The potential of SCs to replace dead or damaged cells in any tissue of the body heralds the advent of a new field of medicine that is delivering cures for diseases now thought to be untreatable

Stem cell therapy represents a promising avenue for the treatment of disorders like

Q1: What are stem cells? Answer: Stem cells are class of undifferentiated cells that are able to differentiate into specialized cell types .They have the unique properties of self renewal and differentiation. Differentiation property of stem cells help them to form another type of cell with more specialized function such as brain cell, red blood cell or muscle cell and also the entire organ. During the foetal development, cells divide, migrate, specialize and form the organ. After birth, stem cells are also present in bone marrow which can be used to treat various diseases.

Q2: Which disorders can be treated using Stem Cells? Answer: Currently stem cells are being used successfully to treat various (disorders) diseases like Cerebral palsy, Spinal Cord Injury, Traumatic brain injury, Paralysis, Brain Stroke Osteoarthritis, Autism etc. Apart from this, stem cells can be used to treat liver disorders and Diabetes.

Q3: How is Stem Cell Therapy carried out? Answer: Stem Cell therapy is a very simple and painless process.Mesenchymal stem cells are injected directly into the synivial fluid in the knee. The whole process is carried out very carefully under sterile conditions.

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Stem Cell Therapy in Pune | Stem Cell Treatment | Inamdar ...

With recruitment that started in mid-2013, Cardio3 BioSciences has enrolled 240 patients in less than 18 months, ahead of schedule. As usual in clinical trials targeting severe indications, the Company will continue to recruit additional patients in anticipation of patient dropouts. The CHART-1 trial is currently ongoing in 12 countries in Europe and Israel.

The CHART-1 (Congestive Heart failure Cardiopoietic Regenerative Therapy) trial represents the worlds first Phase III trial for a pre-programmed cellular therapy for the treatment of heart failure.

Dr Christian Homsy, CEO of Cardio3 BioSciences, said: We are extremely pleased to have enrolled the 240thpatient of CHART-1, ahead of schedule. This represents a major achievement for the entire team involved in this trial and I am proud we succeeded in achieving this key operational objective this year. The CHART-1 trial remains solidly on track, with the interim futility readout scheduled for the end of March 2015 and the readout of the full dataset a year later. This accomplishment demonstrates our clinical expertise and gives us confidence for the upcoming CHART-2 trial, to be initiated soon in the U.S.

*** END ***

About CHART-1

CHART-1 is the Companys first Phase III clinical trial, intended to assess in Europe, the efficacy of C-Cure as a treatment for heart failure of ischemic origin. The CHART-1 Phase III trial is a prospective, multi-centre, randomized, sham-controlled, patient-and evaluator-blinded study comparing treatment with C-Cure to a sham treatment. The trial requires the recruitment of a minimum of 240 patients with chronic advanced symptomatic heart failure. The primary endpoint of the trial is a composite endpoint including mortality, morbidity, quality of life, Six Minute Walk Test and left ventricular structure and function at nine months post-procedure. The CHART-1 trial is currently ongoing in 11 countries in Europe (Sweden, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Serbia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Spain, Italy, Poland, Switzerland) and Isral.

About C-Cure

Cardio3 BioSciences C-Cure therapy involves taking stem cells from a patients own bone marrow and through a proprietary process called Cardiopoiesis, re-programming those cells to become heart cells. The cells, known as cardiopoietic cells, are then injected back into the patients heart through a minimally invasive procedure, with the aim of repairing damaged tissue and improving heart function and patient clinical outcomes. C-Cure is the outcome of multiple years of research conducted at Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota, USA), Cardio3 BioSciences (Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium) and Cardiovascular Centre in Aalst (Aalst, Belgium).

To subscribe to Cardio3 BioSciences newsletter, visit http://www.c3bs.com. Follow us on Twitter @Cardio3Bio.

About Cardio3 BioSciences

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Cardio3 Biosciences Announces the Enrolment of the 240th Patient for Its Chart-1 Phase III Clinical Trial for the ...

SOUTH BEND, Ind.--- Mike and Katie have been a couple since college, but they've known each other much longer.

"We've been together forever," said Mike.

"I've actually known Mike since I was 5-years-old," said Katie.

A marriage and three kids later they've been through good times, and bad. The worst came nine-years-ago when Mike found out he had Huntington's disease.

Huntington's is a deadly, inherited disease that affects about 30,000 Americans; 150,000 more are at risk.

Until now there has been no hope for these patients, who typically die of the disease within 15 years of diagnosis.

"My father had it, said Mike. He died from it."

Huntington's causes uncontrollable movements and mental decline, there is no cure.

"Unfortunately, it ends in death, said Dr. Vicki Wheelock, a neurologist at UC Davis Health System. It's a fatal disease."

Now researchers are gearing up for a new trial in humans.

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Doctors think stem cell injections could provide hope for Huntington disease patients

A LITTLE boy faces his third bone marrow transplant before his second birthday.

Jack Kleinberg has battled against two life-threatening conditions as he suffers from familial mediterranean fever and WiskottAldrich syndrome, which affects one in 10 million children and means he has to live in virtual isolation.

His parents, Rob and Vicki, live with the knowledge that any part of his body can stop working at any time from a simple fall or infection.

The couple, of St James Gardens, Westcliff, spend much of their time travelling to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Jack to receive treatment to keep him alive.

The family includes Robs children from a previous relationship, Oliver, 14 and Sophia, ten.

