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A study led by Indiana University School of Medicine researchers demonstrates how electroacupuncture triggers a neurological mechanism that can help promote tissue repair and relieve injury-induced pain.

Their findings, published online March 16 in the journal Stem Cells, provide the most comprehensive picture yet of how electroacupuncture stimulates the brain to facilitate the release of stem cells and adds new insight relating to the cells' healing properties.

Electroacupuncture is a form of acupuncture that uses a small electrical current to augment the ancient Chinese medical practice of inserting fine needles into the skin at pre-determined points throughout the body.

For the study, a team of more than 40 scientists at institutions in the United States and South Korea was led by four senior authors including IU School of Medicine's Maria B. Grant, MD, Marilyn Glick Professor of Ophthalmology and co-corresponding author; Mervin C. Yoder, MD, IU Distinguished Professor, Richard and Pauline Klingler Professor of Pediatrics, associate dean for entrepreneurial research at IU School of Medicine, director of the Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research and co-corresponding author; and Fletcher A. White, PhD, Vergil K. Stoelting Chair of Anesthesia, professor of anesthesia, pharmacology and toxicology.

"This work is a classic example of the power of team science, where investigators in different institutions with specific expertise worked together to unravel the complexity of how electroacupuncture works to help the body respond to stressors," said Dr. Yoder.

The researchers performed a series of lab tests involving humans, horses and rodents that follow the effects of electroacupuncture from the stimulus of the needle all the way to the brain, resulting in the release of reparative mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) into the bloodstream.

Depending on the species, electroacupuncture led to activation of the hypothalamus -- a part of the brain that controls the nervous system and involuntary bodily functions such as heart rate and digestion -- within nine to 22 minutes. The stem cells were mobilized within two hours.

"The acupuncture stimulus we're giving these animals has a rapid effect on neuroanatomical pathways that connect the stimulus point in the arm to responsive neurons in the spinal cord and into a region in the brain called the hypothalamus. In turn, the hypothalamus directs outgoing signals to stem cell niches resulting in their release," said Dr. White, who is a neuroscientist at the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis.

The researchers found electroacupuncture treatments resulted in higher thresholds for injury-induced pain, as well as considerable increases in the presence of a type of collagen that promotes tendon repair and anti-inflammatory cells known to be predictors of faster healing time.

Dr. White said these findings could lead to new strategies for tissue repair and pain management related to injuries.

"We could potentially capture the MSCs from an individual's blood following electroacupuncture and save the cells for future re-introduction in the patient post-surgery or to treat chronic pain due to an injury," he said.

The horses used in the study had been injured during training for international dressage competitions, and the six people who took part were healthy volunteers, who still showed activation of their hypothalamus through brain imaging.

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Electroacupuncture releases stem cells to relieve pain, promote tissue repair, study finds - Science Daily

Unregulated, for-profit stem cell clinics might be the next snake oil salesmen. Three women went blind following injections of stem cells extracted from liposuction treatments in a clinic in Florida. Though they paid for the treatment, they were led to believe that they were participating in a government-approved clinical trial. (New York Times)

Scientists used to think of groups of 10 to 20 humpback whales as large, but groups of up to 200 have been spotted off the coast of South Africa.

Visual by iStock.com/YinYang

Its better to have cystic fibrosis in Canada. More efficient lung transplant allocation, high-fat diets, and ultimately more comprehensive insurance increases the average life expectancy of Canadians living with the genetic disorder. (STAT)

Trumps first budget proposal would include a nearly 20 percent cut to the NIH budget and eliminate the Fogarty International Center, an organization dedicated to building partnerships with health researchers scientists in other countries. (Washington Post)

Humpback whales are also organizing at unprecedented rates. Researchers report huge pods of the usually solitary whales congregating around South Africa at a time of the year when the whales are usually feeding in Antarctica. (Popular Science)

Despite typhoons, rooftop farming and self-grown organic foods are taking off in Hong Kong. (The New Yorker)

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrates that patient-specific, induced pluripotent stem cells are safe for transplant into eyes, but are still far from effective or affordable. (Science)

NASA released satellite images detailing green slush ice around the Granite Harbor in Antarctica. The presence of so much phytoplankton in an icy region has worrisome implications for algal blooms in the spring. (The Huffington Post)

Startups and health care providers are increasingly looking for ways to standardize the selfie. By providing patients with a color card to include in photos of their urine sample, pregnancy pre-eclampsia and chronic kidney conditions are caught earlier. (The Economist)

In an effort to curb prescription opioid abuse, Endo Pharmaceuticals reformulated Opana into crush-resistance capsules. The new capsules are much easier to dissolve, leading to a rise in injection and subsequent HIV and Hepatitis C outbreaks. An FDA advisory panel concluded risks outweighed the benefits of prescribing Opana. (NPR)

And finally, a look at how the chemistry of how lithium-ion batteries turn into skin-searing firebombs. (Wired)

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Abstracts: Stem Cells, Selfies, Whales, and More - Undark Magazine

Studying brain disorders is complicated for many reasons, not the least being the ethics of obtaining living neurons. To overcome that obstacle, UC San Francisco postdoc Aditi Deshpande, PhD, is starting with skin cells.

Thanks to developments in stem cell technology, new information about the human brain is now being gleaned from a simple cheek swab or skin sample. This technology is key to the kind of progress Despande and researchers like her are making. It allows them to work with cells otherwise unobtainable living brain cells that have the same genetics as the patients.

Deshpande begins with skin cells obtained from the Simons Foundation from volunteers whose DNA contains a specific deletion or duplication of one chromosome. She cultures these cells and then turns them into induced pluripotent stem cells cells that have been coaxed back to their embryonic state and are able to become any other type of cell. From there, she reprograms them to become a specific type of neuron thats involved in attention and information processing.

The deletion or duplication Deshpande is looking for stems from a 2008 finding by Lauren Weiss, PhD, an associate professor of neurology in the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics.

