Archive for the ‘Cell Medicine’ Category

Future Health Biobank Greek video tour
Learn more about the services offered at Future Health: http://www.fhbb.gr Europe #39;s first accredited family stem cell bank and UK Queen #39;s Award winner, Future Health Biobank, is celebrating 10 years as a pioneer in the collection and cryopreservation of stem cells for potential future medical use with the news that it is opening a second laboratory in Switzerland to complement its established UK facility. The company, which is headquartered in Nottingham in the UK, was established to process and store cord blood stem cell samples for families in 2002 at a time when the idea of stem cell medicine was still more likely to be read about in science fiction books than in our daily newspapers and magazines. Future Health started by storing cord blood stem cells in 2003 and within four years it had stored its 10000th sample. Another five years on and the company #39;s purpose built cryogenic storage facility has over 50000 stem cell samples for families from more than 50 countries in its care. A cord tissue storage service was added in 2009 and now services to capture stem cells from other sources identified for potential medical use have been introduced. Future Health have also put time and resources into research. In the last four years the company have invested in a number of important study areas which could have an impact on the future effectiveness and use of stem cells in medical treatments. These include finding the optimum cryopreservation methods which maintain stem cell ...From:FHBioBankViews:206 0ratingsTime:13:05More inScience Technology

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Future Health Biobank Greek video tour - Video

Future Health Biobank Arabic video tour
Learn more about the services offered at Future Health: http://www.fhbb.ae Europe #39;s first accredited family stem cell bank and UK Queen #39;s Award winner, Future Health Biobank, is celebrating 10 years as a pioneer in the collection and cryopreservation of stem cells for potential future medical use with the news that it is opening a second laboratory in Switzerland to complement its established UK facility. The company, which is headquartered in Nottingham in the UK, was established to process and store cord blood stem cell samples for families in 2002 at a time when the idea of stem cell medicine was still more likely to be read about in science fiction books than in our daily newspapers and magazines. Future Health started by storing cord blood stem cells in 2003 and within four years it had stored its 10000th sample. Another five years on and the company #39;s purpose built cryogenic storage facility has over 50000 stem cell samples for families from more than 50 countries in its care. A cord tissue storage service was added in 2009 and now services to capture stem cells from other sources identified for potential medical use have been introduced. Future Health have also put time and resources into research. In the last four years the company have invested in a number of important study areas which could have an impact on the future effectiveness and use of stem cells in medical treatments. These include finding the optimum cryopreservation methods which maintain stem cell ...From:FHBioBankViews:140 0ratingsTime:13:05More inScience Technology

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Future Health Biobank Arabic video tour - Video

CBR: Celebrating 20 Years of Advancing Cord Blood Stem Cell Medicine
Learn more about how cord blood is changing medicine here: cordbloodregistry.com Join Cord Blood Registry, the world #39;s largest newborn stem cell bank, in celebrating two decades of offering families more medical options. Cord Blood Registry #39;s story starts in 1992 with the birth of Dr. David Harris #39; son, Alex. The storage of Alex #39;s cord blood stem cells marked the beginning, not only of Cord Blood Registry #39;s lab, but family cord blood banking itself. After 20 years, the first-ever family bank has accomplished many firsts including: bull; First to store cord tissue for families in the United States bull; First and only newborn stem cell bank to have pioneered FDA-regulated clinical trials in regenerative medicine For more than 20 years, cord blood stem cells have been used to help regenerate the blood and immune system in more than 25000 transplants worldwide. Current clinical trials are creating new opportunities to help the body heal itself. For more information on current clinical trial uses, plus the latest research and innovations, visit http://www.cordblood.comFrom:cordbloodregistryViews:227 1ratingsTime:02:55More inScience Technology

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CBR: Celebrating 20 Years of Advancing Cord Blood Stem Cell Medicine - Video

Cord Blood Registry: Cord blood banking for peace of mind
Learn more about how cord blood is changing medicine here: cordbloodregistry.com As an expecting parent today, you have access to a medical resource our parents only dreamed of. Saving or "banking" your newborn #39;s cord blood and cord tissue is a one-time opportunity that may be lifesaving or life-changing for your family. Cord blood stem cells are used to treat many life-threatening diseases, such as leukemia and other cancers. In addition, cord blood is showing potential in research and clinical trials to treat conditions that have no cure today. This exciting new area of medicine is called regenerative medicine, where scientists are evaluating the use of a child #39;s own cord blood stem cells in experimental treatments for brain injury, cerebral palsy, and hearing loss. Only CBR consistently gives our client families first opportunities to participate in new areas of cord blood stem cell medicine. This includes four FDA-regulated clinical trials offered exclusively to CBR clients: bull; Hearing loss bull; Traumatic brain injury bull; Cerebral Palsy bull; Juvenile diabetes You can learn more about CBR #39;s role in advancing stem cell research through our Center for Regenerative Medicine, cordbloodregistry.com Ask your doctor about banking your baby #39;s cord blood with CBR today or call 1-888-932-6568 to speak with a Cord Blood Education Specialist. Use of cord blood stem cells will be determined by the treating physician. There is no guarantee that treatments being studied in the laboratory or ...From:cordbloodregistryViews:400 3ratingsTime:00:16More inPeople Blogs

