Category Archives: Stem Cells

Breakthrough stem cell research at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. has the potential to revive endangered species. Researchers at the Center for Regenerative Medicine are aiming to turn stem cells into gametes. Once new eggs and sperm are created, “test tube babies” can be born, possibly preserving a species.

In 1972, researchers preserved skin cells of certain endangered species at the Frozen Zoo, hoping that future technology would help to revive populations, and today Scripps researchers are combining the frozen skin cells with human stem cells to generate stem cells specific to the animal. Stem cells are turned into gametes through re-programming, a process in which retroviruses are used to bring the cells back to earlier stages of development. Last month, scientists created mouse sperm cells through this process.

Scientists view this method of species preservation as a last resort when cheaper, simpler means have failed. For instance, the white rhino, whose population is numbered at seven in the world, would benefit immensely since other methods of trying to save the species have failed. Scientists also hope to help the drill, a West African primate threatened by hunting and habitat degradation.

—compiled by Michelle Lim

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23-02-2012 14:54 http://www.euronews.net Dutch scientist Mark Post hopes that he will be able to produce the world's first test-tube burger later this year. He says it will look, and taste identical to a regular quarter-pounder. In the laboratory, he has already grown small strips of beef from bovine stem cells, and is now looking at ways to increase production. It is white because there are no blood cells. But researchers hope that once cooked, these cells will look and taste the same as conventionally produced meat.

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euronews science - In Vitrio meat - Video

The method, developed over several years in the lab of Prof. Ehud Shapiro of the Institute's Biological Chemistry, and Computer Science and Applied Mathematics Departments, uses mutations in specific genetic markers to determine which cells are most closely related and how far back they share a common parent cell, to create a sort of family tree for cells. Shapiro and members of his lab, including Drs. Shalev Itzkovitz and Rivka Adar, together with Prof. Nava Dekel and research student Yitzhak Reizel of the Biological Regulation Department, used their method to see if ova could be descended from bone-marrow stem cells. Their findings indicated that any relationship between the two types was too distant for one to be an ancestor of the other.

These scientists also found, surprisingly, that the ova of older mice had undergone more cell divisions than those of younger mice. This could be the result of replenishment during adulthood, but an alternate theory holds that all eggs are created before birth, and those that undergo fewer divisions are simply selected earlier on for ovulation. Further experimentation, says Shapiro, will resolve the issue.

Cell lineage trees are similar to modern evolutionary and taxonomic trees based on genome comparisons between organisms. Shapiro and his team used mutations in cells that are passed on to daughter cells over an organism's lifetime (though not on to the next generation). By comparing a number of genetic sequences called microsatellites – areas where mutations occur like clockwork – they can place cells on trees to reveal their developmental history.

A number of papers published by Shapiro, his team and collaborators in recent months have demonstrated the power and versatility of this method. One study, for instance, lent support to the notion that the adult stem cells residing in tiny crypts in the lining of the colon do not harbor, as thought, "immortal DNA strands." Immortal strands may be retained by dividing stem cells if they always relegate the newly-synthesized DNA to the differentiating daughter cell and keep the original stand in the one that remains a stem cell.

A second study addressed an open question about developing muscle cells. Here they found that two kinds of progenitor cell - myogenic cells, which eventually give rise to muscle fiber, and non-myogenic cells – found within the same muscle are more closely related than similar cells in different muscles.

One immediate advantage of the cell lineage analysis method developed by Shapiro's team is that it is non-invasive and retrospective, and as such can be applied to the study of human cell lineages. Most other studies of development rely on genetically engineered lab animals in which the stem cells are tagged with fluorescent markers. In addition to providing a powerful new research method that does not rely on such markers, Shapiro believes that it could one day be adapted as a diagnostic tool that might, for instance, reveal the history of an individual's cancer and help doctors determine the best course of treatment.

Provided by Weizmann Institute of Science (news : web)

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Lineage trees reveal cells' histories

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- In a laboratory in the Netherlands, stem cells from cows are being grown into what researcher Mark J. Post says will be the first so-called "test-tube burger" -- comprising the tiny pieces of tissue-engineered, or "in vitro," meat -- that he and his colleagues aim to cook and taste as early as this October.

By this summer, California researcher Patrick O. Brown says, a company he's helped start will bring to market a revolutionary new plant-based substitute for a meat or dairy food -- he's not yet sharing specifics -- that "can't be distinguished from the animal product it replaces, even by hard-core foodies."

The scientists are on the leading edge of a movement to dramatically change how the world grows and consumes meat, something they say must happen, one way or another.

"Animal farming is by far the biggest ongoing global environmental catastrophe," Mr. Brown said Sunday at a news briefing for journalists from around the world at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, attended by some 5,000 delegates and 700 media people in Vancouver.