Weiss discovered a 29-gene region of DNA on chromosome 16 that is associated with autism, seizures and other brain disorders. Normally, a person has two copies of the region one on each copy of chromosome 16. In some of Deshpandes samples, the region is deleted from one chromosome, leaving one copy. In others, the region is duplicated, resulting in three copies. Subjects with only one copy of the region were more likely to have macrocephaly an enlarged brain than a typical subject, and those with three copies were more likely to have microcephaly a smaller brain.

Whats really interesting, said Deshpande, is that although these subjects seem to have opposite features in terms of brain size, we see a related effect, based on whether they have fewer or more copies of the region.

Some known models of autism show a connection between a neurons growth or appearance and macrocephaly, she explained. We wanted to know if the same thing is happening here.

To compare the effect of the mutation, Deshpande first stains the obtained skin cells so that she can visualize the neurons under a microscope. After staining, Deshpande used cell-counting software to assess several thousands of neurons from deletion and duplication samples and measure them against normal neurons. She found that the neurons missing the DNA region exhibited some differences compared to typical neurons.

Her next step in her research is to discern which of the regions 29 genes are involved in these differences.

The work is meticulous, but Deshpande doesnt mind. I simply love looking at neurons, she said. It really makes you appreciate the complexity of the brain.

Read the rest here:
Science in Focus: Creating Neurons from Skin Cells to Understand Autism - UCSF News Services

March 16, 2017

A study led by Indiana University School of Medicine researchers demonstrates how electroacupuncture triggers a neurological mechanism that can help promote tissue repair and relieve injury-induced pain.

Their findings, published online March 16 in the journal Stem Cells, provide the most comprehensive picture yet of how electroacupuncture stimulates the brain to facilitate the release of stem cells and adds new insight relating to the cells' healing properties.

Electroacupuncture is a form of acupuncture that uses a small electrical current to augment the ancient Chinese medical practice of inserting fine needles into the skin at pre-determined points throughout the body.

For the study, a team of more than 40 scientists at institutions in the United States and South Korea was led by four senior authors including IU School of Medicine's Maria B. Grant, MD, Marilyn Glick Professor of Ophthalmology and co-corresponding author; Mervin C. Yoder, MD, IU Distinguished Professor, Richard and Pauline Klingler Professor of Pediatrics, associate dean for entrepreneurial research at IU School of Medicine, director of the Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research and co-corresponding author; and Fletcher A. White, PhD, Vergil K. Stoelting Chair ofAnesthesia, professor of anesthesia, pharmacology and toxicology.

"This work is a classic example of the power of team science, where investigators in different institutions with specific expertise worked together to unravel the complexity of how electroacupuncture works to help the body respond to stressors," said Dr. Yoder.

The researchers performed a series of lab tests involving humans, horses and rodents that follow the effects of electroacupuncture from the stimulus of the needle all the way to the brain, resulting in the release of reparative mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) into the bloodstream.

Depending on the species, electroacupuncture led to activation of the hypothalamusa part of the brain that controls the nervous system and involuntary bodily functions such as heart rate and digestionwithin nine to 22 minutes. The stem cells were mobilized within two hours.

"The acupuncture stimulus we're giving these animals has a rapid effect on neuroanatomical pathways that connect the stimulus point in the arm to responsive neurons in the spinal cord and into a region in the brain called the hypothalamus. In turn, the hypothalamus directs outgoing signals to stem cell niches resulting in their release," said Dr. White, who is a neuroscientist at the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis.

The researchers found electroacupuncture treatments resulted in higher thresholds for injury-induced pain, as well as considerable increases in the presence of a type of collagen that promotes tendon repair and anti-inflammatory cells known to be predictors of faster healing time.

Dr. White said these findings could lead to new strategies for tissue repair and pain management related to injuries.

"We could potentially capture the MSCs from an individual's blood following electroacupuncture and save the cells for future re-introduction in the patient post-surgery or to treat chronic pain due to an injury," he said.

The horses used in the study had been injured during training for international dressage competitions, and the six people who took part were healthy volunteers, who still showed activation of their hypothalamus through brain imaging.

Explore further: Study finds acupuncture lowers hypertension by activating natural opioids

More information: Tatiana E. Salazar et al, Electroacupuncture Promotes CNS-Dependent Release of Mesenchymal Stem Cells, STEM CELLS (2017). DOI: 10.1002/stem.2613

Journal reference: Stem Cells

Provided by: Indiana University

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Appears to me to be approximately the same epigenetic process as high pressure - deep tissue massage work. Very interesting, I would hope some one would do a parallel study, and possible a study stacking the 2 together in the interest of quantifying a treatment method. With muscle and bone injuries estimated to cost $850 billion/year, - and to likely contribute to self medication and possible suicide we should get into the fray and assess what we know and how to incorporate what appears to work. Consultation with sports Med. docs, Massage Specialists, Osteopaths, and Chiropractors would result in development of a truly effective tool for treatment.

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Electroacupuncture releases stem cells to relieve pain, promote tissue repair, study finds - Medical Xpress

Summer is behind us. But that's not all bad, because autumn and winter are the ideal seasons for treating most skin concerns thanks to shorter days, which equal less sun exposure.

That's because UVA and UVB rays damage the skin and many treatments can make the complexion more susceptible.

So as we say goodbye to summer, consider using the cooler months to address your skin concerns. Here are three new treatments which do exactly that.

Ultimate Renewal is a 90-minute procedure which first involves two types of laser to break up hyperpigmentation and resurface the skin, then dermal stamp micro needling to rejuvenate fresh collagen. The process stresses the skin so that it is forced to regenerate, much like putting stress on a muscle doing weights in order to make it bigger.

Dr Jeremy Cumpston from Ageless Clinics has been performing this special combination of treatments for the past few years, with great results.

In conjunction with the micro needling, Dr Cumpston draws some of the client's blood and spins it in a special machine which separates out the platelets, known as platelet rich plasma, which is a honey coloured substance. Those platelets are then used on the skin while the dermal stamp is in operation as they stimulate cells to generate new tissue.

"Using a client's own platelets is the fastest and most effective way to heal and rejuvenate the skin. The platelets speak a language the body naturally understands so they get to work to stimulate stem cells," Cumpston told The Huffington Post Australia.