Vicki, 28, said: Its a 24/7 job, but we wouldnt change it for the world. Oliver and Sophia didnt see Jack for the first year because he was in hospital. Its become normal for them to come home and wash and change into sterile clothes before they can see Jack, because of the danger of infection for him. Jack has had one full transplant and a top-up transplant and is waiting for a potential donor for a possible third transplant.

Vicki said: People think it is a painful process, but these days it is a stem cell transplant where if a donor is found to be suitable, they are given an injection the week before, which makes the body release bone marrowcells into the blood stream which are then taken like a normal blood donation. It takes just 20 minutes of someones time and saves so many lives. The transplants have given Jack 25 per cent of the cells he needs. Without them, he wouldnt have lived past his first birthday.

We are trying to get through Christmas and then we will decide on whether, if a donor is found, Jack has another full stem cell transplant or whether we let him live his life, with all its restrictions, for a while because he has spent so much time in hospital.

For more information about becoming a donor, visit http://www.anthonynolan.org

Rugby club is pitching in

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People urged to donate bone marrow as tot faces third transplant

This treatment will only be allowed under carefully defined conditions, however, so that the outcomes can be carefully monitored to see if the treatment works and doesnt have any unexpected side-effects.

Stem cells can act as a repair system for the body.

Limbal stem cells are located in the eye at the border between the cornea the clear front part of the eye - and the sclera the white of the eye.

Physical or chemical burns can cause loss of these stem cells, resulting in limbal stem cell deficiency, LSCD, a condition that is estimated to affect about 3.3 out of 100,000 people in the European Union and around 650 people in Britain.

Symptoms include pain, sensitivity to light, inflammation, excessive blood vessel growth, clouding of the cornea, and eventually blindness.

In LSCD the limbal stem cells become so diminished that they eyes can no longer make new cells to repair damage.

The new treatment takes a small sample of the patients healthy cornea, removes the stem cells and grows them until there are sufficient numbers to put back into the eye. The cells themselves then repair the damage.

Moorfields Eye Hospital in London has successfully treated around 20 people with Holocar so far in trials.

Prof Chris Mason, from University College London, told the BBC: "This move would enable far more people to access it, you could now prescribe this."

The EMA decision to approve Holoclar will now be sent to the European Commission for market authorization. It will then be up to Nice to decide whether to approve the therapy for use on the NHS.

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First stem-cell therapy approved for medical use in Europe

Keith Vanderlinde/NSF

The BICEP2 telescope at the South Pole may have spied gravitational waves or dust.

This year may be best remembered for how quickly scientific triumph morphed into disappointment, and even tragedy: breakthroughs in stem-cell research and cosmology were quickly discredited; commercial spaceflight faced major setbacks. Yet landing a probe on a comet, tracing humanitys origins and a concerted push to understand the brain provided reasons to celebrate.

Asian nations soared into space this year. The Indian Space Research Organisation put a mission into orbit around Mars the first agency to do so on its first try. Japan launched the Hayabusa-2 probe, its second robotic voyage to bring back samples from an asteroid. And even as Chinas lunar rover Yutu (or Jade Rabbit) stopped gathering data on the Moons surface, mission controllers took the next step in the countrys lunar exploration programme by sending a test probe around the Moon and back to Earth.

But for commercial spaceflight, it was a bad year. Virgin Galactics proposed tourism vehicle SpaceShipTwo disintegrated during a test flight in California and killed one of its pilots. That came just three days after a launch-pad explosion in Virginia destroyed an uncrewed private rocket intended to take supplies to the International Space Station. The accident wiped out a number of research experiments destined for the station, whose managers are trying to step up its scientific output. Problems on the station also delayed the deployment of a flock of tiny Earth-watching satellites, nicknamed Doves, which are part of the general trend of using miniature CubeSats to collect space data.

On a bigger scale, the European Space Agency successfully launched the first in its long-awaited series of Sentinel Earth-observing satellites.

After a decade-long trip, the European Space Agencys Rosetta spacecraft arrived at comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko in August and settled into orbit. Three months later, Rosetta dropped the Philae probe to 67Ps surface, in the first-ever landing on a comet. Philae relayed science data for 64hours before losing power in its shadowy, rocky landing site.

Meanwhile, a flotilla of Mars spacecraft probes from India, the United States and Europe had an unplanned close brush with comet Siding Spring, which zipped past the red planet in October at a distance of 139,500kilometres about one-third of the distance from Earth to the Moon. NASA rovers continued to trundle along on the Martian surface: Curiosity finally reached the mountain that it has been heading towards since landing in 2012, and Opportunity passed 40kilometres on its odometer, breaking a Soviet lunar rovers distance record for off-Earth driving.

The search for planets beyond the Solar System also got a huge boost. In February, the team behind the now mostly defunct Kepler spacecraft announced that it had confirmed the existence of 715extrasolar planets, the largest-ever single haul. Kepler data also revealed the first known Earth-sized exoplanet in the habitable zone of its star, a step closer to the long-sought Earth twin.

Considering that they have been dead for around 30,000 years, Neanderthals had a hell of a year. Their DNA survives in non-African human genomes, thanks to ancient interbreeding, and two teams this year catalogued humans Neanderthal heritage. Scientists learnt more about the sexual encounters between Homo neanderthalensis and early humans after analysing the two oldest Homo sapiens genomes on record from men who lived in southwest Siberia 45,000years ago and in western Russia more than 36,000years ago, respectively. The DNA revealed hitherto-unknown human groups and more precise dates for when H.sapiens coupled with Neanderthals, which probably occurred in the Middle East between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. Radiocarbon dating of dozens of archaeological sites in Europe, meanwhile, showed that humans and Neanderthals coexisted there for much longer than was once thought up to several thousand years in some places.