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Cord Blood Registry: Cord blood banking for peace of mind - Video

UC Davis Nurtures Next Generation for Stem Cell Research
High school students are learning about stem-cell medicine from researchers in the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures. The students are involved in a rigorous yearlong teen biotech challenge that has placed them in one of the state #39;s most advanced stem cell labs, located at the UC Davis Health System in Sacramento.From:UCDavisViews:547 9ratingsTime:02:31More inEducation

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UC Davis Nurtures Next Generation for Stem Cell Research - Video

Stem Cell Scientists Win Nobel Prize in Medicine
England #39;s Sir John Gurdon and Dr. Shinya Yamanaka from Japan share the 2012 Nobel Prize in medicine for work on stem cells, revealing that mature cells can be reverted into primitive cells. Ray Suarez talks to Harvard Stem Cell Institute #39;s Dr. David Scadden, who explains the implications and applications for stem cell medicine.From:PBSNewsHourViews:4804 42ratingsTime:08:25More inNews Politics

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Stem Cell Scientists Win Nobel Prize in Medicine - Video

Audio Book Review: The Stem Cell Hope: How Stem Cell Medicine Can Change Our Lives by Alice Park ...
http://www.AudioBookMix.com This is the summary of The Stem Cell Hope How Stem Cell Medicine Can Change Our Lives by Alice Park (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator).From:BookReviewsChanViews:3 0ratingsTime:01:27More inEntertainment

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Audio Book Review: The Stem Cell Hope: How Stem Cell Medicine Can Change Our Lives by Alice Park ... - Video

Science U!: Science and Aging
Tinabeth Pina explores how advances in science and medicine are contributing to all of us living longer lives. Lisa Beth Kovetz investigates stem cell medicine and its cutting edge breakthroughs in helping to cure disease and slow down aging. Marlene Peralta has the latest on the scientific advances in treating Parkinson #39;s disease. Carol Anne Riddell explains why exercise is one of the most effective things we can do for healthy aging. Ernabel Demillo looks at aging pets - and how we can help them through the process and learn something about our own aging. For More Information: STEM CELL RESEARCH (Lisa Beth Kovetz) http://www.us.penguingroup.com http://www.amazon.com PARKINSON #39;S DISEASE (Marlene Peralta) http://www.pdf.org http://www.brooklynparkinsongroup.org EXERCISE (Carol Anne Riddell) workout911.com http://www.cdc.gov http://www.cdc.gov AGING DOGS (Ernabel Demillo) http://www.hopevet.com http://www.humanesocietyny.org CAREGIVER INFORMATION http://www.aarp.org http://www.nyc.gov Taped: 10-23-12 Science U! explores the world of science, taking the headlines and information you need and showing its importance in our everyday life. From technology, research and health to kids, humor and the arts each program explores these topics in clear, concise and engaging presentations designed for audiences of all backgrounds and ages! Watch more Science U! at http://www.cuny.tv/show/scienceanduFrom:cunytv75Views:113 1ratingsTime:29:38More inScience Technology

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WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwire - Oct 17, 2012) - The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM), the international organization representing the interests of the regenerative medicine community, announced the publication today of an article on FDA communications to help companies developing cell-based therapies by clarifying the development pathway. The article, entitled "Communications with the FDA on the Development Pathway for a Cell-Based Therapy: Why, What, When, and How?" will be published in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine. It is co-authored by representatives from ARM, Janssen R&D, GE Healthcare and Life Technologies, with the lead author from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).

"There are a number of ways cell-based therapy companies can communicate with FDA that will help them navigate the road from the bench to a regulatory submission," said Michael Werner, Executive Director of ARM. "We hope that our combined experience as co-authors, and our attempt to create a single source of guidance on the regulatory process, will help companies bring new cell-based therapies through clinical trials and the regulatory review process more quickly so they can reach patients faster," added Mr. Werner.

