Category Archives: Stem Cells

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Robert Waddell says he's glad the stem cells that healed him came from "a guy who was 50 years old" and not a human embryo.

As a Catholic, Waddell opposes the destruction of embryos and didn't want to rely on embryonic stem cells to cure his kidney disease. But he avoided this moral dilemma by getting bone marrow stem cells from a friend who donated a kidney as part of a University of Louisville study.

"It has nothing to do with embryonic stem cells," said Waddell, a 47-year-old father of four. "That made it a lot easier."

Recent strides in stem-cell research show adult stem cells to be ever-more-promising, many scientists say, quelling the controversy steeped in faith and science that has long surrounded embryonic stem cells.

In fact, University of Louisville researcher Scott Whittemore said the debate is almost moot.

"Realistically, (many scientists don't use) the types of stem cells that are so problematic anymore," he said, adding that adult stem cells can now be reprogrammed to behave like embryonic stem cells. "The field has moved so fast."

In addition to these genetically reprogrammed adult cells - known as induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells - scientists are on the cusp of being able to turn one type of cell into another in the body without using stem cells at all. They shared some of the latest research last week at the annual International Society for Stem Cell Research in Vancouver.

"IPS cells overcame the main ethical issues," namely the use of embryos some Americans consider sacred human life, said Brett Spear, a professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at the University of Kentucky who uses iPS cells to model liver disease.

But other scientists argue that embryonic stem cell research remains important.

Dr. George Daley, director of the stem cell transplant program at Boston Children's Hospital and past president of the research society, said embryonic cells are a tool in the search for cures.

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Stem-cell advances may quell ethics debate

SOUTH BEND, Ind.--- In the 1970's, researchers discovered that a newborn's umbilical cord blood contained special stem cells that could help fight certain diseases.

More than 30 years later doctors are still experimenting and learning more about the use of cord blood.

Amanda Canale doesn't take time with her daughter and niece for granted.

She's just happy to feel good.

"I've been in the hospital, and I've been sick my whole life," said Amanda.

Amanda was born with a rare blood disorder that required daily shots.

"Basically, I have no white blood cells. I have no immune system at all," said Amanda

At 23 she developed Leukemia and was given two weeks to live.

She desperately needed a Bone Marrow Transplant, but family members weren't matches.

Her doctor suggested an Umbilical Cord Blood Transplant.

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Umbilical cord blood helps to save lives

Anti aging Miracles with Adult Stem Cells Luminesce from Jeunesse Global
And of course you can get more info and join here: https://keithwigley.jeunesseglobal.com/ and Direct link to Sign up and get started right away: https://jof...

By: Keith Wigley

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Anti aging Miracles with Adult Stem Cells & Luminesce from Jeunesse Global - Video

Stem Cells Cerebral Palsy: The Promise The Progress
The possibility that stem cells could one day treat cerebral palsy (CP) and many other conditions has captured our imagination. But what is actually involved in treating CP and how close are...

By: Cerebral Palsy Alliance

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Stem Cells & Cerebral Palsy: The Promise & The Progress - Video

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) --

It's something Jon Galvan experienced five years ago after he almost died from a hemorrhagic stroke while atSubmit work.

"I was typing away and I felt a pop in my head," Galvan told Ivanhoe.

He was able to recover, but Abba Zubair, MD, PhD, Medical Director of Transfusion Medicine and Stem Cell Therapy at Mayo Clinic, Florida says not everyone is as fortunate.

"If it happens, you either recover completely or die," Dr. Zubair told Ivanhoe. "That's what killed my mother."

SubmitDr. Zubair wants to send bone marrow derived stem cells to the international space station.

"Based on our experience with bone marrow transplant you need about 200 to 500 million cells," Dr. Zubair said.

But conventionally grown stem cells take a month. Experiments on earth have shown that stem cells will grow faster in less gravity.

"Five to ten times faster, but it could be more," Dr. Zubair said.

Specifically he hopes to expand the number of stem cells that will help regeneration of neurons and blood vessels in hemorrhagic stroke patients.

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Growing Stem Cells in Space: Medicine's Next Big Thing?

Poway, CA (PRWEB) June 20, 2014

Vet-Stem, Inc. announced that another patent has issued under its exclusive worldwide license with Artecel, Inc. and with The University of California. This patent covers compositions of adipose tissue-derived stem cells that can differentiate into many types of tissues include cartilage, bone, nerve, kidney, heart and skin. This patent will provide coverage for the on-going commercial and development programs at Vet-Stem.

