The Expedition 51 crew members are awaiting a new space shipment and getting ready for new science experiments. The crew is also preparing for the departure of a pair of International Space Station flight engineers.

The Falcon 9 rocket that will launch the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft to space is resting at its launch pad today at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Dragon will lift off Thursday at 5:55 p.m. EDT on a three-day trip to the stations Harmony module.

Inside the commercial space freighter is nearly 6,000 pounds of crew supplies, station hardware and science experiments. One of those experiments, Cardiac Stem Cells, will research how stem cells affect cardiac biology and tissue regeneration in space. The stations Microgravity Science Glovebox is being readied for the study which may provide insight into accelerated aging due to living in microgravity.

On Friday, cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy will command the Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft to return him and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet back to Earth after 196 days in space. The two crew members are packing their spacecraft with research samples, hardware and personal items for the near 3.5 hour ride home. The duo will undock from the Rassvet module at 6:47 a.m. EDT. They will then parachute to a landing in Kazakhstan at 10:10 a.m. (8:10 p.m. Kazakh time).

Continue reading here:
Station Ramps Up for Cardiac Research Loaded on Dragon ... - Space Fellowship

Comments(0)

A Devon family are swimming to Great Ormond Street Hospital to help a mum whose 15-month-old son has been diagnosed with very rare syndrome called Diskeratosis Congenita. Little Max Hilton's treatment is reliant on a steady supply of stem cell donors and after being around children with similar conditions Max's mum, Becca, is determined to encourage donors to come forward.

Through a touching Facebook group called Be There For Buzz Man Becca, has charted her son's journey and the difficulty they both face.

Becca's North Devon family have sprung into action to help spread the message that the UK needs more Stem Cell donors and to raise funds for the Antony Nolan Register, an organisation dedicated to researching stem cells and matching donors to those in need of help.

"We're delighted with the support we have received by so many people in aid of raising money for Anthony Nolan, including Reef, Tace and Aimee who are based in North Devon, have organised a charity swim called Swimming to Max; swimming 250 miles from Barnstaple to Romford, the distance between them and Max, over 20 weeks to raise as much as they can for the charity," said Becca.

READ NEXT: New shooting range opens in Torridge after years of hard work

"Nobody ever expects their newborn child to be diagnosed with such a rare condition, to see him fighting every day is extremely painful, and to see so many brave children in the same ward really does showcase the need of more stem cell and bone marrow donors. Great Ormond Street Hospital are doing all they can, and we'd like to thank the staff for providing invaluable support to both Max and our family.

"For us, converting the negativity we have experienced with Max into making a positive impact for other patients in the same position will make our day.

"If just one person who reads our story decides to see if they're eligible, that could then continue to save a life. Please don't let it affect someone you love to then decide to register. There are so many patients waiting for suitable donors."

For Becca, telling Max's story is not just important for friends and family, but primarily to raise awareness of the desperate need for donors.

To see if you're eligible to donate stem cells, you must be 16 or over, and it is as easy as spitting in a cup to provide a saliva sample for Anthony Nolan to then assess eligibility to then donate - all done through a free sample kit sent via post, from their website.

Donating bone marrow and stem cells is not invasive at all; 9 out of 10 people donate stem cells via the bloodstream, in a procedure called peripheral blood stem cell collection. One in 10 people will have stem cells taken from the bone marrow itself, whilst under general anaesthetic.

Neither procedure hurts, and it's time more is done to increase the people on the register so patients, similar to Max, have a chance in recovering from their rare conditions with the help of those that are genetically matched to their blood type.

The Be There For Buzz Man Facebook page can be found at http://www.facebook.com/buzzman11, and to find out how to donate stem cells visit http://www.anthonynolan.org.

See original here:
Baby Max can only survive with a constant supply of stem cells ... - Devon Live

For the first time, scientists have discovered that a common type of immune cell directly triggers stem cells in the skin that are responsible for hair growth in mice. Without this trigger, hair follicles just don't do their job -even if they have the stem cells necessary to proceed.

As the mechanisms for hair growth in mice are similar in humans, the researchers hope their newly uncovered mechanism could lead to a better understanding of conditions like alopecia, and other types of baldness.

Among the various immune system players we have in the body, there's a subclass of immune cells called regulatory T cells, or Tregs for short.

The vast majority of Tregs live in our lymph nodes, where they help to control inflammation throughout the body. But we also have subsets of Tregs that reside in other body parts, such as muscle or lung tissue.

And studies are starting to show that these 'tissue-resident' Tregs may be performing unique roles specific to the part of body they're in.

Researchers know that both mice and humans have a lot of Tregs in the skin, but so far we know very little about their function there.

Seeing that skin-specific Tregs tend to sit around hair follicles, a team led by researchers from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) investigated the hypothesis that these immune cells were somehow involved in hair growth.

What they discovered is not just involvement, but a direct trigger - making Tregs a super-important part of the hair growth process.

"Our hair follicles are constantly recycling: when a hair falls out, a portion of the hair follicle has to grow back," senior researcher Michael Rosenblum said in a press statement.

"This has been thought to be an entirely stem cell-dependent process, but it turns out Tregs are essential."

In mammals, hair follicles regenerate in a specific pattern, cycling between growth phases (known as anagen) and rest phases (telogen).

The team tracked the amount of Tregs in the skin of mice during these different phases of hair growth, and found a tight correlation - in the telogen phase these immune cells were much more abundant.

What's more, highly active Tregs were crowding around hair follicles at three times the normal rate, right towards the end of the hair growth rest phase.

Intrigued by this correlation, the scientists took a step further to uncover the biological mechanism involved in the relationship between Tregs and the stem cells that make hair follicles do their job.

To do this, they took genetically modified mice whose Treg cells could be 'knocked out' with a simple intervention.

The researchers clipped the hair on the mice's backs and then applied a depilatory cream for 30 seconds - when you depilate the skin, hair follicles kick into the active hair growth phase.

They monitored the hair regrowth for 14 days, comparing the regrowth between control mice and the ones whose Tregs they had tampered with.

In mice whose Tregs were knocked out in the first three days after depilation, the hair just didn't grow back, leaving them with a bald patch on their backs.

A closer look revealed that Tregs directly trigger the activation of stem cells in the hair follicle through a well-known cell communication mechanism called the Notch signalling pathway, which involves a specific protein called Jag1.

They even found that when they replaced Tregs with microscopic beads covered in Jag1, it triggered the activity in the hair follicles just like Tregs would.

"It's as if the skin stem cells and Tregs have co-evolved, so that the Tregs not only guard the stem cells against inflammation but also take part in their regenerative work," Rosenblum said.

"Now the stem cells rely on the Tregs completely to know when it's time to start regenerating."

It's a really elegant demonstration of a previously unknown mechanism for hair growth in mice, but there's a lot more work to be done before we can tell whether defective skin Tregs could be the culprits behind hair loss in humans.

But there's at least one tantalising clue that the study is onto something here. In genome-wide association studies of alopecia areata, a condition characterised by 'patchy' hair loss, researchers have found mutations on genes that are involved in Treg function.

