Category Archives: Washington Stem Cells

The world loves meat. So much so that demand for meat products is projected to grow by nearly 70 percent by 2050. But meat production places a significant strain on the planets resources. Research shows that todays meat-producing efforts use one-third of the Earths fresh water and land surface, and generate nearly one-fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions.

But thats not going to stop most of us from eating it because its too darn delicious. The founders behind San Francisco-based Memphis Meats know this, and theyre responding with what could be a disruptive change to the trillion-dollar meat production industry. Memphis Meats is making clean meat. Its also delicious. But theres one problem: It costs about $18,000 a pound.

Well, thats what it costs right now. The hope is that itll cost a lot less in the future. To get the price down to a more palatable level for consumers, the company just raised $17 million (to add to a previous $5 million invested) from the likes of Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and other tech and venture superstars, including food industry giants like Cargill. All of them are super-jazzed by the idea of clean meat.

So what is this stuff?

Its meat thats grown from stem cells in a lab. It uses about 1 percent of the land and 10 percent of the water needed to raise traditional animals and will mostly eliminate the need to feed, breed and slaughter livestock. Plus, the technology works-the company has already produced beef, chicken and duck from stem cells. But, of course, theres a lot more work to do. So the company will be using its newly raised cash to scale up operations and reduce production costs while staffing up-hiring chefs, scientists, creative and business people.

Meat demand is growing rapidly around the world. However, the way conventional meat is produced today creates challenges for the environment, animal welfare and human health, Uma Valeti, the companys chief executive said in a press release. Were going to bring meat to the plate in a more sustainable, affordable and delicious way.

Memphis Meats isnt the only company racing to produce meats in the lab. Competitors like Mosa Foods, Beyond Meats and Impossible Foods (recently featured in a Washington Post piece by Caitlin Dewey) are also working on lab-grown meat products for mass public commercialization. Theres still a long way to go, but the infant industry looks like a great opportunity for both future entrepreneurs and investors. In the meantime, just pass the A-1 sauce, please?

Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based consulting firm and writes regularly for The Washington Posts On Small Business blog.

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Why are Bill Gates and Richard Branson investing in meat that costs $18000 a pound?, by Gene Marks - The Keene Sentinel

It is not everyday that a person gets the opportunity to save someones life. But a forgotten cheek swab over five years ago gave Eric Brown that opportunity. Eric is the BANK VI Hero of the Week.

Eric has worked the Salina Copy Co. for 22 years. Five years ago, while at a Kansas State University football game, he was approached by volunteers who were doing cheek swabs for DKMS, a national bone marrow donor program that works to match donors with cancer patients.

Hesitant at first, Eric finally gave into peer pressure as his friends began filling out the short form and getting their cheeks swabbed.

Eric said he had never even given blood before and was hesitant to even add organ donor to his drivers license but decided to participate anyway.

Five years after being added to the registry, Eric got the call; a 30-year-old Canadian woman with cancer needed a bone marrow transplant and Eric was her only match.

I questioned whether it was even real when I first got the call because they called the office while I was away, Eric said. So I did some research and the timelines matched up. It was all pretty strange at first.

For Eric, there wasnt much of a decision to make. He was flown to Washington, D.C. where he spent six hours in a chair as they collected stem cells from his blood. The stem cells saved the womans life. He later found out that the recipient wouldnt have lived through the end of the month without the transplant.

Eric said the whole experience had a profound affect on him. He has since started working with DKMS, collecting DNA samples through cheek swabs to add people to the registry.

There are about 14,000 people who require this transplant each year and half of them go wanting. Eric said that everyone has a match out there, it is just a matter of finding them and adding them to the registry.

We all have people we are matches with and it is just a matter of time before one of them needs. We were a match all along and it just came to the forefront when she was diagnosed.

Eric said he will continue to put on drives and if anyone is wanting to be added to the registry, they can visit Copy Co. at 2346 Planet Ave for more information.

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Eric Brown, BANK VI Hero of the Week - Salina Post

If mouse studies were transferable to humans, we'd have cured every disease thousands of times. That is the big reason why you shouldn't accept scaremongering about the chemical of the week in the New York Times, or claims about Miracle Vegetables in the Washington Post.