Leftover platelets that aren't used at the time of derma stamping are mixed with an organic face cream and then frozen with nitrogen in order to maintain their biological activity. The client then takes small tub of this patent pending cream home to use on the skin as it heals over the following three days.

The last (optional) step of the treatment is called the Beauty Boost and is performed a week later. A gun-like device is used to distribute hyaluronic acid into the skin. Tiny molecules of hyaluronic acid can hold an impressive amount of water, which is why it's so good at plumping the skin. The HA paired with antioxidants and collagen factors give an overall glow, radiance and fullness to the complexion.

The treatments together recently won the national Teosyal Blue Diamond Award 2017. The Ultimate Renewal alone costs $850 and the two combined cost $1500.

The RVR90 'journey', which stands for Real Visible Results, is a custom combination of three months of at-home skincare combined with in-salon treatments, designed to correct your skin concern.

Ultraceuticals is an Australian made and owned cosmeceutical brand and is held in high regard in the skincare industry for its cutting edge research and development.

"Depending on their skin concern, clients can experience specific treatments for acne, loss of firmness, fine lines or hyperpigmentation," Tracey Beeby, Head of Global Training for Ultraceuticals told HuffPost Australia.

The system involves a three step process. Firstly a skin technician identifies the client's core skin concern and selects a specific hero treatment product to treat this problem.

Secondly, they select a matching skincare pack to suit the customer's skin type and work with the hero product. Finally, the skin technician will prescribes a course of complete treatments to accelerate progress. It is advised that clients receive a treatment every three or four weeks depending on the severity of their skin concern.

Some pretty impressive results have been achieved in the 90-day time frame. Costs vary depending on the tailored program but the skincare packs are around $200.

The use of diamonds in skincare is nothing new. Diamond dust or diamond headed exfoliating devices have long been used to buff the skin, slothing away dead cells and revealing a fresh, smooth complexion.

"Our Diamond facial, called 'Flawless' takes 60 minutes and it's our second most expensive treatment, at $349," Magen Darel, skin technician from Verdem told HuffPost Australia.

"It is a detoxifying facial to balance the skin tone and improve the elasticity. Diamond powder is used to gently exfoliate dead skin while massaging in the mask with circular motions has the benefits of stimulating collagen production."

The treatment is recommended for dry to combination skin that is too sensitive and can't have other detoxifying facials, as this is gentle and mild. It's also suggested for clients in their late 20s or older to correct accumulated sun damage.

"Highly recommend before special occasion, fine lines will diminish and you will gain a brighter skin complexion. The skin will be left soft and supple with a glow for the next upcoming days. This treatment gives similar results to diamond microdermabrasion, though the diamond cream applied as the last step offers sun protection to preserve results," Darel said.

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Three New Beauty Treatments To Whip Your Skin Into Tip Top Shape - Huffington Post Australia

Scientists have long hoped that stem cells might have the power to treat diseases. But it's always been clear that they could be dangerous too, especially if they're not used carefully.

Now a pair of papers published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine is underscoring both the promise and the peril of using stem cells for therapy.

In one report, researchers document the cases of three elderly women who were blinded after getting stem cells derived from fat tissue at a for-profit clinic in Florida. The treatment was marketed as a treatment for macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness among the elderly. Each woman got cells injected into both eyes.

In a second report, a patient suffering from the same condition had a halt in the inexorable loss of vision patients usually experience, which may or may not have been related to the treatment. That patient got a different kind of stem cell derived from skin cells as part of a carefully designed Japanese study.

The Japanese case marks the first time anyone has given induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells to a patient to treat any condition.

"These two reports are about as stark a contrast as it gets," says George Q. Daley, Harvard Medical School's dean and a leading stem cell researcher. He wrote an editorial accompanying the two papers. "It's really striking."

The report about the three women in their 70s and 80s who were blinded in Florida is renewing calls for the Food and Drug Administration to crack down on the hundreds of clinics that are selling unproven stem cell treatments for a wide variety of medical conditions, including arthritis, autism and stroke.

"One of the big mysteries about this particular case and the mushrooming stem cell clinic industry more generally is why the FDA has chosen to effectively sit itself out on the sidelines even as this situation overall grows increasingly risky to patients," says Paul Knoepfler, a University of California, Davis, stem cell researcher who has studied the proliferation of stem cell clinics.

"The inaction by the FDA not only puts many patients at serious risk from unproven stem cell offerings, but also it undermines the agency's credibility," Knoepfler wrote in an email.

In response to a query from Shots, an FDA spokeswoman wrote in an email that the agency is in the process of finalizing four new guidelines aimed at clarifying how clinics could use stem cells as treatments. The agency also noted that it had previously issued a warning to patients.

In the meantime, "consumers are encouraged to contact FDA and the appropriate state authorities in their jurisdictions to report any potentially illegal or harmful activity related to stem cell based products," the FDA email says.

Other researchers say the cases should stand as a warning to patients considering unproved stem cell treatments, especially those tried outside carefully designed research studies.

"Patients have to be wary and tell the difference between the snake oil salesmen who are going to exploit them and the kind of slow, painstaking legitimate clinical trials that are also going on," Daley says.

The New England Journal of Medicine report did not name the Florida clinic, but noted that the treatment was listed on a government website that serves as a clearinghouse for research studies. The sponsor is listed as Bioheart, Inc., which is part of U.S. Stem Cell Inc. in Sunrise, Fla.

Kristen Comella, the scientific director of U.S. Stem Cell, would not discuss the cases. "There were legal cases associated with eye patients that were settled under confidentiality, so I am not permitted to speak on any details of those cases due to the confidentiality clause," Comella said by phone.

She acknowledged, however, that the clinic had been performing the stem cell procedures. They were discontinued after at least two patients suffered detached retinas, she says.

But Comella defended the use of stem cells from fat tissue to treat a wide variety of other health problems.

"We have treated more than 7,000 patients and we've have had very few adverse events reported. So the safety track record is very strong," Comella says. "We feel very confident about the procedures that we do, and we've had great success in many different indications."

