Research Dr. Amy Firth introduces students Jason Ward of San Jacinto Valley Academy and Kaitlan Navarro of Eastlake High School to the finer points of preparing and separating brain slices for scientific research.

LA JOLLA Minely Araujo, a senior at San Pasqual High School, arranged slices from a mouse brain onto glass slides Saturday that researchers at the renowned Salk Institute for Biological Sciences would study for their work examining brain cancer.

She looked at chimpanzee skin cells that had been transformed back into stem cells. And she marveled at a mouse its skin florescent green from the protein of jelly fish as it scampered inside a cage.

Its so interesting. I like to know what caused things, said Minely, who hopes to study forensic pathology at University of Southern California next year.

Its amazing that we get to see the work that is going on here. Its real research.

More than 200 students got the rare opportunity to tour Salks famed La Jolla research facilities for the 24th annual High School Science Day, co-sponsored by the March of Dimes.

The program is designed to nudge students into a science education or career while giving them the chance to meet with researchers and scientists who are striving to solve real problems.

They toured more than a dozen Salk labs that focused on everything from genetic, stem cell, infectious disease and neurobiology research. Students dissected mouse brains, studied fluorescent markers in worms and isolated single cells using a special micromanipulator.

Through lab tours, interactions with working scientists and participation in lab experiments, these students can picture themselves in the roles of future scientists observing, innovating and discovering, said William Brody, president of the Salk Institute.

Five scientists trained at Salk have won Nobel Prizes, and the labs are home to nine Howard Hughes Medical Investigators and 14 members of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Budding scientists get rare look inside Salk labs

by Jalees Rehman More than just getting from A to B. Credit: Shutterstock

One of the world's largest clinical cell therapy trials has begun to enroll 3,000 heart attack patients, some of whom will have bone marrow cells extracted with a needle from their hip and fed into their heart using a catheter in their coronary arteries.

The BAMI trial has 5.9m in funding from the European Commission and will be conducted in ten European countries. Enlisted patients will be randomly assigned into two groups: one group will receive the standard care given to heart attack patients while the other will get an added infusion of bone marrow cells.

A number of studies, including one in the New England Journal of Medicine and another in the European Heart Journal, have suggested that bone marrow cells could be beneficial to patients with heart disease. However, because these studies were too small to work out whether cell infusions affected patients' survival, they instead focused on the extent of scar formation after a heart attack or the ability of the heart muscle to contract after cell infusion.

One commonly used surrogate measure is the cardiac ejection fraction, which measures the fraction of blood squeezed out by the heart during a contraction. A healthy rate ranges from 55% to 65%. Bone marrow cell infusion has been associated with a modest but statistically significant improvement in heart function. In 2012, a comprehensive analysis of 50 major studies with a combined total of 2,625 heart disease patients showed that cardiac ejection fraction in patients receiving these infusions was 4% higher than in control patients.

While the results were encouraging, the study was a retrospective analysis with patients who had varying treatments and endpoints. There also remain questions over 400 patients included in the analysis from trials showing benefits of bone marrow cell infusions that were conducted by controversial German cardiologist Bodo Strauer, who some scientists have accused of errors in research.

The new large-scale BAMI trial will be able to provide a more definitive answer to the efficacy of bone marrow cell infusions and address the even more important question: does this experimental treatment prolong the lives of heart attack patients?

A hard cell

Despite the impressive target of enrolling 3,000 patients, there is a problem with how the trial is being framed. The underlying premise of why bone marrow cells are thought to improve heart function is that the bone marrow contains stem cells which could potentially regenerate the heart. In media reports, the BAMI trial is portrayed as a study which will test whether stem cells can heal broken hearts, and a press release by Barts Health NHS Trust, which is leading on the trial, described the study as "the largest ever adult stem cell heart attack trial". But the scientific value of the BAMI trial for stem cell research is questionable.

In 2013, a Swiss study reported the results of treating heart attack patients with bone marrow cells. Not only did the study find no significant improvement of heart function with cell therapy, the researchers also reported that only 1% of the infused cells had clearly defined stem cell characteristics. The vast majority of the infused bone marrow cells were a broad mixture of various cell types, including immune cells such as lymphocytes and monocytes.