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365 days: 2014 in science

CGI Illustration by Peter Crowther Associates c/o Dbut Art

Andrea Accomazzo: Comet chaser | Suzanne Topalian: Cancer combatant | Radhika Nagpal: Robot-maker | Sheik Humarr Khan: Ebola doctor | David Spergel: Cosmic sceptic | Maryam Mirzakhani: Surface explorer | Pete Frates: Ice-bucket challenger | Koppillil Radhakrishnan: Rocket launcher | Masayo Takahashi: Stem-cell tester | Sjors Scheres: Structure solver | Ones to watch

A former test pilot steered the Rosetta mission to an icy world in deep space. By Elizabeth Gibney

Andreas Reeg/Agentur Focus/Eyevine

Nearly two decades ago, Andrea Accomazzo got into trouble with his girlfriend when she found a scrap of paper on his desk. In his handwriting was scrawled a phone number next to a female name: Rosetta.

She thought it was a girl, says Accomazzo. I had to explain to my jealous Italian girlfriend that Rosetta is an interplanetary mission that is flying to a comet in almost 20 years.

Ever since, Accomazzo has divided his attention. He eventually married his girlfriend and has also spent the past 18 years pursuing the comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko. As flight director for the mission, Accomazzo led the team that steered Rosetta to its August rendezvous with the comet, following a 6.4-billion-kilometre journey from Earth. The pinnacle of the project came in November, when Rosetta successfully set down a lander named Philae, providing scientists with the first data from the surface of a comet and making it one of the most successful missions in the history of the European Space Agency (ESA).

Accomazzo did not act alone: it took a large operations team at ESA to manoeuvre Rosetta with enough precision to drop Philae down just 120 metres from the centre of the landing zone. Given that we'd had a 500-metre error circle, that was not a bad shot, says Fred Jansen, who led the mission. When Philae's anchoring systems failed, the craft bounced into a shady site where it could not charge its solar panels, so the lander lost power after 64 hours. But in that time, it gathered a trove of data that will add to the information collected by Rosetta about the comet's structure and composition. Armed with those insights, scientists hope to better understand the origin and evolution of the Solar System, including whether comets could have brought water and organic molecules to Earth during its infancy.

Accomazzo started off his career focused on a different type of flight. He first trained as a test pilot in the Italian Air Force. But although he loved flying, he found the culture too constraining and after two years he quit to study aerospace engineering. With his quiet, hard-working, sometimes no-nonsense nature, colleagues say that Accomazzo brings a bit of the military with him into mission control.

For Accomazzo, the biggest parallel between flying a fighter jet and Rosetta is the need for split-second judgements. You have to prepare and train a lot to be able to make the right decision, very quickly, he says. Between launch and landing, his team ran 87 full-day simulations.

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365 days: Nature's 10

Pre and Post Stem Cell Therapy
Russell Scott was a top cyclist for the 7-11 team. He was diagnosed with MS in 1991. After every traditional FDA approved drug he decided to try stem cell therapy. He has been on a steady...

By: Teresa Scott

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Pre and Post Stem Cell Therapy - Video

Freeport, Grand Bahama (PRWEB) December 18, 2014

Okyanos, the leader in cell therapy, announced the expansion of its medical team to accommodate the growing demand for cell therapy to treat patients with chronic unmet needs for which adult stem cell therapy using cells from a persons own fat (adipose) tissue has been found to be safe and efficacious. Led by a prestigious team of U.S.-licensed physicians and nursing staff, the team includes Dr. Todd Malan, Chief Cell Therapy Officer and pioneer of adipose-derived stem cell therapy, and is joined by Dr. Matthew Mick, Cardiologist, FACC, Fellowship at Cleveland Clinic.

We are very pleased to have such a competent and highly regarded aggregate of expertise, said Okyanos CEO Matt Feshbach. Our team is comprised of leaders in their respective fields, each of whom is committed to bringing about a new standard of care and better quality of life to our patients.

Todd Malan, MD, serves as the Chief Cell Therapy Officer and General Surgeon at Okyanos, overseeing the fat-harvesting and stem cell isolation step of the Okyanos cell therapy process. A pioneer of fat-derived stem cell therapies, he became the first physician in the U.S. to utilize stem cells from fat for soft tissue reconstruction in October 2009, combining water-assisted fat-harvesting, fat transfer and adult stem cell technologies.

Matthew J. Mick, MD, is a triple board-certified interventional cardiologist. After attending the Indiana University School of Medicine, Dr. Mick completed his Cardiovascular Disease and Interventional Fellowships at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Dr. Mick participated as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator in more than 20 cardiac clinical trials. He was a leader in developing trans-radial cardiac catheterization and holds several patents for cardiac catheters. Dr. Mick has performed over 15,000 diagnostic procedures in his 22 years of practice.

As the Director of Nursing managing a medical team which now numbers 10, Gretchen Dezelick oversees all of the clinical operations and maintains the superior cleanliness and safety standards that help make Okyanos a center of excellence. With more than 25 years of nursing experience progressing from bedside nursing to administrative and management positions in a variety of healthcare settings, Gretchen was a Certified Critical Care Nurse (CCRN) for more than 20 years and has been a Certified Peri-Operative Nurse (CNOR) for more than three years as well as being a Licensed Health Care Risk Manager (LHCRM).