According to the New England Journal of Medicine report, The Florida clinic was using adult stem cells, which circulate in various parts of the body, including in fat tissue. While those cells may someday be turn out to be useful for treating disease, none have been proven to work.

The body produces a variety of stem cells. The kind that have generated the most excitement and controversy are human embryonic stem cells, which are derived from early human embryos and can be coaxed to become any kind of cell in the body.

Scientists are also excited about iPS cells, which can be made in the laboratory by turning any cell in the body, such as skin cells, into cells that resemble embryonic stem cells.

Those are the cells that were tested by the Japanese scientists. The stem cells were converted into retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells, which are the cells that are destroyed by macular degeneration.

"This represents a landmark," says Daley. "It's the first time any patient has been treated with cellular derivatives of iPS cells. So it's definitely a world first."

Daley noted that the scientists only treated one of the patient's eyes in case something went wrong, to ensure remaining vision would not be threatened in the other eye.

After at least a year, no complications had occurred and the patient had not experienced any further deterioration of vision in the treated eye. While that is promising, more patients would have to be treated and followed for much longer to know whether that approach is successful, Daley says.

"Given that macular degeneration is the most frequent cause of vision loss and blindness in the elderly and our population is aging, the prevalence of macular degeneration is going up dramatically," Daley says. "So to be able to preserve or even restore sight would be a really remarkable medical advance."

Despite the potentially encouraging results with the first patient, Daley noted that the Japanese scientists decided not to treat a second patient and suspended the study. That's because they discovered worrisome genetic variations in the RPE cells they had produced for the second patient.

"They weren't certain these would cause problems for the patient, but they were restrained enough and cautious enough that they decided not to go forward," Daley says. "That's what contrasts so markedly with the approach of the second group, who treated the three patients with an unproven stem cell therapy that ended up have devastating effects on their vision."

In this case, the New England Journal of Medicine report says, patients paid $5,000 each to receive injections of solutions that supposedly contained stem cells that were obtained from fat removed from their abdomens through liposuction.

Even though the safety and effectiveness of this procedure is unknown, all three patients received injections in both eyes.

"That's what led to these horrible results," says Thomas Albini, a retina specialist at the University of Florida's Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, who helped write the report.

Before the procedure, all three women still had at least some vision. Afterwards, one woman was left completely blind while the other two were effectively blind, Albini and his colleagues reported.

The cases show that patients need to be warned that something that "sounds too good to be true may indeed be too good to be true and may even be horrible," Albini says.

Read this article:
3 Women Blinded By Unproven Stem Cell Treatments - NPR

March 15, 2017 by Grove Potter The four images, from left to right, show Keratinocyte-derive neural crest stem cells turning into neurons as shown by typical neuronal morphology. Credit: University at Buffalo.

A discovery, several years in the making, by a University at Buffalo research team has proven that adult skin cells can be converted into neural crest cells (a type of stem cell) without any genetic modification, and that these stem cells can yield other cells that are present in the spinal cord and the brain.

The practical implications could be very significant, from studying genetic diseases in a dish to generating possible regenerative cures from the patient's own cells.

"It's actually quite remarkable that it happens," says Stelios T. Andreadis, PhD, professor and chair of UB's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, who recently published a paper on the results in the journal Stem Cells.

The identity of the cells was further confirmed by lineage tracing experiments, where the reprogrammed cells were implanted in chicken embryos and acted just as neural crest cells do.

Stem cells have been derived from adult cells before, but not without adding genes to alter the cells. The new process yields neural crest cells without addition of foreign genetic material. The reprogrammed neural crest cells can become smooth muscle cells, melanocytes, Schwann cells or neurons.

"In medical applications this has tremendous potential because you can always get a skin biopsy," Andreadis says. "We can grow the cells to large numbers and reprogram them, without genetic modification. So, autologous cells derived from the patient can be used to treat devastating neurogenic diseases that are currently hampered by the lack of easily accessible cell sources."

The process can also be used to model disease. Skin cells from a person with a genetic disease of the nervous system can be reprogrammed into neural crest cells. These cells will have the disease-causing mutation in their chromosomes, but the genes that cause the mutation are not expressed in the skin. The genes are likely to be expressed when cells differentiate into neural crest lineages, such as neurons or Schwann cells, thereby enabling researchers to study the disease in a dish. This is similar to induced pluripotent stem cells, but without genetic modification or reprograming to the pluripotent state.

The discovery was a gradual process, Andreadis says, as successive experiments kept leading to something new. "It was one step at a time. It was a very challenging task that took almost five years and involved a wide range of expertise and collaborators to bring it to fruition," Andreadis says. Collaborators include Gabriella Popescu, PhD, professor in the Department of Biochemistry in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB; Song Liu, PhD, vice chair of biostatistics and bioinformatics at Roswell Park Cancer Institute and a research associate professor in biostatistics UB's School of Public Health and Health Professions; and Marianne Bronner, PhD, professor of biology and biological engineering, California Institute of Technology.

Andreadis credits the persistence of his then-PhD student, Vivek K. Bajpai, for sticking with it.

"He is an excellent and persistent student," Andreadis says. "Most students would have given up." Andreadis also credits a seed grant from UB's office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development's IMPACT program that enabled part of the work.

The work recently received a $1.7 million National Institutes of Health grant to delve into the mechanisms that occur as the cells reprogram, and to employ the cells for treating the Parkinson's-like symptoms in a mouse model of hypomyelinating disease.

"This work has the potential to provide a novel source of abundant, easily accessible and autologous cells for treatment of devastating neurodegenerative diseases. We are excited about this discovery and its potential impact and are grateful to NIH for the opportunity to pursue it further," Andreadis said.

The research is described in the journal Stem Cells under the title "Reprogramming Postnatal Human Epidermal Keratinocytes Toward Functional Neural Crest Fates."

