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The way to the Red Planet and other mysterious worlds is being inspired by the villainous Khan from the blockbuster films, according to new research.

The use of stem cell technology may mean the difference between life and death on any attempt to travel beyond Earth into the wilderness of space.

So the first person to walk on Mars is likely to be selected from the growing group of people whose parents took the step to store their child's stem cells at birth.

Stem cells are 'blank' cells that can be reprogrammed to turn into any other cell in the body, enabling the replacement of damaged cells.

More and more British parents, including TV presenter Natalie Pinkham and dancer Darcey Bussell, are paying more than 2,000 to freeze samples from their babies' umbilical cords at birth.

Stem cells are also found in bone marrow and some body tissue, but the procedure to harvest them from umbilical cords is less risky.

Adventurous Mars pioneers will have to be especially prepared for the dangerous trip, which could expose them to cancer and other diseases, through carefully researched gene therapy.

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We wince at the thought of genetically engineered humans

Mark Hall

Mark Hall, spokesperson for the UK's leading stem cell storage and diagnostics company StemProtect, said: "We wince at the thought of genetically engineered humans.

"And we are not going to create a Khan from Star Trek specifically to get to another planet. Getting humans to Mars and beyond will be both expensive and dangerous.

"But the scientific by-products - such as huge leaps in stem cell medicine - will benefit humanity for centuries to come."

Genetic engineering has featured in two Star Trek movies, and a number of TV episodes.

IG

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This still image strikes an uncanny resemblance to a figure of a woman

Khan, who appeared in Space Seed and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, was modified to make him stronger and to give him greater stamina and intellectual capacity than a regular human.

Mr Hall said: "The first human to walk on Mars may not even be born yet - but that's an advantage."

StemProtect believes advanced medical techniques will be required to cope with the rigours of interplanetary space.

While a trip to Mars may appear "just around the corner" in galactic terms, it is highly possible exposure to radiation along the way could lead to the astronauts developing leukaemia and other cancers even before they arrived.

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This means future travellers will have to be 'immunised' before they leave Earth.

Mr Hall said: "There was an article in The Times suggesting elephants would make ideal Martian travellers because they'd be largely immune to the radiation.

"But those laughing at the ridiculous sounding headline completely missed the point - the fact is scientists are already working on ways of getting humans there and back alive."

Recent research has shown radiation in deep space increase the risk of leukaemia while long term exposure to micro gravity may leave astronauts open to infection.

The three year round trip to Mars would affect humans at the stem cell level, leaving them with a drastically lowered immune system, NASA funded scientists say.

And NASA's own findings say stem cells may be crucial to the future of space travel, particularly how they respond in a low gravity environment.

One study showed stem cells flown in space and then cultured back on Earth had greater ability to self renew and generate any cell type, changing more easily into specialised heart muscle cells, for instance.

Mr Hall said an astronaut will have to be prepared for the journey "quite literally at the stem cell level."

He explained: "That means working with the best and most effective stem cells available to the patient - those harvested from the umbilical cord at birth."

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The therapies required to 'immunise' humans to space travel are still being researched.

And with most space based science, it can only mean huge benefits to mankind back down on Earth when it comes to fighting otherwise deadly conditions and diseases.

Stem cells have the ability to treat a potentially infinite range of illnesses and diseases.

Stem cell therapy is already being used all over the world to treat some cancers and stroke victims - and there is fast progress being made in many other areas, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.

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SUPERHUMANS: Mars 'will be colonised by genetically engineered Star Trek-style beings' - Express.co.uk

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Skin stem cells used to generate new brain cells: Study to advance ... Science Daily Using human skin cells, neurobiologists have created a method to generate one of the principle cell types of the brain called microglia, which play a key role in ... and more »

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Skin stem cells used to generate new brain cells: Study to advance ... - Science Daily

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One of the finalists in the Governors Business Plan Contest, Cellular Logistics, is making another run at the top prize as it pursues commercialization of its biomaterials.

Two years ago, the company submitted a plan and made it to the semifinal round before being eliminated.

That was premature, but a good experience to go through in terms of preparation for this year, where we have a much more clear path and stronger team, said Adam Bock, CFO for Cellular Logistics. Weve been here before, but its always exciting.

The company just finished up a family and friends funding round last quarter, which raised $400,000. Its still in its growth stages, according to Bock, who characterizes Cellular Logistics as a virtual company at this point.

We have our business and tech team who operate wherever we need to be -- no dedicated office or lab, Bock said. All work has been done at Wisconsin Institute for Medical Research.

He added the company will be prepared to transition into a commercial space in about six months, saying were right at that crossover point.

Eric Schmuck, Cellular Logistics chief science officer, invented the companys patented biomaterials and heads the studies currently being done to test them.

He initially had the idea as a grad student in the UW-Madison Department of Physiology, where he was working with materials on which to grow stem cells. He realized the material he was experimenting with had unique characteristics which could be applicable in other ways.

It was novel; no one had done anything like it, Schmuck said. WARF agreed to patent the idea in 2011. Weve been tinkering with it in UW ever since.

The company is in the preclinical phase, currently testing an injectable supportive extracellular matrix in the hearts of mice. While results for these tests will have to wait until they are complete, Schmuck says that for earlier iterations, tests have been extremely promising.

He has seen really good restoration of function, with earlier tests, including powerful reduction in cardiac dilation -- a good sign for heart health.

In fact, earlier tests suggest the companys biomaterials are able to reverse or inhibit progression to heart failure, Schmuck says. They would be used in humans to repair damaged cardiac muscles, for patients who have experienced recent heart attacks or heart failure.

The company will be seeking approval from the FDA eventually, Schmuck said, adding that human trials could be undertaken in two or three years.

Bock says winning the contest would be spectacular, and that taking part is a lot of fun. The top 12, or Diligent Dozen, will be announced in late May, with the end of the contest coming in early June.

--By Alex Moe WisBusiness.com

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The biggest national project to treat patients with cerebral palsy (CP) through injection of stems cells from umbilical cord blood (UCB) into the brain began its trial run in March. The project is jointly undertaken by Royan Institute, Childrens Medical Center (affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences), and the Iran Blood Transfusion Organization (IBTO). In the first phase, it will provide treatment to 130 children with CP between the ages 5-13. The treatment was tested in September 2016 on children with CP in some hospitals, and the results were highly satisfactory. Approximately four in every 1,000 children in Iran have CP while in the developed countries the rate is 2 to 2.5 per 1000 live births. Cerebral palsy is an umbrella term for the effects of damage to a developing brain by various causes. It is connected with a range of symptoms, including muscle weakness and movement problems. The damage to the brain usually occurs early on in its development, either in the baby during pregnancy or during the period soon after birth. Symptoms may include difficulties in walking, balance and motor control, eating, swallowing, speech or coordination of eye movements. Some people affected by CP also have some level of intellectual disability. No two people with cerebral palsy are affected in exactly the same way. The IBTO plans to expand the storage of stems cells from umbilical cord blood to 100,000 samples from the current 80,000, said Ali Akbar Pourfathollah, head of the organization, ILNA reported. Around 75,000 samples have been stored in private banks and 5,000 in public banks, but the number will surpass 100,000 soon, he added.

Valuable Source for Treatment Umbilical blood is a valuable source of hematopoietic stem cells which can be used for treatment of many malignant diseases such as leukemia. Hundreds of transplants have been performed using stem cells from such blood, which is easy and risk free. The use of stem cells reduces the risk of viral diseases transmission and incidence of Graft Versus Host Disease (GVHD). The ability to perform organ transplants is among the benefits of umbilical cord blood transfusion. Using stems cells is also one of the best ways to treat blood diseases since the method has a success rate of 70% worldwide. Storage of stem cells is a valuable investment. So far, 27 cord blood banks have been launched across the country. There are two types: public and private banks for stem cell storage. The former does not charge a fee for storage. But in the latter, the cost of collection and genetic testing is about $645 and the annual charge for storage is $33, according to ISNA. Pourfathollah said the IBTO is looking to store stem cells in medical cases when a patient needs to receive treatment from matched unrelated donors. In the past Iranian year (ended March 20), out of the 8,000 stem cell transplantations in the country, only 100 were from matched unrelated donors and the rest came from sibling (or related) donors. IBTO is also looking to set up coagulation/transfusion and HLA/immunogenetics laboratories in the country on par with international standards. The Immunogenetics and HLA Laboratory provides human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing, HLA antibody identification and post-transplant engraftment monitoring services. These tests are required for patients undergoing evaluation for organ transplantation, recipients of bone marrow/stem cell transplants, patients requiring platelet transfusions from HLA-matched donors, and patients undergoing evaluation of particular health conditions.

