Posted: July 23, 2014 at 12:41 pm
Scientists Find New Way To Make Human Platelets
Boston scientists have discovered a new way to create fully functioning human platelets using a bioreactor and human stem cells. Follow Follow Lauren Gores: http://www.twitter.com/laurengores...
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Scientists Find New Way To Make Human Platelets - Video
Posted: July 23, 2014 at 8:40 am
Written by The Edge Wednesday, 23 July 2014 17:20
Cordlife Group said it has partnered China Cord Blood Corporation, the leading provider of cord blood collection and stem-cell storage services on the Mainland, today announced that the two companies have joined forces in assisting patients in China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, the Philippines and Malaysia to identify suitable cord blood matching units for stem cell therapy.
China Cord Blood Corporation is the first and largest umbilical cord blood banking operator in China in terms of geographical coverage and the only cord blood banking operator with multiple licenses. Under current Chinese government regulations, only one licensed cord blood banking operator is permitted to operate in each licensed region and only seven licenses have been authorised as of today. China Cord Blood Corporation provides cord blood collection, laboratory testing, hematopoietic stem cell processing, and stem cell storage services.
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Cordlife Group partners China Cord Blood Corporation to help Asian patients
Posted: July 23, 2014 at 8:40 am
Brescia hospital ordered to let discredited therapy resume
(ANSA) - Brescia, July 22 - A controversial stem-cell treatment was administered to a child suffering from muscular dystrophy at a hospital in northern Italy on Tuesday despite having been discredited. The Stamina treatment was administered on the orders of a Sicilian court after the hospital in Brescia decided to suspend the procedure on the boy suffering from Duchenne muscula dystrophy because it had been called into doubt. The child "will remain in observation for a few hours and we will carry out a few tests," said Giuseppe Morfino, the court-appointed doctor leading the external team that performed the treatment. Morfino added that the atmosphere at the hospital had been cooperative. The credibility of the Stamina treatment, which involves extracting bone-marrow stem cells from a patient, supposedly turning them into neurons by exposing them to retinoic acid for two hours, and injecting them back into the patient, has long been suspect, and last autumn the health ministry ruled that the Stamina Foundation would no longer be allowed to test the treatment on humans. The foundation was also stripped of its non-profit status after a study found its treatment was "ignorant of stem-cell biology". Recent investigations have shown risks of the treatment range from nausea to cancer, and reported that as many as one-quarter of all patients treated have experienced "adverse effects". In April, after study results became known, hospitals in Italy announced they had suspended the stem-cell treatment program. However, some local judges have ruled in favor of its application, despite the bans, amid heavy pressure from advocates and the families of patients.
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Controversial Staminia treatment carried out on sick boy
Posted: July 22, 2014 at 5:46 pm
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
22-Jul-2014
Contact: Kathryn Ruehle kruehle@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
New Rochelle, NY -- Stem cells offer much promise for treating damaged organs and tissues, but with current transplantation approaches stem cell survival is poor, limiting their effectiveness. New methods are being developed and tested to improve the survival and optimize their therapeutic function after transplantation, as described in a Review article in BioResearch Open Access, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the BioResearch Open Access website.
In the article 'Preconditioning Stem Cells for In Vivo Delivery,' Sbastien Sart, Ecole Polytechnique (Palaiseau, France) and Teng Ma and Yan Li, Florida State University (Tallahassee) examine the leading strategies for preconditioning stem cells prior to transplantation to prepare them for the environment often found in damaged tissue. Preconditioning methods might include exposing stem cells to microenvironments characterized by reduced oxygen levels, heat shock, and oxidative stress, creating three-dimensional stem cell aggregates or microtissues, and using hydrogels in which to embed or encapsulate the cells.
"This article provides an extensive review of the current methods of stem cell preconditioning for transplantation," says BioResearch Open Access Editor Jane Taylor, PhD, MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. "It also highlights the cutting edge technologies employed to do this."