Stem cell therapy is all the rage, with suspect companies sprouting up like supplement stores, claiming to be a benefit for this and that. Often all they have are mouse studies and FDA disclaimers on their side. That's not to say mouse studies are not valuable, they eliminate a lot of bad products, and in some instances mouse models are good analogues of humans, like in HIV infection, but a new paper reveals what chemists have long known: When it comes to the immune system rats are not little people, even "humanized" mice whichhave been engineered to have a human, rather than a murine, immune system.

These animals have been used for decades to study things like the immune response to the transplantation of pancreatic islet cells for diabetes and skin grafts for burn victims. But unlike what would occur in a human patient, the humanized mice are unable to robustly reject the transplantation of genetically mismatched human stem cells. As a result, they can't be used to study the immunosuppressive drugs that patients will likely require after transplant. The researchers conclude that the humanized mouse model is not suitable for studying the human immune response to transplanted stem cells or cells derived from them.

"In an ideal situation, these humanized mice would reject foreign stem cells just as a human patient would," said Joseph Wu, MD, PhD, director of Stanford University School of Medicine's Cardiovascular Institute and professor of cardiovascular medicine and of radiology. "We could then test a variety of immunosuppressive drugs to learn which might work best in patients, or to screen for new drugs that could inhibit this rejection. We can't do that with these animals."

The researchers write in Cell Reports that they were studying pluripotent stem cells, which can become any tissue in the body. They tested the animals' immune response to human embryonic stem cells, which are naturally pluripotent, and to induced pluripotent stem cells. Although iPS cells can be made from a patient's own tissues, future clinical applications will likely rely on pre-screened, FDA-approved banks of stem cell-derived products developed for specific clinical situations, such as heart muscle cells to repair tissue damaged by a heart attack, or endothelial cells to stimulate new blood vessel growth. Unlike patient-specific iPS cells, these cells would be reliable and immediately available for clinical use. But because they won't genetically match each patient, it's likely that they would be rejected without giving the recipients immunosuppressive drugs.

The authors found that two varieties of humanized mice were unable to completely reject unrelated human embryonic stem cells or iPS cells, despite the fact that some human immune cells homed to and were active in the transplanted stem cell grafts. In some cases, the cells not only thrived, but grew rapidly to form cancers called teratomas. In contrast, mice with unaltered immune systems quickly dispatched both forms of human pluripotent stem cells.

The researchers obtained similar results when they transplanted endothelial cells derived from the pluripotent stem cells.

A new mouse model

To understand more about what was happening, they created a new mouse model similar to the humanized mice. Instead of reconstituting the animals' nonexistent immune systems with human cells, however, they used immune and bone marrow cells from a different strain of mice. They then performed the same set of experiments again.

Unlike the humanized mice, these new mice robustly rejected human pluripotent stem cells as well as mouse stem cells from a genetically mismatched strain of mice. In other words, their newly acquired immune systems appeared to be in much better working order.

Although more research needs to be done to identify the cause of the discrepancy between the two types of animals, the researchers speculate it may have something to do with the complexity of the immune system and the need to further optimize the humanized mouse model to perhaps include other types of cells or signaling molecules. In the meantime, they are warning other researchers of potential pitfalls in using this model to screen for immunosuppressive drugs that could be effective after human stem cell transplants.

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For Immune System Stem Cell Studies, Mice Aren't Enough - Science 2.0

Cancer doctors in St. Louis are ready to use a new therapy using a patients own blood to fight their disease.

The therapy, called CAR-T, for chimeric antigen receptor T-cell, involves removing immune cells from the blood, reprogramming them genetically to find and destroy cancer cells and then returning the immune cells to the patient. So far, the therapy has been tested on patients with hard-to-treat advanced blood cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma that kill more than 58,000 Americans a year.

In one small study sponsored by Novartis Pharmaceuticals, 52 of 63 pediatric and young adult patients with relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia went into remission after undergoing CAR-T therapy. The 11 other patients died, seven from the cancer and four from side effects of the treatment.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common childhood cancer, can be effectively treated with chemotherapy, but survival rates drop below 30 percent if the patient relapses. Candidates for CAR-T therapy include an estimated 600 children each year who relapse or do not respond to traditional chemotherapy.

At least 16 of the 20 people who have received CAR-T therapy for leukemia or lymphoma through clinical trials at Washington Universitys Siteman Cancer Center have seen their cancers disappear after treatment.

Ive never seen anything in cancer history with that kind of response, said Dr. Armin Ghobadi, an assistant professor in oncology at Washington University. These are the basically bad, incurable, deadly, unstoppable cancers and patients usually die quickly when we dont give them this treatment.

