Archive for February, 2012

Three weeks ago scientists around the world agreed on a 60-day moratorium on certain genetic experiments involving the bird flu virus H5N1. I heard the news on Monday's Morning Edition while driving to work.

The halting of research was deemed necessary after scientists in the Netherlands showed that a genetically modified bird flu virus could pass among ferrets and kill them. The virus, found in wild birds, rarely affects people, and when it does it doesn't spread easily. It is, however, quite deadly. It has killed half of the 500 humans with documented cases. The Dutch group wanted to demonstrate that we should be careful with the virus, that small changes could turn it into a lethal contagious disease that could cause a catastrophic pandemic. By knowing more about the virus and its potential, we could better prepare for the worst-case scenario.

In proving their point, they raised serious issues concerning the nature of scientific research and its control. So much so that the World Health Organization (WHO) has invited a small group of experts to address these issues, starting tomorrow in Geneva.

The scenario is the stuff of movies. Due to a lab accident, or to ill intention, the modified virus escapes into the open and starts spreading and killing, creating worldwide havoc.

In the public imagination, this is not too different from the mythic tale of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster: a scientist, driven by good intention, ends up creating a monster with its own killing agenda. (At least that's how it is in the more popular Hollywood version of Mary Shelley's brilliant exploration of cutting-edge science and man's ability to control nature.)

Michael Osterholm, who serves on the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, is clearly worried, saying, "It would be foolish to not take this very seriously." Late last year, the board considered parts of similar research by a group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison too risky to be disseminated in the normal way to the scientific community, that is, through the publication of peer-reviewed papers and lectures at conferences.

When scientists feel the need to censure other scientists, you can be sure that fierce debate will follow. After all, one of the most cherished aspects of academic science is precisely its openness: Everyone, everywhere should have access to the data and methodology so that results can be replicated, tested, and, usually, improved upon. At least in principle, you should only believe a result when you see it for yourself.

The move to cloister research is a remarkable and worrisome situation. As Keiji Fukuda of the WHO, declared, "We have viruses which exist, we have manuscripts which have been written, we have a moratorium which was declared voluntarily by the researchers, and so given all of that, you know, what are some of the practical steps that we can take?"

Should this kind of research be forbidden? Should it be relegated to ultra-secure labs, the kinds that store Ebola and smallpox? Should it become a national security priority and put in the hands of the government?

Can safeguards be implemented such that key details of the research are only revealed to legitimate researchers? And how will one determine who is legitimate? This brings back the spying paranoia with nuclear weapons that started in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project and that ended up costing J. Robert Oppenheimer his security clearance and, to a large extent, his dignity. It is fodder for the worst conspiracy theories which, I am sure, have already begun.

We should learn from the history of the atomic bomb and remember that scientific research can never go back: Once it's out it will become available, even if the costs and scientific challenges are high. On the other hand, we should not equate science with Pandora's Box. In the particular case of the H5N1 virus, research aimed at understanding how the virus can pass among people is the best way to make sure it doesn't. Or, if it does, at how to create proper immunization against it. The best that can be done is to have the vaccine ready in case evil intent predicates how the new science will be used.

You can keep up with more of what Marcelo is thinking on Facebook.

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Virus Engineering And The Fear Of Science

Public release date: 15-Feb-2012
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Contact: Cathia Falvey
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Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, February 15, 2012?Therapeutic cancer vaccines, which stimulate the body's immune system to target and destroy cancer cells, are being used in combination with conventional chemotherapy with growing success, as described in several illuminating articles in Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (http://www.liebertpub.com). These articles are available free online at http://www.liebertpub.com/cbr

The U.S. FDA recently approved the first cancer therapeutic vaccine for treatment of metastatic prostate cancer. At least 14 other cancer vaccine strategies are in Phase II or III clinical trials for metastatic melanoma, lung cancer, and lymphoma, for example.

A critical perspective, "Recent Advances in Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines," (http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cbr.2012.1200) published in the Journal by Jeffrey Schlom, PhD, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD explains that a key advantage of cancer vaccines used in combination with chemotherapy is the extremely low level of toxicity. "The next frontier for vaccine therapy will be the use of vaccines in combination with certain chemotherapeutic agents, radiation, hormone therapy, and certain small molecule targeted therapies," according to Dr. Schlom.

These emerging areas of cancer vaccine therapy are explored in detail in two accompanying research reports by Dr. Schlom's colleagues at NCI/NIH. James Hodge, Hadley Sharp, and Sofia Gameiro describe how a tumor-targeted vaccine can enhance the effectiveness of radiation therapy on cancer growth and spread beyond the primary tumor in the article "Abscopal Regression of Antigen Disparate Tumors by Antigen Cascade After Systemic Tumor Vaccination in Combination with Local Tumor Radiation." (http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cbr.2012.1202) Drs. Hodge and Gameiro and coauthor Jorge Caballero present the molecular signatures of lung tumor cells that can be made more susceptible to immunotherapy when first exposed to chemotherapeutic agents in the article "Defining the Molecular Signature of Chemotherapy-Mediated Lung Tumor Phenotype Modulation and Increased Susceptibility to T-cell Killing." (http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cbr.2012.1203)

"This perspective and promising research reports are from one of the leading vaccine research laboratories in the world," says Co-Editor-in-Chief Donald J. Buchsbaum, PhD, Division of Radiation Biology, Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Alabama at Birmingham. "The ultimate use of cancer vaccines in combination with other immunotherapies, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy will be based on preclinical investigations and hopefully will produce clinical survival benefit for a range of cancers."

###

Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals, published 10 times a year in print and online, is under the editorial leadership of Editors Donald J. Buchsbaum, PhD and Robert K. Oldham, MD, Lower Keys Cancer Center, Key West, FL. Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals is the only journal with a specific focus on cancer biotherapy, including monoclonal antibodies, cytokine therapy, cancer gene therapy, cell-based therapies, and other forms of immunotherapy. The Journal includes extensive reporting on advancements in radioimmunotherapy and the use of radiopharmaceuticals and radiolabeled peptides for the development of new cancer treatments. Topics include antibody drug conjugates, fusion toxins and immunotoxins, nanoparticle therapy, vascular therapy, and inhibitors of proliferation signaling pathways. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed online at http://www.liebertpub.com/cbr

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research; Human Gene Therapy and Human Gene Therapy Methods; and Stem Cells and Development. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available at http://www.liebertpub.com

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Promising early results with therapeutic cancer vaccines

Scientists working with bird flu recently called a 60-day halt on some controversial experiments, and the unusual move has been compared to a famous moratorium on genetic engineering in the 1970s.

But key scientists involved in that event disagree on whether history is repeating itself.

"I see an amazing similarity," says Nobel Prize winner Paul Berg, of Stanford University.

To him, it's almost eerie to watch events unfold just like they did back then: There's been a startling scientific discovery, concerns raised by an expert committee, then a voluntary moratorium and calls for an international discussion to figure out how to move forward in a way that protects the public.

This time around, fears revolve around experiments on the bird flu virus H5N1. Scientists tweaked its genes and made it more transmissible between ferrets, which are the laboratory stand-in for people.

Some experts fear that if this virus ever escaped or fell into the wrong hands, it could cause a devastating pandemic. On Jan. 20, flu virologists said they'd temporarily halt this line of research. And a small group of experts will meet at the World Health Organization in Geneva on Thursday and Friday to discuss what to do next.

In the 1970s, the concerns centered on the first steps towards what's now known as genetic engineering. Berg had figured out how to splice together DNA from different organisms. This was new, and some people were disturbed by the experiments Berg wanted to do that involved viruses and bacteria.

"People said, 'Hey, you're doing this crazy experiment, you're potentially spreading cancer genes, etc., etc,' " recalls Berg. "I said, 'Nonsense!' "

But as he talked to people, he began to realize that he couldn't say there was zero risk. And the tools he had pioneered were advancing rapidly. More and more people were doing this kind of work. So Berg and some colleagues took an unusual step.

They asked scientists around the world to hold off on certain experiments until there was a consensus on how to do them safely. In February of 1975, about 150 researchers gathered at the Asilomar conference center in Pacific Grove, Calif.

"They developed guidelines and policy for how to do that research, and we still live with many of those guidelines and policies today," says Paul Keim, a microbiologist at Northern Arizona University who chairs a government advisory committee that recently reviewed the bird flu research.

It recommended keeping some details of the bird flu experiments under wraps, so as not to provide terrorists with a recipe for a new biological weapon. And Keim and the other committee members recently issued a statement that calls the bird flu situation "another Asilomar-type moment."

"The parallels are that, you know, there is so much uncertainty here. The potential for grave harm is obvious, to most of us," says Keim. "So the thought is, why not pause here, think about what we're doing."

Society's 'Implied Trust' In Scientists

But others say today's controversy over bird flu and the events leading up to Asilomar don't really match up at all.

"There's a whole bunch of differences, actually, that make the situation that we faced in '73 and '75 really quite different from this," says Maxine Singer, a prominent molecular biologist who also was one of the organizers of Asilomar.

The Asilomar conference was forward-looking and focused on the potential risks of hypothetical experiments that scientists hadn't yet done, says Singer. This time around, worrisome bird flu viruses have already been made.

"Now we're talking about locking the barn door after the horses have gone," Singer says. "So that's one big difference."

And a big part of today's debate is whether to try to limit who gets to see key details of those experiments. Singer says that discussions about bird flu research seem to be happening in closed-door meetings convened by government-level agencies. But Asilomar was open to reporters, and was organized by the scientists themselves.

Today's moratorium also feels very different to Stanley Falkow, a prominent microbiologist who was at Asilomar.

This time, scientists agreed to a pause in their work only after a public outcry. "My view is that they're doing it grudgingly," Falkow says.

Society supports scientists and gives them tremendous freedom in their pursuit of knowledge, notes Falkow, "and there's an implied trust. And I think in part what's happened has shaken the trust of many people."

In his view, it's not enough for scientists to think that what they're doing is fine — one of the lessons of Asilomar is to make sure the public will think that, too.