Okyanos is also very proud to include several Bahamian medical staff such as Anesthesiologist Dr. Vincent Burton, Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, UK (FRCA), a Certified Critical Care Nurse, cardiology tech, sonographer, surgical scrub tech and a facilities tech, to deliver well-rounded expert patient care. The team also includes a Certified Cardiovascular Nurse, a BSN RN and a cardiovascular tech, providing more than 88 years of combined experience.

Okyanos follows the treatment guidelines laid out in clinical trials such as PRECISE and others which have demonstrated positive results from adult stem cell therapy. Okyanos cell therapy is performed in their newly constructed surgery center built to U.S. surgical standards and which also includes a state-of-the-art Phillips cath lab.

Adult stem cell therapy has emerged as a new treatment alternative for those who are restricted in activities they can no longer do but are determined to live a more normal life. Okyanos cell therapy uses a unique blend of adult stem cells derived from a patients own fat tissue, thereby helping the bodys own natural biology to heal itself.

Just 50 miles from US shore, Okyanos cell therapy is available to patients with severe heart disease including coronary artery disease (CAD) and congestive heart failure (CHF) as well as patients with autoimmune diseases, tissue ischemia, neurological and orthopedic conditions.

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Okyanos Expands World-Class Cell Therapy Medical Team

Two men in landmark heart stem cell study tell their stories.

WebMD Archive

Jim Dearing of Louisville, Ky., one of the first men in the world to receive heart stem cells, might have helped start a medical revolution that could lead to a cure for heart failure.

Three years after getting the experimental stem cell procedure, following two heart attacks and heart failure, Dearings heart is working normally.

2012 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.

The difference is clear and dramatic -- and it's lasting, according to findings now being made public for the first time.

Dearing first showed "completely normal heart function" on an echocardiogram done in 2011, says Roberto Bolli, MD, who is leading the stem cell trial at the University of Louisville. Those results have not been published before.

That was still true in July 2012, when Dearing again showed normal heart function on another echocardiogram.

Based on those tests, Bolli says, "Anyone who looks at his heart now would not imagine that this patient was in heart failure, that he had a heart attack, that he was in the hospital, that he had surgery, and everything else."

It's not just Dearing who has benefited. His friend, Mike Jones, who had even more severe heart damage, also got the stem cell procedure in 2009. Since then, scarred regions of his heart have shrunk. His heart now appears leaner and stronger than it was before.

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Stem Cell Research: Heart Stem Cells May Help Heal Hearts ...

PHILADELPHIA As the main component of connective tissue in the body, fibroblasts are the most common type of cell. Taking advantage of that ready availability, scientists from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the Wistar Institute, Boston University School of Medicine, and New Jersey Institute of Technology have discovered a way to repurpose fibroblasts into functional melanocytes, the body's pigment-producing cells. The technique has immediate and important implications for developing new cell-based treatments for skin diseases such as vitiligo, as well as new screening strategies for melanoma. The work was published this week in Nature Communications.

The new technique cuts out a cellular middleman. Study senior author Xiaowei George Xu, MD, PhD, an associate professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, explains, "Through direct reprogramming, we do not have to go through the pluripotent stem cell stage, but directly convert fibroblasts to melanocytes. So these cells do not have tumorigenicity."

Changing a cell from one type to another is hardly unusual. Nature does it all the time, most notably as cells divide and differentiate themselves into various types as an organism grows from an embryo into a fully-functional being. With stem cell therapies, medicine is learning how to tap into such cell specialization for new clinical treatments. But controlling and directing the process is challenging. It is difficult to identify the specific transcription factors needed to create a desired cell type. Also, the necessary process of first changing a cell into an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) capable of differentiation, and then into the desired type, can inadvertently create tumors.

Xu and his colleagues began by conducting an extensive literature search to identify 10 specific cell transcription factors important for melanocyte development. They then performed a transcription factor screening assay and found three transcription factors out of those 10 that are required for melanocytes: SOX10, MITF, and PAX3, a combination dubbed SMP3.

"We did a huge amount of work," says Xu. "We eliminated all the combinations of the other transcription factors and found that these three are essential."

The researchers first tested the SMP3 combination in mouse embryonic fibroblasts, which then quickly displayed melanocytic markers. Their next step used a human-derived SMP3 combination in human fetal dermal cells, and again melanocytes (human-induced melanocytes, or hiMels) rapidly appeared. Further testing confirmed that these hiMels indeed functioned as normal melanocytes, not only in cell culture but also in whole animals, using a hair-patch assay, in which the hiMels generated melanin pigment. The hiMels proved to be functionally identical in every respect to normal melanocytes.

Xu and his colleagues anticipate using their new technique in the treatment of a wide variety of skin diseases, particularly those such as vitiligo for which cell-based therapies are the best and most efficient approach.

The method could also provide a new way to study melanoma. By generating melanocytes from the fibroblasts of melanoma patients, Xu explains, "we can screen not only to find why these patients easily develop melanoma, but possibly use their cells to screen for small compounds that can prevent melanoma from happening."