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Treating Cerebral Palsy With UCB Stem Cells - Financial Tribune

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on Treating Cerebral Palsy With UCB Stem Cells – Financial Tribune | April 24th, 2017

It was Thursday afternoon, and the little girl from near Cologne, Germany, and the 40-year-old Duluth woman had known each other for less than 24 hours. But it was obvious that Edwards already had bonded with Ina and her little sister Mila.

They were together because the girls' mother had given Edwards a much greater gift: the gift of life.

"By your donation, I still get to be a mom," Edwards told Daniela Halfkann, 30. "(You're) a mom, so you completely understand how important it is to be here with your children."

Edwards, the mother of 15-year-old twin boys and the wife of Duluth Fire Chief Dennis Edwards, is alive because of the stem cell transplant she received at the Mayo Clinic on Oct. 31, 2014. As a result, she said, she is in remission from the rare and aggressive form of leukemia with which she had been diagnosed that June.

All she was told at the time of the transplant was that the donor was a woman from Germany.

Halfkann had registered as a potential stem cell or bone marrow donor at the large insurance company where she works in Cologne, she said. One day she received a call, saying her donation was needed.

After the six-hour procedure, Halfkann was told nothing more than that the recipient was a woman in the United States.

After a two-year waiting period required in Germany, the two women learned each other's identities last October and connected via Facebook.

Their meeting in Duluth was arranged by Amanda Schamper, Midwest donor recruitment coordinator for DKMS, the Germany-based organization that facilitated the donation.

Halfkann made the trip along with husband Stefan and their daughters, leaving their home at 3 a.m. on Tuesday and arriving at the Duluth International Airport at 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

Like Edwards, DKMS wants to raise awareness of the need for people to enter the registry, said Schamper, who also traveled to Duluth for the occasion.

She said 14,000 patients are in need of a peripheral blood stem cell or bone marrow donation, but fewer than half will get one because there's no match on the registry.

"We're looking for a particular protein in our DNA," she explained.

Only in 30 percent of cases are siblings a match. Edwards' brother and sister both had been screened, she said, and neither was a match for her.

Finding a match "is equated to finding your genetic twin, or winning the genetic lottery," Schamper said.

If more people were on the registry a process that only requires taking a swab from your cheek there would be more potential matches. But only 2 percent of eligible Americans are registered, Schamper said.

When the Halfkanns arrived at the gate on Wednesday, Dennis and Merissa Edwards, along with sons Caden and Jaxon, were waiting at the gate.

It was an emotional moment.

"It was hard for me," Merissa Edwards said on Friday, speaking to Daniela Halfkann. "I was crying. I was so emotional, so happy to meet you and hug you."

She wiped away a tear. "I still am."

"It was amazing," Halfkann responded. "I cried at the gate, too."

The Halfkanns, who are staying at the Edgewater, initially focused on recovery from jet lag. But Edwards is making sure they'll get a full taste of Duluth and Minnesota before beginning their return trip to Germany next Saturday. That includes visits to the Mall of America, the Great Lakes Aquarium and a trip up the North Shore.

A "thank-you party," open to the public, is planned on Sunday afternoon. Halfkann also will be recognized on Monday during the Saints Sports Awards ceremony at the College of St. Scholastica, where Edwards is an administrative assistant in the athletics department.

Recovery from the ravages of leukemia has been a long process, Edwards said, but she remains in remission. She gets a PET scan every six months to make sure that's still the case; the next one takes place next week.

Edwards shares her story, she said, not to call attention to herself but to highlight the need for people to take the simple step of registering as a potential donor.

"It's so important for us to help other people keep their families together and save a mother or father or son or daughter," she said. "The more people we can encourage to cheek-swab and get on the registry, the more lives we can help save and help families stay together."

TO LEARN MORE

For more information and to learn how to get on the bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cell registry, visit dkms.org.

IF YOU GO

The thank-you party for Daniela Halfkann will be from 2 to 5 p.m. on Sunday at The Other Place Bar and Grill, 3930 E. Calvary Road.

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By Marilynn Marchione The Associated Press

Tummy tucks really hurt. Doctors carve from hip to hip, slicing off skin, tightening muscles, tugging at innards.

Patients often need strong painkillers for days or even weeks, after the procedure but Mary Hernandez went home on just over-the-counter ibuprofen.

The reason could be the yellowish goo smeared on her 18-inch wound as she lay on the operating table. The Houston woman was helping test a novel medicine aimed at avoiding opioids, potent pain relievers fueling an epidemic of overuse and addiction.

Vicodin, OxyContin and similar drugs are widely used for bad backs, severe arthritis, damaged nerves and other ailments. They work powerfully in brain areas that control pleasure and pain, but the body adapts to them quickly, so people need higher and higher doses to get relief.

This growing dependence on opioids has mushroomed into a national health crisis, ripping apart communities and straining police and health departments.

Every day, an overdose of prescription opioids or heroin kills 91 people, and legions more are brought back from the brink of death. With some 2 million Americans hooked on these pills, evidence is growing that theyre not as good a choice for treating chronic pain as once thought.

Drug companies are working on alternatives, but have had little success.

Twenty or so years ago, they invested heavily and failed miserably, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Pain is a pain to research. Some people bear more than others, and success cant be measured as objectively as it can be with medicines that shrink a tumor or clear an infection. Some new pain drugs that worked well were doomed by side effects Vioxx, for example, helped arthritis but hurt hearts.

Some fresh approaches are giving hope:

Bespoke drugs, as Volkow calls them. These target specific pathways and types of pain rather than acting broadly in the brain. One is Enbrel, which treats a key feature of rheumatoid arthritis and, in the process, eases pain.

Drugs to prevent the need for opioids. One that Hernandez was helping test numbs a wound for a few days and curbs inflammation. If people dont have big pain after surgery, their nerves dont go on high alert and theres less chance of developing chronic pain that might require opioids.

Funky new sources for medicines. In testing: Drugs from silk, hot chili peppers and the venom of snakes, snails and other critters.

Novel uses for existing drugs. Some seizure and depression medicines, for example, can help some types of pain.

The biggest need, however, is for completely new medicines that can be used by lots of people for lots of problems. These also pose the most risk for companies and patients alike.

Bumpy road

In the early 2000s, a small biotech company had a big idea: blocking nerve growth factor, a protein made in response to pain.

The companys drug, now called tanezumab, works on outlying nerves, helping to keep pain signals from muscles, skin and organs from reaching the spinal cord and brain good for treating arthritis and bad backs.

Pfizer Inc. bought the firm in 2006 and expanded testing. But in 2010, some people on tanezumab and similar drugs being tested by rivals needed joint replacements.

Besides dulling pain, nerve growth factor might affect joint repair and regeneration, so a possible safety issue needed full investigation in a medicine that would be the first of its type ever sold, said one independent expert, Dr. Jianguo Cheng, a Cleveland Clinic pain specialist and science chief for the American Academy of Pain Medicine.

Regulators put some of the studies on hold. Suddenly, some people who had been doing well on tanezumab lost access to it. Phyllis Leis in Waterfall, a small town in south-central Pennsylvania, was one.

I was so angry, she said. That was like a miracle drug. It really was. Unless you have arthritis in your knees and have trouble walking, youll never understand how much relief and what a godsend it was.

Her doctor, Alan Kivitz of the Altoona Center for Clinical Research, has helped run hundreds of pain studies and consults for Pfizer and many other companies.

You rarely get people to feel that good as many of them did on the nerve growth factor drugs, he said.

A drug with that much early promise is unusual, said Ken Verburg, who has led Pfizers pain research for several decades. When you do see one, you fight hard to try to bring one to the market, he said.

An independent review ultimately tied just a few serious joint problems to tanezumab and the suspension on testing was lifted in August 2012. But a new issue nervous system effects in some animal studies prompted a second hold later that year, and that wasnt lifted until 2015.

Now, Eli Lilly & Co. has joined Pfizer in testing tanezumab in late-stage studies with 7,000 patients. Results are expected late next year about 17 years after the drugs conception.

Avoiding pain

What if a drug could keep people from needing long-term pain relief in the first place? Heron Therapeutics Inc. is testing a novel, long-acting version of two drugs the anesthetic bupivacaine and the anti-inflammatory meloxicam for notoriously painful operations such as tummy tucks, bunion removal and hernia repair.

Company studies suggest it can numb wounds for about three days and cut patients need for opioids by 30 to 50 percent.

Theres a good chance of preventing brain responses that lead to chronic pain if patients can get through that initially very rough period, said Dr. Harold Minkowitz, a Houston anesthesiologist who consults for Heron and treated Hernandez in the tummy tuck study.