Lead author Ellen Feigal, MD, Senior Vice President for Research and Development at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) commented, "Cell-based therapies represent a fundamentally new way to treat or cure disease, but developing a new therapy is costly, time consuming and fraught with uncertainty. Our paper takes a practical approach to clarifying the path to market."

"Communications with the FDA on the Development Pathway for a Cell-Based Therapy: Why, What, When, and How?" provides detailed information on options for communicating with the FDA at different stages; the official communications tied to each stage of development; and the most common reasons regulatory applications are delayed. The article can be accessed at: http://stemcellstm.alphamedpress.org/content/early/recent

About CIRM: CIRM was established in November 2004 with the passage of Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act. The statewide ballot measure, which provided $3 billion in funding for stem cell research at California universities and research institutions, was overwhelmingly approved by voters, and called for the establishment of an entity to make grants and provide loans for stem cell research, research facilities, and other vital research opportunities. A list of grants and loans awarded to date may be seen here: http://www.cirm.ca.gov/for-researchers/researchfunding.

About ARM: The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine is a Washington, DC-based multi-stakeholder advocacy organization that promotes legislative, regulatory and reimbursement initiatives necessary to facilitate access to life-giving advances in regenerative medicine. ARM also works to increase public understanding of the field and its potential to transform human healthcare, providing business development and investor outreach services to support the growth of its member companies and research organizations. Prior to the formation of ARM in 2009, there was no advocacy organization operating in Washington, DC to specifically represent the interests of the companies, research institutions, investors and patient groups that comprise the entire regenerative medicine community. Today ARM has more than 120 members and is the leading global advocacy organization in this field. In March 2012, ARM launched a sister organization in Europe -- the Alliance for Advanced Therapies. For more information go to http://www.alliancerm.org.

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Journal Stem Cell Translational Medicine to Publish Article on FDA Communications and the Regulatory Pathway for Cell ...

StemCells Inc. has a history not much different from those of dozens, even hundreds, of biotech companies all around California.

Co-founded by an eminent Stanford research scientist, the Newark, Calif., firm has struggled financially while trying to push its stem cell products through the research-and-development pipeline. It collects about $1 million a year from licensing patents and selling cell cultures but spends well more than $20 million annually on R&D, so it runs deeply in the red.

On the plus side, StemCells Inc. has had rather a charmed relationship with the California stem cell program, that $3-billion taxpayer-backed research fund known formally as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

The firm ranks first among all corporate recipients of approved funding from CIRM, with some $40 million in awards approved this year. That's more than has gone to such established California nonprofit research centers as Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute.

The record of StemCells is particularly impressive given that one of the two proposals for which the firm received a $20-million funding award, covering a possible Alzheimer's treatment, was actually rejected by CIRM's scientific review panel twice. Nevertheless, the stem cell agency's governing board went ahead and approved it last month.

What was the company's secret? StemCells says it's addressing "a serious unmet medical need" in Alzheimer's research. But it doesn't hurt that the company also had powerful friends going to bat for it, including two guys who were instrumental in getting CIRM off the ground in the first place.

There's nothing improper about the state stem cell agency funding private enterprise; that's part of its statutory duties, and potentially valuable in advancing the goals of research. In part that's because CIRM is in a good position to help biotech firms leapfrog the "valley of death" the territory between basic research and the much more expensive and speculative process of moving a technology to clinical testing and, hopefully, the marketplace. Unfortunately, that's also the point where outside investment often dries up.

But private enterprise is new territory for CIRM, which has steered almost all its grants thus far to nonprofit institutions. Those efforts haven't been trouble-free: With some 90% of the agency's grants having gone to institutions with representatives on its board, the agency has long been vulnerable to charges of conflicts of interest. The last thing it needed was to show a similar flaw in its dealings with private companies too.

That brings us back to StemCells Inc. First, consider the firm's pedigree. Its co-founder was Irving Weissman, director of Stanford's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and a stem cell research pioneer. Weissman was one of the most prominent and outspoken supporters of Proposition 71, the 2004 ballot initiative that established the stem cell agency.

He's also been a leading beneficiary of CIRM funding, listed as the principal researcher on three grants worth a total of $24.5 million. The agency also contributed $43.6 million toward the construction of his institute's glittering $200-million research building on the Stanford campus. As of mid-April Weissman was still listed as a shareholder of StemCells, where his wife, Ann Tsukamoto, is an executive. Weissman, who is traveling in Africa, could not get back to me by deadline to talk about his relationship with the company.