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Annie - Before and After Stem Cell Therapy
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Washington, Feb 24 : In a path-breaking research, scientists have discovered a way to transform skin cells into mature, fully functioning liver cells that flourish on their own.

The technique could serve as an alternative for liver-failure patients who do not require full-organ replacement or who do not have access to a transplant owing to limited donor organ availability.

Researchers at Gladstone Institutes and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) revealed a new cellular reprogramming method that transforms human skin cells into liver cells that are virtually indistinguishable from the cells that make up liver tissue.

"Earlier studies tried to reprogramme skin cells back into a stem cell-like state in order to then grow liver cells. However, generating these pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, and then transforming them into liver cells was not always resulting in complete transformation," explained Sheng Ding, senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes.

"So we thought that, rather than taking these skin cells all the way back to a stem cell-like state, perhaps we could take them to an intermediate phase," he added.

Instead of taking the skin cells back to the beginning, the scientists took them only part way, creating endoderm-like cells.

Endoderm cells are cells that eventually mature into many of the body's major organs - including the liver.

This step allowed them to generate a large reservoir of cells that could more readily be coaxed into becoming liver cells.

Next, the researchers discovered a set of genes and compounds that can transform these cells into functioning liver cells.

After just a few weeks, the team began to notice a transformation.

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Skin-tillating! Healthy liver cells created in lab

By Amy Norton HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 19, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- An experimental therapy that genetically tweaks the immune system may effectively treat a type of adult leukemia that often has a grim prognosis.

Researchers found that of 16 patients with advanced B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), 88 percent went into remission after being treated with genetically altered versions of their own immune system cells.

The findings, reported Feb. 19 in the journal Science Translational Medicine, extend research published last spring on the first five patients to receive the treatment.

"First and foremost, we've shown that this isn't a fluke. This is a reliable result," said study senior author Dr. Renier Brentjens, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

There is still plenty of work to be done, he and other experts cautioned. The treatment, known as T-cell therapy, is not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is only available in a research setting.

"We're still very much in the early stages of development," Brentjens said. But, he added, "this is potentially the first promising new therapy [for advanced B-cell ALL] in a long time."

Another expert agreed.

"The response rates are incredibly high," said Dr. David Porter, director of blood and marrow transplantation at the University of Pennsylvania's Abramson Cancer Center.

Porter, who was not involved in the study, has also been researching the T-cell therapy for advanced ALL, as well as another adult leukemia called chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The results for the ALL patients have not been published in a journal yet, but Porter said they've shown similar response rates.

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Experimental Therapy Shows Promise Against Type of Adult Leukemia

New York, New York (PRWEB) February 26, 2014

Adler Footcare of Greater New York is offering an advanced treatment option for chronic foot problems like plantar fasciitis, as well as common foot problems like Osteoarthritis, Achilles tendonitis and torn soft tissue.

In the past these conditions have been treated by physical therapy or orthotic therapy, but the results have often been poor, leaving patients continuing to struggle with the pain. With stem cell replacement therapy, the treatment of these conditions is proving far more effective and long lasting than traditional treatments.

At Adler Footcare we use live birth stem cells which are introduced into the affected area. Stem cells are used by many physicians to treat a broad variety of conditions because of their ability to either replicate themselves, or change into the cell type that is needed to repair the tissue that has been damaged. When a patient comes in for stem cell therapy, the affected area is carefully measured so the stem cells can be delivered directly to the area that needs the treatment.

The Joint Commission accredited Podiatric OR of Midtown Manhattan housed within Adler Footcare is designed to facilitate advanced treatments such as Stem Cell Replacement Therapy to all their patients.

With stem cell treatment we are finding that patients heal much faster and are able to return to their normal activities much sooner than with traditional treatment options, said Dr. Darline Kulhan, podiatric surgeon at Adler Footcare. Recovery time depends on each individual patients medical diagnosis and overall general health.

Treatments using stem cells have been used by physicians for over 100 years. Stem Cell Replacement Therapy is covered by commercial insurance and Medicare, and is approved and regulated by the FDA. The product is tested and screened by medical professionals to eliminate the potential of any communicable diseases.

To learn more about Stem Cell Replacement Therapy or to schedule a consultation with a New York podiatrist at Adler Footcare, call (212) 704-4310 or visit http://www.mynycpodiatrist.com.

