WASHINGTON, Oct. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --Alliance Defending Freedom and the Jubilee Campaign together with Tom Hungar of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher today filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Sherley v. Sebelius, which seeks to end federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

Of the petition David Prentice, Ph.D., senior fellow for life sciences at the Family Research Council's Center for Human Life and Bioethics, made the following comments:

"Even as the Nobel Prize committee honors Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka for introducing ethical induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells to the field of medicine, the Obama administration is fighting to continue wasting taxpayer money on unethical embryonic stem cell research, which relies on the destruction of young human life. A plain reading of federal law would specifically prohibit funding of embryonic stem cell research. After years of wasting taxpayer dollars as well as lives on ethically-tainted experiments, it's time for the federal government to start putting that money into lifesaving and ethical adult stem cell research, the gold standard for patient treatments. Such research is saving thousands of lives now lives like that of Chloe Levine who beat cerebral palsy with the help of adult stem cells. Each precious life at every stage and every age deserves our respect, and we should devote our resources and time to the ethical stem cell research that has the best chance of preserving life adult stem cells.

"We are pleased to see this suit move forward, and hope that the Supreme Court will agree to its review and uphold the clear intent of federal law to protect human life from experimentation."

To watch a video about Chloe Levine and adult stem cell therapy, click here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ojjT4yRd5Es

To learn more about adult stem cells, click here : http://www.stemcellresearchfacts.org/

SOURCE Family Research Council

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FRC Supports Alliance Defending Freedom, Jubilee Campaign Cert Petition to Supreme Court on Stem Cell Funding

The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was announced on Monday. The award this year went to Sir John B. Gurdon and Dr. Shinya Yamanaka. The two men were awarded the Nobel Prize jointly, for their individual work in cloning and stem cell research.

Monday's recognition marked the awarding of the first Nobel Prize for 2012. The rest of the Nobel Prize recipients will be announced throughout the next two weeks.

Here is some of the key information regarding Gurdon and Yamanaka's work and Monday's Nobel Prize announcement.

* Yamanaka and Gurdon did not work together or present shared research, even though they both concentrate their studies on a similar area of research.

* Gurdon is actually being honored for work he did back in 1962. According to a New York Times report, he was the first person to clone an animal, a frog, opening the door to further research into stem cells and cloning.

* Gurdon was able to produce live tadpoles from the adult cells of a frog, by removing the nucleus of a frog's egg and putting the adult cells in its place.

* This "reprogramming" by Gurdon laid the groundwork for Yamanaka's work four decades later. Yamanaka's work, which dates back only six years, to 2006, focused on the mechanisms behind Gurdon's results.

* According to the Los Angeles Times, Yamanaka was sharply criticized at first for his own work, in which he sought to discover how cells are able to reprogram themselves the way that Gurdon's work first suggested that they could.

* Ultimately, Yamanaka was able to isolate just four cells that were needed in order to be able to reprogram other cells back to an embryonic state, allowing them to be manipulated into developing into any particular kind of cell that was needed. These cells have now been dubbed "induced pluripotent stem cells," or iPS cells, according to reports by CNN and other media outlets.

* Scientists are reproducing Yamanaka's technique in their own labs to be able to replicate disease cells, like those of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, in order to study them and even to test the effects of potential new treatments.

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Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine Goes to Stem Cell Researchers

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Oct 11, 2012) - Immunovative, Inc. ("IMUN" or the "Company") ( OTCBB : IMUN ) has today announced that Immunovative Therapies, Ltd. ("ITL") has been granted a U.S. Patent entitled "METHOD FOR ALLOGENEIC CELL THERAPY," which was issued September 25, 2012, under Patent No. 8,273,377. Foreign versions of this patent are pending around the world. This patent covers the proprietary method that utilizes immune cells from a normal donor to elicit an anti-tumor mechanism that mimics the Graft vs. Tumor (GVT) effect of non-myeloablative allogeneic stem cell transplants ("Mini-Transplant") without the toxicity of Graft vs. Host Disease (GVHD). Harnessing the power of the immune system to treat cancer and infectious disease has long been the goal of physicians and scientists. Unfortunately, cancer vaccines and cell immunotherapy methods have had difficulties in translating the promise of immune control into effect treatments. The most effective anti-cancer mechanism ever discovered is the GVT immune response that occurs after Mini-Transplant procedures. This mechanism can completely destroy chemotherapy-resistant metastatic cancers. Unfortunately, the clinical use of the GVT effect is severely limited due to extreme toxicity of an intimately related GVHD effect. Mini-Transplants are thus only widely used in advanced cases of leukemia, even though the GVT effect has been shown capable of killing many types of solid tumors. The separation of the beneficial GVT effect from the devastating GVHD toxicity has long been the goal of stem cell transplant scientists and is the subject of extensive research around the world.

ITL is believed to be the first to develop an immunotherapy drug product (AlloStim) which enables the harnessing of the power of the GVT mechanism without GVHD side effects. ITL calls the mechanism which enables immune-mediated tumor destruction without GVHD toxicity the "Mirror Effect." The "Mirror Effect" mechanism represents a major breakthrough for treatment of cancer and infectious disease. Early human clinical trials have produced evidence of this technology's capability to stimulate the immune systems of heavily pre-treated metastatic cancer patients to kill widely disseminated metastatic cancers. A potentially pivotal, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase II/III clinical trial in metastatic breast cancer is being prepared to document these effects in a controlled setting and determine if the immune-mediated tumor debulking provides patients with a survival advantage. This issued US Patent covers the use of intentionally mismatched, activated immune cells for treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. The patent discloses the concepts and methods related to ITL's proprietary "Mirror Effect" technology and describes its lead immunotherapy drug candidate "AlloStim." This patent also describes how AlloStim eliminates the need for a matched tissue donor and chemotherapy pre-conditioning for patients that require a bone marrow or stem cell transplant.

The newly issued patent is part of an intellectual property portfolio from ITL that includes 11 issued patents and numerous patent applications, to which IMUN has exclusive rights in the US and the rest of the world. The licensed patents cover compositions, methods of production, formulation, distribution and uses for treatment of all types of cancer and infectious diseases.