Explore further: Embryonic gene Nanog reverses aging in adult stem cells

More information: Vivek K. Bajpai et al, Reprogramming Postnatal Human Epidermal Keratinocytes Toward Functional Neural Crest Fates, STEM CELLS (2017). DOI: 10.1002/stem.2583

Journal reference: Stem Cells

Provided by: University at Buffalo

The fountain of youth may reside in an embryonic stem cell gene named Nanog.

Caltech scientists have converted cells of the lower-body region into facial tissue that makes cartilage, in new experiments using bird embryos. The researchers discovered a "gene circuit," composed of just three genes, that ...

Scientists at the University of Newcastle, UK, have used a combination of small molecules to turn cells isolated from human skin into Schwann cells - the specialised cells that support nerves and play a role in nerve repair. ...

Johns Hopkins stem cell biologists have found a way to reprogram a patient's skin cells into cells that mimic and display many biological features of a rare genetic disorder called familial dysautonomia. The process requires ...

(Phys.org)A team of researchers affiliated with New York and Dalhousie Universities, in the U.S. and Canada respectively, has found a possible intermediate cell type that might help understand the evolutionary process ...

German researchers succeed in obtaining brain and spinal cord cells from stem cells of the peripheral nervous system.

Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have pinpointed a key genetic switch that helps soil bacteria living on and inside a plant's roots harvest a vital nutrient with limited global supply. The nutrient, ...

So they can't use smartphones or WiFi, but bacteria have evolved some seriously complex strategies to communicate with one another. And the resulting interactions are a delicate balance of cooperation and, in some cases, ...

New research led by the UK's Centre for Ecology & Hydrology has revealed for the first time that flower-rich habitats are key to enhancing the survival of bumblebee families between years.

The evolution of land animals has been shaped by barriers such as oceans and mountains which have divided them and sent them down different genetic paths.

A discovery, several years in the making, by a University at Buffalo research team has proven that adult skin cells can be converted into neural crest cells (a type of stem cell) without any genetic modification, and that ...

(Phys.org)A trio of researchers with Anglia Ruskin University in the U.K. and the Australian National University has found that the male fiddler crab uses its oversized claw to get the attention of a prospective mate and ...

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From skin to brain: Stem cells without genetic modification - Phys.Org

Studying brain disorders is complicated for many reasons, not the least being the ethics of obtaining living neurons. To overcome that obstacle, UC San Francisco postdoc Aditi Deshpande, PhD, is starting with skin cells.

Thanks to developments in stem cell technology, new information about the human brain is now being gleaned from a simple cheek swab or skin sample. This technology is key to the kind of progress Despande and researchers like her are making. It allows them to work with cells otherwise unobtainable living brain cells that have the same genetics as the patients.

Deshpande begins with skin cells obtained from the Simons Foundation from volunteers whose DNA contains a specific deletion or duplication of one chromosome. She cultures these cells and then turns them into induced pluripotent stem cells cells that have been coaxed back to their embryonic state and are able to become any other type of cell. From there, she reprograms them to become a specific type of neuron thats involved in attention and information processing.

The deletion or duplication Deshpande is looking for stems from a 2008 finding by Lauren Weiss, PhD, an associate professor of nuerology in the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics.

Weiss discovered a 29-gene region of DNA on chromosome 16 that is associated with autism, seizures and other brain disorders. Normally, a person has two copies of the region one on each copy of chromosome 16. In some of Deshpandes samples, the region is deleted from one chromosome, leaving one copy. In others, the region is duplicated, resulting in three copies. Subjects with only one copy of the region were more likely to have macrocephaly an enlarged brain than a typical subject, and those with three copies were more likely to have microcephaly a smaller brain.

Whats really interesting, said Deshpande, is that although these subjects seem to have opposite features in terms of brain size, we see a related effect, based on whether they have fewer or more copies of the region.

Some known models of autism show a connection between a neurons growth or appearance and macrocephaly, she explained. We wanted to know if the same thing is happening here.

To compare the effect of the mutation, Deshpande first stains the obtained skin cells so that she can visualize the neurons under a microscope. After staining, Deshpande used cell-counting software to assess several thousands of neurons from deletion and duplication samples and measure them against normal neurons. She found that the neurons missing the DNA region exhibited some differences compared to typical neurons.

Her next step in her research is to discern which of the regions 29 genes are involved in these differences.

The work is meticulous, but Deshpande doesnt mind. I simply love looking at neurons, she said. It really makes you appreciate the complexity of the brain.

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Science in Focus: Creating Neurons from Skin Cells to Understand Autism - ScienceBlog.com (blog)

Researchers led by San Diego scientists have created a lab-grown model of the anorexic brain using stem cells derived from patients with the eating disorder. They say the results provide further evidence for understanding anorexia as largely genetically based, rather than primarily as a socially conditioned behavior.

"There's a stigma regarding eating disorders that it's something social," said UC San Diego researcher Alysson Muotri. "But in fact, our results point to a strong genetic factor. And moreover, it suggests there's a specific pathway in the brain that is altered."

For the study published Tuesday in the journal Translational Psychiatry, Muotri and his colleagues took skin cells from seven anorexia patients and then converted into stem cells in the lab. They then coaxed those stem cells into brain cells, providing scientists with a new model for studying the eating disorder.

Muotri, who has developed similar models for other diseases, says the "disease-in-a-dish" approach is great for studying neurological disorders. Scientists wanting to study these diseases "can't just open the skull and look through the brain cells," he said.

The researchers compared anorexic brain models with other models built from cells taken from four non-anorexic people, most of them relatives of the anorexic patients. The researchers found a difference in the TACR1 gene between the two groups.

Muotri admits the number of patients studied was small, but says these results support "the idea that anorexia has a fundamental biological basis on the perception of fat in the body."

Anorexia experts not involved in the study told KPBS this is another step toward understanding the underlying biology of a misunderstood and often deadly disease.

Walter Kaye, director of the UCSD Eating Disorder Research and Treatment Program, said in an email to KPBS that the findings establish an interesting link between anorexia and a genetic pathway known to play a role in anxiety and fat metabolism.