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Research firm reaped stem cell funds despite panel's advice

NEWARK, Calif., Oct. 16, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- StemCells, Inc. (STEM) announced today the launch of four new SC Proven human neural stem cell (NSC) kits for use in neuroscience research. Each kit will contain high purity, multipotent NSCs derived from a different area of the human central nervous system (CNS), and will provide researchers with a reproducible and scalable serum-free platform with which to perform a broad range of assays. With these kits, researchers will now have the ability to compare and contrast the biological, functional and neural differentiation properties of human NSCs isolated from specific CNS regions, as well as to screen for the effects of different compounds on such cells.1,2

"These kits represent the first in a new family of human cell-centric products we are adding to the SC Proven portfolio to provide researchers with a unique set of tools to realize the promise of regenerative medicine," said Stewart Craig, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Development and Operations at StemCells, Inc. "Stem cell research is flourishing and these kits will enable investigators to derive and characterize human neural lineage cells using published methods, or the ability to customize their own assay formats up to and including scale-up for non-commercial screening applications."

Kits containing multipotent human NSCs derived from Hindbrain (HNS-HIN-001), Cortex (HNS-COR-001), Spinal Cord (HNS-SPI-001), and Mid-forebrain (HNS-MIF-001), and RHB-A(R), StemCells Inc.'s proprietary serum-free cell culture medium, are now available. For a limited time a special discount of 20% can be obtained when placing an online order with the Discount Code JAV66.

References

1 Hook L, et al., Non-immortalized human neural stem cells as a scalable platform for cellular assays. Neurochem Int. 2011 59(3): 432-44.

2 McLaren D, et al., Automated large-scale culture and medium-throughput chemical screen for modulators of proliferation and viability of human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-derived Neuroepithelial-like Stem Cells. J Biomol Screen. Oct 4: 2012 doi:10.1177/1087057112461446.

About SC Proven Products

The SC Proven product portfolio comprises a range of products for the detection, isolation, expansion, differentiation, and characterization of a variety of different human and animal cell types. The entire SC Proven product catalog and online ordering can be found at http://www.scproven.com.

About StemCells, Inc.

StemCells, Inc. is engaged in the research, development, and commercialization of cell-based therapeutics and tools for use in stem cell-based research and drug discovery. The Company's lead therapeutic product candidate, HuCNS-SC(R) cells (purified human neural stem cells), is currently in development as a potential treatment for a broad range of central nervous system disorders, including Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD), a fatal myelination disorder, chronic spinal cord injury, and dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD). StemCells also markets a range of stem cell research products under the SC Proven(R) brand (www.scproven.com), and offers contract cell process development and production services (cellservices@stemcellsinc.com). Further information is available at http://www.stemcellsinc.com.

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StemCells, Inc. Launches Four New Human Neural Stem Cell Kits Under SC Proven(R) Brand

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

Contact: Karen Robinson karobinson@som.umaryland.edu 410-706-7590 University of Maryland Medical Center

A new method of using adult stem cells as a model for the hereditary condition Gaucher disease could help accelerate the discovery of new, more effective therapies for this and other conditions such as Parkinson's, according to new research from the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine reprogrammed stem cells to develop into cells that are genetically similar to and react to drugs in a similar way as cells from patients with Gaucher disease. The stem cells will allow the scientists to test potential new therapies in a dish, accelerating the process toward drug discovery, according to the paper published online in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on Oct. 15 (Panicker et.al.).

The study was funded with $1.7 million in grants from the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund; researchers received a start-up grant for $200,000 in 2007 and a larger, five-year grant for $1.5 million in 2009.

"We have created a model for all three types of Gaucher disease, and used stem cell-based tests to evaluate the effectiveness of therapies," says senior author Ricardo Feldman, Ph.D., associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and a research scientist at the University of Maryland Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. "We are confident that this will allow us to test more drugs faster, more accurately and more safely, bringing us closer to new treatments for patients suffering from Gaucher disease. Our findings have potential to help patients with other neurodegenerative diseases as well. For example, about 10 percent of Parkinson's disease patients carry mutations in the recessive gene for Gaucher disease, making our research possibly significant for Parkinson's disease as well."

Gaucher disease is the most frequent lipid-storage disease. It affects 1 in 50,000 people in the general population. It is most common in Ashkenazi Jews, affecting 1 in 1,000 among that specific population. The disease occurs in three subtypes Type 1 is the mildest and most common form of the disease, causing symptoms such as enlarged livers and spleens, anemia and bone disease. Type 2 causes very serious brain abnormalities and is usually fatal before the age of two, while Type 3 affects children and adolescents.

