Stemcells #39; promising news on spinal cord injury, AMD therapies
Martin McGlynn, CEO of Stemcells Inc., disclosed to BioWorld (http://www.BioWorld.com) fascinating data from a phase I/II clinical trial of human neural stem cells to treat chronic spinal cord...

By: BioWorld News Views

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Stemcells' promising news on spinal cord injury, AMD therapies - Video

Apollo Health City team did autologous stem cell procedure to save both the hip joints

Hyderabad, June 30:

A team of doctors from a city hospital have harvested stem cells of a person using bone morrow from the pelvis area to replace some dead tissues in the hip. In this process, they saved the patient from undergoing a hip replacement.

The Apollo Health City team, headed by orthopaedic specialist Paripati Sharat Kumar, diagnosed a 39-year-old woman to be suffering from Avascular Necrosis, making her writhe with pain in her two hip joints. Her condition would require undergoing a replacement of hips.

After assessing her condition, the team has decided to go for autologous stem cell procedure (where donor and the receiver is the same person) to save both the hip joints.

The minimally invasive procedure involved taking bone marrow aspirate from the patients pelvis. Stem cells were harvested from the aspirate, through a process that takes about 15 minutes. Stems cells were planted in the area of damage under fluoroscopy control following core decompression, Sharat Kumar said here in a statementon Monday.

He felt that autologous stem cell treatments could edge out joint replacement procedures to a large extent in days to come. The scope of this procedure in orthopaedics and sports medicine is enormous. This could be extended to indications include osteoarthritis of knee, shoulder, hip, elbows, ankle and spine, he said.

(This article was published on June 30, 2014)

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Her own stem cells saved her from hip replacement

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Jun-2014

Contact: Cody Mooneyhan cmooneyhan@faseb.org 301-634-7104 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

With the plethora of research and published studies on stem cells over the last decade, many would say that the definition of stem cells is well established and commonly agreed upon. However, a new review article appearing in the July 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal , suggests that scientists have only scratched the surface of understanding the nature, physiology and location of these cells. Specifically, the report suggests that embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells may not be the only source from which all three germ layers in the human body (nerves, liver or heart and blood vessels) can develop. The review article suggests that adult pluripotent stem cells are located throughout the body and are able to become every tissue, provided these cells receive the right instructions.

"This study highlights the mutual role of stem cells both for regeneration and in tumor growth by featuring two sides of the same coin: stems cells in cancer and regenerative medicine," said Eckhard Alt, M.D., Ph.D., the article's lead author from the Center for Stem Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. "Our workprovides novel insight on why and how mature has provided us with one universal type of stem cell that is equally distributed throughout the whole body, every organ and every tissue. Small early pluripotent stem cells are ubiquitously located in and around the blood vessels throughout the whole body and serve as a reserve army for regeneration."

In the review, Alt and colleagues suggest that small early pluripotent stem cells are able to replace any kind of tissue in the body--independent of where they comes from in the body--given that these cells receive the correct instructions. When researchers extract these cells from fat tissue, concentrated them and then injected them into diseased or injured tissue, they delivered beneficial outcomes for ailments such as heart failure, osteoarthritis, non-healing wounds, soft tissue defects, muscle, bone and tendon injuries and neurodegenerative diseases. The review also discusses how this is basically the same process that occurs in tumors, except that instead of healing or regenerating tissue, the cells work toward building a tumor. Better understanding and manipulating how these cells communicate not only will open new therapies that heal injury (heart failure, wounds, etc.), but will allow researchers to stop many cancers before they become life-threatening.

"This article suggests that the countless hours spent researching cancer and progenitor cells are finally coming to a head," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "As the intersection between cancer and stem cell research becomes closer and clearer, all of today's medical treatments will begin to look as crude as Civil War medicine."

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Receive monthly highlights from The FASEB Journal by e-mail. Sign up at http://www.faseb.org/fjupdate.aspx. The FASEB Journal is published by the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). It is among the most cited biology journals worldwide according to the Institute for Scientific Information and has been recognized by the Special Libraries Association as one of the top 100 most influential biomedical journals of the past century.

