Category Archives: Stem Cells

"We use three dimensional structures to fabricate the bone in the right shape and geometry. We can grow these bones outside the body and then transplant it to the patient at the right time.

"By scanning the damaged bone area, the implant should fit perfectly and merge with the surrounding tissue. There are no problems with rejection as the cells come from the patient's own body."

The technology, which has been developed along with researchers at the Technion Institute of Research in Israel, uses three dimensional scans of the damaged bone to build a gel-like scaffold that matches the shape.

Stem cells, known as mesenchymal stem cells, which have the capacity to develop into many other types of cell in the body, are obtained from the patient's fat using liposuction.

These are then grown into living bone on the scaffold inside a "bioreactor" an automated machine that provides the right conditions to encourage the cells to develop into bone.

Already animals have successfully received bone transplants. The scientists were able to insert almost an inch of laboratory-grown human bone into the middle section of a rat's leg bone, where it successfully merged with the remaining animal bone.

The technique could ultimately allow doctors to replace bones that have been smashed in accidents, fill in defects where bone is missing such as cleft palate, or carry out reconstructive plastic surgery.

Professor Kadouri said work was also under way to grow the soft cartilage at the ends of bones, which is needed if entire bones are to be produced in a laboratory.

Bone grafts currently involve taking bits of bone from elsewhere in the patients body and transplanting them to the area which is damaged to encourage healing.

More than 250,000 bone grafts are performed in the UK each year, including repairs to damaged jaws and the replacement of bone lost in operations to remove tumours.

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Human bones grown from fat in laboratory

Functioning liver from stem cells

(AFP) / 9 June 2012

Japanese researchers have created a functioning human liver from stemcells, a report said, raising hopes for the manufacture of artificial organs for those in need of transplants.

A team of scientists transplanted induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into the body of a mouse, where it grew into a small, but working, human liver, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.

Stemcells are frequently harvested from embryos, which are then discarded, a practice some people find morally objectionable. But iPS cells which have the potential to develop into any body tissue can be taken from adults.

A team led by professor Hideki Taniguchi at Yokohama City University developed human iPS cells into precursor cells, which they then transplanted into a mouses head to take advantage of increased blood flow.

The cells grew into a human liver 5 millimetres in size that was capable of generating human proteins and breaking down drugs, the Yomiuri reported. The breakthrough opens the door to the artificial creation of human organ. Taniguchis research could be an important bridge between basic research and clinical application but faces various challenges before it can be put into medical practice, the Yomiuri said.

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Functioning liver from stem cells

All in the eyes...the medical breakthrough is a world first. Source: Supplied

A MEDICALl breakthrough by Australian scientists has shown how sheets of stem cells grown on contact lenses can repair damaged eyes.

The treatment transfers minuscule strips of adult stem cells from specifically designed contact lenses onto the eye, to help rebuild the surface of the cornea.

The world-first research could pave the way for an effective treatment for painful caustic or thermal burns, or severe inflammation of the surface of the eye.

Centre for Eye Research Australia researcher Karl David Brown said it was the first time they had proved cells had transferred from the contact lens to the eye to rebuild the surface.

During the trial, limbal stem cells, which function naturally to repair the eye, were taken from the edge of the cornea. Sheets containing hundreds of thousands of cells were grown on contact lenses.

They were inserted in the eye and left for four days. During this time the cells transferred from the lens to the wounded eye.

There are already experimental treatments using human amnion, a membrane that surrounds an embryo, but sourcing the donor tissue after a baby is born and ensuring it is of sufficient quality is difficult.

Brown said the benefit of this new technique was that the cells could be harvested from the patient's own eyes or, if they are too damaged, from donor tissue. Small human trials of the technique are about to start.

"I'm cautiously optimistic that the human trials will yield positive results," Brown said.

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Stem cells used to repair eyes

A medical breakthrough by Australian scientists has shown how sheets of stem cells grown on contact lenses can repair damaged eyes.

The treatment transfers minuscule strips of adult stem cells from specifically designed contact lenses onto the eye, to help rebuild the surface of the cornea.

The world-first research could pave the way for an effective treatment for painful caustic or thermal burns, or severe inflammation of the surface of the eye.

Centre for Eye Research Australia researcher Karl David Brown said it was the first time they had proved cells had transferred from the contact lens to the eye to rebuild the surface.

During the trial, limbal stem cells, which function naturally to repair the eye, were taken from the edge of the cornea. Sheets containing hundreds of thousands of cells were grown on contact lenses.

They were inserted in the eye and left for four days. During this time the cells transferred from the lens to the wounded eye.

There are already experimental treatments using human amnion, a membrane that surrounds an embryo, but sourcing the donor tissue after a baby is born and ensuring it is of sufficient quality is difficult.

Brown said the benefit of this new technique was that the cells could be harvested from the patient's own eyes or, if they are too damaged, from donor tissue. Small human trials of the technique are about to start.

"I'm cautiously optimistic that the human trials will yield positive results," Brown said.

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Stem cells used to repair damaged eyes in world-first trial

HAMILTON, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

A team of scientists at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada have discovered a drug, thioridazine, successfully kills cancer stem cells in the human while avoiding the toxic side-effects of conventional cancer treatments.

"The unusual aspect of our finding is the way this human-ready drug actually kills cancer stem cells; by changing them into cells that are non-cancerous," said Mick Bhatia, the principal investigator for the study and scientific director of McMaster's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute (SCC-RI) in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.