The condition is a recessive genetic disorder, meaning that both parents must be carriers for a child to suffer from Gaucher. However, said Dr. Feldman, studies have found that people with only one copy of a mutated Gaucher gene those known as carriers are at an increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease.

"This science is a reflection of the mission of the University of Maryland School of Medicine to take new treatments from bench to bedside, from the laboratory to patients, as quickly as possible," says E. Albert Reece, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., vice president for medical affairs at the University of Maryland and John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "We are excited to see where this research goes next, bringing new hope to Gaucher patients and their families."

Dr. Feldman and his colleagues used the new reprogramming technology developed by Shinja Yamanaka in Japan, who was recognized with this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology. Scientists engineered cells taken from the skin of Gaucher patients, creating human induced pluripotent stem cells, known as hiPSC stem cells that are theoretically capable of forming any type of cell in the body. Scientists differentiated the cells to form white blood cells known as macrophages and neuronal cells.

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University of Maryland School of Medicine scientists develop stem cell model for hereditary disease

About a week ago, the Nobel Prize winners in medicine were revealed as Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for their work in cell research.

The award was given to these two doctors for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent." That is, any mature cells can go back to their original state, thus reversing the process of cell aging.

Yamanaka was able to draw this conclusion due to a combination of his own research and the research of Gurdon done 40 years earlier.

In 1962, Gurdon was able to take the nucleus from a frogs intestine and place it into a frogs egg. From this, a normal frog was born. Gurdons research was inspiration to Yamanakas experiment, where he wanted to reverse the process of cell maturity without using an egg.

He was able to figure out a gene combination, which he inserted into a mature cell, so that the cell was able to go back to its primitive state.

According to Yamanaka, whats significant about this technology is not only can we avoid the ethical controversy of using embryos, but also a transplant patient can avoid organ rejection because the treatment will be done by using the patients own cells and not somebody elses.

Past controversy of stem cell research has come from the fact that in order to examine a brand new cell, the scientist would have to kill an embryo. Yamanaka also mentions that this discovery may some day be a possible cure for Parkinsons disease.

Since, Yamanakas discovery was made in 2006, classroom textbooks have already been changed and biology teachers have been informing their students about this new method.

DePaul professor Dr. Elizabeth LeClaire talked to her biology students about the research Thursday.

I dont think [the research] will revolutionize the world of medicine, said LeClaire. This may not be the answer you want to hear, but most diseases are very common and are caused by diet and exercise.

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Cell transformation earns Nobel Prize

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 12th, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Prominent stem cell scientists, physicians, and advocates from leading medical facilities and research institutions across Texas and California will highlight the 3rd Annual Stem Cell Research Symposium: Spotlight on Texas, on October 19, 2012, at the Texas State Capitol.

This free, public symposium, produced and co-hosted by the Austin-based nonprofit Texas Cures Education Foundation (Texas Cures), is designed to educate the public about the exciting stem cell research andclinical trials currently under way in Texas.The event will also include a discussion of recent Texas laws affecting stem cell research, the potential economic impact of stem cell research and highlight the current progress in one of the most promising areas of medicine.

This year, more than a dozen local and national advocacy groups, institutions and foundations showed their support for the efforts of the hosting organizations Texas Cures and Texans for Stem Cell Research including the Genetics Policy Institute, Alliance for Regenerative Medicine and Texans for Advancement of Medical Research.

The symposium begins at 8:30 a.m. in the Capitol Extension Auditorium (E1.004), located at the Texas State Capitol Building. Admission is free and open to the public.Registration is recommended.

This program unites the diverse stem cell research and regenerative medicine community to provide a unified voice for promising science that holds unmatched potential to benefit patients. Leading speakers at the event will include:

For additional details about the program and presentation topics, please visit TexasCures.org.

The 3rd Annual Stem Cell Research Symposium: Spotlight on Texas is an official World Stem Cell Awareness Day Event. Follow @TexasCures and #stemcellday for live Twitter updates and announcements.

Texas Cures Education Foundation (Texas Cures) TexasCures.orgis a non-partisan, nonprofit 501(c)3] organization based in Austin, Texas. It was founded for the purpose of advancing knowledge of the life-saving work that doctors and researchers perform every day on behalf of patients and their families. Texas Cures facilitates stem cell public education for the betterment of healthcare and the growth of companies, research hospitals, and institutions, charities, and volunteer patient group organizations that include a broad range of regenerative medicine stakeholders. Texas Cures advocates for responsible public policy and encourages legislative and regulatory proposals that expand access to stem cell clinical applications.

