Infusing stem cells into the brain may help boost recovery after a stroke, according to a pilot study by Imperial College London.

Scientists believe the cells encourage new blood vessels to grow in damaged areas of the brain.

They found most patients were able to walk and look after themselves independently by the end of the trial, despite having suffered severe strokes.

Larger studies are needed to evaluate whether this could be used more widely.

In this early trial - designed primarily to look at the safety of this approach - researchers harvested stem cells from the bone marrow of five people who had recently had a stroke.

'Independent living'

They isolated particular types of stem cells - known as CD34+. These have the ability to stimulate the growth of new blood vessels.

They were infused directly into damaged sections of the brain, via the major artery that supplies this area.

Scientists monitored the patients for six months, charting their ability to carry out everyday activities independently.

Four of the five patients had suffered particularly severe strokes - resulting in the loss of speech and marked paralysis down one side of the body.

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'Stem Cells Show Promise In Stroke Recovery'

Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have proven that when it comes to guiding stem cells into a specific cell type, the stiffness of the extracellular matrix used to culture them really does matter. When placed in a dish of a very stiff material, or hydrogel, most stem cells become bone-like cells. By comparison, soft materials tend to steer stem cells into soft tissues such as neurons and fat cells. The research team, led by bioengineering professor Adam Engler, also found that a protein binding the stem cell to the hydrogel is not a factor in the differentiation of the stem cell as previously suggested. The protein layer is merely an adhesive, the team reported Aug. 10 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Materials.

Their findings affirm Engler's prior work on the relationship between matrix stiffness and stem cell differentiations.

"What's remarkable is that you can see that the cells have made the first decisions to become bone cells, with just this one cue. That's why this is important for tissue engineering," said Engler, a professor at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

Engler's team, which includes bioengineering graduate student researchers Ludovic Vincent and Jessica Wen, found that the stem cell differentiation is a response to the mechanical deformation of the hydrogel from the force exerted by the cell. In a series of experiments, the team found that this happens whether the protein tethering the cell to the matrix is tight, loose or nonexistent. To illustrate the concept, Vincent described the pores in the matrix as holes in a sponge covered with ropes of protein fibers. Imagine that a rope is draped over a number of these holes, tethered loosely with only a few anchors or tightly with many anchors. Across multiple samples using a stiff matrix, while varying the degree of tethering, the researchers found no difference in the rate at which stem cells showed signs of turning into bone-like cells. The team also found that the size of the pores in the matrix also had no effect on the differentiation of the stem cells as long as the stiffness of the hydrogel remained the same.

"We made the stiffness the same and changed how the protein is presented to the cells (by varying the size of the pores and tethering) and ask whether or not the cells change their behavior," Vincent said. "Do they respond only to the stiffness? Neither the tethering nor the pore size changed the cells."

"We're only giving them one cue out of dozens that are important in stem cell differentiation," said Engler. "That doesn't mean the other cues are irrelevant; they may still push the cells into a specific cell type. We have just ruled out porosity and tethering, and further emphasized stiffness in this process."

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The above story is based on materials provided by University of California - San Diego. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Bioengineers: Matrix stiffness is essential tool in stem cell differentiation

An injection of stem cells into the brains of recent stroke victims might help their long-term recovery, according to a promising but preliminary study out of the United Kingdoms Imperial College London.

A strokes occurs when there is an interruption or reduction of blood flow to the brain. The particular stem cells used in this treatment could, in theory, encourage the growth of new blood vessels in the brain, as the BBC explained. Blood vessel growth could help patients suffering from a severe stroke regain the ability to walk, talk and take care of themselves to a greater degree, and with greater speed, than previously possible during recovery. But again, this is just a preliminary study a guide for researchers to a potential new path for stem-cell based stroke treatments.

Working on the hypothesis that this approach mighthave an effect on more recent stroke cases, researcherstreatedpatients within a week of their strokes. The stroke patients in the pilot study demonstrated signs of recovery over a six-month period after treatment. But the small study of just five patients did not demonstrate whether that improvement came from the therapy or from the hospital care the stroke patients also received during the six-month time frame.

However, the sample demonstrated a somewhat remarkable survival and tentative recovery rate, no matter the cause.Four patients of the five were recovering from the most severe form of stroke, which overall has an extremely low rate of patients who survive and can eventually live independently. At the end of the study, all four of those patients were alive. Three were able to live independently.

