Donating a kidney may save a person's life - but only if the conditions are precise.

Kidney donors must be related and immunologically matched to their donors and even then, the recipient must take a lifetime of anti-rejection medications, which dont guarantee the organ won't be rejected.

But a new clinical trial from Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Ill. has shown how stem cells can be used to trick a recipients immune system into believing the new organ has been part of that persons body all along.

The breakthrough has the potential to eliminate both the risks associated with kidney transplantation and the need for anti-rejection medications within one year after surgery.

Its the holy grail of transplantation, said lead author Dr. Joseph Leventhal, transplant surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and associate professor of surgery and director of kidney and pancreas transplantation at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Ill. This notion of being able to achieve tolerance through donor derived cells has been around for more than 50 years, but its translation to the clinic has been quite elusive. This article details the first successful attempt of this in mismatched and unrelated kidney recipients.

The research was published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, and it is the first study of its kind in which the donor and recipient were not related and did not have to be immunologically matched. Only 25 percent of siblings are immunologically identical, severely limiting the possibility of being a kidney donor.

The procedure worked by extracting a little bit more from the kidney donor than just their kidney. They also donated part of their immune system. About one month before surgery, bone marrow stem cells were collected from the donor and then enriched with facilitating cells becoming stem cells that will ultimately fool the donors immune system allowing the transplant to succeed.

One day after the kidney transplant occurs, the facilitating cell-enriched stem cells are also transplanted in the recipient, which then prompts the formation of stem cells in the bone marrow. This then causes specialized immune cells similar to the donors immune cells to develop, creating a dual bone marrow system environment, so both the donors immune system and the recipients immune system function inside the persons body.

Leventhal said that the ultimate goal is for the recipient to initially take anti-rejection medications but then slowly wean off of them within a year. According to Leventhal, the drugs come with their own share of negative side effects.

The foundation of clinical transplantation revolves around the use of medicines and suppressive drugs to control the immune system, Leventhal said. These drugs have been very successful in reducing the rates of loss of organs due to acute rejection where side effects include increase risk of infection and cancer, and metabolic side effects, such as the increase risk of hypertension and bone disease. But the drugs themselves are potentially harmful to the organs we transplant. Despite our ability to reduce rates of acute rejection, most individuals go on to lose organs because of chronic (long-term) rejection.

Here is the original post:
Stem cell research allows for mismatched kidney transplants

(AP) An experimental technique seems to be freeing some kidney transplant patients from having to take anti-rejection drugs.

Researchers transplanted certain cells from the kidney donor's bone marrow along with the new organ. Five of eight transplant recipients who tried the method so far were off immune-suppressing medication up to 2 1/2 years later, the researchers reported Wednesday.

The preliminary results were considered important enough to be published in the journal Science Translational Medicine even though the study still is under way, because the technique worked for patients who didn't have well-matched or related donors.

The idea is that if a sort of twin immune system takes root and lasts, it can allow the patient's body to accept the foreign organ and not attack it, said study co-author Dr. Suzanne Ildstad of the University of Lousville. Scientists call it chimerism.

"The most reliable indicator of really being successful at taking someone off immune-suppressing drugs is durable chimerism," says Ildstad, who teamed with doctors at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital for the research.

Transplant recipients usually must take multiple immune-suppressing pills for life to prevent rejection of their new organ. Those drugs cause lots of side effects, such as raising the risk of cancer and kidney damage.

Other scientists are attempting to tap bone marrow to induce immune tolerance, with varying success.

Ildstad's approach transfuses a special mix of bone marrow cells including blood-producing stem cells and another type named "facilitating cells" that are thought vital for a successful transplant. She filters out still other cells that can become too aggressive and cause a life-threatening disorder named graft-versus-host disease.

Cash-for-kidneys tuition plan stirs ethics debate Georgia nurse donates kidney to patient in need In need of a kidney? Facebook might help

Transplant recipients had radiation and chemotherapy, not destroying their own bone marrow but tamping it down to make space for the donated cells, explained study co-author Dr. Joseph Leventhal, a Northwestern transplant surgeon. Five patients who had the dual immunity a year later were weaned off all drugs. Two others whose hybrid immunity faded are faring well using a low dose of one anti-rejection drug. One patient needed a repeat transplant after an infection and didn't get to try weaning.

See more here:
New treatment for kidney transplant patients may reduce need for anti-rejection drugs

Kidney transplant-recipients have to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent rejection.

A. MASSEE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a common and often deadly complication of bone-marrow transplantation that occurs when immune cells from an unrelated donor attack the transplant recipients tissue. Now, researchers have for the first time managed to completely replace peoples bone-marrow-derived stem cells with those from unrelated donors without causing GvHD1. And because of this, the recipients could also accept kidneys from the same donors without the need for drugs that suppress the immune system.

The outcome has been amazing, says Lindsay Porter, a 47-year-old Chicago resident with polycystic kidney disease who was one of the study subjects. She has been off immunosuppressive drugs for seven months. I feel so normal, it feels like its not a big deal.

But according to experts in the field, the findings, published today in Science Translational Medicine1, are a huge deal. Its kind of difficult to believe, says Tatsuo Kawai, a transplant surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who wrote a commentary to accompany the paper. Its almost common sense to have GvHD in mismatched individuals.

The latest study builds off of work Kawai and his colleagues began fourteen years ago, when they launched the first clinical trial that attempted to use bone marrow to induce immune tolerance for kidney recipients, to avoid the sometimes dangerous side effects of life-long immosuppressive therapy.

Working first in people with perfectly immune-matched siblings2 and then with partially mismatched donor-recipient pairs3, the researchers showed that the majority of individuals could achieve stable kidney function and successfully wean off of their immunosuppressants with few problems in one case for up to nine years. But the study subjects only maintained noticeable levels of the foreign bone marrow for a few weeks, and the protocol didnt work for everybody. Some researchers speculated that maintaining higher levels of donor immune cells for longer could help to improve the success rate.

For the latest study, a team led by Suzanne Ildstad, director of the University of Louisvilles Institute for Cellular Therapeutics in Kentucky, found a way to avoid GvHD by using a regimen involving chemotherapy, radiation and blood stem cells manipulated to eliminate those that cause GvHD while retaining specialized bone-marrow-derived cells they called facilitating cells.

Ildstad and her colleagues report that five of eight people who underwent the treatment were able to stop all immunosuppressive therapy within a year after their kidney and stem-cell transplants, four of which came from unrelated donors. Notably, all of these patients maintained entirely donor-derived immune systems with no signs of GvHD. Ildstad and her team have since treated seven more people. We continue to see good results, she says.

It might be premature, however, to say for certain that the trial participants are in the clear. The question is: will these patients remain free of GvHD? says David Sachs, director of the Transplantation Biology Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. You would hope that its true, but its a little early to claim that.

Read the original here:
Drug-free organ transplants without tissue matching

Lindsay Porter knew she would eventually need a kidney transplant. She was 19 years old when her mother died from polycystic kidney disease -- a genetic condition that Porter had 50/50 odds of inheriting, and did.