If approved as expected by the Food and Drug Administration, CAR-T therapy could be available locally within a year. Currently no patients at St. Louis Childrens Hospital qualify for the therapy, but patients are expected to come from neighboring states, said Dr. Robert Hayashi, director of hematology/oncology at the hospital.

This advancement is significant and has already demonstrated that it can be an effective form of therapy, Hayashi said. The ability of being able to show a clear success opens the door in terms of what other cancers can benefit from this exact same strategy.

So far the therapy has shown the most effectiveness in cancers of the blood. Another small trial in China involved 33 out of 35 patients experiencing remission from relapsing multiple myeloma, a plasma cancer, after receiving CAR-T therapy.

For decades, scientists have tried to corral the bodys immune system to fight cancer the way it attacks harmful bacteria or viruses. The immune system has a harder time recognizing cancer cells, allowing them to grow. Re-engineering immune cells to fight cancer cells is like turning on the cars headlights at night, Ghobadi said.

A main challenge with CAR-T therapy is the length of time it can take to reprogram the patients blood cells up to three weeks. Researchers are studying ways to reduce the time frame, including engineering universal CAR-T cells derived from donor blood or umbilical cord blood.

CAR-T therapy is expected to cost up to $500,000 for a one-time treatment. Scientists at Washington University are working to engineer the cells in-house, which could lower the price.

The side effects of the treatment can be severe as the immune system is amplified to fight cancer. A complication called cytokine release syndrome can cause life-threatening reactions including brain swelling. In early studies, one-third to one-half of patients treated with CAR-T therapy developed the syndrome. Because patients will need to be closely monitored, drug companies will limit the treatments availability to a few dozen cancer centers nationwide, including Siteman.

Marie Miceli, 64, was one of the first to be treated with CAR-T cell therapy in a trial at Siteman after several rounds of chemotherapy and a stem cell replacement failed to knock out non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

A year later, Miceli is in remission and just celebrated the birth of her fourth grandchild. Miceli, a real estate agent and branch manager at Berkshire Hathaway in St. Louis, said she was blessed to receive the experimental treatment.

You have to trust those doctors and have faith, she said.

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New treatment for deadly blood cancers expected to be approved soon - STLtoday.com

GALVESTON, Texas (AP) - Two hundred and fifty miles above the Earths surface, scientists have begun testing the limits of human biology. In the sterile environment of the International Space Station, cells are being prodded to grow and multiply.

The Galveston County Daily News reports the goal is to grow human body parts, without the rest of the human attached.

The experiment sounds like a plot for a science fiction movie. But its actually one of the newest experiments to be conducted on the space station. The experiment, launched earlier this month, was designed by a University of Texas Medical Branch team.

Researchers aim to study how stem cells develop in a zero-gravity environment. The results could lead to new possibilities to help with long-distance space flight and terrestrial medical treatments, said Joan Nichols, a professor of internal medicine, and microbiology and immunology and the associate director of the Galveston National Laboratory.

The experiment was developed over the past five years. It was launched as part of the payload aboard a SpaceX Dragon Cargo ship. The ship carried 6,400 pounds of equipment, experiments and supplies, including a freezer full of Blue Bell ice cream cups.

Nichols and her team spent the week before the launch in Florida, preparing the experiment. It went off without a hitch and the capsule has arrived at the space station.

Everything went smoothly, Nichols said.

Nichols has studied lungs and their development on a cellular level for 15 years. The lab, which is focused on studying how lungs grow and heal, is not new to pushing scientific boundaries. In 2015, researchers from the lab successfully transplanted a bioengineered lung into a living pig.

Over time, the limits of growing cells on Earth has become apparent, she said. Studies have already shown that stems cells grow and multiply better in a zero-gravity environment than they do down below, she said.

The results could be used to develop treatments for problems astronauts develop on a long space flight, such as lung disease or traumatic injury.

Weve discovered what our limits are for doing large tissue constructs is the fact that the stem cells dont proliferate very well, Nichols said. Stem cells stay stemmy in space, she said, they dont mature and become other types of cells as fast.

If the cells stay stemmier and produce better, thats a huge thing that we cant do here on Earth, Nichols said. It will answer some questions about these cells.

