Category Archives: Stem Cells

(Refiles to remove incorrrect picture)

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have succeeded in generating new stem cells in living mice and say their success opens up possibilities for the regeneration of damaged tissue in people with conditions ranging from heart failure to spinal cord injury.

The researchers used the same "recipe" of growth-boosting ingredients normally used for making stem cells in a petri dish, but introduced them instead into living laboratory mice and found they were able to create so-called reprogrammed induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells).

"This opens up new possibilities in regenerative medicine," said Manuel Serrano, who led the study at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid.

Stem cell experts who were not directly involved in the study said its success was exciting, but noted that the technique as it stands could not be used in humans since the reprogrammed cells also lead to tumours forming in the mice.

"Clearly nobody wishes to do this for therapeutic purposes because this leads to the formation of tumours called teratomas," said Ilaria Bellantuono, a reader in Stem Cell and Skeletal Ageing at Britain's University of Sheffield.

But she added that Serrano's work was a "a proof of concept" that opened up the opportunity to investigate ways to partially reprogram cells in the body up to a certain stage.

"In principle, these partially dedifferentiated cells could then be induced to differentiate to the cell type of choice inducing regeneration in vivo without the need of transplantation," she said.

Stem cells are the body's master cells and are able to differentiate into all other types of cells. Scientists say that by helping to regenerate tissue, they could offer new ways of treating diseases for which there are currently no treatments - including heart disease, Parkinson's and stroke.

Go here to see the original:
REFILE - Scientists grow new stem cells in a living mouse

Sep. 11, 2013 A team from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) has become the first to make adult cells from a living organism and show characteristics of embryonic stem cells.

Researchers have also discovered that these embryonic stem cells, obtained directly from the inside of the organism, have a broader capacity for differentiation than those obtained via in vitro culture. Specifically, they have the characteristics of totipotent cells: a primitive state never before obtained in a laboratory.

The study, carried out by CNIO, was led by Manuel Serrano, the director of the Molecular Oncology Programme and head of the Tumoural Suppression Laboratory. The study was supported by Manuel Manzanares's team from the Spanish National Cardiovascular Research Centre (CNIC).

Embryonic stem cells are the main focus for the future of regenerative medicine. They are the only ones capable of generating any cell type from the hundreds of cell types that make up an adult organism, so they are the first step towards curing illnesses such as Alzheimer, Parkinson's disease or diabetes. Nevertheless, this type of cell has a very short lifespan, limited to the first days of embryonic development, and they do not exist in any part of an adult organism.

One of the greatest achievements in recent biomedical research was in 2006 when Shinya Yamanaka managed to create embryonic stem cells (pluripotent stem cells, induced in vitro, or in vitro iPSCs) in a laboratory from adult cells, via a cocktail of just four genes. Yamanaka's discovery, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2012, opened a new horizon in regenerative medicine.

CNIO researchers have taken another step forward, by achieving the same as Yamanaka, but this time within the same organism, in mice, without the need to pass through in vitro culture dishes. Generating these cells within an organism brings this technology even closer to regenerative medicine.

The first challenge for CNIO researchers was to reproduce the Yamanaka experiment in a living being. They chose a mouse as a model organism. Using genetic manipulation techniques, researchers created mice in which Yamanaka's four genes could be activated at will. When these genes were activated, they observed that the adult cells were able to retreat in their evolutionary development to become embryonic stem cells in multiple tissues and organs.

Mara Abad, the lead author of the article and a researcher in Serrano's group, said: "This change of direction in development has never been observed in nature. We have demonstrated that we can also obtain embryonic stem cells in adult organisms and not only in the laboratory."

Manuel Serrano added that: "We can now start to think about methods for inducing regeneration locally and in a transitory manner for a particular damaged tissue."

Stem cells obtained in mice also show totipotent characteristics never generated in a laboratory, equivalent to those present in human embryos at the 72-hour stage of development, when they are composed of just 16 cells.

Read more:
Embryonic stem cells produced in living adult organisms

Scientists have turned back the hands of time in cells within a living creature.

Researchers in Spain used a technique created seven years ago to force mature cells in mice to revert to an original form of stem cell with the potential to change into any type of living tissue. Previously, scientists were only been able to achieve this change in a petri dish.

