Category Archives: Stem Cells

Washington, January 11 (ANI): In a new study, researchers have for the first time demonstrated that baboon embryonic stem cells can be programmed to completely restore a severely damaged artery.

These early results show promise for eventually developing stem cell therapies to restore human tissues or organs damaged by age or disease.

"We first cultured the stem cells in petri dishes under special conditions to make them differentiate into cells that are the precursors of blood vessels, and we saw that we could get them to form tubular and branching structures, similar to blood vessels," John L. VandeBerg, chief scientific officer from Texas Biomedical Research Institute, said.

This finding gave VandeBerg and his team the confidence to do complex experiments to find out if these cells could actually heal a damaged artery. Human embryonic stem cells were first isolated and grown in 1998.

The scientists found that cells derived from embryonic stem cells could actually repair experimentally damaged baboon arteries and "are promising therapeutic agents for repairing damaged vasculature of people," according to the authors.

Researchers completely removed the cells that line the inside surface from a segment of artery, and then put cells that had been derived from embryonic stem cells inside the artery. They then connected both ends of the arterial segment to plastic tubing inside a device called a bioreactor which is designed to grow cells and tissues.

The scientists then pumped fluid through the artery under pressure as if blood were flowing through it. The outside of the artery was bathed in another fluid to sustain the cells located there.

Three days later, the complex structure of the inner surface was beginning to regenerate, and by 14 days, the inside of the artery had been perfectly restored to its complex natural state. It went from a non-functional tube to a complex fully functional artery.

"Just think of what this kind of treatment would mean to a patient who had just suffered a heart attack as a consequence of a damaged coronary artery. And this is the real potential of stem cell regenerative medicine-that is, a treatment with stem cells that regenerates a damaged or destroyed tissue or organ," VandeBerg said.

To show that the artery couldn't heal itself in the absence of stem cells, the researchers took a control arterial segment that also was stripped of the cells on its interior surface, but did not seed it with stem cells. No healing occurred.

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Stem cells `may help heal damaged arteries`

OLDSMAR, Fla., Jan. 8, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (CCEL) Cryo-Cell International Chief Scientific Officer Linda L. Kelley, PhD, expressed optimism that an effective treatment for cerebral palsy (CP) using cord blood stem cells may be on the horizon now that the first results of a Phase 2 study have been published. The paper by Dr. Min Young Kim and colleagues is the first to demonstrate efficacy using umbilical cord blood as therapy in a large, placebo-controlled, double-blind study in South Korea.

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a devastating disability acquired in early childhood which affects approximately 10,000 babies per year and results in lifelong motor and cognitive functional deficits. Dr. Kim's team treated 96 children between the ages of 10 months and 10 years. Patients were divided into three groups:

EPO was included in the study because of its previously demonstrated neural repair properties. In addition, all patients experienced an intensive one month in-patient rehabilitation program.

Dr. Kelley noted, "The study results are of profound importance and provide optimism for parents of thousands of children suffering with CP and for unborn children at risk of acquiring CP. Since there are few, if any, early warning signs predicting who will be affected by CP, these results should encourage all families to consider storing umbilical cord blood when the option is available to them."

The study results seem to indicate that patients receiving autologous cord blood may have even better outcomes. Several clinical trials using autologous cord blood to treat cerebral palsy are on-going in the United States. Dr. Kelley commented, "Results from those studies should greatly extend our knowledge of the usefulness of cord blood for the treatment of a devastating condition for which there is currently no known treatment."

Motor function and cognitive development changes were measured using an extensive group of well-established tests. The tests were performed at the initiation of the study and again at 1, 3 and 6 months. The data consistently revealed superior outcomes in the group that received cord blood compared to the other two groups. The differences were significant starting from 1 month or 3 months post-treatment and continued to 6 months post-treatment.

Some adverse events requiring hospitalization were noted; however, the incidence was the same regardless of the treatment group. Pneumonia and irritability were more frequent in the group that received cord blood than in the other two groups. Considering the overall frequency and severity of the adverse events, the authors concluded that the risks were not prohibitive to continued investigation of this new therapy for cerebral palsy.

