Whats trending in cosmeceuticals? Niacinamide, heparan sulfate, defensins, novel retinoids and sodium copper chlorophyllin complex, according to Vivian W. Bucay, M.D., a dermatologist in San Antonio, Texas, who presented on the topic this week at the 2017 Vegas Cosmetic Surgery and Aesthetic Dermatology meeting, in Las Vegas.

Niacinamide

Cosmeceuticals contain three primary forms of vitamin B3, including niacinamide, nicotinic acid and nicotinate esters, according to Dr. Bucay.

[The] most studied and efficacious form is niacinamide. Nicotinic acid [is] not generally used because it causes vasodilation, redness and irritation, according to Dr. Bucays presentation. Niacinamide readily penetrates the stratum corneum, [with] little potential for irritation.

Niacinamides effects on the skin include improving the skin barrier function, pigmentation and appearance of lines and wrinkles associated with photoaging. The water-soluble vitamin has been shown in studies to have immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory effects, and more. Niacinamide has also been shown to improve acne, by, among other things, decreasing facial sebum production. It also has been shown to reduce pigmentation and decrease UV-induced immunosuppression.

Heparan Sulfate

Heparan sulfate is a key glycosaminoglycan, which surrounds cells and is required for cell growth, according to Dr. Bucay.

Heparan sulfate is well documented in dermatology, with studies in wound repair, skin infections, atopic dermatitis, rosacea and psoriasis. As a facilitator of growth factor function, heparan sulfate is essential for collagen synthesis, she writes.

And topically applied heparan sulfate penetrates the epidermis and dermis in humans, according to Dr. Bucay.

Low molecular weight heparan sulfate is found exclusively in the Sent skincare product line (Sent), she writes.

Defensins

According to a study by Lough et al published November 2013, the immune system releases defensins that activate LGR6+ stem cells. Activated LGR6+ stem cells create new basal stem cells. And the newly-created basal stem cells produce fresh keratinocytes that last a lifetime.

Defensins, which are antimicrobial peptides, are released by neutrophils in wounds. These dermatologic stem cells generate cell lineages of the skin, according to Dr. Bucay.

Defensins have been shown to enhance wound healing and hair growth. Early studies suggest defensins reduce skin aging. Dr. Bucay is among the researchers conducting an ongoing vehicle-controlled study on the use of synthetic defensins in a cosmetic base.

While retinol stimulates old basal stem cells to make old keratinocytes, defensins activate preserved LGR6+ stem cells to make new basal stem cells. And while growth factors switch on good and bad cells, defensins activate specific cells types to do specific jobs, according to Dr. Bucay.

Defensins are found in DefenAge (DefenAge) skincare products.

A novel retinoid

Scientists have developed a bioengineered double conjugate retinoid with lactic acid, which is designed to optimize delivery of beneficial properties of both an alpha hydroxy acid (AHA) and a retinoid, with less skin irritation. The proprietary AlphaRet technology increases stability, reduces irritation and improves passage through the skin, according to Dr. Bucays presentation.

The product AlphaRet Overnight Cream (SkinBetter Science), includes the AlphaRet molecule, 0.1%, glycolic acid and a potent antioxidant blend.

Sodium copper chlorophyllin complex

Liposomal sodium copper chlorophyllin complex technology is based on chlorophyll, [a] fat soluble green pigment in plants necessary for photosynthesis, according to Dr. Bucay.

Sodium copper chlorophyllin has a long history of use in medicine, including in topical wound healing. Recently, sodium chlorophyllin has been used topically for cosmetic purposes, in the MDRejuvena Rejuvaphyl Rejuvenating complex (MDRejuvena). The product, she writes, has been shown to reduce redness and oiliness and improve signs of photodamage.

Results from a human biopsy study published July 2016 suggest retinoids and sodium copper chlorophyllin complex have beneficial effects on biomarkers of photoaged skin. Together, sodium copper chlorophyllin complex and retinols may provide a dual approach to reversing age-related changes, according to the authors.

Disclosure: Dr. Bucay reports ties to Allergan, Merz Aesthetics, Galderma, Johnson & Johnson/Neutrogena, LOreal/SkinCeuticals, NuGene, Sent Labs, Medicell Technologies, Alastin Skincare, Viviscal, BTL, Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Syneron Candela and Miramar Labs.

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An experimental therapy to repair spinal cord injury with stem cell-derived tissue is progressing smoothly, according to a leader of that trial who spoke at a conference on stem cell therapy.

The Phase 1 safety trial is proceeding with no complications, said Dr. Joseph Ciacci, a University of California San Diego neurosurgeon. The trial is being conducted at the universitys Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center. The conference was held last week at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in La Jolla.

With safety looking good, the green light has been given to treat more patients, Ciacci said. However, to produce effectiveness, more cells will need to be transplanted.

Four patients have been treated with neural stem cells, injected into the spinal cord. They had experienced complete loss of motor and sensor function below the injury. They had been injured between 1 and 2 years previously.

Moreover, the cells show signs of integrating with the surrounding tissue in animal studies, Ciacci said. If the preliminary evidence holds up, Ciacci and colleagues plan to submit a paper detailing the results.

Curing paralysis from spinal cord injury was a big selling point for those who successfully advocated Proposition 71, which authorized selling $6 billion in state bonds to establish and fund the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, or CIRM. The institute got $3 billion, the remaining half is going for interest over the life of the bonds.

While CIRM has been under pressure to show results, doctors are taking great care to establish safety first in the spinal cord treatment, because of potential risks in the procedure.

We are now enrolling and recruiting for the second cohort, which is for chronic cervical spinal cord injuries, Ciacci said. They are medically classified as C5-C7 ASIA A Complete.

Chronic injuries need to have taken place more than 1 year before treatment. For this study, the injury must also be under two years old. The trial is being conducted at UCSD with Ciacci serving as the principal investigator.

For more information on the Phase I Chronic SCI study, contact Ciaccis research group at (619) 471-3698, nksidhu@ucsd.edu.

In addition, the researchers have been approved to start another spinal cord injury trial with a different set of cells. These oligodendrocyte progenitor cells, derived from embryonic stem cells, can turn into several different types of neural cells.

The trial, sponsored by Asterias, treats newly injured patients, between 14 and 30 days after injury.

For more information on the Asterias trial, contact the UCSD Alpha Stem Cell Clinic at 858-534-5932 alphastemcellclinic@ucsd.edu or visit http://www.scistar-study.com and j.mp/ucsdast.

Asterias acquired the technology from Geron, which had undertaken the work with a CIRM grant. Geron later canceled the work and refunded the money to CIRM. Asterias got funding from CIRM to continue the work.

The Asterias trial will use the same technique as used with the Chronic SCI trial, a technique which can improve safety, Ciacci said. The cells will be injected in a series of progressively larger amounts that may give evidence of the dose relates to effectiveness, although safety remains the main concern.

This cell line is cryopreserved, its sent to us as a single dose the day of surgery, Ciacci said. Were going to study different doses 2 million, 10 million, 20 million cells per injection. Its going to be a direct injection, just like what weve done before.

As in previous treatments, patients will also receive immune suppression to prevent rejection of the cells. Likewise, they will be monitored for many years after treatment.

Another trial coming to UCSD will test for efficacy in ALS, Ciacci said.

Ciacci said hes looking for qualified patients for these trials, and urged those in the audience to help find them.

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Stem cell treatments reaching patients

Loving football but knowing risks, doctor wonders if son should play

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Multiple myeloma is cancer that involves our bone marrow with a specific cell called a plasma cell that patients can develop. Most patients will need a bone marrow transplant.

Patients needing bone marrow transplants dont have to travel far to receive this potentially life-saving transplant.