Perhaps most significantly, say the researchers, is the far greater number of fibroblasts available in the body for reprogramming compared to tissue-specific adult stem cells, which makes this new technique well-suited for other cell-based treatments.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01-AR054593, P30-AR057217)

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Cutting Out the Cellular Middleman: New Technology Directly Reprograms Skin Fibroblasts For a New Role

As the main component of connective tissue in the body, fibroblasts are the most common type of cell. Taking advantage of that ready availability, scientists from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the Wistar Institute, Boston University School of Medicine, and New Jersey Institute of Technology have discovered a way to repurpose fibroblasts into functional melanocytes, the body's pigment-producing cells. The technique has immediate and important implications for developing new cell-based treatments for skin diseases such as vitiligo, as well as new screening strategies for melanoma. The work was published this week in Nature Communications.

The new technique cuts out a cellular middleman. Study senior author Xiaowei "George" Xu, MD, PhD, an associate professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, explains, "Through direct reprogramming, we do not have to go through the pluripotent stem cell stage, but directly convert fibroblasts to melanocytes. So these cells do not have tumorigenicity."

Changing a cell from one type to another is hardly unusual. Nature does it all the time, most notably as cells divide and differentiate themselves into various types as an organism grows from an embryo into a fully-functional being. With stem cell therapies, medicine is learning how to tap into such cell specialization for new clinical treatments. But controlling and directing the process is challenging. It is difficult to identify the specific transcription factors needed to create a desired cell type. Also, the necessary process of first changing a cell into an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) capable of differentiation, and then into the desired type, can inadvertently create tumors.

Xu and his colleagues began by conducting an extensive literature search to identify 10 specific cell transcription factors important for melanocyte development. They then performed a transcription factor screening assay and found three transcription factors out of those 10 that are required for melanocytes: SOX10, MITF, and PAX3, a combination dubbed SMP3.

"We did a huge amount of work," says Xu. "We eliminated all the combinations of the other transcription factors and found that these three are essential."

The researchers first tested the SMP3 combination in mouse embryonic fibroblasts, which then quickly displayed melanocytic markers. Their next step used a human-derived SMP3 combination in human fetal dermal cells, and again melanocytes (human-induced melanocytes, or hiMels) rapidly appeared. Further testing confirmed that these hiMels indeed functioned as normal melanocytes, not only in cell culture but also in whole animals, using a hair-patch assay, in which the hiMels generated melanin pigment. The hiMels proved to be functionally identical in every respect to normal melanocytes.

Xu and his colleagues anticipate using their new technique in the treatment of a wide variety of skin diseases, particularly those such as vitiligo for which cell-based therapies are the best and most efficient approach.

The method could also provide a new way to study melanoma. By generating melanocytes from the fibroblasts of melanoma patients, Xu explains, "we can screen not only to find why these patients easily develop melanoma, but possibly use their cells to screen for small compounds that can prevent melanoma from happening."

Perhaps most significantly, say the researchers, is the far greater number of fibroblasts available in the body for reprogramming compared to tissue-specific adult stem cells, which makes this new technique well-suited for other cell-based treatments.

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New technology directly reprograms skin fibroblasts for a new role

Consider the relationship between an air traffic controller and a pilot. The pilot gets the passengers to their destination, but the air traffic controller decides when the plane can take off and when it must wait. The same relationship plays out at the cellular level in animals, including humans. A region of an animal's genome -- the controller -- directs when a particular gene -- the pilot -- can perform its prescribed function.

A new study by cell and systems biologists at the University of Toronto (U of T) investigating stem cells in mice shows, for the first time, an instance of such a relationship between the Sox2 gene which is critical for early development, and a region elsewhere on the genome that effectively regulates its activity. The discovery could mean a significant advance in the emerging field of human regenerative medicine, as the Sox2 gene is essential for maintaining embryonic stem cells that can develop into any cell type of a mature animal.

"We studied how the Sox2 gene is turned on in mice, and found the region of the genome that is needed to turn the gene on in embryonic stem cells," said Professor Jennifer Mitchell of U of T's Department of Cell and Systems Biology, lead invesigator of a study published in the December 15 issue of Genes & Development.

"Like the gene itself, this region of the genome enables these stem cells to maintain their ability to become any type of cell, a property known as pluripotency. We named the region of the genome that we discovered the Sox2 control region, or SCR," said Mitchell.

Since the sequencing of the human genome was completed in 2003, researchers have been trying to figure out which parts of the genome made some people more likely to develop certain diseases. They have found that the answers are more often in the regions of the human genome that turn genes on and off.

"If we want to understand how genes are turned on and off, we need to know where the sequences that perform this function are located in the genome," said Mitchell. "The parts of the human genome linked to complex diseases such as heart disease, cancer and neurological disorders can often be far away from the genes they regulate, so it can be dificult to figure out which gene is being affected and ultimately causing the disease."

It was previously thought that regions much closer to the Sox2 gene were the ones that turned it on in embryonic stem cells. Mitchell and her colleagues eliminated this possibility when they deleted these nearby regions in the genome of mice and found there was no impact on the gene's ability to be turned on in embryonic stem cells.

"We then focused on the region we've since named the SCR as my work had shown that it can contact the Sox2 gene from its location 100,000 base pairs away," said study lead author Harry Zhou, a former graduate student in Mitchell's lab, now a student at U of T's Faculty of Medicine. "To contact the gene, the DNA makes a loop that brings the SCR close to the gene itself only in embryonic stem cells. Once we had a good idea that this region could be acting on the Sox2 gene, we removed the region from the genome and monitored the effect on Sox2."

The researchers discovered that this region is required to both turn Sox2 on, and for the embryonic stem cells to maintain their characteristic appearance and ability to differentiate into all the cell types of the adult organism.

