Two separate research teams have succeeded in generating blood stem cells using completely different procedures. One team was led by stem cell biologist Dr. George Q. Daley of Harvard Medical School and Boston Childrens Hospital. The other team was spearheaded by Dr. Shahin Rafii of the Weill Cornell Medicines Ansary Stem Cell Institute in New York.

In both cases, reprogrammed blood stem cells were able to successfully produce blood cells when implanted into mice. And if either or both procedures turn out to be viable for humans, a future where blood donors will no longer be needed may soon be in the horizon because science has provided us with a way to produce unlimited blood supply.

Stem cells are specially programmed cells that are responsible for creating all of the bodys other cells. There are two types of stem cells embryonic and adult. Embryonic stem cells are located you guessed it in the embryo where they stay before they start to specialise. Adult stem cells are the ones used to repair and replace worn out or old cells.

Those are the natural types. Theres another type, though. Theyre called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells for short). Unlike the first two types, iPS cells arent naturally present. Theyre actually adult stem cells that were converted back to their primitive state, which means they can be coaxed to turn into any type of cell.

Dr. Daley and his team chose to use both embryonic stem cells and iPS cells for their research. Using a combination of proteins, they coaxed the cells to turn into hemogenic endothelium a kind of embryonic tissue that eventually turns into blood stem cells. Next, they tested several transcription factors genes that tell other genes what to do until they came up with the combination (specifically: ERG, HOXA5, HOXA9, HOXA10, LCOR, RUNX1, and SPI1) that pushed the hemogenic endothelium into a blood-forming or blood stem cell state. They then injected those modified cells into the bone marrow of their mice subjects. After several weeks, portions of the mices blood and bone marrow developed different types of blood cells, including red blood cells, white blood cells, and even immune cells.

As Daley described the feat: Were tantalizingly close to generating bona fide human blood stem cells in a dish.

On the other hand, Rafii and his team chose a different route. They didnt make use of iPS cells. Instead, they created true blood stem cells, starting off by extracting stem cells from the blood vessel lining of mature mice. Next, they inserted transcription factors (Fosb, Gfi1, Runx1, and Spi1) into the genomes of the extracted cells, then kept these cells in Petri dishes designed to replicate the environment within human blood vessels.

Over time, the cells turned into blood stem cells and multiplied. They then injected those stem cells into mice treated with radiation (which meant most of their blood and immune cells were gone). The stem cells regenerated not just the blood, but the immune cells too. Consequently, the mice recovered and went on to live for over 1.5 years in the lab.

As described by Rafii, the procedure they used is similar to a direct aeroplane flight, while Daleys is like a flight that took a detour prior to reaching its ultimate destination. Doing away with the iPS part kind of makes Rafiis method slightly better than Daleys because it minimizes the threat of tumors forming or the body rejecting the stem cells, which is a typical reaction that iPS cells might cause. But if Daleys team is able to refine their process to eliminate this risk, then that will level the playing field, so to speak.

Whatever happens from here on, both procedures are nonetheless considered significant breakthroughs. And even though its not yet certain which method will turn out to be the better one for humans, whats clear is that both methods have the potential to be game-changers when it comes to any kind of treatment involving blood infusion and transfusion.

Both studies have been published in the journal Nature, with Daleys under the title Haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells from human pluripotent stem cells and Rafiis under the title Conversion of adult endothelium to immunocompetent haematopoietic stem cells.

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The Hindu

Unrelated donor transplants to aid thalassemics - The Hindu The Hindu A study carried out at Chennai's Apollo Speciality Cancer Hospital now gives hope to children who have no related donors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These photomicrographs show the initial scratches created with a pipette tip compared with the same scratch 36 hours later and at end of study, at 72 hours, for each experimental group. ac show the control group, from left, at the start, after 36 hours, and after 72 hours. df show the results for the same horse with use of the supernatant solution; and gi show the results for the same horse from the stem cell group. Images: Sherman et al DOI: 10.1186/s13287-017-0577-3

Stem cells taken from bone marrow may substantially improve corneal wound healing in horses, evidence from a study suggests.

