StemCell Therapy

ScienceDaily (Mar. 26, 2012) A breakthrough using cutting-edge stem cell research could speed up the discovery of new treatments for motor neuron disease (MND).

The international research team has created motor neurons using skin cells from a patient with an inherited form of MND.

Role of protein

Using patient stem cells to model MND in a dish offers untold possibilities for how we study the cause of this terrible disease as well as accelerating drug discovery by providing a cost-effective way to test many thousands of potential treatments said Professor Siddharthan Chandran, Director of the University's Euan MacDonald Centre for MND Research.

The study discovered that abnormalities of a protein called TDP-43, implicated in more than 90 per cent of cases of MND, resulted in the death of motor neuron cells.

This is the first time that scientists have been able to see the direct effect of abnormal TDP-43 on human motor neurons.

The study, led by the University of Edinburgh's Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neuron Disease Research, was carried out in partnership with King's College London, Columbia University, New York and the University of San Francisco.

Motor neuron disease

MND is a devastating, untreatable and ultimately fatal condition that results from progressive loss of the motor nerves -- motor neurons -- that control movement, speech and breathing.

The study, funded by the MND Association, is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The rest is here:
Stem cell study aids quest for motor neuron disease therapies

Public release date: 26-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Tara Womersley tara.womersley@ed.ac.uk 44-131-650-9836 University of Edinburgh

A breakthrough using cutting-edge stem cell research could speed up the discovery of new treatments for motor neurone disease (MND).

The international research team has created motor neurones using skin cells from a patient with an inherited form of MND.

The study discovered that abnormalities of a protein called TDP-43, implicated in more than 90 per cent of cases of MND, resulted in the death of motor neurone cells.

This is the first time that scientists have been able to see the direct effect of abnormal TDP-43 on human motor neurons.

The study, led by the University of Edinburgh's Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neurone Disease Research, was carried out in partnership with King's College London, Colombia University, New York and the University of San Francisco.

MND is a devastating, untreatable and ultimately fatal condition that results from progressive loss of the motor nerves motor neurones that control movement, speech and breathing.

Professor Siddharthan Chandran, of the University of Edinburgh, said: "Using patient stem cells to model MND in a dish offers untold possibilities for how we study the cause of this terrible disease as well as accelerating drug discovery by providing a cost-effective way to test many thousands of potential treatments."

The study, funded by the MND Association, is published in the journal PNAS

Link:
Stem cell study aids quest for motor neurone disease therapies

A local toddler with a very rare disease has begun a long recovery in Penn State Hershey Childrens Hospital after chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant.

Chevy Hockenberry, the 23-month-old son of Lance Hockenberry and Melissa Johnson of Mercersburg, suffers from Hurlers syndrome, a rare inherited genetic disorder that if left untreated, causes death within five years.

People with Hurlers syndrome do not produce lysosomal alpha-L-iduronidase, an enzyme that helps break down long chains of sugar molecules. The long sugar chains build up in the body, damage internal organs and eventually lead to death.

The transplant

Chevy was diagnosed with Hurlers in January, but his symptoms started showing up long before that.

He was always sick, Johnson said by phone from Hershey. Chevy was always in and out of the hospital and had developed pneumonia and mild scoliosis.

Once he was diagnosed, the only treatment option for was a stem cell transplant.

Its not curable, Johnson said. But the stem cell transplant stops the progression.

The stem cells came from donated umbilical cords and Chevys parents because they are both carriers of Hurlers.

Chevy had multiple weeks of enzymes infusion followed by nine days of chemotherapy before the stem cell transplant.

See more here:
Chevy Hockenberry, Mercersburg, gets stem cell transplant at Hershey

Public release date: 22-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Vanessa Wasta wasta@jhmi.edu 410-614-2916 Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions

Experimenting with cells in culture, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have breathed possible new life into two drugs once considered too toxic for human cancer treatment. The drugs, azacitidine (AZA) and decitabine (DAC), are epigenetic-targeted drugs and work to correct cancer-causing alterations that modify DNA.

The researchers said the drugs also were found to take aim at a small but dangerous subpopulation of self-renewing cells, sometimes referred to as cancer stem cells, which evade most cancer drugs and cause recurrence and spread.

In a report published in the March 20, 2012, issue of Cancer Cell, the Johns Hopkins team said their study provides evidence that low doses of the drugs tested on cell cultures cause antitumor responses in breast, lung, and colon cancers.

Conventional chemotherapy agents work by indiscriminately poisoning and killing rapidly-dividing cells, including cancer cells, by damaging cellular machinery and DNA. "In contrast, low doses of AZA and DAC may re-activate genes that stop cancer growth without causing immediate cell-killing or DNA damage," says Stephen Baylin, M.D., Ludwig Professor of Oncology and deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.

Many cancer experts had abandoned AZA and DAC for the treatment of common cancers, according to the researchers, because they are toxic to normal cells at standard high doses, and there was little research showing how they might work for cancer in general. Baylin and his colleague Cynthia Zahnow, Ph.D., decided to take another look at the drugs after low doses of the drugs showed a benefit in patients with a pre-leukemic disorder called myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Johns Hopkins investigators also showed benefit of low doses of the drugs in tests with a small number of advanced lung cancer patients. "This is contrary to the way we usually do things in cancer research," says Baylin, noting that "typically, we start in the laboratory and progress to clinical trials. In this case, we saw results in clinical trials that made us go back to the laboratory to figure out how to move the therapy forward."

