at significant risk for brain damage and lifelong hearing loss.

"It was traumatic," said Connor, of LaBelle, Fl, after learning about her daughter's condition. "It was like mourning the loss of a child."

At age 1, baby Madeleine was completely deaf in her right ear and her hearing was severely lost in the left, said Connor. While a hearing aid helped to amplify some sounds for Madeleine, it would never fully repair the damage in her ear.

But a simple experimental procedure that Connor enrolled in for Madeleine may have restored her hearing and reversed her condition.

In January 2012, Madeleine, 2, became the first child to undergo an experimental hearing loss treatment through an FDA-approved trial at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center that infused stem cells from her own banked cord blood into her damaged inner ear.

Within the last six months, Connor says she's seen a dramatic improvement in Madeleine's ability to hear.

"Before, when she would hear something she would look all around," Connor said. "But now we notice that she turns in the right direction of the sound."

Madeleine was also able to speak for the first time, Connor said.

For more than two decades, umbilical cord blood transplantation -- either by a baby's own cord blood or another's, depending on the type of procedure -- has been used to treat otherwise fatal diseases including blood disorders, immune diseases, and some types of cancers.

Courtesy Stephanie Connor

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Stem Cells Restore Toddler's Hearing

Houston, TX (PRWEB) July 11, 2012

InGeneron Incorporated and Gulf Coast Veterinary Surgery (GCVS) teamed up with The Houston Zoo to help two of the zoos popular cats on June 20, 2012. Pandu, a 286-pound Malayan tiger, and Ivy, a 68-pound black leopard, suffer from arthritic pain. Zoo veterinarians Dr. Lauren Howard and Dr. Maud Marin have extensive experience with surgical procedures on the zoos animals, but these were unusually complicated cases. Therefore, the Houston Zoo called Dr. Brian Beale of Gulf Coast Veterinary Surgery to provide surgical expertise, and InGeneron Incorporated to provide the latest products enabling autologous stem cell therapy for osteoarthritis.

Dr. Beale and Dr. Howard harvested a small amount of fat tissue from the abdomen of each of the animals and then processed using InGenerons ARC System to isolate the stem cells. While the tissue from each animal was being processed, Dr. Beale performed arthroscopic surgery of the damaged elbow on each animal to evaluate and treat the cause of the arthritis. Arthroscopy is a minimally-invasive surgical technique that allows increased surgical precision and rapid patient recovery.

Dr. Carl Friddle of InGeneron Incorporated said, "Once the fat was removed, we cut it into small pieces before processing. This helps our proprietary enzyme mix gently remove the cells from the fat tissue." With InGenerons ARC System the veterinarian can rapidly isolate and concentrate the abundance of regenerative cells found in adipose (fat) tissue so that they can be administered in a single procedure without the need to grow the cells for several weeks. This enables veterinarians to use regenerative cell therapy in their clinics, or at remote locations, to treat orthopedic injuries, degenerative conditions and non-healing wounds in companion and performance animals.

With our process, we yield a high percentage of live regenerative cells, and systematic studies have shown these adipose-derived regenerative cells secrete growth factors that induce healing and formation of new blood vessels, elicit potent anti-inflammatory effects and have the great potential to engraft and differentiate into specialized cells to restore function to the tissue where they are administered, said Dr. Michael Coleman, President and Chief Scientific Officer of InGeneron Incorporated.

Veterinarians are hopeful that the new cell therapy will shorten the healing time and provide a better, longer lasting result.

Dr. Beale showed the degeneration in Pandu's elbow to the treatment collaborators on the operating room video monitor. In some areas of the damaged joint, there was bone on bone contact, and bone fragments had broken loose. "This is by far the largest fragment I've ever seen with this condition," said Dr. Beale, who often performs this same procedure on house cats and dogs. Ivy had similar changes to Pandu but in both elbows.

Thanks to InGenerons rapid method for cell isolation, Pandu and Ivy both had their own regenerative cells ready for injection by the end of their surgeries. Dr. Beale injected the cells into the affected elbow in only a couple of minutes, and both cats were taken back to familiar surroundings for rest and recuperation. Neither animal showed any complications from the surgery and within a week both were back on exhibit.