Hernandez was part of an experiment testing the drug vs. a placebo and doesnt know whether she got the drug or a dummy medicine. But she hurt less than she expected to and never filled a prescription for pain pills.

The goal would be to have half or more of patients not requiring an opiate after they go home, said Herons chief executive, Barry Quart. You have far fewer opiates going out into society, far fewer opiates sitting in medicine cabinets that make their way to a high school.

Studies so far are mid-stage too small to prove safety and effectiveness but Heron plans more aimed at winning approval.

On the horizon

Many companies have their eyes on sodium channel blockers, which affect how nerves talk to one another and thus might help various types of pain. Others are testing cell therapies for nerve pain. Stem cells can modulate immune responses and inflammation, and might overcome a raft of problems, said Cheng of the pain medicine academy.

Some companies, including Samumed, Centrexion Therapeutics and Flexion Therapeutics, are testing long-acting medicines to inject in knees to relieve arthritis pain. Samumeds aims to regenerate cartilage.

And then theres marijuana. A cannabis extract is sold as a mouth spray in Britain for nerve pain and other problems from multiple sclerosis. But cannabinoid research in the United States has been hampered by marijuanas legal status. A special license is needed and most researchers dont even try to obtain one, said Susan Ingram, a neurosurgery scientist at Oregon Health & Science University.

She is studying cannabinoid receptors in the brain, looking at how pain affects one type but not another. Such work might someday lead to drugs that relieve pain but dont produce a high or addiction.

Selective activity has precedent: The drug buprenorphine partially binds to opioid receptors in the brain and has become an extraordinarily successful medication for treating addiction, said Volkow, of the national drug institute.

It has shown pharmaceutical companies that if you come up with a good intervention, there is an opportunity to recover their costs, she said.

Tummy tucks really hurt. Doctors carve from hip to hip, slicing off skin, tightening muscles, tugging at innards. Patients often need strong painkillers for days or even weeks, after the procedure but Mary Hernandez went home on just over-the-counter ibuprofen. The reason could be the yellowish goo smeared on her 18-inch wound as she lay on the operating table. The Houston woman was helping test a novel medicine aimed at avoiding opioids, potent pain relievers fueling an epidemic of overuse and addiction. Vicodin, OxyContin and similar drugs are widely used for bad backs, severe arthritis, damaged nerves and other ailments. They work powerfully in brain areas that control pleasure and pain, but the body adapts to them quickly, so people need higher and higher doses to get relief. This growing dependence on opioids has mushroomed into a national health crisis, ripping apart communities and straining police and health departments. Every day, an overdose of prescription opioids or heroin kills 91 people, and legions more are brought back from the brink of death. With some 2 million Americans hooked on these pills, evidence is growing that theyre not as good a choice for treating chronic pain as once thought. Drug companies are working on alternatives, but have had little success. Twenty or so years ago, they invested heavily and failed miserably, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Pain is a pain to research. Some people bear more than others, and success cant be measured as objectively as it can be with medicines that shrink a tumor or clear an infection. Some new pain drugs that worked well were doomed by side effects Vioxx, for example, helped arthritis but hurt hearts. Some fresh approaches are giving hope: n Bespoke drugs, as Volkow calls them. These target specific pathways and types of pain rather than acting broadly in the brain. One is Enbrel, which treats a key feature of rheumatoid arthritis and, in the process, eases pain. n Drugs to prevent the need for opioids. One that Hernandez was helping test numbs a wound for a few days and curbs inflammation. If people dont have big pain after surgery, their nerves dont go on high alert and theres less chance of developing chronic pain that might require opioids. n Funky new sources for medicines. In testing: Drugs from silk, hot chili peppers and the venom of snakes, snails and other critters. n Novel uses for existing drugs. Some seizure and depression medicines, for example, can help some types of pain. The biggest need, however, is for completely new medicines that can be used by lots of people for lots of problems. These also pose the most risk for companies and patients alike.Subhead: Bumpy road In the early 2000s, a small biotech company had a big idea: blocking nerve growth factor, a protein made in response to pain. The companys drug, now called tanezumab, works on outlying nerves, helping to keep pain signals from muscles, skin and organs from reaching the spinal cord and brain good for treating arthritis and bad backs. Pfizer Inc. bought the firm in 2006 and expanded testing. But in 2010, some people on tanezumab and similar drugs being tested by rivals needed joint replacements. Besides dulling pain, nerve growth factor might affect joint repair and regeneration, so a possible safety issue needed full investigation in a medicine that would be the first of its type ever sold, said one independent expert, Dr. Jianguo Cheng, a Cleveland Clinic pain specialist and science chief for the American Academy of Pain Medicine. Regulators put some of the studies on hold. Suddenly, some people who had been doing well on tanezumab lost access to it. Phyllis Leis in Waterfall, a small town in south-central Pennsylvania, was one. I was so angry, she said. That was like a miracle drug. It really was. Unless you have arthritis in your knees and have trouble walking, youll never understand how much relief and what a godsend it was. Her doctor, Alan Kivitz of the Altoona Center for Clinical Research, has helped run hundreds of pain studies and consults for Pfizer and many other companies. You rarely get people to feel that good as many of them did on the nerve growth factor drugs, he said. A drug with that much early promise is unusual, said Ken Verburg, who has led Pfizers pain research for several decades. When you do see one, you fight hard to try to bring one to the market, he said. An independent review ultimately tied just a few serious joint problems to tanezumab and the suspension on testing was lifted in August 2012. But a new issue nervous system effects in some animal studies prompted a second hold later that year, and that wasnt lifted until 2015. Now, Eli Lilly & Co. has joined Pfizer in testing tanezumab in late-stage studies with 7,000 patients. Results are expected late next year about 17 years after the drugs conception.Subhead: Avoiding pain What if a drug could keep people from needing long-term pain relief in the first place? Heron Therapeutics Inc. is testing a novel, long-acting version of two drugs the anesthetic bupivacaine and the anti-inflammatory meloxicam for notoriously painful operations such as tummy tucks, bunion removal and hernia repair. Company studies suggest it can numb wounds for about three days and cut patients need for opioids by 30 to 50 percent. Theres a good chance of preventing brain responses that lead to chronic pain if patients can get through that initially very rough period, said Dr. Harold Minkowitz, a Houston anesthesiologist who consults for Heron and treated Hernandez in the tummy tuck study. Hernandez was part of an experiment testing the drug vs. a placebo and doesnt know whether she got the drug or a dummy medicine. But she hurt less than she expected to and never filled a prescription for pain pills. The goal would be to have half or more of patients not requiring an opiate after they go home, said Herons chief executive, Barry Quart. You have far fewer opiates going out into society, far fewer opiates sitting in medicine cabinets that make their way to a high school. Studies so far are mid-stage too small to prove safety and effectiveness but Heron plans more aimed at winning approval.Subhead: On the horizon Many companies have their eyes on sodium channel blockers, which affect how nerves talk to one another and thus might help various types of pain. Others are testing cell therapies for nerve pain. Stem cells can modulate immune responses and inflammation, and might overcome a raft of problems, said Cheng of the pain medicine academy. Some companies, including Samumed, Centrexion Therapeutics and Flexion Therapeutics, are testing long-acting medicines to inject in knees to relieve arthritis pain. Samumeds aims to regenerate cartilage. And then theres marijuana. A cannabis extract is sold as a mouth spray in Britain for nerve pain and other problems from multiple sclerosis. But cannabinoid research in the United States has been hampered by marijuanas legal status. A special license is needed and most researchers dont even try to obtain one, said Susan Ingram, a neurosurgery scientist at Oregon Health & Science University. She is studying cannabinoid receptors in the brain, looking at how pain affects one type but not another. Such work might someday lead to drugs that relieve pain but dont produce a high or addiction. Selective activity has precedent: The drug buprenorphine partially binds to opioid receptors in the brain and has become an extraordinarily successful medication for treating addiction, said Volkow, of the national drug institute. It has shown pharmaceutical companies that if you come up with a good intervention, there is an opportunity to recover their costs, she said.

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Researchers look for new ways to reduce suffering, end addiction ... - The Columbus Dispatch

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A Lincoln student is set to save someone's life after finding out he was a match for someone who needed a bone marrow transplant.

John-Paul Dickie, the vice-president of academic affairs at the University of Lincoln, said he joined the register after his flatmate told him about it.

He doesn't know the identity of the person whose life he saved, but said he was delighted that he's been able to help someone who was desperate for a transplant.

He said: "My flatmate was involved with Lincoln Marrow, a student-led group trying to sign people up to the British Bone Marrow Register. He was telling me the benefits of it, including the fact it could potentially save someone's life.

