C. Carreau/ATG Medialab/ESA

An artists impression of the European Space Agencys Rosetta probe, which aims to be the first to land on a comet.

Several research groups, including a team led by geneticist Erika Sasaki and stem-cell biologist Hideyuki Okano at Keio University in Tokyo, hope to create transgenic primates with immune-system deficiencies or brain disorders. This could raise ethical concerns, but might bring us closer to therapies that are relevant to humans (mice can be poor models for such disorders). The work will probably make use of a gene-editing method called CRISPR, which saw rapid take-up last year.

The European Space Agencys Rosetta spacecraft could become the first mission to land a probe on a comet. If all goes well, it will land on comet ChuryumovGerasimenko in November. Mars will also be a busy place: Indias orbiter mission should arrive at the planet in September, about the same time as NASAs MAVEN probe. And NASAs Curiosity rover should finally make it to its mission goal, the slopes of the 5.5-kilometre-high Aeolis Mons, where it will look for evidence of water. Back on Earth, NASA hopes to launch an orbiter to monitor atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Neurobiologist Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has developed a brain-controlled exoskeleton that he expects will enable a person with a spinal-cord injury to kick the first ball at the 2014 football World Cup in Brazil. Meanwhile, attempts are being made in people with paralysis to reconnect their brains directly to paralysed areas, rather than to robotic arms or exoskeletons. In basic research, neuroscientists are excited about money from big US and European brain initiatives, such as Europes Human Brain Project.

In the pharmaceutical industry, all eyes are on trial results from two competing antibody treatments that harness patients immune systems to fight cancer. The drugs, nivolumab and lambrolizumab, work by blocking proteins that prevent a persons Tcells from attacking tumours. In early tests, the drugs evoked a better level of response in patients than ipilimumab, a similar therapy that was launched in 2011 to treat advanced melanoma.

Semiconductors known as perovskites convert light energy into electricity. They are cheap to build and have already shown conversion rates of more than 15% (a leap from 4% when the feat was first reported in 2009). Expect to see still-higher efficiencies this year, perhaps reaching 20% the same as the lower end of existing commercial silicon-based photo-voltaics. A team at the University of Oxford, UK, also hopes to make lead-free perovskites.

In 2013, two research teams showed that broadly neutralizing antibodies that target an array of HIV types quickly cleared an HIV-related virus in monkeys. The therapy will be tested in people who carry HIV, with results expected in the autumn. Meanwhile, last years curing of a baby born with the virus might lead to wider trials of the technique used: high doses of antiretroviral drugs given at birth.

Technology that rapidly sequences DNA as it is fed through a ring of proteins, known as a biological nanopore, will hit the market this year after decades of development. Oxford Nano-pore Technologies in Oxford, UK, aims to release the first data from a disposable sequencer the size of a memory stick, which it is sending to scientists for testing. It promises to read longer strands of DNA than other techniques (potentially useful in sequencing mixed samples of bacterial DNA, for example), and to show results in real time.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will complete its fifth assessment report by November. The findings of working groups II and III will focus on the impacts of climate change, and on how societies can adapt to or mitigate those effects (working groupI published its findings last year). Away from formal negotiations, United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon is hoping for bold pledges on emissions at a summit in New York in September. In research, a large carbon capture and storage project in Canada the Can$1.24-billion (US$1.17-billion) Boundary Dam coal power-plant in Saskatchewan begins commercial operation in April.

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What to expect in 2014: Neural feats

Monday, October 11, 2010 - Noon

Stephen Ellis, MD Section Head of Invasive/Interventional Cardiology, Robert and Suzanne Tomsich Department of Cardiovascular Medicine

Stem cells are natures own transformers. When the body is injured, stem cells travel to the scene of the accident and help heal damaged tissue. The cells do this by transforming into whatever type of cell has been injured- bone, skin and even heart tissue. Researchers at Cleveland Clinic believe that the efficiency of stem cells for treating heart tissue can be boosted and help the body recover faster and better from heart attacks. Join us in a free online chat with cardiologist Stephen Ellis, MD. Dr. Ellis is leading one of the clinical trials and will be answering your questions about stem cell therapy for heart disease.

Cleveland_Clinic_Host: Welcome to our "Stem Cell Therapy for Heart Disease" online health chat with Stephen Ellis, MD. Dr. Ellis is leading one of the research studies for stem cell therapy and heart disease so he will be answering a variety of questions on the topic. We are very excited to have him here today!

Thank for joining us Dr. Ellis, let's begin with the questions.

Dr__Ellis: Thank you for having me today.

Robert_B: I have a question on Stem Cell and stabilizing a two chamber heart condition.. Could donor adult stem cells help stabilize the heart and repair some of the damage? Patient also suffers from cardiac sclerosis of the liver.

Dr__Ellis: Stem cells are currently being evaluated to see if they may or may not strengthen hearts previously damaged by heart attacks or other conditions. They are considered experimental for this purpose. There are several ongoing clinical trials available in the U.S.

cabbagepatch: I have been going through other tests for heart transplant consideration, & with everything I have been going through would I be a candidate for heart stem cell repair? How would I find out? My cardiologist is Dr. Hsich in Cleveland.