Eye injuries are common in horses, most likely because of the size of their eyes and their prominent position in the head.

Researchers from the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine conducted a laboratory experiment to assess the performance of stem cells taken from bone marrow in the breast bone of five horses.

Amanda Sherman and her colleagues, writing in Stem Cell Research & Therapy, described the process by which they collected and isolated the autologous bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells for their study.

Mesenchymal stem cells are multipotent connective-tissue cells that can change into a variety of cell types to form the likes of bone, cartilage, muscle and fat.

The supernatant solution comprising cell-medium sediment left over from the centrifuging process was also used in the study to compare its performance against the stem cells. A naive culture media was used as a control.

Corneal stromal cells were cultured and transferred on to six collagen-coated plates. A scratch was then placed the length of these equine corneal fibroblast cultures using a fine pipette.

The plates were then exposed to either the stem cells, the supernatant solution or the naive culture medium.

The researchers reported a significant percentage decrease in the scratch area remaining in the stem cell and supernatant groups compared to the control group after 72 hours.

The decrease was significantly greater in the stem-cell group compared to the supernatant group 36 hours after exposure and at all times thereafter.

The performance of the supernatant solution was most likely due to the presence of the growth factor TGF-1, which was identified on analysis. TGF-1 was found in even greater concentrations in the stem cell group.

The researchers concluded that the use of autologous bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells may substantially improve corneal wound healing in horses.

The supernatant solution may also improve corneal wound healing, given the significant decrease in scratch area compared to control treatments, and would be an immediately available and cost-effective treatment option, they said.

The researchers said studies in live horses were warranted to evaluate the potential treatments safety and effectiveness for corneal wound healing.

The universitys study team comprised Sherman,Brian Gilger,Alix Berglund and Lauren Schnabel.

Effect of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells and stem cell supernatant on equine corneal wound healing in vitro Amanda B. Sherman, Brian C. Gilger, Alix K. Berglund and Lauren V. Schnabel Stem Cell Research & Therapy 2017 8:120 DOI: 10.1186/s13287-017-0577-3

The study, published under a Creative Commons License, can be read here.

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Sickle cell cure is real, as this Kansas patient proves Kansas City Star Intense pain. Fatigue. Repeated infections, emergency room visits and hospitalizations. Desiree Ramirez endured them often until she became the first adult cured at a Kansas hospital of sickle cell disease. Bone marrow stem cells donated by a ...

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The Hindu

Rahman lends his voice for stem cell donation The Hindu Sign up with me as bone marrow donor, Mr. Rahman says, in a short video made by the Jeevan Stem Cell Foundation, which maintains a registry for those in need to find a stem cell match. The video has been uploaded to Youtube ahead of the World Blood ... and more »

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DENVER -- The need is undeniable. The majority of cancer patients in need of a stem cell or bone marrow transplant are not able to get one, in part because they cant find a match.

Doctors hope more people will register to be a donor, and say all it takes to get started is a simple cheek swab.

Paige McCoy, of Parker, did find a match. After she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at age 28, she needed a stem cell transplant to survive. I honestly thought I was going to die at 28, she said.

But a total stranger absolutely saved her life.

She got to meet her donor for the first time this month at the Gift of Life Gala in New York City. When I saw him I just broke down, because here is basically my hero walking towards me, Paige said.

It was an emotional night. Her donor was a 22 year old student at the University of Tennessee who had registered with a cheek swab at a campus event.

When he agreed to donate, he had to get some shots, then the stem cells were gathered during a type of blood draw. "The blood goes out to the machine. The machine processes the blood, and returns the red blood cells and the rest of the blood products, except for some of the stem cells, back to the donor, said Dr. Michael Maris, the director of research at the Colorado Blood Cancer Institute in partnership with Sarah Cannon Cancer Institute at Presbyterian/St. Lukes.