READ MORE: Selfless mum marks 50th blood donation with daughter's first

"I signed up in February 2014, so it was a surprise when I heard back earlier this year that I was a potential match. I had some samples taken and eventually I had a date set for the operation in May.

"I'm looking forward to it, as it's an amazing way to help somebody.

"However I'm also a bit hesitant as it will require me to be strapped to a machine for four or five hours. My partner will be there to keep me company and I'll have books and TV to stop me from getting too bored."

When bone marrow is damaged it prevents a person from creating healthy blood cells and transplants like this help to treat the condition.

The transplant requires taking stem cells from the blood or bone marrow of one person and giving them to another.

John-Paul added: "There are two ways to take stem cells. One is taking them out of your back using a needle, which is painful but only 10 per cent of people have. Fortunately, I'm having the more common method in which blood is taken out of one arm, the stem cells are removed and then it is returned in the other arm."

READ MORE: 'Gordon was denied stem cell treatment, but I'll hold him in my heart forever'

Most people who need stem cells will be a match with a close family member. However, if this doesn't work then they will have to wait on the British Bone Marrow Registry.

"It's a great way to contribute and help save someone's life. All you have to do is give a sample of spit to get on the register, the process is so simple and easy. If you're able to do it, I would definitely encourage you to give it a try.

"The procedure is anonymous in case something goes wrong. You can find out their age and sex, but at the moment I don't know anything. After two years, you can apply to find out who they are."

Bone marrow donors need to be aged between 17 and 40 and already registered as a blood donor.

If you meet these criteria interested in signing up to the British Bone Marrow Register, visit their website for more information at: http://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/bonemarrow/

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'It's amazing!' Student discovers he's a potential life-saving bone marrow match - Lincolnshire Echo

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on ‘It’s amazing!’ Student discovers he’s a potential life-saving bone marrow match – Lincolnshire Echo | April 23rd, 2017

BROCKPORT When Chris Cella laced up his boxing gloves last Saturday night in preparation for his war within the squared circle, he was fighting for more than his undefeated fight record.

In front of the sellout crowd in Huntington, W.V., he made quick work of his opponent, working his body hard and knocking him out two minutes into the first round.

After his hand was raised cementing the victory the ring announcer handed Cella the microphone.

It was then that he shared his motivation for the win.

This fight tonight was for a special friend, a little girl named Shea. Shes the toughest warrior of all. This win is for you Shea, said Cella.

The week before the fight, Shea and her parents came out to Cellas gym, BC Boxing, where they wished him luck for his upcoming fight.

I first met Shea when she was five and her aunt brought her to the gym to train. When she came to wish me luck she stole my heart. Her beautiful smile and contagious laugh filled the gym with so much love. Shes been more of an inspiration to me that she will ever know. Shes a fighter and warrior in every sense of the word, and it felt great to get the win in her honor, Cella said.

Shea has been unable to make it to the gym for almost a year now.

Now 8 years old, Shea was diagnosed in August with AML leukemia, a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow with excess immature white blood cells, weeks before she was to start second grade at DuBois Central Catholic School.

Since her diagnosis, Sheas journey toward being cancer-free hasnt been an easy one.

Shes had adverse reactions to her appendix and gallbladder from the chemotherapy treatments and both had to be removed.

She also had a stem cell transplant this January and struggled with with graft versus host disease of the stomach and skin, which occurs when donor bone marrow or stem cells attack the recipient.

+3

+2

I know that seems like a lot of bad, but Shea had a positive outlook on this whole experience and is nothing but smiles, Sheas mother Misty McKinney said. We are hoping with in a month or two we can come home for good.

Shea cant wait to come home and have a huge pool party and get back to boxing.

Shea said she felt very special and happy, when Cella dedicated his fight to her. The boxing community at the gym has had the familys back since her diagnosis, even taking up collections of toys and gift cards at Christmastime in an attempt to give the girl a holiday she wouldnt forget.

Shea is one of the biggest inspirations Ive ever met, Cella said. She fights so hard every day, it makes my fight seem meaningless.

To keep up to date on Sheas journey and ways you can help, friend Pray for Shea on Facebook.

See the original post here:
Fight For Shea: Brockport man dedicates bout to DuBois girl with leukemia - The Courier-Express

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on Fight For Shea: Brockport man dedicates bout to DuBois girl with leukemia – The Courier-Express | April 23rd, 2017

A dad who achieved fame as a bailiff on Channel 5's Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away! has been handed a 'death sentence' unless a donor can be found to rescue him from a terminal blood cancer.

Delroy Anglin, who reached unexpected stardom on the show, has been stricken by an aggressive form of leukaemia which ravages the blood and bones of its sufferers.

The dad-of-six was confined to a hospital bed while undergoing chemotheraphy.

But Delroy, 56, desperately needs a bone marrow transplant so he can beat the debilitating disease.

However, it's proven difficult to find a matching donor because of his minority background, and he has suffered for months since first hearing the news of his deadly illness.

Delroy, from Croydon, told the Croydon Advertiser : "You feel as if someone has pronounced a death sentence.

"Life changed in an instant. When they tell you, you're just hoping someone has made a mistake, but they haven't.

"At the end of the day, unless somebody says differently - I'm terminal."

His condition was first discovered after he requested a check-up because he had been catching more colds than he usually would.

A blood test revealed what was really affecting his usually robust health.

AML affects the stem cells in bone marrow, causing a huge amount of white blood cells to be produced. Less than half of patients can be cured of the rare disease, which causes a dangerous reduction in the number of red blood cells in the body.

"I think I was in denial because I felt so fine," said Delroy, who has been forced to quit his on-screen work.

"Life changed straight away, from diagnosis to entering the hospital was a matter of days.

"Your life just changes instantly. Everything is chaotic and it remains like that for while."

Delroy, now a grandfather, is continuing to battle the disease, which developed with shocking speed, alongside his family.

His children have rallied to support him, and although his 82-year-old mum worries, her home cooking gives him strength.

"You don't want to worry your mum," said Delroy, who is now being treated at the Royal Marsden in Sutton.

"She does worry. She comes from a generation where leukaemia was a death sentence.

"But you get the home cooking from her and build up your strength it's funny how it never changes.

"You don't know how your kids are going to react. Some react well, some become aware of their own mortality a bit, and hate going to hospitals.

"But my family have reacted so well, and I think that's because they've seen my reaction. They've been absolutely amazing."

"It's strange, people don't usually like bailiffs," he said.

"But I have had so much support, from everyone including complete strangers."

The #Match4Delroy appeal is to be led by blood cancer charity the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust (ACLT) and encourages people to join the donor register.

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Bailiff dad who reached fame on Channel 5's Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away! gets 'death sentence' diagnosis - Mirror.co.uk

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on Bailiff dad who reached fame on Channel 5’s Can’t Pay? We’ll Take It Away! gets ‘death sentence’ diagnosis – Mirror.co.uk | April 23rd, 2017

By Marilynn MarchioneAP Chief Medical Writer

Tummy tucks really hurt. Doctors carve from hip to hip, slicing off skin, tightening muscles, tugging at innards. Patients often need strong painkillers for days or even weeks, but Mary Hernandez went home on just over-the-counter ibuprofen.

The reason may be the yellowish goo smeared on her 18-inch wound as she lay on the operating table. The Houston woman was helping test a novel medicine aimed at avoiding opioids, potent pain relievers fueling an epidemic of overuse and addiction.

Vicodin, OxyContin and similar drugs are widely used for bad backs, severe arthritis, damaged nerves and other woes. They work powerfully in brain areas that control pleasure and pain, but the body adapts to them quickly, so people need higher and higher doses to get relief.

This growing dependence on opioids has mushroomed into a national health crisis, ripping apart communities and straining police and health departments. Every day, an overdose of prescription opioids or heroin kills 91 people, and legions more are brought back from the brink of death. With some 2 million Americans hooked on these pills, evidence is growing that they're not as good a choice for treating chronic pain as once thought.

Drug companies are working on alternatives, but have had little success.

Twenty or so years ago, they invested heavily and "failed miserably," said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Pain is a pain to research. Some people bear more than others, and success can't be measured as objectively as it can be with medicines that shrink a tumor or clear an infection. Some new pain drugs that worked well were doomed by side effects Vioxx, for instance, helped arthritis but hurt hearts.

Some fresh approaches are giving hope:

"Bespoke" drugs, as Volkow calls them. These target specific pathways and types of pain rather than acting broadly in the brain. One is Enbrel, which treats a key feature of rheumatoid arthritis and, in the process, eases pain.

