StemCell Therapy

Heart-Attack Damage Heals After Stem Cell Treatment

Feb. 13, 2012 -- A new stem cell treatment resurrects dead, scarred heart muscle damaged by a recent heart attack.

The finding, just in time for Valentine's Day, is the clearest evidence yet that literally broken hearts can heal. All that's needed is a little help from one's own heart stem cells.

"We have been trying as doctors for centuries to find a treatment that actually reverses heart injury," Eduardo Marban, MD, PhD, tells WebMD. "That is what we seem to have been able to achieve in this small number of patients. If so, this could change the nature of medicine. We could go to the root of disease and cure it instead of just work around it."

Marban, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, led the study. He invented the "cardiosphere" culture technique used to create the stem cells and founded the company developing the treatment.

It's the first completed, controlled clinical trial showing that scarred heart tissue can be repaired. Earlier work in patients with heart failure, using different stem cells or bone-marrow stem cells, also showed that the heart can regenerate itself.

"These findings suggest that this therapeutic approach is feasible and has the potential to provide a treatment strategy for cardiac regeneration after [heart attack]," write University of Hong Kong researchers Chung-Wah Siu and Hung-Fat Tse. Their editorial accompanies the Marban report in the Feb. 14 advance online issue of The Lancet.

Heart Regenerates With Stem Cell Help

The stem cells don't do what people think they do, Marban says.

It's been thought that the stem cells multiply over and over again. In time, they were supposed to be turning themselves and their daughter cells into new, working heart muscle.

But the stem cells seem to be doing something much more amazing.

"For reasons we didn't initially know, they stimulate the heart to fix itself," Marban says. "The repair is from the heart itself and not from the cells we give them."

Exactly how the stem cells do this is a matter of "feverish research" in Marban's lab.

The phase I clinical trial enrolled 25 patients who had just had a heart attack. On average, each patient had lost a quarter of his heart muscle. MRI scans showed massive scars.

Eight patients got standard care. The other 17 received increasing infusions of what Marban calls stem cells. The cells were grown in the lab from tiny amounts of heart cells taken from the patients' own hearts via biopsy. Six to 12 weeks later, the cells were infused directly back into patients' hearts.

A year later, the mass of scar tissue in the treated patients' hearts got 42% smaller. And healthy heart muscle increased by 60%. No such regeneration was seen in the patients who got standard care.

Because all of the patients were doing relatively well, there was no dramatic difference in clinical outcome. However, treated patients had a bit better exercise endurance.

"This discovery challenges the conventional wisdom that, once established, cardiac scarring is permanent and that, once lost, healthy heart muscle cannot be restored," Marban and colleagues conclude.

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Scarred Hearts Healed After Heart Attack

RED BANK, NJ--(Marketwire -02/07/12)- American CryoStem Corporation (OTCQB: CRYO.OB - News) announced today that it has completed providing stem cell processing services for Personal Cell Sciences Corp., a cutting edge manufacturer of anti-aging skin care products.

The study involves researching the regenerative function of a conditioned medium obtained from each participant's adipose (fat tissue) derived mesenchymal stem cells and their ability to promote the production or secretion of collagen, elastin and fibronectin related to skin wound healing.

John Arnone, CEO of American CryoStem and Founder of Personal Cell Sciences, commented, "CRYO's patented tissue culture media and its proprietary, aseptic adipose tissue processing methodology allows, as an added benefit for PCS customers to store a clinical grade sample of their own stem cells for future use in regenerative medicine. We are pleased to provide comprehensive Bio-Insurance storage solutions at our clinical facility."

The adipose tissue samples were acquired utilizing a mini-liposuction procedure. A total of sixty milliliters (approximately 2 fluid ounces) of adipose tissue was collected in the physician's office and sent to CRYO's laboratory for processing. Once processed, the resulting stromal vascular fraction (SVF) was forwarded to the Personal Cell Sciences laboratory for proprietary formulation for patient specific products.

"We are very excited to announce our service agreement and participation in this clinical study for Personal Cell Sciences. This contractual manufacturing agreement reinforces our capabilities to provide CRYO's exceptional clinical processing for relevant adult stem cell related products," said Anthony Dudzinski, COO of American CryoStem. "We look forward to our continued business relationship with PCS and expanding these services to other developers to speed their product's time to market."

About American CryoStem: American CryoStem Corporation (OTCQB: CRYO.OB - News) markets clinical processing products and services for Adipose (fat) Tissue and Adipose Derived Adult Stem Cells. CRYO's clinical processing and preservation platform supports the science and applications being discovered globally by providing the highest quality, clinically processed cells and assuring their sterility, viability and growth cap abilities, while at the same time developing cutting edge application, therapies and laboratory products and services for consumers and physicians.