Next up, the researchers are hoping to expand their results and investigate how Tregs in the skin could be involved in wound healing, and also various hair loss conditions in humans.

"It will be important to determine whether this principle extends to human diseases of epithelial dysfunction and whether Tregs can be exploited to develop new therapies for stem-cell-mediated tissue regenerative disorders," they write in the study.

These new results are also an exciting addition to the growing body of knowledge scientists have about hair growth. Earlier this month, researchers reported the discovery of a protein that causes skin stem cells to develop into hair cells in mice. They are now investigating whether this protein is involved in hair loss in people.

The research has been published in Cell.

More:
We now have the first evidence that immune cells in the skin directly ... - ScienceAlert

AR Rahman (Pic: ENS).

CHENNAI: Double Oscar winning Indian composer A R Rahman has made an appeal to youngsters to register themselves as bone marrow donors. The music directors appeal is made on behalf of the Chennai-based Jeevan Stem Cell Foundation to mark the world blood cancer day (May 28, Sunday).

The foundations co-founder and chairman, P Srinivasan said every year over 1.2 lakh Indians are diagnosed with blood cancer and another 10,000 children born with diseases like Thalassemia. They could hope for a 60 to 80% chance of cure, with matching stem cell donors. So, the foundation has created a registry, which is a database of potential stem cell donors, and matching donors are identified when needed.

To encourage more people to register in this database, the foundation with the help of AR Rahman has put out a YouTube video to mark world blood cancer day. Over 90 per cent of us cant find a stem cell match because Indian DNA is different and we dont have a large bone marrow registry.

If you are between 18 and 50, it is your time to save an Indian life, sign up with me as bone marrow donor in Jevan stem cell registry, said Rahman in the video.

Interested individuals can login to http://www.bethecure.in, read who are eligible and register as potential stem cell donors.

Excerpt from:
Be bone marrow donors: Rahman's appeal to youth- The New ... - The New Indian Express

41 NBC News

Conservative Reps Urge Trump to Fire NIH Head - WMGT 41 NBC News Stem Cell Research.Experimenting with cells in petri dish by adding fluid from a pipette, used in therapeutic cloning, microbiology, genetic engineering an. and more »

Continued here:
Conservative Reps Urge Trump to Fire NIH Head - WMGT - 41 NBC News

May 23, 2017

Researchers from the University of Basel in Switzerland have identified a key regulator gene for the formation of cardiac valves - a process crucial to normal embryonic heart development. These results are published in the journal Cell Reports today.

The heart is the first functional organ that develops in vertebrate embryos. In humans, it starts to beat four weeks into the pregnancy. Unfortunately, congenital heart disease is one of the most common developmental abnormalities and the leading cause of birth defect-related deaths. These heart defects often involve malformations of cardiac valves, which are required to regulate the pressure and flow of blood in the cardiac chambers.

Unexpected role for HAND2 transcription factor in cardiac valve formation

A research team led by Prof. Zeller and Dr. Zuniga from the University of Basel has identified the so-called HAND2 gene as a key regulator that triggers the formation of cardiac valves in mouse embryos, a process that is crucial for normal heart development. Previous research using mouse models lacking HAND2 had shown that this gene regulates outflow tract and right ventricle development.

The researchers thus set out to identify the set of genes that are controlled by HAND2 in developing mouse hearts. In doing so, they identified a previously unknown heart defect in mouse embryos lacking HAND2. The mutant hearts lack the cardiac cushions, which would normally develop into cardiac valves. Normally, the cells contributing to these cushions undergo complex cellular rearrangements as they detach from the lining of the heart wall and migrate into the cushions to "fill them up". As this mechanism is crucial for heart development, the researchers investigated how HAND2 controls this fundamental event during cardiac valve development.

HAND2 controlled gene network

In humans, defects in valve formation underlie different congenital heart malformations but the molecular mechanisms controlling heart valve development are not well understood. By studying mouse embryos, the research group has now identified the network of genes directly controlled by HAND2 that regulates cardiac valve formation.

The discovery of the HAND2 controlled gene network is of general relevance as mutations in HAND2 have recently been linked to heart valve malformations in human patients. «Not only does this discovery advance our molecular knowledge of cardiac valve development, but it may also help to provide genetic diagnosis for patients that suffer from congenital heart malformations," says first author Frderic Laurent of the Department of Biomedicine.

Engineering valves from stem cells

Heart valve replacements are among the most common cardiac surgeries performed and one of the future promises of biomedical research is to engineer replacement valves from stem cells. The discovery that HAND2 is a key regulator of the cellular and gene regulatory processes underlying heart valve formation is a potential milestone in this direction.

Explore further: Scientists get the upperhand in biological pathway that leads to heart formation

More information: Frdric Laurent, Ausra Girdziusaite, Julie Gamart, Iros Barozzi, Marco Osterwalder, Jennifer A. Akiyama, Joy Lincoln, Javier Lopez-Rios, Axel Visel, Aime Zuniga, and Rolf Zeller, HAND2 Target Gene Regulatory Networks Control Atrioventricular Canal and Cardiac Valve Development, Cell Reports 19 (2017) DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.05.004

Journal reference: Cell Reports

Provided by: University of Basel

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center's Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine have identified a pathway essential to heart formation and, in the process, unveiled a mechanism that may explain how some ...

Researchers at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC) have demonstrated the crucial role of the NOTCH signaling pathway in the development of a fundamental heart structure, the heart valves. ...

Heart valve defects are a common cause of death in newborns. Scientists at the University of Bonn and the caesar research center have discovered "Creld1" is a key gene for the development of heart valves in mice. The researchers ...

There are certain matters of the heart that should be left to the experts, and mitral valve disease is one of them. Dr. Joseph Lamelas, associate chief of cardiac surgery in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at ...

A gene known to be important in cardiac development has been newly associated with congenital heart malformations that result in obstruction of the left ventricular outflow tract. These are the findings from a study conducted ...

May 5, 2016A cell-to-cell signaling network that serves as a developmental timer could provide a framework for better understanding the mechanisms underlying human heart valve disease, say University of Oregon scientists.

The first known identification of two genes responsible for hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a severe congenital heart defect, has been reported by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The ...

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a leading cause of death worldwide. Despite dozens of regions in the genome associated with CAD, most of the genetic components of heart disease are not fully understood, suggesting that more ...

A new gene behind a rare form of inherited childhood kidney disease has been identified by a global research team.

In the earliest stages of embryonic development, a protein known as TET1 may be the factor that tips the balance toward health or disease. The first evidence for this vital role of TET1 is presented in Nature Genetics by ...

Stop-and-go traffic is typically a source of frustration, an unneccesary hold-up on the path from point A to point B. But when it comes to the molecular machinery that copies our DNA into RNA, a stop right at the beginning ...

A new study of inherited genetic risk indicates that common genetic variations throughout the genome act in addition to rare, deleterious mutations in autism-associated genes to create risk for autism.