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Scientists Debate How To Conduct Bird Flu Research

By Stephanie Allmon

sallmon@star-telegram.com

Whether science bears out Catherine Ruehle's assertion that she is staying well through nutrition and lifestyle changes alone -- without the use of prescription drugs -- depends on which medical and nutrition experts are asked.

Those who adhere to the emerging philosophy of healthcare called "functional medicine" believe that chronic illnesses and autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis are highly attributable to genetic makeup and environmental and lifestyle factors, and that those things should be taken into account by physicians. Too often, they say, doctors use an acute-care model (say, that of a broken bone or appendicitis) to treat chronic disease; they treat the symptoms rather than the causes. The Institute for Functional Medicine (www.functionalmedicine.org) states, "Most physicians are not adequately trained to assess the underlying causes of complex, chronic disease and to apply strategies such as nutrition, diet and exercise to both treat and prevent these illnesses in their patients."Fort Worth registered dietitian Kim Hogue, a member of the IMF, has not consulted with Ruehle but says she thinks her approach makes perfect sense."Food is medicine," Hogue says, adding that gluten, in particular, is a substance that many people don't know they're sensitive to. One of the first courses of action she as a dietician would advise RA patients to take is to eliminate potential food triggers from their diet and slowly try to add them back in, as Ruehle did.In fact, one study cited by WebMD in its Rheumatoid Arthritis Health Center indicates that 30 to 40 percent of RA patients may benefit by eliminating "suspect" foods from their diet, and that an elimination diet is a good way to identify them.Dr. Virginia Reddy, clinical assistant professor of internal medicine in the division of rheumatology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, also has neither consulted with Ruehle nor seen her medical records. She says that, although some studies show that some foods can have an anti-inflammatory effect and that lifestyle factors such as stress and cigarette smoking can contribute to RA flare-ups, a lifestyle-only approach to managing the disease is risky."I think the vast majority of people would not have their disease controlled with such an approach," she says. "There's a spectrum of the disease from very mild to very severe, so potentially people with mild disease where there's not any joint damage ... could manage it well with lifestyle modifications, but for the vast majority it would be a risky approach because when left untreated, in [most patients], RA is going to be disabling."Although a diagnosis of RA used to be a "very scary sentence," Reddy said, now there are very effective treatment options resulting from a tremendous amount of research going on every day.Reddy acknowledges that RA drugs, including steroids, do have potentially harmful side effects. But most of her patients who have experienced the debilitating pain that comes with a full onset of RA "find it very much to be worth it," she says.Patients often do want to talk about lifestyle changes they can make to help control their arthritis."I definitely recommend to all my patients a generally healthy lifestyle, getting sleep, exercising, eating a healthy, balanced diet and not being overweight," she says. But she adds, "In terms of an 'RA diet,' there have been some small studies looking at specific diets in RA patients, but they have not shown any conclusive results."These include studies investigating vegetarian, Mediterranean, elemental and elimination diets, Reddy said."However," she said, "these studies were, in general, too small to draw any particular conclusions about these diets, as more patients on the diets in many of these studies both lost weight (which might have helped the arthritis), but also more patients dropped out of the treatment arms due to adverse events related to the diets."

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'Food is medicine' approach to chronic disease still much debated

Washington, Feb 16 (ANI)): Scientists have found that gene mutations that shorten the largest human protein are behind idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a familial heart disease.

For decades, researchers have sought a genetic explanation for DCM, a weakening and enlargement of the heart that puts million of people at risk of heart failure each year.

Because idiopathic DCM occurs as a familial disorder, researchers have long searched for genetic causes, but for most patients the etiology for their heart disease remained unknown.

Now, new work from the lab of Christine Seidman, a Howard Hughes Investigator and the Thomas W. Smith Professor of Medicine and Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Jonathan Seidman, the Henrietta B. and Frederick H. Bugher Foundation Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, has found that mutations in the gene TTN account for 18 percent of sporadic and 25 percent of familial DCM.

"Until the development of modern DNA sequencing platforms, the enourmous size of the TTN gene prevented a comprehensive analyses - but now we know TTN is a major cause of DCM," said Christine.

DCM may cause shortness of breath, chest pain, and limited exercise capacity. DCM increases the risk of developing heart failure, for which no cure is available, and the risk of stroke and sudden cardiac death.

These findings will not only help patients understand the cause of their DCM symptoms, but also help to screen family members who might be at risk of developing the condition. Early identification of those at risk allows early intervention with medications that reduce workload on the heart and help prevent the changes in heart muscle, called remodeling, that lead to heart failure.

As DCM progresses, remodeling of the heart tissue makes the heart more prone to disturbances in the normal heart rhythm that can lead to stroke, heart attack and sudden death.

Using next generation sequencing tools that substantially reduce the cost per base (the TTN sequence contains 100,000 bases) by orders of magnitude over earlier standards, the Seidmans were able to perform comprehensive screening for TTN mutations for the first time. They analyzed TTN in 312 DCM patients, 231 HCM patients, and 249 individuals with no disease. Of the many mutations identified, 72 make titin, the largest human protein, shorter.

Called TTN truncating variants, these specific mutations appeared almost exclusively in patients with DCM.

"Our hypothesis is that any variant that shortens titin is going to cause DCM, which will lead to heart failure by the same mechanism," said Jonathan.

A better understanding of pathological mechanism may lead to better and more direct therapies for treatment and prevention of DCM.

The findings have been reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. (ANI)

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'Broken' heart caused by genetic mutation

ScienceDaily (Feb. 15, 2012) — For decades, researchers have sought a genetic explanation for idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a weakening and enlargement of the heart that puts an estimated 1.6 million Americans at risk of heart failure each year. Because idiopathic DCM occurs as a familial disorder, researchers have long searched for genetic causes, but for most patients the etiology for their heart disease remained unknown.

Now, new work from the lab of Christine Seidman, a Howard Hughes Investigator and the Thomas W. Smith Professor of Medicine and Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Jonathan Seidman, the Henrietta B. and Frederick H. Bugher Foundation Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, has found that mutations in the gene TTN account for 18 percent of sporadic and 25 percent of familial DCM.

"Until the development of modern DNA sequencing platforms, the enourmous size of the TTN gene prevented a comprehensive analyses -- but now we know TTN is a major cause of DCM," said Christine Seidman, who reported the findings February 16 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Idiopathic DCM is one of three different types of cardiomyopathy (the term "idiopathic" indicates that acquired causes for DCM such as atherosclerosis, excess drinking or viral infections have been excluded). It affects only about 4 in 10,000 Americans, but may be under-diagnosed because symptoms often appear late in the course of disease. DCM may cause shortness of breath, chest pain, and limited exercise capacity. DCM increases the risk of developing heart failure, for which no cure is available, and the risk of stroke and sudden cardiac death.

These findings will not only help patients understand the cause of their DCM symptoms, but also help to screen family members who might be at risk of developing the condition. Early identification of those at risk allows early intervention with medications that reduce workload on the heart and help prevent the changes in heart muscle, called remodeling, that lead to heart failure.

As DCM progresses, remodeling of the heart tissue makes the heart more prone to disturbances in the normal heart rhythm that can lead to stroke, heart attack and sudden death. "One of the added values to knowing that you are at risk for developing DCM is that we can do prophylactic screening so that silent arrhythmias are picked up before they become harmful," said Christine Seidman. "The discovery is immediately translatable into clinical practice to provide patients with gene-based diagnosis." The Partner's Laboratory for Molecular Medicine, an HMS affiliate, has incorporated TTN analyses.

The Seidmans and others had previously linked other gene mutations to about 20 to 30 percent of idiopathic DCM cases -- and, with more success, to a related disease, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. They had examined almost all of the genes linked to muscle units known as sarcomeres, but saved the biggest for last: TTN, which encodes the protein titin. At approximately 33,000 amino acids, titin is the largest human protein.

"Titin was a missing link," said Christine Seidman. "A very large missing link."

The Seidmans' collaborated with researchers from the Imperial College (London) and the University of Washington. Traditional sequencing methods had previously found only a few TTN variants in patients with DCM because complete, accurate sequencing was too expensive.

Using next generation sequencing tools that substantially reduce the cost per base (the TTN sequence contains 100,000 bases) by orders of magnitude over earlier standards, the Seidmans were able to perform comprehensive screening for TTN mutations for the first time. They analyzed TTN in 312 DCM patients, 231 HCM patients, and 249 individuals with no disease.

Of the many mutations identified, 72 make the titin protein shorter.

Called TTN truncating variants, these specific mutations appeared almost exclusively in patients with DCM. "Our hypothesis is that any variant that shortens titin is going to cause DCM, which will lead to heart failure by the same mechanism," said Jonathan Seidman.

To identify the pathological mechanism, the Seidmans plan to model a handful of TTN truncating mutations in mice.

One concern in the search for disease causing genes is that, while there will be many gene variants discovered, only a few will cause disease. This is particularly true for missense mutations that cause single nucleotide changes -- changes that substitute a single amino acid within the protein.

"We often don't know if a missense mutation significantly impacts a protein's function, until we model it and study its effects," said Jonathan Seidman.

However, in the case of truncating mutations, "it's the converse," he continued. "We don't have to model all of those different mutations that truncate titin, becuase they all foreshorten the protein. We can pick a few representative ones and expect that they will reveal a common mechanism."

A better understanding of the mechanism may lead to better and more direct therapies for treatment and prevention of DCM.

This research was funded by Howard Hughes Medical Institute; National Institutes of Health; Leducq Foundation; American Heart Association and Muscular Dystrophy Association; and the UK National Institute for Health Research Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Harvard Medical School. The original article was written by Elizabeth Dougherty.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Daniel S. Herman, Lien Lam, Matthew R.G. Taylor, Libin Wang, Polakit Teekakirikul, Danos Christodoulou, Lauren Conner, Steven R. DePalma, Barbara McDonough, Elizabeth Sparks, Debbie Lin Teodorescu, Allison L. Cirino, Nicholas R. Banner, Dudley J. Pennell, Sharon Graw, Marco Merlo, Andrea Di Lenarda, Gianfranco Sinagra, J. Martijn Bos, Michael J. Ackerman, Richard N. Mitchell, Charles E. Murry, Neal K. Lakdawala, Carolyn Y. Ho, Paul J.R. Barton, Stuart A. Cook, Luisa Mestroni, J.G. Seidman, Christine E. Seidman. Truncations of Titin Causing Dilated Cardiomyopathy. New England Journal of Medicine, 2012; 366 (7): 619 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1110186

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Genetic mutation implicated in 'broken' heart

Sydney, Feb 16 (IANS) Gene therapy not only helps injured brain cells live longer and regenerate but also changes the shape of the cells, says a new study.