HLA-matched allogeneic cord blood units were used in this study due to the unavailability of previously banked autologous cord blood. Complete information on the study is available here.

About Cryo-Cell International

Cryo-Cell International, Inc. was founded in 1989. In 1992, it became the first private cord blood bank in the world to separate and store stem cells. Today, nearly 500,000 parents from 87 countries trust Cryo-Cell to preserve their family members' stem cells. Cryo-Cell's mission is to provide clients with state-of-the-art stem cell cryopreservation services and support the advancement of regenerative medicine. Cryo-Cell operates in a facility that is compliant with Good Manufacturing Practice and Good Tissue Practice (cGMP/cGTP), and is ISO 9001:2008 certified and accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks. Cryo-Cell is a publicly traded company, OTC:QB Markets Group Symbol: CCEL. For more information, visit http://www.cryo-cell.com.

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Study Shows Promising Results Using Cord Blood Stem Cells to Treat Cerebral Palsy

8 January 2013 Last updated at 11:02 ET

Scientists have developed a new way of generating stem cells which could boost research and drug screening.

Edinburgh University has produced material that acts as a "tiny scaffold" to which cells can cling as they grow.

Cells are usually cultivated on expensive biological surfaces that can carry pathogens, risking contamination.

The new material, described as a water-based gel, allows cells to multiply on a large scale and can be separated without being damaged.

Stem cells are those that have not matured into any specific type of functioning cell.

It is hoped stem cell technology could lead to treatment for certain conditions, such as Parkinson's, by using the cultivated cells to replace diseased or defective ones.

Paul de Sousa, of Edinburgh University's Scottish centre for regenerative medicine, said: "This development could greatly enhance automated production of embryonic stem cells, which would improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of stem cell manufacturing."

Researchers developed the new material by screening hundreds of potential compounds for their ability to support stem cell growth.

From a shortlist of four, one was been found to be effective and researchers say the remaining three show similar potential.

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'Scaffold' boost for stem cells

Researchers have discovered what could be the first step in preventing the onset of a heart complication that kills one out of every five people suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). The results were just published in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine.

Durham, NC (PRWEB) January 08, 2013

In DMD, the most common form of muscular dystrophy, patients lack a large, rod-like protein called dystrophin located primarily in muscles used for movement and in heart muscle. The dystrophin is part of a group of proteins that acts as an anchor, connecting each muscle cell's structural framework with the lattice of proteins and other molecules outside the cell. Without dystrophin, many of the muscle cells in the heart are damaged, subsequently die and are replaced by connective tissue.

Many Duchenne MD patients suffer from dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a condition in which the chambers of the heart are enlarged and weakened, explained the studys lead author, Suzanne Berry, Ph.D. As a result the heart cant efficiently pump blood to the body and many patients eventually die. We hypothesized that mesoangioblast stem cells (ADM) found in the walls of large blood vessels, in this case the aorta, would restore dystrophin and therefore alleviate or prevent DCM.

Berry led the multidisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in testing their theory.

They found that when they transplanted ADM cells from healthy mice into the hearts of a group of young dystrophin-deficient lab mice prior to the development of heart problems, the cells prevented onset of DCM. Potential mechanisms for this effect included generation of new muscle cells in the heart by the ADM as well as significantly higher CD31 expression, an indicator that new blood vessels are forming. Interestingly, these mice also showed an increase in the proliferation of stem cells already present in the heart (nestin+cardiac stem cells), and their differentiation into heart muscle cells. This is the first time that activation of nestin+ cardiac stem cells has been observed in response to transplanted stem cells, or correlated with a functional benefit.

As a result, new heart muscle cells were generated by both the donor ADMs and nestin+ cardiac stem cells already existing in the heart of the recipient mice. This may prevent or delay the onset of heart problems that occur in the absence of dystrophin by replacing the lost or damaged heart muscle cells.