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

Link:
Discovery of a key regulatory gene in cardiac valve formation - Medical Xpress

Nearly 40 years after the world was jolted by the birth of the first test-tube baby, a new revolution in reproductive technology is on the horizon and it promises to be far more controversial than in vitro fertilization ever was.

Within a decade or two, researchers say, scientists will likely be able to create a baby from human skin cells that have been coaxed to grow into eggs and sperm and used to create embryos to implant in a womb.

The process, in vitro gametogenesis, or I.V.G., so far has been used only in mice. But stem cell biologists say it is only a matter of time before it could be used in human reproduction opening up mind-boggling possibilities.

With I.V.G., two men could have a baby that was biologically related to both of them, by using skin cells from one to make an egg that would be fertilized by sperm from the other. Women with fertility problems could have eggs made from their skin cells, rather than go through the lengthy and expensive process of stimulating their ovaries to retrieve their eggs.

It gives me an unsettled feeling because we dont know what this could lead to, said Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell researcher at UC Davis. You can imagine one man providing both the eggs and the sperm, almost like cloning himself. You can imagine that eggs becoming so easily available would lead to designer babies.

Some scientists even talk about what they call the Brad Pitt scenario when someone retrieves a celebritys skin cells from a hotel bed or bathtub. Or a baby might have what one law professor called multiplex parents.

There are groups out there that want to reproduce among themselves, said Sonia Suter, a George Washington University law professor who began writing about I.V.G. even before it had been achieved in mice. You could have two pairs who would each create an embryo, and then take an egg from one embryo and sperm from the other, and create a baby with four parents.

Three prominent academics in medicine and law sounded an alarm about the possible consequences in a paper published this year.

I.V.G. may raise the specter of embryo farming on a scale currently unimagined, which might exacerbate concerns about the devaluation of human life, Dr. Eli Y. Adashi, a medical science professor at Brown; I. Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law School professor; and Dr. George Q. Daley, dean of Harvard Medical School, wrote in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Still, how soon I.V.G. might become a reality in human reproduction is open to debate.

I wouldnt be surprised if it was five years, and I wouldnt be surprised if it was 25 years, said Jeanne Loring, a researcher at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla who, with the San Diego Zoo, hopes to use I.V.G. to increase the population of the nearly extinct northern white rhino.

Loring said that when she discussed I.V.G. with colleagues who initially said it would never be used with humans, their skepticism often melted away as the talk continued. But not everyone is convinced that I.V.G. will ever become a regularly used process in human reproduction even if the ethical issues are resolved.

People are a lot more complicated than mice, said Susan Solomon, chief executive of the New York Stem Cell Foundation. And weve often seen that the closer you get to something, the more obstacles you discover.

I.V.G. is not the first reproductive technology to challenge the basic paradigm of baby-making. Back when in vitro fertilization was beginning, many people were horrified by the idea of creating babies outside the human body. And yet, I.V.F. and related procedures have become so commonplace that they now account for about 70,000, or almost 2 percent, of the babies born in the United States each year. According to the latest estimate, there have been more than 6.5 million babies born worldwide through I.V.F. and related technologies.

Of course, even I.V.F. is not universally accepted. The Catholic Church remains firm in its opposition to in vitro fertilization, in part because it so often leads to the creation of extra embryos that are frozen or discarded.

I.V.G. requires layers of complicated bioengineering. Scientists must first take adult skin cells other cells would work as well or better, but skin cells are the easiest to get and reprogram them to become embryonic stem cells capable of growing into different kinds of cells.

Then, the same kind of signaling factors that occur in nature are used to guide those stem cells to become eggs or sperm. (Cells taken from women could be made to produce sperm, the researchers say, but the sperm, lacking a Y chromosome, would produce only female babies.)

Last year, researchers in Japan, led by Katsuhiko Hayashi, used I.V.G. to make viable eggs from the skin cells of adult female mice, and produced embryos that were implanted into female mice, who then gave birth to healthy babies.

The process strikes some people as inherently repugnant.

There is a yuck factor here, said Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University. It strikes many people as intuitively yucky to have three parents, or to make a baby without starting from an egg and sperm. But then again, it used to be that people thought blood transfusions were yucky, or putting pig valves in human hearts.

Whatever the social norms, there are questions about the wisdom of tinkering with basic biological processes. And there is general agreement that reproductive technology is progressing faster than consideration of the legal and ethical questions it raises.

We have come to realize that scientific developments are outpacing our ability to think them through, Adashi said. Its a challenge for which we are not fully prepared. It would be good to be having the conversation before we are actually confronting the challenges.

Some bioethicists take the position that while research on early stages of human life can deepen the understanding of our genetic code, tinkering with biological mechanisms that have evolved over thousands of years is inherently wrongheaded.

Basic research is paramount, but its not clear that we need new methods for creating viable embryos, said David Lemberg, a bioethicist at National University in California. Attempting to apply what weve learned to create a human zygote is dangerous, because we have no idea what were doing, we have no idea what the outcomes are going to be.

Lewin writes for The New York Times.

Read the original post:
Growing an entire baby from skin cells could happen in a decade ... - The San Diego Union-Tribune

By Anette Breindl Senior Science Editor

"With the advent of targeted cancer therapies, what we've found is that many of them are cardiotoxic," Saptarsi Haldar told BioWorld Today. "Pathways that are effective in cancer are toxic in the heart."

In the May 17, 2017, issue of Science Translational Medicine, Haldar, who is an associate investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, and his colleagues showed that a class of epigenetic drugs, the BET bromodomain inhibitors, may be not just an exception to that rule, but a class of drugs that has therapeutic utility in heart failure.

The team showed that the bromodomain inhibitor JQ-1 had therapeutic benefits in two separate animal models of advanced heart failure, but did not affect the beneficial changes to heart muscle cells that are a consequence of exercise.

The paper shows a potential new approach to heart failure an indication that, with a five-year survival rate of 60 percent, needs them.

It also shows a potential approach to another vexing problem, namely drugging transcription factors.

"There's a surprisingly tractable therapeutic index for drugging transcription in diseases," Haldar said.

While BRD4 is not itself a transcription factor, inhibiting it "dampens the transcription factor-driven network that's driving the disease . . . This is really about dampening transcriptional rewiring," he added.

In heart failure, those happen to be innate immune signaling and fibrotic signaling. Experiments in cardiac cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) showed that JQ-1 acted by blocking the activation of innate immune and profibrotic pathways, essentially preventing heart cells from rewiring themselves in maladaptive ways in response to being chronically overworked.

Haldar said the original idea to test whether the compound would have an effect in heart failure was based on "an educated guess."

Previous work had shown that certain epigenetic marks, namely acetyl marks on lysines, play a role in heart failure.

"There is a lot known about lysine acetylation in heart failure," Haldar said, and there had been previous attempts at targeting the process, which had "fallen to the wayside, in part because of issues with therapeutic index."

Even studying the molecular details of lysine acetylation's role in heart failure was challenging, because genetic approaches are not viable.