Unlike chemotherapy and radiation, thioridazine appears to have no effect on normal stem cells.

The research, published in the science journal CELL, holds the promise of a new strategy and discovery pipeline for the development of anticancer drugs in the treatment of various cancers. The research team has identified another dozen drugs that have good potential for the same response.

For 15 years, some researchers have believed stem cells are the source of many cancers. In 1997, Canadian researchers first identified cancer stem cells in certain types of leukemia. Cancer stem cells have since been identified in blood, breast, brain, lung, gastrointestinal, prostate and ovarian cancer.

To test more than a dozen different compounds, McMaster researchers pioneered a fully automated robotic system to identify several drugs, including thioridazine.

"Now we can test thousands of compounds, eventually defining a candidate drug that has little effect on normal stem cells but kills the cells that start the tumor," said Bhatia.

The next step is to test thioridazine in clinical trials, focusing on patients with acute myeloid leukemia whose disease has relapsed after chemotherapy. Bhatia wants to find out if the drug can put their cancer into remission, and by targeting the root of the cancer (cancer stem cells) prevent the cancer from coming back. Researchers at McMaster have already designed how these trials would be done.

Bhatia's team found thioridazine works through the dopamine receptor on the surface of the cancer cells in both leukemia and breast cancer patients. This means it may be possible to use it as a biomarker that would allow early detection and treatment of breast cancer and early signs of leukemia progression, he said. The research team's next step is to investigate the effectiveness of the drug in other types of cancer. In addition, the team will explore several drugs identified along with thioridazine. In the future, thousands of other compounds will be analyzed with McMaster robotic stem cell screening system in partnership with collaborations that include academic groups as well as industry.

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Ontario, Canada’s McMaster University Researchers Discover Drug Destroys Human Cancer Stem Cells but Not Healthy Ones

BERKELEY

One of the top suspects behind killer vascular diseases is the victim of mistaken identity, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, who used genetic tracing to help hunt down the real culprit.

Zhenyu Tang (seated at microscope) examines vascular stem cells in culture along with Aijun Wang (left) and Song Li. The UC Berkeley researchers say that these newly discovered stem cells contribute to artery-hardening vascular diseases that can lead to heart attacks and strokes. (Photo courtesy of Song Li)

The guilty party is not the smooth muscle cells within blood vessel walls, which for decades was thought to combine with cholesterol and fat that can clog arteries. Blocked vessels can eventually lead to heart attacks and strokes, which account for one in three deaths in the United States.

Instead, a previously unknown type of stem cell a multipotent vascular stem cell is to blame, and it should now be the focus in the search for new treatments, the scientists report in a new study appearing June 6 in the journal Nature Communications.

For the first time, we are showing evidence that vascular diseases are actually a kind of stem cell disease, said principal investigator Song Li, professor of bioengineering and a researcher at the Berkeley Stem Cell Center. This work should revolutionize therapies for vascular diseases because we now know that stem cells rather than smooth muscle cells are the correct therapeutic target.

The finding that a stem cell population contributes to artery-hardening diseases, such as atherosclerosis, provides a promising new direction for future research, the study authors said.

This is groundbreaking and provocative work, as it challenges existing dogma, said Dr. Deepak Srivastava, who directs cardiovascular and stem cell research at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, and who provided some of the mouse vascular tissues used by the researchers. Targeting the vascular stem cells rather than the existing smooth muscle in the vessel wall might be much more effective in treating vascular disease.

It is generally accepted that the buildup of artery-blocking plaque stems from the bodys immune response to vessel damage caused by low-density lipoproteins, the bad cholesterol many people try to eliminate from their diets. Such damage attracts legions of white blood cells and can spur the formation of fibrous scar tissue that accumulates within the vessel, narrowing the blood flow.

Within the walls of blood vessels are smooth muscle cells and newly discovered vascular stem cells. The stem cells are multipotent and are not only able to differentiate into smooth muscle cells, but also into fat, cartilage and bone cells. UC Berkeley researchers provide evidence that the stem cells are contributing to clogged and hardened arteries. (Song Li illustration)

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The real culprit behind hardened arteries? Stem cells, says landmark study

Scientists previously thought heart attacks and strokes were caused by smooth muscle cells Stem cells multiply and caused arteries to harden Heart attacks affect 90,000 and strokes 150,000 in Britain every year

By Emma Reynolds

PUBLISHED: 11:17 EST, 6 June 2012 | UPDATED: 11:17 EST, 6 June 2012

The real culprit behind heart attacks and strokes is stem cells, researchers have claimed in a landmark study that could revolutionise treatment.

Until now, scientists thought vascular health problems were triggered by smooth muscle cells.

Now a team from the University of California in Berkeley have found a previously unknown stem cell, which causes the arteries to harden when it multiplies.

Real hope: The cells can multiply and cause arteries to harden, blocking the blood's route to the heart or brain

The groundbreaking work is set to completely change how heart attacks and strokes are treated, dramatically cutting the number of deaths, according the study published today in the journal Nature Communications.

Heart attacks are the most common reason for people to need emergency treatment. Around 90,000 people in Britain have one each year - of whom around a third will die as a result.

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Stem cells are identified as real culprit behind heart attacks after case of mistaken identity that could ...