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About the Journal
BioResearch Open Access is a bimonthly peer-reviewed open access journal led by Editor-in-Chief Robert Lanza, MD, Chief Scientific Officer, Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. and Editor Jane Taylor, PhD. The Journal provides a new rapid-publication forum for a broad range of scientific topics including molecular and cellular biology, tissue engineering and biomaterials, bioengineering, regenerative medicine, stem cells, gene therapy, systems biology, genetics, biochemistry, virology, microbiology, and neuroscience. All articles are published within 4 weeks of acceptance and are fully open access and posted on PubMedCentral. All journal content is available on the BioResearch Open Access website.
About the Publisher
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Novel methods may help stem cells survive transplantation into damaged tissues
Posted: July 22, 2014 at 5:41 pm
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) July 22, 2014
MetroMD, one of the leading names in regenerative medicines in all of California and one of the greatest proponents of holistic health services, now brings a reason to rejoice for individuals long suffering from debilitating arthritis. As per a report published on March 6 2013, by The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery on The US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health (Ref: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3748969/), on an average, around 500,000 revision of knee replacement surgeries were recorded in the US - with the prime reason being osteoarthritis in majority of these cases. And If Mr. Devin Stone, MetroMDs Operations Director is to be believed, the cumulative cost of the treatment is estimated to be around $50 billion every year.
The cost covers hospitals bills, doctors visits, medicine, etc and makes arthritic treatment, which often requires a repeat procedure, a hugely burdensome endeavor. But the fact is, even after spending so much of money, one is not sure about getting fully relieved from the agony that arthritis brings to ones life. Arthritis appears in many forms and the expresses itself as joint pain, stiffness and limited body movement in a patient, says Dr Alex Martin, MD, MetroMDs Director of Medicines. MetroMD, ensures that patients can put aside all these concerns and enjoy complete healing that only an advanced Stem cell therapy for arthritis can promise, says Dr. Martin highlighting the fact regarding how pocket-friendly the treatment is. One can regain a healthy knee, while retaining the health of his/her money bag now with MetroMDs stem cell therapy.
How does MetroMDs Stem cell therapy Work?
MetroMDs stem cell treatment process includes extraction of healthy bone marrow out of the patients body by experts and placing it in a centrifuge. After segregating various elements of blood, the stem cell is isolated and placed with cellular growth promoters (found in platelets). All of these are then inserted into the part of the body, ensuring a quicker tissue-based healing.
Mr. Devin Stone exuded confidence in mentioning that MetroMDs stem cell therapies come as a great alternative to invasive surgeries - making way for easier and quicker knee replacements and arthritic treatment.
Is the stem cell therapy safe?
Dr. Alex Martin says, If you are suffering from chronic joint paint due to arthritis, surgery is not anymore the only answer. Stem Cell Therapy can provide an amazing alternative, where your own cells are used to promote healing inside your body. Medicine has advanced significantly in the last 15 years and persistence with the techniques that were pioneered over two decades ago is illogical- and newer and less invasive procedures are the future of medicine.
Backed by the fact that stem cell treatment is a minimally invasive procedure requiring little or no hospitalization, Dr Martins and MetroMDs stance towards propagating stem cell therapy looks only logical. The procedure is legal and the therapy rendered by MetroMD is in compliance with CFR 21 part 1271 standards. Being a non surgical process, evidently, its the safest and totally side-effect free process.
Dr. Martin welcomes the residents of LA suffering from debilitating arthritic condition to consult an expert at its branches spread across in several parts of Los Angeles - and enjoy an improved quality of life.
Posted: July 22, 2014 at 4:43 am
WASHINGTON No batteries required: Scientists are developing a biological pacemaker by injecting a gene into the hearts of sick pigs that changed ordinary cardiac cells into a special kind that induces a steady heartbeat.
The study, published on Wednesday, is one step toward developing an alternative to electronic pacemakers, which are implanted in 300,000 Americans a year.
There are people who desperately need a pacemaker but can't get one safely, said Dr. Eduardo Marban, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, who led the work. This development heralds a new era of gene therapy that one day might offer them an option.
