Category Archives: Stem Cells

MIAMI (PRWEB) November 06, 2014

Global Stem Cells Group, Inc. has launched a new website for the Global Stem Cell Foundation, an independent non-profit, charitable organization that works to fund research on stem cell solutions for patients, and identify best practices between physicians engaged in stem cell treatments in the U.S. and worldwide.

The Global Stem Cell Foundations efforts focus on learning about and delivering the best practices of emerging stem cell treatments for both disease and lifestyle enhancement. To accomplish this, the Global Stem Cell Foundation brought together a large number of physicians from around the world who currently use stem cell treatments in their clinical practices.

These practitioners, who are uniquely qualified members of the Global Stem Cell Foundation, all help to improve upon the importance science of stem cell therapies. In addition, the Global Stem Cell Foundation uses its charitable resources to fund ongoing clinical science around the world. The goal is to us emerging scientific breakthroughs to lead clinical trials to evaluate new stem cell treatments for new therapies, bringing hope to patients with debilitating diseases worldwide.

To learn more about the Global Stem Cell Foundation, visit the Foundation website, email bnovas(at)regenestem(dot)com, or call 305-224-1858.

About Global Stem Cells Group:

Global Stem Cells Group, Inc. is the parent company of six wholly owned operating companies dedicated entirely to stem cell research, training, products and solutions. Founded in 2012, the company combines dedicated researchers, physician and patient educators and solution providers with the shared goal of meeting the growing worldwide need for leading edge stem cell treatments and solutions.

With a singular focus on this exciting new area of medical research, Global Stem Cells Group and its subsidiaries are uniquely positioned to become global leaders in cellular medicine.

Global Stem Cells Groups corporate mission is to make the promise of stem cell medicine a reality for patients around the world. With each of GSCGs six operating companies focused on a separate research-based mission, the result is a global network of state-of-the-art stem cell treatments.

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Global Stem Cells Group Launches Global Stem Cell Foundation Website

Jeff Allen, who is developing a cancer diagnostic chip similar to this one, poses for a picture in Nick Cosford's research lab at the Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute. The chip Allen is developing would isolate cancer stem cells for diagnosis.

After Jeff Allens wife died of cancer in 2002, the analytical biochemist put his training to work in learning more about the disease.

Doing so was initially a hobby, he said. As time progressed, it became more than a hobby. It became a downright obsession. I got angry at cancer, and as the years went, by I became frustrated with the slow pace of developing new weapons against it.

Allen, whose background includes development of molecular diagnostic devices, began studying how cancer treatment could be improved.

Now he and his sons, Alexander and Austin, said theyve designed a device that can detect the most dangerous cancer cells, often called cancer stem cells. The device is still in the concept phase, but scientists who have looked at the technology think its feasible.

The device is envisioned as a microchip that examines a patients blood sample to identify and isolate cancer stem cells. Once captured, these cells would be genetically sequenced to find the mutations driving the cancer. Then doctors could prescribe the most customized treatment based on this more rigorous analysis.

To carry out his plan, Allen is seeking $50,000 through the crowdfunding site gofundme.com. He also has formed a company, TumorGen MDx.

In the world of oncology, theres increasing but not total recognition of cancer stem cells and their destructive role. Allen said his own reading of the literature is that these cells do indeed exist. They possess distinct characteristics that enable them to seed an entire new tumor from just a few cells, or perhaps only one.

That theory carries tremendous significance for accurate diagnosis. A drug that inhibits most cancer cells but misses the cancer stem cells wont do much good.

Jeff Allen's video promoting his work for a test to detect cancer stem cells.

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Hunting for cancer stem cells

Breast milk is known for being full of goodies but could that include stem cells from mum that go on to transform into parts of the baby's body? Preliminary evidence has shown this happens in mice, suggesting it also does in people.

Stem cells have the unusual ability to regenerate themselves and develop into a variety of tissues. Several sources of stem cells are being developed for therapeutic use, including embryos, umbilical-cord blood and adult tissues.

It was discovered seven years ago that human breast milk also contains a kind of stem cell. The question was whether these cells do anything useful for the baby or if they simply leak unavoidably into breast milk.