This new patent adds to the other patents in the Vet-Stem portfolio that cover compositions and methods of production of regenerative cells from adipose tissue for many diseases in humans and animals. Vet-Stem has exclusive worldwide rights for veterinary use of these patents (over 50 issued and 70 pending patents) which improves the companys intellectual property position in this rapidly developing field.

As the first company in the United States to provide an adipose-derived stem cell service to veterinarians for their patients, Vet-Stem, Inc. pioneered the use of regenerative stem cells in veterinary medicine. In the last decade over 10,000 animals including horses, dogs, cats, and some exotics have been treated using Vet-Stems services.

Intellectual property rights are key assets in these markets and our investments in the area over the last decade have created tremendous value for our shareholders, said Robert Harman, DVM, MPVM, CEO and Founder of Vet-Stem. We need to do everything possible to protect and grow the market that we are creating in Regenerative Veterinary Medicine by providing the highest quality control in the industry. The value of this technology has increased greatly since the founding of the company in 2002 by providing clear evidence of the therapeutic activity and safety of these stem cells.

Vet-Stem researchers have been authors on 11 peer-reviewed papers including the first blinded, controlled, multicenter study of adipose-derived stem cells for chronic osteoarthritis in the canine hip joint, and the first multicenter clinical study of adipose-derived stem cells for chronic osteoarthritis in the canine elbow. Vet-Stem is actively investigating stem cell therapy for immune-mediated and inflammatory disease, as well as organ disease and failure.

About Vet-Stem, Inc. Vet-Stem, Inc. was formed in 2002 to bring regenerative medicine to the veterinary profession. The privately held company is working to develop therapies in veterinary medicine that apply regenerative technologies while utilizing the natural healing properties inherent in all animals. The company holds exclusive licenses to over 50 patents including world-wide veterinary rights for use of adipose derived stem cells. For more on Vet-Stem, Inc. and Veterinary Regenerative Medicine visit http://www.vet-stem.com or call 858-748-2004.

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Canadian Patent for Adipose Stem Cells Issued Under Vet-Stem License

At Novartiss research lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a large incubator-like piece of equipment is helping give birth to a new era of psychiatric drug discovery. Inside it, bathed in soft light, lab plates hold living human stem cells; robotic arms systematically squirt nurturing compounds into the plates. Thanks to a series of techniques perfected over the last few years in labs around the world, such stem cellscapable of developing into specialized cell typescan now be created from skin cells. When stem cells derived from people with, say, autism or schizophrenia are grown inside the incubator, Novartis researchers can nudge them to develop into functioning brain cells by precisely varying the chemicals in the cell cultures.

Theyre not exactly creating schizophrenic or autistic neurons, because the cells arent working within the circuitry of the brain, but for drug-discovery purposes its the next best thing. For the first time, researchers have a way to directly examine in molecular detail whats going wrong in the brain cells of patients with these illnesses. And, critically for the pharmaceutical company, there is now a reliable method of screening for drugs that might help. Do the neurons look different from normal ones? Is there a flaw in the way they form connections? Could drugs possibly correct the abnormalities? The answer to each of these questions is a very preliminary yes.

The technique is so promising that Novartis has resumed trying to discover new psychiatric drugs after essentially abandoning the quest. Whats more, its been introduced at a time when knowledge about the genetics behind brain disorders is expanding rapidly and other new tools, including optogenetics and more precise genome editing (see Neurosciences New Toolbox), are enabling neuroscientists to probe the brain directly. All these developments offer renewed hope that science could finally deliver more effective treatments for the millions of people beset by devastating brain disorders.

A revival in psychiatric drug development is badly needed: there hasnt been a breakthrough medicine for any of the common mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or severe depression, in roughly 50 years. From the late 1940s through the 1960s, a series of serendipitous discoveries, beginning with the finding that lithium could help bipolar patients, transformed the treatment of the mentally ill. It became possible to quiet the hallucinations and delusions of schizophrenia and offer a drug to the severely depressed. The sudden availability of pharmacological relief transformed psychiatry and played a role in closing down many of the mammoth mental hospitals of the era. But then, almost as suddenly as it had started, the revolution stalled.

Many of the drugs discovered in the 1950s and 1960s are still the most effective treatments available for schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, and depression. But while these medications have improved the lives of some patients, they are ineffective for others, and they are woefully inadequate in treating many of the worst symptoms. Whats more, the drugs can have severe side effects.