The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a "safe harbor" for forward-looking statements. Certain of the statements contained herein, which are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements with respect to events, the occurrence of which involve risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements may be impacted, either positively or negatively, by various factors. Information concerning potential factors that could affect the Company is detailed from time to time in the Company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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American CryoStem Completes Cell Processing for Clinical Study

29-01-2012 23:26 Fourteen patients were randomized to see if adipose-derived adult stem cells would help limit the damage from an acute heart attack. Infarct size was decreased by 50%, the perfusion defect was 17% smaller, and the left ventriclular ejection fraction was increased about 6% better than the control group. Stem cell vocabulary was reviewed and highlighted that there are embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells and that sources of stem cell are from bone marrow, adipose tissue, blood, umbilical cord blood and from cloned embryonic cell lines. Stem cells can develop into 200 different cell types.

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Stem Cells Help Heart Attack Victims - Video

Just last week, military brass vowed that the force of the future would be “smaller and leaner.” Apparently, the Army’s taking that pretty damn literally. They want smaller, leaner soldiers. Their best idea to do it? Give GIs transplants of extra fat cells.

Seriously. In the Army’s latest round of small-business research awards, they’ve green-lit a proposal to manufacture transplantable brown fat cells, all in an effort to catalyze rapid weight loss. Portlier soldiers, you might recall, are turning into a major dilemma for top brass. An estimated 75 percent of today’s young Americans are either too fat, too sickly or too dumb to serve. The Army’s even overhauled their fitness program, in part to accommodate softer recruits, by swapping long runs and grueling drills for yoga and calisthenics.

Leg lifts and downward dogs, however, don’t offer much of a calorie-burning boost. Brown fat tissue, however, does. At first glance, the idea of adding fat to get rid of fat doesn’t exactly add up. After all, thousands of Americans dole out mad cash to have flab sucked out, not put back in.

The distinction comes down to varieties of fat: Humans carry pockets of conventional fat, or white adipose tissue. They also carry brown adipose tissue. And recent research has confirmed that the stuff’s pretty damn special: It burns a ton of calories — around 250 calories over three hours in one study group — and actually sucks energy out of conventional fat cells to fuel its fire. Research even suggests that additional pockets of brown fat can be created by exercise.

The Army, however, would rather see soldiers drop pounds like the Real Housewives — with as little effort as possible. They’re funding a team at the University of Boston to “generate human [brown adipose tissue]” for subsequent human transplantation. “Obesity and its associated metabolic complications…are becoming increasingly prevalent in military personnel,” the Army’s research award notes. “Increasing [brown fat] by about 50 grams in obese patients could induce strong weight loss and improve metabolic status.”

Researchers plan to isolate a brown adipose progenitor cell — cells that, similarly to stem cells, are able to differentiate into more specific types — and then generate additional brown adipose cells in the lab. From there, they’d be able to offer “transplantation therapy” to portly personnel.

Of course, plenty of uncertainty about brown fat’s promise still lingers. For one, researchers aren’t sure whether appetite’s increase in conjunction with brown fat stores, keeping weight in stasis. And they don’t know how brown fat affects metabolism and weight loss in the long-term.

But if brown fat really can catalyze weight loss and permanently boost the body’s own metabolic rate, military personnel are hardly the only ones who’d line up for treatment. And civilian companies have already taken note: One Boston company, Ember Therapeutics, recently raised $34 million in capital funding to investigate pharmaceuticals that’d convert white fat to brown.

That said, fat losses aren’t synonymous with fitness gains. In other words, the soldiers of the future might very well be smaller and leaner. But without rigorous exercise, they’ll still, sadly, totally suck at CrossFit.

Photo: Courtesy of Out of Regs

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Army’s New Weight-Loss Plan: Transplant Soldiers With Extra Fat

Public release date: 27-Jan-2012
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Contact: Daniel Kane
dbkane@ucsd.edu
858-534-3262
University of California - San Diego

Stem cells derived from fat have a surprising trick up their sleeves: Encouraged to develop on a stiff surface, they undergo a remarkable transformation toward becoming mature muscle cells. The new research appears in the journal Biomaterials. The new cells remain intact and fused together even when transferred to an extremely stiff, bone-like surface, which has University of California, San Diego bioengineering professor Adam Engler and colleagues intrigued. These cells, they suggest, could hint at new therapeutic possibilities for muscular dystrophy.

In diseases like muscular dystrophy or a heart attack, "muscle begins to die and undergoes its normal wounding processes," said Engler, a bioengineering professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. "This damaged tissue is fundamentally different from a mechanical perspective" than healthy tissue.

Transplanted stem cells might be able to replace and repair diseased muscle, but up to this point the transplants haven't been very successful in muscular dystrophy patients, he noted. The cells tend to clump into hard nodules as they struggle to adapt to their new environment of thickened and damaged tissue.

Engler, postdoctoral scholar Yu Suk Choi and the rest of the team think their fat-derived stem cells might have a better chance for this kind of therapy, since the cells seem to thrive on a stiff and unyielding surface that mimics the damaged tissue found in people with MD.

In their study in the journal Biomaterials, the researchers compared the development of bone marrow stem cells and fat-derived stem cells grown on surfaces of varying stiffness, ranging from the softness of brain tissue to the hardness of bone.

Cells from the fat lineage were 40 to 50 times better than their bone marrow counterparts at displaying the proper proteins involved in becoming muscle. These proteins are also more likely to "turn on" in the correct sequence in the fat-derived cells, Engler said.