The problem became tractable with the synthesis of JQ-1 in the laboratory of James Bradner, who is a co-author on the Science Translational Medicine paper. The compound, which has been used to gain insight into epigenetic aspects of a large number of biological processes thanks to the decision of its developers to distribute it freely, targets BRD4, a "reader" protein that recognizes acetylated lysines. (See BioWorld Insight, Aug. 12, 2013.)

With the advent of JQ-1, Haldar said, "we immediately made the connection that here's a target BRD4 that you could specifically modulate that is recognizing acetyl-lysines on chromatin."

The team initially published work in 2013 showing that JQ-1 affected cellular processes in heart failure, and was an effective therapeutic in mice when given very early in the disease.

Patients, though, don't show up in their doctor's office very early in the disease. They show up with "pre-existing, often chronic heart failure," Haldar said.

At that point, the heart has already undergone significant remodeling that includes fibrosis and an activation of innate immune pathways.

The work now published in Science Translational Medicine showed that JQ-1 had effects even when given to mice that had established heart failure either due to a heart attack, or pressure overload, but did not block exercise-induced remodeling.

The team is hoping to test JQ-1 derivatives in large animal models, and ultimately take them into the clinic. Haldar is a co-founder of Tenaya Therapeutics Inc., a company launched in December with a $50 million series A financing from The Column Group. Haldar said that while he holds a patent on BET protein inhibition in heart disease, BET proteins are only "one of many targets/pathways that Tenaya is considering."

Original post:
Cancer drug class has cardiac benefits - BioWorld Online

Welsh rockers The Alarm are using their shows to encourage fans to become bone marrow donors.

The band, who are set to play at the Electric Ballroom in London, on Saturday, have arranged for swabbing station to be set up at the venue.

It means fans will be able to join a bone marrow donor registry with a simple cheek swab.

Leader singer Mike Peters, who has battled cancer three times, co-founded the Love Hope Strength Foundation in 2007 with the aim to "save lives, one concert at a time".

It hosts donor drives at concerts and festivals around the world by encouraging music fans aged 18 to 55 to sign up to the International Bone Marrow Registry.

To date, more than 150,000 music fans have joined the registry, and more than 3,100 potentially-lifesaving matches for blood cancer patients.

Bone marrow is a soft tissue found in the middle of certain bones. It contains stem cells, which are the "building blocks" for other normal blood cells (like red cells, which carry oxygen, and white cells, which fight infection).

Some diseases, such as leukaemia, prevent people's bone marrow from working properly. And for certain patients, the only cure is to have a stem cell transplant from a healthy donor.

Peters, 58, from North Wales, was first diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 1995. He has also battled leukaemia twice.

He said: "It's humbling to see how many people have responded to the Get On The List campaign so far."

Blood cancer charity DKMS, which is the world's largest donor centre, has worked with the LHS Foundation since 2013.

Joe Hallett, senior donor recruitment manager at the charity, said: "Only one in three people with a blood cancer in the UK and in need of a life-saving blood stem cell transplant will be lucky enough to find a suitable match within their own family.

"Finding a match from a genetically similar person can offer the best treatment, a second chance of life."

Last updated Fri 19 May 2017

See more here:
Rock band encourages fans to become bone marrow donors - ITV.com - ITV News

Exercise can burn the fat found within bone marrow, according to new research. The work, conducted with mice, offers evidence that this process improves bone quality and increases the amount of bone in a matter of weeks.

The study, published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, also suggests obese individualswho often have worse bone qualitymay derive even greater bone health benefits from exercising than their lean counterparts.

One of the main clinical implications of this research is that exercise is not just good, but amazing for bone health, says lead author Maya Styner, a physician and assistant professor of endocrinology and metabolism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In just a very short period of time, we saw that running was building bone significantly in mice.

Although research in mice is not directly translatable to the human condition, the kinds of stem cells that produce bone and fat in mice are the same kind as those that produce bone and fat in humans.

In addition to its implications for obesity and bone health, Styner says the research also could help illuminate some of the factors behind bone degradation associated with conditions like diabetes, arthritis, anorexia, and the use of steroid medications.

I see a lot of patients with poor bone health, and I always talk to them about what a dramatic effect exercise can have on bones, regardless of what the cause of their bone condition is, says Styner. With obesity, it seems that you get even more bone formation from exercise. Our studies of bone biomechanics show that the quality and the strength of the bone is significantly increased with exercise and even more so in the obese exercisers.

Bone marrow coordinates the formation of bone and cartilage while simultaneously churning out blood cells, immune cells, and cancerous cells.

Marrow also produces fat, but the physiological role of bone marrow fat in the bodyand even whether it is beneficial or harmful for ones healthhas remained somewhat mysterious.

Generally, marrow fat has been thought to comprise a special fat reserve that is not used to fuel energy during exercise in the same way other fat stores are used throughout the body during exercise. The new study offers evidence to the contrary.

Styners work also offers fundamental insights on how marrow fat forms and the impact it has on bone health. Previous studies have suggested that a higher amount of marrow fat increases the risk of fractures and other problems.

Theres been intense interest in marrow fat because its highly associated with states of low bone density, but scientists still havent understood its physiologic purpose, says Styner. We know that exercise has a profound effect on fat elsewhere in the body, and we wanted to use exercise as a tool to understand the fat in the marrow.

The researchers performed their experiments in two groups of mice. One group was fed a normal diet (lean mice) and the other received a high-fat diet (obese mice) starting a month after birth. When they were four months old, half the mice in each group were given a running wheel to use whenever they liked for the next six weeks. Because mice like to run, the group with access to a wheel tended to spend a lot of time exercising.

The researchers analyzed the animals body composition, marrow fat, and bone quantity at various points. Predictably, the obese mice started with more fat cells and larger fat cells in their marrow. After exercising for six weeks, both obese and lean mice showed a significant reduction in the overall size of fat cells and the overall amount fat in the marrow. In these respects, the marrow fat of exercising obese mice looked virtually identical to the marrow fat of lean mice, even those that exercised.

Perhaps more surprising was the dramatic difference in the number of fat cells present in the marrow, which showed no change in lean mice but dropped by more than half in obese mice that exercised compared to obese mice that were sedentary. The tests also revealed that exercise improved the thickness of bone, and that this effect was particularly pronounced in obese mice.

According to Styner, all of this points to the conclusion that marrow fat can be burned off through exercise and that this process is good for bones.

Obesity appears to increase a fat depot in the bone, and this depot behaves very much like abdominal and other fat depots, says Styner. Exercise is able to reduce the size of this fat depot and burn it for fuel and at the same time build stronger, larger bones.

The research leaves a few lingering mysteries. A big one is figuring out the exact relationship between burning marrow fat and building better bone. It could be that when fat cells are burned during exercise, the marrow uses the released energy to make more bone. Or, because both fat and bone cells come from parent cells known as mesenchymal stem cells, it could be that exercise somehow stimulates these stem cells to churn out more bone cells and less fat cells.

More research will be needed to parse this out. What we can say is theres a lot of evidence suggesting that marrow fat is being used as fuel to make more bone, rather than there being an increase in the diversion of stem cells into bone, says Styner.

Coauthors of the study are from UNC and State University of New York, Stony Brook. The National Institutes of Health Funded this research.