The newest experiment, outlined today in the journal Nature, may one day let doctors work entirely inside the body to regenerate tissue and, perhaps, more complex organs, said George Daley, director of stem cell transplantation at Boston Childrens Hospital. This could include reconnecting a severed spinal cord or generating healthy heart cells.

This is the next step along a continuum, said Daley, a professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston who wrote an accompanying editorial on the work, which he wasnt involved with. What this is hinting at is that maybe we can, by regressing tissues in the patient, regenerate this embryonic potential and, with direction, regenerate a particular tissue.

The reverted mouse cells were also found to be more primitive than stem cells taken from embryos or created in the lab. This means they can be turned into a placenta and other embryonic-support membranes, a factor beyond the capacity of the other cells, the researchers wrote.

The latest finding modifies a technique that won Shinya Yamanaka the Nobel Prize for medicine last year. Using mice whose genes could be manipulated at will, the scientists duplicated the factors Yamanaka had used to regress adult cells into stem cells. The cells that regressed in the dosed mice were in the stomach, the intestines, kidneys, and pancreas.

You dont need the milieu of the petri dish, Daley said in a telephone interview. You can just do this right in the tissues. Thats surprising.

In todays report, some of the mice had tumors that developed in embryonic support structures as well as a yolk sac, suggesting they were more primitive and powerful than other stem cells, the scientists wrote.

These embryo-like structures are a reflection of going back to a more-primitive state, Daley said. Thats honestly what blew me away about the paper.

Its not clear why the cells developed in live mice are more powerful than those developed in petri dishes, said Maria Abad, a study author and researcher at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center in Madrid. Those grown in live bodies are more malleable, and behave differently when transplanted into a petri dish, she said.

Read more:
Scientists Force Mature Cells to Revert to Stem Cells

Scientists in Spain said on Wednesday they had made mature cells in living mice revert to their youthful, versatile state, in a step toward the goal of tissue regeneration by stem cells.

Right now, the technique is at its earliest stage and is hedged with safety questions, which makes it impossible to envisage in humans.

But, said the researchers, it opens up a new strategy leading to a beguiling end: that one day damaged tissue will be healed by simply reprogramming nearby adult cells into replacements for the lost or diseased area. A transplant would not be needed.

Stem cells have excited huge interest in medical research.

They are immature cells that differentiate into the specialized cells that comprise and maintain the human body.

In 2006, a team led by Shinya Yamanaka in Japan announced a breakthrough.

A clutch of four genes introduced into adult cells in a lab dish rewound these cells back to their baby state.

These so-called induced pluripotent stem cells -- known by their acronym of iPS -- have since become the most closely-followed innovation in the field.

Despite many hurdles, they are seen by some as being even more promising than embryonic stem cells, the "gold standard" for versatility but a source hotly opposed by moral conservatives.

Reporting in the journal Nature, a team led by Manuel Serrano and Maria Abad of the Spanish National Cancer Research Center created genetically-modified mice that carried the four "Yamanaka genes."

Here is the original post:
Adult Stem Cells Programmed Into Embryonic State

Scientists say that by helping to regenerate tissue, they could offer new ways of treating diseases for which there are currently no treatments - including heart disease, Parkinson's and stroke.

LONDON: Scientists have succeeded in generating new stem cells in living mice and say their success opens up possibilities for the regeneration of damaged tissue in people with conditions ranging from heart failure to spinal cord injury.

The researchers used the same recipe of growth-boosting ingredients normally used for making stem cells in a petri dish, but introduced them instead into living laboratory mice and found they were able to create so-called reprogrammed induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells).

This opens up new possibilities in regenerative medicine, said Manuel Serrano, who led the study at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid.

Stem cell experts who were not directly involved in the study said its success was exciting, but noted that the technique as it stands could not be used in humans since the reprogrammed cells also lead to tumors forming in the mice.

Clearly nobody wishes to do this for therapeutic purposes because this leads to the formation of tumors called teratomas, said Ilaria Bellantuono, a reader in Stem Cell and Skeletal Ageing at Britains University of Sheffield.

But she added that Serranos work was a a proof of concept that opened up the opportunity to investigate ways to partially reprogram cells in the body up to a certain stage.

In principle, these partially dedifferentiated cells could then be induced to differentiate to the cell type of choice inducing regeneration in vivo without the need of transplantation, she said.