The next step, the ICLs consultant neurologist Paul Bentley told the Guardian, would be a larger, controlled and randomized study with 50 patients. That study, for which the group is currently seeking funding, would look to discernwhether the pilot studys promising results really had anything to do with the treatment.

Abby Ohlheiser is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post. Before that, she wrote about news, politics, and religion for the Atlantic's Wire, and covered breaking news for Slate. She also has bylines at Religion and Politics, the Revealer, and the Columbia Journalism Review.

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A stem cell study shows promising results for severe stroke patients

Regenerated stem cells could well prove a cure for HIV/AIDS
Regenerated stem cells could well prove a cure for HIV/AIDS. A Berlin Patient is living proof of this. He underwent a stem cell transplant in 2007.

By: SABC Digital News

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Regenerated stem cells could well prove a cure for HIV/AIDS - Video

By Amy Norton HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Aug. 7, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- In a step toward using stem cells to treat paralysis, scientists were able to use cells from an elderly man's skin to regrow nerve connections in rats with damaged spinal cords.

Reporting in the Aug. 7 online issue of Neuron, researchers say the human stem cells triggered the growth of numerous axons -- the fibers that extend from the body of a neuron (nerve cell) to send electrical impulses to other cells.

Some axons even reached the animals' brains, according to the team led by Dr. Mark Tuszynski, a professor of neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego.

"This degree of growth in axons has not been appreciated before," Tuszynski said. But he cautioned that there is still much to be learned about how the new nerve fibers behave in laboratory animals.

Tuszynski likened the potential for stem-cell-induced axon growth to nuclear fusion. If it's contained, you get energy; if it's not contained, you get an explosion.

"Too much axon growth into the wrong places would be a bad thing," Tuszynski said.

For years, researchers have studied the potential for stem cells to restore functioning nerve connections in people with spinal cord injuries. Stem cells are primitive cells that have the capacity to develop into various types of body tissue. Stem cells can come from embryos or be generated from cells taken from a person.

For their study, Tuszynski's team used so-called induced pluripotent stem cells. They took skin cells from a healthy 86-year-old man and genetically reprogrammed them to become similar to embryonic stem cells.

Those stem cells were then used to create primitive neurons, which the researchers embedded into a special scaffold created with the help of proteins called growth factors. From there, the human neurons were grafted into lab rats with spinal cord injuries.

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Scientists Inch Closer Toward Using Stem Cells for Spinal Injuries

Ghost Organs, Stem Cells, and Frankensteins Transplant Technology

If youre a biotech investor, youre undoubtedly aware of the buzz regarding 3D bioprinting. There have been scores of articles and video presentations in popular outlets heralding the end to transplant organ shortages.

Using living cells rather than inanimate construction materials, 3D printing technologies have been used to build models of organs and other tissues. Excitement about the possibility of mass-produced bioprinted transplant organs has fueled a massive inpouring of capital into companies working on this seemingly science fiction technology.

Im not writing today to tell you that bioprinting will never succeed in producing viable transplant organs, though the technology has a long way to go with many problems to solve in its path. Ive lived long enough to know that underestimating future scientific progress is a pastime popular among fools and stock shorters. On the contrary, Im writing to tell you an even older biotechnology is much, much nearer the target of lab-grown transplant organs.

A few weeks ago, John Mauldin and I visited the Minnesota labs of a company that is pursuing the same goal of transplant organs. During that visit, we held ghost organs, as they are sometimes called, in our hands. In these pictures, John is holding a completely decellularized pig heart. Whats left is the white extracellular matrix, the scaffolding upon which living cells attached.

We also talked at length to the scientists who believe this new biotechnology will solve the primary problem facing 3D bioprinting. Essentially, that problem is that the myriad processes involved in new organ growth are impossible to duplicate in todays bioprinters.

Our bodies, including our organs, all began as undifferentiated embryonic stem cells. Each embryonic stem cell contains the totality of the genome that will eventually grow into a fully functional human or other animal. Moreover, these cells are immortal, meaning they dont age until they have differentiated into one of the many adult forms of cells that make up our impossibly complex bodies.

Nothing is more awe-inspiring than that process of transformation from a single zygote to a complete organism with about 37.2 trillion cells. At this point, its impossible to say exactly how many different cell types exist in our body, but the number is enormous.

Somehow, however, a few undifferentiated stem cells, starting with a single zygote, transform into a complete human being with a full range of organs that function precisely down to the level of individual molecules. The powers inherent in embryonic stem cells also exist, by the way, in certain induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

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Ghost Organs, Stem Cells, and Frankensteins Transplant Technology