Dr__Ellis: You may be a candidate for the NIH FOCUS trial at the Cleveland Clinic. Please ask Dr. Hsich - she would be able to help you.

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Stem Cell Therapy for Heart Disease Webchat - Dr. Ellis

Regenocyte Adult Stem Cell Therapy - Barbara McKean

By: RegenocyteStemCells

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Regenocyte Adult Stem Cell Therapy - Barbara McKean - Video

A release from the University of California-Los Angleles written by Shaun Mason reports that researchers at UCLA's Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research have discovered a mechanism by which certain adult stem cells suppress their ability to initiate skin cancer during their dormant phase an understanding that could be exploited for better cancer-prevention strategies. The study, led by Andrew White and William Lowry, was published online Decemeber 15th 2013 in the journal Nature Cell Biology.

The release notes that hfollicle stem cells, the tissue-specific adult stem cells that generate the hair follicles, are also the cells of origin for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, a common skin cancer. These stem cells cycle between periods of activation during which they can grow and quiescence (when they remain dormant).

White and Lowry applied known cancer-causing genes to hair follicle stem cells of laboratory mice and found that during the cells dormant phase, they could not initiate skin cancer. Once the cells were in their active period, however, they began growing cancer.

The release quotes White as saying, "We found that this tumor suppression via adult stem cell quiescence was mediated by PTEN, a gene important in regulating the cell's response to signaling pathways. Therefore, stem cell quiescence is a novel form of tumor suppression in hair follicle stem cells, and PTEN must be present for the suppression to work."

The team believes that understanding cancer suppression through quiescence could better inform preventative strategies for certain patients, such as organ transplant recipients, who are particularly susceptible to squamous cell carcinoma, and for those taking the drug vemurafenib for melanoma, another type of skin cancer. The study also may reveal parallels between squamous cell carcinoma and other cancers in which stem cells have a quiescent phase.

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Dormant Adult Stem Cells Suppress Cancer

The breakthrough could also provide the key to skin generation for burn victims and skin cancer sufferers, according to a team at the University of Southern California

Bald men could have a full head of hair after the discovery of the gene that promotes hair growth.

The breakthrough could also provide the key to skin generation for burn victims and skin cancer sufferers.

A team at the University of Southern California investigated stem cells found in follicles which can regenerate hair and skin.

Stem cell specialist Dr Krzysztof Kobielak said: Collectively, these new discoveries advance basic science and, more importantly, might translate into novel therapeutics for various human diseases.

Since BMP signaling has a key regulatory role in maintaining the stability of different types of adult stem cell populations, the implication for future therapies might be potentially much broader than baldness - and could include skin regeneration for burn patients and skin cancer.

The papers were published in the journals Stem Cells and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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Bald Celebrities

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Cure for baldness could be near after discovery of gene that promotes hair growth

The most successful stem cell therapybone marrow transplanthas been around for more than 40 years. Johns Hopkins researchers played an integral role in establishing the methods for how bone marrow transplants are done, which you can read about in Human Stem Cells at Johns Hopkins: A Forty Year History. The latest developments in bone marrow transplants are Half-Matched Transplants, which may be helpful in treating more diseases than ever before. In The Promise of the Future, three Hopkins researchers who study blood diseases share their ideas about which technologies hold most promise for developing therapies.

Induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, are adult cells that are engineered to behave like stem cells and to regain the ability to differentiate into various cell types. Engineered Blood describes current research in generating blood cells that contain disease traits with Those Magic Scissors so we can learn more in the lab about diseases like sickle cell anemia.

Adult stem cells are being used in other applications as well. Stem Cells Enhance Healing tells of an undergraduate biomedical engineering team at Hopkins that has devised medical sutures containing stem cells which speed up healing when stitched in. And A New Path for Cardiac Stem Cells tells of how a patients own heart stem cells were used to repair his heart after a heart attack.

In the podcast What Anti-Depression Treatments Actually Target In The Brain, Hongjun Song reveals that current antidepressant therapies may have unknowingly been targeting stem cells all along.

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Stem Cell Research at Johns Hopkins Medicine: Stem Cell Therapy

(PRWEB) December 21, 2013

Stem cell therapy has a tremendous potential to cure various illnesses and injuries. Recent news items have highlighted possibilities that it could treat damaged spinal cords or revitalize hip joints. Scientists are working on stem cell remedies for dementia, heart disease and diabetes. Doctors in some countries have begun using this therapy to grow replacement body tissue and treat leukemia.

However, stem cell treatments remain controversial. Some people object to them on ethical or religious grounds. Others express concern about the safety of these newfound cures. Animal testing has revealed that minor mistakes can result in impurities that cause cells to produce tumors and other ill effects. Some patients have died after receiving experimental therapies that weren't adequately tested.