About Adler Footcare New York

Dr. Jeffrey L. Adler, Medical/Surgical Director and owner of Adler Footcare New York has been practicing podiatric medicine since 1979 and has performed thousands of foot and ankle surgeries. Dr. Adler is board certified in Podiatric Surgery and Primary Podiatric Medicine by the American Board of Multiple Specialties in Podiatry. Dr. Adler is also a Professor of Minimally Invasive Foot Surgery for the Academy of Ambulatory Foot and Ankle Surgeons. As one of only several in the country who perform minimally invasive podiatric surgery, Dr. Adlers patients enjoy significantly reduced recovery times.

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Stem Cell Replacement Therapy for Common Foot Injuries Provides Rapid Healing

Stem Cell Therapy - Studies That Support Regenerative Therapy (Regenexx)
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The largest ever trial of adult stem cell therapy in heart attack patients has begun at The London Chest Hospital in the UK.

Heart disease is the world's leading cause of death. Globally, more than 17 million people died from heart disease last year. In the US, over 1 million people suffer a heart attack each year, and about half of them die.

Heart attacks are usually caused by a clot in the coronary artery, which stops the supply of blood and oxygen to the heart. If the blockage is not treated within a few hours, then it causes the heart muscle to die.

The stem cell trial - titled "The effect of intracoronary reinfusion of bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells (BM-MNC) on allcause mortality in acute myocardial infarction," or "BAMI" for short - has been made possible due to a 5.9 million ($8.1 million) award from the European Commission.

The full study involves 19 partners across France, Germany, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Spain, Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic and the UK.

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'Largest ever' trial of adult stem cells in heart attack patients begins

Laminine Testimonial - Stroke
Laminine is availabe in the Philippines!!! "The Closest Alternative To Stem Cell Therapy..." "The miracle formula from a 9-day-old fertilized hen eggs" For M...

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Newswise WA, Seattle (February 17, 2014) A new study describes the complexity of the new T cell repertoire following immune-depleting therapy to treat multiple sclerosis, improving our understanding of immune tolerance and clinical outcomes.

In the Immune Tolerance Networks (ITN) HALT-MS study, 24 patients with relapsing, remitting multiple sclerosis received high-dose immunosuppression followed by a transplant of their own stem cells, called an autologous stem cell transplant, to potentially reprogram the immune system so that it stops attacking the brain and spinal cord. Data published today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (http://www.jci.org/articles/view/71691?key=b64763243f594bab6646) quantified and characterized T cell populations following this aggressive regimen to understand how the reconstituting immune system is related to patient outcomes.

ITN investigators used a high-throughput, deep-sequencing technology (Adaptive Biotechnologies, ImmunoSEQTM Platform) to analyze the T cell receptor (TCR) sequences in CD4+ and CD8+ cells to compare the repertoire at baseline pre-transplant, two months post-transplant and 12 months post-transplant.

Using this approach, alongside conventional flow cytometry, the investigators found that CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocytes exhibit different reconstitution patterns following transplantation. The scientists observed that the dominant CD8+ T cell clones present at baseline were expanded at 12 months post-transplant, suggesting these clones were not effectively eradicated during treatment. In contrast, the dominant CD4+ T cell clones present at baseline were undetectable at 12 months, and the reconstituted CD4+ T cell repertoire was predominantly comprised of new clones.

The results also suggest the possibility that differences in repertoire diversity early in the reconstitution process might be associated with clinical outcomes. Nineteen patients who responded to treatment had a more diverse repertoire two months following transplant compared to four patients who did not respond. Despite the low number of non-responders, these comparisons approached statistical significance and point to the possibility that complexity in the T cell compartment may be important for establishing immune tolerance.

This is one of the first studies to quantitatively compare the baseline T cell repertoire with the reconstituted repertoire following autologous stem cell transplant, and provides a previously unseen in-depth analysis of how the immune system reconstitutes itself following immune-depleting therapy.

About The Immune Tolerance Network The Immune Tolerance Network (ITN) is a research consortium sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. The ITN develops and conducts clinical and mechanistic studies of immune tolerance therapies designed to prevent disease-causing immune responses, without compromising the natural protective properties of the immune system. Visit http://www.immunetolerance.org for more information.