For the research, Baylin and Zahnow's team worked with leukemia, breast, and other cancer cell lines and human tumor samples using the lowest possible doses that were effective against the cancers. In all, the investigators studied six leukemia cell lines, seven leukemia patient samples, three breast cancer cell lines, seven breast tumor samples (including four samples of tumors that had spread to the lung), one lung cancer tumor sample, and one colon cancer tumor sample. The team treated cell lines and tumor cells with low-dose AZA and DAC in culture for three days and allowed the drug-treated cells to rest for a week. Treated cells and tumor samples were then transplanted into mice where the researchers observed continued antitumor responses for up to 20 weeks. This extended response was in line with observations in some MDS patients who continued to have anticancer effects long after stopping the drug.

The low-dose therapy reversed cancer cell gene pathways, including those controlling cell cycle, cell repair, cell maturation, cell differentiation, immune cell interaction, and cell death. Effects varied among individual tumor cells, but the scientists generally saw that cancer cells reverted to a more normal state and eventually died. These results were caused, in part, by alteration of the epigenetic, or chemical environment, of DNA. Epigenetic activities turn on certain genes and block others, says Zahnow, assistant professor of oncology and the Evelyn Grolman Glick Scholar at Johns Hopkins.

The research team also tested AZA and DAC's effect on a type of metastatic breast cancer cell thought to drive cancer growth and resist standard therapies. Metastatic cells are difficult to study in standard laboratory tumor models, because they tend to break away from the original tumor and float around in blood and lymph fluids. The Johns Hopkins team re-created the metastatic stem cells' environment, allowing them to grow as floating spheres. "These cells were growing well as spheres in suspension, but when we treated the cells with AZA, both the size and number of spheres were dramatically reduced," says Zahnow.

Visit link:
Scientists reprogram cancer cells with low doses of epigenetic drugs

March 21, 2012|8:48 am

Case in point: StemCells, Inc. just put out a news release for investors in which they announced their latest money-making opportunity using the brains from aborted babies for research.

Of course they don't call the brains "brains," nor do they mention that the organs were part of a baby once residing safely in a mother's womb. Rather, they label the material proprietary HuCNS-SC, or "purified human neural stem cells." (Both of which sound far more appealing than "the brain we just removed from the child the doctor killed and threw away.")

And since StemCells, Inc. has already received the approval of President Obama's Food and Drug Administration for this research, it's off to the races.

According to StemCells, Inc. CEO Martin McGlynn:

With the approval of this trial, we have accomplished something truly unique in the stem cell field, which is the extension of clinical testing of our proprietary human neural stem cell platform to all three elements of the central nervous system: the brain, spinal cord and eye. The preclinical data supporting our IND is particularly compelling and we look forward to getting this trial underway.

Like us on Facebook

And Stephen Huhn, MD, vice president of the program at StemCells, Inc., was elated: "We have published the preclinical evidence demonstrating that our human neural stem cells might offer a safe, effective and simple approach to treating AMD and other retinal diseases."

In other words, taking the brains out of one person and injecting them into another may actually help the second to see better. Of course, the side effects for the person forced to donate the brain are horrific, but there's money to be made.

As Scott Fischbach, the director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life points out, the babies being sacrificed for this purpose are 10 to 20 weeks old, "with visible fingers, toes and ears." This means "developing human beings in the womb are treated simply as raw material for laboratory experimentation by StemCells Inc. and other companies seeking to monetize aborted unborn children."

See the article here:
Post-Abortion Baby Parts Now a Booming Business

A special dog used to help people is getting some much-needed help of her own at a Virginia clinic.

Red, a 12-year-old black Labrador, is one of the last surviving search-and-rescue dogs deployed during the 9/11 attacks, Fox affiliate WTTG-TV reported.

Her handler, Heather Roche, told the station that Red was recently certified when the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, occurred, saying the search-and-rescue operation that followed was her first big mission.

Red's job was to find DNA evidence at the Pentagon's north parking lot with 26 other dogs, according to Roche, who said she did a "fantastic job."

"I got her as a puppy ... You have to convince [her] everything that she does, whether it's climbing ladders or any kind of search, that it's her idea," Roche told WTTG. "No matter what I've asked her to do, she's done it and she's done it flawlessly."

But in her old age, Red developed crippling arthritis and underwent stem cell regenerative therapy Monday to help ease her pain so she can get back out on the job.

Dr. John Herrity of Burke Animal Clinic in Burke, Va., told the station that "Red has a back issue that, after a fall from a ladder, has not really been right, and has been living in pain, so we're going to give those stem cells IV [intravenously] and then also inject them along the back to try to help Red's comfort."

"She's had a great career and has made a difference to a lot of families by bringing their loved ones home," Roche said.

Click for more on this story from MyFoxDC.com

Continued here:
A Chance to Ease the Pain Of a Rescue Hero of 9/11

Washington, Mar 16 (ANI): A special type of brain cell forged from stem cells could help restore the muscle coordination deficits that cause the uncontrollable spasms characteristic of Huntington's disease, a new study has suggested.

Huntington's disease, the debilitating congenital neurological disorder that progressively robs patients of muscle coordination and cognitive ability, is a condition without effective treatment, a slow death sentence.

"This is really something unexpected," said Su-Chun Zhang, a University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist and the senior author of the new study, which showed that locomotion could be restored in mice with a Huntington's-like condition.

Zhang is an expert at making different types of brain cells from human embryonic or induced pluripotent stem cells.

In the new study, his group focused on what are known as GABA neurons, cells whose degradation is responsible for disruption of a key neural circuit and loss of motor function in Huntington's patients.