The producers of the "Leading Edge" TV series plan to release a new segment that examines this fascinating yet contentious health topic. Presenter Jimmy Johnson will offer an update on important facts and recent developments in the world of stem cell research. Viewers can benefit from the program's concise and unbiased perspective on an issue that many people have yet to learn about.

"Leading Edge" is independently distributed to local public TV broadcasters across the U.S. The national Public Broadcasting Service does not act as its distributor. To learn more about this informational series, please browse http://www.leadingedgeseries.com or send an email message to the program's producers. They can be reached at info(at)leadingedgeseries(dot)com.

Link:
"Leading Edge" Set to Produce New Content Featuring Stem Cell Therapy, with Host Jimmy Johnson

Induced stem cells (iSC) are stem cells artificially derived from some other (somatic, reproductive, pluripotent etc.) cell types by induced (i.e. initiated, forced) epigenetic reprogramming. In accordance to the developmental potentiality and the degree of cell dedifferentiation caused by induced reprogramming they are distinguished and subdivided as: induced totipotent, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSc) and, obtained by so-called direct reprogramming or directed forced differentiation, induced progenitor (multipotent or unipotent) stem cells, also called induced somatic stem cells. Currently, there are three ways to reprogram somatic cells into stem cells[1] These are:

The reversible transformation of one differentiated cell type to another type of mature differentiated cells is called metaplasia.[22] This transition from one cell type to another can be a part of the normal maturation process, or caused by some of its inducing stimulus. For example: transformation of cells of the iris to the lens in the process of maturation and transformation of the retinal pigment epithelium cells into the neural retina during regeneration in adult newt eyes. This process allows the body to replace the original cells not suitable to new conditions, into new cells which are more suited to new conditions. In experiments on cells in Drosophila imaginal discs, it was found that there are a limited number of standard discrete states of differentiation and the cells have to choose one of them. The fact that transdetermination (change of the path of differentiation) often take place not in one, but in a group of cells shows that it is not caused by a mutation but is induced.[23][24]

Some types of mature, specialized adult cells can naturally revert to stem cells. For example, differentiated cells, which are called chief cells and express the stem cell marker Troy, normally produce digestive fluids for the stomach, yet they can change back into stem cells to make temporary repairs in significant stomach injuries, such as a cut or damage from infection. Moreover theyre making this transition even in the absence of noticeable injuries and are capable of replenishing entire gastric units, essentially serving as quiescent reserve stem cells.[25] Differentiated airway epithelial cells can revert into stable and functional stem cells in vivo.[26] After injury, mature terminally differentiated kidney cells dedifferentiate into more primordial versions of themselves, and then differentiate into the cell types needing replacement in the damaged tissue[27] Macrophages can self-renew by local proliferation of mature differentiated cells.[28] In Newts, muscle tissue is regenerated from specialized muscle cells that dedifferentiate and forget what type of cell they've been. This capacity to regenerate tissue does not decline with age, which may be linked to their ability to make new stem cells from muscle cells on demand.[29]

It should be noted that there are also a variety of nontumorigenic stem cells with the ability to generate the multiple cell types. For instance, multilineage-differentiating stress-enduring (Muse) cells are the stress-tolerant adult human stem cells that can self-renew; form characteristic cell clusters in suspension culture that express a set of genes associated with pluripotency; and can differentiate into endodermal, ectodermal, and mesodermal cells both in vitro and in vivo.[30][31][32][33]

Detailed description of some other well-documented examples of transdifferentiation, and their significance in development and regeneration are reviewed in.[34]

Induced totipotent cells usually can be obtained by reprogramming somatic cells by somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) to the recipient eggs or oocytes.[3][5][35][36][37] Sometimes may be used the oocytes of other species, such as sheep.[38] New possibilities for creating genetically modified animals opens method of induced androgenetic haploid embryonic stem cells, which can be used instead of sperm. These cells, synchronized in M phase and injected into the oocyte allow to get viable offspring.[39] These developments, together with data on the possibility to obtain unlimited number of oocytes from mitotically active reproductive stem cells[40] offer the possibility of industrial production of transgenic farm animals. Repeated recloning of viable mice through a somatic cell nuclear transfer method that includes a histone deacetylase inhibitor trichostatin, added to the cell culture medium,[41] show that it may be possible to reclone animals indefinitely without any visible accumulation of reprogramming or genomic errors [42] However, research into technologies to develop sperm and egg cells from stem cells bring up bioethical issues.