He says this act, that required no surgery, saved Paiges life.

But Paige knows others werent as lucky. I saw patients that didnt have a donor, and I had a donor and they didnt, and somebody could save their life. Just swab your cheek please. You could really help somebody out, and its so easy, she said.

If you would like to register, you can go to http://www.bethematch.org for cheek swab instructions, or a list of local donation events. Your registration could also help patients needing bone marrow transplants. But the marrow harvesting does require surgery.

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How a simple cheek swab can save a life - FOX31 Denver

By By Elianna Novitch, The Gazette

May 29, 2017 at 5:00 am | Print View

IOWA CITY More than 20 million people are registered as bone marrow donors in the Be the Match registry, the largest and most diverse donor registry in the world.

But none can help Calder Wills, a 12-year-old Iowa City boy battling stage 4 T-cell lymphoma, or cancer of the blood.

Only one person has been identified as a 100-percent match for Calder, but that person was deemed medically unable to donate bone marrow.

This has left the Wills family with few options.

And so, friends of the family are hosting a donor registry drive on Tuesday to raise awareness about the need for more marrow donors and to perhaps find a match for Calder and others like him.

The event takes place from 3 to 8 p.m. inside the gym at Hoover Elementary School, 2200 E. Court St., Iowa City. Those who attend can join the Be The Match registry. Those who are unable to attend can register online at bethematch.org.

Calder was diagnosed with lymphoma in February 2016. He went into remission within the first 30 days but found out on April 11 the day after his 12th birthday that he had relapsed and would need a bone-marrow transplant. He is one of thousands searching for a match.

He is among the 70 percent of patients who surprisingly dont have a match in their own family, explained Colleen Reardon, manager of the Iowa Marrow Donor Program at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics. We are looking for a tissue type match and each sibling has about a 25 percent chance of being a match.

Calder has three siblings, a twin brother Grayson and sisters Charlotte, 7, and Arden, 5, all of whom were not matches. The next best chance a patient has, statistically, is to find an unrelated donor that is a 100-percent match.

Calders mother Brianna Wills described it as devastating when the family found out that the 58-year-old woman who matched with Calder was deemed medically unable to donate.

That left us with no match, no options, she said. Weve decided to pursue cord blood for his transplant, Wills said. He is going to have a cord blood transplant at the University of Minnesota because a bone marrow match wasnt available and he couldnt wait until one became available.

According to the Be The Match website, cord blood is one of three sources of blood-forming cells used in transplant. The others are bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cells. Cord blood can be used to treat more than 80 diseases, including blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma. Cord blood comes from a babys umbilical cord.

Wills said that even though Calder is receiving a different type of transplant, she does not want people to not register as a marrow donor.

I dont want that to dissuade people from continuing to do it because he has about a two out of three chance that this transplant will fail because he has T-cell lymphoma that is very aggressive and very hard to treat, Wills said. Realistically, statistically, we are looking at him needing a second transplant down the road and thats when we hope that well find a donor and we can use a bone marrow match then.

Please still do it and not just for Calder, do it for the thousands of people who also dont have a match.

According to Reardon, of every 540 people who register as a donor, only one will be identified as that perfect match for someone and be asked to donate.

Were not realistically hoping to find Calders donor, I mean that would be amazing, but really were hoping to expand the database. Were just hoping that some family in Texas or somewhere else in the world is also doing this and maybe theyll find Calders donor, Wills said. If were all doing it, were going to expand the database for everyones benefit.

Wills recognizes that even though the drive is in Calders honor, it is truly to the benefit of thousands of other people who dont have donors.

There are other ethnic groups that have very little participation and to be a match you need to be matched with donors that have similar ethnic background as you do, Wills said. So African Americans, Hispanics, people that have mixed races, or Asian background wed love to have them come because there are people waiting for donors of all kinds of backgrounds.