Subtle differences in how these two types of cells interact with their environment are critical to their development, the scientists suggest. The fat-derived cells seem to sense their "niche" on the surfaces more completely and quickly than marrow-derived cells. "They are actively feeling their environment soon, which allows them to interpret the signals from the interaction of cell and environment that guide development," Choi explained.

Perhaps most surprisingly, muscle cells grown from the fat stem cells fused together, forming myotubes to a degree never previously observed. Myotubes are a critical step in muscle development, and it's a step forward that Engler and colleagues hadn't seen before in the lab.

The fused cells stayed fused when they were transferred to a very stiff surface. "These programmed cells are mature enough so that they don't respond the environmental cues" in the new environment that might cause them to split apart, Engler says.

Engler and colleagues will now test how these new fused cells perform in mice with a version of muscular dystrophy. The cells survive in an environment of stiff tissue, but Engler cautions that there are other aspects of diseased tissue such as its shape and chemical composition to consider. "From the perspective of translating this into a clinically viable therapy, we want to know what components of the environment provide the most important cues for these cells," he said.

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Co-authors for the Biomaterials study "Mechanical derivation of functional myotubes from adipose-derived stem cells" include Ludovic G. Vincent and Andrew R. Lee in the Department of Bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, and Marek K. Dobke from the Division of Plastic Surgery, UC San Diego School of Medicine. The research was funded by the Human Frontier Science Program and the National Institutes of Health Common Fund.

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Need muscle for a tough spot? Turn to fat stem cells, UC San Diego researchers say

08-11-2011 08:41 StemCellTV interviews Donna Quees of Lifeline Skin Care at the California Academy of Cosmetic Surgery Annual Conference in San Diego October 2011.

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Donna Queen-Lifeline Skin Care at the CACS - Video

02-01-2012 10:21 Robyn Stringfellow, senior sales constultant with BioLife Cell Bank, reviews contents of acquisition kit. This kit includes everything a BioLife provider (doctor) needs to safely ship harvested fat and cells to BioLife for processing, cryopreservation and storage

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BioLife Cell Bank - Fat and Stem Cell Acquisition Kit Overview - Video

26-11-2011 09:16 New book documents Canadian discovery of stem cells in 1960.

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StemCellTV Daily Report-November 26, 2011 - Video

25-11-2011 07:41 Patients with autoimmune disease get treatment from their own fat.

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StemCellTV Daily Report-November 25, 2011 - Video

Stem cells harvested from your fat can be cryopreserved for potential future medical use. The intial harvesting is performed in office, by Dr. Walter Tom under local anesthesia

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Could Fat Save Your Life - Video

Stem Cell Treatment email update from Holly Catalano's mother, Carolyn to the Stem Cell Institute's CEO, Pablo de la Hoya. Holly was treated for periventricular leukomalacia, a disorder that is similar to cerebral palsy. Hi Pablo, Hope you are enjoying your time in NY

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Stem Cell Therapy - Cerebral Palsy Treatment || Holly Catalano Update - Video

Biolife Cell Banking Director of Marketing talks to the Administrative Manager of BioLife about fat and stem cell banking at BioLife Cell Banking Services.

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BioLife Administrative Manager Talks About BioLife Cell Banking - Video

Harvard study reports on the politics of stem cells and funding for research.

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StemCellTV Daily Report-November 24, 2011 - Video

Jorge Paz, MD, Medical Director of the Stem Cell Institute (SCI) in Panama discusses stem cell therapy in Panama, SCI scientific publications, SCI clinic and lab, adipose stem cell collection and processing, osteoarthritis treatment protocol with case study and rheumatoid arthritis treatment protocol with case study, knee treatment with case study and fat stem cell treatment side effects.

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Using Your Own Fat Stem Cells For Arthritis, Sports Injuries and Autoimmune Disorders - Video

Genetic "Safety Switch" Improves Stem Cell Therapy

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StemCellTV Daily Report-November 23, 2011 - Video

SAN ANTONIO -- The healing power of stem cells is now helping dogs in pain. Vets are excited about this new therapy that's making a big difference for South Texans' beloved pets.

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Stem cells for dogs? New pain management therapy works for pets - Video

StemCellTV talks to Alice Davis of Lipo Sales at the CACS annual conference in San Diego.

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StemCellTV talks to Alice Davis-Lipo Sales - Video

Dr. Riordan discusses focuses on mesenchymal stem cells harvested from fat tissue and the role they play in reducing inflammation, repairing tissue and modulating the immune system.

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Adult Stem Cell Therapy for Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis - Neil Riordan, PhD - Video

Using stem cells and your own fat, Plastic Surgeons and Cosmetic Surgeons are increasing womens breast size by injecting fat into the breast along with stem cells, no longer needing Breast Implants. It can even help to rebuild a breast for patients who have had a masectomy. http://www.cosmosclinic.com.au

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Bigger Breasts using Stem Cells and Fat Transfer? - Video

William Bruyea talks to David Angeloni, Chief Scientist for Millennium Medical Technologies about the recent study result showing improved fat and stem cell viability using Tickle Lipo.

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Clinical Scientist David Angeloni Discuss Fat Viability Using Tickle Lipo - Video