Archive for May, 2014

Genetics or Environment?
When it comes to kids and food, what drives their likes or dislikes?

By: TheLempertReport

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Genetics or Environment? - Video

Nanoinjector Device: New Gene Therapy Advance from BYU Microbiologists and Engineers
BYU researchers create tiny nano-device in newest gene therapy advance: Nanoinjector is used to transfer genes and DNA to new cells The ability to transfer a gene or DNA sequence from one animal...

By: BYU

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Nanoinjector Device: New Gene Therapy Advance from BYU Microbiologists and Engineers - Video

Personalized Medicine (Value Based HealthCare Center Europe)
"Personalized Medicine" is a collaborative project of Center for Personalized Cancer Treatment (CPCT), CZ, Erasmus MC, and Vitromics. In this interview, the ...

By: Value Based HealthCare Center Europe

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Personalized Medicine (Value Based HealthCare Center Europe) - Video

Segment 6: Personalized Medicine in Cancer: Comparing Apples with Apples
In this video, we #39;re going to take a look at one of the therapeutic areas that could be significantly improved by personalized medicine: cancer. Cancer is a heterogeneous disease, which means...

By: Drug Discovery Development

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Segment 6: Personalized Medicine in Cancer: Comparing Apples with Apples - Video

Personalized Medicine, Steve Adubato, Caucus NJ
Peter Tolias Ph.D, Robert S. Epstein MD MS Medco, ] Robert Wasserman MD, Robert McDonough MD JD MPP 5/7/11 #2359.

By: Steve Adubato

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Personalized Medicine, Steve Adubato, Caucus NJ - Video

Copy of Project Walk Atlanta Spinal Cord Injury Awareness NEW
Spinal Cord Injury Awareness.

By: Paul Pickard

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Copy of Project Walk Atlanta Spinal Cord Injury Awareness NEW - Video

Joey C6 Walking at Project Walk Atlanta
http://www.projectwalkatlanta.org.

By: ProjectWalkAtlanta Spinal Cord Injury Recovery

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Joey C6 Walking at Project Walk Atlanta - Video

Project Walk Atlanta -Spinal Cord Injury Recovery
Project Walk Atlanta is internationally recognized as a pioneer in intense activity-based recovery for individuals with Spinal Cord Injury. Project Walk Atla...

By: ProjectWalkAtlanta Spinal Cord Injury Recovery

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Project Walk Atlanta -Spinal Cord Injury Recovery - Video

Spinal cord injury exercising legs
Just light 2 1/5 lb weights, just trying to be consistant before I move up. These movements are better than none but there has to be a more effective way to ...

By: Ian Sands

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Spinal cord injury exercising legs - Video

Meet HSCI #39;s Amar Sahay, PhD
Amar Sahay, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Regenerative Medicine and the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvar...

By: harvardstemcell

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Meet HSCI's Amar Sahay, PhD - Video

BioLamina Symposium 2014 Biorelevant Approaches to Regenerative Medicine Cell-Based Assays Part I
Introduction to the 2014 BioLamina Symposium on Biorelevant Approaches to Regenerative Medicine Cell-Based Assays by Prof. Karl Tryggvason. He talks about ...

By: BioLamina

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BioLamina Symposium 2014 Biorelevant Approaches to Regenerative Medicine & Cell-Based Assays Part I - Video

BioLamina Symposium 2014 Biorelevant Approaches to Regenerative Medicine Cell-Based Assays Part II
Prof. Outi Hovatta explains human embryonic stem cells from the first derivation to clinical grade cells Human embryonic stem cells (hESC) were originally derived using mouse fetal fibroblasts...

By: BioLamina

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BioLamina Symposium 2014 Biorelevant Approaches to Regenerative Medicine & Cell-Based Assays Part II - Video

BioLamina Symposium 2014 Biorelevant Approaches to Regenerative Medicine Cell-Based Assay Part III
Sergey Rodin walks us through his new Nature communications article http://bit.ly/1nDFgf0 Laminin-521 and -511 are versatile substrata for long-term self-ren...