Source: UNC-Chapel Hill

Read more from the original source:
Exercise can even burn off fat in bone marrow - Futurity: Research News

"Creative Medical Technology Holdings will develop this patent through the same process that we are using for our clinical-stage Caverstem procedure for erectile dysfunction," stated Timothy Warbington, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company. "We plan to identify and engage key opinion leaders who will lead clinical trials, which will serve as the basis for accelerated commercialization."

The Company is currently running a clinical trial using autologous non-manipulated bone marrow stem cells for patients suffering from erectile dysfunction that are non-responsive to standard approaches such as Viagra.Once the trial is completed, the results will serve as the basis for marketing of disposables utilized in administration of stem cells.

"Although numerous companies are injecting stem cells directly into the disc, direct injection may only cause temporary benefit because the root cause of the pathology, in our opinion, is the reduced blood supply," stated Dr. Amit Patel, Director of Thoracic Surgery at University of Miami and co-founder of Creative Medical Technology Holdings. "By recreating in the microenvironment of the lower back the same thing that we do in atherosclerotic heart patients, we believe we have a novel way to treat this terrible condition that wreaks havoc on our health care system."

Several studies have shown that administration of stem cells possesses a therapeutic effect in cardiac conditions associated with poor circulation by stimulation of new blood vessel production, a process termed "angiogenesis".The current patent covers stimulation of angiogenesis in the lower back using mesenchymal stem cells.These cells can be used from the same patient, which is considered an "autologous therapy" as well as using stem cells in a universal donor manner, which is termed "allogeneic".

"The acquisition of this patent not only positions the company to expand into the disc degenerative space, but also provides a powerful platform for collaboration with other companies that are administering regenerative cells directly into the nucleus pulposus of the disc," commented Thomas Ichim, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of the Company and inventor of the technology. "Stem cells are like seeds, they need to be planted into fertile soil. We feel that in certain patients it is essential to treat the lumbar ischemia, which is present in some patients suffering from disc degenerative disease, which will then allow the stem cells administered directly in the disc to perform their regenerative effects."

About US

Creative Medical Technology Holdings, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company with two focus areas; 1) personalized stem cell procedures for sexual dysfunction and infertility, and 2) universal, off-the-shelf amniotic fluid-based stem cells that possess superior healing potential without negative medical or ethical issues. Through our own research and collaborations with leading academic institutions, we have developed proprietary protocols, built an extensive intellectual property portfolio, developed complete treatment offerings for erectile dysfunction and are performing ground-breaking research with our amniotic fluid-based stem cell.

For additional information visit http://www.CREATIVEMEDICALTECHNOLOGY.com

Forward-Looking StatementsThis release may contain "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements are identified by certain words or phrases such as "may", "aim", "will likely result", "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "intend", "plan", "contemplate", "seek to", "future", "objective", "goal", "project", "should", "will pursue" and similar expressions or variations of such expressions. These forward-looking statements reflect the Company's current expectations about its future plans and performance. These forward-looking statements rely on a number of assumptions and estimates which could be inaccurate and which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could vary materially from those anticipated or expressed in any forward-looking statement made by the Company. Please refer to the Company's most recent Forms 10-Q and 10-K and subsequent filings with the SEC for a further discussion of these risks and uncertainties. The Company disclaims any obligation or intent to update the forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/creative-medical-technology-holdings-to-expand-into-10-billion-dollar-per-year-lower-back-pain-market-with-acquisition-of-issued-us-stem-cell-patent-300459902.html

SOURCE Creative Medical Technology Holdings, Inc.

Home

Read the original post:
Creative Medical Technology Holdings to Expand into 10 Billion Dollar per Year Lower Back Pain Market with ... - PR Newswire (press release)

May 17, 2017 Images of heart muscle cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. Credit: Q. Duan et al., Science Translational Medicine (2017)

A team of researchers at the Gladstone Institutes uncovered a new strategy to treat heart failure, a leading contributor to mortality and healthcare costs in the United States. Despite widespread use of currently-approved drugs, approximately 40% of patients with heart failure die within 5 years of their initial diagnosis.

"The current standard of care is clearly not sufficient, which highlights the urgent need for new therapeutic approaches," said Saptarsi Haldar, MD, an associate investigator at Gladstone and senior author of a new study featured on the cover of the scientific journal Science Translational Medicine. "In our previous work, we found that a drug-like small molecule called JQ1 can prevent the development of heart failure in mouse models when administered at the very onset of the disease. However, as the majority of patients requiring treatment already have longstanding cardiac dysfunction, we needed to determine if our strategy could also treat established heart failure."

As part of an emerging treatment strategy, drugs derived from JQ1 are currently under study in early-phase human cancer trials. These drugs act by inhibiting a protein called BRD4, a member of a family of proteins called BET bromodomains, which directly influences heart failure. With this study, the scientists found that JQ1 can effectively treat severe, pre-established heart failure in both small animal and human cell models by blocking inflammation and fibrosis (scarring of the heart tissue).

"It has long been known that inflammation and fibrosis are key conspirators in the development of heart failure, but targeting these processes with drugs has remained a significant challenge," added Haldar, who is also a practicing cardiologist and an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. "By inhibiting the function of the protein BRD4, an approach that simultaneously blocks both of these processes, we are using a new and different strategy altogether to tackle the problem."

Currently available drugs used for heart failure work at the surface of heart cells. In contrast, Haldar's approach goes to the root of the problem and blocks destructive processes in the cell's command center, or nucleus.

The video will load shortly

"We treated mouse models of heart failure with JQ1, similarly to how patients would be treated in a clinic," said Qiming Duan, MD, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in Haldar's lab and co-first author of the study. "We showed that this approach effectively treats pre-established heart failure that occurs both after a massive heart attack or in response to persistent high blood pressure (mechanical overload), suggesting it could be used to treat a wide array of patients."

Using Gladstone's unique expertise, the scientists then used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), generated from adult human skin cells, to create a type of beating heart cell known as cardiomyocytes.

"After testing the drug in mice, we wanted to check whether JQ1 would have the same effect in humans," explained co-first author Sarah McMahon, a UCSF graduate student in Haldar's lab. "We tested the drug on human cardiomyocytes, as they are cells that not only beat, but can also trigger the processes of inflammation and fibrosis, which in turn make heart failure progressively worse. Similar to our animal studies, we found that JQ1 was also effective in human heart cells, reaffirming the clinical relevance of our results."

The study also showed that, in contrast to several cancer drugs that have been documented to cause cardiac toxicity, BRD4 inhibitors may be a class of anti-cancer therapeutics that has protective effects in the human heart.

"Our study demonstrates a new therapeutic approach to successfully target inflammation and fibrosis, representing a major advance in the field," concluded Haldar. "We also believe our current work has important near-term translational impact in human heart failure. Given that drugs derived from JQ1 are already being tested in cancer clinical trials, their safety and efficacy in humans are already being defined. This key information could accelerate the development of a new heart failure drug and make it available to patients more quickly."