GABA neurons, Zhang explained, produce a key neurotransmitter, a chemical that helps underpin the communication network in the brain that coordinates movement.

In the laboratory, Zhang and his colleagues at the UW-Madison Waisman Center have learned how to make large amounts of GABA neurons from human embryonic stem cells, which they sought to test in a mouse model of Huntington's disease.

The goal of the study, Zhang noted, was simply to see if the cells would safely integrate into the mouse brain.

To their astonishment, the cells not only integrated but also project to the right target and effectively re-established the broken communication network, restoring motor function.

The results of the study were surprising, Zhang explained, because GABA neurons reside in one part of the brain, the basal ganglia, which plays a key role in voluntary motor coordination.

Excerpt from:
'Forged' brain cells offers hope for Huntington's disease treatment

Public release date: 15-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Su-Chun Zhang zhang@waisman.wisc.edu 608-265-2543 University of Wisconsin-Madison

MADISON -- Huntington's disease, the debilitating congenital neurological disorder that progressively robs patients of muscle coordination and cognitive ability, is a condition without effective treatment, a slow death sentence.

But if researchers can build on new research reported this week (March 15, 2012) in the journal Cell Stem Cell, a special type of brain cell forged from stem cells could help restore the muscle coordination deficits that cause the uncontrollable spasms characteristic of the disease.

"This is really something unexpected," says Su-Chun Zhang, a University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist and the senior author of the new study, which showed that locomotion could be restored in mice with a Huntington's-like condition.

Zhang is an expert at making different types of brain cells from human embryonic or induced pluripotent stem cells. In the new study, his group focused on what are known as GABA neurons, cells whose degradation is responsible for disruption of a key neural circuit and loss of motor function in Huntington's patients. GABA neurons, Zhang explains, produce a key neurotransmitter, a chemical that helps underpin the communication network in the brain that coordinates movement.

In the laboratory, Zhang and his colleagues at the UW-Madison Waisman Center have learned how to make large amounts of GABA neurons from human embryonic stem cells, which they sought to test in a mouse model of Huntington's disease. The goal of the study, Zhang notes, was simply to see if the cells would safely integrate into the mouse brain. To their astonishment, the cells not only integrated but also project to the right target and effectively reestablished the broken communication network, restoring motor function.

The results of the study were surprising, Zhang explains, because GABA neurons reside in one part of the brain, the basal ganglia, which plays a key role in voluntary motor coordination. But the GABA neurons exert their influence at a distance on cells in the midbrain through the circuit fueled by the GABA neuron chemical neurotransmitter.

"This circuitry is essential for motor coordination," Zhang says, "and it is what is broken in Huntington patients. The GABA neurons exert their influence at a distance through this circuit. Their cell targets are far away."

That the transplanted cells could effectively reestablish the circuit was completely unexpected: "Many in the field feel that successful cell transplants would be impossible because it would require rebuilding the circuitry. But what we've shown is that the GABA neurons can remake the circuitry and produce the right neurotransmitter."

Read the original post:
Stem cells hint at potential treatment for Huntington's Disease

TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Orgenesis Inc., (OTCBB: ORGS) (the Company) announced today that pursuant to a licensing agreement dated February 2, 2012 with Tel Hashomer - Medical Research, Infrastructure and Services Ltd. ("Tel Hashomer" or "THM), the Company has an exclusive license to develop and commercialize THM's rights in functional autologous insulin producing cells (AIPC) regeneration technology.

This licensed portfolio is based on the groundbreaking work and two decades of research by the world renowned researcher, Prof. Sarah Ferber conducted at Tel Hashomer.

For the last thirteen years, Prof. Sarah Ferber, Ph.D in Medical Science, the head of the Molecular Endocrinology research unit at theCenter forRegenerative Medicine, Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering, Tel Hashomer, has been developing this unique technology, which seeks to substitute malfunctioning organs with new functional tissues created from the patient's own existing organs. This technology employs a molecular and cellular approach directed at converting liver cells into functional insulin producing cells as a treatment for diabetes.

Prof. Ferber's work has been published in the most highly regarded scientific journals such as Nature Medicine, JBC, PNAS, Hepatology, Journal of Autoimmunity and more. It is the Companys current intention to bring this technology to the clinical stage.

Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a metabolic disorder resulting in abnormally high blood sugar levels (hyperglycemia) following impaired insulin production by the pancreatic islets' beta cells, which sometimes leads to severe secondary complications such as myocardial infarcts, limb amputations, neuropathies and nephropathies and, in certain circumstances, even death. Currently, the major available treatment modality for an insulin depended diabetes mellitus (IDDM) patient is insulin infusion (injection, pumps or patches). However, the Company believes that these treatments may not prevent, or delay long enough, disease related complications.

A promising therapeutic approach known as pancreatic islet transplantation has been developed as an alternative to insulin injections. Worldwide, there are currently over twenty clinical centers performing pancreatic islet transplantations that are facing formidable obstacles, including a dire shortage of donor insulin producing cells to treat the expanding number of patients with the disease. Furthermore, such transplants require immunosuppressive drugs that may harm the patients and the transplanted cells.

Prof. Ferber states: It is commonly acceptable that the ideal therapy for an IDDM patient is beta cell replacement. I believe that there are three essential steps towards developing a curative treatment:

1) a source of beta cells must be identified;

2) the immune system must be convinced not to attack those cells; and

Read the original here:
Orgenesis Inc. Announces Definitive Agreement to Acquire Autologous Insulin Producing Cells (AIPC) Regeneration ...

