Editors note: What follows is a guest post. Michael Zhang is an MD-PhD student studying at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. He is one of my go-to experts on matters of cell biology and stem cells. (His bio is below.)

As you may have heard, this week brought striking news in the field of stem cell biology. Researchers from Boston and Japan published two papers in the prestigious journal Nature in which they describe new and easy ways to transform mouse cells back into stem cells. (NPR coverage here.) Make no mistake, this is not mundane science news. This is big.

I follow cell biology because I believe it is the branch of science that will bring the next major advance in modern medicine. Rather than implant a pacemaker, future doctors may inject a solution of sinus node stem cells, and voila, the heart beats normally. Rather than watch a patient with a scarred heart die of heart failure or suffer from medication side effects, future doctors may inject stem cells that replace the non-contracting scar. And the same could happen for kidneys, pancreas, spinal nerves, etc.

When I heard the news, I emailed Michael the link with the following subject line: This is pretty cool, right? He wrote back. What he taught me is worth sharing.

***

Michael Zhang MD-PhD candidate Univ of Louisville

By Michael Zhang:

Japanese and American cell biologists have recently reported dramatic new findings that are likely to upend biological dogma.

For much of the past century, the prevailing consensus held that once animal cells move past the earliest embryonic stages, they are irreversibly committed to specialized roles in the adult brain cells, heart cells, lung cells etc. In the past decade, two Nobel-winning biologists each separately demonstrated that committed specialist cells (aka differentiated cells) could be reprogrammed back to a primordial, embryonic state (aka pluripotent stem cell) that could then morph into any new type of specialized cell.

Now, Professor Obokata and her colleagues describe new methods to induce this reprogramming of specialized cells to (pluripotent) stem cells. Whereas previous methods involved draconian procedures the transfer of entire nuclei between cells, or the transfer of multiple genes Obokatas group found that simply squeezing a terminally differentiated cell, or immersing it in an acidic solution, could induce reprogramming to an embryonic stem cell state.

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Progress in stem cell biology: This could change everything about the practice of medicine

Durham, NC (PRWEB) February 03, 2014

Previous studies have shown that multiple stem cell implantations might assist adults suffering from complete spinal cord injuries (SCI). Now a groundbreaking study released today in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine shows for the first time that children with SCI might benefit, too.

Marcin Majka, Ph.D., and Danuta Jarocha, Ph.D., led the study at Jagiellonian University College of Medicine in Krakow, Poland. "Although it was conducted on a small number of patients carrying a different injury level and type, preliminary results demonstrate the possibility of attaining neurological, motor and sensation and quality-of-life improvement in children with a chronic complete spinal cord injury through multiple bone marrow derived cell (BMNC) implantations. Intravenous implantations of these cells seem to prevent and/or help the healing of pressure ulcers," Dr. Majka said.

The study involved five children, ranging in age from 3 to 7, all of whom were patients at University Childrens Hospital in Krakow. Each had suffered a spinal cord injury at least six months prior to the start of the stem cell program and was showing no signs of improvement from standard treatments. The patients collectively underwent 19 implantation procedures with BM-derived cells, with every treatment cycle followed by an intensive four weeks of rehabilitation.

The children were evaluated over a one to six year period for sensation and motor improvement, muscle stiffness and bladder function. Any improvement in their quality of life was also noted, based on estimated functional recovery. Additionally, the development of neuropathic pain, secondary infections, urinary tract infections or pressure ulcers was tracked.

"Two of the five children receiving the highest number of transplantations demonstrated neurological and quality-of-life improvements," Dr. Jarocha said. "They included a girl who, before the stem cell implantations, had to be tube fed and needed a ventilator to breathe. She is now able to eat and breathe on her own."

The study also demonstrated no long-term side effects from the BMNCs, leading the researchers to conclude that single and multiple BMNCs implantations were safe for pediatric patients as well as adults.

Interestingly, when the scientists compared their study with those done on adults, the results did not suggest an advantage of the younger age. "This is somehow unexpected since the younger age should provide better ability to regenerate. Since the present study was done on a small number of patients, a larger study using the same methodology for pediatric and adult patients allowing a direct comparison should be performed to confirm or contradict the observation. Larger studies with patients segregated according to the type and level of the injury with the same infusion intervals should be performed to obtain more consistent data, too," Dr. Majka added.