Seth M. Shaw, CEO of IMUN, stated: "The separation of the beneficial GVT effect from the devastating GVHD toxicity has been called the 'Holy Grail' of transplant research. ITL is the first to accomplish this significant scientific milestone. We are confident that ITL's extensive Intellectual Property ("IP") portfolio will provide our products with long-term market exclusivity. This patent is an important component of our growing IP estate, as the allowed claim language is very broad. We are now the exclusive allogeneic cell therapy company in the world. Our strong patent portfolio will now allow us to pursue opportunities for partnering and sub-licensing by indication and territory around the world."

Dr. Michael Har-Noy, CEO, founder of ITL and inventor of the "Mirror Effect" technology stated: "Our patent portfolio is a valuable asset as it not only protects our AlloStim and AlloVax product candidates, but also provides protection of the unique mechanism of action that enables these products to have such powerful potential to debulk treatment-resistant metastatic disease. We are continuing to invest in research activities to improve our current product candidates and develop new products and further expand our patent portfolio. With protection of the novel mechanism of action, ITL and IMUN have the basis for development of a new industry based on powerful, non-toxic immunotherapy products that can work where all current treatment options have failed."

About Immunovative, Inc.: On December 12th, 2011, Immunovative, Inc. ("IMUN") signed an exclusive License Agreement (the "License Agreement") with Immunovative Therapies, Ltd. ("ITL"). Under the terms of the License Agreement, IMUN has been granted an exclusive, worldwide license to commercialize any products covered under ITL's current issued and pending patent application portfolio, as well as the rights to any future patent applications, including improvements or modifications to the existing applications and any corresponding improvements or new versions of the existing products. Please visit IMUN's website at http://www.imun.com.

About Immunovative Therapies, Ltd.:

Immunovative Therapies, Ltd. is an Israeli biopharmaceutical company that was founded in May 2004 with financial support from the Israeli Office of the Chief Scientist. ITL is a graduate of the Misgav Venture Accelerator, a member of the world-renowned Israeli technological incubator program. The company was the Misgav Venture Accelerator's candidate for the prize for the outstanding incubator project of 2006, awarded by the Office of the Chief Scientist. ITL specializes in the development of novel immunotherapy drug products that incorporate living immune cells as the active ingredients for treatment of cancer and infectious disease. Please visit ITL's website at: http://www.immunovative.co.il

DISCLAIMER: Forward-Looking Statements: Except for statements of historical fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking statements" as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, without limitation, expectations, beliefs, plans and objectives regarding the development, use and marketability of products. Such forward-looking statements are based on present circumstances and on IMUN's predictions with respect to events that have not occurred, that may not occur, or that may occur with different consequences and timing than those now assumed or anticipated. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, and are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from the events or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include general economic and business conditions, the ability to successfully develop and market products, consumer and business consumption habits, the ability to fund operations and other factors over which IMUN has little or no control. Such forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this release, and IMUN assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Readers should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Risks, uncertainties and other factors are discussed in documents filed from time to time by IMUN with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Immunovative, Inc. Announces Issuance of U.S. Patent on Key Scientific Breakthrough

NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NeoStem, Inc. (NBS), an emerging leader in the fast growing cell therapy market, announced today that a new article published by the International Scholarly Research Network provides further evidence that AMR-001, NeoStem's lead product candidate through its Amorcyte subsidiary, appears capable of preserving heart muscle function following a large myocardial infarction. Amorcyte demonstrated in its Phase 1 trial that AMR-001 preserved heart muscle function when a therapeutic dose of cells was administered. No patient experienced a deterioration in heart muscle function who received 10 million cells or more whereas 30 to 40 percent of patients not receiving a therapeutic dose did. The new study shows that cardiac muscle function sparing effects are evident even earlier after treatment than previously shown.

The article titled "Assessment of myocardial contractile function using global and segmental circumferential strain following intracoronary stem cell infusion after myocardial infarction: MRI Feature Tracking Feasibility Study" by Sabha Bhatti, MD, et al. appears in ISRN Radiology Volume 2013, Article ID 371028 and is published online at http://www.isrn.com/journals/radiology/2013/371028. The publication by Dr. Bhatti and colleagues, including Dr. Andrew Pecora, Chief Medical Officer of NeoStem, supports the finding that AMR-001 preserves heart function. Previously, Amorcyte, a NeoStem subsidiary, showed that six months after STEMI AMR-001 improved blood flow to the heart and preserved heart muscle. By using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, specifically measuring circumferential strain of the left ventricle, the authors show that AMR-001's effects are evident by three months after STEMI.

AMR-001's angiogenic and anti-apoptotic mechanisms of action indicate that preservation of heart muscle function should start within weeks and be evident in fewer than 6 months. This publication, based on blinded analysis of Amorcyte's Phase 1 data, confirms the expected time course for AMR-001's mechanism of action. In the context of previously published results, these effects are durable.

Amorcyte is developing AMR-001, a cell therapy for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, and is enrolling patients in a Phase 2 trial to investigate AMR-001's efficacy in preserving cardiac function and preventing adverse clinical events after a large myocardial infarction.

About NeoStem, Inc.

NeoStem, Inc. continues to develop and build on its core capabilities in cell therapy, capitalizing on the paradigm shift that we see occurring in medicine. In particular, we anticipate that cell therapy will have a significant role in the fight against chronic disease and in lessening the economic burden that these diseases pose to modern society. We are emerging as a technology and market leading company in this fast developing cell therapy market. Our multi-faceted business strategy combines a state-of-the-art contract development and manufacturing subsidiary, Progenitor Cell Therapy, LLC ("PCT"), with a medically important cell therapy product development program, enabling near and long-term revenue growth opportunities. We believe this expertise and existing research capabilities and collaborations will enable us to achieve our mission of becoming a premier cell therapy company.