Explore further: Heart failure is as 'malignant' as some common cancers

More information: Q. Duan el al., "BET bromodomain inhibition suppresses innate inflammatory and profibrotic transcriptional networks in heart failure," Science Translational Medicine (2017). stm.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aah5084

A new analysis finds that, despite advances in care, men and women with a diagnosis of heart failure continue to have worse survival rates than patients with certain common cancers.

Patching a damaged heart with a patient's own muscle stem cells improves symptoms of heart failure, according to a Phase I clinical trial reported in Journal of the American Heart Association, the Open Access Journal of the ...

Researchers have completed a randomized clinical trial in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), which currently has no effective treatment for reducing morbidity and mortality.

A new analysis describes different classifications of patients who are hospitalized with acute heart failure based on various characteristics, which may help guide early decisions regarding triage and treatment.

(HealthDay)Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have increased risk of heart failure, according to a study published in the March 14 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

In the largest German survey on heart failure to date, investigators found that the overall awareness of heart failure has not increased over the past decade and is not at a satisfactory level.

Shortness of breath is the No.1 complaint of people suffering from heart failure. Now a University of Guelph researcher has discovered its surprising cause - and an effective treatment - in a groundbreaking new study.

A team of researchers at the Gladstone Institutes uncovered a new strategy to treat heart failure, a leading contributor to mortality and healthcare costs in the United States. Despite widespread use of currently-approved ...

Although the absolute difference in U.S. county-level cardiovascular disease mortality rates have declined substantially over the past 35 years for both ischemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease, large differences ...

Waist-to-hip ratio may be a stronger indicator of some cardiovascular illnesses than the commonly-used measure BMI, according to a new UCL-led study.

New research has found that genetic differences in antibody genes alter individuals' susceptibility to rheumatic heart disease, a forgotten inflammatory heart condition known as 'RHD' that is rife in developing countries.

People who use commonly prescribed non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to treat pain and inflammation could be raising their risk of having a heart attack, as early as in the first week of use and especially within ...

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

More here:
Cancer-cardiac connection illuminates promising new drug for heart ... - Medical Xpress

Islamabad

The Ministry of National Health Services signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Armed Forces Bone Marrow Transplant Centre here Thursday for provision of bone marrow transplant facility to the general public and federal government employees and their families, along with Armed Forces personnel and their families and defence paid employees.

Under the MOU, the National Institute of Blood and Marrow Transplant shall be established at the Armed Forces Bone Marrow Transplant Centre and will be designated as the National Institute of Blood and Marrow Transplant (NIBMT). This new facility will broaden the scope of the hospital, so that bone marrow/stem cell transplant can be extended to federal government employees and the general public. It will also serve to extend training facilities in the field of Bone Marrow Transplant and Clinical Haematology.

The MOU was signed on behalf of National Health Services by Director General Health Dr. Assad Hafeez whereas Major General Tariq Mehmood Satti Commandant Armed Forces Bone Marrow Transplant Centre, Rawalpindi, signed on behalf of his organization. Commandant of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Maj. Gen. Parvez Ahmed was also present on the occasion.

Speaking on the occasion, the Secretary of the Ministry of Health Services Muhammad Ayub Shaikh expressed gratitude to the Commandant of AFIP and AFBMPC for their efforts in making the MOU possible. This noble initiative will benefit a large number of patients, he projected. Major General Parvez Ahmed elaborated the efforts and initiatives taken to make the MOU possible.

Go here to read the rest:
Bone marrow transplant facility to be available to public, government employees - The News International

Jonathan Pitre in a 2015 TSN profile.

This time, it worked.

Suffering from a severe form of epidermolysis bullosa (EB), an incurable genetic condition which causes the skin to blister and create painful wounds, Pitre, who turns 17 next month, was given the moniker Butterfly Boy due to his delicate skin.

EB can be fatal, with many people who have severe EB dying from skin cancer in their twenties. Pitre underwent his second stem cell transplant procedure at the University of Minnesota Masonic Childrens Hospital, a pioneer in treating EB though stem cell transplants.

Paediatric hematoligist-oncologist with the University of Minnesota Jakub Tolar calls EB the worst disease youve never heard of, as it affects only one in 20,000 people. Research by Tolar and his colleagues led to the discovery that bone marrow transplantation, a procedure typically used to treat blood cancers in the bone marrow such as leukemia, could benefit those with EB.

This had never been done before, says Tolar, who directs the U of Ms Stem Cell Institute, in a press release. I didnt know it at the time we started this research 10 years ago, but it opened a totally new field in transplantation biology.

Stem cell transplants involve a persons blood-forming stem cells (immature cells that can become various types of specialized cells in the body, in this case, becoming different types of blood cells) from the bone marrow and replacing them with healthy stem cells.

For Pitre, his earlier bone marrow transplant last October proved unsuccessful as doctors learned that his own stem cells had recolonized his bone marrow. This time around, the results look more promising. Pitres mother, Tina Boileau, who was the donor, is now full of joy and relief, according to an Ottawa Citizen report, which states that newly created white blood cells in Pitres system contain a pair of X chromosomes, indicating that they came from Boileaus donated cells.

This is the best news ever, the best Mothers Day gift, said Boileau. Jon is full of me. He doesnt have any T-cells that are his.

Its been over 30 years since bone marrow cells were first used to treat cancer, but recent advances have shown the potential application of stem cell transplantation for a variety of diseases and conditions, from brain and spinal cord injury to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimers to HIV/AIDS. Researchers at Cardiff University in Wales, for example, have just announced commencement of stem cell transplants for patients with Huntingtons disease.

The Ontario government has just announced $32 million in new funding to help shorten the long wait times for stem cell transplants in the province, meaning that 150 more patients a year will be able to receive transplant therapy. As reported in the Hamilton Spectator, $10 million of the new funds will be going to the Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre in Hamilton for a dedicated unit with 15 inpatient and five outpatient beds.

Below: TSN Original: The Butterfly Child

See original here:
Ontario teen Jonathan Pitre's second attempt at stem cell transplant is a success - Cantech Letter

A team of scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has identified the cells that directly give rise to hair as well as the mechanism that causes hair to turn gray. The research is published in the journal Genes & Development.

Layers of the skin. Image credit: M.Komorniczak / Madhero / CC BY-SA 3.0.

With this knowledge, we hope in the future to create a topical compound or to safely deliver the necessary gene to hair follicles to correct these cosmetic problems, said senior author Dr. Lu Le, an associate professor of dermatology with the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Dr. Le and colleagues found that a protein called KROX20 (also termed EGR2), more commonly associated with nerve development, turns on in skin cells that become the hair shaft.

These hair precursor cells then produce a protein called stem cell factor (SCF) that the researchers showed is essential for hair pigmentation.

When the authors deleted the SCF gene (KITLG gene) in the hair progenitor cells in mouse models, the animals hair turned white.

When they deleted the KROX20-producing cells, no hair grew and the mice became bald.

We uncovered this explanation for balding and hair graying while studying a disorder called Neurofibromatosis Type 1, a rare genetic disease that causes tumors to grow on nerves, Dr. Le said.