"While this studys sample is small, it is the first to report the safety and feasibility of using bone marrow derived cells to treat pediatric patients with complete spinal cord injury," said Anthony Atala, M.D., editor of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. "The treatment resulted in a degree of neurological and quality-of-life improvement in the study participants."

The full article, "Preliminary study of autologous bone marrow nucleated cells transplantation in children with spinal cord injury," can be accessed at http://www.stemcellstm.com.

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First Study Tracking Stem Cell Treatments For Children With Spinal Cord Injuries Shows Potential Benefit

therapy treatment for spinal cord injury by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india
improvement seen in just 5 days after stem cell therapy treatment for spinal cord injury by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india. Stem Cell Therapy done date 7 Jan ...

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stem cell therapy treatment for traumatic brain injury by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india
improvement seen in just 5 days after stem cell therapy treatment for traumatic brain injury by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india. Stem Cell Therapy done date 7 ...

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PHOENIX, Ariz. -

Stem cell research and therapy on humans has traveled a long and often politically troubled path.

Not so for pets, where stem cell treatment has been used for nearly 10 years and now it is so routine, and so successful, it can be done in a day.

Ava is a 90 pound, 2-year-old Akita, who is about to undergo stem cell surgery. A little IV, a little anesthesia and Ava is out.

"It is used for arthritis mostly," said Dr. Velvet Edwards.

Ava is just beginning her day at Pecan Grove Veterinary Hospital in Tempe. Dr. Edwards oversees the stem cell procedure.

"Stem cells are healing cells, so they seek out area of injury damage or destruction," explained Edwards. "They accelerate healing and help the animal, the patient, the pet just use their own natural abilities to get better."

Veterinary stem cells are harvested from the animal's own fat cells. They are separated and processed by machinery right inside the vet's office and then injected back into the dog's trouble spots.

Thanks to new technology developed by Meti Vet, the process is completed in just a day.

"The pet comes in the morning, it's anesthetized and I collect about two to four grams of fat usually behind the shoulder blade," said Edwards. "Then I hand that fat over to my technicians to run it through a series of steps.. basically to dissolve the fat and get down to a little stem cell pellet... Then we take that pellet and we reconstitute it and make it injectable. I will put it back into the animal's body wherever I need it later that day."

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Newswise Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a protein critical to hematopoietic stem cell function and blood formation. The finding has potential as a new target for treating leukemia because cancer stem cells rely upon the same protein to regulate and sustain their growth.

Hematopoietic stem cells give rise to all other blood cells. Writing in the February 2, 2014 advance online issue of Nature Genetics, principal investigator Tannishtha Reya, PhD, professor in the Department of Pharmacology, and colleagues found that a protein called Lis1 fundamentally regulates asymmetric division of hematopoietic stem cells, assuring that the stem cells correctly differentiate to provide an adequate, sustained supply of new blood cells.

Asymmetric division occurs when a stem cell divides into two daughter cells of unequal inheritance: One daughter differentiates into a permanently specialized cell type while the other remains undifferentiated and capable of further divisions.

This process is very important for the proper generation of all the cells needed for the development and function of many normal tissues, said Reya. When cells divide, Lis1 controls orientation of the mitotic spindle, an apparatus of subcellular fibers that segregates chromosomes during cell division.

During division, the spindle is attached to a particular point on the cell membrane, which also determines the axis along which the cell will divide, Reya said. Because proteins are not evenly distributed throughout the cell, the axis of division, in turn, determines the types and amounts of proteins that get distributed to each daughter cell. By analogy, imagine the difference between cutting the Earth along the equator versus halving it longitudinally. In each case, the countries that wind up in the two halves are different.

When researchers deleted Lis1 from mouse hematopoietic stem cells, differentiation was radically altered. Asymmetric division increased and accelerated differentiation, resulting in an oversupply of specialized cells and an ever-diminishing reserve of undifferentiated stem cells, which eventually resulted in a bloodless mouse.

What we found was that a large part of the defect in blood formation was due to a failure of stem cells to expand, said Reya. Instead of undergoing symmetric divisions to generate two stem cell daughters, they predominantly underwent asymmetric division to generate more specialized cells. As a result, the mice were unable to generate enough stem cells to sustain blood cell production.

The scientists next looked at how cancer stem cells in mice behaved when the Lis1 signaling pathway was blocked, discovering that they too lost the ability to renew and propagate. In this sense, the effect Lis1 has on leukemic self-renewal parallels its role in normal stem cell self-renewal, Reya said.