Your heartbeat depends on a natural pacemaker, a small cluster of cells it's about the size of a peppercorn, Marban said that generates electrical activity. Called the sinoatrial node, it acts like a metronome to keep the heart pulsing at 60 to 100 beats a minute or so, more when you're active. If that node quits working correctly, hooking the heart to an electronic pacemaker works very well for most people.
But about 2 percent of recipients develop an infection that requires the pacemaker to be removed for weeks until antibiotics wipe out the germs, Marban said. And some fetuses are at risk of stillbirth when their heartbeat falters, a condition called congenital heart block.
For more than a decade, teams of researchers have worked on a biological alternative that might help those kinds of patients, trying such approaches as using stem cells to spur the growth of a new sinoatrial node.
Marban's attempt uses gene therapy to reprogram a small number of existing heart muscle cells so that they start looking and acting like natural pacemaker cells instead.
Because pigs' hearts are so similar to human hearts, Marban's team studied the approach in 12 laboratory pigs with a defective heart rhythm.
They used a gene called TBX18 that plays a role in the embryonic development of the sinoatrial node. Working through a vein, they injected the gene into some of the pigs' hearts in a spot that doesn't normally initiate heartbeats and tracked them for two weeks.
Two days later, treated pigs had faster heartbeats than control pigs who didn't receive the gene, the researchers reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine. That heart rate automatically fluctuated, faster during the day. The treated animals also became more active, without signs of side effects.
Posted: July 21, 2014 at 6:48 pm
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
21-Jul-2014
Contact: Diana Yates diya@illinois.edu 217-333-5802 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A new study in mice reveals that mesenchymal (mezz-EN-chem-uhl) stem cells (MSCs) help rejuvenate skeletal muscle after resistance exercise.
By injecting MSCs into mouse leg muscles prior to several bouts of eccentric exercise (similar to the lengthening contractions performed during resistance training in humans that result in mild muscle damage), researchers were able to increase the rate of repair and enhance the growth and strength of those muscles in the exercising mice.
The findings, described in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, may one day lead to new interventions to combat age-related declines in muscle structure and function, said University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor Marni Boppart, who led the research.
"We have an interest in understanding how muscle responds to exercise, and which cellular components contribute to the increase in repair and growth with exercise," she said. "But the primary goal of our lab really is to have some understanding of how we can rejuvenate the aged muscle to prevent the physical disability that occurs with age, and to increase quality of life in general as well."
MSCs occur naturally in the body and may differentiate into several different cell types. They form part of the stroma, the connective tissue that supports organs and other tissues.
MSCs also excrete growth factors and, according to the new study, stimulate muscle precursor cells, called satellite cells, to expand inside the tissue and contribute to repair following injury. Once present and activated, satellite cells actually fuse to the damaged muscle fibers and form new fibers to reconstruct the muscle and enhance strength.
"Satellite cells are a primary target for the rejuvenation of aged muscle, since activation becomes increasingly impaired and recovery from injury is delayed over the lifespan," Boppart said. "MSC transplantation may provide a viable solution to reawaken the aged satellite cell."
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Stem cells aid muscle repair and strengthening after resistance exercise
Posted: July 21, 2014 at 6:48 pm
A new study in mice reveals that mesenchymal (mezz-EN-chem-uhl) stem cells (MSCs) help rejuvenate skeletal muscle after resistance exercise.
By injecting MSCs into mouse leg muscles prior to several bouts of eccentric exercise (similar to the lengthening contractions performed during resistance training in humans that result in mild muscle damage), researchers were able to increase the rate of repair and enhance the growth and strength of those muscles in the exercising mice.
The findings, described in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, may one day lead to new interventions to combat age-related declines in muscle structure and function, said University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor Marni Boppart, who led the research.
"We have an interest in understanding how muscle responds to exercise, and which cellular components contribute to the increase in repair and growth with exercise," she said. "But the primary goal of our lab really is to have some understanding of how we can rejuvenate the aged muscle to prevent the physical disability that occurs with age, and to increase quality of life in general as well."