Such technologies may also have far-reaching clinical applications for overcoming cytoplasmic defects in human oocytes.[43][44][45] For example, the technology have been developed that could prevent inherited mitochondrial disease being passed on to the next generation. Mitochondria, often described as the powerhouse of the cell, contain genetic material, which is passed from mother to child. Mutations on mitochondrial DNA can cause diabetes, deafness, eye disorders, gastrointestinal disorders, heart disease, dementia and several other neurological diseases. The nucleus from one human egg cell have been transferred to another egg, effectively swapping the cell cytoplasm, which includes the mitochondria (and their DNA), creating a cell that could be regarded as having two mothers. The eggs were then fertilised, and the resulting embryonic stem cells carried the swapped mitochondrial DNA.[46]

Read more about the latest achievements of the cloning techniques and the generation of totipotent cells, in:[47]

See also main article: induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSc)

First iPSc were obtained in the form of transplantable teratocarcinoma induced by the graft taken from mouse embryos.[48] It was shown that teratocarcinoma formed from somatic cells.[49] The fact that normal genetically mosaic mice can be obtained from malignant teratocarcinoma cells confirmed their pluripotency.[50][51][52] It turned out that teratocarcinoma cells are able to maintain a culture of pluripotent embryonic stem cells in an undifferentiated state, by supplying the culture medium with various factors.[53] Thus, as early as in the 1980s, it became clear that the transplantation of pluripotent or embryonic stem cells into the body of adult mammals, usually leads to the formation of teratomas, which can then turn into a malignant tumor teratocarcinoma.[54] If, however, to put the teratocarcinoma cells into the early mammal embryo (at the blastocyst stage), they became incorporated in the cell mass of blastocysts and from such a chimeric (i.e. composed of cells from different organisms) blastocyst often develops normal chimeric animal.[55][56][57] This indicated that the cause of the teratoma is a dissonance - mutual misunderstanding of "speech" of young donor cells and surrounding adult cells (so-called niche) of the recipient.

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Induced stem cells - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gypenosides pre-treatment protects the brain against cerebral ischemia and increases neural stem cells/progenitors in the subventricular zone.

Gypenosides pre-treatment protects the brain against cerebral ischemia and increases neural stem cells/progenitors in the subventricular zone.

Int J Dev Neurosci. 2013 Dec 12;

Authors: Wang XJ, Sun T, Kong L, Shang ZH, Yang KQ, Zhang QY, Jing FM, Dong L, Xu XF, Liu JX, Xin H, Chen ZY

Abstract Gypenosides (GPs) have been reported to have neuroprotective effects in addition to other bioactivities. The protective activity of GPs during stroke and their effects on neural stem cells (NSCs) in the ischemic brain have not been fully elucidated. Here, we test the effects of GPs during stroke and on the NSCs within the subventricular zone (SVZ) of middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) rats. Our results show that pre-treatment with GPs can reduce infarct volume and improve motor function following MCAO. Pre-treatment with GPs significantly increased the number of BrdU-positive cells in the ipsilateral and contralateral SVZ of MCAO rats. The proliferating cells in both sides of the SVZ were glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)/nestin-positive type B cells and Doublecortin (DCX)/nestin-positive type A cells. Our data indicate that GPs have neuroprotective effects during stroke which might be mediated through the enhancement of neurogenesis within the SVZ. These findings provide new evidence for a potential therapy involving GPs for the treatment of stroke.

PMID: 24334222 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Cell based therapies for ischemic stroke: from basic science to bedside.

Prog Neurobiol. 2013 Dec 12;

Authors: Liu X, Ye R, Yan T, Yu SP, Wei L, Xu G, Fan X, Jiang Y, Stetler RA, Chen J

Abstract Cell therapy is emerging as a viable therapy to restore neurological function after stroke. Many types of stem/progenitor cells from different sources have been explored for their feasibility and efficacy for the treatment of stroke. Transplanted cells not only have the potential to replace the lost circuitry, but also produce growth and trophic factors, or stimulate the release of such factors from host brain cells, thereby enhancing endogenous brain repair processes. Although stem/progenitor cells have shown a promising role in ischemic stroke in experimental studies as well as initial clinical pilot studies, cellular therapy is still at an early stage in humans. Many critical issues need to be addressed including the therapeutic time window, cell type selection, delivery route, and in vivo monitoring of their migration pattern. This review attempts to provide a comprehensive synopsis of preclinical evidence and clinical experience of various donor cell types, their restorative mechanisms, delivery routes, imaging strategies, future prospects and challenges for translating cell therapies as a neurorestorative regimen in clinical applications.

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Stroke and Stem Cell Therapy

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Newswise Researchers at UCLAs Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research have discovered a mechanism in adult stem cells by which the cells suppress their ability to initiate cancer during their dormant phase, an understanding that could be exploited for better cancer prevention strategies. The study was led by Andrew White, post-doctoral fellow, and William Lowry, associate professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology in the life sciences and the Maria Rowena Ross Term Chair in Cell Biology.

The study was published online ahead of print in Nature Cell Biology on December 15, 2013.

Hair follicle stem cells (HFSC), the tissue-specific adult stem cells that generate the hair follicles, are also the cells of origin for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), a common skin cancer. These HFSCs cycle between periods of activation, during which they can grow, and quiescence, when they remain dormant.

Using mouse models, White and Lowry applied known cancer-causing genes (oncogenes) to HFSCs and found that during cell quiescence, the cells could not be made to initiate SCC. Once the HFSC were in their active period, they began growing cancer.

