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Size of biomarker associated with improved survival following transplantation

Posted: February 10, 2015 at 7:45 pm

Among patients with severe aplastic anemia who received stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor, longer leukocyte (white blood cells) telomere length (a structure at the end of a chromosome) was associated with increased overall survival at 5 years, according to a study in the February 10 issue of JAMA.

Telomeres protect chromosome ends and are essential for maintaining chromosomal stability. Telomere length is a biological marker for cellular aging and the capacity to replicate. Aplastic anemia is a blood disorder where the bone marrow fails to make new blood cells, with one of the causes potentially being defects in telomere biology. Allogeneic (genetically different) hematopoietic (blood marrow) cell transplantation (HCT) is recommended as initial therapy for young patients with acquired severe aplastic anemia when a matched sibling donor is available, according to information in the article.

Shahinaz M. Gadalla, M.D., Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, M.D. and colleagues evaluated the association between recipient and donor pretransplant leukocyte telomere length with outcomes after unrelated donor allogeneic HCT for 330 patients with severe aplastic anemia. The patients and their unrelated donors had pre-HCT blood samples and other clinical results available at the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research. Patients underwent HCT between 1989 and 2007 in 84 centers and were followed-up to March 2013. Leukocyte telomere length for both recipient and donor analyses was categorized based on the leukocyte telomere length tertiles (one of three groups) in the donors: long (third tertile) and short (first and second tertiles combined).

The researchers found that longer donor leukocyte telomere length was associated with a higher overall survival (5-year overall survival was 56 percent vs 40 percent in the short donor leukocyte telomere length group). After adjusting for donor age and clinical factors associated with survival following HCT in severe aplastic anemia, the risk of post-HCT all-cause mortality remained approximately 40 percent lower in patients receiving HCT from donors with long vs short leukocyte telomere length. Similar patterns were observed by subtypes of the disease.

There was no association between donor leukocyte telomere length and engraftment or graft-vs-host dis ease (a complication of bone marrow transplantation). Recipient telomere length was not associated with patient overall survival.

"Among patients with severe aplastic anemia who received unrelated donor allogeneic HCT, longer donor leukocyte telomere length was associated with increased overall survival at 3 and 5 years," the authors write. "This observational study suggests that donor leukocyte telomere length may have a role in long-term post-transplant survival."

Editorial: Telomere Length in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation for Severe Aplastic Anemia

"If donor leukocyte telomere length is shown to be associated with survival in other hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) patient populations, can leukocyte telomere length become one of the factors used to choose the best available donor in matched unrelated donor HSCT (or other types of HSCT)," ask Ayman Saad, M.D., Shin Mineishi, M.D., and Racquel Innis-Shelton, M.D., of the Blood and Marrow Transplantation & Cell Therapy Program, Birmingham, Alabama, in an accompanying editorial.

"The test to determine leukocyte telomere length is widely available, but it is left to each center to determine whether to use it and if so, which test to use. If the procedure is not well standardized, comparison between centers would be difficult or impossible. In addition, leukocyte telomere length may change with aging; thus, leukocyte telomere length results would need to be repeated each time confirmatory typing is performed on the same donor."

"Many questions and issues need to be resolved before leukocyte telomere length can be used as one of the factors to determine the best available donor. Nevertheless, the report by Gadalla et al opens up a new area of scientific investigation. Further studies are warranted to define and optimize the potential role of leukocyte telomere length in selecting donors and improving outcomes for patients with severe aplastic anemia who receive HSCT."

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Size of biomarker associated with improved survival following transplantation

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Jeunesse Indonesia ~ Teknologi Stem Cells Resep Awet Muda – Video

Posted: February 10, 2015 at 11:40 am


Jeunesse Indonesia ~ Teknologi Stem Cells Resep Awet Muda
Jeunesse #Luminesce See more: http://burinwag.weebly.com/ Register to Jeunesse Global business / Order product, Click here: http://www.burinwag.jeunesseglobal.com/

By: burin junwichai

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Stem cells treatment for chronic pain: What can I expect? (Part 3) – Video

Posted: February 10, 2015 at 11:40 am


Stem cells treatment for chronic pain: What can I expect? (Part 3)
https://plus.google.com/+ColumbiaPainManagementPCHoodRiver/ (541) 716-6469 What can I expect if I have stem cell treatment for chronic pain due to arthritis? Doctors at Columbia Pain ...

