Category Archives: Stem Cells

Orange County, CA (PRWEB) October 02, 2013

The leading regenerative medicine clinic on the West Coast, TeleHealth, is now offering treatment with stem cells for shoulder arthritis and tendonitis. The treatments are performed as an outpatient and include autologous stem cell treatments that are derived from either bone marrow or fat along with PRP therapy. The treatments are often covered by insurance, and the doctors are Board Certified with years of experience in stem cell therapy. Call (888) 828-4575 for more information and scheduling.

Shoulder injuries are not frustrating just for high level athletes. Even individuals who perform overhead work, are involved in a car accident or simply dealing with degenerative arthritis may suffer from chronic shoulder pain. Traditional treatments may provide pain relief, however, prior to undergoing surgery regenerative medicine treatments should be considered with stem cell therapy.

TeleHealth offers Board Certified stem cell doctors treating shoulder pain with several options for stem cell therapy. This may include rotator cuff tendonitis, labral tears, shoulder joint arthritis, biceps tendonitis, rotator cuff tears or impingement syndrome. These may take many months to heal without stem cell treatment and there is a distinct possibility the injury may not heal due to the bodys inability to develop the repair response necessary.

The stem cell treatments offered at TeleHealth include platelet rich plasma therapy (PRP therapy) and autologous stem cell therapy from either bone marrow or fat. These treatment options may be combined to deliver the maximum effectiveness for healing response. The results to date have been impressive for speeding up healing response along with initiating healing in injuries that were unresponsive to traditional nonoperative options.

The treatments are often covered by insurance at TeleHealth, are low risk, and all performed by Board Certified doctors as an outpatient. For more information and scheduling, call (888) 828-4575.

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West Coast Stem Cell Clinic, TeleHealth, Now Offering Treatment with Stem Cells for Shoulder Arthritis and Tendonitis

It's like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Researchers have reached inside the brain of a rat and pulled out neural stem cells without harming the animal.

Since the technique uses nanoparticles already approved for use in humans, it is hoped that it could be used to extract neural stem cells (NSCs) from people to treat conditions like Parkinson's, Huntington's and multiple sclerosis.

Extracting NSCs from the person who needs them would avoid immune rejection but they are difficult to remove safely. So Edman Tsang at the University of Oxford and his colleagues have developed a technique to safely fish out NSCs that originate in cavities in the brain called ventricles.

Tsang's team coated magnetic nanoparticles with antibodies that bond tightly to a protein found on the surface of NSCs. They then injected the nanoparticles into the lateral ventricles of rats' brains. Six hours later, after the nanoparticles had bonded to the NSCs, the researchers used a magnetic field around the rats' heads to pull the stem cells together. They could then be sucked out of the brain with a syringe.

After freeing the stem cells from the nanoparticles, the team found they could grow them in a dish, suggesting they were undamaged by the process. The rats, meanwhile, were back on their feet within hours of the surgery, showing no ill effects.

"Harmlessly extracting neural stem cells from the living mammalian brain is an advancement," says Gianvito Martino, a neural stem cell researcher at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, Italy. But he cautions that the extracted cells must be tested further before we can say for sure that Tsang's team has achieved the feat. "To be sure that we are dealing with real NSC-derived neurons electrophysiological testing is required," he says.

There might also be problems applying the technique to people, says Martino. The evidence suggests that human NSCs are both less abundant and less active than rodent NSCs. This means there may be fewer around to extract from the human brain, and those that are extracted may be difficult to coax into growing.

Martino thinks there might be easier ways to generate NSCs for instance, by turning skin cells into induced stem cells, and then encouraging them to become NSCs.

Journal reference: Angewandte Chemie International, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201305482

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Neural stem cells pulled from rat's brain using magnet

Nothing about how a bunch of Oxford researchers recently pulled neural stem cells out of the brains of living rats seems feasible. The cells are hard to isolate. Brains are fragile. Okay, brains are very fragile. But they've done it, and the procedure could shed fresh light on diseases like Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis.

The procedure itself sounds simple enough, if you sort of ignore the fact that scientists are digging around inside of a rat's skull. Oxford's Edman Tang and his team first coated magnetic nanoparticles with antibodies that have a tendency to bond with a type of protein found on neural stem cells. After about six hours, the researchers used a magnet to pull the nanoparticles together, and then extracted them from the brain using a syringe. Amazingly, none of this appears to have damaged the rat's brain, and the neural stem cells grew freely in a petri dish once extracted.