Our contract development and manufacturing service business supports the development of proprietary cell therapy products. NeoStem's most clinically advanced therapeutic, AMR-001, as mentioned above, is being developed at Amorcyte, LLC ("Amorcyte"), which we acquired in October 2011. Amorcyte is developing a cell therapy for the treatment of cardiovascular disease and is enrolling patients in a Phase 2 trial to investigate AMR-001's efficacy in preserving heart function after a heart attack. Athelos Corporation ("Athelos"), which is approximately 80%-owned by our subsidiary, PCT, is collaborating with Becton-Dickinson in the early clinical exploration of a T-cell therapy for autoimmune conditions. In addition, pre-clinical assets include our VSELTM Technology platform as well as our mesenchymal stem cell product candidate for regenerative medicine. Our service business and pipeline of proprietary cell therapy products work in concert, giving us a competitive advantage that we believe is unique to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Supported by an experienced scientific and business management team and a substantial intellectual property estate, we believe we are well positioned to succeed.

Forward-Looking Statements for NeoStem, Inc.

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements reflect management's current expectations, as of the date of this press release, and involve certain risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include statements herein with respect to the successful execution of the Company's business strategy, including with respect to the Company's or its partners' successful development of AMR-001 and other cell therapeutics, the size of the market for such products, its competitive position in such markets, the Company's ability to successfully penetrate such markets and the market for its CDMO business, and the efficacy of protection from its patent portfolio, as well as the future of the cell therapeutics industry in general, including the rate at which such industry may grow. Forward looking statements also include statements with respect to satisfying all conditions to closing the disposition of Erye, including receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals in the PRC. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward- looking statements as a result of various factors, including but not limited to (i) the Company's ability to manage its business despite operating losses and cash outflows, (ii) its ability to obtain sufficient capital or strategic business arrangement to fund its operations, including the clinical trials for AMR-001, (iii) successful results of the Company's clinical trials of AMR-001 and other cellular therapeutic products that may be pursued, (iv) demand for and market acceptance of AMR-001 or other cell therapies if clinical trials are successful and the Company is permitted to market such products, (v) establishment of a large global market for cellular-based products, (vi) the impact of competitive products and pricing, (vii) the impact of future scientific and medical developments, (viii) the Company's ability to obtain appropriate governmental licenses and approvals and, in general, future actions of regulatory bodies, including the FDA and foreign counterparts, (ix) reimbursement and rebate policies of government agencies and private payers, (x) the Company's ability to protect its intellectual property, (xi) the company's ability to successfully divest its interest in Erye, and (xii) matters described under the "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 20, 2012 and in the Company's other periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, all of which are available on its website. The Company does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements. The Company's further development is highly dependent on future medical and research developments and market acceptance, which is outside its control.

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NeoStem Announces New Publication That Supports Positive Results of AMR-001 for Treatment of AMI

LA JOLLA, Calif., Oct. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --New research directions are being explored to find therapies for hard to treat diseases. One exciting new approach is the use of autologous Adult Stem Cells. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is one of the many notable diseasesadult stem cell therapycould potentially impact. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a disorder in which an individual's own immune system attacks the 'myelin sheath'. The myelin sheath serves to protect the nerve cells within the body's central nervous system (CNS). The damage caused by MS may result in many types of symptoms including:

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121010/LA89802-INFO)

Currently there is no cure for MS, but MS stem cell therapiesattempt to slow the disease's progression and limit symptoms. Since adult stem cells have the ability to differentiate into many different types of cells, such as those required for proper functioning and protection of nerve cells, the use of adult stem cells for MS therapy could be of substantial value. Adult stem cells can be isolated with relative ease from an individual's own 'adipose' (fat) tissue. As a result, adult stem cell therapy is not subject to the ethical or religious issues troubling embryonic methods.

Encouragingly for MS treatment potential, scientific researchers have been studying the properties of adipose-derived stem cells. Their results from canine and equine studies suggest anti-inflammatory and regenerative roles for these stem cells. Also, further research findings suggest these adipose-derived stem cells can have specific immune-regulating properties. Markedly, clinical-based work conducted overseas has indicated that individuals suffering from MS could respond well to adipose-derived stem cell treatment, with a substantially improved quality of life.

The US based company, StemGenex, is pioneering new methods for using adipose derived adult stem cells to help in diseases with limited treatment options like MS. StemGenex has been conducting research with physicians over the last 5 years to advance adult stem cell treatment protocols for alleviating MS symptoms. StemGenex's proprietary protocol includes the use of a double activation process, which increases both the viability and the quantity of stem cells that are received in a single application.

To find out more about stem cell treatments contact StemGenex either by phone at 800.609.7795 or email at Contact@StemGenex.com.

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StemGenex™ on Adult Stem Cell-Based Therapy for Multiple Sclerosis

Kyoto University Professor Shinya Yamanaka talks with Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Nada by a mobile phone during a news conference in Kyoto, western Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo October 8, 2012.

By Tan Ee Lyn Reuters Wednesday, Oct 10, 2012

HONG KONG - The Internet is full of advertisements touting stem cell cures for just about any disease -- from diabetes, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, eye problems, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to spinal cord injuries -- in countries such as China, Mexico, India, Turkey and Russia.

Yamanaka, who shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine on Monday with John Gurdon of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, Britain, called for caution.

"This type of practice is an enormous problem, it is a threat. Many so-called stem cell therapies are being conducted without any data using animals, preclinical safety checks," said Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan.

"Patients should understand that if there are no preclinical data in the efficiency and safety of the procedure that he or she is undergoing ... it could be very dangerous," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Yamanaka and Gurdon shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery that adult cells can be transformed back into embryo-like stem cells that may one day regrow tissue in damaged brains, hearts or other organs.

"I hope patients and lay people can understand there are two kinds of stem cell therapies. One is what we are trying to establish. It is solely based on scientific data. We have been conducting preclinical work, experiments with animals, like rats and monkeys," Yamanaka said.

"Only when we confirm the safety and effectiveness of stem cell therapies with animals will we initiate clinical trials using a small number of patients."

Yamanaka, who calls the master stem cells he created "induced pluripotent stem cells" (iPS), hopes to see the first clinical trials soon.

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Nobel laureate Yamanaka warns of rogue "stemcell therapies"

A Japanese and a British scientist were awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine Monday for their groundbreaking work in turning adult cells into immature ones that might be tweaked further to treat a wide spectrum of diseases. Such research is being aggressively pursued at scientific institutions across San Diego County.

Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and John Gurdon of Great Britain showed that it is possible to alter adult cells to the point where they are very similar to human embryonic stem cells. But the process does not involved the destruction of embryos.

In essence, scientists can now take cells from, say, a person's skin and turn back the clock, making the cell essentially act as though it were new.

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute issued a statement today saying, "These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and cellular specialisation. We now understand that the mature cell does not have to be confined forever to its specialised state. Textbooks have been rewritten and new research fields have been established. By reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy.

"The discoveries of Gurdon and Yamanaka have shown that specialised cells can turn back the developmental clock under certain circumstances. Although their genome undergoes modifications during development, these modifications are not irreversible. We have obtained a new view of the development of cells and organisms.

"Research during recent years has shown that iPS cells can give rise to all the different cell types of the body. These discoveries have also provided new tools for scientists around the world and led to remarkable progress in many areas of medicine. iPS cells can also be prepared from human cells.

"For instance, skin cells can be obtained from patients with various diseases, reprogrammed, and examined in the laboratory to determine how they differ from cells of healthy individuals. Such cells constitute invaluable tools for understanding disease mechanisms and so provide new opportunities to develop medical therapies."

Gurdon -- who was working in his lab today when he learned that he'd won a Nobel -- made the initial breakthrough about 50 years ago, and Yamanaka built on that work, accelerating the process through genetic engineering.

The Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute was created in La Jolla, in part, to probe exactly this area of research.

Will La Jolla scientists win this year's Nobel Prizes?

Link:
Nobel Prize awarded for work on stem cells

Kyodo / Reuters

Kyoto University Professor Shinya Yamanaka (left) and John Gurdon of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, England, at a symposium on induced pluripotent stem cells in Tokyo in April 2008

In a testament to the revolutionary potential of the field of regenerative medicine, in which scientists are able to create and replace any cells that are at fault in disease, the Nobel Prize committee on Monday awarded the 2012 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine to two researchers whose discoveries have made such cellular alchemy possible.

The prize went to John B. Gurdon of the University of Cambridge in England, who was among the first to clone an animal, a frog, in 1962, and to Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan who in 2006 discovered the four genes necessary to reprogram an adult cell back to an embryonic state.

Sir John Gurdon, who is now a professor at an institute that bears his name, earned the ridicule of many colleagues back in the 1960s when he set out on a series of experiments to show that the development of cells could be reversed. At the time, biologists knew that all cells in an embryo had the potential to become any cell in the body, but they believed that once a developmental path was set for each cell toward becoming part of the brain, or a nerve or muscle it could not be returned to its embryonic state. The thinking was that as a cell developed, it would either shed or silence the genes it no longer used, so that it would be impossible for a cell from an adult animal, for example, to return to its embryonic state and make other cells.

(MORE: Stem Cell Miracle? New Therapies May Cure Chronic Conditions Like Alzheimers)

Working with frogs, Gurdon proved his critics wrong, showing that some reprogramming could occur. Gurdon took the DNA from a mature frogs gut cell and inserted it into an egg cell. The resulting egg, when fertilized, developed into a normal tadpole, a strong indication that the genes of the gut cell were amenable to reprogramming; they had the ability to function as more than just an intestinal cell, and could give rise to any of the cells needed to create an entirely new frog.

Just as Gurdon was facing his critics in England, a young boy was born in Osaka, Japan, who would eventually take Gurdons finding to unthinkable extremes. Initially, Shinya Yamanaka would follow his fathers wishes and become an orthopedic surgeon, but he found himself ill-suited to the surgeons life. Intrigued more by the behind-the-scenes biological processes that make the body work, he found himself drawn to basic research, and began his career by trying to find a way to lower cholesterol production. That work also wasnt successful, but it drew him to the challenge of understanding what makes cells divide, proliferate and develop in specific ways.

In 2006, while at Kyoto University, Yamanaka stunned scientists by announcing he had successfully achieved what Gurdon had with the frog cells, but without using eggs at all. Yamanaka mixed four genes in with skin cells from adult mice and turned those cells back to an embryo-like state, essentially erasing their development and turning back their clock. The four genes reactivated other genes that are prolific in the early embryo, and turned off those that directed the cells to behave like skin.

(MORE: Ovary Stem Cells Can Produce New Human Eggs)

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Stem Cell Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine

The techniques pioneered by the winners of this years Nobel Prize in medicine, John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka, have already allowed scientists to generate stem cells and clone animals.

But it is the potential these discoveries hold that truly boggles the mind. If stem cells the primitive cells that develop into tissue like skin, blood, nerves, muscle and bone can be harnessed, the belief is they can be used as a repair kit for the body.

In theory, a few skin cells could be harvested to rebuild a spinal cord damaged by trauma, to replace brain cells destroyed by dementia, to rebuild heart muscle damaged by a heart attack or to grow a new limb ravaged by diabetes. It is the stuff of science fiction, so close we can taste it.

But these dreams of miracle cures must be tempered with a strong dose of realism.

Despite billions of dollars in investment in research, from government agencies and biotech companies, there is little evidence that stem cell therapies work.

Yes, some hearing has been restored in gerbils and there have been modest improvements in paralyzed lab rats using stem cell treatments, but these are baby steps. In humans, the gains have been far more modest.

We can treat some forms of cancer, like leukemia and multiple myeloma, with stem cell transplants. But this is simply a refinement of an earlier technique, bone marrow transplant. And to perform such a transplant, the immune system must, for all intents and purposes, be destroyed a punishing regime with a significant mortality rate.

It is a far cry from the notion of an injection of magic stem cells that allow people to walk again or restore their memories.

The International Society for Stem Cell Research says that while there are hundreds of conditions that can purportedly be treated with stem cells, the treatments that have actually been shown to be beneficial are extremely limited. Aside from the cancer treatments mentioned above, some bone, skin and corneal conditions have been treated by grafting stem cells, growing them in the lab and transplanting them.

But in all these cases, the stem cells are tissue-specific, meaning the cells are carrying out a function they were designed to do. This is very different from the notion that undifferentiated stem cells can be used to treat a broad range of conditions.(And we wont delve into potential problems, such as rejection and the concern that stem cells could grow out of control and cause cancerous tumours.)