The actual day of the diagnosis was November 18th of 2015 and it was a diagnosis for multiple myeloma, said Steven Simpson.

Simpson was ready to fight from that day on. He learned from Dr. Kelly McCaul, the director of Avera Hematology Transplant Program, that he would need a bone marrow transplant.

There are many different types of transplant that we do. Theres basically an autologous transplant where patients would be their own donors for their stem cells and then theres allogenic transplant which are some sort of donor process. And so Steve has multiple myeloma. We would normally look at autologous transplant as the preferred pathway for patients with that disease, said Dr. McCaul.

Weve never had to leave anywhere other than here. This is it, said Simpson.

Simpson and his immediate family live no further than 20 minutes away from Avera McKenna so getting the transplant elsewhere was out of the question. But that didnt come without resistance from his insurance company.

Youre asking somebody to go three or four hours out of the way minimum for a period of time that could last anywhere from a week to whatever the process is. You lose your doctors. You lose the ability to have any local family support there as you need them and you dont really know what youre getting into. You just know what youre told, said Simpson.

Simpson and his insurance company worked together and was able to stay at Avera for his transplant.

I came in the day before scheduled for the transplant but left three hours after the transplant because I didnt have any reactions. Plus, we all knew that I had somebody available to watch me 24/7 for the period of time that we would have. The fact that you have your doctors here, your oncologist, your lab people, your nursing staff, everybodys here. They know who you are, said Simpson.

17 years ago when I first looked at this program one of the big things I looked at was the need in the community and it was felt from my perspective, and obviously Avera, that our need in the community was high. And it allows patients to stay within the community, close to family members, without having to drive four, five hours away, said Dr. McCaul.

Today, Simpson is well on his way to feeling like his old self, something he credits to staying close to home for his transplant.

For more information just call 877-AT-AVERA

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Bone marrow transplant patient credits positive recovery to staying close to home - KSFY

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on Bone marrow transplant patient credits positive recovery to staying close to home – KSFY | June 5th, 2017

(CNN) Here is some background information about stem cells.

Scientists believe that stem cell research can be used to treat medical conditions including Parkinsons disease, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

About Stem Cells:Stem cell research focuses on embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells.

Stem cells have two characteristics that differentiate them from other types of cells:- Stem cells are unspecialized cells that replicate themselves for long periods through cell division.- Under certain physiologic or experimental conditions, stem cells can be induced to become mature cells with special functions such as the beating cells of the heart muscle or insulin-producing cells of the pancreas.

There are four classes of stem cells: totipotent, multipotent, pluripotent, and unipotent.- Totipotent stem cells that develop into cells that make up all the cells in an embryo and fetus. (Ex: The zygote/fertilized egg and the cells at the very early stages following fertilization are considered totipotent)- Multipotent stem cells can give rise to multiple types of cells, but all within a particular tissue, organ, or physiological system. (Ex: blood-forming stem cells/bone marrow cells, most often referred to as adult stem cells)- Pluripotent stem cells (ex: embryonic stem cells) can give rise to any type of cell in the body. These cells are like blank slates, and they have the potential to turn into any type of cell.- Unipotent stem cells can self-renew as well as give rise to a single mature cell type. (Ex: sperm producing cells)

Embryonic stem cells are harvested from four to six-day-old embryos. These embryos are either leftover embryos in fertility clinics or embryos created specifically for harvesting stem cells by therapeutic cloning. Only South Korean scientists claim to have successfully created human embryos via therapeutic cloning and have harvested stem cells from them.

Adult stem cells are already designated for a certain organ or tissue. Some adult stem cells can be coaxed into or be reprogrammed into turning into a different type of specialized cell within the tissue type for example, a heart stem cell can give rise to a functional heart muscle cell, but it is still unclear whether they can give rise to all different cell types of the body.

The primary role of adult stem cells is to maintain and repair the tissue in which they are found.

Uses of Stem Cell Research:Regenerative (reparative) medicine uses cell-based therapies to treat disease.

Scientists who research stem cells are trying to identify how undifferentiated stem cells become differentiated as serious medical conditions, such as cancer and birth defects, are due to abnormal cell division and differentiation.

Scientists believe stem cells can be used to generate cells and tissues that could be used for cell-based therapies as the need for donated organs and tissues outweighs the supply.

Stem cells, directed to differentiate into specific cell types, offer the possibility of a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat diseases, including Parkinsons and Alzheimers diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Policy Debate:Cloning human embryos for stem cells is very controversial.

The goal of therapeutic cloning research is not to make babies, but to make embryonic stem cells, which can be harvested and used for cell-based therapies.

Using fertilized eggs left over at fertility clinics is also controversial because removing the stem cells destroys them.

Questions of ethics arise because embryos are destroyed as the cells are extracted, such as: When does human life begin? What is the moral status of the human embryo?

Timeline:1998 President Bill Clinton requests a National Bioethics Advisory Commission to study the question of stem cell research.

1999 The National Bioethics Advisory Commission recommends that the government allow federal funds to be used to support research on human embryonic stem cells.

2000 During his campaign, George W. Bush says he opposes any research that involves the destruction of embryos.

2000 The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issues guidelines for the use of embryonic stem cells in research, specifying that scientists receiving federal funds can use only extra embryos that would otherwise be discarded. President Clinton approves federal funding for stem cell research but Congress does not fund it.

August 9, 2001 President Bush announces he will allow federal funding for about 60 existing stem cell lines created before this date.

January 18, 2002 A panel of experts at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recommends a complete ban on human reproductive cloning, but supports so-called therapeutic cloning for medical purposes.

February 27, 2002 For the second time in two years, the House passes a ban on all cloning of human embryos.

July 11, 2002 The Presidents Council on Bioethics recommends a four-year ban on cloning for medical research to allow time for debate.

February 2005 South Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk publishes a study in Science announcing he has successfully created stem cell lines using therapeutic cloning.

December 2005 Experts from Seoul National University Hwang of faking some of his research. Hwang asks to have his paper withdrawn while his work is being investigated and resigns his post.

January 10, 2006 An investigative panel from Seoul National University accuses Hwang of faking his research.

July 18, 2006 The Senate votes 63-37 to loosen President Bushs limits on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.

July 19, 2006 President Bush vetoes the embryonic stem-cell research bill passed by the Senate (the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005), his first veto since taking office.

June 20, 2007 President Bush vetoes the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, his third veto of his presidency.

January 23, 2009 The FDA approves a request from Geron Corp. to test embryonic stem cells on eight to 10 patients with severe spinal cord injuries. This will be the worlds first test in humans of a therapy derived from human embryonic stem cells. The tests will use stem cells cultured from embryos left over in fertility clinics.

March 9, 2009 President Barack Obama signs an executive order overturning an order signed by President Bush in August 2001 that barred the NIH from funding research on embryonic stem cells beyond using 60 cell lines that existed at that time.

August 23, 2010 US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth issues a preliminary injunction that prohibits the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

September 9, 2010 A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit grants a request from the Justice Department to lift a temporary injunction that blocked federal funding of stem cell research.

September 28, 2010 The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit lifts an injunction imposed by a federal judge, thereby allowing federally funded embryonic stem-cell research to continue while the Obama Administration appeals the judges original ruling against use of public funds in such research.

October 8, 2010 The first human is injected with cells from human embryonic stem cells in a clinical trial sponsored by Geron Corp.

November 22, 2010 William Caldwell, CEO of Advanced Cell Technology, tells CNN that the FDA has granted approval for his company to start a clinical trial using cells grown from human embryonic stem cells. The treatment will be for an inherited degenerative eye disease.