Take schizophrenia, for example. Existing antipsychotic drugs can make the hallucinations and delusions disappear, but they dont improve the so-called negative symptomsthe disruption of emotions such as pleasure, which can leave people uninterested in communicating or even in living. Existing drugs also have no effect on the way schizophrenia can impair concentration, decision-making, and working memory (critical in such tasks as language comprehension). These debilitating cognitive problems make it impossible for people to work and difficult for them even to make the seemingly simple logical choices involved in everyday life. Insidiously, such symptoms can strike high-performing individuals, often in their late teens. People dont understand, says Guoping Feng, a professor of neuroscience at MIT who studies the neural basis of psychiatric disorders. They ask, once a patient is given antipsychotic medicine, Why cant you go to work? But [those with schizophrenia] cant work because they dont have cognitive functions, they dont have normal executive functions. And there are no drugs for this. On top of that are the side effects of antipsychotic medicines, which can include Parkinsons-like movement disorders, dramatic weight gain, or a potentially deadly loss of white blood cells. In short, the illness destroys many patients lives.

We were led down a path that said depression is about being a quart low in serotonin, and schizophrenia means you have a bit too much dopamine on board. But that just isnt how the brain works. The brain isnt a bowl of soup.

Finally, many people with brain disorders are simply not helped at all by available drugs. Antidepressants work well for some people but do nothing for many others, and there are no effective drug treatments for the social disabilities or repetitive behaviors caused by autism.

Overall, neuropsychiatric illness is a leading cause of disability. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Rockville, Maryland, 26 percent of American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year. Severe depression, the most common of these disorders, is the leading cause of disability in the U.S. for individuals between 15 and 44. Around 1 percent of the American population suffers from schizophrenia; one in 68 American children is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.

Though the need for better treatments is unquestionable, drug companies had until very recently simply run out of good ideas. The drugs developed in the 1950s and 1960s were discovered by accident, and no one knew how or why they worked. In the subsequent decades, drug researchers reverse-engineered the medications to identify the brain molecules that the drugs acted on, such as dopamine and serotonin. In retrospect, however, scientists now realize that while tweaking the levels of these chemicals addressed some symptoms of psychiatric disorders, it was a crude strategy that ignored the biological mechanisms underlying the illnesses.

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Shining Light on Madness

The UK Stem Cell Foundation is funding the first ever human study which will involve 10 patients.

It is hoped that this could lead to access to a new treatment within three to five years.

Stem cells will be removed from each patient, expanded in the laboratory, then implanted onto the damaged tendon.

Andy Goldberg, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, who will lead the study, said: "There is a real need for effective, non-surgical treatments for Achilles Tendinopathy.

"We have seen stem cell treatments produce impressive outcomes in race horses and this trial will be the first step towards seeing if this is also a viable treatment in humans.

"If things go well, we are hopeful this treatment could have a life-changing impact on patients."

Sir Richard Sykes, Chairman of the UK Stem Cell Foundation, added: "The UK Stem Cell Foundation is delighted to support this first-in-man study.

"Our mission is to help address the critical gap in funding that is hindering the progress of promising stem cell research into new treatments.

"The Autologous Stem Cells in Achilles Tendinopathy study (ASCAT) is an exciting example of taking preclinical work in a natural animal disease model and translating it for human benefit".

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Stem cell treatment used on horses could help human athletes