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Stem cell therapy a miracle cure? Not quite yet

ROCKVILLE, Md., Oct. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Neuralstem, Inc. (NYSE Amex: CUR) announced that Eva Feldman, MD, PhD, principal investigator of the Phase I trial to test Neuralstem's NSI-566 spinal cord stem cells in the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), updated data on the trial at the American Neurological Association annual meeting in Boston, MA, yesterday. (http://www.aneuroa.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3311). Dr. Feldman, who is President of the American Neurological Association, presented interim results on all 18 procedures in 15 patients, including the last three patients from earlier cohorts who received second procedures. The trial will conclude six months after the last patient was treated, which was in August.

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"This has been a very successful trial so far," said Dr. Feldman, Director of the A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute and Director of Research of the ALS Clinic at the University of Michigan Health System. "With the transplantation of these neural stem cells, we are exploring a paradigm shift in the treatment of ALS. We have demonstrated that intraspinal transplantation is feasible and well-tolerated. Although this phase of the trial was not powered to demonstrate efficacy, we appear to have interrupted the progression of the disease in one subgroup of patients. We are anxious to move to future trial phases to examine therapeutic efficacy." Dr. Feldman is an unpaid consultant to Neuralstem.

"The purpose of this trial was to assess the safety of both the intraspinal transplantation procedure, the first in the world, and of the cells themselves, " said Karl Johe, PhD, Chairman of the Board and Chief Scientific Officer of Neuralstem, Inc. "All assessments show both to be safe. Additionally, we believe we are seeing evidence of a treatment effect in some patients over a sustained period of time. We need now to move forward to more advanced, larger trials to increase the dosage and more effectively look at possible efficacy."

About the Trial

The Phase I trial to assess the safety of Neuralstem's NSI-566 spinal cord neural stem cells and intraspinal transplantation method in ALS patients commenced in January 2010, and consisted of 18 treatments in 15 patients. The trial was designed to follow a risk escalation paradigm. The first 12 patients were each transplanted in the lumbar (lower back) region of the spine, beginning with non-ambulatory and advancing to ambulatory cohorts.

The trial then advanced to transplantation in the cervical (upper back) region of the spine. The first cohort of three was treated in the cervical region only. In an amendment to the trial design, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the return of previously-treated patients to this cohort. Consequently, the last cohort of three patients received injections in the cervical region in addition to the lumbar injections they had received earlier. All injections delivered 100,000 cells, for a dosing range of up to 1.5 million cells. The last patient was treated in August, 2012. The entire trial concludes six months after the final surgery.

About Neuralstem

Neuralstem's patented technology enables the ability to produce neural stem cells of the human brain and spinal cord in commercial quantities, and the ability to control the differentiation of these cells constitutively into mature, physiologically relevant human neurons and glia. Neuralstem has recently treated the last patient in an FDA-approved Phase I safety clinical trial for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, and has been awarded orphan status designation by the FDA.

In addition to ALS, the company is also targeting major central nervous system conditions with its NSI-566 cell therapy platform, including spinal cord injury, ischemic stroke and glioblastoma (brain cancer). The company has submitted an IND (Investigational New Drug) application to the FDA for a Phase I safety trial in spinal cord injury.

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Dr. Eva Feldman, Principal Investigator, Updates Interim Data On Completed Neuralstem ALS Phase I Trial

ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Vanderson Rocha, M.D., Ph.D., recognizedthroughout the world as a respected leader in the field of cord blood stem cell transplantation, hasjoined the team at CORD:USE Cord Blood Bank. Dr. Rocha's extensive experience and knowledge in transplant medicine and stem cell biology will provide a significant contribution to CORD:USE. "We're excited and honored to have Dr. Rocha, an internationally acclaimed expert in cord blood stem cell transplantation, as a member of our highly esteemed team,"said Edward Guindi MD, President and CEO of CORD:USE.

Dr. Rocha is a professor of Hematology and the Director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at the University of Oxford, UK. He also serves as the Director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, Hospital Sirio Libanes and Children's Hospital of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is the Scientific Director of the Eurocord Project and is on the Editorial Board of Bone Marrow Transplantation. Dr. Rocha is an internationally renowned speaker regarding the use of unrelated and related hematopoietic stem cells in transplants. He has published more than 200 papers in the New England Journal of Medicine, Blood, Lancet, Journal of Clinical Oncology, British Journal of Hematology, and other peer reviewed publications.

Dr. Rocha continues to contribute significantly to the development and refinement of the therapeutic applications of cord blood stem cells. Due to his expertise, he was elected by the European Transplant Centers as Chairman of the Acute Leukemia Working Party of the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) from 2004 to 2010.

"I am very honored to be a member of the distinguished team at CORD:USE which includes my colleagues who are pioneers in cord blood science, banking and transplantation. I look forward to continuing to work with them to advance the use of cord blood transplantation to treat many more patients in the future," said Dr. Rocha.

Dr. Rocha joins otherhighly respected leaders and pioneers in the field of cord blood stem cell transplantation on the CORD:USE team:

About CORD:USE Cord Blood Bank, Inc.

CORD:USE operates leading public and family cord blood banks. CORD:USE Public Cord Blood Bank is one of the high quality cord blood banks selected and funded by HRSA of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help build the National Cord Blood Inventory (NCBI). CORD:USE Cord Blood Bank has entered into agreements with hospitalsacross the country to provide mothers the option to donate their babies' cord blood. CORD:USE cord blood units are listed in the NCBI through the National Marrow Donor Program's Registry and are distributed to transplanters, throughout the country and the world. CORD:USE Family Cord Blood Bank protects family banked cord blood units utilizing similar high-quality cord blood banking practices and technologies that are used in our leading public cord blood bank in its state-of-the-art laboratory. For more information, please visit our website http://www.corduse.com, or contact Michael Ernst at 407.667.3000.

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CORD:USE Cord Blood Bank is proud to announce the addition of Cord Blood Stem Cell Transplantation Expert, Dr ...

Imagine the horror of a soldier losing a limb on the battlefield, or a loved one having a body part amputated due to diabetes. But, what if they could restore their limbs by activating their stem cells?