What: Bone Marrow Donor Drive

When: 3 to 8 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Hoover Elementary School, 2200 E. Court St., Iowa City

Details: Join the Iowa Marrow Donor Program and Be The Match Registry using a simple cheek swab.

Info: join.bethematch.org/CalderStrong or call the Iowa Marrow Donor Program at (319) 356-3337.

l Comments: (319) 368-8538; elianna.novitch@thegazette.com

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The Hindu

Indian researchers develop 3D bioprinted cartilage The Hindu The bioink has high concentration of bone-marrow derived cartilage stem cells, silk proteins and a few factors. The chemical composition of the bioink supports cell growth and long-term survival of the cells. The cartilage developed in the lab has ...

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AR Rahman (Pic: ENS).

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOX31 Denver

Stranger saves life of woman with stem cell transplant FOX31 Denver DENVER -- This is a terrible statistic. Eighty percent of blood cancer patients in need of stem cell or bone marrow transplant are not able to get one, in part because they can't find a match. But you can help change that and save a life by registering ...

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Stranger saves life of woman with stem cell transplant - FOX31 Denver

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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Andrew Duffy, Postmedia Network May 23, 2017

, Last Updated: 5:01 PM ET

Jonathan Pitre has been on a medical roller-coaster in the week since blood tests revealed that his stem cell transplant has taken root in his bone marrow.

While his white blood cell count has soared its now well within the normal range he has also suffered a series of complications that have severely tested his physical endurance.

It has been a long few days, said his mother, Tina Boileau. Hes been through hell.

Pitre, 16, is battling liver, kidney and gastrointestinal problems.

He has been diagnosed with typhlitis, a serious inflammation in part of his large intestine, that brings with it risk of a bowel perforation. He has undergone a series of x-rays and ultrasounds to check for perforations, all of which have come back negative.

At the same time, Pitre is fighting a liver infection that has caused his fever to spike, and his skin to yellow. His blood pressure has fluctuated, and his kidneys are struggling to process all of the fluids and medications that have been been pumped into his body. He hasnt been allowed to eat or drink for days to protect his damaged gastrointestinal system.

Pitre will undergo surgery Wednesday to have another central line installed so that he can be fed intravenously rather than through his existing g-tube, which sends nutrition directly to his stomach.

All of the complications have made it difficult to deliver enough medication to control Pitres pain levels, his mother said.

Its got to get better, she said.

Boileau is placing her faith in her sons new immune system, which has been rebuilt with the help of her donated stem cells. His white blood cell count is at 6.7 which is amazing, she said. And hopefully, that helps him fight everything hes going through.

A normal white blood cell count ranges from 4.0 to 11.

Pitre found out last Tuesday that the white blood cells in his system were all donor cells, which signalled that his transplant had successfully engrafted in his bone marrow. Bone marrow stem cells produce most of the bodys blood, including the white blood cells that are responsible for fighting bacteria, viruses and other pathogens.

Pitres lead physician, Dr. Jakub Tolar, said last week that the Russell teenager remains extremely fragile and susceptible to all kinds of complications. But Tolar also said the success of the transplant has established the pre-condition for his recovery.

It has now been 40 days since Pitre was infused with stem cells drawn from his mothers hip bone at the University of Minnesota Masonic Childrens Hospital.

In the next three months, doctors will be on the lookout for signs of acute graft-versus-host-disease (GVHD), a complication in which the donors white blood cells turn on the patients tissues and attack them as foreign. Last week, Pitre showed signs of a rash which can sometimes be a telltale sign of the disease, but a skin biopsy showed that the problem was not related to GVHD.

Anyone who receives stem cells from another person is at risk of developing the condition, which can range from mild to life-threatening. It commonly affects the skin, liver or gastrointestinal tract.

Pitre suffers from a severe form of epidermolysis bullosa (EB), a painful and progressive skin disease that has inflicted deep, open wounds on his body.