Veterinarians in the USA, Canada, Europe, and Mexico are currently using InGenerons ARC System. Last year, InGeneron collaborated with Dr. Francisco Cortes Van Aarem in Mexico to provide regenerative cell therapy to Tibetana, a rescued Bengal tiger, with serious injuries to her back. Today, Tibetana is doing well at the Zacango Zoo.

A wide range of injured animals, including household pets and performance animals, may benefit from this innovative type of procedure.

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Malayan Tiger and Black Leopard Undergo Treatment for Arthritis Using Stem Cells Prepared by InGeneron Incorporated

DALLAS, July 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ReportsnReports.com adds a new market research report "Global Markets for Stem Cells" to its store. The highlights of this stem cells report includes:

The aim of this report is to provide detailed market, technology, and industry analyses to help readers quantify and qualify the market for prescription drug products. Important trends are identified and sales forecasts by product categories and major country markets are provided through 2016; these are based on industry sources and considered assessment of the regulatory environment, healthcare policies, demographics, and other factors that directly affect the stem cell-related drug market. The wider economic environment is also taken into account.

The report examines strategies employed by companies specializing in this field to meet the challenges of a competitive and fast-growing market.

SCOPE OF REPORT

This report discusses the implications of stem cell research and commercial trends in the context of the current size and growth of the pharmaceutical market, both in global terms and analyzed by the most important national markets. The important technologies supporting stem cells are reviewed, and the nature and structure of the stem cell industry is discussed with profiles of the leading companies, including recent M&A activity. Five-year sales forecasts are provided for the national markets and the major therapeutic categories of products involved.

MARKET ANALYSES AND FORECASTS

Market figures are based on revenues at the manufacturer level and are projected at 2012-dollar value without attempting to predict the effect of inflation/deflation. Therapeutic categories quantified and forecast include cancer, CNS diseases, infections and cardiovascular. Major country markets in three regionsAmericas, Europe and Asiaare analyzed and forecast, with a summary for the rest of the world.

METHODOLOGY

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Global Markets for Stem Cells and Stem Cell Products Expected to Reach $6.6 Billion by 2016

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have traced brain tumors caused by a common genetic disorder back to a particular area in the developing brains of mice, suggesting a possible way of targeting these tumors for treatment in humans.

Washington University neurologist David Gutmann and his team were examining tumors associated with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), an inherited disorder that occurs in about one out of every 3,000 people. NF1 causes, among other things, tumors in the optic nerve called optic gliomas that are usually harmless, but which can sometimes impair a child's vision.

Before the team began their research, no one really knew where the tumors were coming from. They could have been originating in mature cells in the optic nerve, or they could have been coming from regions of stem cells in the embryonic brain. Gutmann and his colleague Da Yong Lee decided to look at areas of the brain right near the optic nerve.

"It's like an episode of CSI -- you want to look for clues in the area of the murder," Gutmann said in a phone interview.

Two regions of stem cells appeared to be likely candidates: the third ventricle and the lateral ventricle, located roughly in the middle of the brain. Both areas are lined with stem cells during embryonic development until shortly after birth.

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In a paper appearing in the journal Cancer Cell, Gutmann and his colleagues described how they turned off Nf1 -- a gene in mice that's similar to the gene that, when turned off, causes NF1 in humans -- in stem cells from both regions.

When the gene was turned off in stem cells from the third ventricle, those cells started proliferating wildly - the first step on the road to tumor formation. But when the researchers turned off the Nf1 gene in stem cells from the lateral ventricle, they didn't find that same effect.

People might think of stem cells as a single kind of cell, but they're actually more diverse than that. While stem cells from the lateral ventricle and the third ventricle are both able to differentiate into a wide range of cell types, they express different kinds of genes and, as Gutmann and his colleagues showed, behave in different ways to the same genetic changes.

"There are innate properties of stem cells that map to where they grow up. It's like how if you grow up in New York City, you're more likely to be a Yankees fan than a Cardinals fan," Gutmann explained.

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Optic Nerve Tumors Traced Back To Stem Cells In Young Brains

Any study that claims to overturn long-held dogmas is going to run headlong into controversy. Take, for example, a stream of recent papers which apparently showed that adult ovaries contain stem cells capable of producing eggs.