Drugs to prevent the need for opioids. One that Hernandez was helping test numbs a wound for a few days and curbs inflammation. If people don't have big pain after surgery, their nerves don't go on high alert and there's less chance of developing chronic pain that might require opioids.

Funky new sources for medicines. In testing: Drugs from silk, hot chili peppers and the venom of snakes, snails and other critters.

Novel uses for existing drugs. Some seizure and depression medicines, for example, can help some types of pain.

The biggest need, however, is for completely new medicines that can be used by lots of people for lots of problems. These also pose the most risk for companies and patients alike.

One drug's bumpy road

In the early 2000s, a small biotech company had a big idea: blocking nerve growth factor, a protein made in response to pain. The company's drug, now called tanezumab (tah-NAZE-uh-mab), works on outlying nerves, helping to keep pain signals from muscles, skin and organs from reaching the spinal cord and brain good for treating arthritis and bad backs.

Pfizer Inc. bought the firm in 2006 and expanded testing. But in 2010, some people on tanezumab and similar drugs being tested by rivals needed joint replacements. Besides dulling pain, nerve growth factor may affect joint repair and regeneration, so a possible safety issue needed full investigation in a medicine that would be the first of its type ever sold, said one independent expert, Dr. Jianguo Cheng, a Cleveland Clinic pain specialist and science chief for the American Academy of Pain Medicine.

Regulators put some of the studies on hold. Suddenly, some people who had been doing well on tanezumab lost access to it. Phyllis Leis in Waterfall, a small town in south-central Pennsylvania, was one.

"I was so angry," she said. "That was like a miracle drug. It really was. Unless you have arthritis in your knees and have trouble walking, you'll never understand how much relief and what a godsend it was."

Her doctor, Alan Kivitz of Altoona Center for Clinical Research, has helped run hundreds of pain studies and consults for Pfizer and many other companies. "You rarely get people to feel that good" as many of them did on the nerve growth factor drugs, he said.

A drug with that much early promise is unusual, said Ken Verburg, who has led Pfizer's pain research for several decades.

"When you do see one, you fight hard to try to bring one to the market," he said.

An independent review ultimately tied just a few serious joint problems to tanezumab and the suspension on testing was lifted in August 2012. But a new issue nervous system effects in some animal studies prompted a second hold later that year, and that wasn't lifted until 2015.

Now Eli Lilly & Co. has joined Pfizer in testing tanezumab in late-stage studies with 7,000 patients. Results are expected late next year about 17 years after the drug's conception.

Avoiding pain to avoid drugs

What if a drug could keep people from needing long-term pain relief in the first place? Heron Therapeutics Inc. is testing a novel, long-acting version of two drugs the anesthetic bupivacaine and the anti-inflammatory meloxicam for notoriously painful operations like tummy tucks, bunion removal and hernia repair.

Company studies suggest it can numb wounds for about three days and cut patients' need for opioids by 30 percent to 50 percent.

There's a good chance of preventing brain responses that lead to chronic pain if patients can get through that "initially very rough period," said Dr. Harold Minkowitz, a Houston anesthesiologist who consults for Heron and treated Hernandez in the tummy tuck study.

Hernandez was part of an experiment testing the drug versus a placebo and doesn't know whether she got the drug or a dummy medicine. But she hurt less than she expected to and never filled a prescription for pain pills.

"The goal would be to have half or more of patients not requiring an opiate after they go home," said Heron's chief executive, Barry Quart. "You have far fewer opiates going out into society, far fewer opiates sitting in medicine cabinets that make their way to a high school."

Studies so far are mid-stage too small to prove safety and effectiveness but Heron plans more aimed at winning approval.

On the horizon

Many companies have their eyes on sodium channel blockers, which affect how nerves talk to each other and thus might help various types of pain. Others are testing cell therapies for nerve pain. Stem cells can modulate immune responses and inflammation, and may "overcome a raft of problems," said Cheng of the pain medicine academy.

Some companies, including Samumed, Centrexion Therapeutics and Flexion Therapeutics, are testing long-acting medicines to inject in knees to relieve arthritis pain. Samumed's aims to regenerate cartilage.

And then there's marijuana. A cannabis extract is sold as a mouth spray in Britain for nerve pain and other problems from multiple sclerosis. But cannabinoid research in the United States has been hampered by marijuana's legal status. A special license is needed and most researchers don't even try to obtain one, said Susan Ingram, a neurosurgery scientist at Oregon Health & Science University.

She is studying cannabinoid receptors in the brain, looking at how pain affects one type but not another. Such work might someday lead to drugs that relieve pain but don't produce a high or addiction.

Selective activity has precedent: The drug buprenorphine partially binds to opioid receptors in the brain and has become "an extraordinarily successful medication" for treating addiction, said Volkow, of the national drug institute.

"It has shown pharmaceutical companies that if you come up with a good intervention, there is an opportunity to recover their costs," she said.

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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The quest for less addictive drugs - Foster's Daily Democrat

Spinal Cord Stem Cells Comments Off on The quest for less addictive drugs – Foster’s Daily Democrat | April 23rd, 2017

Tummy tucks really hurt. Doctors carve from hip to hip, slicing off skin, tightening muscles, tugging at innards. Patients often need strong painkillers for days or even weeks, but Mary Hernandez went home on just over-the-counter ibuprofen.

The reason may be the yellowish goo smeared on her 18-inch wound as she lay on the operating table. The Houston woman was helping test a novel medicine aimed at avoiding opioids, potent pain relievers fueling an epidemic of overuse and addiction.

Vicodin, OxyContin and similar drugs are widely used for bad backs, severe arthritis, damaged nerves and other woes. They work powerfully in brain areas that control pleasure and pain, but the body adapts to them quickly, so people need higher and higher doses to get relief.

This growing dependence on opioids has mushroomed into a national health crisis, ripping apart communities and straining police and health departments. Every day, an overdose of prescription opioids or heroin kills 91 people, and legions more are brought back from the brink of death. With about

2 million Americans hooked on these pills, evidence is growing that theyre not as good a choice for treating chronic pain as once thought.

Drug companies are working on alternatives, but have had little success.

Twenty or so years ago, they invested heavily and failed miserably, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Pain is a pain to research. Some people bear more than others, and success cant be measured as objectively as it can be with medicines that shrink a tumor or clear an infection. Some new pain drugs that worked well were doomed by side effects Vioxx, for instance, helped arthritis but hurt hearts.

Some fresh approaches are giving hope:

Bespoke drugs, as Volkow calls them. These target specific pathways and types of pain rather than acting broadly in the brain. One is Enbrel, which treats a key feature of rheumatoid arthritis and, in the process, eases pain.

Drugs to prevent the need for opioids. One that Hernandez was helping test numbs a wound for a few days and curbs inflammation. If people dont have big pain after surgery, their nerves dont go on high alert and theres less chance of developing chronic pain that might require opioids.

Funky new sources for medicines. In testing: Drugs from silk, hot chili peppers and the venom of snakes, snails and other critters.

Novel uses for existing drugs. Some seizure and depression medicines, for example, can help some types of pain.

The biggest need, however, is for completely new medicines that can be used by lots of people for lots of problems. These also pose the most risk for companies and patients alike.

ONE DRUGS BUMPY ROAD

In the early 2000s, a small biotech company had a big idea: blocking nerve growth factor, a protein made in response to pain.

The companys drug, now called tanezumab, works on outlying nerves, helping to keep pain signals from muscles, skin and organs from reaching the spinal cord and brain good for treating arthritis and bad backs.

Pfizer Inc. bought the firm in 2006 and expanded testing. But in 2010, some people on tanezumab and similar drugs being tested by rivals needed joint replacements. Besides dulling pain, nerve growth factor may affect joint repair and regeneration, so a possible safety issue needed full investigation in a medicine that would be the first of its type ever sold, said one independent expert, Dr. Jianguo Cheng, a Cleveland Clinic pain specialist and science chief for the American Academy of Pain Medicine.

Regulators put some of the studies on hold. Suddenly, some people who had been doing well on tanezumab lost access to it. Phyllis Leis in Waterfall, a small town in south-central Pennsylvania, was one.

I was so angry, she said. That was like a miracle drug. It really was. Unless you have arthritis in your knees and have trouble walking, youll never understand how much relief and what a godsend it was.

Her doctor, Alan Kivitz of Altoona Center for Clinical Research, has helped run hundreds of pain studies and consults for Pfizer and many other companies.

You rarely get people to feel that good as many of them did on the nerve growth factor drugs, he said.

A drug with that much early promise is unusual, said Ken Verburg, who has led Pfizers pain research for several decades.

When you do see one, you fight hard to try to bring one to the market, he said.