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'It has been a long few days': Jonathan Pitre on medical roller-coaster - Canoe

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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Medical Q&A: Progress made in getting stem cells to 'take' in mice - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Currently, there are only 11 hospitals that are authorized to give stem cell treatments in Indonesia. (Shutterstock/File)

Developments in science and technology have enabled humankind to achieve the unthinkable, including advancements in healthcare. In the next 10 years, patients may not even need medicine to cure certain illnesses as reported by kompas.com.

Principal investigator of Stem Cell and Cancer Institute, Dr. Yuyus Kusnadi, said health scientists are developing stem cell treatments. Stem cells are cells with the ability to renew or regenerate any kind of cells.

Degenerative conditions such as kidney failure and the weakening of heart muscles in the future may be cured by injecting stem cells into the patients body.

Stem cells can be obtained from umbilical cord blood that is kept in a stem cell bank, back bone marrow and fat. However, fat and bone marrow will decline in quality as a person grows older. Stem cells stored in a stem cell bank can be used for future treatments if needed.

Read also: Scientists take first steps to growing human organs in pigs

Health treatments using stem cells exist today although they are not yet developed due to limitations in funding and technology. Yuyus said in Indonesia, those who are allowed stem cell treatment are those who have no option.

For now, stem cell treatment require a doctors approval. Its still subjective, he said.

For those with recommendations for stem cell treatment, the stem cell is obtained from blood or fat. Manipulation in the laboratory is needed to strengthen the stem cell.

Although stem cell treatments are not yet popular these days, Yuyus is optimistic, Lets wait five to ten more years. The current use of medicine only stops symptoms and does not fix the sickness, he said.

Stem cell treatments will not be cheap either, as it will cost patients up to hundreds of millions of rupiah.

Currently, there are only 11 hospitals that are authorized to give stem cell treatments in Indonesia. The hospitals right to provide stem cell treatments is regulated in the Health Ministers Regulation no. 32, 2014 on the Incorporation of Medical Research Service and Education of Tissue and Stem Cell Centers.

Hospitals authorized to provide stem cell treatments in Indonesia include Rumah Sakit Cipto Mangun Kusumo, RS. Sutomo, RS M. Djamil, RS. Persahabatan, RS. Fatmawati, RS. Dharmais, RS. Harapan Kita, RS. Hasan Sadikin, RS. Kariadi, RS. Sardjito and RS. Sanglah. (asw)

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Stem cell treatments ready to replace medicine in 10 years: Expert - Jakarta Post

After 20 years of trying, scientists have transformed mature cells into primordial blood cells that regenerate themselves and the components of blood. The work, described [May 17] in Nature offers hope to people with leukemia and other blood disorders who need bone-marrow transplants but cant find a compatible donor. If the findings translate into the clinic, these patients could receive lab-grown versions of their own healthy cells.

One team, led by stem-cell biologist George Daley of Boston Childrens Hospital in Massachusetts, created human cells that act like blood stem cells, although they are not identical to those found in nature. A second team, led by stem-cell biologist Shahin Rafii of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, turned mature cells from mice into fully fledged blood stem cells.

Time will determine which approach succeeds. But the latest advances have buoyed the spirits of researchers who have been frustrated by their inability to generate blood stem cells from iPS 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, [Mick Bhatia, a stem-cell researcher at McMaster University, who was not involved with either study] says.

[Read the Daley study here.]

Read the Rafii study here.]

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post:Lab-grown blood stem cells produced at last

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Breakthrough for bone marrow transplant recipients: Lab-grown blood stem cells produced for first time - Genetic Literacy Project

He was tired of the daily pain that made even shaking someone's hand almost unbearable.

Marlette lost his arm in an accident when he was a teenager, but as an active kid, he didn't this slow him down. He continued to play football and golf, running track and even wrestling.

But over time, the strain on his remaining arm and wrist took a toll.

So to relieve his pain, he traveled from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to Munich, Germany, with the hopes that a special procedure using stem cells could make a difference.