"It didn't really affect me much until my early 30s," said Porter, an actress and mother living in Chicago. "And as I got into my 40s, my kidneys started getting very big with multiple cysts. They were huge."

Porter's kidneys weighed 16 pounds, causing an obvious bulge in her tiny frame.

"It was like two full-term babies inside me," she said, adding that people often mistook her for pregnant. "They had to be removed."

In May 2010, doctors removed Porter's overgrown and failing kidneys. Two months later, a friend gave her one of his. But it was no ordinary transplant. Along with the fist-size organ, doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago transplanted bone marrow stem cells -- an experimental procedure they hoped would eliminate the need for anti-rejection drugs.

"These drugs are currently an absolute necessity, but they have a downside," said Dr. Joseph Leventhal, Porter's transplant surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and director of kidney and pancreas transplantation at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Anti-rejection drugs suppress the immune system, preventing it from attacking the donated organ like an infection. But suppressing the immune system makes the body vulnerable to infections and even cancer. And the drugs, which carry toxic side effects, can't ward off rejection forever. "Many individuals will still lose their transplants over time due to chronic rejection," said Leventhal.

To coax Porter's body into recognizing the new kidney as her own, Leventhal and colleagues wiped out part of her immune system and replaced it with the donor's. It took four days of chemotherapy, whole-body irradiation and a bone marrow transplant -- no walk in the park, according to Porter. But over time, the donor bone marrow stem cells gave rise to immune cells that accepted the kidney as if it was Porter's own -- a process called induced immune tolerance.

"At first I was taking 24 pills a day," said Porter, describing the "cocktail" of anti-rejection drugs needed to fend off an attack on her new kidney while the bone marrow stem cells were setting up shop. "And you really can't miss a dose. I had to set my cell phone alarm for every 12 hours every single day to remind me."

After six months, Porter started weaning herself off the drugs. And after a year, she no longer needed them at all.

Read the original post:
New Transplant Approach Changes Lives

Nature | Health

Bone-marrow transfers prior to organ transplants could end the need for lifelong immunosuppression

March 7, 2012

By Elie Dolgin of Nature magazine

Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a common and often deadly complication of bone-marrow transplantation that occurs when immune cells from an unrelated donor attack the transplant recipient's tissue. Now, researchers have for the first time managed to completely replace people's bone-marrow-derived stem cells with those from unrelated donors without causing GvHD. And because of this, the recipients could also accept kidneys from the same donors without the need for drugs that suppress the immune system.

"The outcome has been amazing," says Lindsay Porter, a 47-year-old Chicago resident with polycystic kidney disease who was one of the study subjects. She has been off immunosuppressive drugs for seven months. "I feel so normal, it feels like it's not a big deal."

But according to experts in the field, the findings, published today in Science Translational Medicine, are a huge deal. "It's kind of difficult to believe," says Tatsuo Kawai, a transplant surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who wrote a commentary to accompany the paper. "It's almost common sense to have GvHD in mismatched individuals."

Facilitating tolerance

The latest study builds off of work Kawai and his colleagues began fourteen years ago, when they launched the first clinical trial that attempted to use bone marrow to induce immune tolerance for kidney recipients, to avoid the sometimes dangerous side effects of life-long immosuppressive therapy.

Working first in people with perfectly immune-matched siblings and then with partially mismatched donor-recipient pairs, the researchers showed that the majority of individuals could achieve stable kidney function and successfully wean off of their immunosuppressants with few problems -- in one case for up to nine years. But the study subjects only maintained noticeable levels of the foreign bone marrow for a few weeks, and the protocol didn't work for everybody. Some researchers speculated that maintaining higher levels of donor immune cells for longer could help to improve the success rate.

Read the original post:
Treatment Allows Drug-Free Transplant Patients to Elude Graft-versus-Host Disease

WATSON - Jeff DeBacker of Watson is fighting for his life in a battle against cancer, the second time around.

DeBacker, 58, underwent a bone marrow transplant last Thursday and is now waiting to see if the process was successful.

Nearly three years ago, DeBacker was diagnosed with a blood disease known as mantle cell lymphoma. After treating the stage 4 disease with chemotherapy, he was cleared of the cancer for about two years.

Last fall, the cancer returned. He underwent more chemotherapy at Marquette General Hospital and is now undergoing a new cancer treatment procedure at a downstate hospital.

In mid-February, DeBacker was admitted to the Karmanos Cancer Institute at Wayne State University in Detroit for a stem cell bone marrow transplant. His donor is his sister, Debbie Chase of Gladstone, who underwent the blood collection process at the cancer center and is now home.

Prior to Thursday's transplant, DeBacker had seven days of chemotherapy to completely destroy his own bone marrow. His sister's stem cells were transplanted into his bone marrow along with antibiotics.

"That went really well," Chase said Tuesday. "Right now we're waiting to see if it works. We should know by Saturday." She said her brother's doctors are really pleased with how well the transplant went.

His doctors considered him a good candidate for the transplant because of his stage 1 cancer, his age, and his current health condition, DeBacker said during an interview at his home last month.

"There's a 50-percent chance of creating non-cancerous bone marrow," he said. "I'm kind of excited. I want to see this behind me so I can enjoy the summer."

DeBacker will be in isolation at the hospital for one month. The following two months, he must reside within 60 miles from the medical center.

Here is the original post:
Boar rancher fights cancer, regulations

GAYVILLE When it came to helping his brother, Jason Selchert was willing to do a lot more than give the shirt off his back. In January, he became a bone marrow donor for his sibling, Jeff Selchert.

Jason, 39, superintendent of the Gayville-Volin School, said he had plenty of time to prepare for the procedure.

A little over two years ago, my brother, who is four years older than I am, was diagnosed with leukemia, he stated. When he was diagnosed, they determined that probably at some point in his illness, he was going to have to undergo a bone marrow transplant. Luckily enough, he has five siblings, and we were all tested. Two of the five were a match. I was one of the two.

Since the chance that a sibling will be a match is about one in four, the fact that two were a match was fortuitous, Jason said.

Jason and his oldest brother were both perfect matches, according to the blood and DNA testing.

However, Jason was selected as the best candidate.

After undergoing treatment following the initial diagnosis, Jeffs leukemia went into remission. But a few days prior to last Thanksgiving, the cancer had returned.

It was pretty well advanced, and they determined that the only way to treat it was going to be a transplant, Jason said. I had known for more than two years that it was maybe going to be an option. Its a pretty lengthy psychological process you go through to make sure that you are mentally stable enough to go through it, and understand what is going to happen and what could be the end result for me and my brother.

Jason donated his bone marrow stem cells Jan. 30. A successful transplant to his brother occurred the next day.

The worst part of the process was the time leading up to the donation, according to Jason. During the four previous days, he was given medication that caused his body to overproduce bone marrow stem cells. The process made Jason ache and feel nauseated, similar to the flu.