April 29, 2011 The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia lifts an injunction, imposed last year by a federal judge, banning the Obama administration from funding embryonic stem-cell research.

May 11, 2011 Stem cell therapy in sports medicine is spotlighted after New York Yankee pitcher Bartolo Colon is revealed to have had fat and bone marrow stem cells injected into his injured elbow and shoulder while in the Dominican Republic.

July 27, 2011 Judge Lamberth dismisses a lawsuit that tried to block funding of stem cell research on human embryos.

February 13, 2012 Early research published by scientists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Johns Hopkins University show that a patients own stem cells can be used to regenerate heart tissue and help undo damage caused by a heart attack. It is the first instance of therapeutic regeneration.

May 2013 Scientists make the first embryonic stem cell from human skin cells by reprogramming human skin cells back to their embryonic state, according to a study published in the journal, Cell.

April 2014 For the first time scientists are able to use cloning technologies to generate stem cells that are genetically matched to adult patients,according to a study published in the journal, Cell Stem Cell.

October 2014 Researchers say that human embryonic stem cells have restored the sight of several nearly blind patients and that their latest study shows the cells are safe to use long-term. According to a report published in The Lancet, the researchers transplanted stem cells into 18 patients with severe vision loss as a result of two types of macular degeneration.

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F

or any given medical problem, it seems, theres a research team trying to use stem cells to find a solution. In clinical trials to treat everything from diabetes to macular degeneration to ALS, researchers are injecting the cells in efforts to curepatients.

But in one study expectedto launch later this year, scientists hope to use stem cells in a new, highly controversial way to reverse death.

The idea ofthe trial, run by Philadelphia-based Bioquark, isto inject stem cells into the spinal cords of people who have been declared clinically brain-dead. The subjects will also receive an injected protein blend, electrical nerve stimulation, and laser therapy directed at the brain.

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The ultimate goal: to grow new neurons and spur them to connect to each other, and thereby bring the brain back to life.

Its our contention that theres no single magic bullet for this, so to start with a single magic bullet makes no sense. Hence why we have to take a different approach, said Ira Pastor, CEO of Bioquark.

A dogged quest to fix broken spinal cords pays off with new hope for the paralyzed

But the scientific literature scarce as it is seems to show that even several magic bullets are unlikely to accomplish what Bioquark hopes itwill.

This isnt the first start for the trial. The study launched in Rudrapur, India, in April 2016 but it never enrolled any patients. Regulators shut the study down in November2016 because, according to Science, IndiasDrug Controller General hadnt cleared it.

Now, Pastor said, the company is in the final stages of finding a new location to host trials. The company willannounce a trial in Latin America in coming months, Pastor told STAT.

If that trial mirrors the protocol for the halted Indian one, itll aim to enroll 20 patients wholl receive a barrage of treatments. First theres the injection of stem cells isolatedfrom the individuals own fat or blood. Second, theres a peptide formula injected into the spinal cord, purported to help nurture new neurons growth. (The company has tested the same concoction, called BQ-A, in animalmodels of melanoma, traumatic brain injuries, and skin wrinkling.) Third, theres a regimen of nerve stimulation and laser therapyover 15 days to spur the neurons to form connections. Researcherswilllook to behavior and EEG for signs that the treatment is working.

But the process is fraught with questions. How do researchers complete trial paperwork when the person participating is, legally, dead? (In the United States, state laws most often define death as the irreversible loss of heart and lung or brain function.) If the person did regain brain activity, what kind of functional abilities would he or she have? Are families getting their hopes up for an incredibly long-shot cure?

Answers to most of those questions are still far off. Of course, many folks are asking the what comes next? question, Pastor acknowledged. While full recovery in such patients is indeed a long term vision of ours, and a possibility that we foresee with continued work along this path, it is not the core focus or primary endpoint of this first protocol.

No real template exists to know whether this approach might work and its gotten some prominent backlash. Neurologist Dr. Ariane Lewis and bioethicist Arthur Caplan wrote in a 2016 editorial that the trial borders on quackery, has no scientific foundation, and gave families a cruel, false hope for recovery. (Exploratory research programs of this nature are not false hope. They are a glimmer of hope, Pastor responded.)

The company hasnt tested the full, four-pronged treatment, even in animal models. Studies have evaluated the treatments singly for other conditions stroke, coma but brain death is a quite different proposition.

Stem cell injections to the brain or spinal cord have shown some positive results for children with brain injuries; trials using similar procedures to treat cerebral palsy and ALS have also been completed. One small, uncontrolled studyof 21 stroke patients found that they recoveredmore mobility after they received an injection of donor stem cells into their brains.

On transcranial laserdevices, the evidence is mixed. The approach has been shown to stimulate neuron growth in some animal studies. However, a high-profile Phase 3 study of one such device in humans was halted in 2014 after it showed no effect on 600 patients physical capabilities as they recovered from a stroke. Othertrialsto revive people from comasusing laser therapy are underway.

The literature around electrical stimulation of the median nerve whichbranches from the spinal cord downthe arm and to the fingers primarily consists of case studies.Dr. EdCooper wrote some of those papers, one of which described dozens of patients treated in his home state of North Carolina, including 12 who had a Glasgow Coma Score of 4 an extremely low score on the scale. With time (and with the nerve stimulation), four of those 12people made a good recovery, the paper described; others were left with minor or major disabilities after their coma.

Mini-me brains-in-a-dish mimic disease, raise hope for eventual therapies

But Cooper, an orthopedic surgeon by training who worked with neurosurgeons on the paper, said unequivocally that there is no way this technique could work on someone who is brain-dead. The technique, he said, relies on there being a functional brain stem one of the structuresthat mostmotor neurons go through before connecting with the cortex proper. If theres no functional brain stem, then it cant work.

Pastor agreed but heclaimed the technique would work because there are a small nestofcells that still function in patients who are brain-dead.

Complicating such trials, there is noclear-cut confirmatory test for brain death meaning a recovery in the trial might not be entirely due to the treatment. Some poisons and drugs, for instance, can make people look brain-dead.Bioquark plans to rely on local physicians in the trials host country to make the declaration. Were not doing the confirmatory work ourselves, Pastor said, but each participant would have undergone a battery of tests considered appropriate by local authorities.

But asurvey of 38 papers published over 13 years found that, if the American Academy of Neurology guidelines for brain death had been met, no brain-dead people have ever regained brain function.

Of Bioquarks full protocol, its not the absolute craziest thing Ive ever heard, but I think the probability of that working is next to zero, said Dr. Charles Cox, a pediatric surgeon who has doneresearch with mesenchymal stem cells the type used in the trial at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Cox is not involved in Bioquarks work.

Some studies have found that cells from a part of thebrain called the subventricular zone can grow in culture even after a person is declared dead, Cox said. However, its unlikely that the trials intended outcome to havea stem cell treatment result in new neurons or connections would actually happen. Neurons would likely struggle tosurvive, because blood flow to the brain isalmost always lostin people whohave been declared brain-dead, Cox said.

But Pastor thinksBioquarks protocol will work. I give us a pretty good chance, he said. I just think its a matter of putting it all together and getting the right people and the right minds on it.

Cox is less optimistic. I think [someone reviving] would technically be a miracle, he said. I think the pope would technically call that a miracle.

Kate Sheridan can be reached at kate.sheridan@statnews.com Follow Kate on Twitter @sheridan_kate

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Editors note: The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket scheduled to launch today from Florida was delayed due to weather conditions. The launch has been rescheduled for Saturday, June 3.

A SpaceX rocket wasslated to launch two University of Colorado Boulder-built payloads to the International Space Station (ISS) from Florida on Thursday, including oneto look at changes in cardiovascular stem cells in microgravity that may someday help combat heart disease on Earth.