The latest findings, presented at the National Breastfeeding and Lactation Symposium in London last week, suggest that in mice at least, breast milk stem cells cross into the offspring's blood from their stomach and play a functional role later in life.

Foteini Hassiotou at the University of Western Australia and her colleagues showed this by first creating genetically modified mice whose cells contain a gene called tdTomato, which makes them glow red under fluorescent light.

The females mice were mated but then after giving birth were given unmodified baby mice to suckle. So any red cells that ended up in the pups must have come via the milk.

Sure enough, when the offspring reached adulthood, red cells were found in their blood and many of their tissues, including the brain, thymus, pancreas, liver, spleen and kidneys. Using other techniques, Hassiotou's team also found that the stem cells had developed into mature cells. The ones in the brain, for instance, had the characteristic shape of neurons; the ones in the liver were making the liver protein albumin, and the ones in the pancreas were making insulin. "They seem to integrate and become functional cells," she says.

Is it simply that these stem cells play a role in normal growth and development, or might they also be, say, helping to make the offspring tolerant to its mother's cells and proteins, to reduce chances of an allergic reaction to her breast milk? "There must be some evolutionary advantage," says Hassiotou.

The finding that breast milk stem cells are capable of making different tissues makes it more likely they could be used for therapeutic applications, says Hassiotou. Chris Mason of University College London adds: "If these intriguing cells are functional, they could be a novel option for producing future cell therapies."

Breast milk stem cells seem to have less capacity for unlimited cell division than embryonic stem cells. "But that's actually a good thing," says Hassiotou. They do not form tumours when injected into mice, for example, so they may be less likely to trigger cancer if used to treat people.

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Breast milk stem cells may be incorporated into baby

New York, Nov 4 (IANS): Fat and sugar are considered to be the culprits when it comes to obesity and related health complications but if researchers are to be believed, a biological fat with a sugar attached to it is essential for maintaining the brain's supply of stem cells.

In lab experiments, the team discovered that in mice missing the sugar containing "lipid ganglioside GD3", neural stem cells have a dramatically impaired ability to self-renew.

"If GD3 is missing, we found these neural stem cells cannot be maintained throughout life. They are reduced by a big percentage even in a one-month-old mouse," said Jing Wang, postdoctoral fellow at the Medical College of Georgia from the Georgia Regents University in the US.

"In fact, by one month of life, there was about a 60 percent reduction in the supply and by six months, which is considered aged in a mouse, there were only a handful of neural stem cells remaining," Wang added.

Neural stem cells help the brain develop initially, then re-populate brain cells lost to usual cell death as well as to trauma, head injury or stroke.

GD3 plays an important role in growth factor signalling which, in turn, tells neural stem cells to proliferate or die.

Wang and colleague Robert K. Yu are optimistic that one day, manipulating levels of growth factors and sugar-containing lipids would enable a more steadfast supply of neural stem cells throughout life.

The study appeared in the Journal of Neuroscience.

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Sugar-rich fat maintains supply of brain stem cells

Aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) protect against the development of colorectal cancer by inducing cell suicide pathways in intestinal stem cells that carry a certain mutated and dysfunctional gene, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) and the School of Medicine. The findings were published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists have long known from animal studies and clinical trials that use of NSAIDs, such as aspirin and ibuprofen, lowers the risk of developing intestinal polyps, which can transform into colon cancer. But they have not known why, said senior investigator Lin Zhang, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, Pitt School of Medicine, and UPCI, a partner with UPMC CancerCenter.

"Our study identifies a biochemical mechanism that could explain how this preventive effect occurs," he said. "These findings could help us design new drugs to prevent colorectal cancer, which is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the country."

The research team performed experiments in animal models and examined tumor samples from patients who had taken NSAIDs and those who hadn't. They found that NSAIDs activate the so-called death receptor pathway, which selectively triggers a suicide program in intestinal stem cells that have a mutation in the APC gene that renders the cells dysfunctional. Healthy cells lack the mutation, so NSAIDs cause them no harm. In that manner, the drugs instigate the early auto-destruction of cells that could lead to precancerous polyps and tumors.