Go here to read the rest:
Selchert Undergoes Transplant For Brother

Texas State radiation therapy students traveled to the University of Texas Pan America last weekend to collect enough bone marrow registrations to save the lives of 1,613 cancer patients.

The Kathy Soliz Texas State Radiation Therapy Outreach Program set up tables in prime locations around the campus on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. They asked passing students if they had five minutes to save a life. On the first day, the program exceeded 600 registrations, their target number for the whole trip.

Testing for a bone marrow match includes filling out a form and swabbing the inside of the cheek with a Q-tip. Donors can be called at anytime during their lives to save a life.

The program is named after Kathy Soliz, who fought leukemia for 10 years before losing her battle with cancer approximately one year ago. As a Hispanic, she only had about a one in 600,000 chance to find a bone marrow match. Soliz had two matches, but both donors declined the request for bone marrow.

Ronnie Lozano, chair of the radiation therapy program, was inspired by Solizs story and decided to help raise awareness for donating bone marrow. Texas State officials chose to partner with UTPA because the university is 89 percent Hispanic. Minorities have a lower chance of finding a match than Caucasians. A college campus also holds thousands of people who are unrelated and have younger stem cells.

Graciela Sandoval, doctoral student, said they had a good problem because they ran out of t-shirts and forms the first day from so many students registering. The student recreation center gave Texas State radiation therapy students extra t-shirts to give out.

The fact that theyre collecting them and people are registering thats hope for somebody, said Ricardo Soliz, assistant principal at San Marcos High School and father of the late Kathy Soliz.

Program officials are planning to travel to different minority schools each year for a bone marrow drive. Next spring the program plans to travel to a primarily African-American population campus.

The idea is to make a difference in the statistic numbers for all minorities, Lozano said.

The radiation therapy program has had bone marrow drives on the Texas State campus for the past four years, and there will be another in March.

Visit link:
Radiation therapy program campaigns for marrow donors

London, Feb 29 (IANS) Children shot with their own stem cells, for the very first time in a rare immune disorder, have shown improvement.

The condition, known as X-CGD, is caused by faulty genes. Doctors were able to take a sample of the children's stem cells, manipulate them in the lab and reintroduce them. This gave the children a working copy of the faulty gene and their condition improved, enabling them to temporarily fight off infections.

It is the third immune disorder that doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital have successfully tackled. The others were the life-threatening conditions, X-SCID and ada-SCID, and 90 percent of treated children have improved, with some showing signs that their immune system has been normalised for good.

Remy Helbawi, 16, from South London, was the first child with X-CGD to be treated. The condition only affects boys and means that while his body produces the white blood cells to fight viruses it does not have the correct cells to fight off bacterial or fungal infections, The Telegraph reports.

The resulting infections can be life-threatening. Up until now the only treatment has been a bone marrow transplant which would offer a permanent cure.

Remy's brother who also had the disease was found a bone marrow match and was successfully treated that way but no match has been found for Remy and a serious lung infection was threatening his life.

Remy said: "Until I was 10 I had the same life as anyone else, except I had eczema a lot of the time. I didn't have a fungal infection until about ten, but when I got my first fungal infection my life changed. I missed a lot of school, I had lots of tests and was in hospital. I would get exhausted after climbing stairs."

Before undergoing the gene therapy, Remy had to have chemotherapy which made his hair fall out and he was kept in isolation for a month.

Remy's nurse Helen Braggins said: "Remy had been unwell for last two years and began to miss school. He had significant fungal lung disease in January of last year, which was getting worse. Without some radical treatment intervention, Remy would not have survived and was becoming increasingly short of breath."

See the original post:
Children improve in rare disorder with own stem cells

A long-held belief about women and fertility is that each woman has a set amount of eggs in her lifetime and that when those eggs are depleted at menopause, so are her chances at having a biological child. However, research out of Massachusetts General Hospital questioning that view. Using stem cells taken from human ovaries, scientists have produced early-stage eggs, which brings up all sorts of questions about possible new methods for treating infertility. Nicholas Wade, writing in the New York Times, adds, "The ability to isolate stem cells from which eggs could be cultivated would help not only with fertility but also with biologists’ understanding of how drugs and nutrition affect the egg cells."

RELATED: Gecko Foot Glue; When Alcohol Is a Health Food

Jonathan Tilly, the director of Mass General's Vincent Center for Reproductive Biology and leader of the new research, had reported in 2004 that ovarian stem cells in mice could create new eggs "similar to how stem cells in male testes produce sperm throughout a man’s life." His new study attempted to prove this with humans. Researchers took healthy ovaries from patients having sex reassignment surgery, and injected stem cells from the ovaries into human ovarian tissue grafted under the skin of mice: "Within two weeks, early stage human follicles with oocytes had formed." Ryan Flinn writes in Bloomberg Businessweek that this could potentially point at "new ways to aid fertility by delaying when the ovaries stop functioning." 

RELATED: The Super Discriminating Powers of Ovulating Women

Dr. Tilly has long been a proponent of the belief that women might be able to produce new eggs, and has said the 50-year belief otherwise is based on lack of evidence rather than on data proving that it's impossible. In 2005, he reported that women have a "hidden reserve of cells in the bone marrow that constantly replenish the ovaries with new eggs," though other researchers have not been able to confirm his finding. 

RELATED: Richard Dawkins Gets into a Comments War with Feminists

Along with opening new doors to understanding the incredibly complex human egg cell, this new research could eventually have very practical implications for the 10 percent of child-bearing age women in the U.S. who have fertility problems. More philosophically, it opens up a new way of thinking about the hard-stop in women's lives for having kids. While fertility technologies like in-vitro and egg freezing are happening to some extent, Tilly's team is exploring the way this new knowledge could improve in-vitro -- IVF involves a limited number of eggs -- and also looking into possibility of developing an ovarian stem-cell bank with eggs that could be "cryogenically frozen and thawed without damage, unlike human eggs." 

“The problem we face with IVF is we don’t have many eggs to work with,” said Tilly. “These cells are renewable. If we are successful -- and it’s a big if -- in generating functioning eggs from these cells, we can generate as many eggs as we need to on a per patient basis.”

Researchers warn that there's a ways to go before there are any real applications to this, if ever. Female reproduction expert David Albertini said it's still unclear whether the egg cells yielded actually could be used in human fertility. Cells grown in laboratories are more likely to develop abnormalities; even if they are proven viable, it's a given that there will be numerous social and political aspects that factor in down the road. Nonetheless, evidence that women's eggs may not be the finite commodity we all thought they were seems poised to make a huge impact across many aspects of contemporary life. What would if mean, for instance, if the old ticking "biological clock" no longer applied -- or applied to women and men more equivalently? 

RELATED: Your Daughter's Science Role Model: A Cartoon Space Chimp

As Tilly said in a recording released to the press, "If we can guide the process correctly, I think it opens up a chance that sometime in the future, we might get to the point of actually having an unlimited source of human eggs. A woman could come in, have a small biopsy taken from her ovary for us to retrieve these cells. Once we get these cells out, we can take a hundred of them and make a million of them. If we can get to the stage of generating functional human eggs outside the body, it would rewrite essentially human assisted reproduction."