The Dragon spacecraft

The second payload will be used for rodent studies testing a novel treatment for bone loss in space, which has been documented in both astronauts and mice. The two payloads were developed by BioServe Space Technologies, a research center within the Ann and H.J Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering,

We have a solid relationship with SpaceX and NASA that allows us to regularly fly our flight hardware to the International Space Station, said BioServe Director Louis Stodieck. The low gravity of space provides a unique environment for biomedical experiments that cannot be reproduced on Earth, and our faculty, staff and students are very experienced in designing and building custom payloads for our academic, commercial and government partners.

The experiments will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and carried to the ISS on the companys Dragon spacecraft. The SpaceX-CRS-11 mission launching Thursday marks BioServes 55th mission to space.

The cardiovascular cell experiments, designed by Associate Professor Mary Kearns-Jonker of the Loma Linda University School of Medicine in Loma Linda, California, will investigate how low gravity affects stem cells, including physical and molecular changes. While spaceflight is known to affect cardiac cell structure and function, the biological basis for such impacts is not clearly understood, said BioServe Associate director Stefanie Countryman.

As part of the study, the researchers will be comparing changes in heart muscle stem cells in space with similar cells simultaneously cultured on Earth, said Countryman. Researchers are hopeful the findings could help lead to stem cell therapies to repair damaged cardiac tissue. The findings also could confirm suspicions by scientists that microgravity speeds up the aging process, Countryman said.

For the heart cell experiments, BioServe is providing high-tech, cell-culture hardware known as BioCells that will be loaded into shoebox-sized habitats on ISS. The experiments will be housed in BioServes Space Automated Bioproduct Lab (SABL), a newly updated smart incubator that will reduce the time astronauts spend manipulating the experiments.

The second experiment, created by Dr. Chia Soo of the UCLA School of Medicine, will test a new drug designed to not only block loss of bone but also to rebuild it.

The mice will ride in a NASA habitat designed for spaceflight to the ISS. Once on board, some mice will undergo injections with the new drug while others will be given a placebo. At the end of the experiments half of the mice will be returned to Earth in SpaceXs Dragon spacecraft and transported to UCLA for further study, said Stodieck, a scientific co-investigator on the experiment.

BioServes Space Automated Byproduct Lab

In addition to the two science experiments, BioServe is launching its third SABL unit to the ISS. Two SABL units are currently onboard ISS supporting multiple research experiments, including three previous stem cell experiments conducted by BioServe in collaboration with Stanford University, the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota.

The addition of the third SABL unit will expand BioServes capabilities in an era of high-volume science on board the ISS, said Countryman.

BioServe researchers and students have flown hardware and experiments on missions aboard NASA space shuttles, the ISS and on Russian and Japanese government cargo rockets. BioServe previously has flown payloads on commercial cargo rockets developed by both SpaceX, headquartered in Hawthorne, California, and Orbital ATK, Inc. headquartered in Dulles, Virginia.

Since it was founded by NASA in 1987, BioServe has partnered with more than 100 companies and performed dozens of NASA-sponsored investigations. Itspartners include large and small pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, universities and NASA-funded researchers, and investigations sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, which manages the ISS U.S. National Laboratory. CU-Boulder students are involved in all aspects of BioServe research efforts, said Stodieck.

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Cardiac Stem Cells Comments Off on SpaceX to launch heart, bone health experiments to space station – CU Boulder Today | June 2nd, 2017

Blood stem cells are things of wonder: hidden inside each single cell is the power to reconstitute an entire blood system, like a sort of biological big bang.

Yet with great power comes greater vulnerability. Once these master cells are compromised, as in the case of leukemia and other blood disorders, treatment options are severely limited.

A bone marrow transplant is often the only chance for survival. The surgery takes a healthy donors marrowrich with blood stem cellsand reboots the patients blood system. Unfortunately, like organ transplants, finding a matching donor places a chokehold on the entire process.

According to Dr. George Daley at Harvard Medical School, a healthy sibling gives you a one in four chance. A stranger? One in a million.

For 20 years, scientists have been trying to find a way to beat the odds. Now, two studies published in Nature suggest they may be tantalizingly close to being able to make a limitless supply of blood stem cells, using the patients own healthy tissues.

"This step opens up an opportunity to take cells from patients with genetic blood disorders, use gene editing to correct their genetic defect and make functional blood cells," without depending on donors, says Dr. Ryohichi Sugimura at Boston Childrens Hospital, who authored one of the studies with Daley.

Using a magical mix of seven proteins called transcription factors, the team coaxed lab-made human stem cells into primordial blood cells that replenished themselves and all components of blood.

A second study led by Dr. Shahin Rafii, a stem cell scientist at Weill Cornell Medical College took a more direct route, turning mature cells from mice straight into genuine blood stem cells indiscernible from their natural counterparts.

This is the first time researchers have checked all the boxes and made blood stem cells, says Dr. Mick Bhatia at McMaster University, who was not involved in either study, That is the holy grail.

The life of a blood stem cell starts as a special cell nestled on the walls of a large blood vesselthe dorsal aorta.

Under the guidance of chemical signals, these cells metamorphose into immature baby blood stem cells, like caterpillars transforming into butterflies. The exact conditions that prompt this birthing process are still unclear and is one of the reasons why lab-grown blood stem cells have been so hard to make.

These baby blood stem cells dont yet have the full capacity to reboot blood systems. To fully mature, they have to learn to respond to all sorts of commands in their environment, like toddlers making sense of the world.

Some scientists liken this learning process to going to school, where different external cues act as textbooks to train baby blood stem cells to correctly respond to the body.

For example, when should they divide and multiply? When should they give up their stem-ness, instead transforming into oxygen-carrying red blood cells or white blood cells, the immune defenders?

Both new studies took aim at cracking the elusive curriculum.

In the first study, Daley and team started with human skin and other cells that have been transformed back into stem cells (dubbed iPSCs, or induced pluripotent stem cells). Although iPSCs theoretically have the ability to turn into any cell type, no one has previously managed to transform them into blood stem cells.

A lot of people have become jaded, saying that these cells dont exist in nature and you cant just push them into becoming anything else, says Bhatia.

All cells in an organism share the same genes. However, for any given cell only a subset of genes are turned into proteins. This process is what gives cells their identitiesmay it be a heart cell, liver cell, or blood stem cell.

Daley and team focused on a family of transcription factors. Similar to light switches, these proteins can flip genes on or off. By studying how blood vessels normally give birth to blood stem cells, they found seven factors that encouraged iPSCs to grow into immature blood stem cells.

Using a virus, the team inserted these factors into their iPSCs and injected the transformed cells into the bone marrow of mice. These mice had been irradiated to kill off their own blood stem cells to make room for the lab-grown human replacements.

In this way, Daley exposed the immature cells to signals in a blood stem cells normal environment. The bone marrow acts like a school, explains Drs. Carolina Guibentif and Berthold Gttgens at the University of Cambridge, who are not involved in the study.

It worked. In just twelve weeks, the lab-made blood stem cells had fully matured into master cells capable of making the entire range of cells normally found in human blood. Whats more, when scientists took these cells out and transplanted them into a second recipient, they retained their power.

This a major step forward compared with previous methods, says Guibentif.

In contrast, the second study took a more direct route. Rafii and team took cells lining a mouses vessels, based on the finding that these cells normally turn into blood stem cells during development.

With a set of four transcription factors, the team directly reprogrammed them into baby blood stem cells, bypassing the iPSC stage.

These factors act like a maternity ward, allowing the blood stem cells to be born, says Guibentif.