If thats true, its a really big deal. For decades, the textbooks have said that women are born with their lifetime supply of eggs, which slowly dwindle away and are never replaced. If adult ovaries do indeed have stem cells that can regenerate new eggs, that has big implications for fertility treatments, and when a woman could potentially have children.

But wait! A new study, which used a different technique to isolate these ovarian stem cells in mice, found that they dont divide, and never produce actual eggs. Maybe the textbooks are fine as they are?

But WAIT! This study, far more than many of the others I cover, has divided opinion. Obviously, the authors think that it deals a critical blow to the idea of egg-making adult stem cells. And obviously, one of the people behind the stem cell discovery thinks that the new experiments arent very good. I also contacted four other scientists who work on ovarian biology and their views differ considerably.

Ive written about this story for The Scientist so head over there for the details, and the grounds for the disagreement.

Image from RWJMS IVF Laboratory

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New paper stirs more debate about whether adult ovaries can make new eggs | Not Exactly Rocket Science

Public release date: 6-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Brianna Deane bdeane@dentistry.ucla.edu 310-206-0835 University of California - Los Angeles

The ability to control whether certain stem cells ultimately become bone cells holds great promise for regenerative medicine and potential therapies aimed at treating metabolic bone diseases.

Now, UCLA School of Dentistry professor and leading cancer scientist Dr. Cun-Yu Wang and his research team have made a significant breakthrough in that direction. The scientists have discovered two key epigenetic regulating genes that govern the cell-fate determination of human bone marrow stem cells.

Wang's new research is featured on the cover of the July 6 issue of Cell Stem Cell, the affiliated journal of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

The groundbreaking study grew out of Wang's desire to better understand the epigenetic regulation of stem cell differentiation, in which the structure of genes is modified while the sequence of the DNA is not. He and his team found that KDM4B and KDM6B, two gene-activating enzymes, can promote stem cells' differentiation into bone cells by removing methyl markers from histone proteins. This process occurs through the activation of certain genes favoring a commitment to one lineage and the concurrent deactivation of genes favoring other lineages.

The findings imply that chemical manipulation of these gene-activating enzymes may allow stem cells to differentiate specifically into bone cells, while inhibiting their differentiation into fat cells. The group's research could pave the way toward identifying potential therapeutic targets for stem cellmediated regenerative medicine, as well as the treatment of bone disorders like osteoporosis, the most common type of metabolic bone disease.

"Through our recent discoveries on the lineage decisions of human bone marrow stem cells, we may be more effective in utilizing these stem cells for regenerative medicine for bone diseases such as osteoporosis, as well as for bone reconstruction," Wang said. "However, while we know certain genes must be turned on in order for the cells to become bone-forming cells, as opposed to fat cells, we have only a few clues as to how those genes are switched on."

The research group, through its study of aging mice, found that the two enzymes KDM4B and KDM6B could specifically activate genes that promote stem cell differentiation toward bone, while blocking the route toward fat.

"Interestingly, in our aged mice, as well as osteoporotic mice, we observed a higher amount of silencing histone methyl groups which were normally removed by the enzymes KDM4B and KDM6B in young and healthier mice," Wang said. "And since these enzymes can be easily modified chemically, they may become potential therapeutic targets in tissue regeneration and treatment for osteoporosis."

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UCLA researcher discovers epigenetic links in cell-fate decisions of adult stem cells

Featured Article Academic Journal Main Category: Stem Cell Research Also Included In: Pregnancy / Obstetrics;Pediatrics / Children's Health;Biology / Biochemistry Article Date: 09 Jul 2012 - 9:00 PDT

Current ratings for: Stem Cells From Amniotic Fluid

Scientists from Imperial College London, and University College London Institute of Child Health, and colleagues, said their discovery means it may be possible to store stem cells from donated amniotic fluid for clinical and research use, offering a much needed alternative to the limited supply of embryonic stem cells.

"These cells have a wide range of potential applications in treatments and in research. We are particularly interested in exploring their use in genetic diseases diagnosed early in life or other diseases such as cerebral palsy," said co-senior author Dr Pascale Guillot, from the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial.

Stem cells hold promise for regenerative medicine because they have the potential to become virtually any cell in the body. The current "gold standard" of human stem cells is the human embryonic stem cell (hESC), which is harvested from human embryos.