"There's no cartilage," Marlette said of his wrist. "I'm bone-on-bone. It is constantly inflamed and very sore."

As Marlette grew older, even the simplest things, like tucking in his shirt or putting on a jacket, became incredibly painful.

Marlette developed cysts and holes in the bones of his wrist. Doctors prescribed anti-inflammatory medications, but they only managed the pain, doing nothing to actually heal the problem. One day, his doctor, Dr. Bob Van Demark at Sanford Health in South Dakota, where Marlette works in finance, saw a presentation by Dr. Eckhard Alt.

It was about a new treatment using stem cells.

"Following an infection or wound or trauma," Alt said, "there comes a call to the stem cells in the blood vessels, which are silent, and nature activates those cells."

Stem cells are located throughout our bodies, like a reserve army offering regeneration and repair. When we're injured or sick, our stem cells divide and create new cells to replace those that are damaged or killed. Depending on where the cells are in the body, they adapt, becoming specialized as blood cells, muscle cells or brain cells, for example.

Alt was the first person to use adipose tissue, or fat, as a prime source of stem cells, according to Dr. David Pearce, executive vice president for research at Sanford health.

"He observed that the simplest place to get some stem cells is really from the fat," said Pearce. "Most of us could give some fat up, and those stem cells don't have to be programmed in any way, but if you put in the right environment, they will naturally turn into what the cell type around them is."

Fat tissue has a lot of blood vessels, making it a prime source of stem cells, and Alt recognized that stem cells derived from adipose tissue are also particularly good at becoming cartilage and bone.

Bone marrow is another source of stem cells, but these easily turn into blood and immune cells. Stem cells from fat have another fate.

"Fat-derived stem cells have a different lineage they can turn into, that is really cartilage and bone and other sort of connective tissues," said Pearce.

Van Demark traveled to Alt's Munich clinic along with some doctors from Sanford, which is now partnering with Alt on clinical trials in the United States. Marlette's doctor was impressed with what he saw and recommended the treatment to his patient.

Marlette paid his own way to Munich, where he would receive an injection of stem cells from his own fat tissue.

"I had one treatment, and my wrist felt better almost within the next couple weeks," Marlette said. "Through the course of the next seven months, it continued to feel better and better."

One injection was enough for this ongoing improvement.

"We see (from an MRI scan) that those cysts are gone, the bone has restructured, the inflammation is gone, and he formed ... new cartilage," said Alt.

MRIs confirmed what he was feeling: The cartilage had begun to regenerate in his wrist. Because the procedure uses autologous cells, which are cells from the patient's own body, there's little to no chance of rejection by the body's immune system.

Though the procedure worked for Marlette, the use of stem cells as a form of treatment is not without controversy or risk. In the US, they have been mired in controversy because much of the early research and discussion has been centered around embryonic and fetal stem cells.

Marlette traveled to Germany because approved treatments like this are not available in the United States. Clinics have popped up across the country, but they lack oversight from the Food and Drug Administration.

Dr. Robin Smith, founder of the Stem for Life Foundation, first began working in this field 10 years ago. According to Smith, there were 400 clinical trials for stem cells when she first started; now, there are 4,500. She partnered with the Vatican to hold a stem cell conference last year.

"We're moving toward a new era in medicine," said Smith, who was not involved in this research. "(We are) recognizing cells in our body and immune system can be used in some way -- manipulated, redirected or changed at the DNA level -- to impact health and cure disease. It is an exciting time."

Dr. Nick Boulis is a neurosurgeon with Emory University in Atlanta. His team ran the first FDA-approved clinical trials in the US to inject stem cells in the spinal cords of patients with ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and he isn't surprised to see procedures like the one at Alt's clinic in Germany have success.

"Joints and bones heal," Boulis said. "The nervous system is very bad at healing. It doesn't surprise me that we're seeing successes in recapitulating cartilage before we're seeing successes in rebuilding the motherboard."