By: BioLamina

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BioLamina Symposium 2014 Biorelevant Approaches to Regenerative Medicine & Cell-Based Assay Part III - Video

BioLamina Symposium 2014 Biorelevant Approaches to Regenerative Medicine Cell-Based Assays Part IV
Sonya Stenfelt PhD at Karolinska Institute talks about Embryonic stem cell-based therapy for advanced macula degeneration Our objective is to develop a safe ...

By: BioLamina

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BioLamina Symposium 2014 Biorelevant Approaches to Regenerative Medicine & Cell-Based Assays Part IV - Video

BioLamina Symposium 2014 Biorelevant Approaches to Regenerative Medicine Cell-Based Assays Part V
PhD Anna Domogatskaya talks about how biologically relevant laminins enable mouse pancreatic islets in vitro culture: expansion, phenotype maintenance and gl...

By: BioLamina

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BioLamina Symposium 2014 Biorelevant Approaches to Regenerative Medicine & Cell-Based Assays Part V - Video

BioLamina Symposium 2014 Biorelevant Approaches to Regenerative Medicine Cell-Based Assays Part VI
PhD Anna Falk from the Karolinska institute talks about The role of neural stem cells in neurodevelopmental disorders For psychiatric diseases, which later in life manifest in impairment of...

By: BioLamina

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BioLamina Symposium 2014 Biorelevant Approaches to Regenerative Medicine & Cell-Based Assays Part VI - Video

Platelet rich plasma in regenerative medicine

By: osama ashmawy

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Platelet rich plasma in regenerative medicine - Video

Stem cell treatment Multiple Sclerosis
Patient suffering from multiple sclerosis undergone stemcell treatment.

By: StemRx BioScience

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Stem cell treatment Multiple Sclerosis - Video

Advancing Toward Multiple Sclerosis Therapies Using Stem Cells
For more info about the California stem cell agency #39;s MS research funding, visit our fact sheet: http://go.usa.gov/84sP Dr. Tom Lane of the University of Utah (formerly a CIRM grantee at UC...

By: California Institute for Regenerative Medicine

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Advancing Toward Multiple Sclerosis Therapies Using Stem Cells - Video

Infusio By Philip Battiade
Philip Battiade discusses the many benefits to stem cell therapy for chronic illnesses.

By: Brigitte Britton

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Infusio By Philip Battiade - Video

Mice have been poked, prodded, injected and dissected in the name of science. But there are limits to what mice can teach us especially when it comes to stem cell therapies. For the first time, researchers haveturned skin cells into bone in a creature more closely related to humans: monkeys.

In a study published Thursday in the journal Cell Reports, scientists report that they regrew bone in 25rhesus macaques using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) taken from the creatures skin. Since macaques are more closely related to humans, their discovery could help push stem cell therapies into early clinical trials in humans.

While this is the good news, the bad news is that iPSCs can also seed tumors in monkeys; however, the tumors grew at a far slower rate than in previous studies in mice. This finding further emphasizes the key role primates likely will play in testing the safety of potential stem cell therapies.

Repairing Bone

Researchers used a common procedure to reprogram macaque skin cells, and coaxed them into pluripotent cells that were capable of building bone. They seeded these cells into ceramic scaffolds, which are already used by surgeons used to reconstruct bone. The cells took, and the monkeys successfully grew new bone.

In some experiments, the monkeys formed teratomas nasty tumors that can contain teeth and hair when they were injected with undifferentiated iPSCs, or cells that have the potential to change into any kind of cell. However, the tumors grew 20 times slower than in mice, highlighting an important difference between mice and monkeys.

Fortunately, tumors did not form in monkeys that were injected with differentiated iPSCs, or cells that were programmed to createbone cells.

Advancing Research

Researchers say their successful procedure proves that monkeys willplay an important rolein research on therapies using iPSCs. These monkeys will help scientists test and analyze risks associated with the therapies and improve their safety.