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Deep TCR Sequencing Reveals Extensive Renewal of the T Cell Repertoire Following Autologous Stem Cell Transplant in ...

by GEORGE RIBA

WFAA Sports

Posted on February 15, 2014 at 10:35 AM

DALLAS Malena Brown is hoping for a match on this Valentines Day weekend, but its not the kind of match you expect.

The 15-year-old daughter of Dallas Cowboys running backs coach Gary Brown is looking for an "angel donor" whose bone marrow stem cells will match hers and help her overcome what's known as CML, or chronic myeloid leukemia.

Well, its kind of scary knowing that there wasn't a match for me, but we're doing a bone marrow drive now and hopefully find somebody that matches me, Malena said.

Neither one of Malena's siblings is a match, and trying to find one has become a challenge.

The No. 1 challenge has been trying to find a match based on her ancestry, and she being biracial, has been extra difficult because the registry is under-represented with African-American and other multiracial people, said Kim Brown, Malenas mother.

We've had nothing but people trying to help us in any way they can, said father Gary Brown. When you know your daughter is going through something hard, and there are other people out there that care as much as you do and want to help her as much as you do.

To add your name to the national registry, all you do is a simple swab test, add it to a booklet, and send it in.

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Cowboys coach seeks marrow match for teen daughter

ONEIDA >> There is an abundance of groundbreaking research going on at the Cardiac Research Institute, or Masonic Medical Research Laboratory in Utica. Myron Thurston III, the assistant director of development and communications at the institute, will host the next Community Media Lab to share some of the experimental cardiology projects and research with the public, as well as educate them on heart health.

The Community Media Lab will take place Feb. 27 at 6 p.m. at the Oneida Daily Dispatch office, 130 Broad St. in Oneida. It is free and open to the public.

Thurston will explain what were doing in the area of cardiac arrhythmias and irregular heartbeats. An arrhythmia is an abnormal heart rhythm caused by electrical instability within the heart.

Some of the most significant work done at the lab is with stem cell research and bio-engineering. Scientists at the lab are working on using skin cells to create genetically-matching heart cells that can ideally be used for regenerative therapy for failing hearts.

Thurston says the idea is that if the scientists can create a heart or organ made from the persons cells the body wouldnt reject it.

The lab is also pioneering efforts in cloning a human heart. In the beginning of 2013, scientists at the institute began to look into replicating a heart in their revolutionary bioreactor, or bio-engineering chamber, which provides a space for the growth and maturity of cloned organs. They have been testing with rabbit hearts, and hope to scale up from there.

The process begins with removing all of the genetic material from the heart, leaving a shell of the muscle, commonly called a ghost heart because it has a white appearance after decellularization. The goal is to put pluripotent stem cells, or stem cells capable of separating into one of many cell types, into the ghost heart to generate a cloned heart from the patients own cells. Scientist are in the process of putting cells back into the heart, and Thurston says so far its working.

This gets rid of the need for donor hearts, said Thurston. Donor hearts have to be harvested within minutes to be viable for a transplant, he said, which is less time than it takes to harvest most other organs.

Thurston says the next step is for scientists to test pig hearts, which are identical to human hearts once all the genetic material is removed.

While the lab has made several scientific accomplishments including producing revolutionary drugs and treatments for cardiac arrhythmias, it boasts the discovery and naming of the M cell as its most significant breakthrough in heart research. Through the finding of the M cell, researchers were able to determine that the heart was a heterogeneous organ, meaning differences exist in the organs function and drug interaction. The cells were found to be the main reason for many types of arrhythmias, leading to the development of new strategies to fight the irregular heartbeats by targeting the M cells. Continued...

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Media Lab to focus on heart research

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Newswise Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered that a well-known protein has a new function: It acts in a biological circuit to determine whether an immature neural cell remains in a stem-like state or proceeds to become a functional neuron.

The findings, published in the February 13 online issue of Cell Reports, more fully illuminate a fundamental but still poorly understood cellular act and may have significant implications for future development of new therapies for specific neurological disorders, including autism and schizophrenia.

Postdoctoral fellow Chih-Hong Lou, working with principal investigator Miles F. Wilkinson, PhD, professor in the Department of Reproductive Medicine and a member of the UC San Diego Institute for Genomic Medicine, and other colleagues, discovered that this critical biological decision is controlled by UPF1, a protein essential for the nonsense-mediated RNA decay (NMD) pathway.

