Two men in landmark heart stem cell study tell their stories.

Jim Dearing of Louisville, Ky., one of the first men in the world to receive heart stem cells, might have helped start a medical revolution that could lead to a cure for heart failure.

Three years after getting the experimental stem cell procedure, following two heart attacks and heart failure, Dearings heart is working normally.

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The difference is clear and dramatic -- and it's lasting, according to findings now being made public for the first time.

Dearing first showed "completely normal heart function" on an echocardiogram done in 2011, says Roberto Bolli, MD, who is leading the stem cell trial at the University of Louisville. Those results have not been published before.

That was still true in July 2012, when Dearing again showed normal heart function on another echocardiogram.

Based on those tests, Bolli says, "Anyone who looks at his heart now would not imagine that this patient was in heart failure, that he had a heart attack, that he was in the hospital, that he had surgery, and everything else."

It's not just Dearing who has benefited. His friend, Mike Jones, who had even more severe heart damage, also got the stem cell procedure in 2009. Since then, scarred regions of his heart have shrunk. His heart now appears leaner and stronger than it was before.

"What's striking and exciting is that we're seeing what appears to be a long-lasting improvement in function," Bolli says. If larger studies confirm the findings, "potentially, we have a cure for heart failure because we have something that for the first time can actually regenerate dead tissue."

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Stem Cell Research: Heart Stem Cells May Help Heal Hearts After Heart Attack

ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2012) Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) can occur due to sneezing, coughing, exercising or even laughing and happens because the pelvic floor muscles are too weak causing leakage when the bladder is put under pressure. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine shows that a new technique, using stem cells isolated from amniotic fluid, can regenerate damaged urethral sphincter muscles and prevent pressure incontinence in mice.

Although SUI is more common during and after pregnancy, and after the age of 40, one in three women will experience it at some point in their lives. Men can also be affected, especially after prostate surgery. SUI is treatable and in many cases losing weight, reducing caffeine intake, pelvic floor exercises, and bladder training can have very beneficial effects. If this does not work more invasive treatments are necessary, however there can be serious side effects associated with surgery.

Using stem cells to regenerate the damaged or weak muscles has been proposed as an alternative to surgery. But most protocols for harvesting stem cells also require invasive procedures, and often produce very low numbers of viable cells. In contrast amniotic stem cells can be collected easily, and have very low immunogenicity, reducing chances of rejection. Researchers from Kyungpook National University, Korea, investigated the ability of stem cells isolated from human amniotic fluid obtained during routine amniocentesis to regenerate damaged urethral sphincter muscles in mice.

James Yoo and Tae Gyun Kwon, who led this research, explained, "These stem cells are mesenchymal and consequently have the ability to become muscle cells when grown under the right conditions. We found that the stem cells were able to survive for seven days inside the mice but by 14 days they had all disappeared. Nevertheless they were able to induce regeneration of the mouse's own urethral sphincter muscle."

Quite how stem cells are able to retrain the body's own cells is still not fully understood. Not only was muscle regenerated, but this muscle had proper connections to nerves, and was able to improve the pressure required in the bladder before incontinence begins and stops. Humans are already being treated with stem cell therapy for diseases, including diabetes, and since Since amniotic stem cells appeared to cause no immune response or tumour formation, these cells may provide an avenue for future stem cell therapy for humans.

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Saving a penny: Stem cell therapy shows promise in repairing stress urinary incontinence

The Sutter Neuroscience Institute in Sacramento plans to launch groundbreaking research today to discover whether infusing umbilical cord stem cells into the bloodstreams of autistic children will help them overcome debilitating characteristics of the condition.

The clinical trial is the first of its kind to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Dr. Michael Chez, the principal investigator and Sutter's director of pediatric neurology.

One of the world's foremost autism experts at the institute, which is recognized for its practice of pediatric neuroscience, Chez said the research may help identify a valuable new tool in the struggle against autism spectrum disorders, which now affect about one in 88 children nationwide, and one in 54 boys.

"This is an exciting trial, because it's exposing us to the new frontier of stem cells and whether they may have some positive effect on this disease," Chez said. "This is the start of a new age of research in stem cell therapies for chronic diseases such as autism."

Recent research has revealed robust new uses for stem cells. Stem cells, for example, can now be developed from heart muscle in cardiac patients and injected back into the heart for improved functioning. Doctors are also having success using stem cells to treat leukemia and bone marrow diseases.

Autism is the leading cause of delayed development in children, typically surfacing before 3 years of age. The condition is characterized by impaired communication, repetitive thoughts and behavior and difficulty in socialization.

The likelihood of a child's being given a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder increased more than 20 percent from 2006 to 2008, according to a report this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Locally, more than 3,830 students in the four-county Sacramento region were counted as autistic in December 2011, up 13 percent from the previous year, according to state data.

The Sutter clinical trial follows promising research in using cord blood stem cells to help children with cerebral palsy, a brain disorder that shares some characteristics with autism, to improve motor function.

Chez became the point man for developing protocols for the clinical trial over a year ago, after being contacted by Cord Blood Registry, the world's largest cord blood bank. The Bay Area company has collected and frozen 400,000 samples of umbilical cord blood for individuals and families.

The umbilical cord that links a mother's placenta to her fetus is imbued with blood stem cells. Since the 1990s, parents increasingly have opted to have their babies' umbilical cords frozen in storage as a sort of insurance against future disease. The trend now extends to about 5 percent of parents.

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Sutter Neuroscience Institute launching trial of cord blood stem cells in autistic children