An independent review ultimately tied just a few serious joint problems to tanezumab and the suspension on testing was lifted in August 2012. But a new issue nervous system effects in some animal studies prompted a second hold later that year, and that wasnt lifted until 2015.

Now Eli Lilly & Co. has joined Pfizer in testing tanezumab in late-stage studies with 7,000 patients.

Results are expected late next year about 17 years after the drugs conception.

AVOIDING PAIN AND DRUGS

What if a drug could keep people from needing long-term pain relief in the first place? Heron Therapeutics Inc. is testing a novel, long-acting version of two drugs the anesthetic bupivacaine and the anti-inflammatory meloxicam for notoriously painful operations like tummy tucks, bunion removal and hernia repair.

Company studies suggest it can numb wounds for about three days and cut patients need for opioids by 30 to 50 percent.

Theres a good chance of preventing brain responses that lead to chronic pain if patients can get through that initially very rough period, said Dr. Harold Minkowitz, a Houston anesthesiologist who consults for Heron and treated Hernandez in the tummy tuck study.

Hernandez was part of an experiment testing the drug versus a placebo and doesnt know whether she got the drug or a dummy medicine. But she hurt less than she expected to and never filled a prescription for pain pills.

The goal would be to have half or more of patients not requiring an opiate after they go home, said Herons chief executive, Barry Quart. You have far fewer opiates going out into society, far fewer opiates sitting in medicine cabinets that make their way to a high school.

Studies so far are mid-stage too small to prove safety and effectiveness but Heron plans more aimed at winning approval.

ON THE HORIZON

Many companies have their eyes on sodium channel blockers, which affect how nerves talk to each other and thus might help various types of pain. Others are testing cell therapies for nerve pain. Stem cells can modulate immune responses and inflammation, and may overcome a raft of problems, said Cheng of the pain medicine academy.

Some companies, including Samumed, Centrexion Therapeutics and Flexion Therapeutics, are testing long-acting medicines to inject in knees to relieve arthritis pain. Samumeds aims to regenerate cartilage.

And then theres marijuana. A cannabis extract is sold as a mouth spray in Britain for nerve pain and other problems from multiple sclerosis. But cannabinoid research in the U.S. has been hampered by marijuanas legal status. A special license is needed and most researchers dont even try to obtain one, said Susan Ingram, a neurosurgery scientist at Oregon Health & Science University.

She is studying cannabinoid receptors in the brain, looking at how pain affects one type but not another. Such work might someday lead to drugs that relieve pain but dont produce a high or addiction.

Selective activity has precedent: The drug buprenorphine partially binds to opioid receptors in the brain and has become an extraordinarily successful medication for treating addiction, said Volkow, of the national drug institute.

It has shown pharmaceutical companies that if you come up with a good intervention, there is an opportunity to recover their costs, she said.

More:
Overcoming opioids: Quest for less addictive drugs - Mohave Valley News

Spinal Cord Stem Cells Comments Off on Overcoming opioids: Quest for less addictive drugs – Mohave Valley News | April 23rd, 2017

It was Thursday afternoon, and the little girl from near Cologne, Germany, and the 40-year-old Duluth woman had known each other for less than 24 hours. But it was obvious that Edwards already had bonded with Ina and her little sister Mila.

They were together because the girls' mother had given Edwards a much greater gift: the gift of life.

"By your donation, I still get to be a mom," Edwards told Daniela Halfkann, 30. "(You're) a mom, so you completely understand how important it is to be here with your children."

Edwards, the mother of 15-year-old twin boys and the wife of Duluth Fire Chief Dennis Edwards, is alive because of the stem cell transplant she received at the Mayo Clinic on Oct. 31, 2014. As a result, she said, she is in remission from the rare and aggressive form of leukemia with which she had been diagnosed that June.

All she was told at the time of the transplant was that the donor was a woman from Germany.

Halfkann had registered as a potential stem cell or bone marrow donor at the large insurance company where she works in Cologne, she said. One day she received a call, saying her donation was needed.

After the six-hour procedure, Halfkann was told nothing more than that the recipient was a woman in the United States.

After a two-year waiting period required in Germany, the two women learned each other's identities last October and connected via Facebook.

Their meeting in Duluth was arranged by Amanda Schamper, Midwest donor recruitment coordinator for DKMS, the Germany-based organization that facilitated the donation.

Halfkann made the trip along with husband Stefan and their daughters, leaving their home at 3 a.m. on Tuesday and arriving at the Duluth International Airport at 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

Like Edwards, DKMS wants to raise awareness of the need for people to enter the registry, said Schamper, who also traveled to Duluth for the occasion.

She said 14,000 patients are in need of a peripheral blood stem cell or bone marrow donation, but fewer than half will get one because there's no match on the registry.

"We're looking for a particular protein in our DNA," she explained.

Only in 30 percent of cases are siblings a match. Edwards' brother and sister both had been screened, she said, and neither was a match for her.

Finding a match "is equated to finding your genetic twin, or winning the genetic lottery," Schamper said.

If more people were on the registry a process that only requires taking a swab from your cheek there would be more potential matches. But only 2 percent of eligible Americans are registered, Schamper said.

When the Halfkanns arrived at the gate on Wednesday, Dennis and Merissa Edwards, along with sons Caden and Jaxon, were waiting at the gate.

It was an emotional moment.

"It was hard for me," Merissa Edwards said on Friday, speaking to Daniela Halfkann. "I was crying. I was so emotional, so happy to meet you and hug you."

She wiped away a tear. "I still am."

"It was amazing," Halfkann responded. "I cried at the gate, too."

The Halfkanns, who are staying at the Edgewater, initially focused on recovery from jet lag. But Edwards is making sure they'll get a full taste of Duluth and Minnesota before beginning their return trip to Germany next Saturday. That includes visits to the Mall of America, the Great Lakes Aquarium and a trip up the North Shore.

A "thank-you party," open to the public, is planned on Sunday afternoon. Halfkann also will be recognized on Monday during the Saints Sports Awards ceremony at the College of St. Scholastica, where Edwards is an administrative assistant in the athletics department.

Recovery from the ravages of leukemia has been a long process, Edwards said, but she remains in remission. She gets a PET scan every six months to make sure that's still the case; the next one takes place next week.

Edwards shares her story, she said, not to call attention to herself but to highlight the need for people to take the simple step of registering as a potential donor.

"It's so important for us to help other people keep their families together and save a mother or father or son or daughter," she said. "The more people we can encourage to cheek-swab and get on the registry, the more lives we can help save and help families stay together."

TO LEARN MORE

For more information and to learn how to get on the bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cell registry, visit dkms.org.

IF YOU GO

The thank-you party for Daniela Halfkann will be from 2 to 5 p.m. on Sunday at The Other Place Bar and Grill, 3930 E. Calvary Road.

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Duluth woman meets the German donor whose stem cells saved her life - WDAY

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on Duluth woman meets the German donor whose stem cells saved her life – WDAY | April 23rd, 2017

Organ transplant rejection might eventually be preventable by giving recipients an immune-suppressing vaccine derived from induced pluripotent stem cells, according to a study led by Japanese researchers.

In mice, the treatment allowed permanent acceptance of heart grafts by selectively inhibiting the immune response to the donor graft, said the study, published April 20 in Stem Cell Reports. The work might also be applicable to autoimmune diseases, the study said.

The study can be found at j.mp/ipscden. The co-first authors were Songjie Cai, Jiangang Hou, and Masayuki Fujino. The senior author was Xiao-Kang Li. All are of the National Research Institute for Child Health and Development in Tokyo.

The IPS cells were matured into donor-type regulatory dendritic cells (DCregs) which in turn caused production of tolerance-inducing regulatory T cells, or Tregs, that allow the graft to be treated as self.

While the technology looks good, a UC San Diego stem cell researcher said it faces a number of hurdles that make practical use of it difficult, especially the difficulty in producing the donor-derived regulatory cells in time to be of use in a transplant.

Use of these Tregs and immature DCregs for transplant has been investigated for several years now. In theory, they would provide a better method of preventing rejection than immunosuppressive drugs that knock down immune functioning across the board.

However, activating Tregs must be done precisely, or other T cell types will be activated, increasing the risk of rejection.

The study found that donor-type dendritic cells reliably activated Tregs and not the other types. Peptide antigens from the graft directed naive CD4+ T cells to mature into donor-specific Tregs, providing a selective immune signal to tolerate the graft.

Use of IPS cells for producing these immune regulatory cells is quite novel, said Dan Kaufman, director of cell therapy at UC San Diego, and affiliated with the universitys Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center.

Obviously, it fits my interest in making immune cells from ES and IPS cells, Kaufman said. The ability to use these cells to suppress transplant rejection seems quite strong. I think the data is all good.