Public release date: 12-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Kim Irwin kirwin@mednet.ucla.edu 310-206-2805 University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences

Researchers at the UCLA stem cell center and the departments of chemistry and biochemistry and pathology and laboratory medicine have identified, for the first time, a generic way to correct mutations in human mitochondrial DNA by targeting corrective RNAs, a finding with implications for treating a host of mitochondrial diseases.

Mutations in the human mitochondrial genome are implicated in neuromuscular diseases, metabolic defects and aging. There currently are no methods to successfully repair or compensate for these mutations, said study co-senior author Dr. Michael Teitell, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and a researcher with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA.

Between 1,000 and 4,000 children per year in the United States are born with a mitochondrial disease and up to one in 4,000 children in the U.S. will develop a mitochondrial disease by the age of 10, according to Mito Action, a nonprofit organization supporting research into mitochondrial diseases. In adults, many diseases of aging have been associated with defects of mitochondrial function, including diabetes, Parkinson's disease, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's disease and cancer.

"I think this is a finding that could change the field," Teitell said. "We've been looking to do this for a long time and we had a very reasoned approach, but some key steps were missing. Now we have developed this method and the next step is to show that what we can do in human cell lines with mutant mitochondria can translate into animal models and, ultimately, into humans."

The study appears March 12, 2012 in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The current study builds on previous work published in 2010 in the peer-reviewed journal Cell, in which Teitell, Carla Koehler, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry and a Broad Stem Cell Research Center scientist, and their team uncovered a role for an essential protein that acts to shuttle RNA into the mitochondria, the energy-producing "power plant" of a cell.

Mitochondria are described as cellular power plants because they generate most of the energy supply within a cell. In addition to supplying energy, mitochondria also are involved in a broad range of other cellular processes including signaling, differentiation, death, control of the cell cycle and growth.

The import of nucleus-encoded small RNAs into mitochondria is essential for the replication, transcription and translation of the mitochondrial genome, but the mechanisms that deliver RNA into mitochondria have remained poorly understood.

See the original post:
Correcting human mitochondrial mutations

BEIJING--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

The Prostate Cancer Foundation today announced its first two Young Investigators in China to launch its initiative to identify, fund and promote innovative research projects within China. As with all of its funded research across the globe, the PCF China program carries the ultimate goal of ending death and suffering from prostate cancer.

PCFs first two Young Investigators in China will be honored at a special awards dinner this evening following PCF Chinas First Annual Prostate Cancer Symposium being held today at Peking Universitys Wu Jieping Urology Center, 9:0015:00. The awards ceremony will be held at the Four Points Hotel by Sheraton, Tower 1, 25 Yuanda Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 18:00-21:00.

The 2012 PCF China Young Investigator Award recipients are sponsored anonymously by a long-time PCF donor and are:

Shancheng Ren, MD, PhD Shanghai Changhai Hospital Mentor: Yinghao Sun, MD, PhD

Gene fusions are the erroneous juxtaposition of two genes that do not normally lie next to each other on the genome. As a result of this abnormal placement of two genes, their expression is altered and this may lead to the development and progression of cancer. The TMPRSS2-ERG gene fusions are a hallmark of prostate cancer (PCa), found in ~50% of Caucasian patients. Recent studies have shown that these TMPRSS2-ERG gene fusions occur at a much lower frequency of ~15-20% in prostate cancer patients in China. The underlying genetic heterogeneity/differences among different ethnic populations may explain this observation.

Dr. Shancheng Ren has identified a novel gene fusion in prostate cancer patients in China that results in the juxtaposition of the SDK1 and the AMACR genes. Dr. Ren proposes to study the relative prevalence and clinical significance of this SDK1-AMACR gene fusion in Chinese PCa patients. Dr. Ren also proposes to investigate the SDK1-AMACR gene fusion as a novel, non-invasive marker for the detection of prostate cancer in Chinese patients.

Dr. Ren and team recently published a paper in Cell Research, describing the role of specific gene fusions in Chinese patients. Read the published paper.

Yuxi Zhang, MD, PhD The First Hospital of China Medical University Mentor: Chuize Kong, MD, PhD

Male hormones (androgens) fuel prostate cancer progression and the first line of treatment is Androgen Deprivation Therapy (ADT). Unfortunately, most prostate cancer patients ultimately become resistant to ADT. This stage of prostate cancer is termed castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) and heralds metastasis and an increased risk for death. Researchers recently identified prostate cancer-specific stem cells (PrCSC) that are proposed to play a major role in the development of treatment resistance and progression of prostate cancer. Studies of PrCSCs have shown that these cells are capable of self-renewal, possess enhanced tumor-initiating capabilities, do not rely on androgens for growth and survival and are therefore more resistant to treatment than other cancerous cells. In a previous study, Dr. Zhang has identified a sub-population of PrCSCs that increase in numbers upon treatment with ADT. He observed that this specific sub-population of stem cells decreased when the castration-resistant tumors were treated with androgens and a different PrCSC subset became more prominent in the tumors.

More:
The Prostate Cancer Foundation Expands Global Reach, Adds First Two PCF Young Investigators in China

BONITA SPRINGS, FL -

The state Surgeon General has issued an emergency suspension of the license of Dr. Zannos Grekos for providing a stem cell treatment to a patient contrary to previous restrictions placed on his license. The patient died during the treatment.

According to the emergency suspension order, in February 2011 Dr. Grekos was ordered not to perform any stem cell treatments on patients.

On March 2, 2012, Grekos is accused of treating an elderly man with pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary fibrosis with stem cells.