RELATED: Lubrication Can Be Good, Caffeine Can Be Bad

Brave new world? Maternity ages stretching into the 50s and 60s? Or simply another step toward the prediction some have made that sex will be just a recreational activity in another 10 years?

Read more from the original source:
New Stem Cell Research Could End the Hard Stop of Female Fertility

Left-hander C.J. Nitkowski appeared in 336 games, mostly in a relief role, over parts of 10 seasons. (AP)

The last known whereabouts of C.J. Nitkowski, in regard to his Major League career, was Washington, some seven years ago. It's entirely possible -- maybe even probable -- that this career is 100 percent over and out.

Yet there was Nitkowski on a field in the Dominican Republic last month, working in setup situations for Gigantes del Cibao in the middle of the Dominican Winter League's round-robin playoffs. Hoping, perhaps against hope, that some scout would take note of his new sidearm delivery and effectiveness against lefties and upper-80s gun readings and determine that he's worth another look. Hoping, basically, for one more chance -- a chance, he believes, that would have been completely out of the question if not for the blood-and-stem-cell treatments he received last summer. "From a medical standpoint," Nitkowski says, "[the treatments have] been a success. I'm healthy." But the route he took to get to this point is, in many ways, misunderstood. Nitkowski received treatment identical to the one that picked Bartolo Colon's ailing arm and career off the scrap heap and made him a prominent member of the Yankees rotation last season. It's a treatment that, in Colon's case, caused a bit of an uproar in the headlines last summer, as such labels as "disputed" and "controversial" were used to describe it. In reality, though, the use of one's own stem cells to promote healing in an injured area is far from a new development. In fact, the microfracture procedure that is becoming more and more common in the treatment of knee injuries (it was performed on Victor Martinez last month) is, at its core, a stem-cell procedure. In microfracture, tiny holes are drilled in the bone to allow marrow to drip out and repair damaged tissue -- the mesenchymal stem cells inside the marrow provide the repairing power. In the cases of Nitkowski and Colon, the mesenchymal stem cells were extracted from bone marrow and from body fat and then injected into a blood-poor area -- Nitkowski's left shoulder and Colon's right shoulder and elbow -- to promote healing. Now, is this really a reliable way to treat an ailing athlete? That's a subject of scrutiny. Embryonic stem cells are the cause of controversy all their own, given the ethical and political debates over their use and concern by some members of the medical community that they have the potential to become cancerous tumors. With mesenchymal stem cells, on the other hand, the debate is not over morals or safety but, rather, efficacy. "There's very little evidence that bone marrow stem cells taken from one site and injected into another will do anything," Theodore Friedmann, a geneticist at the University of California at San Diego who heads the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) gene doping panel, told ESPN The Magazine recently. "The most likely outcome is that if you put stem cells in places that are unfamiliar to them, like a knee or shoulder, most of them will just die." WADA initially banned all blood-spinning therapies before reversing its position in 2011 after studies failed to demonstrate that they enhance performance the way steroids do. So WADA currently has no position on the use of stem-cell treatments. In the face of skepticism, you have the case of Colon, who in the spring of 2010 was unsigned, unable to get any of his old velocity on his fastball and seemingly at the end of a once-dazzling career. Dr. James Purita, founder of the Institute of Regenerative and Molecular Orthopedics in Boca Raton, Fla., traveled to the Dominican Republic to perform platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and stem-cell treatments to help repair ligament damage in Colon's elbow and aid a torn rotator cuff. "There was a stigma that it was illegal, because we did it in the Dominican," Purita said. "But it was just because he lived there." And there was another stigma. Because Colon not only returned to the Majors but thrived in the first half of the 2011 season, some wondered if the procedure could be labeled a performance-enhancer. When Colon's story became public, Purita was questioned by Major League Baseball officials to ensure that he did not use human growth hormone in the procedure. Purita has admitted using HGH when treating non-athletes but said he knows better than to do so in these cases. MLB did a complete investigation, and no further action was taken. "We're not reinventing the wheel here," Purita said. "We've done a number of these procedures on people from all the major sports, with the exception of hockey. We've done some of the top players. But we keep it very discreet." The reason for the discretion, beyond the obvious HIPAA standards, is that some teams are leery of or reluctant to trust these stem-cell treatments. Purita said that he performed the procedure this winter on a Major League free agent who expressed an explicit desire that word not get out, because he didn't want it to affect his contract negotiations. However, the case of Colon, who signed a one-year, $2 million contract with the A's this winter, makes one wonder if biologic stem cells could be the next medical revolution, following arthroscopy and the ulnar collateral ligament replacement known as Tommy John surgery. Nitkowski, for one, hopes to find out. A member of eight Major League teams over parts of 10 seasons from 1995-2005, the left-handed Nitkowski appeared in 336 games, mostly in a relief role. In 2006 he began a five-year stint pitching for various teams in Asia -- first in the Japanese Pacific League, then in the Korean Baseball Organization. A year ago, hoping for another shot in the bigs, he began working on a sidearm delivery, only to injure his shoulder. It was around that time that Nitkowski heard about Colon. Intrigued, he made a call to Purita's office, and, within weeks he was in Boca Raton to undergo the procedure himself. Purita first drew fat from Nitkowski's waist, then drew bone marrow from the left side of Nitkowski's lower back. The liquids were spun in a centrifuge at 2,000 rotations per minute for about 15 minutes, isolating the platelets. They were then inserted into syringes and placed under an LED light for about 20 minutes -- a process that supposedly "kick starts" the cells inside. Once this process was complete, Purita injected the platelet-rich plasma and stem cells into Nitkowski's labrum and rotator cuff. This is an important distinction. Under U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines, mesenchymal stem cells must be "minimally manipulated," meaning they can't be harvested in a lab for days or weeks or transported elsewhere. "Everything," Purita said, "has to be used the same day, on the same patient, and everything has to be done at the point of care." In Nitkowski's case, the whole process took about four hours. Much to his amazement, he had full range of motion within 24 hours. "The rehab starts right away," he said. "You have to commit to it, like any injury. I never thought I had the mindset to do the tedious rehab work. But if you want it bad enough, you'll do it." Nitkowski's stem-cell treatment was performed in July of last year. And per the usual protocol in Purita's treatment plan, Nitkowski had a second PRP treatment four weeks later. By November he was throwing off a mound, and he was pleased with how his arm felt and how his sidearm-delivered stuff worked in the Dominican Republic last month. "I was sitting at 86, 87 [mph] and hitting 88-89," he said. "That's more than enough [velocity] from that arm angle." Though he hasn't pitched in the bigs in seven years, Nitkowski believes he could help a team, and he's hoping someone will give him a tryout in Spring Training. "I at least want to get in front of people and be told no," he said. "I can live with that. I would love the opportunity. This is either going to happen fast, or it's not going to happen at all." Nitkowski's about to turn 39. But he's left-handed, and he's healthy. And he firmly believes the latter would not have been possible without the treatment he received. "My arm feels really good," he said. "Every pitcher has little tears. It just comes with the territory. But this seems like it could be a good maintenance plan." There are skeptics, and there are critics. Nitkowski knows how some people feel when they hear about stem-cell treatments or about Alex Rodriguez flying to Germany for blood-spinning therapy to address his chronic knee and shoulder problems. They wonder if that precious line between therapy and enhancement is being straddled too closely. Having experienced it for himself, Nitkowski is a believer in the safety, the purity and the benefits of the treatment he had performed on his arm. And he thinks many other athletes will follow. "This," he said, "is going to be mainstream sooner rather than later."