By: Trey Rigert

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Stem cells treatment for chronic pain: What can I expect? (Part 3) - Video

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EWTN Live – 2015.2.4 – Alan Moy – John Paul II Medical Research Institute – Video

Posted: February 10, 2015 at 11:40 am


EWTN Live - 2015.2.4 - Alan Moy - John Paul II Medical Research Institute
Founder of the John Paul II Medical Research Institute, Dr. Alan Moy discusses adult stem cell research and other pro-life projects the organization is worki...

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Saint Lukes Mid America Heart Institute Offers Tips & Treatments For Heart Failure Awareness Week 2015

Posted: February 10, 2015 at 6:01 am

Kansas City, MO (PRWEB) February 09, 2015

One in five Americans will develop heart failure in their lifetime. It is the number one cause of hospitalization for adults over 65. The cost to treat heart failure is $32 billion and expected to double by 2030. There is no doubt heart failure is a significant health problem. The good news is proper care and treatment can dramatically improve a patients outcome and potentially promising new treatments are on the horizon.

February 8-14, 2015 is National Heart Failure Awareness Week. Saint Lukes Mid America Heart Institute, in Kansas City, Missouri specializes in treating heart failure and other complex cardiovascular conditions and has long been one of the leaders in cardiovascular care not only in the Midwest, but across the country.

Heart failure occurs when the heart is unable to efficiently move blood to the rest of the body either due to thickening or weakness. Onset can come from a variety of causes including heart attack, viral illness, abnormal heart valves, genetic traits and even after pregnancy. Symptoms can be subtle; shortness of breath, fatigue, dizziness, swelling in the legs and or stomach.

The good news is a variety of treatments are available and proper care and treatment can dramatically improve symptoms and quality of life for patients.

Treatments include:

The exciting news for patients is we have promising treatments currently in the research phase of development, said Bethany Austin, M.D., Associate Medical Director of the Advanced Heart Failure Program at Saint Lukes Mid America Heart Institute. These treatments range from clinical trials involving catheter based treatments, treatment of sleep apnea, and gene therapy with stem cells for damaged heart muscles. In addition, there is a new medication which has shown in recent trials to provide significant benefit to heart failure patients compared to standard therapy although it is not yet commercially available. All of these offer new hope to heart failure patients.

Saint Lukes offers a multidisciplinary heart team, including the regions only team of cardiologists board certified in Advanced Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant, cardiothoracic surgeons, and critical care anesthesiologists.

The Saint Lukes Heart Failure Program also features:

In 2014, The Joint Commission awarded Saint Lukes Hospital Advanced Certification in Heart Failure. Only 53 other hospitals in the United States currently have Advanced Heart Failure Certification. Saint Lukes Hospital also received the Get With The GuidelinesHeart Failure Gold-Plus Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Foundation secondary prevention guidelines for heart failure patients.

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IU researchers create the inner ear from stem cells …

Posted: February 10, 2015 at 6:01 am

INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana University scientists have transformed mouse embryonic stem cells into key structures of the inner ear. The discovery provides new insights into the sensory organ's developmental process and sets the stage for laboratory models of disease, drug discovery and potential treatments for hearing loss and balance disorders.

A research team led by Eri Hashino, Ph.D., Ruth C. Holton Professor of Otolaryngology at Indiana University School of Medicine, reported that by using a three-dimensional cell culture method, they were able to coax stem cells to develop into inner-ear sensory epithelia -- containing hair cells, supporting cells and neurons -- that detect sound, head movements and gravity. The research was reported online in the journal Nature.