New Mexico State University biologist Graciela Unguez and a team of researchers found that electric fish, a vertebrate animal just like humans, can regenerate their tails following amputation after activating their stem cells. The findings were published in the May 2012 edition of the scientific journal, PLOS One.

"What's surprising is that as humans, we're one of the few animal species that do not readily regenerate limbs, organs or most tissues," Unguez said. "So, there's a lot of interest in how these fish do it, and what's preventing us from doing it."

Regeneration is the process of restoring lost cells, tissues or organs. According to Unguez, most animals have the ability to regenerate eyes and tails and some animals may be able to regenerate up to half of their bodies.

The researchers discovered that when they cut off up to one third of an electric fish's tail, including the spinal cord, vertebrae, muscles, skin, connective tissues and nerves, the fish would regenerate it. Unguez said the more tissue cut off, the longer the regeneration takes, but for the purpose of her study, it takes about three weeks.

"It's really exciting to us because, here's an example of an animal that can regenerate a lot of tissue types that are also found in humans," Unguez said. "So it puts into question this previous idea that those animals that can regenerate losses of many tissues do it because they do it differently than humans."

Unguez has used the electric fish as a model system to investigate the role that the nervous system plays in the fate of electrically excitable cells like muscle cells for 15 years. She noted that for many years, scientists have thought that highly regenerative animals use a mechanism of regeneration that does not involve stem cells, and this stem cell-based mechanism is well known in humans. In contrast, the stem cell-independent mechanism found in highly regenerative animals is not normally active in humans.

Unguez explained that stem cells are a small population of cells that do not mature and stay with us throughout our life, and then when called upon, they reenter the cell cycle to become muscle cells, neurons, skill cells and such.

But, what Unguez and her collaborators discovered was the opposite. The electric fish actually activated its own muscle and electric organ stem cells to regenerate. She said the adult fish regenerated unendingly with the activation of their stem cells.

"It does not negate other mechanisms, but it definitely showed that it was largely due to an activation of stem cells, just like humans have," Unguez said. "So maybe it's not as far apart, maybe some of the mechanisms involved or the events that need to be activated are more closely related than we thought."

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Electric fish at NMSU activate stem cells for regeneration

MANCHESTER, Conn., Oct. 9, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Charter Medical, Ltd., a division of Lydall, Inc., (LDL) announced today that it has recently launched the new EXP-Pak(TM) cell expansion containers intended for the expansion and culture of non-adherent cells. The launch of this exciting new product family allows Charter Medical to provide enabling technology critical to the rapidly growing cellular therapy market. The family of closed-system cell expansion containers offers a broad size range from 500mL to 5L and end-user validated cell expansion rates and recovery.

Joe Petrosky, Vice President of Global Marketing and Sales for Charter Medical, stated, "We are excited with the launch of the EXP-Pak(TM) cell expansion product family. The EXP-Pak(TM) containers complement our closed-system solution approach and play a key role in supporting the development of new cellular therapies."

Dale Barnhart, President and CEO of Lydall, stated, "I am pleased with the launch of this product family for cellular therapy which represents a strategic growth opportunity. It further demonstrates our commitment to being the global supplier of choice as we grow our presence in this emerging segment."

About Lydall, Inc.

Lydall, Inc. is a New York Stock Exchange listed company, headquartered in Manchester, Connecticut. The Company, with operations in the U.S., France, and Germany and offices in Europe and Asia, focuses on specialty engineered products for the thermal/acoustical and filtration/separation markets. Charter Medical, Ltd., a Lydall subsidiary, is a vital fluids management company focused on providing products to separate, contain and transport vital fluids in the blood and cell therapy market and the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. Lydall(R) is a registered trademark of Lydall, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All product names are trademarks of Lydall, Inc. or Charter Medical, Ltd.

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Charter Medical Launches New EXP-Pak(TM) Cell Expansion Containers for Cellular Therapy Applications

The Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for 2012 was awarded jointly to British scientist John B. Gurdon and Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka for their work in stem cell research, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm announced Monday.

The announcement opens the prestigious award season for this year while the speculation over literature and peace prizes is rife.

"These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and specialization of cells," the Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute said in a statement on its website.

We now understand that the mature cell does not have to be confined forever to its specialized state. Textbooks have been rewritten and new research fields have been established. By reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy," the statement said.

Gurdon discovered in 1962 that the specialization of cells is reversible. Yamanaka discovered more than 40 years later in 2006 how the intact mature cells in mice could be reprogrammed to become immature stem cells. These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and cellular specialization, the institute has said.

Gurdon was born in 1933 in Dippenhall, the U.K, and received his Doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1960 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology. Gurdon is currently at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge.

Yamanaka was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1962 and received his MD in 1987 at Kobe University and was trained as an orthopedic surgeon. Yamanaka obtained his PhD at Osaka University in 1993. Yamanaka is currently Professor at Kyoto University and is also affiliated to the Gladstone Institute.

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Nobel Prize In Medicine Awarded To Stem Cell Researchers