Stem cells are the bodys master cells and are able to differentiate into all other types of cells. Scientists say that by helping to regenerate tissue, they could offer new ways of treating diseases for which there are currently no treatments including heart disease, Parkinsons and stroke.

There are two main types of stem cells embryonic stem cells, harvested from embryos, and adult or iPS cells, cells taken from skin or blood and reprogrammed back into stem cells.

Visit link:
Scientists grow new stem cells in a living mouse

Researchers have reprogrammed cells inside living mice -- and have discovered that the pluripotent stem cells created in the process are even more flexible than those derived from embryos or grown in laboratory dishes.

Someday the achievement might help scientists devise ways to treat human disease by directly regenerating tissues within human patients, said Manuel Serrano, an investigator at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center in Madrid and senior author of a study (abstract here) detailing the research, published online Wednesday by the journal Nature.

But that won't happen immediately, he added during a call with reporters Tuesday.

The pluripotent stem cells are highly flexible and have the potential to develop into nearly any cell type in the body. Researchers hope to take advantage of them to rebuild tissues that don't regenerate on their own, such as neurons, the insulin-producing islet cells that are destroyed in patients with Type I diabetes, or heart muscle killed during the oxygen deprivation of a heart attack.

Interest in stem cells pushed scientists first to figure out ways to isolate them from embryos and then to rewind mature cells into a more flexible state. The Spanish team set out to see if it was also possible to create pluripotent stem cells inside a living organism. They created genetically altered mice whose bodies could produce the same four ingredients researchers use to rewind cells in a lab dish. When the scientists activated genes that produced the factors, the mice grew a type of tumor known as a teratoma -- a sign that there were pluripotent cells in their bodies. The mice also produced actual stem cells the team could isolate.

That, in itself, was new. But when the scientists examined the stem cells more closely, they found that they could pull off a trick that stem cells from embryos or developed in a dish could not: They could produce placental tissues. The researchers also found that some mice grew cysts that had embryo-like qualities -- another novel development, and a sign that the stem cells in the mice were more flexible than other types of pluripotent stem cells.

"The pluripotent cells obtained were of better quality than the ones developed in the lab," said co-author Maria Abad, also of the Spanish National Cancer Research Center. Abad said the team did not know why the cells grown in the mice behaved as they did, but that they would try to understand the cause.

Serrano said that it would not make sense to use this exact technique in therapies to treat human disease: Rewinding cells to such an early state of development isn't considered safe, because it can cause cancer. But it may make sense to partially rewind cells in particular parts of the body before redirecting them to regenerate tissues, he said.

But Andrew McMahon, director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC, said that he was somewhat puzzled by the work and unsure what question the scientists hoped to answer. "It was a way to survey and see if anything interesting would crop up," he said.

McMahon also mentioned another, potentially controversial, possibility posed by the experiment: In principle, if you have cells that have the potentialto make the cells that make up an embryo, as well as the tissues that support that embryo, you could "make a new individual."

See more here:
Team reportedly grows 'better quality' stem cells in live mice

RIDGEFIELD, Conn., Sept. 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --For patients with serious eye disease, going blind is a constant fear. The loss of vision experienced from retinal or optic nerve problems may be progressive with devastating impact on a person's ability to live a full life. Treatment with Bone Marrow DerivedStem Cellsmay hold the key to reversing blindness and restoring vision. But the concern has been whether such stem cell treatments have enough published reports and studies to show effectiveness in a convincing way.MD Stem Cellshopes to help provide that evidence.

MD Stem Cells is Collaborator for the new Stem Cell Ophthalmology Treatment Study, abbreviated asSCOTS. Dr. Steven Levy, President of MD Stem Cells, will function as Study Director for the clinical trial expected to continue through August 2017. The Retinal Associates of South Florida is the study Sponsor and Dr. Jeffrey Weiss, retinal surgeon and physician, is the Principle Investigator and provider of the ophthalmic stem cell treatments.

"We are extremely pleased to have helped design and implement this broadly encompassing retinal and optic nerve disease study," Dr. Levy exclaimed. "We believe ours is the largest, most comprehensive registered ophthalmology stem cell study to date. We have taken great care in powering the study and expect to obtain statistically meaningful results. SCOTS is being conducted under an Institutional Review Board whose evaluation was rigorous."