"This may be a very important clue to understanding puzzling symptoms in anorexia nervosa, such as why food is often associated with anxiety, and why patients see themselves as fat and tend to avoid fat-containing foods," Kaye wrote.

Christina Wierenga, co-director of the eating disorder research program at UCSD, wrote in an email to KPBS, "Although the sample size is small, this elegant study is the first of its kind to examine gene expression in neurons derived from individuals with anorexia and sheds new light on possible causes of anorexia. Of course, replication in larger samples is needed."

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How Stem Cells Could Help Scientists Study Eating Disorders - KPBS

RenovaCare Inc. (OTCQB:RCAR) is a New York City-based biotechnology company developing its patented CellMist and SkinGun stem cell technologies for treating burns in weeks or less as well as treating chronic and acute wounds, acne scarring, and skin defects and diseases. In December, it received a U.S. patent for its SkinGun device.

Before joining RenovaCare, CEO Thomas Bold was CEO of StemCell Systems. He has more than 15 years of experience in medical biotechnology device manufacturing and stem cell platform development.

Harlan Levy: How does your CellMist technology specifically work?

Thomas Bold: Doctors isolate a high concentration of the most desirable stem cell population from a very small donor sample of the patient's own skin and suspended in the liquid CellMist Solution. It's then gently sprayed onto wound sites using our SkinGun, which looks like Captain Kirk's particle-beam gun, the "Phaser" in the Star Trek TV series.

The isolated cells include cells that proliferate rapidly in order to achieve quick re-epithelialization. This is the stage at which a burn is technically considered "healed" and patients are often discharged. The average person would recognize this healing phase as the point at which the wound develops a thin, shiny, pink-colored protective layer.

H.L.: What are existing burn treatments, and how do they compare with the SkinGun treatment?

T.B.: Traditional skin grafting has been the treatment for burns and wounds for centuries. More recently, mesh grafting has become the latest standard of care. This process surgically removes large sheets of healthy skin from the patient. Following this painful donor procedure, the sheet is punctured in a grid-like pattern to form an expandable mesh. Surgeons pull this mesh as wide as feasible and surgically stitch this skin to the patient's wound. The procedure is extremely painful, creates an additional wound at each donor site and results in poor cosmetic outcomes, often with scarred and deformed skin.

This transplanted skin can result in restricted joint movement and is unable to grow with the patient. Consequently, mesh graft patients require months and sometimes up to a year of physical therapy and can face psychological problems from the permanent disfigurement of scarring. In addition, long-term pain management with painkillers is very often necessary.

With the RenovaCare treatment technology, by spraying the patient's stem cells, the SkinGun overcomes the need for removing large sheets of donor skin, and the resultant healing does not require prolonged physical therapy. The spray procedure is gentle, and the skin that regrows looks, feels, and functions as the original skin that it replaces. Most often the healing process takes only a week.

It's very important to note here that a sheet of meshed skin covers only up to six times its original donor area. The RenovaCare system covers up to 100 times its donor skin sample. This is why the donor skin sample can be so small compared to the injured treatment area.

H.L.: What about scars and infection potential compared with conventional treatments?

T.B.: A wound heals from the edges towards the middle. The bigger the wound, the longer this process takes. And the longer this process takes, the higher the risk of infection and scarring.

Imagine a large burn of 20, 30, 40 percent of your total body surface. With our CellMist System, the doctor sprays the patient's own stem cells with a highly regenerative capacity onto the wound and, by doing so, creates tens of thousands of little regenerative islands across the wound. These islands grow outwards, ultimately connecting to each other to create a protective epithelial skin layer that covers the wound.

Experts believe the formation of this pink-colored layer marks the moment of re-epithelization where the risk of infection is reduced and the patient's wound is effectively healed. Beyond this stage, the cosmetic healing process also happens entirely natural to produce a scar-free result where, finally, skin color, tone and pigmentation are restored.

Since the RenovaCare spray procedure uses the patient's own stem cells, there isn't the risk of tissue rejection, infection, or ongoing immuno suppression therapy.

H.L.: What results have you found for patients using the SkinGun?

T.B.: We have many examples of patients recovering from severe burns within a week or two, scar-free, and walking away with unlimited joint restrictions.

In the case of one patient with severe electrical burns to over a third of his body, we were able to spray his wounds with 23 million stem cells isolated from a tiny two-inch-by two-inch sample of his own skin. Within five days of treatment, his chest and arms were already healed. Four days later, the patient was discharged from the hospital.

It's also important to note that reconstructive surgery for burn patients is especially challenging when tackling joints in the body. To this end, the authors of a case study in the reputable journal "Burns," said, "Cell-spray grafting is also especially suitable for hands and joint areas, where prolonged times to re-epithelization may significantly impact functionality and esthetic outcome."

H.L.: What different uses does the SkinGun have beside burns?

T.B.: Currently, we are focusing on severe second-degree burns, but we see the RenovaCare technology also applicable for other indications such as cosmetic procedures targeting skin pigmentation disorders, scar treatment, and other related conditions.

Our goal is to bring to market the world's most advanced technology for skin repair using a patient's own stem cells.

H.L.: Is there a record of the SkinGun use in the States and abroad?

T.B.: Having treated 72 burn patients to date, the company's early clinical target is burns with follow-on indications, including chronic wounds and cosmetic procedures.

H.L.: How much research went into creating the SkinGun and over what time period?

T.B.: The birth of RenovaCare technology goes back to the early 2000s in Berlin, Germany. Researchers, at that time, were trying to "grow" skin by seeding stem cells inside multi-dimensional bioreactors. They soon discovered that these artificial chambers were no match for the growth of the same cells when transplanted inside a human body; thus, the birth of a concept to use a patient's own wound as a natural bioreactor.

A study published in "Advances in Plastic Surgery" highlights 19 early patients with deep dermal wound burns to the face and neck, complex three-dimensional surfaces. Researchers achieved such outstanding results using our cell spray that they refused to perform further skin grafting. Instead, surgeons adopted our founding technology as their standard of care.