STOCKHOLM: Scientists from Britain and Japan shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday for the discovery that adult cells can be reprogrammer back into stem cells which can turn into any kind of tissue and may one day repair damaged organs. John Gurdon, 79, of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, Britain and Shinya Yamanaka, 50, of Kyoto University in Japan, discovered ways to create tissue that would act like embryonic cells, without the need to harvest embryos. They share the $1.2 million prize equally. These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and specialization of cells, the Nobel Assembly at Stockholms Karolinska Institute said in a statement. The big hope for stem cells is that they can be used to replace damaged tissues in everything from spinal cord injuries to Parkinsons disease. All of the tissue in the body starts as stem cells, before developing into mature skin, blood, nerves, muscle and bone. Scientists once thought it was impossible to turn adult tissue back into stem cells, which meant that new stem cells could only be created by harvesting embryos. But Yamanaka and Gurdon showed that development can be reversed, turning adult cells back into cells that behave like embryos. With induced pluripotency stem cells, or iPS cells, ordinary skin or blood cells from adults are transformed back into stem cells which doctors hope will be able to repair damaged organs without being rejected by the immune system. There are concerns, however, that iPS cells could grow out of control and develop into tumors. The eventual aim is to provide replacement cells of all kinds, Gurdons Institute explains on its website. We would like to be able to find a way of obtaining spare heart or brain cells from skin or blood cells. The important point is that the replacement cells need to be from the same individual, to avoid problems of rejection and hence of the need for immunosuppression. Gurdon discovered in 1962 that the specialization of cells could be reversed. In what the prize committee called a classic experiment, he replaced the immature cell nucleus in an egg cell of a frog with the nucleus from a mature intestinal cell. This modified egg cell developed into a normal tadpole, proving that the mature cell still had all the information needed to develop all cells in the frog. More than 40 years later, in 2006, Yamanaka discovered how intact mature cells in mice could be reprogrammer to become stem cells by adding just a few genes. Thanks to these two scientists, we know now that development is not strictly a one-way street, said Thomas Perlmann, Nobel Committee member and professor of Molecular Development Biology at the Karolinska Institute. There is lot of promise and excitement, and difficult disorders such as neurodegenerative disorders, like perhaps Alzheimers and, more likely, Parkinsons disease, are very interesting targets.

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Japan, UK scientists win Nobel for stem cell breakthroughs

Yamanaka and Gurdon

Two sets of experiments, performed 40 years apart, have been recognized with today's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Cambridge University's John Gurdon won for showing that adult cells contain all the genetic information necessary to create every tissue in the body. That work set the stage for Shinya Yamanaka, who demonstrated that a relatively simple process could convert adult cells into embryonic stem cells. That development is already opening new avenues of research, and it holds the promise of new ways to repair tissues damaged by injury or disease.

As an embryo develops from a single fertilized egg, its cells become increasingly specialized. Although the initial cells can form any tissue in the body, groups of them adopt specific fates. A cell might first commit to being a neuron, after which it may be further limited to the roles required in the spinal cord, before finally specializing in the activities needed to control muscles. What doesn't seem to happen, however, is for the cell to switch developmental tracksdeveloping as, for example, a liver cell.

The apparent permanence of these fate decisions left most researchers thinking that they were in fact permanentthat the genomes of the cells undergo irreversible changes. At least in the case of immune cells, that seemed to be true: as part of generating the ability to recognize a diverse array of threats, B and T cells delete large stretches of their DNA and irreversibly commit themselves to recognizing a single threat.

But it's not true of all cells. John Gurdon performed key experiments back in the 1960s that showed how most cells maintain their general capacity to develop in any direction, although it took decades for the significance of his work to be fully appreciated. Using the eggs of a frog, Gurdon carefully removed the nucleus, which contains its genome. He then transferred in the nucleus of a specialized cell from an adult frog. If the general perception turned out to be correct, the DNA from that cell should have been permanently committed to its fate (in this case, intestine). Instead, Gurdon was able to get the hybrid cell to develop into a tadpole and, eventually, a healthy adult.

These results clearly demonstrated that adult cells contain all the genomic ingredients to make every cell in an organism. But it took time to develop the technology that took advantage of the fact. A key step in that development was honored by the Nobel Committee in 2007: the development of embryonic stem cells derived from mice. These cells, derived from early embryos, could divide indefinitely in culture without adopting any particular fate, but given the right chemical nudges, could form any type of adult cell. If injected into an early embryo, they would go on to contribute to every tissueincluding the germ cells, which allowed these cells to go from a culture dish to future generations of mice.

This work led to the controversial development of human embryonic stem cells. But it also allowed people to ask what makes an embryonic stem cell distinct. Over time, scientists created a list of a few dozen genes that were consistently active in stem cells of various types. Some of these would undoubtedly be a consequence of the cells' stem-cell-ness. But others would be responsible for putting the cells there in the first place.

Shinya Yamanaka, an MD who says he got into research because he wasn't any good at surgery, decided to find out which of this list of genes was likely to be in control. Starting with about 20 known regulatory genes on the list, he inserted groups of them into adult cells, seeing which sets could turn them into a stem cell. By process of elimination, he gradually whittled that list down to just four genes. Inserting them into an adult cell would force it to get rid of any specializations and go on to adopt a stem cell fate. Once that was done, the cells could then be induced to form any type of adult cell in culture, or be injected into an embryo and contribute to an adult.

Stem cell work in general has raised the prospect that we could repair injured or damaged tissue with newly generated cells that are just as specialized as the ones they are replacing. But Yamanaka's work has turned that prospect into a vision of on-demand tissues, generated with a simple lab procedure, and a perfect genetic match for their recipient. The cells produced with the procedure he pioneered don't seem to be an exact match for cells derived from embryos, but it appears that they may be close enough that the difference doesn't matter.

It might be hard to imagine that research could take 40 years to come to fruition. But it's widely accepted that Gurdon's work fostered a change in perspective that was necessary for people to even start thinking about the studies that eventually led to stem cell manipulations. A year ago, I spoke to Martin Evans, who was a co-winner of the 2007 prize for stem cells, and he was already describing a long line of developments that led from Gurton through his own work and that of others, and that eventually culminated in Yamanaka's experiments. Two years ago, Gurdon and Yamanaka were honored with a Lasker Prize, which often precedes Nobel status.

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A not-so-simple twist of fate: Nobel awarded for stem cell reprogramming

Reuters

This undated handout photo shows iPS cells derived from adult human dermal fibroblasts released by Kyoto University Professor Shinya Yamanaka at Center for iPS Cell Research and Application of Kyoto University in Kyoto, western Japan.

By Reuters

Scientists from Britain and Japan shared a Nobel Prize on Monday for the discovery that adult cells can be transformed back into embryo-like stem cells that may one day regrow tissue in damaged brains, hearts or other organs.

John Gurdon, 79, of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, Britain and Shinya Yamanaka, 50, of Kyoto University in Japan, discovered ways to create tissue that would act like embryonic cells, without the need to harvest embryos.

They share the $1.2 million Nobel Prize for Medicine, for work Gurdon began 50 years ago and Yamanaka capped with a 2006 experiment that transformed the field of "regenerative medicine" - the field of curing disease by regrowing healthy tissue.