Alan Harvey, professor of anatomy and physiology at The University of Western Australia, said brain cell morphology (study of form and structure of organisms) was very important in determining how a cell communicated with other cells and formed the circuits that allowed the brain to function.

"Our previous work has shown that when growth-promoting genes are introduced into injured brain cells for long periods of time (up to nine months), the cells' capacity for survival and regeneration is significantly increased," he was quoted as saying by the journal Public Library of Science One.

"We have now shown that these same neurons have also changed shape in response to persistent over-expression of the growth factors," said Harvey, who co-authored the study with Jennifer Rodge, according to a statement of Western Australia.

"Any changes in morphology are therefore likely to alter the way neurons receive and transmit information. These changes may be beneficial but could also interfere with normal brain circuits, reducing the benefits of improved survival and regeneration."

Harvey said the results were significant for those involved in designing gene therapy based protocols to treat brain and spinal cord injury and degeneration.

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Gene therapy helps regenerate injured brain cells

In the investigation, reported online in the journal PLoS ONE, the researchers isolated and characterized a novel type of cardiac stem cell from the heart tissue of middle-aged mice following a heart attack.

Then, in one experiment, they placed the cells in the culture dish and showed they had the ability to differentiate into cardiomyocytes, or "beating heart cells," as well as endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells, all of which make up the heart.

In another, they made copies, or "clones," of the cells and engrafted them in the tissue of other mice of the same genetic background who also had experienced heart attacks. The cells induced angiogenesis, or blood vessel growth, or differentiated, or specialized, into endothelial and smooth muscle cells, improving cardiac function.

"These findings are very exciting," said first author Jianqin Ye, PhD, MD, senior scientist at UCSF's Translational Cardiac Stem Cell Program. First, "we showed that we can isolate these cells from the heart of middle-aged animals, even after a heart attack." Second, he said, "we determined that we can return these cells to the animals to induce repair."

Importantly, the stem cells were identified and isolated in all four chambers of the heart, potentially making it possible to isolate them from patients' hearts by doing right ventricular biopsies, said Ye. This procedure is "the safest way of obtaining cells from the heart of live patients, and is relatively easy to perform," he said.

"The finding extends the current knowledge in the field of native cardiac progenitor cell therapy," said senior author Yerem Yeghiazarians, MD, director of UCSF's Translational Cardiac Stem Cell Program and an associate professor at the UCSF Division of Cardiology. "Most of the previous research has focused on a different subset of cardiac progenitor cells. These novel cardiac precursor cells appear to have great therapeutic potential."

The hope, he said, is that patients who have severe heart failure after a heart attack or have cardiomyopathy would be able to be treated with their own cardiac stem cells to improve the overall health and function of the heart. Because the cells would have come from the patients, themselves, there would be no concern of cell rejection after therapy.

The cells, known as Sca-1+ stem enriched in Islet (Isl-1) expressing cardiac precursors, play a major role in cardiac development. Until now, most of the research has focused on a different subset of cardiac progenitor, or early stage, cells known as, c-kit cells.

The Sca-1+ cells, like the c-kit cells, are located within a larger clump of cells called cardiospheres.

The UCSF researchers used special culture techniques and isolated Sca-1+ cells enriched in the Isl-1expressing cells, which are believed to be instrumental in the heart's development. Since Isl-1 is expressed in the cell nucleus, it has been difficult to isolate them but the new technique enriches for this cell population.

The findings suggest a potential treatment strategy, said Yeghiazarians. "Heart disease, including heart attack and heart failure, is the number one killer in advanced countries. It would be a huge advance if we could decrease repeat hospitalizations, improve the quality of life and increase survival." More studies are being planned to address these issues in the future.

An estimated 785,000 Americans will have a new heart attack this year, and 470,000 who will have a recurrent attack. Heart disease remains the number one killer in the United States, accounting for one out of every three deaths, according to the American Heart Association.

Medical costs of cardiovascular disease are projected to triple from $272.5 billion to $818.1 billion between now and 2030, according to a report published in the journal Circulation.

More information: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0030329

Provided by University of California, San Francisco (news : web)

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Stem cell study in mice offers hope for treating heart attack patients

SAN FRANCISCO -- Stem cells grown from patients' own cardiac tissue can heal damage once thought to be permanent after a heart attack, according to a study that suggests the experimental approach may one day help stave off heart failure.

In a trial of 25 heart-attack patients, 17 who got the stem cell treatment showed a 50 percent reduction in cardiac scar tissue compared with no improvement for the eight who received standard care. The results were published Tuesday in the medical journal Lancet.

The study, by researchers from Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, tested the approach in patients who recently suffered a heart attack, with the goal that repairing the damage might help stave off failure. While patients getting the stem cells showed no more improvement in heart function than those who didn't get the experimental therapy, the theory is that new tissue regenerated by the stem cells can strengthen the heart, said Eduardo Marban, the study's lead author and director of Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute.

The stem cells were implanted within five weeks after patients suffering heart attacks. Doctors removed heart tissue, about the size of half a raisin, using a minimally invasive procedure that involved a thin needle threaded through the veins. After cultivating the stem cells from the tissue, doctors reinserted 12.5 million to 25 million cells using a second minimally invasive procedure.

A year after the procedure, six patients in the stem cell group had serious side effects.

While the main goal of the trial was to examine safety, the decrease in scar tissue in those treated merits a larger study that focuses on broader clinical outcomes, researchers said.

"If we can regenerate the whole heart, then the patient would be completely normal," Dr. Marban said. "We haven't fulfilled that yet, but we've gotten rid of half of the injury, and that's a good start."

First published on February 15, 2012 at 12:00 am

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Heart's stem cells used to mend attack damage

WALLACE, NC (WECT) - Last year, thousands of people became aware of the serious medical condition of a six-year-old boy from Duplin County.

Wright Lanier passed away in mid-December, but there is no doubt he made an impact on the people who followed his medical condition on Facebook.

In 2010, Wright was diagnosed with a rare immune deficiency. Initially, doctors thought that he had lymphoma.

"The doctors, a lot of times, knew something was wrong, but in testing him nothing ever showed up," said Wright's mother, Dona Lanier. "He had a rare immune deficiency called XLP, which always looked like Lymphona in his body."

Because his condition was worsening, doctors decided Wright needed a bone marrow transplant, which is a procedure to replace damaged or destroyed bone marrow with healthy bone marrow stem cells. The stem cells can develop into the red blood cells that carry oxygen through your body. The white cells are the ones that fight infections and the platelets help with blood clotting.

While the transplant actually worked, complications were too great, and Wright died just over a year after the surgery.

"The bone marrow transplant, according to the Cincinnati hospital and Chapel Hill, was a success, meaning it completely cured his XLP and MPS," explained Dona.  "Wright just unfortunately had a lot of complications as a result of the transplant that resulted in his passing."

"While bone marrow transplants are life saving procedures for a lot of children and adults, with diseases that used to be deadly, it can also be very dangerous, and unfortunately not everyone who has a bone marrow transplant survives," said Doctor David Hill, a Wilmington pediatrician.

Before Wright got sick, his mother was the school nurse at Penderlea School. Many of the teachers, including Donna Mintz, followed Wright's progress, and shortly after his death, plans were made to honor the young boy's short life.  A bone marrow registration drive will be held in his name in Wallace this weekend.

"If you knew Wright, you would be spoiled by the smile he had and he gave the best hugs in the world," said Mintz, a teacher and family friend. "And we want to do anything we can for the memory of Wright, to help his family."

"He had the biggest heart and he did live every day like it was his last," said Wright's mom. "He found joy in every single day".

The "Be The Match" registry drive will be held in honor of Wright Lanier this Saturday, from 11 a.m. - 4  p.m. in the Wallace Woman's Club building. Normally, there is a charge to be checked to see if you can become a donor, but this weekend, the fee has been waived.

There will also be other fundraising events taking place on Saturday, and all proceeds will go directly to the "Be The Match" registry.

Copyright 2012 WECT. All rights reserved.

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Bone marrow transplant registration to be held in young boy's memory

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Affymetrix, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFFX - News) today announced that its GeneChip® System 3000Dx v.2 (GCS 3000Dx v.2) has been approved by China's State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) for in vitro diagnostic use. The GCS 3000Dx v.2 is the first microarray instrument system to be granted SFDA registration for array-based diagnostics for enabling personalized medicine. China has more than 2,000 clinical centers that will now have access to the only SFDA-cleared microarray platform for clinical testing.

The molecular diagnostic market in China is the fastest growing in the world and represents a significant growth opportunity for Affymetrix in Asia. “We are delighted to be the first SFDA-cleared microarray platform, as this will enable us to expand into the clinical diagnostics applications,” says Chris Barbazette, Vice President, Commercial Operations International Markets at Affymetrix.

The GCS 3000Dx v.2 microarray platform has a proven record of successful development and commercialization through partnership via the Powered by Affymetrix™ (PbA) program. A number of companies are developing molecular diagnostic tests in cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and inherited disorders based on the Affymetrix GeneChip platform. More than ten tests are in the pipeline for regulatory clearance. Two FDA-cleared tests (Roche AmpliChip® CYP450 Test and Pathwork® Diagnostics' Tissue of Origin Test) and three CE-IVD marked tests, including Skyline Diagnostic’s AML test, are currently on the market. These tests and Affymetrix’ own solutions for cytogenetics, cancer, and pharmacogenomics are part of an increasing menu of clinical applications that can be run on the SFDA-cleared GeneChip System.