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Purtier Placenta Stem Cell Therapy Presented By Dr. Chen
Presentasi Purtier Placenta oleh Dr. Chen Nikmati hidup bebas rasa sakit dan selalu awet muda bersama Purtier Placenta: http://www.stemcellworld.net.

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A new method of producing stem cells is being described as a "game-changing" scientific breakthrough.

It is said that the research, carried out by scientists in Japan, could hail a new era of personalised medicine, offering hope to sufferers of diseases such as stroke, heart disease and spinal cord injuries.

The scientists bathed blood cells in a weak acidic solution for half an hour, which made the adult cells shrink and go back to their embryonic stem cell state. Using this process, a patient's own specially created stem cells could then be re-injected back into the body to help mend damaged organs.

The scientists in Japan used mice in this experiment but believe the approach may also work on human cells too.

The new method - much cheaper and faster than before - is being heralded as revolutionary, and could bring stem cell therapy a step closer, and all without the controversy linked to the use of human embryos.

But there is still research that some find ethically questionable.

On Inside Story: Is the controversy over using human embryos over? And how should ethics determine medical progress?

Presenter: Shiulie Ghosh

Guests:

Dusko Ilic, a reader in Stem Cell Science at King's College London School ofMedicine

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The ethics of medical progress

The heart beats in a mouse embryo grown with stems cells made from blood.

Back in 1958, a young biologist at Cornell University made a stunning discovery.

He took a single cell from a carrot and then mixed it with some coconut milk. Days went by and the cell started dividing. Little roots formed. Stems started growing. Eventually, a whole new carrot plant rose up from the single cell.

Imagine if you could perform a similar feat with animal cells, even human cells.

A team of Japanese biologists say they've taken a big step toward doing just that, at least in mice. Instead of using coconut milk, though, the magic ingredient is something akin to lemon juice.

Biologist Haruko Obokata and her colleagues at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology say they've figured out a fast, easy way to make the most powerful cells in the world embryonic stem cells from just one blood cell.

The trick? Put white blood cells from a baby mouse in a mild acid solution, Obokata and her team report Wednesday in the journal Nature. Eventually a few stem cells emerge that can turn into any other cell in the body skin, heart, liver or neurons, you name it.

For decades, scientists have been searching for easy ways to make human embryonic stem cells. These cells hold great potential for treating diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease and diabetes.

But for a long time, human stem cells were essentially off limits for researchers because the only way to get them was by destroying human embryos.

Then in 2007, another team of scientists at the RIKEN center figured out a way to make human stem cells from skin and blood by manipulating the cell's genes.

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A Little Acid Turns Mouse Blood Into Brain, Heart And Stem ...

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Scientists were able to reprogram mature stem cells to revert back to an embryonic state, a breakthrough that could make stem cell research easier and less expensive.

In experiments that could open a new era in stem cell biology, scientists have found a cheap and easy way to reprogram mature cells from mice back into an embryonic-like state that allowed them to generate many types of tissue.

The research, described as game-changing by experts in the field, suggests human cells could in future be reprogrammed by the same technique, offering a simpler way to replace damaged cells or grow new organs for sick and injured people.

Chris Mason, chair of regenerative medicine bioprocessing at University College London, who was not involved in the work, said its approach was "the most simple, lowest-cost and quickest method" to generate so-called pluripotent cells - able to develop into many different cell types - from mature cells.

RELATED: NEW YORK DOCS' 3D-PRINTED WINDPIPE REPRESENTS FUTURE OF TRANSPLANTS

"If it works in man, this could be the game changer that ultimately makes a wide range of cell therapies available using the patient's own cells as starting material - the age of personalized medicine would have finally arrived," he said.

The experiments, reported in two papers in the journal Nature on Wednesday, involved scientists from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Japan and Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the United States.

Beginning with mature, adult cells, researchers let them multiply and then subjected them to stress "almost to the point of death", they explained, by exposing them to various events including trauma, low oxygen levels and acidic environments.

RELATED: SCIENTISTS GROW TEETH USING STEM CELLS FROM URINE

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Tissue that is typically discarded in routine hip replacement operations may offer a rich untapped source of stem cells that could be banked for later use in regenerative medicine, where patients' own cells are used to treat disease or repair failing organs.

This was the implication of a new study led by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia, published online recently in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine.

Study leader Prof. Melissa Knothe Tate and colleagues say, given the tens of thousands of hip replacements performed every year, their findings could have "profound implications" for clinical use.