However, researchers and clinicians are keen to find alternatives to hESCs because of ethical concerns about using human embryos and also because of their limited availability.

Previous studies have shown it is possible to use other types of cell and, by introducing extra genes, often using viruses as carriers, make them almost as versatile or pluripotent as hESCs. For instance, scientists have reprogrammed human skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells.

But this way of making induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) is not efficient and there is also a risk that the DNA disruption that occurs (something the authors attribute to "random integration of the reprogramming transgenes into the host genome") will lead to tumors.

This new study is the first to make iPSCs without having to insert foreign genetic material into the cells.

Guillot and colleagues also found the iPSCs they made from amniotic fluid stem cells (AFSCs) showed some of the characteristics normally only seen in embryonic stem cells, that are not present in iPSCs made from adult cells.

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Stem Cells From Amniotic Fluid

ScienceDaily (July 9, 2012) The ability to control whether certain stem cells ultimately become bone cells holds great promise for regenerative medicine and potential therapies aimed at treating metabolic bone diseases.

Now, UCLA School of Dentistry professor and leading cancer scientist Dr. Cun-Yu Wang and his research team have made a significant breakthrough in that direction. The scientists have discovered two key epigenetic regulating genes that govern the cell-fate determination of human bone marrow stem cells.

Wang's new research is featured on the cover of the July 6 issue of Cell Stem Cell, the affiliated journal of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

The groundbreaking study grew out of Wang's desire to better understand the epigenetic regulation of stem cell differentiation, in which the structure of genes is modified while the sequence of the DNA is not. He and his team found that KDM4B and KDM6B, two gene-activating enzymes, can promote stem cells' differentiation into bone cells by removing methyl markers from histone proteins. This process occurs through the activation of certain genes favoring a commitment to one lineage and the concurrent deactivation of genes favoring other lineages.

The findings imply that chemical manipulation of these gene-activating enzymes may allow stem cells to differentiate specifically into bone cells, while inhibiting their differentiation into fat cells. The group's research could pave the way toward identifying potential therapeutic targets for stem cell-mediated regenerative medicine, as well as the treatment of bone disorders like osteoporosis, the most common type of metabolic bone disease.

"Through our recent discoveries on the lineage decisions of human bone marrow stem cells, we may be more effective in utilizing these stem cells for regenerative medicine for bone diseases such as osteoporosis, as well as for bone reconstruction," Wang said. "However, while we know certain genes must be turned on in order for the cells to become bone-forming cells, as opposed to fat cells, we have only a few clues as to how those genes are switched on."

The research group, through its study of aging mice, found that the two enzymes KDM4B and KDM6B could specifically activate genes that promote stem cell differentiation toward bone, while blocking the route toward fat.

"Interestingly, in our aged mice, as well as osteoporotic mice, we observed a higher amount of silencing histone methyl groups which were normally removed by the enzymes KDM4B and KDM6B in young and healthier mice," Wang said. "And since these enzymes can be easily modified chemically, they may become potential therapeutic targets in tissue regeneration and treatment for osteoporosis."

"The discovery that Dr. Wang and his team have made has considerable implications for craniofacial bone regeneration and treatment for osteoporosis," said Dr. No-Hee Park, dean of the UCLA School of Dentistry. "As a large portion of our population reaches an age where osteoporosis and gum disease could be major health problems, advancements in aging-related treatment are very valuable."

Professor Wang holds the No-Hee Park Endowed Chair in Dentistry at the UCLA School of Dentistry, where he is also chair of the division of oral biology and medicine and the associate dean for graduate studies.

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Discovery of epigenetic links in cell-fate decisions of adult stem cells paves way for new osteoporosis treatments

Opinion is divided on a new paper showing that adult ovaries do not contain egg-making stem cells, contrary to the findings of two recent studies that themselves appeared to overturn longstanding dogma.

For more than half a century, textbooks have stated that women and other female mammals are born with all the eggs, or oocytes, they will ever have. This supply gradually shrinks with age, and ovaries are incapable of producing more of these reproductive cells.