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Succssful Stem Cell Therapy in Monkeys is First of Its Kind

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

15-May-2014

Contact: Mary Beth O'Leary moleary@cell.com 617-397-2802 Cell Press

Researchers have shown for the first time in an animal that is more closely related to humans that it is possible to make new bone from stem-cell-like induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) made from an individual animal's own skin cells. The study in monkeys reported in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports on May 15th also shows that there is some risk that those iPSCs could seed tumors, but that unfortunate outcome appears to be less likely than studies in immune-compromised mice would suggest.

"We have been able to design an animal model for testing of pluripotent stem cell therapies using the rhesus macaque, a small monkey that is readily available and has been validated as being closely related physiologically to humans," said Cynthia Dunbar of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. "We have used this model to demonstrate that tumor formation of a type called a 'teratoma' from undifferentiated autologous iPSCs does occur; however, tumor formation is very slow and requires large numbers of iPSCs given under very hospitable conditions. We have also shown that new bone can be produced from autologous iPSCs, as a model for their possible clinical application."

Autologous refers to the fact that the iPSCs capable of producing any tissue typein this case bonewere derived from the very individual that later received them. That means that use of these cells in tissue repair would not require long-term or possibly toxic immune suppression drugs to prevent rejection.

The researchers first used a standard recipe to reprogram skin cells taken from rhesus macaques. They then coaxed those cells to form first pluripotent stem cells and then cells that have the potential to act more specifically as bone progenitors. Those progenitor cells were then seeded onto ceramic scaffolds that are already in use by reconstructive surgeons attempting to fill in or rebuild bone. And, it worked; the monkeys grew new bone.

Importantly, the researchers report that no teratoma structures developed in monkeys that had received the bone "stem cells." In other experiments, undifferentiated iPSCs did form teratomas in a dose-dependent manner.

The researchers say that therapies based on this approach could be particularly beneficial for people with large congenital bone defects or other traumatic injuries. Although bone replacement is an unlikely "first in human" use for stem cell therapies given that the condition it treats is not life threatening, the findings in a primate are an essential step on the path toward regenerative clinical medicine.

"A large animal preclinical model for the development of pluripotent or other high-risk/high-reward generative cell therapies is absolutely required to address issues of tissue integration or homing, risk of tumor formation, and immunogenicity," Dunbar said. "The testing of human-derived cells in vitro or in profoundly immunodeficient mice simply cannot model these crucial preclinical safety and efficiency issues."

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First test of pluripotent stem cell therapy in monkeys is a success

In this image, the top row shows the stem cells transplanted into the mouse spinal cord. The lower row shows a close-up of the stem cells (brown). By day 7 post-transplant, the stem cells are no longer detectable. Within this short period of time, the stem cells have sent chemical signals to the mouses own cells, enabling them to repair the nerve damage caused by MS. (image: Lu Chen)

For patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), current treatment options only address early-stage symptoms of the debilitating disease. Now, new research has found a potential treatment that could both stop disease progression and repair existing damage.

In a study published in Stem Cell Reports, researchers utilized a group of paralyzed mice genetically engineered to have an MS-like condition. Initially, the researchers set out to study the mechanisms of stem cell rejection in the mice. However, two weeks after injecting the mice with human neural stem cells, the researchers made the unexpected discovery that the mice had regained their ability to walk.

This had a lot of luck to do with it; right place, right time co-senior author Jeanne Loring, director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, told FoxNews.com. [co-senior author Tom Lane] called me up and said, Youre not going to believe this. He sent me a video, and it showed the mice running around the cages. I said, Are you sure these are the same mice?

Loring, whose lab specializes in turning human stem cells into neural precursor cells, or pluripotent cells, collaborated with Tom Lane, a professor of pathology at the University of Utah whose focus is on neuroinflammatory diseases of the central nervous system. The team was interested in stem cell rejection in MS models in order to understand the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms contributing to rejection of potential stem cell therapies for the disease.