We found that this tumor suppression via adult stem cell quiescence was mediated by Pten, a gene important in regulating the cells response to signaling pathways, White said, therefore, stem cell quiescence is a novel form of tumor suppression in hair follicle stem cells, and Pten must be present for the suppression to work.

Understanding cancer suppression through quiescence could better inform preventative strategies in patients susceptible to SCC, such as organ transplant patients, or those taking the drug vemurafenib for melanoma, another type of skin cancer. This study also may reveal parallels between SCC and other cancers in which stem cells have a quiescent phase. This research was supported by the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), University of California Cancer Research Coordinating Committee (CRCC) and National institutes of Health (NIH).

The stem cell center was launched in 2005 with a UCLA commitment of $20 million over five years. A $20 million gift from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation in 2007 resulted in the renaming of the center. With more than 200 members, the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research is committed to a multi-disciplinary, integrated collaboration of scientific, academic and medical disciplines for the purpose of understanding adult and human embryonic stem cells. The center supports innovation, excellence and the highest ethical standards focused on stem cell research with the intent of facilitating basic scientific inquiry directed towards future clinical applications to treat disease. The center is a collaboration of the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLAs Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and the UCLA College of Letters and Science. To learn more about the center, visit our web site at http://www.stemcell.ucla.edu.

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Adult Stem Cells Found to Suppress Cancer While Dormant

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

17-Dec-2013

Contact: Press Office biologypress@plos.org Public Library of Science

A systematic survey of the scientific literature shows that stem cell therapy can have a statistically significant impact on animal models of spinal cord injury, and points the way for future studies.

Spinal cord injuries are mostly caused by trauma, often incurred in road traffic or sporting incidents, often with devastating and irreversible consequences, and unfortunately having a relatively high prevalence (250,000 patients in the USA; 80% of cases are male). High-profile campaigners like the late actor Christopher Reeve, himself a victim of sports-related spinal cord injury, have placed high hopes in stem cell transplantation. But how likely is it to work?

This question is addressed in a paper published 17th December in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Ana Antonic, David Howells and colleagues from the Florey Institute and the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Malcolm MacLeod and colleagues from the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Stem cell therapy aims to use special regenerative cells (stem cells) to repopulate areas of damage that result from spinal cord injuries, with the hope of improving the ability to move ("motor outcomes") and to feel ("sensory outcomes") beyond the site of the injury. Many studies have been performed that involve animal models of spinal cord injury (mostly rats and mice), but these are limited in scale by financial, practical and ethical considerations. These limitations hamper each individual study's statistical power to detect the true effects of the stem cell implantation.

This new study gets round this problem by conducting a "meta-analysis" a sophisticated and systematic cumulative statistical reappraisal of many previous laboratory experiments. In this case the authors assessed 156 published studies that examined the effects of stem cell treatment for experimental spinal injury in a total of about 6000 animals.

Overall, they found that stem cell treatment results in an average improvement of about 25% over the post-injury performance in both sensory and motor outcomes, though the results can vary widely between animals. For sensory outcomes the degree of improvement tended to increase with the number of cells introduced scientists are often reassured by this sort of "dose response", as it suggests a real underlying biologically plausible effect.

The authors went on to use their analysis to explore the effects of bias (whether the experimenters knew which animals were treated and which untreated), the way that the stem cells were cultured, the way that the spinal injury was generated, and the way that outcomes were measured. In each case, important lessons were learned that should help inform and refine the design of future animal studies. The meta-analysis also revealed some surprises that should provoke further investigation there was little evidence of any beneficial sensory effects in female animals, for example, and it didn't seem to matter whether immunosuppressive drugs were administered or not.

See the article here:
Will stem cell therapy help cure spinal cord injury?

by Jos Domen*, Amy Wagers** and Irving L. Weissman***

Blood and the system that forms it, known as the hematopoietic system, consist of many cell types with specialized functions (see Figure 2.1). Red blood cells (erythrocytes) carry oxygen to the tissues. Platelets (derived from megakaryocytes) help prevent bleeding. Granulocytes (neutrophils, basophils and eosinophils) and macrophages (collectively known as myeloid cells) fight infections from bacteria, fungi, and other parasites such as nematodes (ubiquitous small worms). Some of these cells are also involved in tissue and bone remodeling and removal of dead cells. B-lymphocytes produce antibodies, while T-lymphocytes can directly kill or isolate by inflammation cells recognized as foreign to the body, including many virus-infected cells and cancer cells. Many blood cells are short-lived and need to be replenished continuously; the average human requires approximately one hundred billion new hematopoietic cells each day. The continued production of these cells depends directly on the presence of Hematopoietic Stem Cells (HSCs), the ultimate, and only, source of all these cells.

Figure 2.1. Hematopoietic and stromal cell differentiation.