Anthony Castrovince is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his columns and his blog, CastroTurf, and follow him on Twitter at @Castrovince. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

See the original post here:
Nitkowski hoping stem cells lead to comeback

Source: ISNA, Tehran

The researches have studied mesenchymal stem cells or MSCs derived from mice bone marrow in cell culture period and succeeded to identify new division in cell latency period which can lead to chromosomal disorders in the cells.

Phd student in Hematology at Tarbiat Modarres University in Tehran, Naser Ahmad Beigi told ISNA that mesenchymal stem cells are powerful tools in cell therapeutic and tissue engineering because of their special specifications. For the same reasons stem cells derived from them are used effectively in experiments.

He added during the procedure of separating mesenchymal stem cells from mice bone marrows, many researchers believe them to be dead and refuse to continue the procedure and this is because of changing form of the cells and a reduction in their propagation at the beginning level of the cell culture.

Beigi stressed these signs show latency period and that cells would be propagated without showing any signs for a long time if the culture continues. He noted an unknown division is the specification of the latency period which leads to chromosomal disorders.

He added the disorders can lead to the appearance of tumors inside the body and inefficiency of non-carcinogenic drugs and restraining mitosis is the only mechanism to prevent them.

"Identifying the mechanism of the new division can lead to producing new generation of non-carcinogenic medicines with high efficiency in the near future, "Beigi added.

... Payvand News - 02/28/12 ... --

Original post:
Iranian researcher discovers factor of stem cell disorder

February 27, 2012

Japanese scientists have recently discovered that hydrogen sulfide (H2S) – the chemical responsible for such malodorous phenomena as human flatulence, bad breath and rotten eggs – can be used to efficiently convert stem cells from human teeth into liver cells.

While the fetid chemical compound is produced in small quantities by the human body for use in a variety of biological signaling mechanisms, at high concentrations it is highly poisonous and extremely flammable.

A team of researchers at the Nippon Dental University in Tokyo collected stem cells from the teeth of patients undergoing extractions. The cells were harvested from the central part of the tooth known as the pulp which is made up predominantly of connective tissue and cells.

Stem cells recovered from the pulp were then divided into two groups and incubated in sealed chambers, one filled with hydrogen sulfide and the other a control group.

The cells from each chamber were then examined at three-day intervals to look for signs of transformation into liver cells. One such indicator is the ability to store glycogen, a compound that can be converted to glucose when the body needs energy.

According to a report of their findings that appeared this week in the Journal of Breath Research, the team was able to convert the stem cells to liver cells in relatively high numbers. And what’s more, said the team, H2S appears to help produce comparatively high quality, functional liver cells.

Lead researcher Ken Yaegaki explained that “[h]igh purity means there are less ‘wrong cells’ that are being differentiated to other tissues, or remaining as stem cells … These facts suggest that patients undergoing transplantation with the hepatic cells may have almost no possibility of developing teratomas (malignant tumors) or cancers.”

For the thousands of people around the world with chronic liver disease, this is a most welcome discovery, one that Yaegaki believes could potentially revolutionize this field of medicine.

“Until now, nobody has produced the protocol to regenerate such a huge number of hepatic cells for human transplantation,” added Yaegaki.

“Compared to the traditional method or suing fetal bovine serum to produce the cells, our method is productive and, most importantly, safe.”

Yaegaki’s hope is that his team’s discovery may eventually be fine-tuned to allow scientists to produce ample liver cells in a lab for use in repairing liver damage in human patients.

Moreover, this and similar studies in recent years have also gotten researchers in other fields questioning the possibilities for using hydrogen sulfide with other types of stem cells.

A team of researchers in China, for instance, recently reported using H2S to increase the survival rate of mesenchymal stem cells extracted from the bone marrow of rats.

—

On the Net:

Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

Go here to see the original:
Researchers Use Noxious Gas To Convert Stem Cells To Liver Cells

NEW YORK & PETACH TIKVAH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc. (OTCBB: BCLI.OB - News), a leading developer of adult stem cell technologies and therapeutics, announced today that the prestigious Nature Reviews Neurology, a Nature Publishing Group Journal, highlighted recently published preclinical research results indicating that stem cells, generated with Brainstorm’s NurOwn™ technology, provide hope for Huntington disease's patients.

In the preclinical studies conducted by leading scientists including Professors Melamed and Offen of Tel Aviv University and originally reported in Experimental Neurology, patients' bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells secreting neurotrophic factors (MSC-NTF) that were transplanted into an animal model of Huntington disease showed therapeutic benefits.

Addressing the role of these MSC-NTF cells in Huntington disease, Professor Daniel Offen explains, "the premise is that such cells can be transplanted safely into affected areas of the brain, and thereby serve as vehicles for delivering neurotrophic factors." Offen expressed his hope that this cell-based therapy may eventually progress to the clinic.

BrainStorm is currently conducting a Phase I/II Human Clinical Trial for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease at the Hadassah Medical center. Initial results have shown that Brainstorm’s NurOwn™ therapy is safe, does not show any significant treatment-related adverse events, and have also shown certain signs of beneficial clinical effects.

Follow this link for the Research Highlights page in Nature Reviews Neurology (starts Feb. 28th ): http://www.nature.com/nrneurol/journal/vaop/ncurrent/index.html

To read the Original Article entitled ‘Mesenchymal stem cells induced to secrete neurotrophic factors attenuate quinolinic acid toxicity: A potential therapy for Huntington's disease’ by Sadan et al. follow this link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014488612000295

About BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, Inc.

BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc. is a biotech company developing adult stem cell therapeutic products, derived from autologous (self) bone marrow cells, for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. The company, through its wholly owned subsidiary Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics Ltd., holds rights to develop and commercialize the technology through an exclusive, worldwide licensing agreement with Ramot (www.ramot.org) at Tel Aviv University Ltd., the technology transfer company of Tel-Aviv University. The technology is currently in a Phase I/II clinical trials for ALS in Israel.