That said, the findings could be strengthened by extending the work from animals to human xenografts, he said. That would demonstrate that human IPS cells can similarly function, although it would be challenging.

Another limitation is the need to use donor-derived cells to induce immune tolerance.

How you would translate that would be unclear to me, Kaufman said.

Are you going to get a heart and then make IPS cells from that donor, which obviously you couldnt do in a reasonable time frame? Could you create a bank of these types of cells that might be suitable for certain patient populations with certain HLA types? Im not sure. I think that gets a little more speculative.

Another speculative possibility is to make the donor-derived IPS cells grow into an organ, and then also create the immune-regulating cells from these IPS cells to selectively induce tolerance.

But were still, I think, a long ways off from having IPS-derived organs, he said.

Autoimmune disease treatment with this technology is worth exploring, Kaufman said. In that case, the IPSCs would be made from the patients themselves.

More than 118,000 Americans are on the waiting list for an organ transplant, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1020

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Stem cell-based treatment prevents transplant rejection, in animal study - The San Diego Union-Tribune

IPS Cell Therapy Comments Off on Stem cell-based treatment prevents transplant rejection, in animal study – The San Diego Union-Tribune | April 23rd, 2017

FINDINGS

New research by scientists at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLAoverturns a long-standing paradigm about how axons thread-like projections that connect cells in the nervous system grow during embryonic development. The findings of the study, led by Samantha Butler, associate professor of neurobiology, could help scientists replicate or control the way axons grow, which may be applicable for diseases that affect the nervous system, such as diabetes, as well as injuries that sever nerves.

As an embryo grows, neurons the cells in the nervous system extend axons into the developing spinal cord. Axons are then guided to reach other areas of the body, such as the brain, to establish a functioning nervous system. It has been generally understood that various guidance cues, which are cellular molecules such as proteins, either attract or repel axon growth as the axons reach out from neurons to find their destination in the nervous system.

Previous research suggested that a particular guidance cue, called netrin1, functions over a long distance to attract and organize axon growth, similar to how a lighthouse sends out a signal to orient a ship from afar. However, previous research also shows that netrin1 is produced in many places in the embryonic spinal cord, raising questions about whether it really acts over a long distance. Most notably, netrin1 is produced by tissue-specific stem cells, called neural progenitors, which can create any cell type in the nervous system. Yet, it was not understood how the netrin1 produced by neural progenitors influences axon growth.

Butler and her research team removed netrin1 from neural progenitors in different areas in mouse embryonic spinal cords. This manipulation resulted in highly disorganized and abnormal axon growth, giving the researchers a very detailed view of how netrin1 produced by neural progenitors influences axons in the developing nervous system.

They found that neural progenitors organize axon growth by producing a pathway of netrin1 that directs axons only in their local environment and not over long distances. This pathway of netrin1 acts as a sticky surface that encourages axon growth in the directions that form a normal, functioning nervous system.

Butlers study is a significant reinterpretation of the role of netrin1 in nervous system formation. The results further scientists understanding of the contribution neural progenitors make to neural circuit formation. Determining how netrin1 specifically influences axon growth could help scientists use netrin1 to regenerate axons more effectively in patients whose nerves have been damaged.

For example, because nerves grow in channels, there is much interest in trying to restore nerve channels after an injury that results in severed nerves, which is seen often in patients who have experienced an accident or in veterans with injuries to their arms or legs. One promising approach is to implant artificial nerve channels into a person with a nerve injury to give regenerating axons a conduit to grow through. Butler believes that coating such nerve channels with netrin1 could further encourage axon regrowth. Her continued research will focus on uncovering more details about how netrin1 functions and how it could be used clinically.

Butler is the senior author of the study. The first author is Supraja Varadarajan, a graduate student in Butlers lab.

The study is published today in the journal Neuron.

The study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health (DK097075, HL098294, HL114457, DK082509 HL109233, DK109574, HL119837, NS072804, NS089817, NS063999, NS085097 and HL133900), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP-97758 and MOP-77556), Brain Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canada Foundation for Innovation, the W. Garfield Weston Foundation, the March of Dimes Foundation (6-FY10-296 and 1-FY07-458) and the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center.

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Study overturns seminal research about the developing nervous system - UCLA Newsroom

Spinal Cord Stem Cells Comments Off on Study overturns seminal research about the developing nervous system – UCLA Newsroom | April 21st, 2017

This week: Biomedical engineering division, University of Minnesota

Three-dimensional or 3D printing technology, which has been around for almost three decades, routinely makes headlines. Not surprising, given that the so-called Fabbers, or personal manufacturing machines3D printers come under this categorynow not only make jewellery and toothbrushes, but also football boots, racing-car parts, custom-designed cakes, guns, human organs, houses and plane parts.

3D printing can be used to save lives too. Consider this. During a heart attack, the muscle cells of the heart do not get enough blood. Hence, they die. Our bodies cant replace these dead cells, so the body leaves a scar tissue in that area of the heart. This puts the person at risk of heart failure in the future.

A team of biomedical engineering researchers, led by the University of Minnesota (Umn.edu), has created a laser 3D-bioprinted patch to address the issue and help heal the scarred heart tissue after a heart attack. Three-dimensional bioprinting is the process of creating cell patterns in a confined space using 3D printing technologies.

The researchers successfully used this technique to incorporate stem cells (cells capable of renewing themselves through cell division, sometimes after long periods of inactivity) derived from adult human heart cells in a dish in the lab.

When the cell patch was placed on a mouse following a simulated heart attack, the researchers saw significant increase in functional capacity after just four weeks. Since the patch was made from stem cells and structural proteins (that do most of the work in cells and are required for the structure, function, and regulation of the bodys tissues and organs) belonging to the heart, it became part of the heart and was absorbed into the body, requiring no further surgeries.

The discovery, which is a major step forward in treating patients with tissue damage after a heart attack, was published on 14 April in Circulation Research, the journal published by the American Heart Association. The researchers have filed a patent for it.

The scientists insist that this research is different from previous ones in that the patch is modelled after a digital, 3D scan of the structural proteins of the heart tissue. The digital model is made into a physical structure by 3D printing, further integrating cardiac cell types derived from stem cells. Only with 3D printing of this type, explain the researchers, can we achieve the 1 micron resolution needed to mimic structures of native heart tissue.

The scientists say they are already beginning the next step to develop a larger patch that they will test on a pig heart, which is similar in size to a human heart. Of course, the real success will be known only when human trials take place.

3D printing belongs to a class of techniques known as additive manufacturing, or building objects layer by layer. The most common household 3D-printing process involves a print head, which allows for any material to be extruded or squirted through a nozzle. There are several additive processes, including selective laser sintering, direct metal-laser sintering, fused deposition modelling, stereolithography and laminated-object manufacturing. All of them differ in the way layers are deposited to create the 3D objects.

Meanwhile, the concept of 4D printing, which allows materials to self-assemble into 3D structures, and was initially proposed by Skylar Tibbits of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in April 2013, is also showing promise.

Lab Watch is the Lounge guide to emerging tech from around the world .

First Published: Fri, Apr 21 2017. 02 57 PM IST

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A 3D-printed patch for a 'broken' heart - Livemint

Cardiac Stem Cells Comments Off on A 3D-printed patch for a ‘broken’ heart – Livemint | April 21st, 2017

In an autologous BMT procedure, the healthy stem cells from the patient are taken out and preserved

IANS | New Delhi April 21, 2017 Last Updated at 05:00 IST

A team of doctors in New Delhi has successfully treated a 24-year-old girl suffering from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) with bone marrow transplant (BMT).

Kanika Juneja was diagnosed with MS an autoimmune disorder where the body's immune system starts attacking the protective sheet covering the nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.

She went through several rounds of treatments but could not be cured. Juneja got another chance at life at Fortis Healthcare where the doctors treated her with BMT.

"In an autologous BMT procedure, the healthy stem cells from the patient are taken out and preserved. Chemotherapy is then administered to reset the body's immunity and then the stem cells are injected back to rescue the person from the side effects of chemotherapy. After the surgery, the patient is kept under isolation for a few months to ensure he/she does not contract any infection," explained Dr Rahul Bhargava, Director, Clinical Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplant, Fortis Memorial Research Institute (FMRI).

Since conventional steroid injections and immune therapy are expensive and don't promise a cure, Bhargava thought of going for a BMT for Juneja.

Juneja is now actively involved in raising awareness about MS amongst the community through social media.

"I had just completed my college education when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I was lucky because I got diagnosed within a week of my symptoms and could avail treatment options faster," Juneja said.