Needless to say, this technique is going to be a little bit more complicated when used on a human brain. For one, humans don't have as many neural stem cells as rodents, and those that we do have aren't as active, so there's a chance that they wouldn't regrow outside of the brain. But he if we can connect two human brains, letting one person control the other's mind using a technique first developed on rats, we probably can do anything. [New Scientist]

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Scientists Can Now Extract Stem Cells from Brains Using Magnets

MIAMI (PRWEB) October 01, 2013

The Global Stem Cells Group, Inc. has announced a worldwide alliance with Fort Myers, Florida-based EmCyte Corporation to promote in- office regenerative medicine procedures for physicians and practitioners.

EmCyte, a leading provider of biotechnology solutions in the United States, develops biological products for platelet rich plasma and bone marrow concentrate grafting procedures. The company also manufactures proprietary devices designed for harvesting the patients own plasma or bone marrow to use for the patients treatment.

EmCyte provides clinical support and trains physicians in using biologics for sports and general rehabilitative procedures. EmCyte is now seeking to expand its operations trough the Global Stem Cells Group Network.

The Global Stem Cells Groups collaboration with EmCyte is a logical one, as both companies are committed to research and development of products and procedures that will bring stem cell treatments to patients right in the physicians office.

Through its six separate stem cell companies, Global Stem Cell Group is dedicated to finding opportunities like the EmCyte alliance that help expand the reach of stem cell therapy to all patients who can benefit from it.

For more information on stem cell research, products and therapies, visit the Global Stem Cell Group website, email bnovas(at)regenestem(dot)com, or call 305-224-1858.

About the Global Stem Cell Group:

Global Stem Cells Group, Inc. is the parent company of six wholly owned operating companies dedicated entirely to stem cell research, training, products and solutions. Founded in 2012, the company combines dedicated researchers, physician and patient educators and solution providers with the shared goal of meeting the growing worldwide need for leading edge stem cell treatments and solutions. With a singular focus on this exciting new area of medical research, Global Stem Cells Group and its subsidiaries are uniquely positioned to become global leaders in cellular medicine.

Global Stem Cells Groups corporate mission is to make the promise of stem cell medicine a reality for patients around the world. With each of GSCGs six operating companies focused on a separate research-based mission, the result is a global network of state-of-the-art stem cell treatments.

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Global Stem Cells Group, Inc. Announces Worldwide Alliance with EmCyte Corp. to Promote In-office Regenerative ...

Jose Guzman began gasping for breath while using his treadmill on the lowest setting and knew something was wrong. His search for answers led him to the diagnosis of a rare lung disease with no cure.

Guzman, 72, who arrived from Cuba penniless and built a thriving Miami travel agency, doesnt give up easily. He has signed on to be one of the first patients to participate in a clinical trial being launched at the University of Miami. Dr. Marilyn Glassberg has obtained approval from the Food and Drug Administration to launch the first U.S. clinical trial that will test whether mesenchymal stem cells given intravenously could be a therapy for patients with Guzmans rare lung disease, known as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The disease strikes mostly men who are 55 and older and ex-smokers.

Glassberg, a pulmonologist and professor of medicine and surgery and director of the pulmonary division at the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute at UMs Miller School of Medicine, has studied rare lung diseases for 20 years. She says this is her first real hope of extending or improving the lives of her patients who have this progressive and fatal lung disease, which often leads to death within five years of diagnosis.

Glassberg says it if successful, stem cells could be applied as a potential therapy for other, more common lung diseases such as asthma or emphysema.

We believe moving cell-based therapies to diseases like these make sense, Glassberg says.

For the clinical trial, Glassberg says she chose to first focus on a lung disease with the worst prognosis.

Once fibrosis is present, it is the end stage because the damaged cells dont know how to repair themselves, she explains. Our hope is that the stems cells will curb the acceleration.

The trials results could change the way doctors manage lung disease for patients and get them away from drugs that have not been effective, she said.

The idea for using intravenous mesenchymal stem cells as a treatment for lung disease came from the work of several researchers, including a UM colleague who had used stem cell therapies on cardiac patients, Glassberg says. While reading a report on Dr. Joshua Hares 2009 study that used stem cells to repair heart damage, Glassberg said she was struck by one of its findings: the cells infused into the heart noticeably improved lung function, too.