He and Mr. Post were part of a panel of four experts who later that day presented a symposium titled, "Meat without Animals: Test-tube Burgers and More." It was provocative enough that the Times of London broke a news embargo to publish something on it that morning, and bits of the story have been broadcast this week as far and wide as the local TV news in Pittsburgh.

The issue certainly is food for thought.

Mr. Brown, a biochemist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, wants to see a world without animal farming, because "in every conceivable way, it's inefficient and destructive."

Inefficient, in that it takes many pounds of grains, and many, many gallons of water, to make a typical quarter-pounder. Destructive, he said, citing sobering United Nations statistics, that show animal farming takes up about 30 percent of the Earth's land, accounts for more than 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, is the largest source of water pollution and the biggest threat to biodiversity.

Meanwhile, the world's appetite for meat is expected to double by 2050.

Mr. Brown called animal agriculture, mostly unchanged for centuries, as "a sitting duck for a disruptive technology."

That's why, with backing from a Silicone Valley venture capital firm, he's launched two startups to create and market alternative foods that, like him, are vegetarian.

Of course, the market already has plenty of meat substitutes and non-dairy "cheeses," but he says they're not very good and they're expensive, and they're marketed to people who've already chosen to be vegetarian or vegan for health or ethical reasons, not to the mainstream.

The products he plans will compete head-on with animal products by being "high-value, protein-rich, nutrient-dense human foods that appeal to consumers" -- stand-ins for everything from bacon to cheddar.

Professor Post of Maastricht University said that he hopes Mr. Brown and others are able to fix the problems of animal agriculture with plants. But because he believes many people want real meat, his research is about producing that in a more efficient, less environmentally degrading way.

Cows are only about 15 percent efficient at making meat from grains and other foods, he said. Making beef under more controlled conditions could feed a lot more people while using fewer resources, saving the grains for human consumption as food as well as biofuel. (Their aim is to grow meat with vegetable-based nutrients, perhaps involving algae.)

With backing of $330,000 from a "reputable," non-food-industry funder he's not yet identifying, his team is working to grow enough muscle cells to show that "cultured meat" is possible.

Already, they've grown bovine stem cells into tiny strips about an inch long and 2/100ths of an inch thick.

They'll need thousands of these to make a burger (the golf-ball-sized goal sounds more like a slider, and an expensive one at that). But that's just one of many challenges.

Growing stem cells happens in labs all over the world, including Pittsburgh, where some researchers envision being able to make replacement organs for humans.

Bits for ground beef, the most popular meat in the U.S., look to be relatively easy. (Mr. Post got laughs when recounting how they started with pig cells, planning to make sausage, which can be "hardly recognizable as a meat product" anyway).

But muscle cells on an animal grow because of conditions that scientists have to figure out how to create in the petri dish. Mr. Post described using electric current to "exercise" the cow muscle cells, and treatments ranging from administering caffeine to withholding light to get them to make more myoglobin, which gives meat its red color.

"Right now, it's sort of a pinkish-yellowish," he told journalists. "The color is an interesting issue."

But, as he said later, it's also a scientifically controllable one. His part of the talk touched on possibilities including lowering the saturated fat and cholesterol of various meats, even creating custom combinations of meats.

His Powerpoint presentation illustrated the ultimate goal -- making "big slabs of meat" -- which were fancifully depicted as octagonal steaks, on round ceramic "bones."

Even if he does taste that burger this fall, cultured filet mignons are a long ways off. They will be expensive, as will all the research it'll take.

"But what's the cost of traditional meat production?" asked Nicholas Genovese, a visiting scholar at the University of Missouri-Columbia who organized the symposium. He includes in that the costs of dealing with outbreaks of food-borne illness and other human health woes associated with animal foods.

One of the issues he stresses is the ethical one of millions of animals being killed. His research, in fact, is funded by a grant from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which in 2008 offered a $1 million reward for the first researchers to make in vitro chicken meat, indistinguishable from the "real" deal, and sell it to the public by June 30, 2012.

That offer stands and might be extended at a PETA meeting in Los Angeles in April, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said in a phone interview from Washington, D.C., last week. "Originally, we thought we'd never have to pay out," she said. "Nobody had heard of [in vitro meat]. We wanted to boot it into the public consciousness."

Now, she says, "We're feeling very good" about the research progress that's been made. "If this allows them to get rid of cruelty to animals, fabulous."

She's well aware that the idea of in vitro meat can stir strong reactions from everyone from Midwest farmers to home cooks, but says, "Everybody fears change," and points out that many foods such as soy milk were once little known.

The AAAS panelists included KeShun Liu, a U.S. Department of Agriculture researcher who talked about the next generation of extruded meat "analogs" that mimic the fibers of real chicken and turkey. (He said to look for products soon from Maryland's Savage River Farms).

The panelists agreed they're not advocating for legislation or subsidies; they're just working for alternatives for consumers.