FASEB is composed of 26 societies with more than 120,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research associations in the United States. Our mission is to advance health and welfare by promoting progress and education in biological and biomedical sciences through service to our member societies and collaborative advocacy.

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Stem cells may be more widespread and with greater potential than previously believed

Scientists have converted human gut cells into insulin producers by turning off a single gene in an experiment that suggests a new way forward in treating diabetes.

Using a miniature model of the human intestine, only a few millimeters in size and made from stem cells, the scientists deactivated a gene in the cells tied to metabolic regulation called FOXO1. Once disabled, the cells began producing insulin.

The method, described today in the journal Nature Communications, raises the possibility of replacing insulin-making pancreatic beta cells lost in diabetics by using a drug to retrain patients existing cells. While progress has been made in generating beta cells from stem cells, the method hasnt yet produced ones with all the needed functions, said Domenico Accili, the studys lead author. Plus, such cells would require transplantation.

We provided a proof of principle that we can do this in human tissues and are also very excited that there is a single identifiable target to trigger this process, Accili, professor of medicine at Columbia Universitys Naomi Berrie Diabetes Research Center in New York, said in an interview. This is what the pharmaceutical industry is interested in -- make a chemical and do what we did in test tubes to administer to persons with diabetes and teach their gut cells to become beta cells.

The results build on research two years ago by Accili and his team that first tested the approach in mice, successfully converting gut cells into insulin-making cells. That work has since received independent confirmation from another group. In the human cell experiment, gut cells started releasing insulin after seven days and only in response to glucose.

Now that Accili and his team have shown it works in human cells, their next step is to develop a drug to test in people. Accili said its possible that there could be a compound for clinical trials in a year or two.

Diabetes, which results when the body doesnt use insulin properly or doesnt make the hormone, is the seventh-leading cause of death in the U.S. Insulin is a hormone secreted by the pancreas that helps the body control blood sugar.

Destruction of insulin-making beta cells in the pancreas is the central feature of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. In Type 1 diabetics, the cells are destroyed by the immune system and dont produce insulin. In Type 2, in which the body doesnt use insulin properly, beta cells become progressively dysfunctional.

One advantage to this experimental approach is that the gastrointestinal tract is partly protected from attack by the immune system, making gut cells less susceptible to destruction, Accili said.

A treatment for diabetes that doesnt require daily insulin injections would change the treatment landscape for the 29 million diabetics in the U.S. However, its likely that any potential drug would first be evaluated for Type 2 diabetes, because of concerns of testing in Type 1 diabetics going without insulin injections, he said.

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Human Gut Cells Become Insulin Producers in New Approach

The treatment could edge out joint replacement procedures to a large extent.

Hyderabad, June 30:

A team of doctors from a city hospital have harvested stem cells of a person using bone marrow from the pelvis area to replace some dead tissues in the hip. By doing this, they saved the patient from undergoing a hip replacement.

The Apollo Health City team, headed by orthopaedic specialist Paripati Sharat Kumar, diagnosed a 39-year-old women suffering from Avascular Necrosis. Her condition would require undergoing a replacement of hips.

After assessing her condition, the team has decided to go for the autologous stem cell procedure (where donor and the receiver is the same person) to save both the hip joints.

The minimally invasive procedure involved taking bone marrow aspirate from the patients pelvis. Stem cells were harvested from the aspirate through a process that takes about 15 minutes. Stems cells were planted in the area of damage under fluoroscopy control following core decompression, Kumar said in a statement on Monday.

He feels that the autologous stem cell treatment could edge out joint replacement procedures to a large extent in the days to come. The scope of this procedure in orthopaedics and sports medicine is enormous. This could be extended to indications including osteoarthritis of knee, shoulder, hip, elbows, ankle and spine, he said.

(This article was published on June 30, 2014)

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Autologous stem cell treatment could be the road ahead