The probability made sense to Glassberg because the lungs are the first stop for injected stem cells, regardless of where they are targeted. She became convinced she should try to apply this therapy to the pulmonary disease that has frustrated her for more than a decade.

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Trial to determine if stem cells can help with rare lung disease

CESMA: Deploying Stem Cells 13, Prof Augusto Pessina: Introduzione panel ASPETTI NORMATIVI ED ETICI
Prof. Augusto PESSINA - Associato di Microbiologia e Microbiologia Clinica, Coordinatore Gruppo Italiano Staminali Mesenchimali (GISM) introduzione al panel ...

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CESMA: Deploying Stem Cells 13, Prof Augusto Pessina: Introduzione panel ASPETTI NORMATIVI ED ETICI - Video

Amy Norton HealthDay Reporter Posted: Thursday, September 26, 2013, 7:00 PM

THURSDAY, Sept. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Using people's own stem cells from their body fat could aid in plastic surgery procedures such as post-cancer breast reconstruction, a small, preliminary study suggests.

The study, published in the Sept. 28 issue of The Lancet, looked at whether stem cells might improve the current technique of "lipofilling" -- where fat is removed via liposuction from one part of the body, purified, then injected into another area of the body.

Doctors use lipofilling in cosmetic procedures to create smoother skin or fuller lips. But it also has a range of medical uses. Fat injections can help reshape the breasts in women having reconstruction after breast cancer surgery. They can also be used in correcting facial deformities caused by an injury or congenital defect, or helping certain burn injuries heal.

The problem is that transferred fat often doesn't last, explained lead researcher Dr. Stig-Frederik Kolle.

"It's unpredictable," said Kolle, of the plastic surgery department at Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark. "And you often have to repeat the procedure to get a [satisfactory] result."

So Kolle's team tested a different approach: Take stem cells from people's body fat and use them to "enrich" the fat tissue being transplanted from one body area to another. Stem cells are primitive cells that develop into more mature ones.

The researchers recruited 10 healthy volunteers who underwent liposuction to have fat taken from the abdomen. The fat was then purified and injected into the volunteers' upper arms. In one arm, the fat transplant was enriched with stem cells; the other arm received a traditional transplant.

After about four months, the researchers took MRI images of the fat transplants, then removed them. It turned out that the stem cell-enriched transplants had retained about 81 percent of their initial volume, on average -- compared with only 16 percent among the stem cell-free transplants.

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Stem Cells From Fat Might Improve Plastic Surgery

Scientists are reporting breast reconstruction surgery may be improved by adding stem cells and fat to the procedure.

A new study published Sept. 26 in The Lancet found the technique was superior to typical reconstruction surgeries that use only fat grafts harvested from elsewhere in the body.

More than 232,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. Women who undergo surgical removal of their breasts, or mastectomy, to treat their cancer may undergo breast reconstruction.

Options include getting breast implants or taking skin, muscle and fat from elsewhere in the body to help reconstruct the breast. According to the study's authors, the majority of board-certified plastic surgeons in the U.S. opt for this technique which is called lipofilling or autologous fat grafting.

But all the fat doesn't always take in its new location, they added, with rates of the percentage of transferred fat not surviving as high as 80 percent according to some studies, which may require additional grafting.

That's where stem cells may help.

Researchers recruited 10 healthy volunteers to compare tissue survival rates from stem-cell enriched fat grafts to traditional grafting techniques. All 10 subjects underwent liposuction from one side of their abdomen to collect fat. Then the scientists prepared two grafts for each person: one enriched with stem cells derived from fat, the other without. Both were injected in their upper arms. Scientists used MRI scans to measure the volume of fat from the graft immediately after the transplant and just before the grafts were removed after four months.

Stem-cell treated grafts retained significantly more fat volume than the non-enriched ones, with higher amounts of tissue and newly formed connective tissue reported. Once the grafts were removed, the scientists found significantly less tissue death, or necrosis, in the stem cell group.

The researchers say their findings may not only help breast reconstruction, but other graft plastic surgery procedures as well.

"Our promising results suggest that stem-cell enriched fat grafting might prove to be an attractive alternative to major tissue augmentation, such as breast reconstruction after cancer...or major tissue flap surgery, with fewer side effects and more satisfying cosmetic results", study author Dr Stig-Frederik Trojahn Kolle, a researcher at Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark, wrote in the study.