Some acceptance of these new alternatives may be a matter of language. At the AAAS meeting, Mr. Genovese stressed, "In vitro meat will never be produced in the 'lab.' " As beer is made in a brewery, he has proposed calling meat production facilities of the future "carneries."

Bob Batz Jr.: bbatz@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1930.

First published on February 23, 2012 at 12:00 am

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Is 'in vitro meat' moving closer to the menu?

Japanese researchers have been able to improve the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in monkeys by transplanting nerve cells derived from embryonic stem cells into their brains, the team has announced.

The finding is the world's first reported success of its kind with a primate, according to the research team led by associate professor Jun Takahashi of Kyoto University's Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences. It has been released in the online edition of US journal Stem Cells.

After the transplant, the monkeys, which had been almost unable to move, showed improvements in their symptoms to the point where they became able to walk on their own, the team said.

Parkinson's disease is a neurological illness believed to be caused by a deficit of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain.

Embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to become almost any type of tissue, are harvested from inside a blastocyst, which develops from a mammalian egg cell about a week after it is fertilised.

Takahashi's research team used the embryonic stem cells to cultivate a cell mass in which 35 per cent of the cells were dopamine-producing neurons.

These neurons then were transplanted into the four crab-eating monkeys, whose conditions were observed over a one-year period.

According to the study, the monkeys exhibited reduced shaking of their limbs half a year later. They had remained nearly motionless inside their cages all day long before the transplant, but the improvement of their symptoms eventually enabled them to occasionally walk around the cages.

The research team confirmed that normal nerve cells had been created in their brains.

The finding could mark a major breakthrough for applying embryonic stem cells in clinical settings, experts said. The Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry has been encouraging researchers to study the clinical applications of not only stem cells, but also induced pluripotent stem cells, which also can grow into many kinds of human cells.

Takahashi's team has already performed experiments to transplant iPS cells into monkeys' brains.

"We'll make further efforts to enhance the safety of these cell transplants," Takahashi said. "And we hope to start clinical application studies as early as three years from now."

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Japanese researchers find stem cells reduce monkeys' Parkinson's symptoms

21-02-2012 05:39 (WTNH)-- Would you be willing to eat a burger that was grown in a test tube? Researchers say they have come up with a way to grow meat in a lab using animal stem cells.

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NOKOMIS, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research into Cancer Stem Cells (CSC) is on the rise, fueling industry growth that Rainbow Coral Corp. (OTCBB: RBCC.OB - News) expects to translate into demand for n3D cell growth technologies.

RBCC is finalizing an equity funding agreement with n3D Biosciences, the maker of a revolutionary new system that allows scientists to grow three-dimensional cell cultures more easily than ever before. The device, called the Bio-Assembler, could have an extraordinary impact on cell research worldwide, and RBCC expects to find a strong market for the device once its funding agreement with n3D is finalized.

Many cancers, including breast, prostate, pancreatic, colon, brain, and lung cancers, contain a subset of stem-like cells understood to play a critical role in the development and progression of the disease. Research suggests that these cells, called Cancer Stem Cells, are able to “seed” new tumor formation and drive metastasis.

Because these cells are believed to be at the root of the development and spread of cancer, they’re quickly becoming the center of cancer diagnostics and biomarkers. CSCs are resistant to a number of chemotherapy drugs and radiotherapy, and approximately 20 different strategies are currently being pursued in the hope of selectively targeting CSCs. This creates a huge opening for new companies and technologies dedicated to streamlining cellular research.

RBCC believes that the Bio-Assembler could allow researchers to dramatically shorten the development timeline for new CSC drugs and treatments, potentially proving very lucrative to the company.

For more information on Rainbow BioSciences, please visit http://www.rainbowbiosciences.com/investors.

Rainbow BioSciences will develop new medical and research technology innovations to compete alongside companies such as Celgene Corp. (NASDAQ: CELG), Cardinal Health, Inc. (NYSE: CAH), Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) and Affymax, Inc. (NASDAQ: AFFY).

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About Rainbow BioSciences

Rainbow BioSciences is a division of Rainbow Coral Corp. (OTCBB: RBCC). The company continually seeks out new partnerships with biotechnology developers to deliver profitable new medical technologies and innovations. For more information on our growth-oriented business initiatives, please visit our website at [www.rainbowbiosciences.com]. For investment information and performance data on the company, please visit www.RainbowBioSciences.com/investors.

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Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including statements that include the words "believes," "expects," "anticipate" or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. In addition, description of anyone's past success, either financial or strategic, is no guarantee of future success. This news release speaks as of the date first set forth above and the company assumes no responsibility to update the information included herein for events occurring after the date hereof.