2001 Terese Winslow (assisted by Lydia Kibiuk)

The search for stem cells began in the aftermath of the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Those who died over a prolonged period from lower doses of radiation had compromised hematopoietic systems that could not regenerate either sufficient white blood cells to protect against otherwise nonpathogenic infections or enough platelets to clot their blood. Higher doses of radiation also killed the stem cells of the intestinal tract, resulting in more rapid death. Later, it was demonstrated that mice that were given doses of whole body X-irradiation developed the same radiation syndromes; at the minimal lethal dose, the mice died from hematopoietic failure approximately two weeks after radiation exposure.1 Significantly, however, shielding a single bone or the spleen from radiation prevented this irradiation syndrome. Soon thereafter, using inbred strains of mice, scientists showed that whole-body-irradiated mice could be rescued from otherwise fatal hematopoietic failure by injection of suspensions of cells from blood-forming organs such as the bone marrow.2 In 1956, three laboratories demonstrated that the injected bone marrow cells directly regenerated the blood-forming system, rather than releasing factors that caused the recipients' cells to repair irradiation damage.35 To date, the only known treatment for hematopoietic failure following whole body irradiation is transplantation of bone marrow cells or HSCs to regenerate the blood-forming system in the host organisms.6,7

The hematopoietic system is not only destroyed by the lowest doses of lethal X-irradiation (it is the most sensitive of the affected vital organs), but also by chemotherapeutic agents that kill dividing cells. By the 1960s, physicians who sought to treat cancer that had spread (metastasized) beyond the primary cancer site attempted to take advantage of the fact that a large fraction of cancer cells are undergoing cell division at any given point in time. They began using agents (e.g., chemical and X-irradiation) that kill dividing cells to attempt to kill the cancer cells. This required the development of a quantitative assessment of damage to the cancer cells compared that inflicted on normal cells. Till and McCulloch began to assess quantitatively the radiation sensitivity of one normal cell type, the bone marrow cells used in transplantation, as it exists in the body. They found that, at sub-radioprotective doses of bone marrow cells, mice that died 1015 days after irradiation developed colonies of myeloid and erythroid cells (see Figure 2.1 for an example) in their spleens. These colonies correlated directly in number with the number of bone marrow cells originally injected (approximately 1 colony per 7,000 bone marrow cells injected).8 To test whether these colonies of blood cells derived from single precursor cells, they pre-irradiated the bone marrow donors with low doses of irradiation that would induce unique chromosome breaks in most hematopoietic cells but allow some cells to survive. Surviving cells displayed radiation-induced and repaired chromosomal breaks that marked each clonogenic (colony-initiating) hematopoietic cell.9 The researchers discovered that all dividing cells within a single spleen colony, which contained different types of blood cells, contained the same unique chromosomal marker. Each colony displayed its own unique chromosomal marker, seen in its dividing cells.9 Furthermore, when cells from a single spleen colony were re-injected into a second set of lethally-irradiated mice, donor-derived spleen colonies that contained the same unique chromosomal marker were often observed, indicating that these colonies had been regenerated from the same, single cell that had generated the first colony. Rarely, these colonies contained sufficient numbers of regenerative cells both to radioprotect secondary recipients (e.g., to prevent their deaths from radiation-induced blood cell loss) and to give rise to lymphocytes and myeloerythroid cells that bore markers of the donor-injected cells.10,11 These genetic marking experiments established the fact that cells that can both self-renew and generate most (if not all) of the cell populations in the blood must exist in bone marrow. At the time, such cells were called pluripotent HSCs, a term later modified to multipotent HSCs.12,13 However, identifying stem cells in retrospect by analysis of randomly chromosome-marked cells is not the same as being able to isolate pure populations of HSCs for study or clinical use.

Achieving this goal requires markers that uniquely define HSCs. Interestingly, the development of these markers, discussed below, has revealed that most of the early spleen colonies visible 8 to 10 days after injection, as well as many of the later colonies, visible at least 12 days after injection, are actually derived from progenitors rather than from HSCs. Spleen colonies formed by HSCs are relatively rare and tend to be present among the later colonies.14,15 However, these findings do not detract from Till and McCulloch's seminal experiments to identify HSCs and define these unique cells by their capacities for self-renewal and multilineage differentiation.

While much of the original work was, and continues to be, performed in murine model systems, strides have been made to develop assays to study human HSCs. The development of Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) has been crucial for this field (see Figure 2.2). This technique enables the recognition and quantification of small numbers of cells in large mixed populations. More importantly, FACS-based cell sorting allows these rare cells (1 in 2000 to less than 1 in 10,000) to be purified, resulting in preparations of near 100% purity. This capability enables the testing of these cells in various assays.

Figure 2.2. Enrichment and purification methods for hematopoietic stem cells. Upper panels illustrate column-based magnetic enrichment. In this method, the cells of interest are labeled with very small iron particles (A). These particles are bound to antibodies that only recognize specific cells. The cell suspension is then passed over a column through a strong magnetic field which retains the cells with the iron particles (B). Other cells flow through and are collected as the depleted negative fraction. The magnet is removed, and the retained cells are collected in a separate tube as the positive or enriched fraction (C). Magnetic enrichment devices exist both as small research instruments and large closed-system clinical instruments.