NMD was previously established to have two broad roles. First, it is a quality control mechanism used by cells to eliminate faulty messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules that help transcribe genetic information into the construction of proteins essential to life. Second, it degrades a specific group of normal mRNAs. The latter function of NMD has been hypothesized to be physiologically important, but until now it had not been clear whether this is the case.

Wilkinson and colleagues discovered that in concert with a special class of RNAs called microRNA, UPF1 acts as a molecular switch to determine when immature (non-functional) neural cells differentiate into non-dividing (functional) neurons. Specifically, UPF1 triggers the decay of a particular mRNA that encodes for a protein in the TGF- signaling pathway that promotes neural differentiation. By degrading that mRNA, the encoded protein fails to be produced and neural differentiation is prevented. Thus, Lou and colleagues identified for the first time a molecular circuit in which NMD acts to drive a normal biological response.

NMD also promotes the decay of mRNAs encoding proliferation inhibitors, which Wilkinson said may explain why NMD stimulates the proliferative state characteristic of stem cells.

There are many potential clinical ramifications for these findings, Wilkinson said. One is that by promoting the stem-like state, NMD may be useful for reprogramming differentiated cells into stem cells more efficiently.

Another implication follows from the finding that NMD is vital to the normal development of the brain in diverse species, including humans. Humans with deficiencies in NMD have intellectual disability and often also have schizophrenia and autism. Therapies to enhance NMD in affected individuals could be useful in restoring the correct balance of stem cells and differentiated neurons and thereby help restore normal brain function.

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Protein Switch Dictates Cellular Fate: Stem Cell or Neuron

14 Month Results After Stem Cell Therapy by Dr Harry Adelson for Arthritic Hip
http://www.docereclinics 14 months after stem cell therapy for his arthritic hip, Marty discusses his results by Dr. Harry Adelson. Call the clinic today at ...

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Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB) February 05, 2014

Global Stem Cells Group, Inc. and affiliate Stem Cell Training, Inc. were represented by Josepth Purita, M.D. at the 21st Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging, Regenerative and Aesthetic Medicine in Las Vegas, Dec. 15, 2013. Purita, a lead trainer for Stem Cell Training, Inc. and a pioneer in the use of stem cell therapies in orthopedics, addressed more than 5,000 conference attendees with his presentation titled, Cutting Edge Concepts for the Regenerative Medicine Physician in the Use of Stem Cell & PRP Injections.

The record number of attendees gathered from around the world at the Venetian/Palazzo Resort in Las Vegas for three days to attend the prestigious conference hosted by the American Academy of Anti-aging Medicine. The conference featured physicians and medical personnel who practice and manage stem cell technology, certification, and pellet therapy to discuss brain health and offer case studies. Workshops on personalized lifestyle medicine and aesthetic medicine were also held.

Purita was joined by an illustrious group of speakers including: Author Judith Reichman, M.D., womens health care expert and specialist in gynecology, infertility and menopause; Travis Stork, M.D., ER physician and host of the Emmy Award-winning talk show, The Doctors; and Actress and Author Suzanne Somers, a dedicated health advocate and proponent of alternative and integrative medicine.

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger accepted the 2013 A4M Infinity Award at Saturday afternoons general session for his progressive leadership role in early funding and support of stem cell research and healthcare reform. Somers presentation Our Time Has Come, discussing the medical needs of the rapidly aging baby-boom population. Stork, host of the Emmy-Award-winning medical talk show The Doctors, discussed long-term health in a speech called Your Best Life. Reichmans presentation titled Slow Your Clock Down: On- Label, Off- Label, Gray- Label, discussed the importance on maintain balance and living a healthy lifestyle.

For more information on the World Congress on Anti-Aging, Regenerative and Aesthetic Medicine, plus upcoming conferences and training programs around the world, visit the A4M website, email, bnovas(at)regenestem(dot)com or call 849.943.2988.

About the Global Stem Cell Group:

Global Stem Cells Group, Inc. is the parent company of six wholly owned operating companies dedicated entirely to stem cell research, training, products and solutions. Founded in 2012, the company combines dedicated researchers, physician and patient educators and solution providers with the shared goal of meeting the growing worldwide need for leading edge stem cell treatments and solutions. With a singular focus on this exciting new area of medical research, Global Stem Cells Group and its subsidiaries are uniquely positioned to become global leaders in cellular medicine.

