14-03-2012 13:25 Could synthetic stem cells mean the end of certain forms of blindness? Scientists at the University of Wisconsin have created basic retina structures, giving hope to many with eye damage that their vision could be repaired someday. The retina structures were created by synthesizing stem cells from a patient's blood, and successfully sent important information to the brain that helps humans see. Scientists can create the stem cells from a simple blood test, and the ability to build the retina structures from the cells—and isolate which layers need repair—will allow researchers to further study degenerative diseases like retinitis pigmentosa. The study is still in its primordial phases, but it could lead to some big leaps forward in research and maybe even some day the ability to generate new cells for patients whose eyes are going bad. Just think: Someday grandma may stop asking you where she put her reading glasses!

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Scientists Make Big Leap in Eye Research by Growing Retina Structures - Video

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has received a complaint alleging the Houston company involved in Gov. Rick Perry's unregulated adult stem-cell operation is a potential danger to patients and not in compliance with federal law.

In an eight-page letter sent last month, University of Minnesota bioethicist Leigh Turner called on the FDA to investigate Celltex Therapeutics Corp., which banks people's stem cells for future reinjection in the event of disease or injury. Perry was the company's first customer last year.

"It appears their business plan involves injecting or infusing on a for-profit, commercial basis non-FDA-approved adult stem cells into paying customers," Turner wrote in the Feb. 21 letter. "This plan conflicts with FDA regulations governing human stem cells."

An FDA spokeswoman declined comment, but Turner said an agency official told him the matter has been assigned to an investigator and is being taken seriously.

Celltex co-founder David Eller said Tuesday night he is confident the company will "meet all FDA specifications." He emphasized that Celltex doesn't administer stem cells, but stores and processes them at the behest of doctors who later reinject them into patients.

Dr. Stanley Jones, a Houston orthopedic surgeon, injected Perry's stem cells during his back surgery in July.

The plan by Celltex and Perry to make Texas a leader in the therapy have been controversial since details about the governor's procedure became known last summer. The therapy, drawing on the ability of adult stem cells to replenish dying cells, is promising but thought by most medical researchers to need much more clinical study before it is commercialized.

Stem cells are a kind of medicine known as biologics, therapy involving living cells rather than chemicals. Most medical experts say that adult stem-cell therapy involves more than the "minimal manipulation" the agency allows without its oversight because the cells are isolated, cultured in a laboratory and stored for some period of time before being reinjected.

The FDA has recently stepped up enforcement of unregulated adult stem cell activity, though legal experts interviewed last fall by the Chronicle said it was unclear whether the agency would look into Perry's procedure because he seemed fully informed and unharmed by it.

The Texas Medical Board is currently considering a policy that would require providers of stem cells and other experimental drugs to use them only with the permission of independent review committees that assess trials for patient safety. The policy comes up for final approval in April.

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Gov. Perry's stem-cell firm draws FDA scrutiny

Washington, Mar 16 (ANI): A special type of brain cell forged from stem cells could help restore the muscle coordination deficits that cause the uncontrollable spasms characteristic of Huntington's disease, a new study has suggested.

Huntington's disease, the debilitating congenital neurological disorder that progressively robs patients of muscle coordination and cognitive ability, is a condition without effective treatment, a slow death sentence.

"This is really something unexpected," said Su-Chun Zhang, a University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist and the senior author of the new study, which showed that locomotion could be restored in mice with a Huntington's-like condition.

Zhang is an expert at making different types of brain cells from human embryonic or induced pluripotent stem cells.

In the new study, his group focused on what are known as GABA neurons, cells whose degradation is responsible for disruption of a key neural circuit and loss of motor function in Huntington's patients.

GABA neurons, Zhang explained, produce a key neurotransmitter, a chemical that helps underpin the communication network in the brain that coordinates movement.

In the laboratory, Zhang and his colleagues at the UW-Madison Waisman Center have learned how to make large amounts of GABA neurons from human embryonic stem cells, which they sought to test in a mouse model of Huntington's disease.

The goal of the study, Zhang noted, was simply to see if the cells would safely integrate into the mouse brain.

To their astonishment, the cells not only integrated but also project to the right target and effectively re-established the broken communication network, restoring motor function.

The results of the study were surprising, Zhang explained, because GABA neurons reside in one part of the brain, the basal ganglia, which plays a key role in voluntary motor coordination.

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'Forged' brain cells offers hope for Huntington's disease treatment

Todd Finkelmeyer has been covering higher education for the Capital Times since April 2008. He started contributing to the newspaper in 1990, was hired full-time in 1994 and has since covered everything from the Super Bowl to stem cell research. Follow his Campus Connection blog for the latest on higher education news in the Madison area.

Researchers working on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus have found a way to use neurons derived from human embryonic stem cells to restore muscle coordination in mice inflicted with a Huntingtons disease-like condition.

The findings, which were reported Thursday in the journal Cell Stem Cell by a team of scientists who work at the university's Waisman Center, could one day help lead to new therapies for Huntington's disease, the debilitating disorder that affects both muscle coordination and cognitive ability. There currently are no effective treatments.

This is very exciting, and next well try to move onto different models, particularly in primates, to see whether this actually works in a larger brain, says Su-Chun Zhang, a UW-Madison neuroscientist and the senior author of the study.

Zhang, who specializes in producing different types of brain cells from stem cells, explains that this particular research focused on GABA neurons -- the cells that deteriorate and thus disrupt the brains circuitry that leads to the loss of motor function in patients with Huntington's. He notes the GABA neurons make a chemical that plays an important role in helping to link the communication network in the brain with movement.

Zhang and co-workers in the lab figured out how to produce large amounts of these GABA neurons from human embryonic stem cells, which they tested in mice with a Huntingtons-like ailment. Initially, the researchers were just trying to see whether or not these cells could safely integrate into the mouse brain. They were stunned to see that the cells not only successfully merged into the brain, but that they also eventually sent signals to the proper targets and rewired broken circuitry to restore motor functions.

This was quite surprising, says Zhang. These human neurons actually projected a long distance to another place in the brain and hooked up at the circuit, which is essential for our movement coordination. This is very critical, because in order for cell therapies to work for Huntingtons, the circuit has to be re-formed.

He notes scientists generally didnt believe it was possible for this circuitry to be rewired in older brains. In the mature brain, the nerve cells do not project a long distance, particularly into the correct target, Zhang explains. But that happened with these cells. So the point is, these stem cells somehow know where to go.

Its not clear how relevant this information will be in finding treatments for Huntingtons, but the UW-Madison scientists are hopeful their research can be used as another building block of information that can one day lead to treatments for the debilitating disease.

According to the Huntington's Disease Society of America, more than a quarter of a million Americans have the ailment or are at risk of inheriting the disease from an affected parent.

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Campus Connection: UW research hints at potential for Huntington’s treatment