Let me quote from the surgeons' study, which states

"We refuse to perform a prospective randomized study with groups in which traditional skin grafting and/or wound healing are still applied for the therapy for deep dermal burns due to the excellent results in our study. The method of CEA spray application has become our standard of care for these indications. The faster wound closure, the promotion of spontaneous wound healing by keratinocyte application, as well as the preservation of donor sites are further advantages of the method."

The same paper concluded that "using a spray technique results in excellent cosmetic outcomes compared with any other method."

H.L.: How has the technology changed since then?

T.B.: Since the time of this early approach, our technology has evolved and matured significantly. Our cell isolation no longer requires complex procedures, culturing, expansion, and processing time, and our stem cell spray device no longer requires multiple hand-assembled parts. Its independent power and flow-control unit has been condensed in size from a 2-foot cube down to a 9-volt battery placed inside the handle of a single handheld spray gun.

H.L.: What is the potential market for the technology in dollars and number of patients?

T.B.: Conservatively speaking, the market for our technology exceeds $50 billion. There are nearly a million people who suffer from burns each year in the U.S. alone. According to the American Burn Association, burn injuries continue to be one of the leading causes of accidental death and injury in the U.S, and one civilian fire death occurs every two hours and forty minutes.

H.L.: How much would you estimate the treatment cost may be for each different use?

T.B.: The SkinGun technology is currently under development and not approved for clinical use in the U.S., so it's too early to talk about what the treatment will cost. We have always been mindful of reimbursement, and nearly two years ago, we commissioned an investigation into the reimbursement pathway for our CellMist System. We know that reimbursement opportunities are available by way of current coding and practices.

We have further investigated and evaluated the "bundling" approach currently advocated for by insurers and are confident that that our technology is well placed to take advantages of any shift towards such a model.

H.L: What is the schedule to get Federal Drug Administration clearance?

T.B.: In order to achieve FDA clearance for the CellMist System and the SkinGun, we will be working to show our technology is safe and prove its efficacy within applicable clinical trial formats and according to the relevant regulatory requirements. I can't speculate as to how long the FDA clearance process will take, and, therefore, it's hard to speculate when our product will be commercialized.

H.L.: What other products are you investigating and how may they work?

T.B.: We are focusing on bringing the SkinGun and our stem cell spray technology to market at this time.

H.L.: What is your background, including age, education, prior employment?

T.B.: Before joining RenovaCare I worked as the CEO of StemCell Systems GmbH, a Berlin-based biomedical company engaged in the development and commercialization of advanced cell culture bioreactors. I have more than 15 years of professional business experience in the field of medical biotechnology device manufacturing, stem cell culture technology platform development and regenerative medicine research project management and product development. I also co-founded several start-up companies in Germany.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Editor's Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.

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RenovaCare: Stem Cell Treatment Heals Burns In Weeks Not Months - Seeking Alpha

The first new finding is an obvious onethe mouse experiments worked in human cells. Just because something worked in mice doesn't necessarily mean it will work in people too. So this is a really important finding.

The second important finding has to do with the specific genes each group used. Both groups added four genes to turn a stem cell into an ES cell. But they used a slightly different set of genes.

The Japanese group added OCT3/4, SOX2, KLF4, and c-MYC. The Wisconsin group added OCT4, SOX2, NANOG, and LIN28. This matters because of a side effect seen in the previous mouse study.

The mouse study went farther than the human study in that the researchers added these new ES cells to a mouse embryo. The results were disconcerting. Around 20% of the mice developed cancer from the cells. The researchers hypothesized that the cause was one or more of the genes that were used to create the ES cell.

By using different sets of genes in the human cell study, the researchers showed you don't need the same four genes to create an ES cell. The hope is that the researchers will find a combination of genes that do not cause cancer.

Once the scientists find a set of genes that don't cause cancer, this research should blow the stem cell field wide open. We still don't know if ES cells will work to actually cure disease. But ethical ES cells should open the spigot of federal funds so American scientists can finally research this subject to its full extent. Then we'll see if ES cells can really live up to their hype. Or if we need to pursue other ways to cure these illnesses.

Read more here:
Human Embryonic Stem (ES) Cells from Skin Cells ...

Vampire facials sound like a totally modern sci-fi development, but people have thought that drinking or slathering on blood can heal and renew for millennia. Pliny the Elder, nearly 2,000 years ago, wrote, [e]pileptic patients are in the habit of drinking the blood even of gladiators, draughts teeming with life. Elizabeth Bthory, a noblewoman from early modern Hungary, was said to have murdered virgins and then bathed in their blood in order to retain her youth. (Its worthwhile to note that King Louis XV and Marie Antoinette were also accused of bathing in their subjects blood.) In the stories, Bthory literally soaks up the youth of virgins via contact with their blood.

We think topically applied and ingested blood, bones, organs, and cells are magical sources of life force, health, and youth that somehow surpass the efficacy of less gory, more common ingredients.

The tales of blood baths seem spurious to say the least, and apparently theyre not backed up by primary evidence. But the fact that people have been passing the stories along for centuries tells us something about how we think. Even now, we seem to really dig the idea of applying or consuming human cells for the purpose of absorbing beauty and health from them. Vampire facelifts and Dr. Barbara Sturms MC1 cream make use of plasma from ones own blood drawn and separated in-office to supposedly renew skin. We think topically applied and ingested blood, bones, organs, and cells are magical sources of life force, health, and youth that somehow surpass the efficacy of less gory, more common ingredients.

Ingredients associated with conception, birth, and nursing seem to particularly excite us. Semen facials inadvisable and groan-worthy seem to make the rounds again when clicks are needed. In Korea, the brand Isa Knox uses recombinant human placenta protein (rHPP-8TM) in the Tervina line, supplied by the CHA Placenta Institute (part of the CHA Global Medical Network that includes a university medical school and institutes for stem cell and cosmetics research).

In the case of human stem cell skincare, companies have slapped a veneer of science on our old magical beliefs to ratchet up prices and expectations.