“Having an SFDA-cleared system and a wide-range of clinical tests will enable physicians in China to bring personalized medicine to their patients faster,” says Dr. Ming Zhang at Hangzhou Bio-San Biochemical Technologies Company.

“This registration clearance is a significant accomplishment for Affymetrix and supports our global clinical strategy. It connects us more closely to physicians in China wanting to utilize clinically relevant genomic biomarkers that improve their patients’ health and wellness,” said Andy Last, Executive Vice President of Genetic Analysis and Clinical Applications Business Unit at Affymetrix.

The GCS 3000Dx v.2 microarray System is cleared for in vitro diagnostic use in the United States, Japan, CE-IVD marked in Europe, and is also available in Canada, Singapore, Australia, India, and Saudi Arabia.

In addition to the GCS 3000Dx v.2, Affymetrix also offers a Clinical Toolkit, which contains the US FDA-cleared and CE-IVD marked Gene Profiling Reagents and the Gene Profiling Array cGMP U133 P2, the cGMP-manufactured version of the widely cited GeneChip® Human Genome U133 Plus 2.0 Array. The Affymetrix® Clinical Toolkit provides a proven path to market, enabling test developers to save time and money while reducing regulatory risks.

About Affymetrix

Affymetrix technology is used by the world's top pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and biotechnology companies as well as leading academic, government, and nonprofit research institutes. About 2,200 systems have been shipped around the world, and more than 25,000 peer-reviewed papers have been published using the technology. Affymetrix is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, and has manufacturing facilities in Cleveland, Ohio, and Singapore. The company has about 900 employees worldwide and maintains sales and distribution operations across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. For more information about Affymetrix, please visit http://www.affymetrix.com.

Forward-looking statements

All statements in this press release that are not historical are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act as amended, including statements regarding Affymetrix' "expectations," "beliefs," "hopes," "intentions," "strategies" or the like. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially for Affymetrix from those projected, including, but not limited to: risk relating to the Company’s ability to successfully commercialize new products, risk relating to past and future acquisitions, including the ability of the Company to successfully integrate such acquisitions into its existing business; risks of the Company's ability to achieve and sustain higher levels of revenue, higher gross margins and reduced operating expenses; uncertainties relating to technological approaches, risks associated with manufacturing and product development; personnel retention; uncertainties relating to cost and pricing of Affymetrix products; dependence on collaborative partners; uncertainties relating to sole-source suppliers; uncertainties relating to FDA and other regulatory approvals; competition; risks relating to intellectual property of others and the uncertainties of patent protection and litigation. These and other risk factors are discussed in Affymetrix' Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, and other SEC reports. Affymetrix expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in Affymetrix' expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statements are based.

PLEASE NOTE: Affymetrix, the Affymetrix logo, GeneChip, and all other trademarks are the property of Affymetrix, Inc.

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China Clears Its First Microarray Platform for in Vitro Diagnostics to Accelerate Personalized Medicine

Assessing and developing treatment for spinal cord injuries has long proved difficult for scientists hampered by a lack of available tools and imaging techniques. Now however, a team of Cornell researchers has developed a method to potentially circumvent this problem by surgically implanting a window into the spinal cord of a mouse, allowing for dynamic and long term imaging at a cellular level.

In an article published in the January issue of Nature Methods, Prof. Chris Schaffer, biomedical engineering, and Matthew Farrar grad designed and inserted a chamber into the backs of mice that enables researchers to view of the cellular interactions in spinal cord injury sites. Working alongside Prof. Joseph Fetcho, neurobiology and behavior, Schaffer and Farrar aimed at identifying ways that researchers could advance the quality of spinal cord injury treatment by developing an improved imaging procedure.

The previous method for observing cells after spinal cord injury was to perform multiple surgeries to image the damaged site. However, according to Farrar, multiple surgeries are harmful to the mice because researchers must repeatedly reopen the skin and risk causing inflammation, increasing the risk of infection and the growth of fibrotic tissue. This makes carrying out multiple surgeries a less than ideal practice.

“The goal here is to be able to gain a better understanding of disease dynamics and to create a platform for the robust evaluation of therapeutic strategies,” Schaffer said. “People have been limited in terms of the tools they had available to study spinal cord injury and to develop strategies that could help injured axons regrow and regain function.”

Axons are like the wires of the nervous system, carrying information between the brain and the rest of the body. The axons in the central nervous system do not spontaneously regenerate in adults. After spinal cord trauma,  the damaged ends of the axons degenerate from the injury site.

“In treating spinal cord injury, the first thing you have to do is to get the axons to stop dying back and start growing forward,” Farrar said.

Currently, researchers have two ways of assessing the efficacy of drug therapies designed to repair axonal regrowth after spinal cord injury, Schaffer said. The first is to evaluate behavioral differences between animals treated for spinal cord trauma and uninjured ones. The problem, according to Schaffer, is that the animals used in research respond well to drug therapy in general, so scientists can only observe minute differences.

The other technique is to use histology, or the study of microscopic anatomy of cells. Scientists take tissue samples from animals at different time points after a spinal cord injury. There are two problems with this technique, according to Schaffer: One, researchers cannot watch the same animal over time and examine its dynamic cellular behavior at the injury site. Second, researchers cannot watch for when the axons are growing forward.

“If you consider a bundle of axons in an injured spinal cord, some of them might be dying back, some of them might be growing forward, and some of them might not be injured at all,” Farrar said. “If all I show you is a single picture in time then you can’t know which ones are which and this makes it hard to pick out the overall effect of the drug.”

To solve this issue, Schaffer and Farrar developed a tool that enables imaging of the same axons in the same mouse over time, which allows researchers to determine if an axon is getting shorter or longer. This is crucial because some axons may at first, in response to a drug therapy, begin to grow forward, but with time recede back again, according to Farrar. If the axon is not monitored over time, then one might conclude that the drug was more effective than it really was Farrar said.

After designing the chamber, the team was to induced a very small spinal cord injury in the mice and tagged axons and blood vessels with fluorescent markers. This allowed Farrar and Schaffer to observe the superficially severed axons and their growth behavior.

“The idea that you are going to grow back every axon in someone that has spinal cord injury is probably a long way off. And you probably do not have to. The axons that are most likely to regenerate, I would think, are the ones that sort of most robustly remain in the lesion site. And now we have a way to find them using our chamber,” Schaffer said.

The research team also studied microglia, or the inflammatory cells, of the nervous system while studying of axon regrowth. Schaffer said this part of the experiment confirmed findings by other scientists that microglia can interfere with the ability of axons to grow through an injured region because microglia form what are known as glial scars. After cellular trauma, large numbers of inflammatory cells travel to the injury site, clean up debris and recruit other cells to lay down scar tissue. Some research suggests that scar tissue is not something that axons are able to grow through.

According to Schaffer, scientists disagree about how much inflammatory activity is good. While getting rid of cellular debris is crucial to cell functioning, too much of the microglia to clear the debris can form scar tissue through which axons cannot grow. Schaffer and Farrar’s chamber will allow scientists to better determine how to modulate the invasion of these inflammatory cells.

Schaffer and Farrar said that the next steps for scientists using the chamber they developed will be crucial. “This research was aimed at developing a procedure, an implant and an imaging strategy to be able to see spinal cord injury sites over an extended period,” Schaffer said. “But really that is just the beginning, because now we can begin to look how the milieu of things that are released in a spinal cord injury interacts with each other in a way that seems to favor axonal degeneration.”

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Chamber May Open Window for Treating Spine

Four finalists have been selected in a search to replace interim Dean of the College of Fine Arts Jim Linnell, who suffered a spinal cord injury in Mexico over winter break.

One finalist has already visited UNM’s campus, and three more will follow in the coming weeks.

A search committee formed last fall received numerous applications from around the country. The committee can’t release the total number until the search is complete.

Search Committee Chair and dean of School of Architecture and Planning Geraldine Forbes-Isais said the committee is looking for someone who wants to be at UNM and has high academic achievements.
“We searched for candidates that we felt were contemporary and forward-looking in their vision,” she said. “The type of leader that would be able to work with all of the constituencies of the college and move them forward, and someone who really wanted to be here at the University of New Mexico and saw it as a great place to build a great school and build their own career.”

Linnell announced last semester that he would be stepping down in June. After his spinal cord injury, Linnell was rushed to the UNM trauma center to undergo surgery on Dec. 29, after receiving initial medical care in Mexico, according to a statement from his family.

The statement said his surgery was successful and that he is in stable condition. Linnell will soon begin rehabilitation at a spinal injury clinic in Denver.

According to Forbes-Isais, the search process is on schedule. The committee is composed of administrators, alumni, faculty and a graduate students, most from the College of Fine Arts. She said she is pleased with the search committee’s focus and collaboration.

“I was lucky that the search committee was interested in spending the time to identify the best candidate, and they really did their homework,” Forbes-Isais said.

Judith Thorpe is a professor and head of the Art & Art History Department in the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut. Thorpe visited the UNM campus on Monday for a faculty and public forum.

Ronald Shields is a professor and chair of the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University. Shields will be at UNM for a faculty forum on Thursday from 9:45-10:45 a.m. in the SUB Mirage-Thunderbird room and a public forum from 3:30-5 p.m. in the same room.

Kymberly Pinder is a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she served as graduate program head and department chair. Pinder will be at UNM for a faculty forum on March 7 from 9:45-10:45 a.m. in a location to be determined and a public forum from 3:30-5 p.m. in the SUB Acoma room.

Sanjit Sethi is director of the Center for Art and Public Life and the Barclay Simpson chair of community art at California College of the Arts. Sethi will be at UNM for a faculty forum on March 1 from 10:30-11:30 a.m. in the SUB Lobo room A and a public forum from 3-4:30 p.m. in Dane Smith Hall room 123.

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Candidates vie to replace injured fine arts dean

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

In hopes to find a cure for better and faster healing and to raise awareness of spinal cord injuries, Walking With Anthony (www.walkingwithanthony.org) is starting an intensive campaign to raise money for The CST Regeneration Project. Led by the esteemed team of Dr. Oswald Steward from the Reeve-Irvine Research Center and Harvard University’s Associate Professor of Neurology Zhigang He, The CST Regeneration Project provides groundbreaking findings and hope for those who are paralyzed due to injury to the spinal cord by focusing on axon and nerve renewal.