"In this case, we have proved that bone marrow transplant can be seen as a successful alternate treatment option for multiple sclerosis patients, giving them a fresh shot at life," added Dr Simmardeep Singh Gill, Zonal Director, FMRI, in a statement.

Currently, there are 2.3 million people living with multiple sclerosis worldwide.

A team of doctors in New Delhi has successfully treated a 24-year-old girl suffering from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) with bone marrow transplant (BMT).

Kanika Juneja was diagnosed with MS an autoimmune disorder where the body's immune system starts attacking the protective sheet covering the nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.

She went through several rounds of treatments but could not be cured. Juneja got another chance at life at Fortis Healthcare where the doctors treated her with BMT.

"In an autologous BMT procedure, the healthy stem cells from the patient are taken out and preserved. Chemotherapy is then administered to reset the body's immunity and then the stem cells are injected back to rescue the person from the side effects of chemotherapy. After the surgery, the patient is kept under isolation for a few months to ensure he/she does not contract any infection," explained Dr Rahul Bhargava, Director, Clinical Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplant, Fortis Memorial Research Institute (FMRI).

Since conventional steroid injections and immune therapy are expensive and don't promise a cure, Bhargava thought of going for a BMT for Juneja.

Juneja is now actively involved in raising awareness about MS amongst the community through social media.

"I had just completed my college education when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I was lucky because I got diagnosed within a week of my symptoms and could avail treatment options faster," Juneja said.

"In this case, we have proved that bone marrow transplant can be seen as a successful alternate treatment option for multiple sclerosis patients, giving them a fresh shot at life," added Dr Simmardeep Singh Gill, Zonal Director, FMRI, in a statement.

Currently, there are 2.3 million people living with multiple sclerosis worldwide.

IANS

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Multiple Sclerosis patient successfully treated with bone marrow transplant - Business Standard

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on Multiple Sclerosis patient successfully treated with bone marrow transplant – Business Standard | April 21st, 2017

Photo Credit: splice-bio.com

In your biology class, you may have learned that lungs help us breathe while bone marrow, found in flat bones such as the hip bone, produces red and white blood cells through a process called hematopoiesis. Now, a new study conducted by University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) researchers has discovered that in addition to being a crucial part of our respiratory system, lungs also play a major role in the production and storage of blood cells.

Like many medical breakthroughs, the scientists stumbled upon this discovery by accident. The team, led by Professor Mark R. Looney, was trying to observe how platelets (cells that form clots to stop bleeding) circulating in the lungs interact with the immune system in mice. To trace the cells path, the rodents had been genetically modified so that the platelets appeared a glowing green.

To the scientists' astonishment, the lungs were filled with megakaryocytes the cells responsible for producing platelets. Though experts have always known of the existence of these cells inside the lungs, the numbers had been believed to be tiny. Emma Lefranais, who co-wrote the study, says, "When we discovered this massive population of megakaryocytes that appeared to be living in the lung, we realized we had to follow this up."

Further examination revealed that the megakaryocytes in the lungs were producing over 10 million platelets, or more than half the total platelets, produced by a mouse, every hour. The researchers also noticed the large population (1 million per mouse lung) of blood stem cells (which produce red blood cells) as well as megakaryocyte progenitor cells (which generate megakaryocyte cells) on the periphery of the lungs. Looney says, To our knowledge, this is the first description of blood progenitors resident in the lung.

To investigate the significance, the scientists conducted three studies. First, they transplanted lungs from normal mice into the genetically engineered ones to see how the blood stem cells move throughout the body. By following the fluorescent cells, they discovered that megakaryocytes originate in the bone marrow but migrate to the lungs to produce platelets.

To test the practical applications of this discovery and see if it would be useful in the treatment of disorders like lung inflammation, Looneys team injected the fluorescent megakaryocyte progenitor cells into mice with low platelet counts. To their delight, the transplanted cells got to work immediately, restoring the platelet count to normal levels within a short time. What was even more encouraging is that the effect lasted for several months.

Finally, the researchers transplanted healthy lungs in which all the cells had been fluorescently tagged into mice whose bone marrow was not producing blood cells or platelets. The researchers found that the glowing green megakaryocyte progenitor cells instantly migrated from the lungs to the bone marrow, where they helped to produce platelets and other critical blood components, like neutrophils, B cells, and T cells.

While the scientists, who published their findings in the journal Nature on March 22, 2017, still need to test if human lungs are as effective, the findings are being hailed as a major breakthrough. Traci Mondoro from the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, says, "Looney and his team have disrupted some traditional ideas about the pulmonary role in platelet-related hematopoiesis, paving the way for further scientific exploration of this integrated biology."

Resources: newatlas.com, UCSF.edu

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Lungs Don't Just Help Us Breathe They Produce Blood, Too - DOGOnews

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on Lungs Don’t Just Help Us Breathe They Produce Blood, Too – DOGOnews | April 21st, 2017

An international group of scientists led by investigators at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) says it has discovered molecular mechanisms that might prevent the development ofgraft-versus-host disease (GVHD) in individuals receiving stem cell transplants.

During GVHD, transplanted stem cells become T lymphocytes, which are supposed to fight intruders such as bacteria. Instead, they start attacking the recipients already weakened body.

Researchers from TUM and theMemorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center published a study ("RIG-I/MAVS and STING Signaling Promote Gut Integrity during Irradiation- and Immune-Mediated Tissue Injury")in Science Translational Medicine that provides details on how to prevent the development of GVHD.

The attacks by the T cells primarily affect the skin, liver, and, in particular, the gastrointestinal tract. The intestine is believed to be the key organ where GVHD starts. The drug treatment and radiation involved in stem cell transplants damage epithelial cells, which form part of the intestinal mucosal layer. Stress signals emitted by the dying epithelial cells and the arrival of intestinal bacteria in the previously germ-free areas of the gut due to the loss of the epithelium trigger the activation of aggressive donor T cells.

"If the epithelium could be protected or quickly restored, the risk of an immune response would be much lower," says Hendrik Poeck, M.D., Ph.D., who, along with Tobias Haas, M.D., heads a research group at the third medical clinic of TUM's Klinikum rechts der Isar. "Up to now, however, there have been very few treatment strategies that seek to regenerate the epithelium."

The scientists working with Dr. Poeck studied two proteins produced naturally in the body and known for their role in fighting bacteria and viruses: RIG-I (retinoic acid-inducible gene I) and STING (stimulator of interferon genes). "We were able to demonstrate for the first time that both of them can also be used to bring about a regenerative effect," notes Julius Fischer, first author of the study.

Both proteins are part of signal chains that cause type I interferon (IFN-I) to be produced. IFN-I triggers many different immune responses, but can also speed up the replacement of epithelial cells.

The RIG-I signal pathway can be deliberately stimulated using triphosphate-RNA (3pRNA). Poeck and his team were able to demonstrate in mice that 3pRNA can indeed protect the epithelial cells. Timing is critical. Measurable protection was only seen when the 3pRNA was administered exactly 1 day before the start of radiation and drug treatment.

"We assume that after just 1 day of treatment, there would no longer be enough intact epithelial cells in the gut for the RIG-I/IFN signal path to function," explains Haas. Although fewer activated T cells were generated after a treatment with 3pRNA, the positive effect of the leukemia therapy was not reduced to a measurable degree.

Both RIG-I agonists, such as 3pRNA, and STING agonists are currently in clinical development. The research points to a wide range of potential applications, especially in the treatment of tumors.

"Our study shows that regenerative processes can also be triggered through selective activation of these signal paths," adds Poeck. "It thus appears quite possible that these selective agonists will be administered in the future to patients who are candidates for allogeneic stem cell transplants. However, further studies will be needed to learn how they actually work before applications in human medicine are possible."

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Preventing Graft-Versus-Host Disease in Stem Cell Transplant Recipients - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (press release)

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Preventing Graft-Versus-Host Disease in Stem Cell Transplant Recipients – Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (press release) | April 21st, 2017

Technology Networks

Identical Twins; Not-so-identical Stem Cells Technology Networks Salk scientists and collaborators have shed light on a longstanding question about what leads to variation in stem cells by comparing induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from identical twins. Even iPSCs made from the cells of twins, they ... and more »

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Identical Twins; Not-so-identical Stem Cells - Technology Networks

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Identical Twins; Not-so-identical Stem Cells – Technology Networks | April 21st, 2017

Science Daily

Study overturns seminal research about the developing nervous system Science Daily New research by scientists at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA overturns a long-standing paradigm about how axons -- thread-like projections that connect cells in the nervous system -- grow during ... and more »

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Study overturns seminal research about the developing nervous system - Science Daily

Spinal Cord Stem Cells Comments Off on Study overturns seminal research about the developing nervous system – Science Daily | April 20th, 2017