SCOTS is registered with the National Institutes of Health and listed on their website http://www.clinicaltrials.govwith identifierNCT01920867. Patients interested in whether they may participate and healthcare providers may reach Dr. Levy at info@mdstemcells.com or 203-423-9494 Eastern Time USA.

"We hope that the treatment will be shown to improve vision in the vast majority of individuals who are enrolled in SCOTS. Patients considering treatment should understand that this is clinical research and individual responses cannot be predicted," stated Dr. Levy. He added, "Our previous anecdotal experience with eye disease treated with stem cells has been positive. With SCOTS we hope to provide strong evidence of the effectiveness of these treatments to the medical community."

Continued here:
MD Stem Cells Begins the Largest Stem Cell Eye Treatment Study to Date

Study finds that stem cells donated by older people are less effective than cells from younger donors.

As stem cell clinical trials for multiple sclerosis (MS) patients become more common, it is crucial for researchers to understand the biologic changes and therapeutic effects of older donor stem cells. A new study appearing in the latest issue of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine is the first to demonstrate that, in fact, adipose-derived stem cells donated by older people are less effective than cells from their younger counterparts.

MS is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by inflammation and scar-like lesions throughout the central nervous system (CNS). There is no cure and no treatment eases the severe forms of MS. But previous studies on animals have shown that transplantation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) holds promise as a therapy for all forms of MS. The MSCs migrate to areas of damage, release trophic (cell growth) factors and exert neuroprotective and immunomodulatory effects to inhibit T cell proliferation.

MS-related clinical trials have all confirmed the safety of autologous MSC therapy. However what is unclear is whether MSCs derived from older donors have the same therapeutic potential as those from younger ones.

Aging is known to have a negative impact on the regenerative capacity of most tissues, and human MSCs are susceptible to biologic aging including changes in differentiation potential, proliferation ability and gene expression. These age-related differences may affect the ability of older donor cells to migrate extensively, provide trophic support, persist long-term and promote repair mechanisms, said Bruce Bunnell, Ph.D., of Tulane Universitys Center for Stem Cell Research and Regenerative Medicine. He served as lead author of the study, conducted by a team composed of his colleagues at Tulane.

In their study, mice were induced with chronic experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) and treated before disease onset with human adipose-derived MSCs derived from younger (less than 35 years) or older (over age 60) donors. The results corroborated previous studies suggesting that older donors are less effective than their younger counterparts.

We found that, in vitro, the stem cells from the older donors failed to ameliorate the neurodegeneration associated with EAE. Mice treated with older donor cells had increased inflammation of the central nervous system, demyelination leading to an impairment in movement, cognition and other functions dependent on nerves, and a proliferation of splenocytes [white blood cells in the spleen], compared to the mice receiving cells from younger donors, Dr. Bunnell noted.

In fact, the T cell proliferation assay results in the study indicated that older MSCs might actually stimulate the proliferation of the T cells, while younger stem cells are capable of inhibiting the proliferation of T cells. (T cells are a type of white blood cell in the bodys immune system that help fight off disease and harmful substances.)

As such, Dr. Bunnell said, A decrease in T cell proliferation would result in a decreased number of T cells available to attack the CNS in the mice, which directly supports the results showing that the CNS damage and inflammation is less severe in the young MSC-treated mice than in the old MSC-treated mice.

This study in an animal model of MS is the first to demonstrate that fat-derived stem cells from older human donors have less therapeutic effectiveness than cells from young donors, said Anthony Atala, M.D., editor of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The results point to a potential need to evaluate cell therapy protocols for late-onset multiple sclerosis patients.

View post:
Benefits of stem cells for MS declines with donor’s age

TIJUANA, Mexico -- Maggie Alejos arrived here in June from St. Anne, Ill., with her husband, her daughter and a cashier's check for $13,500, payable to the Regenerative Medicine Institute.

Rail-thin, with an oxygen tube anchored above her upper lip, Alejos, a retired Army nurse, has coped with emphysema for a dozen of her 65 years. Once she came close enough to a lung transplant that doctors prepared her for surgery, only to discover that the donor lung was unfit.