"These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and specialization of cells," the Nobel Assembly at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute said.

Photoblog: Click for a close-up viiew of the Nobel Prize-winning stem cell research

All of the body's tissue starts as stem cells, before developing into skin, blood, nerves, muscle and bone. The big hope for stem cells is that they can be used to replace damaged tissue in everything from spinal cord injuries to Parkinson's disease.

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Nobel Prize awarded for stem cell breakthroughs

Shinya Yamanaka MD, PhD

Here are answers to frequently asked questions about induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, the type of cell that has been reprogrammed from an adult cell, such as a skin or blood cell.

What are induced pluripotent stem cells?

Induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, are a type of cell that has been reprogrammed from an adult cell, such as a skin or blood cell. iPS cells are pluripotent cells because, like embryonic stem cells, they can develop into virtually any type of cell. iPS cells are distinct from embryonic stem cells, however, because they are derived from adult tissue, rather than from embryos. iPS cells are also distinct from adult stem cells, which naturally occur in small numbers in thehuman body.

In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka developed the method for inducing skin cells from mice into becoming like pluripotent stem cells and called them iPS cells. In 2007, Yamanaka did the same with adult human skin cells.

Yamanakas experiments revealed that adult skin cells, when treated with four pieces of DNA (now called the Yamanaka factors), can induce skin cells to revert back to their pluripotent state. His discovery has since led to a variety of methods for reprogramming adult cells into stem cells that can become virtually any cell type such as a beating heart cell or a neuron that can transmit chemical signals in the brain. This allows researchers to create patient-specific celllines that can be studied and used in everything from drug therapies to regenerative medicine.

How are iPS cells different from embryonic stem cells?

iPS cells are a promising alternative to embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells hold tremendous potential for regenerative medicine, in which damaged organs and tissues could be replaced or repaired. But the use of embryonic stem cells has long been controversial. iPS cells hold the same sort of promise but avoid controversy because they do not require the destruction of human embryos. Nor do they require the harvesting of adult stem cells. Rather, they simply require a small tissue sample from a living human.

Why is iPS cell technology so important?

In addition to avoiding the controversial use of embryonic stem cells, iPS cell technology also represents an entirely new platform for fundamental studies of human disease. Rather than using models made in yeast, flies or mice for disease research, iPS cell technology allows human stem cells to be created from patients with a specific disease. As a result, the iPS cells contain a complete set of the genes that resulted in that disease and thus represent the potential of a farsuperior human model for studying disease and testing new drugs and treatments. In the future, iPS cells could be used in a Petri dish to test both drug safety andefficacy for an individual patient.

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Stem Cell Science Q & A

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Scientists from Britain and Japan shared a Nobel Prize on Monday for the discovery that adult cells can be transformed back into embryo-like stem cells that may one day regrow tissue in damaged brains, hearts or other organs.

John Gurdon, 79, of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, Britain and Shinya Yamanaka, 50, of Kyoto University in Japan, discovered ways to create tissue that would act like embryonic cells, without the need to collect the cells from embryos.

They share the $1.2 million Nobel Prize for Medicine, for work Gurdon began 50 years ago and Yamanaka capped with a 2006 experiment that transformed the field of "regenerative medicine" - the search for ways to cure disease by growing healthy tissue.

"These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and specialisation of cells," the Nobel Assembly at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute said.

All of the body starts as stem cells, before developing into tissue like skin, blood, nerves, muscle and bone. The big hope is that stem cells can grow to replace damaged tissue in cases from spinal cord injuries to Parkinson's disease.

Scientists once thought it was impossible to turn adult tissue back into stem cells. That meant new stem cells could only be created by taking them from embryos, which raised ethical objections that led to research bans in some countries.

As far back as 1962 Gurdon became the first scientist to clone an animal, making a healthy tadpole from the egg of a frog with DNA from another tadpole's intestinal cell. That showed that developed cells carry the information to make every cell in the body - decades before other scientists made world headlines by cloning the first mammal from adult DNA, Dolly the sheep.

More than 40 years later, Yamanaka produced mouse stem cells from adult mouse skin cells by inserting a small number of genes. His breakthrough effectively showed that the development that takes place in adult tissue could be reversed, turning adult tissue back into cells that behave like embryos.

Stem cells created from adult tissue are known as "induced pluripotency stem cells", or iPS cells. Because patients may one day be treated with stem cells from their own tissue, their bodies might be less likely to reject them.

"The eventual aim is to provide replacement cells of all kinds," Gurdon's institute explains on its website.

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UK, Japan scientists win Nobel for adult stem cell discovery

AFP/Getty Images

John B. Gurdon (left) and Shinya Yamanaka will share the prize, worth about $1.2 million.

The two scientists who won this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine discovered that cells in our body have the remarkable ability to reinvent themselves. They found that every cell in the human body, from our skin and bones to our heart and brain, can be coaxed into forming any other cell.

The process is called reprogramming, and its potential for new drugs and therapies is vast. If neurons or heart cells are damaged by disease or aging, then cells from the skin or blood potentially could be induced to reprogram themselves and repair the damaged tissue.

The winners John Gurdon of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, England, and Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan and the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco made their discoveries more than 40 years apart.

In 1962, Gurdon proved that a cell from a frog's stomach contained the entire blueprint to make a whole frog. When he took the cell's nucleus and popped it into a frog egg, the egg developed into a normal frog.

This method eventually was used to clone all sorts of animals, including cats, dogs, horses and, most famously, Dolly the sheep the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. Gurdon, 79, continues to study reprogramming and was working in his lab when he received the call from the Nobel committee.

But a major obstacle stood in the way of further development of these stem cells: Getting the frog's stomach cell to strip away its specialization and turn into one of the 200 or so cell types known to exist in animals always required the use of an egg.

A question hung over the field for decades: Could a specialized cell reprogram itself all on its own?

In 2006, Yamanaka and graduate student Kazutoshi Takahashi found the answer, and it sent shockwaves through biology and medicine. They demonstrated that any cell could be reset and induced to develop into another cell type. And, even more remarkably, that it took little to get the job done.

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Nobel Winners Unlocked Cells' Unlimited Potential