Currently, to grow new bone or tissue after an infection, injury or the removal of a tumor, if the patient has not preserved stem cells in a cell bank (which is the case for the vast majority of older adults), the stem cells have to come from a donor, or the patient has to undergo surgery to have them harvested from their own bone marrow.

Prof. Knothe Tate explains how their study findings, which now need to be tested clinically, could offer a new source of stem cells for older patients:

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Stem cell source found in tissue discarded in hip replacements

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Newswise Cancer drugs that recruit antibodies from the bodys own immune system to help kill tumors have shown much promise in treating several types of cancer. However, after initial success, the tumors often return.

A new study from MIT reveals a way to combat these recurrent tumors with a drug that makes them more vulnerable to the antibody treatment. This drug, known as cyclophosphamide, is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat some cancers.

Antibody drugs work by marking tumor cells for destruction by the bodys immune system, but they have little effect on tumor cells that hide out in the bone marrow. Cyclophosphamide stimulates the immune response in bone marrow, eliminating the reservoir of cancer cells that can produce new tumors after treatment.

Were not talking about the development of a new drug, were talking about the altered use of an existing therapy, says Michael Hemann, the Eisen and Chang Career Development Associate Professor of Biology, a member of MITs Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and one of the senior authors of the study. We can operate within the context of existing treatment regimens but hopefully achieve drastic improvement in the efficacy of those regimens.

Jianzhu Chen, the Ivan R. Cottrell Professor of Immunology and a member of the Koch Institute, is also a senior author of the paper, which appears in the Jan. 30 issue of the journal Cell. The lead author is former Koch Institute postdoc Christian Pallasch, now at the University of Cologne in Germany.

Finding cancers hiding spots

Antibody-based cancer drugs are designed to bind to proteins found on the surfaces of tumor cells. Once the antibodies flag the tumor cells, immune cells called macrophages destroy them. While many antibody drugs have already been approved to treat human cancers, little is known about the best ways to deploy them, and what drugs might boost their effects, Hemann says.

Antibodies are very species-specific, so for this study, the researchers developed a strain of mice that can develop human lymphomas (cancers of white blood cells) by implanting them with human blood stem cells that are genetically programmed to become cancerous. Because these mice have a human version of cancer, they can be used to test drugs that target human tumor cells.

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New Weapon Fights Drug-Resistant Tumors

BOSTON, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Scientists have stumbled upon a simple way to create stem cells without embryos -- by bathing healthy adult cells in an acid bath for 30 minutes.

A team of researchers from Boston and Japan were able to transform mature blood cells from mice into the equivalent of stem cells by introducing them to an acidic environment. This is the first time that stem cells have been created without having to introduce outside DNA into the cells.

"The fate of adult cells can be drastically converted by exposing mature cells to an external stress or injury. This finding has the potential to reduce the need to utilize both embryonic stem cells and DNA-manipulated iPS cells," said senior author Charles Vacanti.

The latest development, published in the journal Nature, could be used to create stems cells easily and quickly. Stem cells are known to become other kinds of cells, and have the potential to regenerate injured parts of the body. Embryos are a controversial source of such cells, though more are under study, including Nobel-winning research in 2006 that showed skin cells could be genetically reprogrammed to become stem cells.

The researchers aren't sure how this happens, but have hypothesized that it could be due to hidden cell functions that are triggered by external stimuli.

Researchers are now attempting to use the same method to convert human blood cells and believe that if successful it could be used in not only regenerative treatment but cancer treatment as well.

"If we can work out the mechanisms by which differentiation states are maintained and lost, it could open up a wide range of possibilities for new research and applications using living cells," said first author Haruko Obokata, of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology.

[Brigham and Women's Hospital] [RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology] [Nature]

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Scientists find faster, easier way to create stem cells

This image from the journal Nature shows a mouse embryo formed with specially-treated cells from a newborn mouse that had been transformed into stem cells. If the same technique works for humans, it may provide a new way to grow tissue for treating illnesses like diabetes and Parkinson's disease. AP

NEW YORK -- Scientists are reporting a stem cell breakthrough using a simple lab technique that may create reprogrammed cells after dipping them in acid for under 30 minutes.

The technique turned ordinary cells from mice into stem cells, according to the surprising new study that hints at a possible new way to grow tissue for treating illnesses like diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

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Dr. Jon LaPook goes inside the trial and approval process for an experimental treatment using stem cells designed to make Multiple Sclerosis pati...