Global Stem Cells Groups corporate mission is to make the promise of stem cell medicine a reality for patients around the world. With each of GSCGs six operating companies focused on a separate research-based mission, the result is a global network of state-of-the-art stem cell treatments.

The Global Stem Cell Foundation was formed as a nonprofit charitable organization that aims to fund research on the expanding need for stem cell solutions for patients, and identify best practices between physicians engaged in stem cell treatments in the U.S. and around the world.

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Joseph Purita, M.D. of Global Stem Cells Group, Inc. Featured Speaker at 21st Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging ...

Editors note: What follows is a guest post. Michael Zhang is an MD-PhD student studying at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. He is one of my go-to experts on matters of cell biology and stem cells. (His bio is below.)

As you may have heard, this week brought striking news in the field of stem cell biology. Researchers from Boston and Japan published two papers in the prestigious journal Nature in which they describe new and easy ways to transform mouse cells back into stem cells. (NPR coverage here.) Make no mistake, this is not mundane science news. This is big.

I follow cell biology because I believe it is the branch of science that will bring the next major advance in modern medicine. Rather than implant a pacemaker, future doctors may inject a solution of sinus node stem cells, and voila, the heart beats normally. Rather than watch a patient with a scarred heart die of heart failure or suffer from medication side effects, future doctors may inject stem cells that replace the non-contracting scar. And the same could happen for kidneys, pancreas, spinal nerves, etc.

When I heard the news, I emailed Michael the link with the following subject line: This is pretty cool, right? He wrote back. What he taught me is worth sharing.

***

Michael Zhang MD-PhD candidate Univ of Louisville

By Michael Zhang:

Japanese and American cell biologists have recently reported dramatic new findings that are likely to upend biological dogma.

For much of the past century, the prevailing consensus held that once animal cells move past the earliest embryonic stages, they are irreversibly committed to specialized roles in the adult brain cells, heart cells, lung cells etc. In the past decade, two Nobel-winning biologists each separately demonstrated that committed specialist cells (aka differentiated cells) could be reprogrammed back to a primordial, embryonic state (aka pluripotent stem cell) that could then morph into any new type of specialized cell.

Now, Professor Obokata and her colleagues describe new methods to induce this reprogramming of specialized cells to (pluripotent) stem cells. Whereas previous methods involved draconian procedures the transfer of entire nuclei between cells, or the transfer of multiple genes Obokatas group found that simply squeezing a terminally differentiated cell, or immersing it in an acidic solution, could induce reprogramming to an embryonic stem cell state.

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Progress in stem cell biology: This could change everything about the practice of medicine

PHOENIX, Ariz. -

Stem cell research and therapy on humans has traveled a long and often politically troubled path.

Not so for pets, where stem cell treatment has been used for nearly 10 years and now it is so routine, and so successful, it can be done in a day.

Ava is a 90 pound, 2-year-old Akita, who is about to undergo stem cell surgery. A little IV, a little anesthesia and Ava is out.

"It is used for arthritis mostly," said Dr. Velvet Edwards.

Ava is just beginning her day at Pecan Grove Veterinary Hospital in Tempe. Dr. Edwards oversees the stem cell procedure.

"Stem cells are healing cells, so they seek out area of injury damage or destruction," explained Edwards. "They accelerate healing and help the animal, the patient, the pet just use their own natural abilities to get better."

Veterinary stem cells are harvested from the animal's own fat cells. They are separated and processed by machinery right inside the vet's office and then injected back into the dog's trouble spots.

Thanks to new technology developed by Meti Vet, the process is completed in just a day.

"The pet comes in the morning, it's anesthetized and I collect about two to four grams of fat usually behind the shoulder blade," said Edwards. "Then I hand that fat over to my technicians to run it through a series of steps.. basically to dissolve the fat and get down to a little stem cell pellet... Then we take that pellet and we reconstitute it and make it injectable. I will put it back into the animal's body wherever I need it later that day."

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Stem cell treatment: Controversial for humans, but not for pets

By Amy CorderoyJan. 30, 2014, 3 a.m.