Scientists already knew that stem cells contained in a bulge area of hair follicles are involved in making hair and that SCF is important for pigmented cells.

What they did not know in detail is what happens after those stem cells move down to the base, or bulb, of hair follicles and which cells in the hair follicles produce SCF or that cells involved in hair shaft creation make the KROX20 protein.

If cells with functioning KROX20 and SCF are present, they move up from the bulb, interact with pigment-producing melanocyte cells, and grow into pigmented hairs.

But without SCF, the hair in mouse models was gray, and then turned white with age. Without KROX20-producing cells, no hair grew.

We will now try to find out if the KROX20 in cells and the SCF gene stop working properly as people age, leading to the graying and hair thinning seen in older people as well as in male pattern baldness, Dr. Le said.

_____

Chung-Ping Liao et al. Identification of hair shaft progenitors that create a niche for hair pigmentation. Genes & Development, published online May 2, 2017; doi: 10.1101/gad.298703.117

View original post here:
Skin Cell Discovery Could Lead to Possible Treatments for Balding ... - Sci-News.com

Be The Match BioTherapies LLC, a recently created subsidiary of the Minneapolis-based National Bone Marrow Program/Be The Match, this month emerged as a biotechnology venture investor with its participation in a $50 million financing round for a Massachusetts stem cell company. And, its leaders say, it likely wont be the last time the 17-month-old nonprofit spinoff will take part in venture funding to support the commercialization of biotech related to NBMP/Be The Matchs mission of advancing cell therapies for leukemia patients and others needing bone marrow/stem cell transplants. NMDP/Be The Match moved its 995 employees into a newly constructed headquarters building in the North Loop in December 2015. It runs a network of more than 486 organizations that support marrow transplant worldwide, including 178 transplant centers in the United States and more than 45 international donor centers and cooperative registries. Wholly-owned subsidiary Be The Match BioTherapies was among the Series B investors for Magenta Therapeutics of Cambridge, Massachusetts, a biotech company developing therapies to improve and expand the use of curative stem cell transplantation for more patients. Other participants in the oversubscribed round included new lead investor GV (formerly Google Ventures) and existing investors such as Atlas Venture, Third Rock Ventures, Partners Innovation Fund and Access Industries. A major feature of the Magenta deal was also Be The Match BioTherapies new involvement as a strategic partner for the company, under which the two sides will explore opportunities to work together across all of Magentas research efforts, from discovery through clinical development. Magentas lead drug candidate is MGTA-456, which it claims is capable of expanding the number of cord blood stem cells available for transplantation, thus achieving superior clinical outcomes compared to standard transplant procedures. John Wagner M.D., executive medical director of the Bone Marrow Transplantation Program at the University of Minnesota is leading the research. The strategic agreement allows Magenta to leverage Be The Match BioTherapies capabilities, including its cell therapy delivery platform, industry relationships, clinical trial design and management and patient outcomes data generated from the parent organization. According to NMDPs 2015 annual report, Be The Match BioTherapies was established on Dec. 4, 2015, and authorized to do business as a nonprofit limited liability company. The report said it was anticipated the subsidiary would conduct certain business in the field of cellular therapy consistent with the nonprofit mission of its parent corporation, National Marrow Donor Program, but outside the scope of NMDPs customary core business. Led by NMDP Chief Financial Officer Amy Ronneberg, Be The Match BioTherapies says it is making the parent organizations capabilities available to commercial entities developing new allogeneic and autologous cellular therapies. For example, it says it is collaborating with an unnamed biotech company to design a donor identification and cell harvest strategy for white blood cells from donors with specific human leukocyte antigen types. When asked if the subsidiarys venture investment into Magenta Therapies was a sign that it is staking out ground as a stem cell industry investment player, company spokeswoman Melissa Neill told TCB its indeed a scenario that could play out again. We are continually looking for ways to advance science and research in new cellular therapies, she said in an email. In the future, this might mean investments in or additional partnerships with companies whose goals align with our goal of developing and delivering cellular therapies to positively impact patients lives.

Original post:
Be The Match Subsidiary Emerges as a Biotech Venture Player - Twin Cities Business Magazine

May 4, 2017 Neural stem cell therapies could eventually play a role in treating spinal cord injuries. Credit: woodoo007 / 123rf

Researchers in Qatar and Egypt, working with colleagues in Italy and the US, have found that injured spinal cords in rats show signs of tissue regeneration several weeks following injection with neural stem cells.

An estimated 2.5 million people worldwide live with spinal cord injury caused by various types of accidents and falls. "Much research is going into investigating the potential of stem cells in treating this and other neurological conditions," says Dr Hany Marei of Qatar University Biomedical Research Center.

The team isolated neural stem cells, which specifically differentiate into nerve tissue, from a structure in the front of the brain called the olfactory bulb. The olfactory bulbs were removed from human patients undergoing operations to extract brain tumours.

The team first genetically engineered the neural stem cells to carry a protein that causes them to fluoresce under the microscope. The researchers cultured the cells and demonstrated that they differentiated into a variety of nervous system cells.

They then injected the stem cells into rats whose spinal cords had been cut, and examined samples taken from the injured area regularly up until eight weeks after the injury. They compared these results with those of uninjured rats who did not receive injections, rats with injured cords that did not receive injections, and rats that underwent a sham operation in which the full procedure was done except for cutting of the spinal cord.

No signs of functional or tissue restoration were found in the control groups.

However, in the injured rats given neural stem cell injections, the team found that the stem cells differentiated into three types of nerve cells: oligodendrocytes and astrocyteswhich are involved in the production of the protective myelin sheath that surrounds nervesand neurons. There were no signs of immunorejection. However, there were also no signs of functional improvement in the rats in the form of movement of their hind limbs paralyzed by the injury.

The results indicate that injecting stem cells at sites of spinal cord injury can produce relatively normal neurons and other nervous tissue elements, but further studies are needed to promote locomotor recovery, says Marei. One possibility is that eight weeks (the upper limit in this study) is not enough time to restore damaged nerve tracts and neuronal circuitry.

Explore further: New hope for spinal cord injuries

Provided by: Qatar University

esearchers from Hokkaido University in Japan together with an international team of scientists implanted specialized embryonic stem cells into the severed spinal cords of rats. The stem cells, called neural progenitor cells, ...

Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes created a special type of neuron from human stem cells that could potentially repair spinal cord injuries. These cells, called V2a interneurons, transmit signals in the spinal cord to ...

New research from Uppsala University shows promising progress in the use of stem cells for treatment of spinal cord injury. The results, which are published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports, show that human stem ...

In a new study, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden show that the scar tissue formed by stem cells after a spinal cord injury does not impair recovery; in fact, stem cell scarring confines the damage. The findings, ...

A team from the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project (PCGP) has mapped the intricate changes in the "epigenetic" organization of the nucleus to determine how retinal ...

Long assumed to be a mere "relay," an often-overlooked egg-like structure in the middle of the brain also turns out to play a pivotal role in tuning-up thinking circuity. A trio of studies in mice funded by the National Institutes ...