The University of California, Irvine’s Reeve-Irvine Research Center, headed by prestigious Dr. Oswald Steward, in collaboration with Harvard University's Associate Professor of Neurology Zhigang He, has fundamentally changed the history of curing paralysis from spinal cord injury (SCI). Through a revolutionary discovery involving the PTEN gene, researchers have regenerated nerves in the damaged spinal cord of mice responsible for movement and sensation in the body. The two doctors believe that these results can be duplicated on the human body.

Walking With Anthony is inspired by Anthony Purcell, who was paralyzed after a diving accident in 2010, but can now stand with the help of a walker. With about 12,000 people falling victim to SCI each year, it is the organization’s hope to increase SCI research and provide financial assistance to SCI victims. “Having seen the effects of spinal cord injury first-hand, I know how much this research and potential results would mean to the approximately 1.5 million people in the United States who are confined to a wheelchair,” said Walking With Anthony Founder Micki Purcell. “We want to raise the money needed for this research to move forward at a faster pace so that people can start taking advantage of its findings.”

“Dr. He and I are convinced that a major threshold has been crossed in our goal of regenerating connections in the injured spinal cord. We are working hard to translate the discoveries into a therapy that could restore motor function to people who have suffered spinal cord injuries. On behalf of the entire CST Regeneration Project team, we greatly appreciate the support from Walking with Anthony,” said Dr. Oswald Steward, Director of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center.

Walking With Anthony, an organization dedicated to spinal cord injury rehabilitation, is proud to raise funds that will not only help fuel The CST Regeneration Project and its results, but will also provide a larger purpose to the charity’s overarching goals.

For more information about Walking With Anthony, please visit http://www.walkingwithanthony.org.

The Reeve-Irvine Research Center is THE premier research center in the world for studies of spinal cord injuries. For more information, please visit http://www.reeve.uci.edu.

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Walking With Anthony Launches National Campaign to Raise Awareness about Revolutionary Advancements in Healing Spinal ...

Dentists can be at the forefront of the emerging field of regenerative medicine by offering Store-A-Tooth™ dental stem cell banking.

This service enables families to save their own adult stem cells from teeth that are naturally coming out or being extracted. Dental professionals play a role in making patients aware of this option, giving families the choice to safely and securely store their stem cells today – in a convenient and affordable way – so that they can take advantage of future therapies in regenerative medicine and dentistry.

Provia Laboratories, LLC will be exhibiting its Store-A-Tooth™ dental stem cell preservation service during the Chicago Midwinter Meeting at booth # 3346.

Lexington, MA (PRWEB) February 15, 2012

Provia Laboratories, LLC will be exhibiting during the Chicago Midwinter Meeting at booth # 3346 to showcase its Store-A-Tooth™ dental stem cell preservation service.

The Store-A-Tooth service enables families to save their own adult stem cells – from baby teeth ready to fall out; teeth pulled for orthodontic reasons; and wisdom teeth being extracted. Dental professionals play a role in making patients aware of this option, giving families the choice to safely and securely store their stem cells today – in a convenient and affordable way – so that they can take advantage of future therapies in regenerative medicine and dentistry.

The company partners with dental offices to make it easy to educate and inform patients about the option to preserve their family’s dental stem cells. For those interested in the service, Provia works with the dental team to provide high quality tooth collection, and arranges for the sample to be sent overnight to the lab, where the stem cells are harvested, tested and cryopreserved for future potential use.

“New stem cell therapies are going to change medicine as we know it, and dentists will play a leading role in enabling this transformation,” states Howard Greenman, Provia Labs CEO. “There’s been a lot of media buzz about stem cell research in general, but most people are unaware that a very potent and plentiful source of viable stem cells exists in the dental pulp of healthy teeth.”

Dental stem cells have already successfully been used in people to regenerate alveolar jaw bone and to treat periodontal disease. “One of the first routine applications in the oral cavity for the use of mesenchymal stem cells from teeth will be to promote bone growth around implants so they integrate more quickly, similar to how cellular bone matrix products are used today,” says Dr. Nicholas Perrotta, DMD, who started providing the Store-A-Tooth service in 2011.

“In addition to potential applications in regenerative dentistry, dental stem cell research may lead to new treatments for a wide range of medical conditions, including type 1 diabetes, stroke, cardiovascular disease, spinal cord injuries, and Parkinson’s disease, to name a few,” explains Peter Verlander, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer for Provia Labs. “Dental stem cell collection and preservation gives parents the peace of mind that they are now equipped to take advantage of the breakthroughs in stem cell therapies that will arise from the research community.”

“Store-A-Tooth is less expensive than collecting stem cells from umbilical cord blood. In fact, we hear from many of our customers that they are thankful to have this opportunity to store their stem cells, especially if they missed the chance to save cord blood,” states Greenman. “Our mission is to make stem cell banking accessible to the millions of children losing teeth every year.”

There are no fees or costs to dentists who wish to become an authorized Store-A-Tooth provider; in fact dentists can generate incremental revenue for assisting with tooth collection. Provia Labs supplies all participating practices with patient education materials, practice tools and dedicated support; training is simple and there is minimal impact to existing workflow.

Dental professionals share Store-A-Tooth educational materials with their patients, who enroll directly with Provia Labs. The day of the appointment, the dentist simply places the extracted tooth into the Store-A-Tooth collection kit, which includes a proven transport device called Save-A-Tooth®. In use by thousands of dentists for over 20 years, the Save-A-Tooth is an FDA-approved and ADA-accepted device for transporting avulsed teeth for reimplantation. The Store-A-Tooth collection kit is shipped overnight to the Provia Laboratories facility, where the stem cells are processed and stored.

The Store-A-Tooth service is currently available to dental offices throughout the United States and internationally. To become a provider, visit http://www.store-a-tooth.com or call 877-867-5753.

About Provia Laboratories, LLC

Headquartered in Lexington, MA, Provia Laboratories, LLC (http://www.provialabs.com) is a healthcare services company specializing in high quality biobanking (preservation of biological specimens). The company’s Store-A-Tooth™ service platform enables the collection, transport, processing, and storage of dental stem cells for potential use in future stem-cell therapies. The company advises industrial, academic, and governmental clients on matters related to the preservation of biological specimens for research and clinical use. In addition, Provia offers a variety of products for use in complex biobanking environments to improve sample logistics, security, and quality. For more information on dental stem cells, call 1-877-867-5753, visit http://www.store-a-tooth.com or http://www.facebook.com/storeatooth, or follow via twitter @StoreATooth.

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Store-A-Tooth
Provia Laboratories, LLC
877-867-5753
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Provia Labs Makes Chicago Midwinter Meeting Debut and Launches Store-A-Tooth™ Dental Stem Cell Preservation, Enabling ...

MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (“ACT”; OTCBB: ACTC), a leader in the field of regenerative medicine, announced today that the Wills Eye Institute in Philadelphia has received institutional review board (IRB) approval as a site for the company’s Phase I/II clinical trial for Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy (SMD), a form of juvenile macular degeneration, using human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. Earlier this year, the Company also announced that the IRB at Wills Eye Institute had approved the participation of the institution as a site for ACT’s clinical trial for dry age-related macular degeneration (dry AMD).

“We thank Wills Eye Institute once more for providing their IRB and their invaluable contribution to our macular degeneration studies,” said Gary Rabin, ACT’s chairman and CEO. “We are very happy that we can now report that Wills Eye Institute has been approved as a clinical trial site for both our SMD and dry AMD clinical trials. Ranked as one of the best ophthalmology hospitals in the country by U.S. News & World Report, the Wills Eye Institute is a truly world-class institution. Our team is eagerly anticipating working with Dr. Carl Regillo, a renowned retinal surgeon and director of clinical retina research at Wills Eye Institute, as well as a professor of ophthalmology at Thomas Jefferson University, along with the rest of his team as we move forward with these ground-breaking trials.”

The Phase I/II trial for SMD is a prospective, open-label study designed to determine the safety and tolerability of the hESC-derived RPE cells following sub-retinal transplantation into patients with SMD. The trial will ultimately enroll 12 patients, with cohorts of three patients each in an ascending dosage format. Preliminary results relating to both early safety and biological function for the first two patients in the U.S., one SMD patient and one dry AMD patient, were recently reported in The Lancet.

Specific patient enrollment for both trials at the Wills Eye Institute will be determined in the near future. Further information about patient eligibility for the SMD study and the concurrent study on dry AMD is also available on http://www.clinicaltrials.gov; ClinicalTrials.gov Identifiers: NCT01345006 and NCT01344993.

About Stargardt's Disease

Stargardt’s disease or Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy is a genetic disease that causes progressive vision loss, usually starting in children between 10 to 20 years of age. Eventually, blindness results from photoreceptor loss associated with degeneration in the pigmented layer of the retina, called the retinal pigment epithelium.

About hESC-derived RPE Cells

The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a highly specialized tissue located between the choroids and the neural retina. RPE cells support, protect and provide nutrition for the light-sensitive photoreceptors. Human embryonic stem cells differentiate into any cell type, including RPE cells, and have a similar expression of RPE-specific genes compared to human RPE cells and demonstrate the full transition from the hESC state.

About Advanced Cell Technology, Inc.

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., is a biotechnology company applying cellular technology in the field of regenerative medicine. For more information, visit http://www.advancedcell.com.