To grow them to adulthood, Rafii and team laid the cells onto a blanket of supporting cells that mimics the blood vessel nursery. Under the guidance of molecular cues secreted by these supporting cells, the blood stem cells multiplied and matured.

When transplanted into short-lived mice without a functional immune system, the cells sprung to action. In 20 weeks, the mice generated an active immune response when given a vaccine. Whats more, they went on to live a healthy 1.5 yearsroughly equivalent to 60 years old for a human.

Rafii is especially excited about using his system to finally crack the stem cell learning curriculum.

If we can figure out the factors that coax stem cells to divide and mature, we may be able to unravel the secrets of their longevity and make full-fledged blood stem cells in a dish, he says.

Calling both experiments a breakthrough, Guibentif says, this is something people have been trying to achieve for a long time.

However, she points out that both studies have caveats. A big one is cancer. The transcription factors that turn mature cells into stem cells endow them with the ability to multiply efficientlya hallmark of cancerous cells. Whats more, the virus used to insert the factors into cells may also inadvertently turn on cancer-causing genes.

That said, neither team found evidence of increased risk of blood cancers. Guibentif also acknowledges that future studies could use CRISPR in place of transcription factors to transform cells into blood stem cells on demand, further lowering the risk.

The techniques will also have to be made more efficient to make lab-grown blood stem cells cost efficient. Itll be years until human use, says Guibentif.

Even so, the studies deter even the most cynical of critics.

After 20 years, were finally tantalizingly close to generating bona fide human blood stem cells in a dish,"says Daley.

Image Credit: Pond5

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Physicist Stephen Hawking is perhaps the most famous sufferer of motor neuron disease, a crippling degenerative condition that affects an estimated 150,00 people around the world.

Karwai Tang / Getty

In news that may bring hope to Stephen Hawking and hundreds of thousands of others around the world, British scientists have used reprogrammed skin cells to study the development of motor neuron disease.

Its like changing the postcode of a house without actually moving it, explains neuroscientist Rickie Patani, referring to research offering startling new insights into the progress and treatment of the crippling degenerative condition, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Patani, together with colleague Sonia Gandhi, both from the Francis Crick Institute and University College London, in the UK, led a team of researchers investigating how the disease destroys the nerve cells that govern muscle movement.

The results, published in the journal Cell Reports, comprise the most fine-grained work to date on how ALS operates on a molecular level and suggest powerful new treatment methods based on stem cells.

Indeed, so exciting are the implications of the research that Ghandi and Patani are already working with pharmaceutical companies to develop their discoveries.

The neurologists uncovered two key interlinked interactions in the development of motor neuron disease, the first concerning a particular protein, and the second concerning an auxiliary nerve cell type called astrocytes.

To make their findings, the team developed stem cells from the skin of healthy volunteers and a cohort carrying a genetic mutation that leads to ALS. The stem cells were then guided into becoming motor neurons and astrocytes.

We manipulated the cells using insights from developmental biology, so that they closely resembled a specific part of the spinal cord from which motor neurons arise, says Patani.

We were able to create pure, high-quality samples of motor neurons and astrocytes which accurately represent the cells affected in patients with ALS."

The scientists then closely monitored the two sets of cells healthy and mutated to see how their functioning differed over time.

The first thing they noted was that a particular protein TDP-43 behaved differently. In the patient-derived samples TDP-43 leaked out of the cell nucleus, catalysing a damaging chain of events inside the cell and causing it to die.

The observation provided a powerful insight into the molecular mechanics of motor neuron disease.

Knowing when things go wrong inside a cell, and in what sequence, is a useful approach to define the critical molecular event in disease, says Ghandi.

One therapeutic approach to stop sick motor neurons from dying could be to prevent proteins like TDP-43 from leaving the nucleus, or try to move them back.

The second critical insight was derived from the behaviour of astrocytes, which turned out to function as a kind of nursemaid, supporting motor neuron cells when they began to lose function because of protein leakage.

During the progression of motor neuron disease, however, the astrocytes like nurses during an Ebola outbreak eventually fell ill themselves and died, hastening the death of the neurons.

To test this, the team did a type of mix and match exercise, concocting various combinations of neurons and astrocytes from healthy and diseased tissue.

They discovered that healthy astrocytes could prolong the functional life of ALS-affected motor neurons, but damaged astrocytes struggled to keep even healthy motor neurons functioning.

The research reveals both TDP-43 and astrocytes as key therapeutic targets, raising the possibility that the progress of ALS might be significantly slowed, or perhaps even halted.

Our work, along with other studies of ageing and neurodegeneration, would suggest that the cross-talk between neurons and their supporting cells is crucial in the development and progression of ALS, says Patani.

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TROY, Mich., May 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Jay Jagannathan, M.D., known as one of the United States' top neurosurgeons, was featured on WJR AM-760 radio show Anything is Possible! hosted by Jack Krasula on May 27, 2017. During the one-hour show, Dr. Jagannathan discussed the importance of patient-centric care in spine surgery. "It is important that patients know the full spectrum of surgical and non-surgical options," he said, adding that "a full understanding of their options puts patients in a position to make the best decision for themselves."

When asked by Jack Krasula show about the future of spine surgery, Dr. Jagannathan specifically pointed to motion-sparing techniques. Motion-sparing techniques aim to preserve motion in the spine, and are increasingly relevant given the recent FDA approval of 2-level cervical artificial disks. "The idea of preserving motion will permit many patients who were not previously candidates for spine surgery to have procedures that can help with pain while still maintaining normal spinal motion and hopefully reducing the future need for re-operation," he said. Dr. Jagannathan also discussed the importance of stem cells, which are undifferentiated, primitive cells that have the capability of maturing into specific tissue types. According to Dr. Jagannathan, "stem cells not only have the ability to possibly enhance spinal fusion outcomes, but also to serve as a vector to induce healing following spinal cord injury or stroke." Dr. Jagannathan also pointed to the advances in imaging modalities and technology, which has allowed surgeons to provide minimally invasive treatment for pathology which previously were untreatable. "What MIS has taught us is that using image-guided targeting while decreasing tissue manipulation can greatly reduce post-operative pain, hospital stays and post-operative drug use."

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In experiments in mice, UC San Francisco researchers have discovered that regulatory T cells (Tregs; pronounced tee-regs), a type of immune cell generally associated with controlling inflammation, directly trigger stem cells in the skin to promote healthy hair growth. Without these immune cells as partners, the researchers found, the stem cells cannot regenerate hair follicles, leading to baldness.

"Our hair follicles are constantly recycling: when a hair falls out, the whole hair follicle has to grow back, said Michael Rosenblum, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of dermatology at UCSF and senior author on the new paper. This has been thought to be an entirely stem cell-dependent process, but it turns out Tregs are essential. If you knock out this one immune cell type, hair just doesnt grow.

The new study published online May 26 in Cell suggests that defects in Tregs could be responsible for alopecia areata, a common autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss, and could potentially play a role in other forms of baldness, including male pattern baldness, Rosenblum said. Since the same stem cells are responsible for helping heal the skin after injury, the study raises the possibility that Tregs may play a key role in wound repair as well.

Anti-Inflammatory Immune Cells Activate Skin Stem Cells

Normally Tregs act as peacekeepers and diplomats, informing the rest of the immune system of the difference between friend and foe. When Tregs dont function properly, we may develop allergies to harmless substances like peanut protein or cat dander, or suffer from autoimmune disorders in which the immune system turns on the bodys own tissues.