The suspension order says Grekos harvested tissue from the patient's abdomen that commonly contains stem cells. That tissue was sent to a lab to have the stem cells concentrated.

Those concentrated stem cells were then injected into the patient's bloodstream, according to the order.

The patient died of cardiac arrest during the treatment.

Because the stem cell treatment violated previous restrictions on Grekos' license, the state requested the emergency suspension of his license.

One section of the emergency suspension order states, "Nothing short of the immediate suspension of Dr. Grekos' license to practice medicine would be sufficient to protect the public from the danger of harm presented by Dr. Grekos."

Since the news of his suspension, others who have been under Dr. Grekos' care have spoken up.

Read more from the original source:
Doctor's license suspended after patient's death

Newswise CHICAGO, IL March 8, 2012 Stem cells provide a recurring topic among the scientific presentations at the Genetics Society of Americas 53rd Annual Drosophila Research Conference, March 7-11 at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers. Specifically, researchers are trying to determine how, within organs, cells specialize while stem cells maintain tissues and enable them to repair damage and respond to stress or aging. Four talks, one on Thursday morning and three on Sunday morning, present variations on this theme.

For a fertilized egg to give rise to an organism made up of billions or trillions of cells, a precise program of cell divisions must unfold. Some divisions are asymmetric: one of the two daughter cells specializes, yet the other retains the ability to divide. Chris Q. Doe, Ph.D., professor of biology at the University of Oregon, compares this asymmetric cell division to splitting a sundae so that only one half gets the cherry. The cherries in cells are the proteins and RNA molecules that make the two cells that descend from one cell different from each other. This collecting of different molecules in different regions of the initial cell before it divides is termed "cell polarity."

Dr. Doe and his team are tracing the cell divisions that form a flys nervous system. Producing the right cells at the right time is essential for normal development, yet its not well understood how an embryonic precursor cell or stem cell generates a characteristic sequence of different cell types, he says. Dr. Doe and his team traced the cell lineages of 30 neuroblasts (stem cell-like neural precursors), each cell division generating a daughter cell bound for specialization as well as a self-renewing neuroblast. The dance of development is a matter of balance. Self-renew too much, and a tumor results; not enough, and the brain shrinks.

Tracing a cell lineage is a little like sketching a family tree of cousins who share a great-grandparent except that the great-grandparent (the neuroblast) continually produces more cousins. The offspring will change due to the different environments they are born into, says Dr. Doe.

Julie A. Brill, Ph.D., a principal investigator at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, investigates cell polarity in sperm cells. These highly specialized elongated cells begin as more spherical precursor cells. Groups of developing sperm elongate, align, condense their DNA into tight packages, expose enzyme-containing bumps on their tips that will burrow through an eggs outer layers, form moving tails, then detach and swim away.

The Brill lab studies a membrane lipid called PIP2 (phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate) that establishes polarity in developing male germ cells in Drosophila. Reducing levels of PIP2 leads to defects in cell polarity and failure to form mature, motile sperm, Dr. Brill says. These experiments show that localization of the enzyme responsible for PIP2 production in the growing end of elongating sperm tails likely sets up cell polarity. Since loss of this polarity is implicated in the origin and spread of cancer, defects in the regulation of PIP2 distribution may contribute to human cancer progression, she adds.

Stephen DiNardo, Ph.D., professor of cell and developmental biology at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, is investigating how different varieties of stem cells in the developing fly testis give rise to germ cells and epithelial cells that ensheathe the germ cells, as well as being able to self-renew. For each of these roles, stem cells are guided by their environment, known as their niche.

In the fly testis, we know not only the locations of the two types of stem cells whose actions maintain fertility, but of neighboring cells. We study how these niche cells are first specified during development, how they assemble, and what signals they use. Elements of what we and others learn about this niche may well apply to more complex niches in our tissues, Dr. DiNardo explains.

Denise J. Montell, Ph.D., professor of biological chemistry at Johns Hopkins University, will report on the female counterpart to the testis, the fly ovary. She and her co-workers use live imaging and fluorescent biomarkers to observe how the contractile proteins actin and myosin assemble, disassemble, and interact, elongating tissues in ways that construct the egg chamber. These approaches are particularly valuable for observing the response of the developing ovary to environmental changes. Starvation, for example, slows the rate of stem cell division and induces some egg chambers to undergo apoptosis (die) while others arrest until conditions improve, she says.

Her group has discovered that, surprisingly, following starvation and re-feeding, some of the cells that got far along the cell death pathway actually reversed that process and survived. The group has documented this reversal of apoptosis in a variety of mammalian cell types including primary heart cells. These observations have many intriguing implications. This may represent a previously unrecognized mechanism that saves cells that are difficult to replace, and therefore, may have implications for treating degenerative diseases.

Read the original post:
Fly Research Gives Insight Into Human Stem Cell Development

Public release date: 8-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Phyllis Edelman pedelman@genetics-gsa.org 301-351-0896 Genetics Society of America

CHICAGO, IL March 8, 2012 Stem cells provide a recurring topic among the scientific presentations at the Genetics Society of America's 53rd Annual Drosophila Research Conference, March 7-11 at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers. Specifically, researchers are trying to determine how, within organs, cells specialize while stem cells maintain tissues and enable them to repair damage and respond to stress or aging. Four talks, one on Thursday morning and three on Sunday morning, present variations on this theme.