Previous attempts to "grow" inner-ear hair cells in standard cell culture systems have worked poorly in part because necessary cues to develop hair bundles -- a hallmark of sensory hair cells and a structure critically important for detecting auditory or vestibular signals -- are lacking in the flat cell-culture dish. But, Dr. Hashino said, the team determined that the cells needed to be suspended as aggregates in a specialized culture medium, which provided an environment more like that found in the body during early development.

The team mimicked the early development process with a precisely timed use of several small molecules that prompted the stem cells to differentiate, from one stage to the next, into precursors of the inner ear. But the three-dimensional suspension also provided important mechanical cues, such as the tension from the pull of cells on each other, said Karl R. Koehler, B.A., the paper's first author and a graduate student in the medical neuroscience graduate program at the IU School of Medicine.

"The three-dimensional culture allows the cells to self-organize into complex tissues using mechanical cues that are found during embryonic development," Koehler said.

"We were surprised to see that once stem cells are guided to become inner-ear precursors and placed in 3-D culture, these cells behave as if they knew not only how to become different cell types in the inner ear, but also how to self-organize into a pattern remarkably similar to the native inner ear," Dr. Hashino said. "Our initial goal was to make inner-ear precursors in culture, but when we did testing we found thousands of hair cells in a culture dish."

Electrophysiology testing further proved that those hair cells generated from stem cells were functional, and were the type that sense gravity and motion. Moreover, neurons like those that normally link the inner-ear cells to the brain had also developed in the cell culture and were connected to the hair cells.

Additional research is needed to determine how inner-ear cells involved in auditory sensing might be developed, as well as how these processes can be applied to develop human inner-ear cells, the researchers said.

However, the work opens a door to better understanding of the inner-ear development process as well as creation of models for new drug development or cellular therapy to treat inner-ear disorders, they said.

(Update: A detailed description of the processes used in this research was published online in Nature Protocols on May 1, 2014.)

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Biotech firm Cell Therapy claims crowdfunding record with heart drug

Posted: February 10, 2015 at 5:47 am

Cell Therapy, which is based in the Welsh capital Cardiff, says the medicine has the potential to reduce scarring of the heart muscle caused by a heart attack or failure.

Chief executive Ajan Reginald, who was previously at Roche, said crowd funding was a quick way to raise money for final stage trials or commercial launches.

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"It was very fast and very efficient," he said. "We have spent five per cent of our time on fundraising, which enables me to spend 95 per cent of my time on the business."

The company's founder Martin Evans shared the 2007 Nobel Prize for medicine for groundbreaking stem cell research.

Cell Therapy used website Crowdcube to raise nearly three times its original target from more than 300 investors.

Mr Reginald said the backers included investment bankers, hedge fund employees and scientists.

"Crowd funding allows investors to look in detail at a company in their own time," he said, adding that some 10,000 investors had seen the pitch.

The company plans to publish data from clinical trials of the drug, called Heartcel, next month, before final stage trials with a view to a launch in 2016.

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Biotech firm Cell Therapy claims crowdfunding record with heart drug

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The stem-cell miracle is anecdotal

Posted: February 10, 2015 at 5:44 am

On the weekend, a whos who of hockey legends gathered to pay tribute to Gordie Howe in his hometown of Saskatoon.

In addition to sharing memories about Mr. Hockey, a constant theme of the festivities was his miracle recovery from stroke.

Mr. Howe, 86, suffered two strokes last year and, according to his family, was near death before he travelled to Clinica Santa Clarita in Tijuana, Mexico, in December for experimental stem-cell treatment.

Afterward, Mr. Howe was able to walk again. He regained a lot of weight and he began to resemble his old self. (Most of this is second-hand; Mr. Howe also suffers from dementia and has not or cannot speak of his symptoms or treatment first-hand.)

After his stem-cell treatment, the doctor told us it was kind of an awakening of the body, his son, Marty Howe, told The Canadian Press. They call it the miracle of stem cells and it was nothing less than a miracle.

Mr. Howes Lazarus-like recovery makes for a great tug-at-the-heartstrings narrative for a man whose career has been the embodiment of perseverance and longevity. But if you step back a moment and examine the science, all sorts of alarm bells should go off.