In contrast, when the ADMs were injected into the hearts of a group of aged dystrophin-deficient mice in which heart muscle cells had already been replaced by connective tissue, no functional improvement was detected.

Instead, Berry says, ADM exacerbated some features of the condition. This suggests that while ADMs might delay or prevent development of DCM in a dystrophin-deficient heart, the timing of the stem cell transplantation may be critical. Because Duchenne patients are closely monitored for changes in heart function, it would be feasible to provide them with such a treatment at the appropriate time to achieve a functional benefit.

The study also identified additional potential therapeutic targets for treating dilated cardiomyopathy in DMD, including new vessel formation and nestin-expressing stem cells in the heart. Further studies need to be done to determine whether inducing new vessel formation or activating nestin+ stem cells in the dystrophin-deficient heart to become heart muscle cells will prevent, delay or alleviate cardiomyopathy without ADM transplantation, Berry says. These events may be key to the benefit we have observed with ADM transplantation in our study. Identification of new therapeutic targets is important because it may lead to the development of combination therapies that have the potential to achieve additive or even synergistic benefit in the future for patients.

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Stem Cells Finding Could One Day Lead to Halt of Deadly Heart Complication in Duchenne MD

DETROIT Physicians at Henry Ford Hospital are the first in Michigan in a new national research study to investigate treating a recent heart attack with a patients own stem cells to preserve heart muscle function.

Stem cell therapy offers new potential approaches in the treatment of acute heart attack patients to prevent further damage to heart muscle and improve function, said Gerald Koenig, M.D., a cardiologist and researcher at Henry Ford. Current standard treatment options only limit the weakening of the heart. This is why we are studying stem cell therapy, which looks very promising, but it is still an investigation, not an established treatment.

The body has a mechanism to repair itself. When a heart attack occurs, the heart sends a distress signal to the body, which then sends repair cells to the injury site. In some cases, depending on the severity of damage, the repair is insufficient, with a poor prognosis for the patient. A dead zone of tissue develops in the heart, while the surrounding healthy heart cells are stressed as they work harder to pump blood.

The American Heart Association, with the assistance of the National Institutes of Health, reports that an average of 16 years of life may be lost due to a heart attack.

Previous studies using adult stem cells to limit heart muscle damage and improve function have had mixed success, says Dr. Koenig. Some studies have tried to do this too soon after a heart attack, and some tried the procedure at a later time.

It has been determined that theres a window of opportunity one week to 10 days after a heart attack which is the optimum time for stem cell treatment.

The type of stem cell used to treat heart muscle is critical for success, according to Dr. Koenig, as well as the number of cells infused. When the correct amount of the right cells are used in the specified timeframe, the possibility of preserving heart function is much higher.

We look for a specific stem cell that has the capability to improve the function of the heart, potentially by regenerating tissue, or as in this case, preventing the loss of heart muscle that typically continues for weeks after the heart attack, he says.

An acute heart attack can severely weaken heart muscle. Todays therapies, including balloon angioplasty and stents to reopen blocked blood vessels, and medication, have raised the survival rate for patients. However, one third of heart attack survivors has a significant amount of damage to the heart, and is at high risk to develop congestive heart failure over several years.

Retired science teacher and former principal of Cass Tech High School, Lenora Ashford, 64, of Detroit, had a heart attack in mid November.

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Henry Ford First In Michigan To Use Stem Cells To Preserve Heart Function

Facing cancer once is daunting enough, but the shock of relapse often leaves a person feeling overwhelmed and depressed. Now three separate studies seem to confirm scientists' suspicions that so-called cancer stem cells drive the growth and regrowth of tumors. If true, this changes the whole approach to cancer therapy.

For years scientists have debated the existence of cancer stem cells, which exhibit stem cell characteristics by producing new tumor cells or additional cancer stem cells.

Studies are beginning to show tumors contain a small number of cancer stem cells that are often quiescent, shielding them from chemotherapy treatments that normally target and kill tumor cells.