SOURCE Texas Cures Education Foundation

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Leading Researchers to Unite at Texas State Capitol for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research

Nobel laureate Shinya Yamanaka warned patients on Tuesday about unproven "stem cell therapies" offered at clinics and hospitals in a growing number of countries, saying they were highly risky.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"There is much promising research going on," he said.

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Nobel prize winner in medicine warns of rogue 'stem cell therapies'

Kyodo / Reuters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Stem Cell Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine

British researcher John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka from Japan have shared the Nobel prize for medicine or physiology.

The two pioneers of stem cell research were awarded the prize for transforming specialised cells into stem cells, which can become any other type of cell in the body.

John Gurdon discovered in 1962 that the specialisation of cells is reversible. In a classic experiment, he replaced the immature cell nucleus in an egg cell of a frog with the nucleus from a mature intestinal cell. This modified egg cell developed into a normal tadpole. The DNA of the mature cell still had all the information needed to develop all cells in the frog.

Shinya Yamanaka discovered more than 40 years later, in 2006, how intact mature cells in mice could be reprogrammed to become immature stem cells. Surprisingly, by introducing only a few genes, he could reprogram mature cells to become pluripotent stem cells, i.e. immature cells that are able to develop into all types of cells in the body.

These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and cellular specialisation.

By reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy.

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Stem Cell Researchers Share Nobel Medicine Prize

The 2012 Nobel Prize for medicine has been awarded to stem cell researchers John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka of Britain and Japan. They take the first Nobel prize of the year, with a flurry to follow over the next week.

Judges in Stockholm said on Monday that the medicine prize had been awarded to the researchers "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent," saying that this discovery had "revolutionized our understanding of how cells and organisms develop."

Gurdon and Yamanaka are stem cell researchers who are seeking ways to obtain embryonic stem cells - a kind of genetic blank slate, cells that can be 'programmed' to take on many different forms and perform different functions - from the cells of an adult. Embryos themselves are another more controversial source of stem cells.

"We are trying to find ways of obtaining embryo cells from the cells of an adult," Gurdon writes on his Gurdon Institute website. "The eventual aim is to provide replacement cells of all kinds starting from usually obtainable cells of an adult individual."

The British scientist also said such a system was advantageous because the stem cells could be obtained from the patient themselves, reducing the risk of rejection when they were employed as a treatment.

The medals will be doled out in December, the winners named in the next few days

Stem cells appear to have potential to treat a wide range of illnesses, with a major barrier to the research the ethical implications of obtaining the cells from unborn foetuses.

A busy week in the Swedish capital

This year's laureates in the field of physics will be named on Tuesday, with chemistry following on Wednesday and perhaps the most famous Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded on Friday. As is tradition, there is no set date for the Nobel Prize for Literature - but that will almost certainly fill the gap in the schedule on Thursday. The economics prize winner or winners will be named on October 15.

All the prizes will be awarded in Stockholm simultaneously at a December 10 ceremony.

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Stem cell pioneers win Nobel medicine honors

8 October 2012 Last updated at 09:58 ET By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

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British scientist John Gurdon told a news conference he still keeps a bad report given to him by his school science teacher

Two pioneers of stem cell research have shared the Nobel prize for medicine or physiology.

John Gurdon from the UK and Shinya Yamanaka from Japan were awarded the prize for changing adult cells into stem cells, which can become any other type of cell in the body.

Prof Gurdon used a gut sample to clone frogs and Prof Yamanaka altered genes to reprogramme cells.

The Nobel committee said they had "revolutionised" science.

The prize is in stark contrast to Prof Gurdon's first foray into science when his biology teacher described his scientific ambitions as "a waste of time".

"I believe Gurdon has ideas about becoming a scientist; on his present showing this is quite ridiculous; if he can't learn simple biological facts he would have no chance of doing the work of a specialist, and it would be a sheer waste of time, both on his part and of those who would have to teach him."

When a sperm fertilises an egg there is just one type of cell. It multiplies and some of the resulting cells become specialised to create all the tissues of the body including nerve and bone and skin.

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Stem cell experts win Nobel prize

Two scientists who discovered the developmental clock could be turned back in mature cells, transforming them into immature cells with the ability to become any tissue in the body pluripotent stem cells are being honored with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

The Nobel Prize honoring Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka was announced today (Oct. 8) by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Th duo's work revealed what scientists had thought impossible. Just after conception, an embryo contains immature cells that can give rise to any cell type such as nerve, muscle and liver cells in the adult organism; these are called pluripotent stem cells, and scientists believed once these stem cells become specialized to carry out a specific body task there was no turning back.

