By E.J. Mundell HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Nov. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Updated two-year results from a small trial using cardiac stem cells to repair damaged hearts suggest the treatment's healing effect persists.

Patients with heart failure caused by prior heart attacks who got the treatment continue to see reductions in cardiac scar tissue, improvements in the heart's pumping ability and even a boost in their quality of life, researchers said.

These improvements seem to be continuing as time goes on, suggesting that stem cell therapy's healing power hasn't diminished.

"Now we need to perform larger and randomized, blinded studies ... to confirm this data," said study lead author Dr. Roberto Bolli, director of the Institute of Molecular Cardiology at the University of Louisville.

His team presented its results Tuesday at the American Heart Association's annual meeting, in Los Angeles.

According to the AHA, more than 6 million Americans suffer from heart failure, a gradual weakening of the heart often caused by damage from a prior heart attack. Despite its prevalence and lethality, virtually no advance has been made over the past few decades in doctors' ability to treat or reverse heart failure.

That's why the advent of stem cell therapy has encouraged researchers. Stem cells have the ability to turn into myriad living cells, and the hope is that once infused into the heart they can help repair it.

This trial is the first human trial to test this theory using the patient's own cardiac stem cells. The cells used in the trial were harvested from 33 heart failure patients who were undergoing bypass surgery. The cells were then coaxed to multiply into the millions in the lab and then transplanted back into 20 of the patients. The remaining 13 patients did not receive a stem cell infusion and are the "control" group for comparison purposes.

Results gathered one year after treatment showed improvements for the treated patients, but experts questioned whether those gains would fade over time.

Read more from the original source:
Two Years On, Stem Cells Still Healing Damaged Hearts

PHILADELPHIA As researchers work on reconfiguring cells to take on new regenerative properties, a new review from Penn Medicine plastic surgeons sheds additional light on the potential power of adipose-derived stem cells - or adult stem cells harvested from fatty tissue - in reconstructive and regenerative medicine.

Reconstructive plastic surgeons have clinically integrated "fat grafting" into different surgeries for years, for breast, facial, and other reconstructive and restorative surgeries, with good success. Now, researchers are beginning to understand the power that fatty tissue holds. This new paper, published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal, enforces that adipose-derived stem cells can be routinely isolated from patients and, once molecular methods are worked out, may be useful for a multitude of regenerative medicine applications.

"The opportunities for regenerative medicine interventions based on adult stem cells are tremendous. It is critically important for us to better understand the biology of these cells so that we can develop novel, safe and effective treatments for our patients using their own cells." said the paper's senior author, Ivona Percec, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the division of Plastic Surgery in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Many groups are looking into different modes of isolating and modifying these cells for their regenerative properties, including experts at Penn's Institute for Regenerative Medicine and around Penn Medicine. For example, Dr. Percec's team is conducting translational research into the mechanisms controlling adipose-derived stem cells, and how they contribute to the normal human aging process.

Stem cells can undergo multiple divisions without differentiation, making them useful tools for cell-replacement therapy. Embryonic stem cells can convert to any cell type, whereas adult stem cells, like the stem cells derived from fat, can differentiate into many, but not all, cell types. A person's own fat tissue could then potentially be converted into cells specially designed to repair damage to the heart, cartilage, blood vessels, brain, muscle, or bone.

As regenerative medicine techniques are refined, experts will continue to explore the utility and benefits of stem cells derived from adipose tissue.

The Perelman School of Medicine is currently ranked #2 in U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $479.3 million awarded in the 2011 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; and Pennsylvania Hospital the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Penn Medicine also includes additional patient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2011, Penn Medicine provided $854 million to benefit our community.

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Fat-derived Stem Cells Hold Potential for Regenerative Medicine

EASTERN SHORE, Md. (WJZ) The miracle of stem cells changes the life of a little boy from the Eastern Shore.

Adam May has the amazing story of a mother and the choice she made moments after her son was born.

Xander McKinley was a beautiful babybut challenging. The newborn didnt eat or sleep well, and by two-years-old, he couldnt walk or even crawl.

Something just wasnt right, said Xanders mother, Jennifer McKinley.

Jennifer McKinley got the news every parent fears. Xander had cerebral palsya brain condition that slows motor functions.

Adam: Did you ever fear he would never have a normal life? Jennifer: We thought he wasnt going to be able to walk. It was heart-wrenching, that we knew this was permanent.

Turns out, it wasnt permanent. That young boy frustrated by immobility can now stand on his own, and even take a few stepsafter a groundbreaking experimental stem cell transfusion.