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Cancer Stem Cell Research Drives Growth in RBCC’s Target Market

Published: Feb 22, 2012 02:00 AM
Modified: Feb 20, 2012 10:41 PM

Carrboro man to get stem cell transplant
Treatment a first at UNC

BY ELIZABETH SWARINGEN, Special to The Chapel Hill News

CHAPEL HILL - Three infusions of your own stem cells - each infusion over a 21-day hospitalization - can seem daunting. But, when it's your best chance for beating a recurrence of testicular cancer, you look forward to it."It doesn't seem intimidating to me at all," said David Alston, 42, of Carrboro. "You don't normally think of stem cell bone marrow transplants as treatment for testicular cancer, but it has been done in New York with success. I'm pleased it's available to me here at UNC Hospitals."This month Alston is having the first triple-tandem transplant done in an adult at UNC Hospitals.The process involves harvesting and freezing his own stem cells, receiving high-dose chemotherapy to attack the cancer, then having the stem cells infused over three back-to-back hospitalizations."He's young and otherwise healthy, and we think this is the right thing for him," said Dr. Paul M. Armistead, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology, a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and leader of Alston's transplant team. "This is his best chance for being cured."Alston, a Charlotte native, was diagnosed with aggressive testicular cancer in March 2011 after experiencing an "avalanche of symptoms.""I didn't have a lump, but I had some weird back pain and loss of feeling in one leg," David said. "By the time I had some scans, we found lymph node involvement in a lot of places. Essentially, the cancer had gone on vacation all over my body."Testicular cancer is one of the more curable cancers, often cured in the first round of chemotherapy, said Dr. Kim Rathmell, associate professor of medicine, a member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and Alston's medical oncologist.Aggressive chemotherapy sent the cancer into remission, and by August Alston returned to his long-time job at Weaver Street Market in Chapel Hill's Southern Village.Routine blood test results in December surprised everyone: the cancer was back."Because of the way David's cancer came back, a more aggressive approach than chemotherapy alone was needed," said Rathmell, adding how hard it was knowing Alston faced treatment again. "I shop that store, and I had seen him back at work."Dr. Matthew Milowsky, who participated in the development of the triple-tandem transplant for testicular cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City, joined UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center last fall as co-director of UNC's urologic oncology program. Rathmell quickly recruited him to Alston's team."We have everything we need here at UNC to treat David," Rathmell said. "Had David come to us five years ago, when this recommended treatment was newer and we didn't have local expertise, I would likely have referred him elsewhere. Today, we are very comfortable doing this transplant here. And it's a total team approach."In January, Alston began receiving two types of chemotherapy to mobilize his stem cells in preparation for collection.This chemotherapy featured one less drug than what he endured after initial diagnosis and yielded fewer side effects."It was night and day difference," he said, remembering the physical and mental side effects that sent him into the ICU last spring. "By comparison, what I'm doing in preparation for the transplant has been rather effortless."But the process is complicated and has many moving parts."David will have five chemotherapy infusions administered by two separate medical teams that have to work together through a lot of logistics about what happens when," said Armistead. "That David is organized and intelligent and sends a lot of questions to Dr. Rathmell and me via email, he's helping himself stay on top of things. Having a patient who is fully aware of what's going on has kept us on our toes and helped us develop and coordinate a more fool-proof system."Still, as a single, stubbornly independent man, Alston needed help and support. Luckily, his mother, Barbara Alston, a retired medical professional from Concord, is by his side.Both are staying at SECU Family House, the 40-bedroom hospital hospitality house minutes from UNC Hospitals for seriously ill adult patients and their family member caregivers.The Alstons will stay at Family House during the nine weeks total that David is expected to be hospitalized. He will join her between transplants and for post-transplant monitoring."It's a comfort being here at Family House," Barbara Alston said. "If we need something, it's taken care of, both here and at the hospital. I'm assured David's getting the care he needs. I'm helping him whenever and wherever I can."SECU Family House will play an even larger role in Alston's recovery post-transplant, both Rathmell and Armistead agreed."This treatment is intense, and David will be more in the hospital than out," Rathmell said. "He will need a solid support system, and he has that with his mother. It's a fragile time, and she has his best interest at heart.""Post-transplant David will need to be monitored closely because his immune system will be very weak," Armistead said. "His mother's medical background is a bonus. The Family House folks are used to immune-suppressed patients and can get them to the hospital quickly if needed."Alston has kept himself swimming in information to minimize the fear and mystery. Barbara has been the great translator when his own efforts didn't yield the level of detail he needed."The constant learning gives it all a degree of routine that took some of the scariness away," Alston said. "But you can't be too independent or too brainy when you have cancer."Cancer blows you out of the water, but it leaves you with valuable insight," he said. "How you deal with cancer is self-guided and you learn things about yourself and your personality that you never knew. It's the ultimate in snatching the silver lining from a cloud."

Elizabeth Swaringen wrote this article for UNC Health Care.

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Carrboro man to get stem cell transplant