Stem cells, which were discovered in the early 1960s, have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cells, at least in the embryonic stage. They also serve as the bodys internal repair system.

The notion that spinal cords and limbs and heart muscle and brain cells could be regenerated holds a magical appeal.

But, so far, stem-cell therapies have been used effectively to treat only a small number of blood disorders, such as leukemia. (Canada has a public bank that collects stem cells from umbilical-cord blood and a program to match stem-cell donors with needy patients.)

Stem cells also show promise in the treatment of conditions such as spinal-cord injuries, Parkinsons and multiple sclerosis, but those hopes have not yet moved from the realm of science-fiction into clinical medicine.

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Hackensack biotech company gets Israeli patent for therapy

Posted: February 10, 2015 at 5:43 am

* BrainStorm develops cell treatments for neurodegenerative diseases

BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc., a biotechnology company in Hackensack, said Monday that it has received patent approval in Israel for its NurOwn technology.

NurOwn is self-transplanting adult stem-cell therapy.

BrainStorm said it received a notice of allowance from Israel's Patent Office for the rights to methods of producing neurotrophic, factor-secreting cells derived from mesenchymal stem cells and methods of using those cells for the treatment of neurologic diseases. The patent is held jointly with Tel Aviv University's technology transfer company, Ramot.

"This patent allowance in Israel further extends the geographic reach of our intellectual property, as we already have received similar claims in the U.S., with additional filings pending elsewhere," said BrainStorm's chief executive officer, Tony Fiorino, in a statement.

BrainStorm develops adult cell therapies from bone marrow cells to treat neurodegenerative diseases.

The business also has operations in Israel.

Email: anzidei@northjersey.com

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Cell Therapy may have just raised $1M, but will crowdfunding have a lasting place in biotech?

Posted: February 9, 2015 at 5:52 pm

Biotechs may be flush with cash, thanks to the ol bullish IPO market and an uptick in venture funding. But startups remainon the lookout for alternative funding models with crowdsourcing front and center.

This makes British biotech startup Cell Therapyparticularly interesting,itjustraised 689,246 or a bit over$1 million to launch a stem cell therapy for heart failure. This is one of the highest life sciences-related crowdfunding efforts topped only by Scanadu, whose handheld consumer diagnostic tool raised $1.6 million in Indiegogo.

Cell Therapy, which was founded by 2007 Nobel Prize winner Martin Evans, raised the funding on thesite Crowdcube exceeding its goal of 250,000 with backing from nearly 300 investors. It ceded a mere 0.39% in equity to the backers thatinclude investment bankers, hedge fund employees and scientists, CEO Ajan Reginald said.

It was very fast and very efficient, Reginaldtold Reuters. We have spent 5 percent of our time on fundraising, which enables me to spend 95 percent of my time on the business.

Crowdfunding is increasingly becoming an option for early stage biotechs that want to sidestep the traditional venture-backed approach. On one hand, its a relatively simple means to raise a large amount of seed capital but on the other, there are many more (potentially irate) investors to answer to when a companys in its nascence.

New York-based Poliwoggs entire premise is on bringing crowdfunding to healthcare with aims to help companies raise fundsfrom accredited investors beyond the seed stage, with rounds ranging from $2 million to $10 million mark.Notably, ithas its own regenerative medicine fund.

Part of the idea here is that people want to invest in the things they care about, but they havent always had the opportunity to invest in them, CEO Greg Simon told MedCity News.Were giving people the opportunity to put their money where their passion is.

Thats all fine and good to have a passion for a cause, but the traditional accredited investor whos enmeshed in a crowdfunding effort may still not understand the intricacies of what it takes to get results or a return in a tricky field like regenerative medicine.

John Carroll over atFierce Biotechopined that crowdfunding wont make a significant dent in the approach to life sciences crowdfunding. Stem cell therapy, after all, generated tons of media pomp and flair a decade ago, but has yet to deliver on many of its curative promises from back then. VCs are often burnt and reticent, and investors on crowdfunding sites will likely be, as well. Carroll says:

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Cell Therapy may have just raised $1M, but will crowdfunding have a lasting place in biotech?

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