Like other immune cells, most Tregs reside in the bodys lymph nodes, but some live permanently in other tissues, where they seem to have evolved to assist with local metabolic functions as well as playing their normal anti-inflammatory role. In the skin, for example, Rosenblum and colleagues have previously shown that Tregs help establish immune tolerance to healthy skin microbes in newborn mice, and these cells also secrete molecules that help with wound healing into adulthood.

Rosenblum, who is both an immunologist and a dermatologist, wanted to better understand the role of these resident immune cells in skin health. To do this, he and his team developed a technique for temporarily removing Tregs from the skin. But when they shaved patches of hair from these mice to make observations of the affected skin, they made a surprising discovery. We quickly noticed that the shaved patches of hair never grew back, and we thought, Hmm, now thats interesting, Rosenblum said. We realized we had to delve into this further.

In the new research, led by UCSF postdoctoral fellow and first author Niwa Ali, PhD, several lines of evidence suggested that Tregs play a role in triggering hair follicle regeneration.

First, imaging experiments revealed that Tregs have a close relationship with the stem cells that reside within hair follicles and allow them to regenerate: the number of active Tregs clustering around follicle stem cells typically swells by three-fold as follicles enter the growth phase of their regular cycle of rest and regeneration. Also, removing Tregs from the skin blocked hair regrowth only if this was done within the first three days after shaving a patch of skin, when follicle regeneration would normally be activated. Getting rid of Tregs later on, once the regeneration had already begun, had no effect on hair regrowth.

Tregs role in triggering hair growth did not appear related to their normal ability to tamp down tissue inflammation, the researchers found. Instead, they discovered that Tregs trigger stem cell activation directly through a common cell-cell communication system known as the Notch pathway. First, the team demonstrated that Tregs in the skin express unusually high levels of a Notch signaling protein called Jagged 1 (Jag1), compared to Tregs elsewhere in the body. They then showed that removing Tregs from the skin significantly reduced Notch signaling in follicle stem cells, and that replacing Tregs with microscopic beads covered in Jag1 protein restored Notch signaling in the stem cells and successfully activated follicle regeneration.

Its 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 its time to start regenerating.

Relevance to Autoimmune Hair Loss Rosenblum said the findings may have implications for alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that interferes with hair follicle regeneration and causes patients to lose hair in patches from their scalp, eyebrows, and faces. Alopecia is among the most common human autoimmune diseases its as common as rheumatoid arthritis, and more common than type 1 diabetes but scientists have little idea what causes it.

After his team first observed hair loss in Treg-deficient mice, Rosenblum learned that the genes associated with alopecia in previous studies are almost all related to Tregs, and treatments that boost Treg function have been shown to be an effective treatment for the disease. Rosenblum speculates that better understanding Tregs critical role in hair growth could lead to improved treatments for hair loss more generally.

The study also adds to a growing sense that immune cells play much broader roles in tissue biology than had previously been appreciated, said Rosenblum, who plans to explore whether Tregs in the skin also play a role in wound healing, since the same follicle stem cells are involved in regenerating skin following injury.

We think of immune cells as coming into a tissue to fight infection, while stem cells are there to regenerate the tissue after its damaged, he said. But what we found here is that stem cells and immune cells have to work together to make regeneration possible.

This article has been republished frommaterialsprovided byUCSF. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

Reference:

Ali, N., Zirak, B., Rodriguez, R. S., Pauli, M. L., Truong, H., Lai, K., . . . Rosenblum, M. D. (2017). Regulatory T Cells in Skin Facilitate Epithelial Stem Cell Differentiation. Cell. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2017.05.002

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"The practice of helping babies by providing stem cells at birth has been around for a long time; it makes sense for the sickest infants," said Anup Katheria, MD, director of the Neonatal Research Institute. "We're focused on producing evidence that shows the benefits. We think this could become the foundation for practice-changing birthing techniques, transforming outcomes for the most critical of newborns nationwide."

As a California-based public/private cord blood banking company and with a strong research focus, StemCyte stands ready to help efficiently and effectively to support the partnership with Sharp HealthCare to educate expecting parents of their options, to ensure the information is delivered accurately and consistently, and to collect the cells in cord blood and process and store them with the highest quality standards in the industry.

"We are excited to work with the Sharp Mary Birch Neonatal Research Institute, and we are looking forward to maximizing the capacity for cord-blood banking. Residents of California and people around the world will benefit from the research and increased availability of umbilical cord blood stem cell transplant units." said Jonas C. Wang, Ph.D., CEO/ Chairman of StemCyte Group.

About StemCyte StemCyte's rich history started with a mission of being dedicated to helping the world's physicians save more lives by providing high quality, safe and effective stem cell transplantation and therapy to all patients in need. Located in the US, India and Taiwan, StemCyte has supplied over 2100 cord blood products for over 40 life-threatening diseases to over 300 leading worldwide transplant centers. StemCyte is actively involved in the development of stem cell therapies. StemCyte was the first to donate umbilical cord blood units (UCB) to Dr. Jaing of Chung Gung Memorial Hospital for his clinical trial to use UCB to treat and cure Beta Thalassemia. More excitingly is the work and accomplishments of Prof Wise Young, MD, PhD. Prof. Young has completed Phase II clinical trials on patients with chronic spinal cord injury with UCB and the results are extremely encouraging. StemCyte is chosen by the US Department of Health and Human Services to help establishing a public National Cord Blood Inventory. Its headquarters are located in Baldwin Park, CA. To learn more visit http://www.StemCyte.com.

For more information call 626.646.2500

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UW Health trial involves injecting... More Headlines

MADISON, Wis. - Doctors at UW Health are involved in a clinical trial using stem cells for the treatment of heart failure.

The CardiAMP therapy involves withdrawing a patients bone marrow. The bone marrow is then processed on-site to separate the stem cells from the plasma. The patients own stem cells are then injected into damaged areas of the heart using a catheter.

It is hopeful that we can improve things. I dont think we can necessarily cure the damage, but I think we can improve things, said Dr. Amish Raval, director of cardiovascular clinical research at UW Health.

The CardiAMP Heart Failure Trial is a phase III study that will eventually enroll up to 260 patients. For the first 10 patients, UW Health is one of three sites nationwide performing the procedure.

I figured it was possibly going to do something good for me, said Dan Caulfield, a Madison man enrolled in the study.

Caulfield, who is 81 years old, has had three heart attacks.

I was 46 years old and had a heart attack. It was called a fatal heart attack in those days, Caulfield said. I had two more heart attacks in 2002, and since then it has been sort of downhill.

Improving the quality of life of individuals with heart failure is a goal of the CardiAMP therapy.

There is about a 50 percent five-year mortality associated with this condition and those five years can be awfully tough on these folks because they have a lot of problems with shortness of breath, weakness and sometimes chest discomfort while walking. So it is not just a matter of quantity of life, it is also a quality of life issue, Raval said.

The procedure involves a very targeted injection of stem cells into the area near where the heart is damaged.

We create a targeted map and based on that targeted map we have a really clear sense of where the damage is. Then it is my task to go in and try to get into the adjacent border areas, Raval said.

In the U.S. there are approximately 6.5 million people living with heart failure. According to the American Heart Association, that number is expected to rise by 46 percent by the year 2030.

This is one of the few pivotal trials in the United States that is really, I think, going to pave the way for future studies, Raval said.

The outcome of the CardiAMP trial will be measured by any change in distance during a six-minute walk 12 months after an initial baseline measurement is taken.

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The new research showed that adult stem cells could help beat heart failure.

A sticking plaster made from adult stem cells could be a significant step towards combatting heart failure, scientists say.

Researchers discovered that stem cells taken from a patients thigh and transplanted onto the heart led to improved heart function after one year.