For a fertilized egg to give rise to an organism made up of billions or trillions of cells, a precise program of cell divisions must unfold. Some divisions are "asymmetric": one of the two daughter cells specializes, yet the other retains the ability to divide. Chris Q. Doe, Ph.D., professor of biology at the University of Oregon, compares this asymmetric cell division to splitting a sundae so that only one half gets the cherry. The "cherries" in cells are the proteins and RNA molecules that make the two cells that descend from one cell different from each other. This collecting of different molecules in different regions of the initial cell before it divides is termed "cell polarity."

Dr. Doe and his team are tracing the cell divisions that form a fly's nervous system. "Producing the right cells at the right time is essential for normal development, yet it's not well understood how an embryonic precursor cell or stem cell generates a characteristic sequence of different cell types," he says. Dr. Doe and his team traced the cell lineages of 30 neuroblasts (stem cell-like neural precursors), each cell division generating a daughter cell bound for specialization as well as a self-renewing neuroblast. The dance of development is a matter of balance. Self-renew too much, and a tumor results; not enough, and the brain shrinks.

Tracing a cell lineage is a little like sketching a family tree of cousins who share a great-grandparent except that the great-grandparent (the neuroblast) continually produces more cousins. "The offspring will change due to the different environments they are born into," says Dr. Doe.

Julie A. Brill, Ph.D., a principal investigator at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, investigates cell polarity in sperm cells. These highly specialized elongated cells begin as more spherical precursor cells. Groups of developing sperm elongate, align, condense their DNA into tight packages, expose enzyme-containing bumps on their tips that will burrow through an egg's outer layers, form moving tails, then detach and swim away.

The Brill lab studies a membrane lipid called PIP2 (phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate) that establishes polarity in developing male germ cells in Drosophila. "Reducing levels of PIP2 leads to defects in cell polarity and failure to form mature, motile sperm," Dr. Brill says. These experiments show that localization of the enzyme responsible for PIP2 production in the growing end of elongating sperm tails likely sets up cell polarity. Since loss of this polarity is implicated in the origin and spread of cancer, defects in the regulation of PIP2 distribution may contribute to human cancer progression, she adds.

Stephen DiNardo, Ph.D., professor of cell and developmental biology at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, is investigating how different varieties of stem cells in the developing fly testis give rise to germ cells and epithelial cells that ensheathe the germ cells, as well as being able to self-renew. For each of these roles, stem cells are guided by their environment, known as their "niche."

In the fly testis, we know not only the locations of the two types of stem cells whose actions maintain fertility, but of neighboring cells. "We study how these niche cells are first specified during development, how they assemble, and what signals they use. Elements of what we and others learn about this niche may well apply to more complex niches in our tissues," Dr. DiNardo explains.

The rest is here:
Fly research gives insight into human stem cell development and cancer

Los Angeles Times

Patients who are lucky enough to get a transplant for a failed organ usually face a lifetime on anti-rejection drugs, which are expensive, dangerous and not always effective.

But in the future, those drugs may not be needed. A new study suggests that patients receiving an organ that's less than a perfect match can be protected against rejection by a second transplant this time of the organ donor's imperfectly matched stem cells.

Though preliminary, the new study is being hailed as a potential game-changer in the field of transplantation, a mystifying development that could offer hope to hundreds of thousands of patients who await or have received donor kidneys and depend on a harsh regimen of daily anti-rejection pills.

The small pilot study, reported Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, describes a novel regimen that combined old-fashioned cancer treatments with 21st century cell therapy to induce five patients' immune systems to accept donor kidneys as their own despite significant incompatibility.

If the technique proves successful in a larger group of people, future transplant patients may need to take anti-rejection drugs only briefly, and some who rely on them now could discontinue them safely. The recipients of kidneys as well as other organs, including heart, lung, liver and pancreas, might also benefit from access to a wider pool of organs.

The strategy could offer hope, too, for patients receiving bone marrow transplants to treat blood cancers, speeding the process of finding a donor by allowing physicians to use stem cells that today would be rejected as incompatible.

"Few transplant developments in the past half century have been more enticing," wrote pioneer transplant surgeons James F. Markmann and Tatsuo Kawai of Massachusetts General Hospital, in a commentary accompanying the study. If borne out, they wrote, the findings "may potentially have an enormous, paradigm-shifting impact on solid-organ transplantation."

In an interview, Markmann said that the greatest benefit of techniques described in the new research would be to greatly improve the lives of transplant patients by freeing them of a lifetime reliance on anti-rejection drugs.

But it might also ease the shortage of transplantable organs somewhat by reducing the number lost to rejection, he said. According to the National Kidney Foundation, 4,573 U.S. patients died in 2008 awaiting a kidney transplant due to a donor shortage.

See original here:
Study suggests breakthrough in organ transplants

Durham, NC (PRWEB) March 07, 2012

A new type of stem cell-seeded patch has shown promising results in promoting healing after a heart attack, according to a study released today in the journal STEM CELLS Translational Medicine.

Ischemic heart disease, caused by vessel blockage, is a leading cause of death in many western countries. Studies have shown the potential of stem cells in regenerating heart tissue damaged during an attack. But even as the list of candidate cells for cardiac regeneration has expanded, none has emerged as the obvious choice, possibly because several cell types are needed to regenerate both the hearts muscles and its vascular components.

Aside from the choice of the right cell source for tissue regeneration, the best way to deliver the stem cells is up for debate, too, as intravenous delivery and injections can be inefficient and possibly harmful. While embryonic stem cells have shown great promise for heart repairs due to their ability to differentiate into virtually any cell type, less than 10 percent of injected cells typically survive the engraftment and of that number generally only 2 percent actually colonize the heart.

