Category Archives: Stem Cells

MIAMI, Fla.

Each year 700 thousand people suffer a stroke in the United States. Until now, the only recovery for paralysis brought on by the stroke was lengthy rehabilitation. Now, a new stem cell therapy is helping stroke patients move again.

James Anderson is a tri-athlete and physical education teacher. He was visiting Florida from Maine when suddenly, I started to feel a little dizzy a little tingling in my right hand and ah I ended up having a stroke, James Anderson told Ivanhoe.

James did not respond to clot busting medication or blockage treatments. So he became paralyzed on the left side of his body. Neurologist Doctor Dileep R. Yavatal treated him as part of a clinical trial, where some of the patients were treated with their own stem cells. While Anderson doesnt know if he was injected with his own stem cells, two months after treatment, Anderson said, "I have had more movement and strength in my legs."

For the clinical trial, stem cells must be injected into the brain no later than two weeks after the stroke occurs. James is now able to move around with a walker, during rehab, and hopes to be able to compete in a triathalon again.

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Stem Cells and Stroke

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Veterinary Week -- Research findings on Stem Cell Research are discussed in a new report. According to news originating from North Hills, California, by VerticalNews correspondents, research stated, "Successful derivations of specific neuronal and glial cells from embryonic stem cells have enormous potential for cell therapies and regenerative medicine. However, the low efficiency, the complexity of induction method, and the need for purification represent obstacles that make their application impractical."

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research, "In this study, we found that PDGFR alpha(+) cells derived from mouse embryonic stem cells (mESC) can serve as a useful source from which to induce cells that express gamma-aminobutyric-acid (GABA)-releasing (GABAergic) neuronal markers. PDGFR alpha(+) cells were induced from mESC on collagen IV-coated plates in mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) culture medium with limited exposure to retinoic acid, sorted by fluorescence-activated cell sorter and maintained in MSC culture medium containing Y-27632, a Rho-associated kinase inhibitor. We found that supplementation of vascular endothelial growth factor, fibroblast growth factor-basic, and sodium azide (NaN3) to MSC culture medium effectively differentiated PDGFR alpha(+) cells into cells that express GABAergic neuronal markers, such as Pax2, Dlx2, GAD67 NCAM, and tubulin-beta III, while markers for oligodendrocyte (Sox2) and astrocyte (Glast) were suppressed. Immunostaining for GABA showed the majority (86 +/- 5%) of the induced cells were GABA-positive. We also found that the PDGFR alpha(+) cells retained such differentiation potential even after more than ten passages and cryopreservation. In summary, this study presents a simple and highly efficient method of inducing cells that express GABAergic neuronal markers from mESC."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "Together with its ease of maintenance in vitro, PDGFR alpha(+) cells derived from mESC may serve as a useful source for such purpose."

For more information on this research see: Effective induction of cells expressing GABAergic neuronal markers from mouse embryonic stem cell. In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology-Animal, 2013;49(7):479-485. In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology-Animal can be contacted at: Springer, 233 Spring St, New York, NY 10013, USA.

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from M. Nishikawa, VAGLAHS Sepulveda, Renal Regenerat Lab, North Hills, CA 91343, United States. Additional authors for this research include N. Yanagawa, S. Yuri, P. Hauser, O.D. Jo and N. Yanagawa.

Keywords for this news article include: Biomedical Engineering, Biomedicine, Neurons, California, North Hills, United States, Bioengineering, Stem Cell Research, Embryonic Stem Cells, Regenerative Medicine, North and Central America

Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world. Copyright 2013, NewsRx LLC

Originally posted here:
Recent Findings from M. Nishikawa and Co-Researchers Yields New Information on Stem Cells

After the success of the test-tube burger, Michael Brooks answers the question on everyone in the NS offices lips: "Why not make burgers from human stem cells?"

You are what you eat - or at least you might be. Photograph: Getty Images.

Sometimes the NSs offices resound with provocative questions. Last week, it was: Why not make burgers from human stem cells?

This is not as ridiculous as it might first seem. It would be the pinnacle of ethical carnivorous living, the only way you could eat prime meat with the full, informed consent of the donor.

It wouldnt be cheap. The price of a burger cultured from human cells would make the 250,000 feed, created by the Maastricht University researcher Mark Post and formally presented on 5 August, look like a bargain. Human stem-cell culture for medical research is done under the most onerous safety restrictions and following strict protocols. Culturing human cells for human consumption would be just as onerous (and thus expensive) as it is for medical research because we would have to make sure there was no chance the cells could become infected by viruses or bacteria.