Nichols and her team will be in communication with NASA and the astronauts on the space station over six weeks as the experiment is conducted. While tests are done in space, her team will replicate the experiment at the Galveston National Laboratory, to provide a control sample to compare the results.

Being able to expand the program to the stars has been a dream come true, Nichols said.

Being at Kennedy and Cape Canaveral, and working at the lab there, at the building where all the Apollo missions happened - I grew up with that, Nichols said. We worked hard and there were really long days, but it really was the most amazing experience ever.

___

Information from: The Galveston County Daily News, http://www.galvnews.com

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University of Texas Medical Branch lung experiment in space - Washington Times

Howard University Hospital's Dr. Ermias Aytenfisu seeks to clear up misconceptions about marrow donation in the minority community.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 21, 2017) Elsa Nega is an Ethiopian-Canadian mother of two young children. She loves her children and wants to watch them grow. However, Nega has a rare form of blood cancer, leukemia, and needs a bone marrow transplant to survive.

Black patients like Nega are the least likely to find their suitable blood marrow match, according to Be The Match which is hosting a Stem Cell/Bone Marrow registry event at the Howard University College of Medicine on Wednesday, Aug. 30 between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. The exact location for the registry drive is the lobby outside of room 1008 in the Numa P. Adams building.

Negas story began in February when she walked into her local ER and was rushed to intensive care. By the next morning Nega was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) and started on chemo immediately. Unlike 90 percent of patients who go into remission after the first round of chemo, she did not.

Now, after three rounds of chemo, a bone marrow transplant is her only hope of recovery. Negas siblings were not a match and she is reaching out to the Washington region because of its large population of people of Ethiopian descent.

There are a lot of myths associated with marrow donation, said Amanda Holk, community engagement representative with the Be The Match in Washington, D.C. There is so much fear surrounding the process but most donors are back to work the next day.

ErmiasM. Aytenfisu, M.D., stroke medical director at Howard University Hospital said the most common way to donate bone marrow is through a procedure called peripheral stem cell donation. No surgery is involved. Donors receive medication to increase peripheral stem cells before the donation. On the day of donation, blood is removed through a needle on one arm and passed through a machine that separates out the blood-forming cells. Uncommonly marrow donation involves surgical techniques that use a special needle to take out blood forming cells. During the procedure, the patient is anesthetized and feels no pain.

Joining the bone marrow registry at the Howard University College of Medicine event involves a simple as a cheek swab and an application. A persons chance of being a match at that point is only 1 in 500. But, for a patient like Elsa, you could be the only one. Elsa does not have a single match on the registry although there are 30 million people signed up.

For more information, contact Amanda Holk via email AHolk@nmdp.org or 202-875-9987

For the Howard University registry drive, please note that you must be between the ages of 18 and 44 to join the registry since research has shown that the younger the cells, the better the patient outcomes. And the following conditions prevent you from joining:

Hepatitis B or C

HIV

Organ, marrow or stem cell transplant recipient

Stroke or TIA (transient ischemic attack)

Other upcoming local events to support Elsa Nega:

*Empower the community (The Helen Show)

Date: 08/26/2017 (Sat.)

Location: Washington Convention Center

*Ethiopian Day Festival

Date: 09/03/2017 (Sun.)

Location: Downtown Silver Spring

About Howard University Hospital

Over the course of its roughly 155-year history of providing the finest primary, secondary and tertiary health care services, Howard University Hospital (HUH) remains one of the most comprehensive health care facilities in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and designated a DC Level 1 Trauma Center. The hospital is the nation's only teaching hospital located on the campus of a historically Black university. For more information, visit huhealthcare.com

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Howard University Hosts 'Be The Match' Marrow Registry Drive - Howard Newsroom (press release)

Here are eight things for spinal surgeons to know for Aug. 24, 2017.

Medtronic Q1 revenue jumps 3% to $7.4BMedtronic reported a slight revenue increase in the first quarter of the 2018 fiscal year. First quarter revenue hit $7.39 billion, up 3 percent over the same period last year. U.S. revenue increased 1 percent to $4 billion, representing 55 percent of the company's overall revenue. Non-U.S. revenue hit $2.3 billion, up 4 percent over the same period last year, and emerging market revenue was $1 billion, up 11 percent over last year.