About Wills Eye Institute

Wills Eye Institute is a global leader in ophthalmology, established in 1832 as the nation’s first hospital specializing in eye care. U.S. News & World Report has consistently ranked Wills Eye as one of America’s top three ophthalmology centers since the survey began in 1990. Wills Eye is a premier training site for all levels of medical education. Its resident and post-graduate training programs are among the most competitive in the country. One of the core strengths of Wills is the close connection between innovative research and advanced patient care. Wills provides the full range of primary and subspecialty eye care for improving and preserving sight, including cataract, cornea, retina, emergency care, glaucoma, neuro-ophthalmology, ocular oncology, oculoplastics, pathology, pediatric ophthalmology and ocular genetics, refractive surgery and retina. Ocular Services include the Wills Laser Correction Center, Low Vision Service, and Diagnostic Center. Its 24/7 Emergency Service is the only one of its kind in the region. Wills Eye also has a network of nine multi-specialty, ambulatory surgery centers throughout the tri-state area. To learn more, please visit http://www.willseye.org.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this news release regarding future financial and operating results, future growth in research and development programs, potential applications of our technology, opportunities for the company and any other statements about the future expectations, beliefs, goals, plans, or prospects expressed by management constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements that are not statements of historical fact (including statements containing the words “will,” “believes,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “expects,” “estimates,” and similar expressions) should also be considered to be forward-looking statements. There are a number of important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements, including: limited operating history, need for future capital, risks inherent in the development and commercialization of potential products, protection of our intellectual property, and economic conditions generally. Additional information on potential factors that could affect our results and other risks and uncertainties are detailed from time to time in the company’s periodic reports, including the report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company’s management at the time they are made, and the company does not assume any obligation to update its forward-looking statements if those beliefs, opinions, expectations, or other circumstances should change. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company’s management at the time they are made, and the company does not assume any obligation to update its forward-looking statements if those beliefs, opinions, expectations, or other circumstances should change. There can be no assurance that the Company’s clinical trials will be successful.

Excerpt from:
Advanced Cell Technology Announces Approval of Wills Eye Institute as Additional Site for Stem Cell Clinical Trial for ...

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire -02/15/12)- Stem cell stocks have performed well of late, outperforming the S&P 500 by a large margin over the last three months. Since mid-November, TickerSpy's Stem Cell Stocks index (RXSTM) has returned more than 20 percent, as favorable news from some of stem cell industry heavyweights has boosted investor optimism in the sector. The Paragon Report examines investing opportunities in the Biotechnology Industry and provides equity research on Cytori Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CYTX - News) and Cord Blood America, Inc. (OTC.BB: CBAI.OB - News). Access to the full company reports can be found at:

http://www.paragonreport.com/CYTX

http://www.paragonreport.com/CBAI

Shares of Cytori Therapeutics have skyrocketed nearly 70 percent year-to-date. The company develops, manufactures, and sells medical products and devices to enable the practice of regenerative medicine. The Company's technology is the Celuion family of products, which processes patients' adipose-derived stem and regenerative cells (ADRCs) at the point of care.

In late January, Cytori received an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) approval from the U.S. FDA to begin the "ATHENA" trial. ATHENA will investigate the use of the Celution System to treat a form of coronary heart disease, chronic myocardial ischemia (CMI).

The Paragon Report provides investors with an excellent first step in their due diligence by providing daily trading ideas, and consolidating the public information available on them. For more investment research on the biotechnology industry register with us free at http://www.paragonreport.com and get exclusive access to our numerous stock reports and industry newsletters.

Cord Blood America, Inc. is a holding company that, through its subsidiaries, is engaged in the business of collecting, testing, processing and preserving umbilical cord blood, thereby allowing families to preserve cord blood at the birth of a child for potential use in stem cell therapy.

USA Today recently reported that umbilical cord blood stem cells have been successfully used to treat individuals with type 1 diabetes, highlighting the importance of storing stem cells at birth. The USA Today article says that stem cells from cord blood have been used to "reeducate" the immune system T cells of people with type 1 diabetes so their pancreas started producing insulin again - thereby reducing the amount of insulin they needed to inject.

The Paragon Report has not been compensated by any of the above-mentioned publicly traded companies. Paragon Report is compensated by other third party organizations for advertising services. We act as an independent research portal and are aware that all investment entails inherent risks. Please view the full disclaimer at http://www.paragonreport.com/disclaimer

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Stem Cell Stocks Skyrocket in 2012 -- Cytori Therapeutics and Cord Blood America on the Upswing

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Verastem, Inc., (NASDAQ: VSTM - News) a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing drugs to treat breast and other cancers by targeting cancer stem cells, announced that the company will present at the 2012 Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference Symposium “Targeting Cancer Stem Cells in Oncology.” The presentation is on February 19, 2012 at 2:00pm PT at the InterContinental San Francisco Hotel.

About Verastem, Inc.

Verastem, Inc. (NASDAQ: VSTM - News) is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing drugs to treat breast and other cancers by targeting cancer stem cells. Cancer stem cells are an underlying cause of tumor recurrence and metastasis. Verastem is translating discoveries in cancer stem cell research into new medicines for the treatment of major cancers such as breast cancer.

Forward-looking statements:

Any statements in this press release about future expectations, plans and prospects for the Company constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements. The Company anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause the Company’s views to change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so.

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Verastem to Present at Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference Symposium “Targeting Cancer Stem Cells in Oncology”

Editor's Choice
Main Category: Stem Cell Research
Article Date: 15 Feb 2012 - 8:00 PST

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According to a study published in the February issue of the STEM CELL Translational Medicine Journal , a world-first technique for generating adult stem cells (mesenchymal stem cells [MSCs]) has been developed by researchers at the University of Queensland. This new method can be used to repair bone and possibly other organs, and will considerably affect individuals suffering from a variety of serious diseases.

Professor Nicholas Fisk, who leads the collaborative study between the UQ Clinical Research Center (UQCCR) and the UQ's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), explained:

"We used a small molecule to induce embryonic stem cells over a 10 day period, which is much faster than other studies reported in the literature.

The technique also worked on their less contentious counterparts, induced pluripotent stem cells.

To make the pluripotent mature stem cells useful in the clinic, they have to be told what type of cell they need to become (pre-differentiated), before being administered to an injured organ, or otherwise they could form tumors.

Because only small numbers of MSCs exist in the bone marrow, and harvesting bone marrow from a healthy donor is an invasive procedure, the ability to make our own MSCs in large number in the laboratory is an exciting step in the future widespread clinical use of MSCs.

We were able to show these new forms of stem cells exhibited all the characteristics of bone marrow stem cells and we are currently examining their bone repair capability."

Ernst Wolvetang, co-researcher on the study and AIBN Associate Professor, explained that the technique had overcome a considerable obstacle in the translation of stem cell-based therapy.

Wolvetang said: "We are very excited by this research, which has brought together stem cell researchers from two of the major UQ research hubs UQCCR and AIBN."

Written by: Grace Rattue

Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

Visit our stem cell research section for the latest news on this subject. UniQuest, The University of Queensland's main commercialization company, invites parties interested in licensing the intellectual property relating to this discovery to contact UniQuest on 3365 4037 or lifesciences@uniquest.com.au.

Source: University of Queensland

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Bone Repair Stem Cell Breakthrough Shows Promise

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire -02/15/12)- Stem cell stocks have performed well of late, outperforming the S&P 500 by a large margin over the last three months. Since mid-November, TickerSpy's Stem Cell Stocks index (RXSTM) has returned more than 20 percent, as favorable news from some of stem cell industry heavyweights has boosted investor optimism in the sector. The Paragon Report examines investing opportunities in the Biotechnology Industry and provides equity research on Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (OTC.BB: ACTC.OB - News) and StemCells Inc. (NASDAQ: STEM - News). Access to the full company reports can be found at:

http://www.paragonreport.com/ACTC

http://www.paragonreport.com/STEM

Shares of StemCells Inc. have skyrocketed nearly 20 percent year-to-date. StemCells Inc. is focused on cellular medicine, or the use of stem and progenitor cells as the basis for therapeutics and therapies, and enabling technologies for stem cell research, or the use of cells and related technologies to enable stem cell-based research and drug discovery and development.

Earlier this month the company released a statement saying that it received U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorization to start a clinical trial of the company's potential treatment for dry age-related macular degeneration, or AMD. AMD is the leading cause of vision loss and blindness in people over 55 years old and about 30 million people worldwide are affected by the disease, the company said

The Paragon Report provides investors with an excellent first step in their due diligence by providing daily trading ideas, and consolidating the public information available on them. For more investment research on the biotechnology industry register with us free at http://www.paragonreport.com and get exclusive access to our numerous stock reports and industry newsletters.

Shares of Advanced Cell Technology are up more than 30 percent this year - although they are down more than 20 percent over the last month. Advanced Cell Technology has acquired, developed and maintained a portfolio of patents and patent applications that forms the base for its research and development efforts in the area of embryonic and adult stem cell research.

Earlier this week Advanced Cell Technology announced that a third patient has been treated for Stargardt's macular dystrophy in its US. Phase I/II clinical trial. The therapy uses retinal pigment epithelial cells derived from human embryonic stem cells. Stargardt's disease or Stargardt's Macular Dystrophy is a genetic disease that causes progressive vision loss, usually starting in children between 10 to 20 years of age.

The Paragon Report has not been compensated by any of the above-mentioned publicly traded companies. Paragon Report is compensated by other third party organizations for advertising services. We act as an independent research portal and are aware that all investment entails inherent risks. Please view the full disclaimer at http://www.paragonreport.com/disclaimer

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Favorable News From Advanced Cell Technology and StemCells Inc Boosts Optimism in Regenerative Medicine Industry

MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (“ACT”; OTCBB: ACTC), a leader in the field of regenerative medicine, announced today that the Wills Eye Institute in Philadelphia has received institutional review board (IRB) approval as a site for the company’s Phase I/II clinical trial for Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy (SMD), a form of juvenile macular degeneration, using human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. Earlier this year, the Company also announced that the IRB at Wills Eye Institute had approved the participation of the institution as a site for ACT’s clinical trial for dry age-related macular degeneration (dry AMD).

“We thank Wills Eye Institute once more for providing their IRB and their invaluable contribution to our macular degeneration studies,” said Gary Rabin, ACT’s chairman and CEO. “We are very happy that we can now report that Wills Eye Institute has been approved as a clinical trial site for both our SMD and dry AMD clinical trials. Ranked as one of the best ophthalmology hospitals in the country by U.S. News & World Report, the Wills Eye Institute is a truly world-class institution. Our team is eagerly anticipating working with Dr. Carl Regillo, a renowned retinal surgeon and director of clinical retina research at Wills Eye Institute, as well as a professor of ophthalmology at Thomas Jefferson University, along with the rest of his team as we move forward with these ground-breaking trials.”