"Just as deletion of the Sox2 gene causes the very early embryo to die, it is likely that an abnormality in the regulatory region would also cause early embryonic death before any of the organs have even formed," said Mitchell. "It is possible that the formation of the loop needed to make contact with the Sox2 gene is an important final step in the process by which researchers practicing regenerative medicine can generate pluripotent cells from adult cells."

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Cell biologists discover on-off switch for key stem cell gene

MITTEILUNG UEBERMITTELT VON BUSINESS WIRE. FUER DEN INHALT IST ALLEIN DAS BERICHTENDE UNTERNEHMEN VERANTWORTLICH.

PARIS --(BUSINESS WIRE)-- 13.10.2014 --

Stem cells hold great promise for treating a variety of human diseases and injuries. Basic and translational stem cell research is among the most competitive fields in the life sciences. We have co-organized the first Bridging Biomedical Worlds conference of our new series of international scientific meetings: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities for Stem Cell Therapy.

The goal of this conference is to promote progress in the translation of basic stem cell research into stem cell therapies. To do this, presentations will highlight diverse areas of on-going stem cell biology research. In addition, panelists will discuss obstacles to translation and the associated risks and ethical controversies. These panels will provide a means to accelerate communication and cooperation among researchers, bioengineers, clinicians and industry scientists, and will explore ways to implement international policies, regulations and guidelines to ensure the development of safe and effective stem cell therapies worldwide. Participants will hear about the latest basic and translational stem cell research from more than 20 distinguished speakers from China, Japan, Europe and theUnited States.

This conference held in Beijing, China, October 13-15, 2014 is co-organized by the Fondation IPSEN, AAAS/Science and AAAS/Science Translational Medicine, in association withFred Gage (Salk Institute for Biological Studies) and Qi Zhou (Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences).

About AAAS/Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the worlds largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science (www.sciencemag.org) as well as Science Translational Medicine (www.sciencetranslationalmedicine.org) and Science Signaling (www.sciencesignaling.org). AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 261 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals.Sciencehas the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS (www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to advance science and serve society not only by publishing the very best scientific research but also through initiatives in science policy, international programs and science education. http://www.sciencemag.org

About AAAS/Science Translational Medicine Science Translational Medicine, launched in October 2009, is the newest journal published by AAAS/Science. The goal of Science Translational Medicineis to promote human health by providing a forum for communicating the latest biomedical research findings from basic, translational, and clinical researchers from all established and emerging disciplines relevant to medicine. Despite 50 years of advances in our fundamental understanding of human biology and the emergence of powerful new technologies, the translation of this knowledge into effective new treatments and health measures has been slow. This paradox illustrates the daunting complexity of the challenges faced by translational researchers as they apply the basic discoveries and experimental approaches of modern science to the alleviation of human suffering. A major goal ofScience Translational Medicineis to publish papers that identify and fill the scientific knowledge gaps at the junction of basic research and medical application in order to accelerate the translation of scientific knowledge into new methods for preventing, diagnosing and treating human disease. http://www.sciencetranslationalmedicine.org

About the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Zoology (IOZ), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), is one of the leading research institutions in China. The institute consists of 76 professors (including 2 members of Chinese Academy of Sciences), 3 state key research laboratories and 1 zoological museum. The major research areas of IOZ include animal sciences, cell membrane biology, stem cells and reproduction. The stem cell research teams of IOZ include over 10 PIs, and they mainly focus on questions related to the establishment of pluripotent stem cell lines, neural stem cell induction and regeneration, mechanism studies of pluripotency and differentiation regulation of embryonic stem cells, animal model establishment and functional studies, etc. The major achievements in the field of stem cell research made by IOZ faculties include: obtained the first healthy animal (Xiaoxiao the mouse) using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) via tetraploid complementation method, identified molecular markers for the evaluation of pluripotency levels of stem cells and the related regulatory mechanisms, achieved cell fate conversion across different germ layers, established various types of human and mouse embryonic stem cell lines, as well as the Beijing Stem Cell Bank, etc. These achievements has once been selected as one of the TIMES Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs in 2009, and twice been selected as Top 10 Breakthroughs in Science and Technology in China. The Beijing Stem Cell Bank now functions as a resource for stem cell and regenerative medicine studies, providing various types of embryonic stem cell lines, adult stem cell lines and somatic cell lines for many research groups. IOZ also hosts modern animal model research centers for pigs and monkeys, which have generated a few valuable animal models for disease mechanism studies and pharmaceutical researches. http://www.english.ioz.cas.cn

About the Fondation Ipsen Established in 1983 under the aegis of the Fondation de France, the mission of the Fondation Ipsen is to contribute to the development and dissemination of scientific knowledge. The long-standing action of the Fondation Ipsen aims at fostering the interaction between researchers and clinical practitioners, which is essential due to the extreme specialization of these professions. The ambition of the Fondation Ipsen is to initiate a reflection about the major scientific issues of the forthcoming years. It has developed an important international network of scientific experts who meet regularly at meetings known as Colloques Mdecine et Recherche, dedicated to five main themes: Alzheimer's disease, neurosciences, longevity, endocrinology and cancer science. Moreover the Fondation Ipsen has started since 2007 several meetings in partnership with the Salk Institute, the Karolinska Institutet, the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Days of Molecular Medicine Global Foundation as well as with the science journals Nature, Cell and Science. The Fondation Ipsen has published over one hundred books and has awarded more than 250 prizes and research grants. http://www.fondation-ipsen.org

Fondation Ipsen For further information, please contact: Isabelle de Segonzac, Image Sept E-mail : isegonzac@image7.fr Tel. : +33 (0)1 53 70 74 70

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BUSINESS WIRE: The 1st Meeting of the Series Bridging Biomedical Worlds: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities for ...

