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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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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
An informative guide to how Platelet Rich Plasma can heal the tough minority of whiplash cases where traditional treatments do not offer significant relief. For more information, visit http://www.stemcell...

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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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The above story is based on materials provided by Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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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

The development of human embryonic stem cells, which have the ability to form any cell in the body, may enable us to repair tissues damaged by injury or disease. Initially, these cells could only be obtained through methods that some deemed ethically unacceptable, but researchers eventually developed a combination of genes that could reprogram most cells into an embryonic-like state. That worked great for studies, but wasn't going to work for medical uses, since one of the genes involved has been associated with cancer.

Researchers have since been focusing on whittling down the requirements needed for getting a cell to behave like a stem cell. Now, researchers have figured out a radically simplified process: expose the cells to acidic conditions, then put them in conditions that stem cells grow well in. After a week, it's possible to direct these cells into a state that's even more flexible than embryonic stem cells.

The catalyst for this work is rather unusual. The researchers were motivated by something that works in plants: expose individual plant cells to acidic conditions, grow them in hormones that normally direct plant development, and you can get a whole plant back out. But we're talking about plants here, which evolved with multicellularity and with specialized tissues in a lineage that's completely separate from that of animals. So there's absolutely no reason to suspect that animal cells would react in a similar way to acid treatmentand a number of reasons to expect they wouldn't.

And yet the researchers went ahead and tried anyway. And, amazingly, it worked.

The treatments weren't especially harshonly a half-hour in a pH of 5.45.8. Afterward, the cells were placed in the same culture medium that stem cells are grown in. Many of the cells died, and the ones that were left didn't proliferate like stem cells do. But, over the course of a week, the surviving cells began to activate the genes that are normally expressed by stem cells. This was initially tried with precursors to blood cells, but it turned out to work with a huge variety of tissues: brain, skin, muscle, fat, bone marrow, lung, and liver (all of them obtained from micethis hasn't been tried with human cells yet).

While these cells didn't divide like stem cells, they did behave like them. Injecting them into embryos showed that they were incorporated into every tissue in the body, meaning they had the potential to form any cell. That suggests they are a distinct class of cell from the other ones we're aware of (the researchers call them STAP cells).

But, if they don't grow in culture, it's hard to use or study them. So, the authors tried various combinations of hormones and growth factors that stem cells like. One combination got some of the STAP cells to grow, after which they behaved very much like embryonic stem cells. But a second combination of growth factors got the cells to contribute to non-embryonic tissues, like the placenta, as well. So, in this sense, they seem to be even more flexible than embryonic stem cells, and seem more akin to one of the first cells formed after fertilization.

The people behind this development have done a tremendous amount of work, so much that it was spread across two papers. Still, like many good results, it raises lots of other questions. Many cells in our bodies get exposed to acidic conditions every daywhy do those manage to stably maintain their identity? A related question is what goes on at a molecular level inside the cell after acid treatment. Understanding that will help us learn more about the stem cell fate itself.

And then there are the practical questions. How close are these STAP cells to an actual embryonic cell, in terms of the state of its DNA and gene expression? And, if there are differences, are they significant enough to prevent these cells from being used in safe and efficient medical treatments?

January 30, 2014. DOI: 10.1038/nature12968, 10.1038/nature12969 (About DOIs).

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Acid bath turns cells from any tissue into stem cells

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say they used epithelial stem cells to regenerate different cell types of human skin and hair follicles that may help those going bald.

Dr. Xiaowei "George" Xu, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and dermatology at the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said they started with human skin cells called dermal fibroblasts.

By adding three genes, they converted those cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, which have the capability to differentiate into any cell types in the body. They then converted the induced pluripotent stem cells into epithelial stem cells, normally found at the bulge of hair follicles.

Starting with procedures other research teams had previously worked out to convert induced pluripotent stem cells into keratinocytes, Xu's team demonstrated that by carefully controlling the timing of the growth factors the cells received, they could force the induced pluripotent stem cells to generate large numbers of epithelial stem cells.

The team succeeded in turning more than 25 percent of the induced pluripotent stem cells into epithelial stem cells in 18 days.

Those cells were then purified using the proteins they expressed on their surfaces.

"This is the first time anyone has made scalable amounts of epithelial stem cells that are capable of generating the epithelial component of hair follicles," Xu said in a statement. "And those cells have many potential applications including wound healing, cosmetics and hair regeneration."

The findings were published in Nature Communications.

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Hair-follicle generating stem cells may help with baldness

WASHINGTON: In a breakthrough, scientists claim to have successfully transformed human skin cells into hair-follicle-generating stem cells for the first time.

Xiaowei "George" Xu from the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues have found a method for converting adult cells into epithelial stem cells (EpSCs), the first time anyone has achieved this in either humans or mice.

The epithelial stem cells, when implanted into immunocompromised mice, regenerated the different cell types of human skin and hair follicles, and even produced structurally recognizable hair shaft, raising the possibility that they may eventually enable hair regeneration in people.