Smith also cautioned patients to do their research, especially about the types of cells being used. "When you have a health problem, and you need a solution, sometimes you don't have three five, seven years to get there," she said, referencing the slow progression of regulations in places like the United States.

"So really ,look for places that have the regulatory approval of the country they're in. Safety has to be number one," she said.

Alt's Munich clinic was approved by the European equivalent of the FDA, the European Medicines Agency. Through the partnership with Sanford, the health group is now launching clinical trials in America, focusing on rotator cuff injuries, a common shoulder injury. This is the first FDA-approved trial of its kind.

Further down the line, Alt hopes to see stem cells used for such issues as heart procedures and treating the pancreas to help diabetics. For him, the growth is limitless.

"I think it will be exponential," he said. "It will be the same thing (we saw) with deciphering the human genome. The knowledge will go up exponentially, and the cost will go exponentially down. For me, the most exciting thing is to see how you can help patients that have been desperate for which there was no other option, no hope, and how well they do."

For Marlette, it has meant a wrist free from pain and a life free from pain medication.

Since the procedure in August, he hasn't taken any of the anti-inflammatory drugs. "I have more range of motion with my wrist, shaking hands didn't hurt anymore," he said. "My wrist seems to continue to improve, and there's less and less pain all the time."

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Patient uses fat stem cells to repair his wrist - CNN

Science World Report

Bone Marrow Stem Cell Transplants Could Advance ALS Treatment Science World Report The researchers discovered that bone marrow stem cell transplants may advance the treatment of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The transplants enhanced the motor functions and nervous system conditions in mice with ALS that modeled in ... Stem cell transplants beneficial to mice with ALSLife Science Daily all 2 news articles »

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Bone Marrow Stem Cell Transplants Could Advance ALS Treatment - Science World Report

Back to Browse Journals Clinical Ophthalmology Volume 11

Carina Costa Cotrim, Luiza Toscano, Andr Messias, Rodrigo Jorge, Rubens Camargo Siqueira

Department of Ophthalmology, Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Ribeirao Preto School of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Purpose: To evaluate the therapeutic potential and safety of intravitreal injections of bone marrow mononuclear fraction (BMMF) containing CD34+ cells in patients with atrophic age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Methods: Ten patients with atrophic AMD and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in the worse-seeing eye of 20/100 were enrolled in this study. The bone marrow from all patients was aspirated and processed for mononuclear cell separation. A 0.1mL suspension of BMMF CD34+ cells was injected into the vitreous cavity of the worse-seeing eye. Patients were evaluated at Baseline and 1,3,6,9 and 12 months after injection. Ophthalmic evaluation included BCVA measurement, microperimetry, infrared imaging, fundus autofluorescence and SD-optical coherence tomography at all study visits. Fluorescein angiography was performed at Baseline and at 6and 12 months after intravitreal therapy. Results: All patients completed the 6-month follow-up, and six completed the 12-month follow-up. Prior to the injection, mean BCVA was 1.18 logMAR (20/320-1), ranging from 20/125 to 20/640-2, and improved significantly at every follow-up visit, including the 12-month one, when BCVA was 1.0 logMAR (20/200) (P<0.05). Mean sensitivity threshold also improved significantly at 6, 9 and 12 months after treatment (P<0.05). Considering the area of atrophy identified by fundus autofluorescence, significant mean BCVA and mean sensitivity threshold improvement were observed in patients with the smallest areas of atrophy. Fluorescein angiography did not identify choroidal new vessels or tumor growth. Conclusion: The use of intravitreal BMMF injections in patients with AMD is safe and is associated with significant improvement in BCVA and macular sensitivity threshold. Patients with small areas of atrophy have a better response. The paracrine effect of CD34+ cells may explain the functional improvement observed; however, larger series of patients are necessary to confirm these preliminary findings. Keywords: AMD, stem cells, hematopoietic cells

This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License. By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms.