Eating other animals is safer simply because the pathogens that make them ill do not necessarily make humans ill. Eat your own kind and you risk unleashing all kinds of hell. That was what the BSE crisis was all about. Ingestion of ground-up cattle brains in cheap cattle feed led to an epidemic of the bovine disease. A similar phenomenon was discovered in human beings in the 1950s. The Fore people of Papua New Guinea were eating their deceased relatives in order to absorb their strength and other qualities. Enormous numbers of them contracted kuru, a disease related to BSE, which killed hundreds of them.

Yet many more Fore women and children died of kuru than men (to the point where the women accused the men of using witchcraft to destroy them). Usually, in the traditional funeral rites, the men were given the prime cuts to eat muscle tissue while the women and children got the brains and organs, which harboured disease in far more virulent measure. The Fore men were largely fine, so you could argue that cannibalism is not necessarily a health hazard: its eating the wrong bits that kills you.

The real show-stopper for the human stem-cell burger is the bit that most of the media coverage glossed over. Growing those stem cells is not a matter of scattering them in a bed of organic grass. The cells are grown in a cocktail of antibiotics and fetal bovine serum. This is blood drawn from foetuses that have been removed from slaughtered pregnant cows.

At about 160 (or three cow foetuses, depending on how you want to look at it) a litre, this is the most expensive part of the whole process. It is also the most distasteful. Experiencing poor mouthfeel from a burger is one thing. Knowing a cow foetus has had its heart punctured and sucked dry in order to grow the meat is quite another.

Medical researchers get through roughly half a million litres of fetal bovine serum a year because its hormones and growth factors are so essential to stem-cell growth. There are problems with it, though. The chemicals it contains can skew the outcome of experiments. In addition, the serum is extracted in a slaughterhouse, with no anaesthetic, and research shows that the foetus probably feels pain or discomfort.

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Yes, you can make a burger out of human stem cells - but you probably wouldn't want to

After the success of the test-tube burger, Michael Brooks answers the question on everyone in the NS offices lips: "Why not make burgers from human stem cells?"

You are what you eat - or at least you might be. Photograph: Getty Images.

Sometimes the NSs offices resound with provocative questions. Last week, it was: Why not make burgers from human stem cells?

This is not as ridiculous as it might first seem. It would be the pinnacle of ethical carnivorous living, the only way you could eat prime meat with the full, informed consent of the donor.

It wouldnt be cheap. The price of a burger cultured from human cells would make the 250,000 feed, created by the Maastricht University researcher Mark Post and formally presented on 5 August, look like a bargain. Human stem-cell culture for medical research is done under the most onerous safety restrictions and following strict protocols. Culturing human cells for human consumption would be just as onerous (and thus expensive) as it is for medical research because we would have to make sure there was no chance the cells could become infected by viruses or bacteria.

Eating other animals is safer simply because the pathogens that make them ill do not necessarily make humans ill. Eat your own kind and you risk unleashing all kinds of hell. That was what the BSE crisis was all about. Ingestion of ground-up cattle brains in cheap cattle feed led to an epidemic of the bovine disease. A similar phenomenon was discovered in human beings in the 1950s. The Fore people of Papua New Guinea were eating their deceased relatives in order to absorb their strength and other qualities. Enormous numbers of them contracted kuru, a disease related to BSE, which killed hundreds of them.

Yet many more Fore women and children died of kuru than men (to the point where the women accused the men of using witchcraft to destroy them). Usually, in the traditional funeral rites, the men were given the prime cuts to eat muscle tissue while the women and children got the brains and organs, which harboured disease in far more virulent measure. The Fore men were largely fine, so you could argue that cannibalism is not necessarily a health hazard: its eating the wrong bits that kills you.

The real show-stopper for the human stem-cell burger is the bit that most of the media coverage glossed over. Growing those stem cells is not a matter of scattering them in a bed of organic grass. The cells are grown in a cocktail of antibiotics and fetal bovine serum. This is blood drawn from foetuses that have been removed from slaughtered pregnant cows.

At about 160 (or three cow foetuses, depending on how you want to look at it) a litre, this is the most expensive part of the whole process. It is also the most distasteful. Experiencing poor mouthfeel from a burger is one thing. Knowing a cow foetus has had its heart punctured and sucked dry in order to grow the meat is quite another.

Medical researchers get through roughly half a million litres of fetal bovine serum a year because its hormones and growth factors are so essential to stem-cell growth. There are problems with it, though. The chemicals it contains can skew the outcome of experiments. In addition, the serum is extracted in a slaughterhouse, with no anaesthetic, and research shows that the foetus probably feels pain or discomfort.

View post:
Yes, you can make a burger out of human stem cells - but you probably wouldn't want to