MSCs occur naturally in the body and may differentiate into several different cell types. They form part of the stroma, the connective tissue that supports organs and other tissues.
MSCs also excrete growth factors and, according to the new study, stimulate muscle precursor cells, called satellite cells, to expand inside the tissue and contribute to repair following injury. Once present and activated, satellite cells actually fuse to the damaged muscle fibers and form new fibers to reconstruct the muscle and enhance strength.
"Satellite cells are a primary target for the rejuvenation of aged muscle, since activation becomes increasingly impaired and recovery from injury is delayed over the lifespan," Boppart said. "MSC transplantation may provide a viable solution to reawaken the aged satellite cell."
Satellite cells themselves will likely never be used therapeutically to enhance repair or strength in young or aged muscle "because they cause an immune response and rejection within the tissue," Boppart said. But MSCs are "immunoprivileged," meaning that they can be transplanted from one individual to another without sparking an immune response.
"Skeletal muscle is a very complex organ that is highly innervated and vascularized, and unfortunately all of these different tissues become dysfunctional with age," Boppart said. "Therefore, development of an intervention that can heal multiple tissues is ideally required to reverse age-related declines in muscle mass and function. MSCs, because of their ability to repair a variety of different tissue types, are perfectly suited for this task."
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Stem cells aid muscle repair, strengthening after resistance exercise
Posted: July 21, 2014 at 6:48 pm
July 21, 2014
Michigan State University
Not unlike looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, a team of Michigan State University researchers have found a gene that could be key to the development of stem cells cells that can potentially save millions of lives by morphing into practically any cell in the body.
The gene, known as ASF1A, was not discovered by the team. However, it is at least one of the genes responsible for the mechanism of cellular reprogramming, a phenomenon that can turn one cell type into another, which is key to the making of stem cells.
In a paper published in the journal Science, the researchers describe how they analyzed more than 5,000 genes from a human egg, or oocyte, before determining that the ASF1A, along with another gene known as OCT4 and a helper soluble molecule, were the ones responsible for the reprogramming.
This has the potential to be a major breakthrough in the way we look at how stem cells are developed, said Elena Gonzalez-Munoz, a former MSU post-doctoral researcher and first author of the paper. Researchers are just now figuring out how adult somatic cells such as skin cells can be turned into embryonic stem cells. Hopefully this will be the way to understand more about how that mechanism works.
In 2006, an MSU team identified the thousands of genes that reside in the oocyte. It was from those, they concluded, that they could identify the genes responsible for cellular reprogramming.
In 2007, a team of Japanese researchers found that by introducing four other genes into cells, stem cells could be created without the use of a human egg. These cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs.
This is important because the iPSCs are derived directly from adult tissue and can be a perfect genetic match for a patient, said Jose Cibelli, an MSU professor of animal science and a member of the team.
The researchers say that the genes ASF1A and OCT4 work in tandem with a ligand, a hormone-like substance that also is produced in the oocyte called GDF9, to facilitate the reprogramming process.
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Researchers Find Gene That Could Make It Easier To Develop Life-saving Stem Cells
Posted: July 21, 2014 at 6:48 pm
ROCHESTER, MN (KARE/NBC) - Seventy-five years ago, Lou Gehrig was diagnosed with the rare, neurological disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis at the Mayo Clinic.
On July 4, 1939, he gave his famous farewell speech to baseball fans.
Doctors now have a better understanding of the fatal disease, but apart from medication that may give someone an extra couple of months, there is still no good way to extend someone's life.
Mayo Clinic researchers are working with stem cells to develop a new treatment. A New Brighton woman hopes to benefit.
Linda Leight spends every minute she can with her eight grandchildren. They visit her often at her home.
Time with grandchildren is always precious, but even more so for her because just like baseball legend Gehrig, Leight has ALS.
The disease has slowed her speech.
She has enrolled in a Mayo Clinic study that is testing the safety of taking stem cells and injecting them into a patient's spinal fluid.
"My hope is that I could gain some time," she said.
Read more: http://kare11.tv/1kWk3as
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Stem cells may offer new course of treatment for ALS