System for marking slow-cycling SCs in vivo and monitoring their fate. (A) Strategy. (B to D) Skin sections of mice before and after 4-week chase. Shown are epifluorescence of H2B-GFP (green) and 4,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) (blue), and indirect immunofluorescence with antibodies (Abs) indicated (Texas Red). The hair cycle stage is indicated on each set of after chase frames (see also fig. S1, B to D, and fig. S2). Arrows (B) denote Ki67+ sebaceous gland cells in telogen. Arrowheads [(B) and (C)] denote transition zone between bulge and newly generated follicle downgrowth. Late anagen (Ki67 in red): GFP-bright cells are retained in the bulge; their progeny rapidly divide, diluting H2B-GFP. (D) Early anagen II bulb overexposed for GFP and double-labeled (small arrowheads) with Abs against each differentiation cell type. (E) Mice after chase were scratch-wounded and analyzed by immunofluorescence. Arrows denote likely directions of movements of GFP-positive LRCs and progeny. Abbreviations: Bu, bulge; DP, dermal papilla; Mx, matrix; hg, hair germ; Ep, epidermis; asterisk, hair shaft (autofluorescent); hf, hair follicle; Cx, cortex; ORS/IRS, outer/inner root sheaths; BM, basement membrane; In, infundibulum; W, wound. Scale bars, 50 m.

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Defining the epithelial stem cell niche in skin.

Manhattan NY (PRWEB) December 13, 2014

ABRING, one of the pioneers in the new era of the most advanced skin care trend, announced the debut of their two new skin care products: ABRING lemon stem cell acne serum and ABRING apple stem cell serum/eyes serum, These two new cutting-edge skin care products contain concentrated essence which is derived from Californias organic plants and has no artificial or chemical components. This condensed essence has been widely recognized for its obvious effect on anti-aging and stimulation of skin cells regeneration. As a result, ABRINGs new stem cell products not only have such distinctive functions as anti-aging, supplementing moisture, alleviating scars appearance and whitening skin, but also can be safely used by pregnant women since it only contains pure natural plant ingredients.

It is well-known that the skin is exposed to all kinds of radiations everyday which can damage our skin in various ways. Most people think that there is nothing to worry because they have already used segregation frost. However, what they dont realize is the fact that segregation frost only plays a trivial role in isolation and doesnt help repair or stimulate skin cells renewal or regeneration activities.

Stem cells are capable of self-reproducing and have lots of potentials. Under different conditions, they can evolve into various functional cells. Therefore, the activity of skin stem cells directly affects the external appearance of the skin. ABRING uses the newest stem cell research achievement and is a known brand for natural beauty products. Because it contains condensed essences concentrated from organic plants and is free of any chemicals, ABRING can stimulate activity in skin cells, slow down the aging process, increase elasticity, improve tone, and reduce the appearance of scars. In addition, because ABRING also contains a lot of mineral water and vitamin C, it can effectively improve skin brightening and help cure and prevent acne.

ABRING products founder, Albert, born in California, United, is a cell biologist and a biochemist. Unlike many, he didnt have a carefree and happy childhood as the result of a natural disaster. However, Albert wasnt defeated by the unpredicted distress. Instead, he was dedicated to study and graduated from Columbia University. In 1971, invited by the U.S. government, Doctor Albert became one of first post-war medical doctors. In same year, Doctor Albert established ABRING laboratory which stands for: Doctor Albert brings hope. Based on years of research at Columbia University focusing on stem cell biology, Doctor Albert found that certain raw materials can effectively remove skin scars without using any chemical additives. After over 7000 experiments, he finally extracted pure activating factors from natural plants that can help alleviate the appearance of scars. Dr. Albert named the condensed essence of concentration of plant stem cells as ABRING. Since then, with its innovative and effective way of enhancing the tone of skin, ABRING started to be recognized more and more by the world. Doctor Albert's efforts eventually got paid off and ABRING became one of the favored skin care products from the users of all classes. Nowadays, ABRING has been used by more than 500 famous beauty salons over the world. Moreover, the product has been widely recommended by doctors as daily lotion for skin disease treatment or post-surgery care.

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ABRING Announces Debut of Stem Cell Based Skin Care Products

Dallas, Tx | SVF Stem Cell Therapy Testimonial (Knee Replacement Alternative)
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Dallas, Tx | SVF Stem Cell Therapy Testimonial (Knee Replacement Alternative) - Video