People who need hip replacements could be able to use cells taken during the procedure to help heal their damaged bones, researchers say.

People who need hip replacements could be able to use cells taken during the procedure to help heal their damaged bones, researchers say.

A ground-breaking study has found that parts usually discarded when people with arthritis have hip replacements can actually be used to collect stem cells that could help regrow bone, cartilage and fat.

Tens of thousands of Australians have hip replacements each year, with numbers rising by more than 37 per cent over the past 10 years to more than 36,500 last year.

Melissa Knothe Tate, the Paul Trainor chair of biomedical engineering at the University of NSW, said her team had shown for the first time that the previously discarded tissue has the potential to be put to good use.

"There is a lot of potential for stem cells to be used to harness the body's own healing capacity for all sorts of illnesses," she said. "Arthritis is the leading cause of disability in ageing adults and the increasing number of hip replacements opens up a new, easy way of getting stem cells."

Her international research team collected samples from the periosteum, connective tissue in the ball at the very top of the thigh bone, of four people with arthritis who had hip replacement.

"These patients are aged and they have disease, so this study was quite out of the box," Professor Knothe Tate said.

But on comparing the stem cells they derived with commercial cells taken from bone marrow they found "remarkable similarities". The cells were similar to bone marrow in terms of their ability to develop into other cells in the lab, according to the research published in Stem Cells Translational Medicine. Professor Knothe Tate said patients could potentially bank their cells for future use, to help heal bones seriously damaged by things like car accidents or cancer surgery, by wrapping them in a cover that could deliver the cells to the injured area.

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It's good to the bone: hip surgery 'waste' could become healing cells

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say they used epithelial stem cells to regenerate different cell types of human skin and hair follicles that may help those going bald.

Dr. Xiaowei "George" Xu, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and dermatology at the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said they started with human skin cells called dermal fibroblasts.

By adding three genes, they converted those cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, which have the capability to differentiate into any cell types in the body. They then converted the induced pluripotent stem cells into epithelial stem cells, normally found at the bulge of hair follicles.

Starting with procedures other research teams had previously worked out to convert induced pluripotent stem cells into keratinocytes, Xu's team demonstrated that by carefully controlling the timing of the growth factors the cells received, they could force the induced pluripotent stem cells to generate large numbers of epithelial stem cells.

The team succeeded in turning more than 25 percent of the induced pluripotent stem cells into epithelial stem cells in 18 days.

Those cells were then purified using the proteins they expressed on their surfaces.

"This is the first time anyone has made scalable amounts of epithelial stem cells that are capable of generating the epithelial component of hair follicles," Xu said in a statement. "And those cells have many potential applications including wound healing, cosmetics and hair regeneration."

The findings were published in Nature Communications.

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Hair-follicle generating stem cells may help with baldness

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Haruko Obokata / Nature

Japanese researchers have created a new type of stem cell just by pressuring normal cells in the body. This image shows a mouse embryo created using these cells, which are genetically engineered to glow green.

Scientists have made a whole new type of stem cell using little more than a little acid, and they say it may represent a way to skip all the complex and controversial steps that it now takes to make cells to regenerate tissues and organs.

The team in Japan includes some of the foremost experts in making what are called pluripotent stem cells master cells that have the power to morph into any type of cells, from blood to bone to muscle. These master cells look and act like an embryo right after conception and, like a days-old embryo, have the power to generate new tissue of any type.

Making these powerful cells usually requires the use of embryos something many disapprove of or tricky mixtures of genes to turn back the clock.

While theres not an immediate use for the discovery, it could add to the arsenal of tools that scientists can use in trying to find ways to repair the human body, the team reports in this weeks issue of the journal Nature.

It is also exciting to think about the new possibilities this finding offers, not only in areas like regenerative medicine but also perhaps in the study of senescence and cancer as well, Haruko Obokata of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, told reporters in a conference call.

Obokatas team worked with mice, and found they could get ordinary cells from baby mice to turn into pluripotent stem cells by bathing them in a slightly acidic solution. They call them stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency, or STAP, cells.

Other stem cells experts praised the work. These breakthroughs are so impressive and potentially powerful truly another dramatic game-changer, said Dr. Gerald Schatten, a stem cell and genetic engineering expert at the University of Pittsburgh.

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Scientists make a new type of stem cell, using a little acid