Safe Harbor Statement

Statements in this announcement other than historical data and information constitute "forward-looking statements" and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc.'s actual results to differ materially from those stated or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, inter alia, regarding safety and efficacy in its human clinical trials and thereafter; the Company's ability to progress any product candidates in pre-clinical or clinical trials; the scope, rate and progress of its pre-clinical trials and other research and development activities; the scope, rate and progress of clinical trials we commence; clinical trial results; safety and efficacy of the product even if the data from pre-clinical or clinical trials is positive; uncertainties relating to clinical trials; risks relating to the commercialization, if any, of our proposed product candidates; dependence on the efforts of third parties; failure by us to secure and maintain relationships with collaborators; dependence on intellectual property; competition for clinical resources and patient enrollment from drug candidates in development by other companies with greater resources and visibility, and risks that we may lack the financial resources and access to capital to fund our operations. The potential risks and uncertainties include risks associated with BrainStorm's limited operating history, history of losses; minimal working capital, dependence on its license to Ramot's technology; ability to adequately protect its technology; dependence on key executives and on its scientific consultants; ability to obtain required regulatory approvals; and other factors detailed in BrainStorm's annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q available at http://www.sec.gov. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements made by us.

Go here to read the rest:
Nature: BrainStorm's NurOwn™ Stem Cell Technology Offers Hope for Treating Huntington Disease

ScienceDaily (Feb. 26, 2012) — Japanese scientists have found that the odorous compound responsible for halitosis -- otherwise known as bad breath -- is ideal for harvesting stem cells taken from human dental pulp.

In a study published 27 February, in IOP Publishing's Journal of Breath Research, researchers showed that hydrogen sulphide (H2S) increased the ability of adult stem cells to differentiate into hepatic (liver) cells, furthering their reputation as a reliable source for future liver-cell therapy.

This is the first time that liver cells have been produced from human dental pulp and, even more impressively, have been produced in high numbers of high purity. "High purity means there are less 'wrong cells' that are being differentiated to other tissues, or remaining as stem cells. Moreover, these facts suggest that patients undergoing transplantation with the hepatic cells may have almost no possibility of developing teratomas or cancers, as can be the case when using bone marrow stem cells," said lead author of the study Dr. Ken Yaegaki.

The remarkable transforming ability of stem cells has led to significant focus from research groups around the world and given rise to expectations of cures for numerable diseases, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

In this study, Dr. Ken Yaegaki and his group, from Nippon Dental University, Japan, used stem cells from dental pulp -- the central part of the tooth made up of connective tissue and cells -- which were obtained from the teeth of dental patients who were undergoing routine tooth extractions.

Once the cells were sufficiently prepared, they were separated into two batches (a test and a control) and the test cells incubated in a H2S chamber. They were harvested and analysed after 3, 6 and 9 days to see if the cells had successfully transformed into liver cells. To test if the cells successfully differentiated under the influence of H2S, the researchers carried out a series of tests looking at features that were characteristic of liver cells.

In addition to physical observations under the microscope, the researchers investigated the cell's ability to store glycogen and then recorded the amount of urea contained in the cell. "Until now, nobody has produced the protocol to regenerate such a huge number of hepatic cells for human transplantation. Compared to the traditional method of using fetal bovine serum to produce the cells, our method is productive and, most importantly, safe" continued Dr. Yaegaki.

Hydrogen sulphide (H2S) has the characteristic smell of rotten eggs and is produced throughout the body in the tissues. Although its exact function is unknown, researchers have been led to believe that it plays a key role in many physiological processes and disease states.

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Institute of Physics (IOP), via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Nikolay Ishkitiev, Bogdan Calenic, Izumi Aoyama, Hisataka Ii, Ken Yaegaki, Toshio Imai. Hydrogen sulfide increases hepatic differentiation in tooth-pulp stem cells. Journal of Breath Research, 2012; 6 (1): 017103 DOI: 10.1088/1752-7155/6/1/017103

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Here is the original post:
Dental pulp stem cells transformed by 'bad breath’ chemical

Public release date: 26-Feb-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sue McGreevey
smcgreevey@partners.org
617-724-2764
Massachusetts General Hospital

For the first time, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have isolated egg-producing stem cells from the ovaries of reproductive age women and shown these cells can produce what appear to be normal egg cells or oocytes. In the March issue of Nature Medicine, the team from the Vincent Center for Reproductive Biology at MGH reports the latest follow-up study to their now-landmark 2004 Nature paper that first suggested female mammals continue producing egg cells into adulthood.

"The primary objective of the current study was to prove that oocyte-producing stem cells do in fact exist in the ovaries of women during reproductive life, which we feel this study demonstrates very clearly," says Jonathan Tilly, PhD, director of the Vincent Center for Reproductive Biology in the MGH Vincent Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, who led the study. "The discovery of oocyte precursor cells in adult human ovaries, coupled with the fact that these cells share the same characteristic features of their mouse counterparts that produce fully functional eggs, opens the door for development of unprecedented technologies to overcome infertility in women and perhaps even delay the timing of ovarian failure."

The 2004 report from Tilly's team challenged the fundamental belief, held since the 1950s, that female mammals are born with a finite supply of eggs that is depleted throughout life and exhausted at menopause. That paper and a 2005 follow-up published in Cell showing that bone marrow or blood cell transplants could restore oocyte production in adult female mice after fertility-destroying chemotherapy were controversial; but in the intervening years, several studies from the MGH-Vincent group and other researchers around the world have supported Tilly's work and conclusions.

These supporting studies include a 2007 Journal of Clinical Oncology report from the MGH-Vincent team that showed female mice receiving bone marrow transplants after oocyte-destroying chemotherapy were able to have successful pregnancies, delivering pups that were their genetic offspring and not of the marrow donors. A 2009 study from a team at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, published in Nature Cell Biology, not only isolated and cultured oocyte-producing stem cells (OSCs) from adult mice but also showed that those OSCs, after transplantation into the ovaries of chemotherapy-treated female mice, gave rise to mature oocytes that were ovulated, fertilized and developed into healthy offspring.

"That study singlehandedly deflated many of the arguments from critics of our earlier Nature paper by showing that oocyte-producing stem cells exist in mice and could develop into fully functional eggs," says Tilly. Another paper from a west-coast biotechnology company, published in Differentiation in 2010, provided further independent confirmation of Tilly's earlier conclusions regarding the presence of oocyte-producing stem cells in ovaries of adult mice.

Tilly is quick to point out, however, "These follow-up studies, while providing definitive evidence that oocyte-producing stem cells exist in ovaries of adult female mammals, were not without their limitations, leaving the question open in some scientific circles of whether the adult oocyte pool can be renewed. For example, the protocol used to isolate OSCs in the 2009 Nature Cell Biology study is a relatively crude approach that often results in the contamination of desired cells by other cell types." To address this, the MGH-Vincent team developed and validated a much more precise cell-sorting technique to isolate OSCs without contamination from other cells.

The 2009 study from China also had isolated OSCs based on cell-surface expression of a marker protein called Ddx4 or Mvh, which previously had been found only in the cytoplasm of oocytes. This apparent contradiction with earlier studies raised concerns over the validity of the protocol. Using their state-of-the-art fluorescence-activated cell sorting techniques, the MGH-Vincent team verified that, while the marker protein Ddx4 was indeed located inside oocytes, it was expressed on the surface of a rare and distinct population of ovarian cells identified by numerous genetic markers and functional tests as OSCs.