This dogma has taken a pounding in recent years, however. Starting in 2004, Ji Wu of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and Jonathan Tilly of Massachusetts General Hospital isolated stem cells from the ovaries of mice, which could apparently divide to produce fresh oocytes. And earlier this year, Tilly announced that he has found cells with the same qualities, known as oogonial stem cells (OSCs), in the ovaries of middle-aged women.

These discoveries promised to offer new treatments for fertility, allowing women to have babies without worrying about an ageing supply of eggs. But as with all dogma-contradicting discoveries, they remained contentious.

Now, a new study from researchers at the University of Gothenburg is likely to fuel the controversy. Kui Liu and his colleagues used fluorescing proteins to identify the alleged egg-producing stem cells in the ovaries of mice, and found that the cells do not divide into oocytes. They published their results today (July 9) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The reaction to Lius study is strongly divided. Patricia Hunt, a reproductive biologist from Washington State University, described it as solid and informative. For those of us who have remained skeptical about the existence or role of stem cells in the ovary, this approach is a most welcome addition to the field, she said.

I took a close look at this and the work is fantastic, agreed David Albertini, a physiologist from the University of Kansas. It should put previous discussions into perspective. At least in mice, OSCs do not exist.

But Evelyn Telfer, a cell biologist from the University of Edinburgh, is less impressed, and said that Liu missed the opportunity to obtain robust experimental evidence. Because Liu used completely new methods, it is unclear how the cells he identified compare with those from previous studies. We are left with more questions than answers, said Telfer.

When Liu first saw the papers by Wu and Tilly, he was more excited than sceptical. My first impulse was: I want to repeat this, he said. But he was troubled by the fact that both Wu and Tillys teams fished for their cells using antibodies that recognize DDX4, a protein found in reproductive stem cells. But DDX4 is not a surface protein, Liu said, and is mainly found inside cells. The fishing technique should not have worked.

To avoid this problem, Lius members Hua Zhang and Wenjing Zheng worked with rainbow mice, whose reproductive cells glow green under normal conditions, but change to red, orange, or blue if they switch on the Ddx4 gene. Zhang and Zheng identified several such cells and watched them for 72 hours. They never once divided or produced oocytes. The duo did find some cells that looked like oocytes, but these did not express Ddx4.

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Ovarian Stem Cell Debate

ScienceDaily (July 9, 2012) Scientists showed in mice that disabling a gene linked to a common pediatric tumor disorder, neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), made stem cells from one part of the brain proliferate rapidly. But the same genetic deficit had no effect on stem cells from another brain region.

The results can be explained by differences in the way stem cells from these regions of the brain respond to cancer-causing genetic changes.

NF1 is among the world's most common genetic disorders, occurring in about one of every 3,000 births. It causes a wide range of symptoms, including brain tumors, learning disabilities and attention deficits.

Brain tumors in children with NF1 typically arise in the optic nerve and do not necessarily require treatment. If optic gliomas keep growing, though, they can threaten the child's vision. By learning more about the many factors that contribute to NF1 tumor formation, scientists hope to develop more effective treatments.

"To improve therapy, we need to develop better ways to identify and group tumors based not just on the way they look under the microscope, but also on innate properties of their stem cell progenitors," says David H. Gutmann, MD, PhD, the Donald O. Schnuck Family Professor of Neurology.

The study appears July 9 in Cancer Cell. Gutmann also is the director of the Washington University Neurofibromatosis Center.

In the new study, researchers compared brain stem cells from two primary sources: the third ventricle, located in the midbrain, and the nearby lateral ventricles. Before birth and for a time afterward, both of these areas in the brain are lined with growing stem cells.

First author Da Yong Lee, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate, showed that the cells lining both ventricles are true stem cells capable of becoming nerve and support cells (glia) in the brain. Next, she conducted a detailed analysis of gene expression in both stem cell types.

"There are night-and-day differences between these two groups of stem cells," Gutmann says. "These results show that stem cells are not the same everywhere in the brain, which has real consequences for human neurologic disease."

The third ventricle is close to the optic chiasm, the point where the optic nerves cross and optic gliomas develop in NF1 patients. Lee and Gutmann postulated that stem cells from this ventricle might be the source of progenitor cells that can become gliomas in children with NF1.

Read more from the original source:
Pediatric brain tumors traced to brain stem cells