DuPage Medical Group to grow with $1.45B investmentWith a $1.45 billion investment from Ares Management, DuPage Medical Group is looking to expand its services and the number of physicians, the Chicago Tribune reports. Currently, the group has a team of 800 providers and plans to grow to between 1,200 and 1,500. DuPage Medical Group is also considering expanding further beyond Illinois. Along with adding more physicians, DuPage Medical Group plans to add services such as imaging, immediate care, physical therapy and oncology.

Spineology receives $10M fundingDuring Spineology's latest round of funding, the company secured $10 million. Spineology began taking $25,000 investments for the recently closed round a year ago. The company has not announced its plans for the funding.

Former Yale Spine Co-Chief Dr. James Yue joins Connecticut Orthopaedic SpecialistsJames Yue, MD, joined Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists. He previously served as the co-chief of orthopedic spine surgery at New Haven, Conn.-based Yale School of Medicine and director of the ACGME Yale Spine Fellowship. As a member of Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists, Dr. Yue will see patients in Shelton, Hamden and Essex, Conn.

Merger: Advanced Pain Medicine now under Commonwealth Pain & Spine umbrella Lexington, Ky.-based Advanced Pain Medicine merged with Louisville, Ky.-based Commonwealth Pain & Spine. Commonwealth Pain & Spine consists of more than seven locations and 30 providers. The merger came to fruition due to Advanced Pain Medicine's Saroj Dubal, MD, deciding to retire.

Washington University School of Medicine new spinal cord injury clinical trial siteThe St. Louis-based Washington University School of Medicine is a new clinical study site for Asterias Biotherapeuturics SCiStar clinical trial of AST-OPC1 stem cells in patients with severe cervical spinal cord injuries. W. Zachary Ray, MD, a neurological and orthopedic surgery associate professor at Washington School of Medicine, will lead the site's investigation.

EIT acquires 22 patents from spine surgeon Dr. Morgan LorioEmerging Implant Technologies acquired a portfolio of patents from Morgan P. Lorio, MD, of Nashville, Tenn.-based Hughston Clinic Orthopaedics. The portfolio includes 22 issued and pending patents for 3-D printed expandable spinal fusion cages. EIT plans to leverage this technology to enhance its cellular titanium cages.

Global minimally invasive spine surgery market to grow at 7.6% CAGR through 2021The global minimally invasive spine surgery market is anticipated to grow at a 7.57 percent compound annual growth rate between 2017 and 2021, according to an Absolute Reports analysis. DePuy Synthes, Medtronic, NuVasive, Stryker and Zimmer Biomet lead the global MIS spine market. A key market trend is an increase in MI sacroiliac joint fusion.

More articles on spine:Cord lengthening: Part of comprehensive AIS treatment6 key findings on spinal epidural hematomaThe causes and treatments for spinal hemangiomas

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8 things for spine surgeons to know for Thursday Aug. 24, 2017 - Becker's Orthopedic & Spine

Researchers from Portland, Ore. genetically modified human embryos for the first time on American soil, but this is not a new feat. The process has already been done in China. To date, no genetically modified embryo has been inserted into a womb.

The lead researcher, Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health and Science University, has a history of embryo work and demonstrated this round that its possible to safely remove inherited diseases by changing defective genes. This is called germline engineering. However, none of the embryos were allowed to last longer than a few days and the results are still pending publication.

Germline engineering typically uses CRISPR-Cas9, technology which precisely alters DNA. CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.

At its roots, CRISPR is comprised of a small piece of RNA and a protein called Cas9. The RNA is preprogrammed to match a specific genetic code to then subsequently alter a specific strand of DNA once injected. The RNA guides the injection, and Cas9 tags along because, as an enzyme, it is able to break the DNA at an exact spot.

The challenge is that DNA tends to repair itself pretty fast. To avoid this, some CRISPR injections carry another strand of DNA the cell can use to fix the break thats created, therefore allowing genetic alterations.

The implications are very large, Dr. Charles Murry, Director of the UW Medicines Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, said. It gives us the ability to permanently eradicate a genetic disease from a familys pedigree. And as a physician, thats something thats extremely exciting to me.

Genetic modifications have been around for decades, and CRISPR has applied since early 2013. The possibilities for CRISPR were first realized through a natural bacterial process that defends against invasive viruses also known as this all started with yogurt, surprise.

However, the real breakthrough happened in 2015 with Junjiu Huangs first human embryo edits in China. Scientists are also looking at this system to eliminate pests and the diseases they carry.