Gurdon, now at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, England, found this wasn't the case when in 1962 he replaced the nucleus of a frog's egg cell with the nucleus taken from a mature intestinal cell from a tadpole. And voila, the altered frog egg developed into a tadpole, suggesting the mature nucleus held the instructions needed to become all cells in the frog, as if it were a young unspecialized cell. In fact, later experiments using nuclear transfer have produced cloned mammals. [5 Amazing Stem Cell Discoveries]

Then in 2006, Yamanaka, who was born in 1962 when Gurdon reported his discovery and is now at Kyoto University, genetically reprogrammed mature skin cells in mice to become immature cells able to become any cell in the adult mice, which he named induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). Scientists can now derive such induced pluripotent stem cells from adult nerve, heart and liver cells, allowing new ways to study diseases.

When Yamanaka received the call from Stockholm about his award, he was doing housework, according to an interview with the Nobel Prize website. "It is a tremendous honor to me," Yamanaka said during that interview.

As for his hopes for mankind with regard to stem cells, he said, "My goal, all my life, is to bring this technology, stem cell technology, to the bedside, to patients, to clinics." He added that the first clinical trials of iPS cells will begin next year.

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Stem Cell Discoveries Snag Nobel Prize in Medicine

JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, to the 2012 Nobel Prizes. The first was awarded today for groundbreaking work in reprogramming cells in the body.

Ray Suarez looks at those achievements.

MAN: The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute has today decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine,2012 jointly to John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka.

RAY SUAREZ: The two scientists are from two different generations and celebrated today's announcement half-a-world apart.

But today they were celebrated together for their research that led to a groundbreaking understanding of how cells work.

Sir John Gurdon of CambridgeUniversity was awarded for his work in 1962. He was able to use specialized cells of frogs, like skin or intestinal cells, to generate new tadpoles and show DNA could drive the formation of all cells in the body.

Forty years later, Dr. Yamanaka built on that and went further. He was able to turn mature cells back into their earliest form as primitive cells. Those cells are in many ways the equivalent of embryonic stem cells, because they have the potential to develop into specialized cells for heart, liver and other organs.

Dr. Shinya Yamanaka is currently working at KyotoUniversity. Embryonic stem cells have had to be harvested from human embryos, a source of debate and considerable controversy.

For Gurdon, the prize had special meaning. At a news conference in London, he recalled one schoolteacher's reaction to his desire to study science.

JOHN GURDON, co-winner, Nobel Prize For Medicine or Physiology: It was a completely ridiculous idea because there was no hope whatever of my doing science, and any time spent on it would be a total waste of time, both on my part and the part of the person having to teach him. So that terminated my completely -- completely terminated my science at school.

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Stem Cell Scientists Gurdon and Yamanaka Win Nobel Prize in Medicine

Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and John Gurdon of Britain won the Nobel Prize for work in cell programming, a frontier that has nourished dreams of replacement tissue for people crippled by disease.

The two scientists found that adult cells can be transformed back to an infant state called stem cells, the key ingredient in the vision of regenerative medicine.

"Their findings have revolutionised our understanding of how cells and organisms develop," the Nobel jury declared on Monday. "By reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy."

Among those who acclaimed the award were Britain's Royal Society, Ian Wilmut, "father" of Dolly the cloned sheep, and a leading ethicist, who said it eased a storm about the use of embryonic cells.

Stem cells are precursor cells which differentiate into the various organs of the body.

They have stirred huge excitement, with hopes that they can be coaxed into growing into replacement tissue for victims of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other diseases.

Gurdon, 79, said he was grateful but also surprised by the honour, since his main research was done a half-century ago.

In 1962, he discovered that the DNA code in the nucleus of an adult frog cell held all the information to develop into every kind of cell.

This meant that an adult cell could in essence be reprogrammed.

His landmark discovery was initially met with scepticism, as the journey from immature to specialised cell was previously deemed irreversible.

Read more:
Stem cell pioneers win Nobel for medicine

John Gurdon (left) and Shinya Yamanaka showed how to reprogram cells into their embryonic states.

J. Player/Rex Features; Aflo/Rex Features

The discovery that cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic-like state has won this years Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for two leading lights of stem-cell research: John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka.

Reprogrammed cells regain pluripotency, the potential to differentiate into many mature cell types. Many researchers hope that cells created in this way will eventually be used in regenerative medicine, providing replacement tissue for damaged or diseased organs. The field has become one of the hottest in biology, but the prizewinners discoveries were not without controversy when they were made.