At a hospital here, doctors affiliated with the institute extracted about seven ounces of fat from her thighs, hoping to harvest about 130 million stem cells and implant them in her failing lungs.

Across the Internet -- where Alejos learned about the Tijuana institute -- adult stem cells are promoted as a cure for everything from sagging skin to severed spinal cords.

On the surface, the claim is plausible. Scientists have discovered that fat, bone marrow and other parts of the body contain stem cells, immature cells that can rejuvenate themselves, at least in the tissue they are naturally found.

But it has yet to be proved that these cells can regenerate no matter where they are placed, or under what conditions this might occur. Moreover, questions about safety remain unanswered.

These sober realities do not appear to have slowed the rise of an international industry catering to customers who may pay tens of thousands of dollars in cash for their shot at a personal miracle. (Some foreign operators offer creative variations on the theme, like cells from sharks and sheep.)

Domestic providers, too, can push the limits. In July, for example, a former pathologist at the Medical University of South Carolina pleaded guilty to illegally processing and shipping stem cells for treatment without approval from the university or the Food and Drug Administration.

The number of clinics and products has reached the point that scientists fear repercussions for their own work.

Dr. Hesham Sadek of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who is studying heart muscle regeneration, worries that the marketing deluge now makes it hard for patients to tell science from swindle and all that lies on the spectrum in between.

Read more here:
More are turning to stem cells for a miracle

Durham, NC (PRWEB) September 09, 2013

As stem cell clinical trials for multiple sclerosis (MS) patients become more common, it is crucial for researchers to understand the biologic changes and therapeutic effects of older donor stem cells. A new study appearing in the latest issue of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine is the first to demonstrate that, in fact, adipose-derived stem cells donated by older people are less effective than cells from their younger counterparts.

MS is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by inflammation and scar-like lesions throughout the central nervous system (CNS). There is no cure and no treatment eases the severe forms of MS. But previous studies on animals have shown that transplantation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) holds promise as a therapy for all forms of MS. The MSCs migrate to areas of damage, release trophic (cell growth) factors and exert neuroprotective and immunomodulatory effects to inhibit T cell proliferation.

MS-related clinical trials have all confirmed the safety of autologous MSC therapy. However what is unclear is whether MSCs derived from older donors have the same therapeutic potential as those from younger ones.

"Aging is known to have a negative impact on the regenerative capacity of most tissues, and human MSCs are susceptible to biologic aging including changes in differentiation potential, proliferation ability and gene expression. These age-related differences may affect the ability of older donor cells to migrate extensively, provide trophic support, persist long-term and promote repair mechanisms," said Bruce Bunnell, Ph.D., of Tulane Universitys Center for Stem Cell Research and Regenerative Medicine. He served as lead author of the study, conducted by a team composed of his colleagues at Tulane.

In their study, mice were induced with chronic experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) and treated before disease onset with human adipose-derived MSCs derived from younger (less than 35 years) or older (over age 60) donors. The results corroborated previous studies suggesting that older donors are less effective than their younger counterparts.

"We found that, in vitro, the stem cells from the older donors failed to ameliorate the neurodegeneration associated with EAE. Mice treated with older donor cells had increased inflammation of the central nervous system, demyelination leading to an impairment in movement, cognition and other functions dependent on nerves, and a proliferation of splenocytes [white blood cells in the spleen], compared to the mice receiving cells from younger donors," Dr. Bunnell noted.

In fact, the T cell proliferation assay results in the study indicated that older MSCs might actually stimulate the proliferation of the T cells, while younger stem cells are capable of inhibiting the proliferation of T cells. (T cells are a type of white blood cell in the bodys immune system that help fight off disease and harmful substances.)

As such, Dr. Bunnell said, "A decrease in T cell proliferation would result in a decreased number of T cells available to attack the CNS in the mice, which directly supports the results showing that the CNS damage and inflammation is less severe in the young MSC-treated mice than in the old MSC-treated mice."

"This study in an animal model of MS is the first to demonstrate that fat-derived stem cells from older human donors have less therapeutic effectiveness than cells from young donors," said Anthony Atala, M.D., editor of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. "The results point to a potential need to evaluate cell therapy protocols for late-onset multiple sclerosis patients."

See the original post:
Study Indicates Benefits of Stem Cells in Treating MS Declines With Donor’s Age