In order for this type of treatment is to be clinically effective, researchers need to find ways to deliver large numbers of stem cells in a supportive environment that can help cells survive and differentiate.

In the current cardiopatch study, conducted by researchers from the Faculty of Medicine of the Geneva University in collaboration with colleagues at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), cardiac-committed mouse embryonic stem cell (mESC) were committed toward the cardiac fate using a protein growth factor called BMP2 and then embedded into a fibrin hydrogel that is both biocompatible and biodegradable. The cells were loaded with superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles so they could be tracked using magnetic resonance imaging, which also enabled the researchers to more accurately assess regional and global heart function.

The patches were engrafted onto the hearts of laboratory rats that had induced heart attacks. Six weeks later, the hearts of the animals receiving the mESC-seeded patches showed significant improvement over those receiving patches loaded with iron oxide nanoparticles alone. The patches had degraded, the cells had colonized the infarcted tissue and new blood vessels were forming in the vicinity of the transplanted patch. Improvements reached beyond the part of the heart where the patch had been applied to manifest globally.

Marisa Jaconi, PhD, of the Geneva University Department of Pathology and Immunology, and Jeffrey Hubbell, PhD, professor of bioengineering at the EPFL, were leaders on the investigative team. Their findings could make a significant impact on how heart patients are treated in the future. Altogether our data provide evidence that stem-cell based cardiopatches represent a promising therapeutic strategy to achieve efficient cell implantation and improved global and regional cardiac function after myocardial infarction, said Jaconi.

###

The full article, Embryonic stem cell-based cardiopatches improve cardiac function in infarcted rats, can be accessed at: http://www.stemcellstm.com/content/early/recent.

Read this article:
Stem Cell-Seeded Cardiopatch Could Deliver Results for Damaged Hearts

London, Feb 29 : Children shot with their own stem cells, for the very first time in a rare immune disorder, have shown improvement.

The condition, known as X-CGD, is caused by faulty genes. Doctors were able to take a sample of the children's stem cells, manipulate them in the lab and reintroduce them. This gave the children a working copy of the faulty gene and their condition improved, enabling them to temporarily fight off infections.

It is the third immune disorder that doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital have successfully tackled. The others were the life-threatening conditions, X-SCID and ada-SCID, and 90 percent of treated children have improved, with some showing signs that their immune system has been normalised for good.

Remy Helbawi, 16, from South London, was the first child with X-CGD to be treated. The condition only affects boys and means that while his body produces the white blood cells to fight viruses it does not have the correct cells to fight off bacterial or fungal infections, The Telegraph reports.

The resulting infections can be life-threatening. Up until now the only treatment has been a bone marrow transplant which would offer a permanent cure.

Remy's brother who also had the disease was found a bone marrow match and was successfully treated that way but no match has been found for Remy and a serious lung infection was threatening his life.

Remy said: "Until I was 10 I had the same life as anyone else, except I had eczema a lot of the time. I didn't have a fungal infection until about ten, but when I got my first fungal infection my life changed. I missed a lot of school, I had lots of tests and was in hospital. I would get exhausted after climbing stairs."

Before undergoing the gene therapy, Remy had to have chemotherapy which made his hair fall out and he was kept in isolation for a month.

Remy's nurse Helen Braggins said: "Remy had been unwell for last two years and began to miss school. He had significant fungal lung disease in January of last year, which was getting worse. Without some radical treatment intervention, Remy would not have survived and was becoming increasingly short of breath." (IANS)

Share this article at

Original post:
Children improve in rare disorder with own stem cells

INDIANAPOLIS -

An announcement involving cutting edge research of adult stem cells has doctors at Indiana University excited.

The doctors have been included in a $63 million National Institutes of Health project nabbing spots the Cleveland Clinic and Vanderbilt lost and patients here will benefit from.

Dr. Mike Murphy and Dr. Keith March will head up the IU effort, one of seven nationwide sites just named to recruit 500 patients over the next seven years who have heart attacks, heart failure or poor circulation in the legs for adult stem cell research.

"What we are doing is taking the cells from one part of the body and bringing them to another area that needs repair more urgently,' said March. "They are able to repair a variety of tissues by either decreasing inflammation by helping tissues not to die if they are at risk of death, or by helping them even to grow and regenerate."

The new NIH Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Research Network distinction follows years of work with patients like Ruth Diggs, who was diagnosed with peripheral arterial disease in New York.

"They were just telling me the only solution for me was to amputate the leg," Diggs said.

Unhappy with that option, Ruth traveled to Indiana and enrolled in a clinical trial at IU, where adult stem cells were injected in to her leg. That led to regeneration and Ruth's leg was saved.

"The fact that she has her leg, we are very, very grateful," said Ruth's daughter, Melvina Jagack.

Murphy showed images of blood flow through the leg of a male patient from Maine who enrolled in the clinical trial.

See the original post:
IU doctors land large grant for adult stem cell research

Discovery of stem cells in human ovaries overturns dogma

Web edition : Sunday, February 26th, 2012

A newly discovered type of stem cell in the ovary could mean big things for women’s health, possibly leading to new fertility treatments and maybe even a way to delay menopause.

Since the 1950s it has been thought that women are born with all of the egg cells they will ever have. But with the discovery of egg-producing stem cells in mice and humans, it now appears that the ovary can replenish its egg supply. Researchers led by Jonathan Tilly, a reproductive biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, report the finding online February 26 in Nature Medicine.