This means after treatment and enough time, the surviving cancer stem cells divide, producing more cancer stem cells as well as differentiating into the variety of cells found in a tumor.

The ability to produce cells with varying characteristics could also help explain metastasis, the migration and adaptation of tumor cells to other organs.

The new studies produced the best evidence yet that cancer stem cells do exist in the tumors of the brain, skin, and gut of mice. One group from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas was able to mark brain tumor (glioblastoma) stem cells using a neuronal stem cell marker.

When all the tumor cells were treated with chemotherapy, the only cells that survived were the ones identified by the stem cell marker. When chemotherapy was given along with treatment to repress cancer stem cell activity, the tumors shrank.

Another scientist, Hans Clevers from the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands, focused on gut tumor cells. His team found a way to mark cancer stem cells in benign intestinal tumors. They then introduced a gene that would make the cancer stem cells glow the color green, which gave rise to more green-colored cancer stem cells as well as all the other types cells in that tumor. To further prove stem cells fuel tumors, Clevers triggered all the stem cells colored green to switch to either yellow, red, or blue, and they produced stem cells and tumor cells in that same color. The third study, led by Belgian scientists, did not specifically label cancer stem cells, but rather labeled individual skin tumor cells so that they could be tracked during tumor development. The tumor cells were allowed to reproduce and did so in two ways.

The majority of cells divided a few times then died out. The others continued to grow and divide, supporting the belief that a small subset of tumor cells spurs cancer growth, and these could indeed be cancer stem cells.

The more aggressive the tumor cell type, the more likely it was to produce more cells that continue to divide.

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Cancer's stem cells drive tumor growth

MARCO ISLAND, Fla., Jan. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --Mary Holler, age 80, of Marco Island, Florida is smiling again. Mary was suffering from dementia. She felt her ability to function on a daily basis was slipping away. Now, after undergoing a successful stem cell treatment in early December 2012, Mary is more like her old self again. She no longer suffers the frustration and agitation of being told she had already asked that question several times. Peter Holler, age 82, had become very concerned that his wife of 60 years was slowly losing her memory. She had been on medications for memory loss for several years but the deterioration in her recall accelerated in the last six months. It was not unusual for him to answer the same question 4 to 5 times over the course of a day. He felt he was losing his wife right in front of his eyes. Mary's poor performance on an in-depth memory test revealed that she should be in an assisted living facility. This frightened both the Hollers and their children.

Peter Holler sought out stem cell therapy. He felt it was his wife's only option. Peter, no stranger to stem cells, had undergone a stem cell treatment for his failing heart in 2008. He had experienced great success. "Even my lung function improved dramatically," he recalls. So using the same group that he had trusted with his heart, he made arrangements to get the love of his life treated.

A track record of several successfully treated patients with dementia already existed. So the doctors knew exactly what to do. Heading the team is Dr. Hector Rosario, an interventional cardiologist and head of the stem cell program in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Zannos Grekos, Chief Science Officer for Intercellular, was present as well. "It's very exciting to be able to have such a positive impact on a disease process that otherwise has such a grim prognosis," Grekos explained.

After an activation and concentration process, stem cells collected from Mary's bone marrow were injected into her cerebral circulation. "Look at the difference," Dr. Rosario exclaimed while pointing to the before and after pictures of the brain circulation. The increase in blood vessel flow was astonishing. Since only adult stem cells from the patient are used, the political, ethical and medical issues are avoided and there is no risk of rejection.

"We're able to normalize a patient's brain function testing in 6 months after the treatment," said Grekos, commenting on the success rate of patients receiving adult stem cell therapy to reverse the effects of dementia.

Dementia is a loss of brain function that occurs with age and certain diseases. Some types of dementia are non-reversible (degenerative) but others have a vascular component, even Alzheimer's. These respond especially well to stem cell treatment.

Additional information available at Intercellular Sciences patient website - Regenocyte.

Contact: 239-333-1239

Photos: http://www.prlog.org/12053960

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Stem Cells Shown to Reverse Dementia