The Phase I/II trial for SMD is a prospective, open-label study designed to determine the safety and tolerability of the hESC-derived RPE cells following sub-retinal transplantation into patients with SMD. The trial will ultimately enroll 12 patients, with cohorts of three patients each in an ascending dosage format. Preliminary results relating to both early safety and biological function for the first two patients in the U.S., one SMD patient and one dry AMD patient, were recently reported in The Lancet.

Specific patient enrollment for both trials at the Wills Eye Institute will be determined in the near future. Further information about patient eligibility for the SMD study and the concurrent study on dry AMD is also available on http://www.clinicaltrials.gov; ClinicalTrials.gov Identifiers: NCT01345006 and NCT01344993.

About Stargardt's Disease

Stargardt’s disease or Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy is a genetic disease that causes progressive vision loss, usually starting in children between 10 to 20 years of age. Eventually, blindness results from photoreceptor loss associated with degeneration in the pigmented layer of the retina, called the retinal pigment epithelium.

About hESC-derived RPE Cells

The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a highly specialized tissue located between the choroids and the neural retina. RPE cells support, protect and provide nutrition for the light-sensitive photoreceptors. Human embryonic stem cells differentiate into any cell type, including RPE cells, and have a similar expression of RPE-specific genes compared to human RPE cells and demonstrate the full transition from the hESC state.

About Advanced Cell Technology, Inc.

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., is a biotechnology company applying cellular technology in the field of regenerative medicine. For more information, visit http://www.advancedcell.com.

About Wills Eye Institute

Wills Eye Institute is a global leader in ophthalmology, established in 1832 as the nation’s first hospital specializing in eye care. U.S. News & World Report has consistently ranked Wills Eye as one of America’s top three ophthalmology centers since the survey began in 1990. Wills Eye is a premier training site for all levels of medical education. Its resident and post-graduate training programs are among the most competitive in the country. One of the core strengths of Wills is the close connection between innovative research and advanced patient care. Wills provides the full range of primary and subspecialty eye care for improving and preserving sight, including cataract, cornea, retina, emergency care, glaucoma, neuro-ophthalmology, ocular oncology, oculoplastics, pathology, pediatric ophthalmology and ocular genetics, refractive surgery and retina. Ocular Services include the Wills Laser Correction Center, Low Vision Service, and Diagnostic Center. Its 24/7 Emergency Service is the only one of its kind in the region. Wills Eye also has a network of nine multi-specialty, ambulatory surgery centers throughout the tri-state area. To learn more, please visit http://www.willseye.org.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this news release regarding future financial and operating results, future growth in research and development programs, potential applications of our technology, opportunities for the company and any other statements about the future expectations, beliefs, goals, plans, or prospects expressed by management constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements that are not statements of historical fact (including statements containing the words “will,” “believes,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “expects,” “estimates,” and similar expressions) should also be considered to be forward-looking statements. There are a number of important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements, including: limited operating history, need for future capital, risks inherent in the development and commercialization of potential products, protection of our intellectual property, and economic conditions generally. Additional information on potential factors that could affect our results and other risks and uncertainties are detailed from time to time in the company’s periodic reports, including the report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company’s management at the time they are made, and the company does not assume any obligation to update its forward-looking statements if those beliefs, opinions, expectations, or other circumstances should change. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company’s management at the time they are made, and the company does not assume any obligation to update its forward-looking statements if those beliefs, opinions, expectations, or other circumstances should change. There can be no assurance that the Company’s clinical trials will be successful.

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Advanced Cell Technology Announces Approval of Wills Eye Institute as Additional Site for Stem Cell Clinical Trial for ...

A new study at Johns Hopkins University has shown that stem cells from patients' own cardiac tissue can be used to heal scarred tissue after a heart attack. This is certainly exciting news considering heart failure is still the No. 1 cause of death in men and women.

The study included 25 heart attack victims, 17 of whom got the stem cell treatment. Those patients saw a 50% reduction in cardiac scar tissue after one year, while the eight control patients saw no improvement.

The procedure involves removing a tiny portion of heart tissue through a needle, cultivating the stem cells from that tissue, and reinserting them in a second minimally invasive procedure, according to Bloomberg.

"If we can regenerate the whole heart, then the patient would be completely normal," said Eduardo Marban, director of Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute who was the study's lead author. "We haven't fulfilled that yet, but we've gotten rid of half of the injury, and that's a good start."

Business section: Investing ideas
Interested in investing in the promise that stem cell therapy holds? For a look at the investing landscape, we compiled a list of the 10 largest companies involved in stem cell therapy.

Do you think this industry will see growth from stem cell research? (Click here to access free, interactive tools to analyze these ideas.)

1. BioTime (NYSE: BTX  ) : Focuses on regenerative medicine and blood plasma volume expanders. Market cap at $291.95M. The company develops and markets research products in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine. It develops therapeutic products derived from stem cells for the treatment of retinal and neural degenerative diseases; cardiovascular and blood diseases; therapeutic applications of stem cells to treat orthopedic diseases, injuries, and cancer; and retinal cell product for use in the treatment of age-related macular degeneration.

2. Cleveland BioLabs (Nasdaq: CBLI  ) : Market cap at $111.50M. Its products include Protectan CBLB502, a radioprotectant molecule with multiple medical and defense applications for reducing injury from acute stresses, such as radiation and chemotherapy by mobilizing various natural cell protecting mechanisms, including inhibition of apoptosis, reduction of oxidative damage, and induction of factors that induce protection and regeneration of stem cells in bone marrow and the intestines, and Protectan CBLB612, a modified lipopeptide mycoplasma that acts as a stimulator and mobilizer of hematopoietic stem cells to peripheral blood, providing hematopoietic recovery during chemotherapy and during donor preparation for bone marrow transplantation.

3. Gentium: Focuses on the development and manufacture of its primary product candidate, defibrotide, an investigational drug based on a mixture of single-stranded and double-stranded DNA extracted from pig intestines. Market cap at $128.29M. The company develops defibrotide for the treatment and prevention of hepatic veno-occlusive disease (VOD), a condition that occurs when veins in the liver are blocked as a result of cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy or radiation, that are administered prior to stem cell transplantation.

4. Geron (Nasdaq: GERN  ) : Develops biopharmaceuticals for the treatment of cancer and chronic degenerative diseases, including spinal cord injury, heart failure, and diabetes. Market cap at $265.57M. The company has licensing agreement with the University Campus Suffolk to develop human embryonic stem cell-derived chondrocytes for the treatment of cartilage damage and joint disease.

5. Harvard Bioscience: Develops, manufactures, and markets apparatus and scientific instruments used in life science research in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, universities, and government laboratories in the United States and internationally. Market cap at $118.28M. Develops devices used by clinicians and researchers in the field of regenerative medicine, including bioreactors for growing tissue and organs outside the body, and injectors for stem cell therapy.

6. Lydall (NYSE: LDL  ) : Designs and manufactures specialty engineered products for thermal/acoustical, filtration/separation, and bio/medical applications in the United States. Market cap at $163.44M. In addition, it offers Cell-Freeze, a medical device used for cryogenic storage of peripheral blood stem cells.

8. Osiris Therapeutics (Nasdaq: OSIR  ) : Focuses on the development and marketing of therapeutic products to treat various medical conditions in the inflammatory, autoimmune, orthopedic, and cardiovascular areas. Market cap at $157.26M. A stem cell company, focuses on the development and marketing of therapeutic products to treat various medical conditions in the inflammatory, autoimmune, orthopedic, and cardiovascular areas.

7. Verastem: Market cap at $229.00M. Focuses on discovering and developing proprietary small molecule drugs targeting cancer stem cells (CSCs) in breast and other cancers.

Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the stocks mentioned above. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment Research.

Kapitall's Alexander Crawford does not own any of the shares mentioned above.

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Stem Cell Stocks: Mending Scarred Hearts

Newswise — Breast cancer stem cells are thought to be the sole source of tumor recurrence and are known to be resistant to radiation therapy and don’t respond well to chemotherapy.

Now, researchers with the UCLA Department of Radiation Oncology at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center report for the first time that radiation treatment –despite killing half of all tumor cells during every treatment - transforms other cancer cells into treatment-resistant breast cancer stem cells.

The generation of these breast cancer stem cells counteracts the otherwise highly efficient radiation treatment. If scientists can uncover the mechanisms and prevent this transformation from occurring, radiation treatment for breast cancer could become even more effective, said study senior author Dr. Frank Pajonk, an associate professor of radiation oncology and Jonsson Cancer Center researcher.

“We found that these induced breast cancer stem cells (iBCSC) were generated by radiation-induced activation of the same cellular pathways used to reprogram normal cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) in regenerative medicine,” said Pajonk, who also is a scientist with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine at UCLA. “It was remarkable that these breast cancers used the same reprogramming pathways to fight back against the radiation treatment.”

The study appears Feb. 13, 2012 in the early online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Stem Cells.

“Controlling the radiation resistance of breast cancer stem cells and the generation of new iBCSC during radiation treatment may ultimately improve curability and may allow for de-escalation of the total radiation doses currently given to breast cancer patients, thereby reducing acute and long-term adverse effects,” the study states.

There are very few breast cancer stem cells in a larger pool of breast cancer cells. In this study, Pajonk and his team eliminated the smaller pool of breast cancer stem cells and then irradiated the remaining breast cancer cells and placed them into mice.

Using a unique imaging system Pajonk and his team developed to visualize cancer stem cells, the researchers were able to observe their initial generation into iBCSC in response to the radiation treatment. The newly generated iBCSC were remarkably similar to breast cancer stem cells found in tumors that had not been irradiated, Pajonk said.

The team also found that the iBCSC had a more than 30-fold increased ability to form tumors compared to the non-irradiated breast cancer cells from which they originated.