One day, our brains will not work the way they used to, we won't be as "sharp" as we once were, we won't be able to remember things as easily.

The highly interconnected zones of the brain's hippocampus mediate spatial and episodic memory, but to keep memories organized they need the right balance of exciting and calming input. A part of the hippocampus called CA2 ...

Scientists at Columbia University have obtained the first detailed images of interactions between the AMPA receptor and molecules that regulate chemical signaling in the brain. Their findings may help understand the processes ...

Scientists report in Neuron the lost function of two genes prevents infant laboratory mice from developing motor skills as they mature into adults. Researchers also suggest in their study that people with certain motor development ...

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

See the original post:
Neural stem cell therapies could eventually play a role in treating spinal cord injuries - Medical Xpress

CIRM California's stem cell research funding agency to lose ... San Francisco Business Times Randy Mills, who came in to right California's semi-public stem cell research funding agency, is leaving to head the National Marrow Donor Program. Mills three ... CA Stem Cell Agency Chief Randy Mills to Leave After Three Years ...Xconomy all 4 news articles »

See the article here:
CIRM California's stem cell research funding agency to lose ... - San Francisco Business Times

Xconomy Boston

Magenta Therapeutics said today it has doubled its money with a $50 million Series B round led by GV, formerly Google Ventures. The Cambridge, MA-based startup spun out of Harvard University last year with nearly $50 million in launch money to develop improved bone marrow transplants.

Magenta has also licensed a drug from Novartis that it says could help boost the number of healthy stem cells that are delivered into a patients body, a key procedure in a transplant.

Used to treat people with cancer and other blood-borne diseases, a bone marrow transplant starts with a procedure to kill a patients diseased blood stem cells, which live in the bone marrow. The diseased cells are then replaced with healthy stem cells, usually from a donor. Though growing safer, its still a risky process, especially for elderly or frail patients. Deaths related to the treatment have dropped below 20 percent in recent years, but Magentas founders as well as researchers at Stanford University are among the groups working to improve the complicated steps.

Magenta is developing three types of drugs, each for a different procedure in the transplant process. It will test them as separate products but try to market them as a suite to transplant clinics, according to management.

The drug Magenta licensed from Novartis is applied to cells from donated umbilical cord blood, which have different properties than cells from blood donated by adults. The drug, which recently completed an early stage study, is meant to stimulate the blood cells to replicate faster outside the body, providing a bigger population to put back into the patient. The more cells, the better the chance that the new healthy cells will engraft, or survive in the patients bone marrow.

Magenta also aims to develop an alternative to chemotherapy or radiation, which a patient receives before a transplant to kill his or her diseased stem cells; and a treatment to coax an adult donors stem cells out of the bone marrow and into the bloodstream, where the cells are easier to harvest for the transplant.

Other investors in the new round are previous backers Third Rock Ventures, Atlas Venture, Partners Innovation Fund, and Access Industries, and new investors including Casdin Capital and BeTheMatch BioTherapies, which is affiliated with the nonprofit international bone marrow registry NMDP/Be The Match.

Magenta said it would work with BeTheMatch BioTherapies on research and development.

Photo Bone Marrow Donation by Andrew Ratto via a Creative Commons 2.0 license.

Alex Lash is Xconomy's National Biotech Editor. He is based in San Francisco.

Read this article:
Magenta Nabs More Cash, Licenses Drug To Boost Transplant Pipeline - Xconomy

A benefit rummage, bake and vendor sale will be held this Friday and Saturday for Trisha Suits, a Lisbon resident battling leukemia. She is shown with her mother, Alice Loy, and 6-year-old son Landon who proudly displays the jacket Trisha wore while serving as an assistant cross country coach at Lisbon. Despite being virtually blind, the David Anderson High School graduate ran cross country in high school. (Salem News photo by J.D.Creer)

WHAT: Rummage, bake and vendor sale to benefit area resident Trisha Suits who will be undergoing leukemia treatments at the Cleveland Clinic.

WHEN: From 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 5-6.

WHERE: Guilford Lake Ruritan Hall, state Route 172.

She was born weighing just a pound and eight ounces. But Trisha Suits is hardly a lightweight.

The courageous 30-year-old Lisbon resident, left virtually blind due to her premature birth, has taken on all comers throughout her life. Despite having only 2 percent vision in her right eye and none in her left, she has been a capable mom in helping to raise her son. She is a 2006 David Anderson High School graduate. Remarkably, she ran as a member of the cross-country team, memorizing her routes. Just putting one foot in front of the other, Trisha quipped, saying never fell. She later served as a Blue Devils assistant coach.

Now she is confronting her biggest challenge. She has been diagnosed with a complex form of leukemia and will be undergoing bone marrow and stem cell transplants at the Cleveland Clinic. Due to ongoing treatments, she will be required to remain in the hospital for six weeks. Then she will need to stay at a nearby housing complex for another 100 days.

Trisha was diagnosed in early March, after passing out from severe blood loss. She spent a month in the Cleveland Clinic getting chemotherapy. But due to genetic mutations, she needs bone marrow and stem cell transplants to combat acute myeloid leukemia a type of cancer that starts in the blood-forming cells of marrow.

According to her aunt, Melody Hobbs of Salem, her lengthy stay at the housing complex the Transplant House of Cleveland will cost about $75 per day for just the lodging. A donor has been found. Transplant treatments are expected to begin May 11.

To help offset the costs, a combination rummage, bake and vendor sale for Trisha will be held this Friday and Saturday, May 5-6, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day at the Guilford Ruritans Hall off of state Route 172.

We just need people to come, Hobbs said. We are trying to raise awareness to get more people out there. All the money raised will pay for Trishas lodging and transportation.

Trishas ordeal is and will continue to be grueling. Admittedly, she gets bitter, angry and frustrated. The uncertainty is overwhelming.

The really hard part of it will be being in Cleveland away from her son and family, said Hobbs.

Indeed, Trishas said her hobby is being the best mom she can be for her son. Six-year-old Landon is a McKinley Elementary School student.

I love my mommy, he offered. Its not just my moms fight, its our fight.

Trisha and her son lives with her parents, Rick Joy and Alice Loy. Her sister, Summer Burkholder, is a co-organizer of this weekends benefit.

The transplants offer a possible cure. Without them, it would be dire.

God only gives me what I can handle, said Trisha who has spent her entire life combating challenges. But I am scared about what this is going to do to my body.

Ongoing updates on Trisha may be found on Facebook. Visit: Trishas Fight with AML. To make an online donation, a link: youcaring.com may be accessed.

jdcreer@salemnews.net

LISBON A Center Township resident believes township trustees should consider banning marijuana facilities of ...

LISBON The company interested in reopening a Middleton Township youth residential treatment home intends to ...

Ohio House Speaker Clifford Rosenberger recently appointed state Rep. Tim Ginter to the Ohio Commission on ...

LEETONIA Grades kindergarten through second at Leetonia Elementary will benefit from a literacy collaborative ...

See original here:
Benefit planned May 5-6 for area leukemia victim - SalemNews.net