Heart failure is thought to affect between 500,000 to 900,000 people in the UK. It occurs when the heart becomes too weak to efficiently pump blood around the body.

The authors of the study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, said the therapy was potentially a long-term solution to the problem.

They said that, promising results in the safety and functional recovery warrant further clinical follow-up and larger studies, which they hope will confirm the treatments potential.

Professor Metin Avkiran, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, hailed the exciting breakthrough.

He said: Heart failure is a cruel and debilitating illness affecting more than half a million people across the UK. Currently, heart failure is incurable, but stem cell-based treatments may offer new hope to people suffering from the disease.

He echoed the call for further research, saying: The study involved only a small number of patients. In order to establish the long-term safety and benefits of the exciting new treatment we would need larger studies.

Heart failure often leaves sufferers struggling for breath and exhausted while carrying out simple everyday tasks, such as eating or getting dressed.

It can be caused by several issues including heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, but can also be the result of an unhealthy lifestyle.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that a remarkable new technique allows adult stem cells to be used to treat burn victims.

Taking a sample of skin stem cells and spraying them onto a victims burn caused new layers of skin to form over the burn, potentially healing even severe burns within weeks.

And in January, scientists released findings showing that synthetic cardiac stem cells could be used to treat patients who had suffered a heart attack by repairing the heart muscle damage.

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Q: How close are we to curing blood diseases with human stem cells?

A: New research has nudged scientists closer to one of regenerative medicine's holy grails: the ability to create customized human stem cells capable of forming blood that would be safe for patients.

Advances reported in the journal Nature could not only give scientists a window on what goes wrong in such blood cancers as leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. They could also improve the treatment of those cancers, which affect some 1.2 million Americans.

While the use of blood-making stem cells in medicine has been common since the 1950s, it remains pretty crude. After patients with blood cancers have undergone powerful radiation and chemotherapy, they often need a bone-marrow transplant to rebuild their white blood cells, which are destroyed by that treatment.

The blood-making stem cells that reside in a donor's bone marrow and in umbilical cord blood harvested after a baby's birth are called "hematopoietic," and they can be life-saving. But even these stem cells can bear the distinctive immune system signatures of the person from whom they were harvested. So they can provoke an attack if the transplant recipient's body registers the cells as foreign.

This response, called graft-versus-host disease, affects as many as 70 percent of bone-marrow transplant recipients soon after treatment, and 40 percent develop a chronic version of the affliction later. It kills many patients.

Rather than hunt for a donor who's a perfect match, doctors would like to use a patient's own cells to engineer the hematopoietic stem cells.

The patient's mature cells would be "reprogrammed" to their most primitive form: stem cells capable of becoming virtually any kind of human cell. Then factors in their environment would coax them to become stem cells capable of giving rise to blood.Once reintroduced into the patient, the cells would take up residence without prompting rejection and set up a lifelong factory of healthy new blood cells.

If the risk of rejection could be eliminated, physicians might also feel more confident treating blood diseases that are not immediately deadly such as sickle cell disease and immunological disorders with stem cell transplants.

One of two research teams, led by stem cell pioneer Dr. George Q. Daley of Harvard Medical School and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, started their experiment with human "pluripotent" stem cells primitive cells capable of becoming virtually any type of mature cell.

The scientists then programmed those pluripotent stem cells to become endothelial cells, which line the inside of certain blood vessels.Using suppositions gleaned from experiments with mice, Daley said his team confected a "special sauce" of proteins that sit on a cell's DNA and program its function. When they incubated the endothelial cells in the sauce, they began producing hematopioetic stem cells.

Daley's team then transferred the resulting blood-making stem cells into the bone marrow of mice to see if they would "take." In two out of five mice who got the most promising cell types, they did. Not only did the stem cells establish themselves, they continued to renew themselves while giving rise to a wide range of blood cells.

A second team, led by researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine's Ansary Stem Cell Institute, achieved a similar result using stem cells from the blood-vessel lining of adult mice.

But Daley cautioned that significant hurdles remain before studies like these will transform the treatment of blood diseases.

"We do know the resulting cells function like blood stem cells, but they still are at some distance, molecularly, from native stem cells," he said.

Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times

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The new technique heals burns much faster and more effectively than traditional skin grafting.

Burn victims may no longer be forced to undergo painful skin grafts, thanks to a revolutionary piece of technology that uses adult stem cells.

Instead of taking skin from one part of the body and transplanting it onto the burned area, a stem-cell spraying device simply covers the affected area with the victims own stem cells.

By taking adult stem cells from a healthy section of skin, placing them in a solution, and spraying the solution onto the wound, the patients own skin grows back and heals naturally.

The procedure has been in development for some time, and is not yet commercially available, but its capability was publicised in the press earlier this month.

The technology was featured in the Journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries, and showed incredible before and after images of the horrific injuries, and the victims almost full recoveries.

Patients who have benefitted from early treatments say their new skin is virtually indistinguishable from the rest of their body.

Commenting on the journals research, Thomas Bold, CEO of RenovaCare a company developing this technology said, the skin that regrows looks, feels and functions like the original skin.

By using adult stem cells, the healing process of the victims was also vastly accelerated.

While a skin graft treatment can take weeks or even months, and leave scarring, these patients were able to grow healthy skin in as little as four days.

In one case, a man who had suffered electrical burns to over a third of his body after touching a live wire had 24 million adult stem cells harvested and then sprayed back onto his body.

The process itself lasted only 90 minutes, and within four days, he had regrown a thin layer of skin over his arms and chest, where the burns were least severe.

After 20 days, all of the areas treated by the stem cell grafting process were described as completely healed.

RenovaCare is applying for a licence to use the technology in routine practice in Europe.

In January, it was revealed that a new technique allowed adult stem cells to be used in the treatment of heart problems.

The technique involves implanting synthetic cardiac stem cells which repair heart muscle. It has been praised as both an ethical and less risky alternative to other treatments.

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Potential for a new supply line

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By Jessica Hamzelou

The stem cells that produce our blood have been created in the lab for the first time. These could one day be used to treat people who have blood diseases and leukaemia with their own cells, rather than bone marrow transplants from a donor. They could also be used to create blood for transfusions.

This is a very big deal, says Carolina Guibentif at the University of Cambridge, who was not involved in the research. If you can develop [these cells] in the lab in a safe way and in high enough numbers, you wouldnt be dependent on donors.

In a healthy adult, blood stem cells are found in bone marrow, where they replenish the supply of red and white blood cells and platelets. They are sort of master cells, says George Daley at Harvard Medical School.

When these cells dont work properly, they fail to maintain an adequate supply of blood cells. As a result, not enough oxygen reaches the bodys tissues. This can cause serious disease if organs such as the heart are affected. Blood stem cells can also be wiped out by chemotherapy for leukaemia and other cancers.

People with these disorders tend to be treated with bone marrow complete with blood stem cells from a healthy donor. The difficulty is finding a match. There is a one in four chance of achieving this from a healthy sibling, but the odds are slashed to one in a million if a stranger needs to be found, says Daley.

In an attempt to create blood stem cells in the lab, Daley and his colleagues started with human pluripotent stem cells which have the potential to form almost any other type of body cell.

The team then searched for chemicals that might encourage these to become blood stem cells.

After studying the genes involved in blood production, the researchers identified proteins that control these genes and applied them to their stem cells.

They tested many combinations of the proteins, and found five that worked together to encourage their stem cells to become blood stem cells. When they put these into mice, they went on to produce new red and white blood cells and platelets. Its very cool, says Daley. Were very excited about the results.

A separate team has achieved the same feat with stem cells taken from adult mice. Raphael Lis at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and his colleagues started with cells taken from the walls of the animals lungs, based on the idea that similar cells in an embryo eventually form the bodys first blood stem cells. The team identified a set of four factors that could encourage these lung stem cells to make them.