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Intravitreal use of bone marrow mononuclear fraction containing CD34 + stem cells in patients with atrophic age ... - Dove Medical Press

With gene-editing techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9, offending genes could one day be snipped out of hematopoietic stem cells, then be returned to their owners to generate new lines of disease-free blood cells

New research has nudged scientists closer to one of regenerative medicines holy grails: the ability to create customised 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 leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma, but they could also improve the treatment of those cancers, which affect some 1.2 million Americans. The stem cells that give rise to our blood are a mysterious wellspring of life. In principle, just one of these primitive cells can create much of a human beings immune system, not to mention the complex slurry of cells that courses through a persons arteries, veins and organs. 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 treatments to kill their cancer cells, 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 donors bone marrow and in umbilical cord blood that is sometimes harvested after a babys 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. As a result, they can provoke an attack if the transplant recipients body registers the cells as foreign. This response, called graft-versus-host disease, affects as many as 70 percent of bone-marrow transplant recipients in the months following the treatment, and 40 percent develop a chronic version of the affliction later. It can overwhelm the benefit of a stem cell transplant. And it kills many patients. Rather than hunt for a donor whos a perfect match for a patient in need of a transplant a process that can be lengthy, ethically fraught and ultimately unsuccessful doctors would like to use a patients own cells to engineer the hematopoietic stem cells. The patients 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 the specific type of 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 deadly rejection episodes could be eliminated, physicians might also feel more confident treating blood diseases that are painful and difficult but not immediately deadly diseases such as sickle cell disease and immunological disorders with stem cell transplants. The two studies published on Wednesday demonstrate that scientists may soon be capable of pulling off the sequence of operations necessary for such treatments to move ahead. One of two research teams, led by stem cell pioneer Dr George Q. Daley of Harvard Medical School and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, started their experiment with human pluripotent stem cells primitive cells capable of becoming virtually any type of mature cell in the body. Some of them were embryonic stem cells and others were induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, which are made by converting mature cells back to a flexible state. The scientists then programmed those pluripotent stem cells to become endothelial cells, which line the inside of certain blood vessels. Past research had established that those cells are where blood-making stem cells are born. Here, the process needed a nudge. Using suppositions gleaned from experiments with mice, Daley said his team confected a special sauce of proteins that sit on a cells DNA and programme its function. When they incubated the endothelial cells in the sauce, they began producing hematopioetic stem cells in their earliest form. Daleys 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 research team, led by researchers from Weill Cornell Medicines Ansary Stem Cell Institute in New York, achieved a similar result using stem cells from the blood-vessel lining of adult mice. After programming those cells to revert to a more primitive form, the scientists also incubated those stem cells in a concoction of specialised proteins. When the team, led by Raphael Lis and Dr Shahin Rafii, transferred the resulting stem cells back into the tissue lining the blood vessels of the mice from which they came, that graft also took. For at least 40 weeks after the incubated stem cells were returned to their mouse owners, the stem cells continued to regenerate themselves and give rise to many blood-cell types without provoking immune reactions. In addition to making a workhorse treatment for blood cancers safer, the new advances may afford scientists a unique window on the mechanisms by which blood diseases take hold and progress, said Lee Greenberger, chief scientific officer for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. From a research point of view you could now actually begin to model diseases, said Greenberger. If you were to take the cell thats defective and make it revert to a stem cell, you could effectively reproduce the disease and watch its progression from the earliest stages. That, in turn, would make it easier to narrow the search for drugs that could disrupt that disease process early. And it would speed the process of discovering which genes are implicated in causing diseases. With gene-editing techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9, those offending genes could one day be snipped out of hematopoietic stem cells, then be returned to their owners to generate new lines of disease-free blood cells. 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. By tinkering with the processes by which pluripotent stem cells mature into blood-producing stem cells, Daley said his team hopes to make these lab-grown cells a better match for the real things. Los Angeles Times/TNS

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Regenerative medicine: holy grail within grasp? - Gulf Times