Theres another side to it of course, Murry contended. When humans begin to rewrite our own genetic code, and there are all kinds of chances to not only make corrections as we edit but to make new mistakes as we edit we may inadvertently create problems in the attempt to solve others.

UW Health Sciences and Medicine public information editor Leila Gray said UW Medicine researchers are using CRISPR on specific somatic cells, which are the ones that make up your body. These cells were collected from patients with their approval. One team, for example, is trying to edit cells with kidney disease, studying certain conditions in petri dishes. But no UW researcher is reporting work to remove genetic diseases from human embryos.

Currently, the National Institutes of Health wont federally fund this research. However, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine are recommending cautious reconsideration.

Murry predicts that before any of this would apply to a human being, a large animal would have to successfully carry to term a genetically modified embryo. Scientists would also likely have to monitor the newborns life afterward.

There are ethical conundrums with this new technology. Its so concerning that upon its first big embryonic debut, there was a three-day summit in December 2015 for hundreds of local and global scientists, policymakers, and the US presidential science adviser.

Some worry genetic engineering could lead to a dark future where humans are pre-edited for appearance, physical strength, or intelligence.

George Church, a Harvard Medical School geneticist, first told the Washington Post two years ago that there were nearly 2,000 genetic therapy trials already underway that didnt use CRISPR. The difference between those and the few that have is cost.

Its about 1,000 times cheaper for an ordinary academic to do, Church is quoted in the article. It could be a game-changer.

Reach reporter Kelsey Hamlin at news@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @ItsKelseyHamlin

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First human embryo genetically modified in the US - Dailyuw

For those living with Type 1 diabetes, the condition is a part of daily life. Insulin shots, blood sugar monitoring, and carb counting become routine, and patients expect them to stay so for the rest of their lives. This form of diabetes currently has no cure, something researchers have been diligently trying to change. The most recent attempt to take down diabetes comes from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University, who have managed to change stem cells derived from diabetes patients into insulinsecreting cells.

Patients with Type 1 diabetes lack the ability to create their own insulin, meaning they rely on regular injections of the hormone to control blood sugar. The study hints at a possible new therapy for patients that relies on a personalized approach using the patients own cells to create new ones capable of manufacturing the insulin they need. The research, published in Nature Communications, details new cells that produce insulin when they encounter sugar in both culture and mouse trials.

In theory, if we could replace the damaged cells in these individuals with new pancreatic beta cells whose primary function is to store and release insulin to control blood glucose patients with type 1 diabetes wouldnt need insulin shots anymore, said Dr. Jeffery R. Millman, an assistant professor of medicine and biomedical engineering at Washington university and first author of the study, in a press release. The cells we manufactured sense the presence of glucose and secrete insulin in response. And beta cells do a much better job controlling blood sugar than diabetic patients can.

Millman had conducted previous studies involving the creation of beta cells derived from people who did not suffer from diabetes. In the new experiment, however, the stem cells used come from the skin of Type 1 diabetes patients.

There had been questions about whether we could make these cells from people with type 1 diabetes, MIllman said. Some scientists thought that because the tissue would be coming from diabetes patients, there might be defects to prevent us from helping stem cells differentiate into beta cells. It turns out thats not the case.

The idea of replacing beta cells is actually more than two decades old, originating with Washington university researchers Dr. Paul E. Lacy and David W. Sharp, who began transplanting such cells into Type 1 diabetes patients. Today, there has been some success with beta cell transplants, but these cells come from pancreas tissue provided by organ donors. As with all donated types of tissues, cells, and organs,the supply falls short of the demand. The new technique wouldsolve this problem, but Millman said scientists need to conduct more research to make sure the new cells dont cause tumor development a problem that has cropped up in many types of stem cell research. There has been no evidence of tumors so far in the mice, though, even up to a year after cell implantation.

Millman predicts the stem cell-derived beta cells could be ready for testing in humans in three to five years. This process would consist of implanting the cells under the skin of diabetes patients, a minimally invasive procedure that would give the cells access to a the patients blood supply.

What were envisioning is an outpatient procedure in which some sort of device filled with the cells would be placed just beneath the skin, he said.

Millman said that the technique could, in the future, even be used to help those with Type 2 diabetes, neonatal diabetes, and Wolfram syndrome.

Source: Millman J, Xie C, Van Dervort A, Gurtler M, Pagliuca F, Melton D. Generation of Stem Cell-derived B-cells from Patients with Type 1 Diabetes. NatureCommunications.May 10, 2016.