Xu and his team started with human skin cells called dermal fibroblasts. By adding three genes, they converted those cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which have the capability to differentiate into any cell types in the body. They then converted the iPS cells into epithelial stem cells, normally found at the bulge of hair follicles.

The team demonstrated that by carefully controlling the timing of the growth factors the cells received, they could force the iPSCs to generate large numbers of epithelial stem cells.

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Human skin cells help regrow hair in mice

Mouse cells exposed to an acidic environment turned into embryonic-like "STAP" cells. These were used to generate an entire fetus.

A simple lab treatment can turn ordinary cells from mice into a new kind of stem cell, according to a surprising study that hints at a new way to grow tissue for treating illnesses like diabetes and Parkinsons disease.

Researchers in Boston and Japan exposed spleen cells from newborn mice to an acidic environment. In lab tests, that made the cells act like embryonic stem cells, showing enough versatility to produce the tissues of a mouse embryo, for example.

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

Its very simple to do. I think you could do this actually in a college lab, said Dr. Charles Vacanti of Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, an author of two papers published online Wednesday by the journal Nature. They can be found here and here.

If it works in humans, the method could improve upon an existing method of generating artificial embryonic stem cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells. These IPS cells can be made from patients, then turned into the needed cells, reducing the possibility of transplant rejection. Pluripotent is a term for cells that act like embryonic stem cells, which can turn into nearly any tissue of the body, except for placental tissues.

In San Diego, scientists led by The Scripps Research Institutes Jeanne Loring propose to treat Parkinsons disease patients with brain cells generated from their own IPS cells. Because these cells arent taken from human embryos, they dont raise the ethical concerns some have with using embryonic stem cells.

However induced pluripotent stem cells are made by reprogramming ordinary cells with added genes or chemicals, which raises concerns about safety. The new method, in contrast, causes the cell to change its own behavior after researchers have applied an external stress. The actual DNA sequence is unaltered, creating a change that is epigenetic, or taking place outside the genome. Researchers dubbed the new cells STAP cells, for stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency.

This is part of a shift in our view of pluripotency, Loring said by email. Eight years ago we thought that cells were stable -- whatever they are, they stay that way. Now, were thinking in terms of how powerful epigenetics is -- that we can change cell fate without changing their DNA.

Loring said it will take years to apply the new method for human therapy.

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New stem cell may aid medicine

Nicolo' Minerbi / LUZphoto / eyevine

Mauro Ferrari, who heads the Institute for Academic Medicine at the Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas, is the Italian government's nominee to chair a committee on the controversial Stamina Foundation.

Top scientists in Italy have called on the health minister Beatrice Lorenzin to reconsider the composition of the new scientific advisory committee she has proposed to assess a controversial stem-cell therapy offered by the Stamina Foundation.

Their move follows a renewed media frenzy around the affair, prompted by statements made to the press and television by the committees proposed president, Mauro Ferrari, shortly after he was nominated on 28 December.

The Stamina therapy, which has not been scientifically proven to be effective in a clinical trial, involves extracting mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow of a patient, manipulating them and then reinjecting them into the same patients blood or spinal fluid. Stamina, based in Brescia, has already treated more than 80 patients for a wide range of serious diseases.

Stamina's practices have been widely criticized by experts both in Italy and outside, and the first government-appointed scientific committee to rule on Stamina prepared a detailed report describing the Stamina protocol as without a scientific basis, ineffective and dangerous. However, a regional court declared that committee unlawfully biased on 4 December. But after that committee's report was leaked to the press on 20 December (see 'Leaked files slam stem-cell therapy'), many families of patients who claim to have been damaged by the therapy announced that they had brought charges for damages against Stamina and its president Davide Vannoni. Both have denied any wrongdoing.

In response to the court findings, minister Lorenzin nominated Ferrari to chair a new committee. Ferrari, who heads the Institute for Academic Medicine at the Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas, told journalists that he was neither for nor against the Stamina method.

However on the 22 January episode of a widely viewed television show, Le iene, Ferrari said he thought Stamina offered Italy the opportunity to take a world lead in bringing experimental therapies into the clinic. He also referred to Stamina as the first important case for regenerative medicine here in Italy, a statement that has incensed some Italian researchers.

Michele de Luca, a stem-cell biologist from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia says that Ferrari's assertions were an insult to the many scientists in Italy working on translating stem-cell research into new clinical applications. In particular, De Luca's own group was the first in the world to cure a form of blindness with a stem-cell therapy they developed, he points out.

In a letter dated 26 January, which was seen by Nature, four influential clinical scientists say that they were extremely worried by Ferrari's televised statements. The signatories were Silvio Garattini, head of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan; Giuseppe Remuzzi, head of the Mario Negri Institute in Bergamo; Gianluca Vago, rector of the University of Milan; and Alberto Zangrillo, vice-rector for clinical activities at the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele in Milan.

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Row over controversial stem-cell procedure flares up again