Other researchers hail the discovery as a genuine breakthrough with huge implications. “This is like discovering a new planet in our solar system that has a bacterium on it,” says Kutluk Oktay, a reproductive biologist at the New York Medical College in Valhalla. At the very least, he says, the cells offer hope for extending a woman’s reproductive life span.

Tilly didn’t set out to overturn the accepted dogma that women don’t make new eggs. As part of their research into the onset of menopause, he and his colleagues developed ways to track the death of egg cells over time. When the researchers counted the number of healthy egg cells in mouse ovaries, they saw a steady decline with age as expected. But the team also found that dying cells greatly outnumber the starting population of eggs. “What we had was a math problem,” Tilly says. “We refocused all of our efforts on this glaring mathematical dilemma.”

In 2004, Tilly’s group reported the answer to their math problem: There are more dying eggs than healthy ones because stem cells in mouse ovaries are constantly making more eggs, which then die off. The discovery didn’t go over well. “The vast majority of our colleagues were not very receptive,” Tilly says. Many of those who did accept the existence of egg-forming stem cells in mice didn’t think humans would have similar cells.

Tilly and his colleagues isolated stem cells from ovaries that had been removed from six women during sex reassignment surgeries at Saitama Medical Center in Japan. Only about 1.5 percent of cells in the ovaries fit the stem cell profile. The researchers compiled molecular profiles of the cells and demonstrated that the stem cells are able to make precursors to eggs when transplanted into other ovaries. 

Tilly’s group convincingly demonstrates that stem cells in human ovaries can make egg cell precursors. But it remains to be seen if the cells can make mature gametes, says Evelyn Telfer, a reproductive biologist at the University of Edinburgh.

Stopping the depletion of eggs or keeping ovaries functioning could help stave off many of the health problems women experience after menopause, Tilly says. “If we can somehow control this biological clock, to me, the possibilities are endless.”

Found in: Genes & Cells

Read the original post:
Eggs may be made throughout adulthood

SUNDAY, Feb. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers report that they've isolated stem cells from adult human ovaries that can mature into eggs that may be capable of fertilization.

The lab findings, which upend longstanding scientific theory, could potentially lead to new reproductive technologies and possibly extend the years of a woman's fertility.

It was long believed that women were born with a lifetime supply of eggs, which was depleted by menopause. But a growing body of research -- including a new paper from Massachusetts General Hospital -- suggests egg production may continue into adulthood. The study is published in the March issue of Nature Medicine.

"Fifty years of thinking, in every aspect of experiments, of interpreting the results, and of the clinical management of ovarian function and fertility in women was dictated by one simple belief that turns out to be incorrect," said lead study author Jonathan Tilly, director of the hospital's Vincent Center for Reproductive Biology. "That belief was the egg cell pool endowed at birth is a fixed entity that cannot be renewed."

Dr. Avner Hershlag, chief of the Center for Human Reproduction at North Shore-LIJ Health System in Manhasset, N.Y., said the study is "exciting" but emphasized the work is still very preliminary.

"This is experimental," Hershlag said. "This is a beginning of perhaps something that could bring in new opportunities, but it's going to be a long time in my estimation until clinically we'll be able to actually have human eggs created from stem cells that make babies."

The same team at Mass General caused a stir in 2004 when it published a paper in Nature reporting that female mice retain the ability to make new egg cells well into adulthood.

In both mice and humans, the vast majority of egg cells die through a process called programmed cell death, or apoptosis, the body's way of eliminating unneeded or damaged cells. For humans, that process is dramatic. Female fetuses have about 6 to 7 million eggs at about 20 weeks' gestation, a little more than 1 million at birth, and about 300,000 by puberty.

Studying mice egg cells and follicles, the tiny sacs in which stem cells become eggs, the Mass General researchers discovered something that didn't make mathematical sense.

Most prior research had focused on counting the healthy eggs in the ovaries, and then made assumptions about how many had died from that, Tilly said. But his lab looked at it the opposite way and focused on cell death.

"We found far too many eggs were dying than could be accounted for by the net change in the healthy egg pool," Tilly said. "We reasoned that maybe the field had missed something." They wondered if stem, or precursor cells, were repopulating the ovaries with new eggs.

Initially, the findings were met with skepticism, according to the study authors, but subsequent research bolstered the conclusions.

Those included a 2009 study from a team in China, published in Nature Cell Biology, that isolated, purified and cultured egg stem cells from adult mice, and subsequently introduced them into mice ovaries that were rendered infertile. The infertile mice eventually produced mature oocytes that were fertilized and developed into healthy baby mice.

Studies showing that women had the same capacity as mice were lacking, however.

In this study, Tilly's team used tissue from Japanese women in their 20s and 30s with gender identity disorder, who had their ovaries removed as part of gender reassignment surgery.

The researchers isolated the egg precursor cells and inserted into them a gene from a jellyfish that glows green, then inserted the treated cells into biopsied human ovarian tissue. They then transplanted the human tissue into mice. The green fluorescence allowed researchers to see that the stem cells generated new egg cells.

Tilly said the process makes evolutionary sense. "If you look at this from an evolutionary perspective, males have sperm stem cells that continually make sperm. Because species propagation is so important, we want to make sure it's the best sperm, so don't want sperm sitting around for 60 years waiting to get used," he said. It makes no sense from an evolutionary perspective that "females will be born with all the eggs they will have and let them sit there," he noted.

Hershlag, meanwhile, said much remains to be overcome.

"Ultimately, in our field only one thing counts," he said, "and that is if you can make an egg that can make a healthy baby."

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more on how human embryos develop.

Read more:
Stem Cell Finding Could Expand Women's Lifetime Supply of Eggs