"We want to use our new understanding of this mechanism as a starting point to design better drugs and effective cancer prevention strategies for those at high risk of colon cancer," Dr. Zhang said. "Ideally, we could harness the tumor-killing traits of NSAIDs and avoid possible side effects that can occur with their chronic use, such as gastrointestinal bleeding and ulcers."

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The above story is based on materials provided by University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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NSAIDs prevent colon cancer by inducing death of intestinal stem cells that have mutation

In a study led by Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research member Dr. Julian Martinez-Agosto, UCLA scientists have shown that two genes not previously known to be involved with the immune system play a crucial role in how progenitor stem cells are activated to fight infection. This discovery lays the groundwork for a better understanding of the role progenitor cells can play in immune system response and could lead to the development of more effective therapies for a wide range of diseases.

The two-year study was published online October 30, 2014 ahead of print in the journal Current Biology.

Progenitor cells are the link between stem cells and fully differentiated cells of the blood system, tissues and organs. This maturation process, known as differentiation, is determined in part by the original environment that the progenitor cell came from, called the niche. Many of these progenitors are maintained in a quiescent state or "standby mode" and are ready to differentiate in response to immune challenges (such as stress, infection or disease).

Dr. Gabriel Ferguson, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Martinez-Agosto and first author of the study, built upon the lab's previous research that utilized the blood system of the fruit fly species Drosophila, showing that a specific set of signals must be received by progenitor cells to activate their differentiation into cells that can work to fight infection after injury. Dr. Ferguson focused on two genes previously identified in stem cells but not in the blood system, named Yorkie and Scalloped, and discovered that they are required in a newly characterized cell type called a lineage specifying cell. These cells then essentially work as a switch, sending the required signal to progenitor cells.

The researchers further discovered that when the progenitor cells did not receive the required signal, the fly would not make the mature cells required to fight infection. This indicates that the ability of the blood system to fight outside infection and other pathogens is directly related to the signals sent by this new cell type.

"The beauty of this study is that we now have a system in which we can investigate how a signaling cell uses these two genes Yorkie and Scalloped, which have never before been shown in blood, to direct specific cells to be made," said Dr. Martinez-Agosto, associate professor of human genetics. "It can help us to eventually answer the question of how our body knows how to make specific cell types that can fight infection."

Drs. Martinez-Agosto and Ferguson and colleagues next hope that future studies will examine these genes beyond Drosophila and extend to mammalian models, and that the system will be used by the research community to study the role of the genes Yorkie and Scalloped in different niche environments.

"At a biochemical level, there is a lot of commonality between the molecular machinery in Drosophila and that in mice and humans," said Dr. Ferguson. "This study can further our shared understanding of how the microenvironment can regulate the differentiation and fate of a progenitor or stem cell."

Dr. Martinez-Agosto noted, "Looking at the functionality of these genes and their effect on the immune response has great potential for accelerating the development of new targeted therapies."

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How stem cells can be activated to help immune system respond to infection

Adult stem cells can change the healthcare landscape

A recent Colorado political advertisement highlighting a candidates stance on stem cell research shows the issue is still at the forefront of public consciousness. Part of what makes stem cell research such a hot button issue is the number of persistent myths that propagate many of the heated emotions surrounding the topic.

Much of the stem cell controversy comes from the fact many people only know of embryonic stem cells, which are generated from fertilized, frozen eggs at in-vitro fertilization centers. These are not the only type of stem cells. Other types include umbilical cord blood and adult stem cells.

Umbilical cord blood is extracted from birth and preserved for the future benefit of the child. While this type of stem cell technique is safe and it is becoming commonplace to store the cells, there is currently no way to utilize these cells beyond compassionate care cases which are few and far between. However, adult stem cells are currently in clinical use today and are easily and safely harvested from the patients fat and bone marrow reserves. The adult stem cells can be utilized for a variety of treatment options, which include joint, ligament and tendon injuries, back pain, and autoimmune diseases.