To examine the functional capabilities of the cells isolated with their new protocol, the investigators injected green fluorescent protein (GFP)-labeled mouse OSCs into the ovaries of normal adult mice. Several months later, examination of the recipient mouse ovaries revealed follicles containing oocytes with and without the marker protein. GFP-labeled and unlabeled oocytes also were found in cell clusters flushed from the animals' oviducts after induced ovulation. The GFP-labeled mouse eggs retrieved from the oviducts were successfully fertilized in vitro and produced embryos that progressed to the hatching blastocyst stage, a sign of normal developmental potential. Additionally, although the Chinese team had transplanted OSCs into ovaries of mice previously treated with chemotherapy, the MGH-Vincent team showed that it was not necessary to damage the recipient mouse ovaries with toxic drugs before introducing OSCs.

In their last two experiments, which Tilly considers to be the most groundbreaking, the MGH-Vincent team used their new cell-sorting techniques to isolate potential OSCs from adult human ovaries. The cells obtained shared all of the genetic and growth properties of the equivalent cells isolated from adult mouse ovaries, and like mouse OSCs, were able to spontaneously form cells with characteristic features of oocytes. Not only did these oocytes formed in culture dishes have the physical appearance and gene expression patterns of oocytes seen in human ovaries ? as was the case in parallel mouse experiments ? but some of these in-vitro-formed cells had only half of the genetic material normally found in all other cells of the body. That observation indicates that these oocytes had progressed through meiosis, a cell-division process unique to the formation of mature eggs and sperm.

The researchers next injected GFP-labeled human OSCs into biopsied human ovarian tissue that was then grafted beneath the skin of immune-system-deficient mice. Examination of the human tissue grafts 7 to 14 days later revealed immature human follicles with GFP-negative oocytes, probably present in the human tissue before OSC injection and grafting, as well as numerous immature human follicles with GFP-positive oocytes that would have originated from the injected human OSCs.

"These experiments provide pivotal proof-of-concept that human OSCs reintroduced into adult human ovarian tissue performed their expected function of generating new oocytes that become enclosed by host cells to form new follicles," says Tilly, a professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School and chief of Research at the MGH Vincent Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. "These outcomes are exactly what we see if we perform the same experiments using GFP-expressing mouse OSCs, and GFP-expressing mouse oocytes formed that way go on to develop into fully functional eggs.

"In this paper we provide the three key pieces of evidence requested by those who have been skeptical of our previous work," he adds. "We developed and extensively validated a cell-sorting protocol to reliably purify OSCs from adult mammalian ovaries, proving once again that these very special cells exist. We tested the function of mouse oocytes produced by these OSCs and showed that they can be fertilized to produce healthy embryos. And we identified and characterized an equivalent population of oocyte-producing stem cells isolated from adult human ovaries."

Among the many potential clinical applications for these findings that Tilly's team is currently exploring are the establishment of human OSC banks ? since these cells, unlike human oocytes, can be frozen and thawed without damage ? the identification of hormones and factors that accelerate the formation of oocytes from human OSCs, the development of mature human oocytes from OSCs for in vitro fertilization, and other approaches to improve the outcomes of IVF and other infertility treatments.

###

Tilly notes that an essential part of his group's accomplishment was collaboration with study co-author Yasushi Takai, MD, PhD, a former MGH research fellow on Tilly's team and now a faculty member at Saitama Medical University in Japan. Working with his clinical colleagues at Saitama, Takai was able to provide healthy ovarian tissue from consenting patients undergoing sex reassignment surgery, many in their 20s and early 30s. Co-lead authors of the Nature Medicine report are Yvonne White, PhD, and Dori Woods, PhD, of the Vincent Center for Reproductive Biology at MGH. Additional co-authors are Osamu Ishihara, MD, PhD, and Hiroyuki Seki, MD, PhD, of Saitama Medical University.

The study was supported by a 10-year MERIT Award to Tilly from the National Institute on Aging, a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health, the Henry and Vivian Rosenberg Philanthropic Fund, the Sea Breeze Foundation, and Vincent Memorial Hospital Research Funds. Tilly is a co-founder of OvaScience, Inc. (www.ovascience.com), which has licensed the commercial potential of these and other patent-protected findings of the MGH-Vincent team for development of new fertility-enhancing procedures.

Massachusetts General Hospital (www.massgeneral.org), founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $750 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine.

[ | E-mail | Share ]

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Continue reading here:
Mass. General researchers isolate egg-producing stem cells from adult human ovaries

27 February 2012 Last updated at 00:06 ET

Hydrogen sulphide, the gas famed for generating the stench in stink bombs, flatulence and bad breath, has been harnessed by stem cell researchers in Japan.

Their study, in the Journal of Breath Research, investigated using it to help convert stem cells from human teeth into liver cells.

The scientists claimed the gas increased the purity of the stem cells.

Small amounts of hydrogen sulphide are made by the body.

It is also produced by bacteria and is toxic in large quantities.

Therapy

A group in China has already reported using the gas to enhance the survival of mesenchymal stem cells taken from the bone marrow of rats.

Researchers at the Nippon Dental University were investigating stem cells from dental pulp - the bit in the middle of the tooth.

They said using the gas increased the proportion of stem cells which were converted to liver cells when used alongside other chemicals. The idea is that liver cells produced from stem cells could be used to repair the organ if it was damaged.

Dr Ken Yaegaki, from Nippon Dental University in Japan, said: "High purity means there are less 'wrong cells' that are being differentiated to other tissues, or remaining as stem cells."

One of the concerns with dental pulp as a source of stem cells is the number that can be harvested.

However, the study did not say how many cells were actually produced.

Prof Chris Mason, a specialist in regenerative medicine at University College London, said: "It would be interesting to see how hydrogen sulphide works with other cells types."

See more here:
Bad breath used as stem cell tool

Washington, Feb 27 (ANI): The odorous compound responsible for halitosis - otherwise known as bad breath - may play a key role in harvesting stem cells taken from human dental pulp, a new study has suggested.

In the study, Japanese scientists showed that hydrogen sulphide (H2S) increased the ability of adult stem cells to differentiate into hepatic (liver) cells, furthering their reputation as a reliable source for future liver-cell therapy.

This is the first time that liver cells have been produced from human dental pulp and, even more impressively, have been produced in high numbers of high purity.

"High purity means there are less 'wrong cells' that are being differentiated to other tissues, or remaining as stem cells. Moreover, these facts suggest that patients undergoing transplantation with the hepatic cells may have almost no possibility of developing teratomas or cancers, as can be the case when using bone marrow stem cells," said lead author of the study Dr. Ken Yaegaki.

The remarkable transforming ability of stem cells has led to significant focus from research groups around the world and given rise to expectations of cures for numerable diseases, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

In this study, Dr. Yaegaki and his group, from Nippon Dental University, Japan, used stem cells from dental pulp - the central part of the tooth made up of connective tissue and cells - which were obtained from the teeth of dental patients who were undergoing routine tooth extractions.