Stem cell therapy is a potential treatment for spinal cord injury and different stem cell types have been grafted into animal models and humans suffering from spinal trauma. Due to inconsistent results, it is still an important and clinically relevant question which stem cell type will prove to be therapeutically effective. Thus far, stem cells of human sources grafted into spinal cord mostly included barely defined heterogeneous mesenchymal stem cell populations derived from bone marrow or umbilical cord blood. Here, we have transplanted a well-defined unrestricted somatic stem cell isolated from human umbilical cord blood into an acute traumatic spinal cord injury of adult immune suppressed rat. Grafting of unrestricted somatic stem cells into the vicinity of a dorsal hemisection injury at thoracic level eight resulted in hepatocyte growth factor-directed migration and accumulation within the lesion area, reduction in lesion size and augmented tissue sparing, enhanced axon regrowth and significant functional locomotor improvement as revealed by three behavioural tasks (open field Basso-Beattie-Bresnahan locomotor score, horizontal ladder walking test and CatWalk gait analysis). To accomplish the beneficial effects, neither neural differentiation nor long-lasting persistence of the grafted human stem cells appears to be required. The secretion of neurite outgrowth-promoting factors in vitro further suggests a paracrine function of unrestricted somatic stem cells in spinal cord injury. Given the highly supportive functional characteristics in spinal cord injury, production in virtually unlimited quantities at GMP grade and lack of ethical concerns, unrestricted somatic stem cells appear to be a highly suitable human stem cell source for clinical application in central nervous system injuries.

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Newswise Stem cells in early embryos have unlimited potential; they can become any type of cell, and researchers hope to one day harness this rejuvenating power to heal disease and injury. To do so, they must, among other things, figure out how to reliably arrest stem cells in a Peter Pan-like state of indefinite youth and potential. Its clear the right environment can help accomplish this, acting as a sort of Neverland for stem cells. Only now are scientists beginning to understand how.

New collaborative research between scientists at Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center offers an explanation: Stem cells can rewire their metabolism to enhance an erasure mechanism that helps them avoid committing to a specific fate; in turn, this improves stem cells ability to renew themselves.

Experiments described today (December 10) in Nature link metabolism, chemical reactions that turn food into energy and cellular building materials, with changes to how genes are packaged, and, as a result, read. It turns out that by skewing their metabolism to favor a particular product, stem cells can keep their entire genome accessible and so maintain their ability to differentiate into any adult cell.

All of the principal enzymes charged with modifying DNA as well as DNA-histone protein complexes called chromatin use the products of cellular metabolism to do so. But how specific alterations in metabolic pathways can impact gene expression programs during development and differentiation has remained a mystery, says lead researcher C. David Allis, Joy and Jack Fishman Professor and head of the Laboratory of Chromatin Biology and Epigenetics. This collaborative effort with Craig Thompsons lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering reveals that the nutrients a stem cell uses, and how it uses them, can contribute to a cells fate by changing the chromatin landscape and, as a result, influencing gene expression.

These changes are epigenetic, meaning they do not affect genes themselves, instead they alter how DNA is packaged, making it more or less accessible for expression. In this case, researchers were interested in a specific type of epigenetic change: chemical groups, known as methyl groups, that attach to chromatin. Generally, the addition of these methyl groups compacts and silences regions of the genome. To maintain their ability to give rise to any type of cell in the body, stem cells need all of their genome available, and so they must keep methylation in check.

Some epigenetic marks, such as methyl groups, are themselves products of metabolism metabolites. Whats more some other metabolites participate in the reactions that remove methylations, making genes available for expression. After joining the Allis Lab, postdoc Bryce Carey presented an idea that tied these concepts together: What if in stem cells the changes to chromatin reflect a unique metabolism that helps to drive reactions that help to keep chromatin accessible? This connection would explain how embryonic stem cells are so uniquely poised to activate so much of their genomes, Carey says.

Mouse embryonic stem cells grown in a medium known as 2i are much better at renewing themselves than those grown in the traditional medium containing bovine serum, although researchers dont fully understand why. Carey and co-first author Lydia Finley, a postdoc in Thompsons metabolism-focused lab, compared the metabolism of cells grown in both media.

Carey and Finley first noticed that the 2i cells did not require glutamine, an amino acid most cells need to make the metabolite alpha-ketoglutarate, an important player in a series of metabolic reactions known as the citric acid cycle and a metabolite that had also been previously implicated in regulation of methylations on chromatin. Even without glutamine, however, the 2i cells managed to produce significant amounts of alpha-ketoglutarate.

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Discovery Links Shift in Metabolism to Stem Cell Renewal

When Mount Sinai Hospital researcher Dr. Andras Nagy initiated a huge project to demystify the process by which specialized cells become stem cells, he wasnt expecting to discover a whole new type of stem cell.

Its a big finding, because identifying a new class of stem cells means a 100 per cent increase in possible sources of cells for therapeutic use.

He describes a stem cell as a blank tablet. They hold great potential to treat diseases that result from damaged tissue or loss of cells, such as Alzheimers, spinal cord injuries and blindness.

His latest research, dubbed Project Grandiose because of its sheer scale, has involved employing a team of nearly 50 researchers across four continents to document the process of creating stem cells. These cells called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells can be used to form any type of cell in the body as an alternative to using the more controversial stem cells derived from embryos.

The findings will be published Thursday in a package of papers in Nature and Nature Communications .

The oldest example of a therapy based on stem calls is bone marrow transplants, which have been performed for more than 40 years.

One of the newest applications of stem cells is treating and preventing the loss of vision using iPS cells. Japan has permitted the use of these cells to regenerate eye tissue this year. A woman in her 70s was the first to receive retinal tissue created from iPS cells to combat a degenerative condition that can lead to blindness.

Nagy characterizes this procedure as an icebreaker, hoping it will lead to further treatment and perhaps even cures in other diseases.

But understanding these cells first is key to safer use.

If we understand this process better and deeper, we will be in a better position to create safer and (more therapeutically useful) cell types in the future, said Nagy.

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Pioneering Toronto scientists latest research to demystify stem cells