Both sets of results represent a breakthrough, says Guibentif. This is something people have been trying to achieve for a long time, she says. By working with adult mouse epithelial cells, Lis and his team show that the feat could potentially be achieved with cells taken from an adult person. Daleys team used human stem cells that could in theory be made from skin cells, bolstering the prospect that lab-made human blood could be next.

The lab-made stem cells are not quite ready to be used in people just yet, says Daley. Although all of his mice were healthy throughout the experiments, there is a risk that the cells could mutate and cause cancer. And the cells are not quite as efficient at making blood as those found in the body.

But once Daley and his team have honed their procedure, they might be able to make platelets and red blood cells for hospital use. These cell types dont have a nucleus, so are unable to divide and potentially cause cancer. He hopes this procedure could be used within the next couple of years.

Eventually, Daley hopes his cells could be used to create whole blood suitable for transfusions. Not only would such a supply be more reliable than that from donors, but it would also be free of disease. When new pathogens like Zika pop up, you have to make sure that blood is safe, says Daley. Wed be able to have more quality control.

Journal references: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature22326; Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature22370

Read more: Synthetic bone implant can make blood cells in its marrow; Lab-grown blood given to volunteer for the first time

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Human blood stem cells grown in the lab for the first time - New Scientist

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Press Release: New Stem Cell Collection Center Opens in Boston The Scientist We support biomedical researchers globally by offering human hematopoietic stem cells and blood derived cell products from bone marrow, cord blood, peripheral blood and mobilized peripheral blood. StemExpress guarantees every sample delivers only ...

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Approaching a decades-old goal: Making blood stem cells from patients' own cells Science Daily ... lab using pluripotent stem cells, which can make virtually every cell type in the body. The advance opens new avenues for research into the root causes of blood diseases and to creating immune-matched blood cells for treatment purposes, derived ... 'Milestone' in quest to make blood cells studiesInquirer.net all 21 news articles »

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Approaching a decades-old goal: Making blood stem cells from patients' own cells - Science Daily

IPS Cell Therapy Comments Off on Approaching a decades-old goal: Making blood stem cells from patients’ own cells – Science Daily | May 18th, 2017

Summary

Orbis Research Presents Global Human Embryonic Stem Cells Market Research Report which Examine into the present trends, highlights the recent market growth, sales volume, Demand Scenarios and Opportunities emerging for business players in the near future.

Description

The Global Human Embryonic Stem Cells Market is estimated to be USD XX billion in 2017 and is expected to reach USD XX billion by 2022, registering a healthy CAGR of XX%, during 2017-2022 (forecast period).

The increase in malignant, cardiac, & neurological disorders, immediate need for effective and novel therapies, the rising human embryonic stem cell awareness and better healthcare infrastructure with government initiatives are expected to accelerate the global human embryonic stem cells market, during the forecast period.

The major companies discussed in this report are

A majority of companies are investing in the human embryonic stem cell research, globally. The high-prevalence of cardiac and malignant diseases, increasing R&D investments & research initiatives, increasing support from government & private institutions and rapid growth in medical tourism are accelerating the market growth. However, the stringent regulatory guidelines and ethical & moral concerns are restraining the market.

Get a PDF Sample of Global Human Embryonic Stem Cells Market Report at: http://www.orbisresearch.com/contacts/request-sample/280434

The global embryonic stem cells market is segmented based on application and geography. The applications segment includes regenerative medicine, stem cell biology research, tissue engineering and toxicology testing. Based on geography, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East & Africa and Latin America. The Asia-Pacific human embryonic stem cells market has the potential, owing to increasing initiatives of the governments & private organizations for research in human embryonic stem cells.

Key Deliverables

Market analysis, with region-specific assessments and competition analysis on a global and regional scale.

Market definition along with the identification of key drivers and restraints.

Identification of factors instrumental in changing the market scenario, growing prospective opportunities, and identification of key companies that can influence the market.

Extensively researched competitive landscape section with profiles of major companies, along with their market share.

Identification and analysis of the macro and micro factors that affect the market on both, global and regional scale.

A comprehensive list of key market players along with the analysis of their current strategic interests and key financial information.

A wide-range of knowledge and insights about the major players in the industry and the key strategies adopted by them to sustain and grow in the studied market

Insights on the major countries/regions where the industry is growing, and identify the regions that are still untapped.

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Global Human Embryonic Stem Cells Market 2017: Government Initiatives & Medical Tourism are Accelerating this ... - MilTech

Cardiac Stem Cells Comments Off on Global Human Embryonic Stem Cells Market 2017: Government Initiatives & Medical Tourism are Accelerating this … – MilTech | May 12th, 2017

Soon to be a thing of the past?

Iolanda Astor

By Alice Klein

The humble mussel could soon help us prevent scarring. A sticky substance naturally secreted by the marine animal is one element of a glue that closes skin wounds seamlessly in rats. The glue could be used to prevent unsightly scars after accidental cuts or surgical operations.

If this can be replicated in humans, it might be the next big thing for scar therapy, says Allison Cowin at the University of South Australia, who wasnt involved in the study.

Scars form when the collagen scaffolding in skin is broken apart. Instead of re-forming in their original and neat basket-weave arrangement, the collagen fibres grow back in parallel bundles that create the characteristic lumpy appearance of scars.

One way to reduce scarring is to apply decorin, a skin protein involved in collagen organisation. But because decorin has a highly complex physical structure it is hard to synthesise and therefore not used in the clinic.

To get round this problem, Hyung Joon Cha at Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea and his colleagues have created a simplified version of decorin. They combined a small section of the decorin protein with a collagen-binding molecule and a sticky substance secreted by mussels.

The resulting glue was tested on rats with deep, 8-millimetre-wide wounds. The glue was spread over each wound and covered with clear plastic film. Rats in a control group had their wounds covered in plastic without any glue.

By day 11, 99 per cent of the wound was closed in the treated rats compared with 78 per cent in the control group. By day 28, treated rats had fully recovered and had virtually no visible scarring. In comparison, control rats had thick, purple scars (see images below).

Jeon EY, Choi B-H, Jung D, Hwang BH, Cha HJ.

Closer inspection under the microscope confirmed that collagen fibres in the treated wounds had returned to their original basket-weave arrangement. The new skin had also developed hair follicles, blood vessels, oil glands and other structures that arent regenerated in scars.

The glue is able to promote normal collagen growth because negative charges on the decorin fragments hold the fibres apart, says Cha. In doing so, the fibres are more easily able to weave in and out between each other instead of sticking together randomly.

Cowin says the results are impressive but there is still a way to go before the results can be translated to humans. Rats have loose skin, whereas we have tight skin, and they tend to heal better and have less scarring than we do, she says. As a result, the glue may not be as effective in people as in rats.

Cha says that the glue will now be tested in pigs, whose skin better resembles our own.

New scar treatments are greatly needed because the existing ones dont work very well, says Cowin. Silicone gels, steroids, pressure bandages, cryotherapy and laser treatments are often used to reduce the appearance of scars, but they cannot erase them completely.

Cowin is developing a scar treatment that uses monoclonal antibodies to block a type of protein that impairs wound healing. Other groups are applying embryonic stem cells to wounds, based on the observation that skin abrasions inembryos and early fetuses dont scar.These approaches are still being tested in animals.

Journal reference: Biomaterials, DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2017.04.041

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Mussel gloop can be used to make wounds knit without any scars - New Scientist

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Mussel gloop can be used to make wounds knit without any scars – New Scientist | May 12th, 2017