Once the cells were sufficiently prepared, they were separated into two batches (a test and a control) and the test cells incubated in a H2S chamber.

They were harvested and analysed after 3, 6 and 9 days to see if the cells had successfully transformed into liver cells.

To test if the cells successfully differentiated under the influence of H2S, the researchers carried out a series of tests looking at features that were characteristic of liver cells.

In addition to physical observations under the microscope, the researchers investigated the cell's ability to store glycogen and then recorded the amount of urea contained in the cell.

"Until now, nobody has produced the protocol to regenerate such a huge number of hepatic cells for human transplantation. Compared to the traditional method of using fetal bovine serum to produce the cells, our method is productive and, most importantly, safe," Dr. Yaegaki added.

Hydrogen sulphide (H2S) has the characteristic smell of rotten eggs and is produced throughout the body in the tissues.

Although its exact function is unknown, researchers have been led to believe that it plays a key role in many physiological processes and disease states.

The study has been published in IOP Publishing's Journal of Breath Research. (ANI)

Originally posted here:
'Bad breath' chemical may fuel development of dental pulp stem cells

Public release date: 26-Feb-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Joe Winters
joseph.winters@iop.org
44-794-632-1473
Institute of Physics

Japanese scientists have found that the odorous compound responsible for halitosis ? otherwise known as bad breath ? is ideal for harvesting stem cells taken from human dental pulp.

In a study published today, Monday 27 February, in IOP Publishing's Journal of Breath Research, researchers showed that hydrogen sulphide (H2S) increased the ability of adult stem cells to differentiate into hepatic (liver) cells, furthering their reputation as a reliable source for future liver-cell therapy.

This is the first time that liver cells have been produced from human dental pulp and, even more impressively, have been produced in high numbers of high purity.

"High purity means there are less 'wrong cells' that are being differentiated to other tissues, or remaining as stem cells. Moreover, these facts suggest that patients undergoing transplantation with the hepatic cells may have almost no possibility of developing teratomas or cancers, as can be the case when using bone marrow stem cells," said lead author of the study Dr. Ken Yaegaki.

The remarkable transforming ability of stem cells has led to significant focus from research groups around the world and given rise to expectations of cures for numerable diseases, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

In this study, Dr. Ken Yaegaki and his group, from Nippon Dental University, Japan, used stem cells from dental pulp ? the central part of the tooth made up of connective tissue and cells ? which were obtained from the teeth of dental patients who were undergoing routine tooth extractions.

Once the cells were sufficiently prepared, they were separated into two batches (a test and a control) and the test cells incubated in a H2S chamber. They were harvested and analysed after 3, 6 and 9 days to see if the cells had successfully transformed into liver cells.

To test if the cells successfully differentiated under the influence of H2S, the researchers carried out a series of tests looking at features that were characteristic of liver cells. In addition to physical observations under the microscope, the researchers investigated the cell's ability to store glycogen and then recorded the amount of urea contained in the cell.

"Until now, nobody has produced the protocol to regenerate such a huge number of hepatic cells for human transplantation. Compared to the traditional method of using fetal bovine serum to produce the cells, our method is productive and, most importantly, safe" continued Dr. Yaegaki.

Hydrogen sulphide (H2S) has the characteristic smell of rotten eggs and is produced throughout the body in the tissues. Although its exact function is unknown, researchers have been led to believe that it plays a key role in many physiological processes and disease states.

###

From Monday 27 February, this paper can be downloaded from http://iopscience.org/1752-7163/6/1/017103

[ | E-mail | Share ]

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Go here to read the rest:
Dental pulp stem cells transformed by 'bad breath' chemical

Friday, Feb. 24, 2012

Japan has made great strides in the fight against leukemia in the last two decades that have seen bone marrow transplants increase, while the implementation of a nationwide donor program also has contributed significantly.

But the donor pool still needs to be expanded further to give more patients on the waiting list a chance of finding a marrow match, and a better shot at undergoing the life-saving surgery.

As of the end of 2011, about 400,000 potential donors were registered with the Japan Marrow Donor Program and around 13,700 patients in total had received bone marrow transplants since its inception in 1991. Approximately 34,600 patients have sought transplants since the program started.

But many patients still die before a suitable donor match is found, and the program is looking to expand the donor pool through raising public awareness about bone marrow donations. Undergoing a transplant in time can eradicate the cancer, which attacks the body's blood-forming tissues, including bone marrow and the lymphatic system.

"I wish more people would join the program and that all patients could be given the chance to survive," said former leukemia patient Chikako Kimura, 39, who had one of the early bone marrow transplants during the program's first years.

Kimura was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia in 1991, a year after graduating from high school and starting to work. That spring, she felt constantly tired but shrugged it off as resulting from the rigors of her job.

That December, however, Kimura saw a doctor about swelling in her legs. She was immediately hospitalized and started to receive treatment, but didn't learn she had leukemia until several years later.

Kimura was not informed she had leukemia until spring 1993, when her doctor told her a donor with bone marrow matching her type had been found and encouraged to her to undergo a transplant. A year earlier, the doctor had put her on the waiting list of the fledgling bone marrow donor program.

Initially, she balked at the proposal as her condition had been stabilized through chemotherapy. But she eventually decided to take a chance.

"I was really lucky to find a matching donor so soon, given the small pool of donors at the time," Kimura recalled.

According to the foundation that set up the program, more than 527,000 people have registered as potential bone marrow donors since January 1992.

The donor pool swelled after a TV campaign was launched in July 2005 featuring Masami Ihara, a former captain of Japan's national soccer team, who appealed for more people to register. The high-profile campaign helped raise public awareness over the issue and led to a flood of inquiries to the four toll-free numbers the foundation set up.

"From the first day (of the TV ads), we had our hands full answering phone calls" from the public asking how to become donors, said Hidehiko Okubo of the foundation.

The TV campaign was later amended to use the images of actress Masako Natsume, who died of leukemia in 1985, and singer Minako Honda, who died in 2005.

The easing of criteria that must be met before being allowed to register as a donor and an increase in locations nationwide where people can register also helped to boost donor numbers.

The donor pool has now expanded to a level where more than 90 percent of leukemia patients on the waiting list can expect to find at least one suitable match.

But even if they find a potential donor, logistical or other reasons currently prevent about 40 percent of leukemia patients from actually receiving transplants. And it remains extremely difficult to find donors for some patients with rare white blood cell types.

The foundation's Okubo said trying to cure leukemia only by bone marrow transplants has its limits, and noted another kind of transplant was granted the green light in October 2010.

The procedure, which uses hematopoietic stem cells extracted from the blood of healthy people, had until 2010 only been allowed in Japan for transplants involving family members.

While 33 medical facilities are capable of performing such transplants, only two leukemia patients have been operated on so far.

The new procedure is expected to increase the number of people willing to become donors, as it involves fewer health risks than bone marrow transplants.

More than 18 years on from her transplant, Kimura now works as a nurse. "Many people have supported me. I wanted to be of some help to other people," she explained.

Read more from the original source:
More bone marrow donors sought