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Stem Cells Of Type 1 Diabetes Patients Transformed Into ...

Scientists have grown stem cells from adults using cloning techniques for the first time bringing them closer to developing patient-specific lines of cells that can be used to treat a whole host of ailments, from heart disease to blindness.

The research, described in Thursdays online edition of the journal Cell Stem Cell, is a controversial advance likely to reopen the debate over the ethics of human cloning.

The scientists technique was similar to the one used in the first clone of a mammal, Dolly the sheep, which was created in 1996.

They reprogrammed an egg cell by removing its DNA and replaced it with that of an adult donor. Scientists then zapped the cell with electricity, which made it divide and multiply. The resulting cells were identical in DNA to the donor.

The first success in humans was reported last year by scientists at the Oregon Health & Science University and the Oregon National Primate Research Center. But they used donor cells from infants. In this study, the cells came from two men, a 35-year-old and a 75-year-old.

Paul Knoepfler, an associate professor at the University of California at Davis who studies stem cells, called the new research exciting, important, and technically convincing.

In theory you could use those stem cells to produce almost any kind of cell and give it back to a person as a therapy, he said.

In their paper, Young Gie Chung from the Research Institute for Stem Cell Research for CHA Health Systems in Los Angeles, Robert Lanza from Advanced Cell Technology in Marlborough, Mass., and their co-authors emphasized the promise of the technology for new therapies. What they didnt mention but was clear to those working with stem cells was that their work was also an important discovery for human cloning.

While the research published Thursday involves cells that are technically an early stage embryo, the intention is not to try to grow them into a fully formed human. However the techniques in theory could be a first step toward creating a baby with the same genetic makeup as a donor.

Bioethicists call this the dual-use dilemma.

Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Berkeley, Calif.-based Center for Genetics and Society, explained that many technologies developed for good can be used in ways that the inventor may not have intended and may not like.

This and every technical advance in cloning human tissue raises the possibility that somebody will use it to clone a human being, and that is a prospect everyone is against, Darnovsky said.

The research was conducted in California by a large team that included representatives from both academia and industry and was funded by a private medical foundation and South Koreas Ministry of Science.

From a technical standpoint, the technique called somatic-cell nuclear transfer is far from perfect. Chungs team attempted the cloning 39 times and only two tries produced embryos. At first they couldnt get the cells to multiply. But it turned out that if the researchers waited two hours instead of 30 minutes before trying to coax the cells, it worked.

We have reaffirmed that it is possible to generate patient-specific stem cells using [this] technology, Chung said.

Shoukhrat Mitalipov, director of the Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy at Oregon Health & Science University, developed the method that Chungs group built upon. He emphasized that the work involves eggs that have not been fertilized.

There will always be opposition to embryonic research, but the potential benefits are huge, Mitalipov said.

Seventeen years ago, news about Dollys birth led to impassioned calls for a ban on human cloning for the purpose of producing a baby who is a genetic copy of someone else. Several countries took measures to limit or outlaw such work. But in the United States, the issue became entangled in the politics of abortion, and Congress became deadlocked. Some lawmakers called for a ban on reproductive human cloning, but others refused to support such legislation unless it included a ban on human cloning whether it was for the purposes of reproduction or for the development of new therapies.

President George W. Bush brokered a compromise of sorts, restricting federal funding from stem cell research that results in harm to a human embryo.

At least 15 states have laws addressing human cloning. About half of them ban both reproductive and therapeutic cloning.

Since embryonic stem cell research began to take off 15 years ago, one of the main challenges scientists have faced is getting the material for their experiments. Many had been getting the cells from embryos left over from fertility treatments, but religious groups such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops vehemently objected to this, arguing that it involves killing a human being because the research involved fertilized eggs.

About seven years ago, scientists discovered they could use a different, molecular approach, called induced pluripotent stem cells, that could turn ordinary cells into stem cells without the need for an egg. While this technique did not present the same ethical issues, researchers soon found that some of the new cells had glitches, and there is still debate over how significant the flaws are. The research conducted by Mitalipov and Chung provides a second way of producing those cells through laboratory techniques.

Ariana Eunjung Cha is a national reporter. She has previously served as the Post's bureau chief in Shanghai and San Francisco, and as a correspondent in Baghdad.

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Cloning advance using stem cells from human adult reopens ...