Polls indicate a shifting paradigm in how people view stem cell use and research. A Pew Research survey conducted in 2013 revealed only 16 percent believed non-embryonic stem cell research was immoral. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI recently gave his approval on adult stem cell research, I pray that your commitment to adult stem cell research will bring great blessings for the future of man and genuine enrichment to his culture.

Those with an understanding of adult stem cells know there is no controversy as they do not require the harming of an embryo. While progress in the realm of public opinion is being made, regulatory and administrative difficulties are still hampering medical innovation according to some healthcare experts.

Adult stem cells hold great promise for the future of medicine because of their potential to improve cartilage health, repair lumbar discs, and slow progression of autoimmune diseases. The ability to utilize stem cells from ones own body to safely and naturally heal itself from many different ailments is beginning to revolutionize healthcare.

With more public support and cooperative regulatory policies, adult stem cells have the potential to forever change the healthcare landscape as profoundly as the mark antibiotics made on medicine.

Dr. Scott Brandt

ThriveMD Aspen

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Letter: Adult stem cells can change the healthcare landscape

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In the first study of its kind, Rice University researchers have mapped how information flows through the genetic circuits that cause cancer cells to become metastatic. The research reveals a common pattern in the decision-making that allows cancer cells to both migrate and form new tumors. Researchers say the commonality may open the door to new drugs that interfere with the genetic switches that cancer must flip to form both cancer stem cells and circulating tumor cells -- two of the main players in cancer metastasis.

"Cells have genetic circuits that are used to switch certain behaviors on and off," said biophysicist Eshel Ben-Jacob, a senior investigator at Rice's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics and co-author of a new study in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. "Though some of the circuits for metastasis have been mapped, this is the first study to examine how cancer uses two of those circuits, in concert, to produce not just cancer stem cells, but also dangerous packs of hybrid stem-like-cells that travel in groups to colonize other parts of the body."

Metastasis -- the spread of cancer between organs -- causes more than 90 percent of cancer deaths, but not all tumor cells can metastasize. The switch that many cancer cells use to become metastatic is the circuit that governs the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, or EMT. The EMT, an important feature in embryonic development and wound healing, allows cells to revert back along their developmental path and take on certain stem-like features that allow them to form new tissues and repair tissue damage.

Cancer cells co-opt the EMT process to allow tumor cells to break away and migrate to other parts of the body. Once there, the cells reverse the switch and transition back to epithelial cells to form a new colony.

In 2013, Ben-Jacob and Rice colleagues Jos Onuchic, Herbert Levine, Mingyang Lu and Mohit Kumar Jolly discovered that cancer uses the EMT circuitry as a three-way switch. Rather than simply flipping between the epithelial (E) and mesenchymal (M) states, the study showed that cancer had the ability to form E-M hybrids.

In the new study, Ben-Jacob, Levine, Jolly and Lu teamed with Rice graduate student Bin Huang and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center's Sendurai Mani to examine the interaction between the three-way EMT switch and a second, well-documented genetic switch that gives rise to cancer stem cells (CSCs). The research showed that the CSC circuit also operates as a three-way switch. In addition, the study found "significant correspondence" between the operation of the two switches, which suggests a mechanism that would confer "stemness" on hybrid E-M cancer cells that are known to travel in packs called circulating tumor cells (CTCs).

"According to the prevailing cancer dogma, cells that become fully mesenchymal pose the highest risk of metastasis progression," said Ben-Jacob, adjunct professor of biosciences at Rice. "Indeed, most diagnostic and therapeutic efforts to date have focused on targeting these cells. Notwithstanding that the hybrid cells are more versatile and have the advantage of moving together as a group, they have been assumed to be less harmful than their fully mesenchymal cousins. Our discovery -- that squads of hybrid cancer cells also have 'stemness' characteristics -- challenges this picture."

Jolly, the study's first author, said, "By applying a physics-based approach to understand the dynamics of cancer decision-making, we were able to explain a number of recent experimental observations, including some that seemed contradictory."