Lower panels illustrate Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting (FACS). In this setting, the cell mixture is labeled with fluorescent markers that emit light of different colors after being activated by light from a laser. Each of these fluorescent markers is attached to a different monoclonal antibody that recognizes specific sets of cells (D). The cells are then passed one by one in a very tight stream through a laser beam (blue in the figure) in front of detectors (E) that determine which colors fluoresce in response to the laser. The results can be displayed in a FACS-plot (F). FACS-plots (see figures 3 and 4 for examples) typically show fluorescence levels per cell as dots or probability fields. In the example, four groups can be distinguished: Unstained, red-only, green-only, and red-green double labeling. Each of these groups, e.g., green fluorescence-only, can be sorted to very high purity. The actual sorting happens by breaking the stream shown in (E) into tiny droplets, each containing 1 cell, that then can be sorted using electric charges to move the drops. Modern FACS machines use three different lasers (that can activate different set of fluorochromes), to distinguish up to 8 to 12 different fluorescence colors and sort 4 separate populations, all simultaneously.

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2. Bone Marrow (Hematopoietic) Stem Cells [Stem Cell Information]

Orange County, California (PRWEB) December 16, 2013

Top California stem cell clinic, TeleHealth, is now offering stem cell injections for plantar fasciitis. The condition may lead to chronic pain and may not respond to traditional treatments, with the stem cell therapy often allowing for pain relief and the ability to avoid the need for surgery. For more information and scheduling, call (888) 828-4575.

Planter fasciitis affects millions of Americans. The condition leads to chronic heel pain and may make it difficult to participate in recreational activities and even walk normally. Traditional treatments such as physical therapy, NSAIDS, steroid injections and orthotics are often effective over time. However, the condition may not respond as desired to these options and stem cells for plantar fasciitis may be the answer.

Therefore, stem cell injections that TeleHealth provides may offer an excellent option for healing the inflamed area while at the same time providing considerable pain relief. The conventional pain management treatments tend to mask pain, however, they do not actually heal the condition directly.

Regenerative medicine treatments with stem cells maintain the potential of actually healing the damaged tissue to provide long term relief. Telehealth has multiple US Board Certified doctors who have a long history of providing stem cell therapy for numerous conditions including degenerative arthritis, rotator cuff and Achilles tendonitis, ligament injury, elbow soft tissue tendinitis and more.

For those suffering from planter fasciitis or any of the other arthritic or soft tissue injury conditions, call TeleHealth at (888) 828-4575.

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West Coast Stem Cell Clinic, Telehealth, Now Offering Stem Cell Injections for Plantar Fasciitis

Stemcell treatment for hair and skin, Autologous Adipose Stem Cell Treatment
Through the history of stem cell therapy and stem cell research, animal stem cells have been used, human embryonic stem cells, and now research has led us to...

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Stemcell treatment for hair and skin, Autologous Adipose Stem Cell Treatment - Video

Current ratings for: Brain cancer treatment may lie in reactivating immune cells

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When they examined tumor samples of glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer, researchers in Canada discovered they contained deactivated forms of specialized immune cells that normally fight tumor-generating cells. When they tested a drug that reactivates these immune cells in diseased mice, the animals lived two to three times longer.

The researchers, from the University of Calgary's Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) and Southern Alberta Cancer Research Institute, hope their discovery will lead to clinical trials and eventually to a new standard of care for brain tumor patients.

They write about their findings in a recent online issue of Nature Neuroscience.

Even though treatments already exist, the median survival for patients with glioblastoma is only 15 months - fewer than 1 in 20 survive more than 5 years.

Our brains have their own specialized immune cells called microglia that protect against injury and infection.

They are the brain's "dedicated immune system," explains senior author V. Wee Yong, a professor in Calgary's Departments of Oncology and Clinical Neurosciences.

As with other cancers, brain tumors start from stem cells. In the case of brain tumors, they are called brain tumor initiating cells (BTICs).

BTICs grow and divide rapidly, eventually forming a mass, the tumor itself.

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Brain cancer treatment may lie in reactivating immune cells

Washington, Dec 7 : NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) are enabling research aboard the International Space Station that could lead to new stem cell-based therapies for medical conditions faced on Earth and in space.

Scientists will take advantage of the space station's microgravity environment to study the properties of non-embryonic stem cells.

NASA is interested in space-based cell research because it is seeking ways to combat the negative health effects astronauts face in microgravity, including bone loss and muscle atrophy.

Mitigation techniques are necessary to allow humans to push the boundaries of space exploration far into the solar system. This knowledge could help people on Earth, particularly the elderly, who are afflicted with similar conditions.

Two stem cell investigations scheduled to fly to the space station next year were highlighted Friday, Dec. 6, at the World Stem Cell Summit in San Diego.