Pajonk said that the study unites the competing models of clonal evolution and the hierarchical organization of breast cancers, as it suggests that undisturbed, growing tumors maintain a small number of cancer stem cells. However, if challenged by various stressors that threaten their numbers, including ionizing radiation, the breast cancer cells generate iBCSC that may, together with the surviving cancer stem cells, repopulate the tumor.

“What is really exciting about this study is that it gives us a much more complex understanding of the interaction of radiation with cancer cells that goes far beyond DNA damage and cell killing,” Pajonk said. “The study may carry enormous potential to make radiation even better.”

Pajonk stressed that breast cancer patients should not be alarmed by the study findings and should continue to undergo radiation if recommended by their oncologists.

“Radiation is an extremely powerful tool in the fight against breast cancer,” he said. “If we can uncover the mechanism driving this transformation, we may be able to stop it and make the therapy even more powerful.”

This study was funded by the National Cancer Institute, the California Breast Cancer Research Program and the Department of Defense.

UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has more than 240 researchers and clinicians engaged in disease research, prevention, detection, control, treatment and education. One of the nation's largest comprehensive cancer centers, the Jonsson center is dedicated to promoting research and translating basic science into leading-edge clinical studies. In July 2011, the Jonsson Cancer Center was named among the top 10 cancer centers nationwide by U.S. News & World Report, a ranking it has held for 11 of the last 12 years. For more information on the Jonsson Cancer Center, visit our website at http://www.cancer.ucla.edu.

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Radiation Treatment Generates Cancer Stem Cells from Less Aggressive Breast Cancer Cells

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 15, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pathfinder Cell Therapy, Inc. ("Pathfinder," or "the Company") (OTCQB:PFND.PK - News), a biotechnology company focused on the treatment of diseases characterized by organ-specific cell damage, today announced that the European Patent Office (EPO) has communicated its intent to grant Pathfinder's first European Patent, EP1896571, which provides intellectual property protection for the Company's cell-based technology throughout this region. The patent covers the Company's proprietary Pathfinder Cells ("PCs"), which are a newly identified non-stem cell mammalian cell type that has demonstrated the ability to stimulate regeneration of local damaged tissue without being incorporated into the new tissue.

PCs are being developed by Pathfinder for the treatment of a number of important human diseases and have demonstrated encouraging preclinical results to date, including the ability to completely reverse diabetes in a mouse model (results published in Rejuvenation Research, April 20101). European Patent EP1896571 includes composition of matter claims for the Company's proprietary PCs, as well as methods of use relating to cell-based therapies, specifically for the treatment of diabetes.

Richard L. Franklin, M.D., Ph.D., Founder, CEO and President of Pathfinder said, "We are pleased to report the allowance of this critical patent in Europe, which protects our core Pathfinder Cell technology. Cell-based therapy using PCs may represent a unique approach to the treatment of diabetes and other diseases where regenerating damaged local tissue may restore normal organ function. We will continue to grow our international patent estate as we work to bring our innovative therapy to patients in need."

About Pathfinder

Pathfinder is developing a novel cell-based therapy and has generated encouraging preclinical data in models of diabetes, renal disease, myocardial infarction, and critical limb ischemia, a severe form of peripheral vascular disease. Leveraging its internal discovery of Pathfinder Cells ("PCs") Pathfinder is pioneering a new field in regenerative medicine.

PCs are a newly identified mammalian cell type present in very low quantities in a variety of organs, including the kidney, liver, pancreas, lymph nodes, myometrium, bone marrow and blood. Early studies indicate that PCs stimulate regeneration of damaged tissues without the cells themselves being incorporated into the newly generated tissue. Based on testing to date, the cells appear to be "immune privileged," and their effects appear to be independent of the tissue source of PCs. For more information please visit: http://www.pathfindercelltherapy.com.

1Karen Stevenson, Daxin Chen, Alan MacIntyre, Liane M McGlynn, Paul Montague, Rawiya Charif, Murali Subramaniam, W.D. George, Anthony P. Payne, R. Wayne Davies, Anthony Dorling, and Paul G. Shiels. Rejuvenation Research. April 2011, 14(2): 163-171. doi:10.1089/rej.2010.1099

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward-looking statements. You should be aware that our actual results could differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, which are based on management's current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, our inability to obtain additional required financing; costs and delays in the development and/or FDA approval, or the failure to obtain such approval, of our product candidates; uncertainties or differences in interpretation in clinical trial results, if any; our inability to maintain or enter into, and the risks resulting from our dependence upon, collaboration or contractual arrangements necessary for the development, manufacture, commercialization, marketing, sales and distribution of any products; competitive factors; our inability to protect our patents or proprietary rights and obtain necessary rights to third party patents and intellectual property to operate our business; our inability to operate our business without infringing the patents and proprietary rights of others; general economic conditions; the failure of any products to gain market acceptance; technological changes; and government regulation. We do not intend to update any of these factors or to publicly announce the results of any revisions to these forward-looking statements.

Read more:
Pathfinder Announces First European Patent Allowance for Pathfinder Cells

Illustration: Rocco Fazzari

Remember Pandora's box? In the future, when the seaside mansions have sunk and my bit of Redfern grunge is absolute waterfront, our children's children will look back gobsmacked by the evils we so blithely loosed; nuclear war, climate change, gene meddling.

The Murdochs and Bransons will have vanished with their palaces beneath tides they helped create but two of the lowly will be revered forever; an organic farmer from Kojanup, Western Australia, and a Brisbane breast cancer survivor.

What do Steve Marsh and Yvonne D'Arcy have in common? Only that both are fighting barehanded to stuff the gene genies back in their box.

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It is all very Promethean; a story of money and power and the urge to possess life itself. When Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccine an interviewer asked him about patenting it. Salk laughed. “Could you patent the sun?”

Few these days have Salk's wisdom. Both Monsanto and Myriad Genetics believe they own the essential stuff of life – and this is what Marsh and D'Arcy are testing. Their two quite separate cases will help shape not just state or country, but the global future of food and health. Small people. Big stuff.

Pivotal to the legal issue is the distinction between art and nature, the made and the found. The made is owned, and can therefore be patented. The found is given, and cannot.

It's no semantic trifle. It's a battle for the commons, as important – perhaps more important – as the enclosure battles of manorial England. Like those enclosures, it is a war waged by the rich against the poor. But now the poor are starting to fight back, in the courts.

Marsh was an organic farmer growing wheat, oats, rye, canola and fat lambs in Kojanup. I say "was", because when in late 2010 his crop was contaminated by modified canola genes from the next-door farm of his childhood friend Michael Baxter, Marsh lost his organic certification. The GM seeds had blown in. He lost 70 per cent of his livelihood. Regaining certification will take years. He had no choice but to sue his mate.

The court case is imminent but the law remains murky. Australian GM farmers are not obliged to inform their neighbours, and remedies are unclear. Yet organic certification rightly takes a zero-tolerance approach since there's virtually no longitudinal research on the safety of GM food and growing evidence of harm.

A letter from ex-army plant pathologist Emeritus Professor Don Huber to the US Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsak, in January last year warned of a “previously unknown” pathogen, apparently a micro fungus, pervading Roundup Ready crops. Huber suspected this bug of causing “epidemic” reproductive failure in swine, cattle and horses, with abortion rates up to 45 per cent and recommended an “immediate moratorium”.

Yet, here, governments and farming federations insist on treating these as simple neighbourhood disputes to be sorted over the back fence.

This is moronic, since the stakes are so much higher. Marsh is supported by various green groups, including the Safe Food Foundation, with legal firm Slater & Gordon working pro bono, but it's still costly. The respondent, Baxter, is supported by the WA Pastoralists and Graziers Association. Monsanto denies contributing (though some dispute this).

Maybe Marsh should be thankful Monsanto isn't suing him for patent infringement, as it sued Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser. Schmeiser was a seed saver. GM contamination set his breeding program back decades, but Monsanto regarded it as a theft and sued him for $37 a hectare. Schmeiser eventually won, but not without a 10-year trail to the Supreme Court.

Patent law is meant to protect inventions, not discoveries. Monsanto's RR gene is clearly synthetic: the argument is about the market control this allows (patents are not supposed to create monopolies), the behaviours used to protect it (allegedly including threats and intimidation) and the unknown effects of genetically modified organisms in the food chain (you can't patent anything harmful).

D'Arcy's case, opening on Monday in the Federal Court in Sydney, takes a different tack. Here the argument is about Myriad's right to own a gene – the "breast cancer gene" BRCA1 – that has been extracted from the human body but not otherwise modified.

But how can a private company have intellectual property rights over something that, for better or worse, inhabits every cell in your body? Myriad argues, predictably, that just isolating the gene renders it “markedly different”. Professor Peter Cashman of the University of Sydney's law school argues the other way (as does, now, the US government).

If Myriad wins, it can continue to monopolise not the therapy – oh, no – but the test, for which it charges $US3200 ($3000). (The American Civil Liberties Union's challenge to private sequestration of human genes opens in the US Supreme Court tomorrow.)

Myriad is not alone. About 10,000 genes, more than a third of the human genome, are now privately owned, including genes for muscular dystrophy and polycystic kidney disease. So the implications of this test case, which will start to determine the legality of "owning" genes that were found, not made, are immense.

It's more than just money. With last year's creation of the first wholly synthetic life form, Craig Venter's replicating single-cell microbe, the capacity to own new life – the Frankenstein faculty – becomes quarantined by the very same corporates, biotechs and pharmas that have repeatedly proved themselves oblivious to the good of the species.

So where's government? Out to lunch, basically. The Gene Technology Act 2000 should have established a clear framework for farmers' GM liabilities but didn't, leaving them to rely on common law torts of negligence and nuisance. This means cases such as Marsh v Baxter will cost millions and destroy communities.

As to the human genome, Senator Bill Heffernan introduced a Patent Amendment Bill last September that would prohibit all patenting of human genes. But with every sandstone university and the Academy of Science opposing it – uh, because it might harm business! – the bill is bogged in indecision.

And all the while the genies fly. Eat your heart out, Prometheus. This stuff makes Pandora look benign.

Read more:
Health of all on line as Davids fight gene giants