Mani, who first showed in 2008 that the EMT switch could produce cells with stem-like properties, said, "Being stem-like means that cells can easily differentiate back to epithelial as well as change their character to found a whole colony of specialist cells that work together. The finding of 'stemness' in E-M hybrids means that those cells will have a better chance to form metastases because they can more easily adapt to newly encountered conditions and become E cells easily at the metastasic niche in a distant organ."

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Decoding the emergence of metastatic cancer stem cells

16 hours ago Amy Ralston, MSU biochemist and molecular biologist, has identified a possible source of stem cells, which can advance regenerative and fertility research. Credit: G.L. Kohuth

When most animals begin life, cells immediately begin accepting assignments to become a head, tail or a vital organ. However, mammals, including humans, are special. The cells of mammalian embryos get to make a different first choice to become the protective placenta or to commit to forming the baby.

It's during this critical first step that research from Michigan State University has revealed key discoveries. The results, published in the current issue of PLOS Genetics, provide insights into where stem cells come from, and could advance research in regenerative medicine. And since these events occur during the first four or five days of human pregnancy, the stage in which the highest percentage of pregnancies are lost, the study also has significant implications for fertility research.

Pluripotent stem cells can become any cell in the body and can be created in two ways. First, they can be produced when scientists reprogram mature adult cells. Second, they are created by embryos during this crucial four-day window of a mammalian pregnancy. In fact, this window is uniquely mammalian, said Amy Ralston, MSU assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and lead author on the study.

"Embryos make pluripotent stem cells with 100 percent efficiency," she said. "The process of reprogramming cells, manipulating our own cells to become stem cells, is merely 1 percent efficient. Embryos have it figured out, and we need to learn how they're doing it."

The researchers' first discovery is that in mouse embryos, the gene, Sox2, appears to be acting ahead of other genes traditionally identified as playing crucial roles in stem cell formation. Simply put, this gene could determine the source of stem cells in mammals. Now researchers are trying to decipher why Sox2 is taking the lead role.

"Now we know Sox2 is the first indicator that a cell is pluripotent," Ralston said. "In fact, Sox2 may be the pre-pluripotent gene. We show that Sox2 is detectable in just one or two cells of the embryo earlier than previously thought, and earlier than other known stem cell genes."

The second discovery is that Sox2 has broader influence than initially thought. The gene appears to help coordinate the cells that make the fetus and the other cells that establish the pregnancy and nurture the fetus.

Future research will focus on studying exactly why Sox2 is playing this role. The team has strong insights, but they want to go deeper, Ralston said.

"Reprogramming is amazing, but it's inefficient," she said. "What we've learned from the embryo is how to improve efficiency, a process that could someday lead to generating stem cells for clinical purposes with a much higher success rate."

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Identifying the source of stem cells

Using pluripotent stem cells researchers have been able to build a mini stomach in the lab.REUTERS

In a first, a miniature stomach was created in the lab by scientists using stem cells.

Pluripotent stem cells that can grow into any cell type were used by scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center to generate the artificial stomach.

The scientists identified the steps in stomach formation in the human embryo and by manipulating these in a petri dishwere able to coax the stem cells to form a mini stomachmeasuring 3 mm in diameter.

They then studied how h.pylori bacteria affected stomach tissues and spread rapidly. The bacteria is responsible for peptic ulcer and stomach cancer.

This first-time molecular generation of a 3D human stomach (called gastric organoid) presents new opportunities for drug discovery, modelling early stages of stomach cancer and studying some of the underpinnings of obesity related diabetes, according to Jim Wells, PhD, principal investigator and a scientist in the divisions of Developmental Biology and Endocrinology at Cincinnati Children's.

The work was conducted in collaboration with researchers at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

The discovery of how to promote formation of three-dimensional gastric tissue with complex architecture and cellular composition is important as mouse models are sometimes not the best fit when studying human ailments, the team said.

The human gastric organoids will be useful to identify biochemical processes in the gut that allow gastric-bypass patients to become diabetes-free soon after surgery before losing significant weight.

Obesity fuelled diabetes and metabolic syndrome are public health challenges, addressing which has been difficult due to lack of reliable laboratory modelling systems.

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Human Stomach Made in the Lab Using Stem Cells