Lee Hood, a member of the CASIS Board of Directors, moderated a panel session in which scientists Mary Kearns-Jonker of Loma Linda University in California and Roland Kaunas of Texas A&M University discussed their planned research, which will gauge the impact of microgravity on fundamental stem cell properties.

Kearns-Jonker's research will study the aging of neonatal and adult cardiac stem cells in microgravity with the ultimate goal of improving cardiac cell therapy.

Kaunas is a part of a team of researchers developing a system for co-culturing and analyzing stem cells mixed with bone tumor cells in microgravity.

This system will allow researchers to identify potential molecular targets for drugs specific to certain types of cancer.

Stem cells are cells that have not yet become specialized in their functions. They display a remarkable ability to give rise to a spectrum of cell types and ensure life-long tissue rejuvenation and regeneration.

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Space Station made accessible for stem cell research

Researchers in Sweden have successfully grown functioning neural tissues in lab, which has opened up significant new possibilities in medical science including new ways of treating cases of brain damage.

Scientists have already developed sophisticated techniques to grow tissues of other visceral organs such as kidney, liver, trachea, lymph nodes, and veins, and have even performed tissue transplantations in body for organ regeneration.

However, growing neural tissues in the lab is itself tricky as neurons are the most complex cells in our body, and imitating the functional biology of brain has been the most challenging task for scientists trying to unlock the mysteries of human body.

Neural tissues have been grown before in labs, but there is still a long way to go before researchers can achieve in vivo nerve regeneration and differentiation.

But Paolo Macchiarini and Silvia Baiguera at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm may have identified a way forward.

Organic tissue is grown in a scaffold which replicates the protein-rich environment of tissues in the body, known as extracellular matrix (ECM). The in vitro scaffold thus provides nutrients and biochemical cues to the embedded stem cells to help them grow into differentiated cells.

The researchers contrived a gelatin scaffold with extracellular plasma from rat brain cells to replicate in vivo environment, and then lodged mesenchymal stem cells from another rat's bone marrow into the scaffold. The experiment was successful as the stem cells grew into differentiated neural cells in vitro.

The team believes that the bioengineering technique could be used for surgically treating neurodegenerative disorders and injuries.

Macchiarini hopes of using transplants of bioengineered tissue to replace parts of the brain tissues damaged by gunshots, concussions etc. and in conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's caused by death of brain cells.

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Scientists Grow Functioning Neural Cells in Lab Raising Hopes of Bio-engineered Brain

PRP and Stem Cell Therapy for Joint Pain- San Diego Center for Integrative Medicine
http://SDIntegrativeMedicine.com PRP and Stem Cell Therapy for Joint Pain at San Diego Center for Integrative Medicine. Platelet-Rich Plasma or PRP, along wi...

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The hearts own stem cells play their part in regeneration

Sca1 stem cells replace steadily ageing heart muscle cells

November 28, 2013

Up until a few years ago, the common school of thought held that the mammalian heart had very little regenerative capacity. However, scientists now know that heart muscle cells constantly regenerate, albeit at a very low rate. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim, have identified a stem cell population responsible for this regeneration. Hopes are growing that it will be possible in future to stimulate the self-healing powers of patients with diseases and disorders of the heart muscle, and thus develop new potential treatments.

Stem cells play a part in heart regeneration. This image of the fluorescence microscope depicts a section of the heart tissue of a mouse. The green colouring of the cells in the middle shows that the cell originated from a so-called Sca1 stem cell.

MPI for Heart and Lung Research

MPI for Heart and Lung Research

Some vertebrates seem to have found the fountain of youth, the source of eternal youth, at least when it comes to their heart. In many amphibians and fish, for example, this important organ has a marked capacity for regeneration and self-healing. Some species in the two animal groups have even perfected this capability and can completely repair damage caused to heart tissue, thus maintaining the organs full functionality.

The situation is different for mammals, whose hearts have a very low regenerative capacity. According to the common school of thought that has prevailed until recently, the reason for this deficit is that the heart muscle cells in mammals cease dividing shortly after birth. It was also assumed that the mammalian heart did not have any stem cells that could be used to form new heart muscle cells. On the contrary: new studies show that aged muscle cells are also replaced in mammalian hearts. Experts estimate, however, that between just one and four percent of heart muscle cells are replaced every year.

Scientists in Thomas Brauns Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research have succeeded in identifying a stem cell population in mice that plays a key role in this regeneration of heart muscle cells. Experiments conducted by the researchers in Bad Nauheim on genetically modified mice show that the Sca1 stem cells in a healthy heart are involved in the ongoing replacement of heart muscle cells. The Sca-1 cells increase their activity if the heart is damaged, with the result that significantly more new heart muscle cells are formed.

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Research | Research news | 2013 | The heart’s own stem cells ...

"VAMPIRE FACELIFT STEM CELL and PRP THERAPY" http://www.CLINICell.com

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"VAMPIRE FACELIFT STEM CELL and PRP THERAPY" http://www.CLINICell.com - Video