Gurdon, who is based at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, UK, was the first person to demonstrate that cells could be reprogrammed, in work published 50years ago1. At the time, scientists believed that cellular specialization was a one-way process that could not be reversed. Gurdon overturned that dogma by removing the nucleus from a frog egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus from a tadpoles intestinal cell. Remarkably, the process was able to turn back the cellular clock of the substitute nucleus. Although it had already committed to specialization, inside the egg cell it acted like an eggs nucleus and directed the development of a normal tadpole.

Gurdon was a graduate student at the University of Oxford, UK, when he did the work. He received his doctorate in 1960 and went on to do a postdoc at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, leaving his frogs in Europe. He did not publish the research until two years after he got his PhD, once he was sure that the animals had matured healthily. I was a graduate student flying in the face of [established] knowledge, he says. There was a lot of scepticism.

Mammalian cells did not prove as amenable to this process, known as cloning by nuclear transfer, as frog cells. It was nearly 35years before the first cloned mammal Dolly the sheep was born, in 1996. Dolly was the only live birth from 277 attempts, and mammalian cloning remained a hit-and-miss affair.

Scientists were desperate to improve the efficiency of the system and to understand the exact molecular process involved. That is where Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, Japan, made his mark. Yamanaka who was born the year that Gurdon published his formative paper used cultured mouse cells to identify the genes that kept embryonic cells immature, and then tested whether any of these genes could reprogram mature cells to make them pluripotent.

In the mid-2000s, the stem-cell community knew that Yamanaka was close. I remember when he presented the data at a 2006 Keystone symposium, says Cdric Blanpain, a stem-cell biologist at the Free University of Brussels. At that time he didnt name them and everyone was betting what these magic factors could be.

A few months later, attendees at the 2006 meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in Toronto, Canada, packed out Yamanakas lecture. The audience waited in silence before he announced his surprisingly simple recipe: activating just four genes was enough to turn adult cells called fibroblasts back into pluripotent stem cells2. Such induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells could then be coaxed into different types of mature cell types, including nerve and heart cells.

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Cell rewind wins medicine Nobel

Hopes of a cure for infertility in humans were raised Friday after Japanese stem cell researchers announced they had created viable eggs using normal cells from adult mice.

The breakthrough raises the possibility that women who are unable to produce eggs naturally could have them created in a test tube from their own cells and then planted back into their body.

A team at Kyoto University harvested stem cells from mice and altered a number of genes to create cells very similar to the primordial germ cells that generate sperm in men and oocytes -- or eggs -- in women.

They then nurtured these with cells that would become ovaries and transplanted the mixture into living mice, where the cells matured into fully-grown oocytes.

They extracted the matured oocytes, fertilised them in vitro -- in a test tube -- and implanted them into surrogate mother mice.

The resulting mice pups were born healthy and were even able to reproduce once they matured.

Writing in the US journal Science, which published the findings, research leader professor Michinori Saito said the work provided a promising basis for hope in reproductive medicine.

"Our system serves as a robust foundation to investigate and further reconstitute female germline development in vitro, not only in mice, but also in other mammals, including humans," he said.

Saito cautioned that this was not a ready-made cure for people with fertility problems, adding that a lot of work remained.

"This achievement is expected to help us understand further the egg-producing mechanism and contribute to clarifying the causes of infertility," he told reporters.

Continue reading here:
Fertility hope in stem cell eggs

Hopes of a cure for infertility in humans were raised Friday after Japanese stem cell researchers announced they had created viable eggs using normal cells from adult mice.

The breakthrough raises the possibility that women who are unable to produce eggs naturally could have them created in a test tube from their own cells and then planted back into their body.

A team at Kyoto University harvested stem cells from mice and altered a number of genes to create cells very similar to the primordial germ cells that generate sperm in men and oocytes -- or eggs -- in women.

They then nurtured these with cells that would become ovaries and transplanted the mixture into living mice, where the cells matured into fully-grown oocytes.

They extracted the matured oocytes, fertilised them in vitro -- in a test tube -- and implanted them into surrogate mother mice.

The resulting mice pups were born healthy and were even able to reproduce once they matured.

Writing in the US journal Science, which published the findings, research leader professor Michinori Saito said the work provided a promising basis for hope in reproductive medicine.

"Our system serves as a robust foundation to investigate and further reconstitute female germline development in vitro, not only in mice, but also in other mammals, including humans," he said.

Saito cautioned that this was not a ready-made cure for people with fertility problems, adding that a lot of work remained.

"This achievement is expected to help us understand further the egg-producing mechanism and contribute to clarifying the causes of infertility," he told reporters.

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Japan team offers fertility hope with stem cell eggs