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that affects more than 2.3 million people worldwide. For people with MS, the immune system misguidedly attacks the bodys myelin, the insulating coating on nerve fibers.

In a nutshell, its the rubber sheath that protects the electrical wire; the axon that extends from the nerves cell body is insulated by myelin, Lane, who began the study while at the University of California, Irvine, told FoxNews.com

Once the myelin has been lost, nerve fibers are unable to transmit electric signals efficiently, leading to symptoms such as vision and motor skill problems, fatigue, slurred speech, memory difficulties and depression.

The researchers inadvertent treatment appeared to work in two ways. First, there was a decrease of inflammation within the central nervous system of the mice, preventing the disease from progressing. Secondly, the injected cells released proteins that signaled cells to regenerate myelin and repair existing damage.

While the stem cells were rejected in the mice after 10 days, researchers were able to see improvements for up to six months after initial implantation.

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Stem cell therapy shows promise for multiple sclerosis

Mice severely disabled by a multiple sclerosis (MS) -- like condition could walk less than two weeks following treatment with human stem cells. The finding, which uncovers new avenues for treating MS, will be published online on May 15, 2014, in the journal Stem Cell Reports.

When scientists transplanted human stem cells into MS mice, they predicted the cells would be rejected, much like rejection of an organ transplant.

Expecting no benefit to the mice, they were surprised when the experiment yielded spectacular results.

"My postdoctoral fellow Dr. Lu Chen came to me and said, 'The mice are walking.' I didn't believe her," said co-senior author, Tom Lane, Ph.D., a professor of pathology at the University of Utah, who began the work at University of California, Irvine.

Within just 10 to 14 days, the mice regained motor skills. Six months later, they still showed no signs of slowing down.

"This result opens up a whole new area of research for us," said co-senior author Jeanne Loring, Ph.D., co-senior author and professor at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif.

More than 2.3 million people worldwide have MS, a disease where the immune system attacks myelin, an insulation layer surrounding nerve fibers. The resulting damage inhibits nerve impulses, producing symptoms that include difficulty walking, impaired vision, fatigue and pain.

The MS mice treated with human stem cells experience a reversal of symptoms. Immune attacks are blunted, and damaged myelin is repaired, explaining their dramatic recovery. The discovery could help patients with latter, or progressive, stages of the disease, for whom there are no treatments.

Counterintuitively, the researchers' original prediction that the mice would reject the stem cells, came true. There are no signs of the cells after one week. In that short window, they send chemical signals that instruct the mouse's own cells to repair the damage caused by MS. This realization could be important for therapy development.

"Rather than having to engraft stem cells into a patient, which can be challenging, we might be able to put those chemical signals into a drug that can be used to deliver the therapy much more easily," said Lane.

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Mice with multiple sclerosis-like condition walk again after human stem cell treatment

Posted: Thursday, May 15, 2014, 12:00 PM

THURSDAY, May 15, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Mice disabled by a multiple sclerosis-like condition were able to walk again a few weeks after receiving human neural stem cell transplants, a new study shows.

While research in mice often fails to pan out in humans, the researchers believe the finding hints at new ways to treat people with MS.

The mice with the MS-like condition had to be fed by hand because they could not stand long enough to eat and drink on their own. But within 10 to 14 days of receiving the human neural stem cells, the rodents regained the ability to walk, along with other motor skills. This improvement was still evident six months later, the researchers said.

The study authors said they were surprised by the results of what they believed was to be a routine experiment. They had expected that the transplanted cells would be rejected by the mice.

"My postdoctoral fellow Dr. Lu Chen came to me and said, 'The mice are walking.' I didn't believe her," study co-senior author Tom Lane, a professor of pathology at the University of Utah, said in a university news release.

The study was published online May 15 in the journal Stem Cell Reports.

"This result opens up a whole new area of research for us to figure out why it worked," co-senior author Jeanne Loring, director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., said in the news release.

The next step on the road toward possible clinical trials in people is to assess the safety and durability of the stem cell therapy in mice.

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Stem Cells Reverse MS-Like Illness in Mice