Cells from skin, muscle, fat and other tissue of newborn mice appeared to go through the same change, which could be triggered by exposing cells to any of a variety of stressful situations, researchers said.

(This) approach in the mouse is the most simple, lowest cost and quickest method to generate pluripotent cells from mature cells, professor Chris Mason, chair of regenerative medicine bioprocessing, at University College London who was not involved in the research, told The Telegraph. If it works in man, this could be the game changer that ultimately makes a wide range of cell therapies available using the patients own cells as starting material the age of personalized medicine would have finally arrived.

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Scientists in Edinburgh, Scotland, are one step closer to being able to create human tissue using a 3D printer, with stem cells as "ink." CBSNews...

Human cells are now routinely turned into so-called "iPS" stem cells. That involves reprogramming an ordinary cell by slipping genes or substances into its nucleus. The new method, in contrast, lets the cell change its own behavior after researchers have applied an external stress.

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Stem Cell Therapy - Obat segala penyakit
Stem cell therapy terbukti mampu sembuhkan kanker, stroke, diabetes, jantung, Parkinson, Alzheimer, AIDS, dll.

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Stem Cell Therapy: Non-Surgical Treatment for Neck Pain Whiplash
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Jan-2014

Contact: Tom Vasich tmvasich@uci.edu 949-824-6455 University of California - Irvine

Irvine, Calif., Jan. 30, 2014 Two UC Irvine research teams will receive $1.54 million to further studies on the fundamental structure and function of stem cells. Their work will aid efforts to treat and cure a range of ailments, from cancer to neurological diseases and injuries.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine awarded the two grants today to Lisa Flanagan and Peter Donovan of the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center as part of its basic biology awards program.

CIRM's governing board gave 27 such grants worth $27 million to 11 institutions statewide. The funded projects are considered critical to the institute's mission of investigating the underlying mechanisms of stem cell biology, cellular plasticity and cellular differentiation in order to create a foundation for future translational and clinical advances.

Today's grants bring total CIRM funding at UC Irvine to $98.8 million.

"Innovative basic research like this paves the way to better designs for the use of stem cells," said Sidney Golub, director of the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center. "Even more importantly, it can open up entirely new approaches based on a better understanding of how stem cells function."

In one project, Flanagan and her UC Irvine colleagues will utilize a $1 million grant to study what happens on the surface of early-stage neural stem cells that causes them to develop into either neurons or astrocytes different kinds of brain and spinal cord cells. In the course of this work, the team aims to uncover specific properties of human stem cells used to treat neurological diseases and injuries.

"We expect this knowledge will enhance the benefit of these cells in transplants by enabling more control over what sort of mature cells will be formed from transplanted cells," said Flanagan, an assistant professor of neurology, biomedical engineering and anatomy & neurobiology. "We hope our research will greatly improve the identification, isolation and utility of certain types of human neural stem cells."

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UC Irvine stem cell researchers awarded $1.54 million in state funding

When it comes to finding cures for heart disease scientists are working to their own beat. That's because they may have finally developed a tissue model for the human heart that can bridge the gap between animal models and human patients. These models exist for other organs, but for the heart, this has been elusive. Specifically, the researchers generated the tissue from human embryonic stem cells with the resulting muscle having significant similarities to human heart muscle. This research was published in the February 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal.

"We hope that our human engineered cardiac tissues will serve as a platform for developing reliable models of the human heart for routine laboratory use," said Kevin D. Costa, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Cardiovascular Cell and Tissue Engineering Laboratory, Cardiovascular Research Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, in New York, NY. "This could help revolutionize cardiology research by improving the ability to efficiently discover, design, develop and deliver new therapies for the treatment of heart disease, and by providing more efficient screening tools to identify and prevent cardiac side effects, ultimately leading to safer and more effective treatments for patients suffering from heart disease."

To make this advance, Costa and colleagues cultured human engineered cardiac tissue, or hECTs, for 7-10 days and they self-assembled into a long thin heart muscle strip that pulled on the end-posts and caused them to bend with each heart beat, effectively exercising the tissue throughout the culture process. These hECTs displayed spontaneous contractile activity in a rhythmic pattern of 70 beats per minute on average, similar to the human heart. They also responded to electrical stimulation. During functional analysis, some of the responses known to occur in the natural adult human heart were also elicited in hECTs through electrical and pharmacological interventions, while some paradoxical responses of hECTs more closely mimicked the immature or newborn human heart. They also found that these human engineered heart tissues were able to incorporate new genetic information carried by adenovirus.