Now to the age-old question.. who is stronger - a man or a woman? Just asking the question will stir up a fierce debate...one that might finally be settled -- thanks to groundbreaking new research... Tonight we are taking you inside a lab where you can actually SEE the differences.. 3 0 - 8 137 - 142 IT'S A QUESTION THAT GOES BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF TIME... WHO'S STRONGER... MEN OR WOMEN? IT'S SOMETHING BRIAN EGWUATU AND HIS WIFE KARA BATTLE OVER ALL THE TIME... ESPECIALLY AT THE GYM. BOTH ARE IN GREAT SHAPE... BUT IN THE END THEY BOTH AGREE... THEY'VE BEEN BROUGHT UP TO BELIEVE MEN ARE THE STRONGER SEX. BUT NOW, LANDMARK RESEARCH BEING DONE BY DOCTOR DORIS TAYLOR AT THE TEXAS HEART INSTITUTE IS PROVING WOMEN... FROM THEIR STEM CELLS TO THEIR HEARTS. HAVE GOT MEN BEAT... BADLY.YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE THE DIFFERENCE... AND EVEN FEEL IT. 3 TAKE HEARTS FOR EXAMPLE... DR. TAYLOR TOOK MALE AND FEMALE PIG HEARTS... NEARLY IDENTICAL TO THE HUMAN HEART AND STRIPPED THEM OF ALL CELLS... SO SHE COULD LOOK AT THE BASIC STRUCTURE.FIRST THE FEMALE HEART ... JUST LOOK AT IT... NOW, THE MALE HEART...SOFT, LOOSE, THIN WALLED, ALMOST RUNNY.NOW WATCH THE WAY THEY WORK... HOW THEY PUMP WHEN SQUEEZED.AND THE MALE HEART? 3 AND THEN THERE ARE THE STEM CELLS... THE BODY'S SUPER- POWERED REPAIR SYSTEM, LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCE! RESEARCH SHOWS THE POWER OF FEMALE STEM CELLS ON THE LEFT COMPARED WITH MALE STEM CELLS ON THE RIGHT.WOMEN HAVE FAR MORE STEM CELLS AND THEY LAST A LOT LONGER. DR. TAYLOR'S GOAL IN ALL OF THIS.RUNS=:01TO HARVEST THOSE "SUPER-POWERERD STEM CELLS" WOMEN HAVE...AND INJECT THEM INTO MEN AND WOMEN, SUFFERING FROM HEART DISEASE, KIDNEY DISEASE, DIABETES AND MORE... AND CURE THEM. Dr. Taylor says all of these differences between male and female hearts and male and female stem cells may explain why men die from heart disease so much younger than women..

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With play underway

Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images

Teruhiko Wakayama alleged yesterday that Haruko Obokata, his co-author of two controversial Nature papers, switched mice in experiments to create stem cells.

A co-author on two controversial papers claiming a new kind of embryonic-like stem cell has presented genetic data showing that the cells used to make the claim were not what they were said to be. The finding was supported by a second source, which suggested that cells made with so-called stimulus triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) were probably nothing more than normal embryonic stem cells, possibly the product of switched samples.

Both announcements, made on 16 June, increase pressure on the papers lead author, biologist Haruko Obokata of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, to prove that the STAP phenomenon does exist.

Obokata and others have agreed to retract two papers describing the STAP techniques they had published in Nature1, 2 in January after numerous problems were identified. [Natures news and comment team is editorially independent of its research editorial team.] But the question remained of whether the phenomenon in which stresses such as acid exposure or physical pressure are enough to turn bodily cells into embryonic-like cells was real, as Obokata has steadfastly maintained.

Teruhiko Wakayama, a pioneering mouse cloner currently at Yamanashi University, headed the RIKEN CDB laboratory where Obokata claimed to have created STAP cells. During the experiments, Wakayama gave Obokata newborn mice from his laboratory. She claims to have taken spleen cells from these mice, exposed them to acid to create STAP cells, and handed them to Wakayama. Wakayama took the purported STAP cells and made self-renewing stem cell lines. He also injected them into mouse embryos to make chimeric mice, thus purportedly demonstrating the cells pluripotency, or ability to turn into all of the bodys cell types.

After various problems in the papers emerged, Wakayama started to wonder whether the cells he received had truly been made by the STAP method (see 'Mismatch alleged in acid-bath stem-cell experiment'). He sent the eight stem-cell lines that had been presented in the paper to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS) in Chiba, just east of Tokyo, to be analysed. Geneticists at the NIRS targeted the sites where a green fluorescent protein (GFP), used by researchers to mark the expression of certain genes, had been inserted into the mice genomes.

In the mice that Wakayama gave to Obokata, the GFP gene was on the 18th chromosome. But in the purported STAP cells, it was on the 15th chromosome. This strongly suggests that different mice were used. In my laboratory, there are neither mice nor embryonic stem cells with GFP on the 15th chromosome, Wakayama told Nature.

Wakayama is cautious on the interpretation of the results. We cannot say with certainty that STAP cells never existed. While the management of experimental mice is extremely strict at CDB, it is always possible that Obokata brought in baby mice from somewhere, he says.

But similar tests carried out by RIKEN CDB and published at the same time further call into question the origin of the STAP cells. The CDB looked at GFP insertion sites and genetic background in six other purported STAP cell lines that Obokata had kept in her laboratory. The results are in agreement with the results of the analyses of samples held by Prof. Wakayama, CDB director Masatoshi Takeichi wrote in an announcement posted on the centre's website on 16 June. Takeichi notes that the cells with GFP in the 18th chromosome are of unknown provenance. The CDB is now investigating the source of these cells.

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Gene tests suggest acid-bath stem cells never existed