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Stem cells may prevent tissue rejection in breast reconstruction surgery

Newswise (TORONTO, Canada Sept. 26, 2013) Stem cell scientists have moved one step closer to producing blood-forming stem cells in a Petri dish by identifying a key regulator controlling their formation in the early embryo, shows research published online today in Cell.

The work was reported by Dr. Gordon Keller, Director of the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, and Senior Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, both at University Health Network. Dr. Keller is also Professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto and holds a Canada Research Chair in stem cell biology.

Using mouse models to study the process of blood cell development, Dr. Keller and his team demonstrated that the retinoic acid signalling pathway is required for formation of blood-forming stem cells. Retinoic acid is produced from vitamin A and is essential for many areas of human growth and development.

When the researchers genetically disrupted the pathway that produces retinoic acid in mice, no blood-forming stem cells were produced. When they activated the pathway at the precise stage when stem cells develop, they observed a large increase in the number of blood-forming stem cells.

Understanding how different cells and tissues are made in the embryo provides important clues for producing human cell types from pluripotent stem cells in a Petri dish, says Dr. Keller. Pluripotent stem cells are master stem cells that are able to generate many different cell types including heart, blood, pancreas and liver. To make a specific cell type from pluripotent stem cells, one must direct them down the appropriate developmental path in the Petri dish.

Dr. Keller adds: Our findings have identified a critical regulator for directing pluripotent stem cells to make blood-forming stem cells, bringing us one step closer to our goal of developing a new and unlimited source of these stem cells for transplantation for the treatment of different blood cell diseases.

This research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the U.S.-based National Institutes of Health. Dr. Kellers research is also supported by the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, The Toronto General & Western Hospital Foundation, and The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation.

About McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine The McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine was founded by Rob and Cheryl McEwen in 2003 and opened its doors in 2006. The McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, part of Toronto-based University Health Network, is a world leading centre for stem cell research, facilitating collaboration between renowned scientists from 5 major hospitals in Toronto, the University of Toronto and around the world. Supported by philanthropic contributions and research grants, McEwen Centre scientists strive to introduce novel regenerative therapies for debilitating and life threatening illnesses including heart disease, spinal cord injury, diabetes, diseases of the blood, liver and arthritis. http://www.mcewencentre.com

About University Health Network University Health Network includes Toronto General and Toronto Western Hospitals, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. The scope of research and complexity of cases at University Health Network has made it a national and international source for discovery, education and patient care. It has the largest hospital-based research program in Canada, with major research in cardiology, transplantation, neurosciences, oncology, surgical innovation, infectious diseases, genomic medicine and rehabilitation medicine. University Health Network is a research hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto. http://www.uhn.ca

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Stem Cell Scientists Identify Key Regulator Controlling Formation of Blood-Forming Stem Cells

A new experimental approach to treating a type of brain cancer has been developed by researchers.

Medulloblastoma targets cancer stem cells - critical for maintaining tumour growth - and halts their ability to proliferate by inhibiting enzymes essential for tumour progression.

The process destroys the cancer cells' ability to grow and divide, paving the way for a new type of treatment for patients with this disease.

The research team, led by Robert Wechsler-Reya Ph.D. at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, discovered that the medulloblastoma cancer cells responsible for tumour growth and progression (tumor-propagating cellsTPCs) divide more quickly than normal cells.

Correspondingly, they have higher levels of certain enzymes that regulate the cell cycle. By using small-molecule inhibitors to stop the action of these enzymes, the researchers were able to block the growth of tumour cells from mice as well as humans.

"One tumour can have many different types of cells in it, and they can grow at different rates. By targeting fast-growing TPCs with cell-cycle inhibitors, we have developed a new route to assault medulloblastoma... and have opened the window to preventing cancer recurrence," said Wechsler-Reya.

Scientists Discover Genetic Mutation That Causes Brain Cancer

My Brain Tumour Made me Shake to the Core and Look at Life in a Completely Different Light

For their research, the scientists tested the effectiveness of cell-cycle inhibitors in a specific type of brain cancer called Sonic Hedgehog (SHH)-associated medulloblastoma.

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New Brain Cancer Treatment Targets Stem Cells And Tackles Tumour Growth