"We've come a long way in our understanding of the human heart," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, "but we still lack an adequate tissue model which can be used to test promising therapies and model deadly diseases. This advance, if it proves successful over time, will beat anything that's currently available."

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Engineered cardiac tissue model developed to study human heart

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Jan-2014

Contact: Cody Mooneyhan cmooneyhan@faseb.org 301-634-7104 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

When it comes to finding cures for heart disease scientists are working to their own beat. That's because they may have finally developed a tissue model for the human heart that can bridge the gap between animal models and human patients. These models exist for other organs, but for the heart, this has been elusive. Specifically, the researchers generated the tissue from human embryonic stem cells with the resulting muscle having significant similarities to human heart muscle. This research was published in the February 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal.

"We hope that our human engineered cardiac tissues will serve as a platform for developing reliable models of the human heart for routine laboratory use," said Kevin D. Costa, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Cardiovascular Cell and Tissue Engineering Laboratory, Cardiovascular Research Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, in New York, NY. "This could help revolutionize cardiology research by improving the ability to efficiently discover, design, develop and deliver new therapies for the treatment of heart disease, and by providing more efficient screening tools to identify and prevent cardiac side effects, ultimately leading to safer and more effective treatments for patients suffering from heart disease."

To make this advance, Costa and colleagues cultured human engineered cardiac tissue, or hECTs, for 7-10 days and they self-assembled into a long thin heart muscle strip that pulled on the end-posts and caused them to bend with each heart beat, effectively exercising the tissue throughout the culture process. These hECTs displayed spontaneous contractile activity in a rhythmic pattern of 70 beats per minute on average, similar to the human heart. They also responded to electrical stimulation. During functional analysis, some of the responses known to occur in the natural adult human heart were also elicited in hECTs through electrical and pharmacological interventions, while some paradoxical responses of hECTs more closely mimicked the immature or newborn human heart. They also found that these human engineered heart tissues were able to incorporate new genetic information carried by adenovirus.

"We've come a long way in our understanding of the human heart," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, "but we still lack an adequate tissue model which can be used to test promising therapies and model deadly diseases. This advance, if it proves successful over time, will beat anything that's currently available."

###

Receive monthly highlights from The FASEB Journal by e-mail. Sign up at http://www.faseb.org/fjupdate.aspx. The FASEB Journal is published by the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). It is among the most cited biology journals worldwide according to the Institute for Scientific Information and has been recognized by the Special Libraries Association as one of the top 100 most influential biomedical journals of the past century.

FASEB is composed of 26 societies with more than 115,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research associations in the United States. Our mission is to advance health and welfare by promoting progress and education in biological and biomedical sciences through service to our member societies and collaborative advocacy.

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Scientists develop an engineered cardiac tissue model to study the human heart

By Amy CorderoyJan. 30, 2014, 3 a.m.

People who need hip replacements could be able to use cells taken during the procedure to help heal their damaged bones, researchers say.

People who need hip replacements could be able to use cells taken during the procedure to help heal their damaged bones, researchers say.

A ground-breaking study has found that parts usually discarded when people with arthritis have hip replacements can actually be used to collect stem cells that could help regrow bone, cartilage and fat.

Tens of thousands of Australians have hip replacements each year, with numbers rising by more than 37 per cent over the past 10 years to more than 36,500 last year.

Melissa Knothe Tate, the Paul Trainor chair of biomedical engineering at the University of NSW, said her team had shown for the first time that the previously discarded tissue has the potential to be put to good use.

"There is a lot of potential for stem cells to be used to harness the body's own healing capacity for all sorts of illnesses," she said. "Arthritis is the leading cause of disability in ageing adults and the increasing number of hip replacements opens up a new, easy way of getting stem cells."

Her international research team collected samples from the periosteum, connective tissue in the ball at the very top of the thigh bone, of four people with arthritis who had hip replacement.

"These patients are aged and they have disease, so this study was quite out of the box," Professor Knothe Tate said.

But on comparing the stem cells they derived with commercial cells taken from bone marrow they found "remarkable similarities". The cells were similar to bone marrow in terms of their ability to develop into other cells in the lab, according to the research published in Stem Cells Translational Medicine. Professor Knothe Tate said patients could potentially bank their cells for future use, to help heal bones seriously damaged by things like car accidents or cancer surgery, by wrapping them in a cover that could deliver the cells to the injured area.

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It's good to the bone: hip surgery 'waste' could become healing cells