Adam: Arent you walking better now? Xander: Yeah. Adam: How good does that feel? Xander: Great!

The six-year-old can finally climb a fence with his brother.

Adam: Youre so fast now Xander: Yeah!

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Stem Cells Help Md. Boy With Cerebral Palsy To Walk

Every week in his clinic at the University of Michigan, neurologist Joseph Corey, M.D., Ph.D., treats patients whose nerves are dying or shrinking due to disease or injury. He sees the pain, the loss of ability and the other effects that nerve-destroying conditions cause - and wishes he could give patients more effective treatments than what's available, or regenerate their nerves.

Then he heads to his research lab at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, where his team is working toward that exact goal.

In new research published in several recent papers, Corey and his colleagues from the U-M Medical School, VAAAHS and the University of California, San Francisco report success in developing polymer nanofiber technologies for understanding how nerves form, why they don't reconnect after injury, and what can be done to prevent or slow damage.

Using polymer nanofibers thinner than human hairs as scaffolds, researchers coaxed a particular type of brain cell to wrap around nanofibers that mimic the shape and size of nerves found in the body.

They've even managed to encourage the process of myelination - the formation of a protective coating that guards larger nerve fibers from damage. They began to see multiple concentric layers of the protective substance called myelin start to form, just as they do in the body. Together with the laboratory team of their collaborator Jonah Chan at UCSF, the authors reported the findings in Nature Methods.

The research involves oligodendrocytes, which are the supporting actors to neurons - the "stars" of the central nervous system. Without oligodendrocytes, central nervous system neurons can't effectively transmit the electrical signals that control everything from muscle movement to brain function.

Oligodendrocytes are the type of cells typically affected by multiple sclerosis, and loss of myelin is a hallmark of that debilitating disease.

The researchers have also determined the optimum diameter for the nanofibers to support this process - giving important new clues to answer the question of why some nerves are myelinated and some aren't.

While they haven't yet created fully functioning "nerves in a dish," the researchers believe their work offers a new way to study nerves and test treatment possibilities. Corey, an assistant professor of neurology and biomedical engineering at the U-M Medical School and researcher in the VA Geriatrics Research, Education and Clinical Center, explains that the thin fibers are crucial for the success of the work.

"If it's about the same length and diameter as a neuron, the nerve cells follow it and their shape and location conform to it," he says. "Essentially, these fibers are the same size as a neuron."

Excerpt from:
Stem cells and nanofibers stimulating nerve research

ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2012) Canadian and Italian stem cell researchers have discovered a new "master control gene" for human blood stem cells and found that manipulating its levels could potentially create a way to expand these cells for clinical use.

The findings, published today online ahead of print in Cell Stem Cell, usher in a new paradigm for the regulation of human blood stem cells, says co-principal investigator Dr. John Dick, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Biology and is a Senior Scientist at University Health Network's McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine and Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI), the research arm of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. He is also a Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto.

"For the first time in human blood stem cells, we have established that a new class of non-coding RNA called miRNA represents a new tactic for manipulating these cells, which opens the door to expanding them for therapeutic uses," says Dr. Dick.

In 2011, Dr. Dick isolated a human blood stem cell in its purest form -- as a single stem cell capable of regenerating the entire blood system -- paving the way for clinical uses. He also pioneered the cancer stem cell field by identifying leukemia stem cells in 1994 and colon cancer stem cells in 2007.

OCI lead author Dr. Eric Lechman says the research team removed a master control gene -- microRNA 126 (miR-126) -- that normally governs the expression of hundreds of other genes by keeping them silenced, which in turn keeps the stem cells in a non-dividing dormant state. The method was to introduce excess numbers of miR-126 binding sites into the stem cells by using a specially designed viral vector.

"The virus acted like a sponge and mopped up the specific miRNA in the cells. This enabled the expression of normally repressed genes to become prominent, after which we observed a long-term expansion of the blood stem cells without exhaustion or malignant transformation," says Dr. Lechman.

Adds Dr. Dick: "We've shown that if you remove the miRNA you can expand the stem cells while keeping their identity intact. That's the key to long-term stem cell expansion for use with patients." The co-principal investigator was Dr. Luigi Naldini, Director, of the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy, Milan.

Dr. Dick's research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Terry Fox Foundation, Genome Canada through the Ontario Genomics Institute, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, the Canada Research Chair Program, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, the Canada Foundation of Innovation, as well as The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation.

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Stem cell scientists discover potential way to expand cells for use with patients