The idea of human ingredients is so seductive that people pay extra for them even when theyre not actually in the products. A Korean beauty product nicknamed mothers milk, Eureque Muru Mor Cream, contains no human milk, just baby powder fragrance and animal milk extracts that are supposed to be similar to human breast milk. If youre looking for the real deal, check out Mud Facial Bar, which offers an ethically sourced, $10 breast milk add-on for its facials.

In the case of human stem cell skincare, companies have slapped a veneer of science on our old magical beliefs to ratchet up prices and expectations. Stem cells here Im talking about pluripotent human stem cells can be manipulated to become any cell type in the human body under the right conditions and divide essentially without limit to replenish other cells as long as the person or animal is still alive according to the National Institutes of Health.

The twist is that stem cell skincare brands such as Lifeline Skin Care dont actually use whole, live human stem cells in their products. An actual stem cell would need to be kept alive in a skin cream, and that would certainly be challenging to accomplish, according to cosmetic chemist Kelly Dobos. Lifelines parent company, International Stem Cell Corporation, extracts human growth factors from stem cells by stimulating unfertilized eggs. Its the growth factors which stimulate cell growth, differentiation, healing, and proliferation that end up bottled, not the whole stem cells.

There really isn't any concrete, unbiased research to support the use of epidermal growth factors (EGF).

I asked Stephen Alain Ko, cosmetic chemist and blogger at kindofstephen, whether applying growth factors to skin makes sense. He wrote via email, [t]here really isn't any concrete, unbiased research to support the use of epidermal growth factors (EGF) on healthy human skin, and there is also a concern that EGF can also be involved in certain cancer growth as well. Ko noted that Oprah-recommended SkinMedicas TNS Essential Serum ($281 for one ounce) faces a California class action lawsuit claiming the company failed to disclose cancer risks associated with applying human growth factors to skin.

When asked about Skinmedicas TNS Essential Serum, Dobos wrote, [a]t $281 for one ounce and questionable science backing the ingredient claims, I would opt for a less expensive skin care product. Skincare companies dont need to make extravagant claims about the power of stem cell-derived ingredients, or even use whole human stem cells in their products; simply mentioning stem cell taps into long-held beliefs about the power of wearing and consuming human cells and our wallets.

Continued here:
Would You Slather Blood and Breast Milk on Your Face? - Racked

Scientists from the University of Cambridge have determined the first 3D structures of mammalian genomes from individual cells.

For the first time, researchers from the University of Cambridge were able to determine the 3D structure of an active mouse genome in embryonic stem cells. Tim Stevens and his colleagues used a combination of imaging and measurements that reveal DNA interactionsto unravel how the DNA is folded together.This could lead tonew insights into the regulation of gene expression in health and disease.

Every cell in our body contains the same DNA molecules and thusthe same set of genes. Still,our blood cells differ fundamentally from our skin cells. The basis for this isgene regulation, meaning that different cells will not express every gene encoded on our DNA but only a specific subset.

An exciting new avenue for our understanding of gene regulation is the importance of the 3D DNA structure. Regulatory regions within our DNA play a major role in regulating gene expression, but arequirement is that the regions come into spatial contact with the associated genes.

It is well known today, that the way the DNA is folded within the cell is tightlyregulated and determines the contact between different regulatory regions with different genes and thereby determines which genes areswitched on or off.

By looking at individual stem cells, the researchers willnow be able to better understandhowthese master cells are able to differentiate into different cell types of our body, which could revolutionize regenerative medicine.

Knowing where all the genes and control elements are at a given moment will help us understand the molecular mechanisms that control and maintain their expression. () Currently, these mechanisms are poorly understood and understanding them may be key to realizingthe potential of stem cells in medicine.says Prof Ernest Laue, who supervised the study.

A better understanding of how the genome structure determines whether genes are switched on or off could also be important to understand what happens in cancer. Abnormal genomes might cause changes in DNA folding and thereby lead to abnormal gene expression.

Changes in gene expression which are not based on the DNA sequence are calledepigenetic modifications. Epigenetics is definitely one of the recent hypes within the cancer field.The folding of DNA is only one aspect of epigenetic gene regulation, while direct modifications of the DNA or DNA-associated proteins provide another. Cancer cells often make use of the epigenetic machinery to change gene regulation and support their survival.

A recent study,for example, unveiled the role of epigenetic changes in driving pancreatic cancer metastasis. By understanding what happens on the gene regulatorylevel, the researchers were able to find a compound, which specifically inhibits these epigenetic changes and therebycancer cell progression.

Epigenetic mechanisms definitely play a key role not only to advance our understanding of stem cell commitment and regenerative medicine, but also in disease areas such as cancer research. You can findthe identified 3D structures of the DNA below.

Read the rest here:
The First 3D DNA Structure could advance Stem Cell Therapies - Labiotech.eu (blog)

The key ingredients of the Fleuresse Skin Care System are natural botanicals extracted from the stem cells of a rare Swiss apple. These extracts, combined with some of the same ingredients found in Kyni's incredibly popular nutritional productsincluding blueberry, Noni, and Vitamin E Tocotrienolsact as nutritional building blocks for the skin's own regenerative process, and leave the user with softer, brighter, more youthful looking skin.

Four products make up the Fleuresse Skin Care System; a Boosting Cleanser, a Serum, a Day Crme, and a Night Crme. Each product, designed to work for any skin type, acts to hydrate and nourish the skin to prevent and reduce the visible signs of aging.

While speaking to Kyni Distributors in Ft. Worth, Kyni Founder and Chairman, Kirk Hansen, shared the following:

"We've had other products proposed to us," Hansen explained, "Even products developed. But we didn't go with them because they just weren't impactful enough." Kirk goes on to say, "We had to wait for two things to be just right. The quality of the new productsand the science behind themhad to match up with the products we already have. Today the timing is right, and the products are unequaled."

Fleuresse is available for purchase through authorized Kyni Distributors both online and in person.

About KyniKyni, Inc. is a wellness company founded in 2005. With a goal to bring hope to people throughout the world through wellness and opportunity, Kyni products are distributed in over 60 countries worldwide. With the introduction of their new skin care line, Kyni offers complete nutrition for the body, both inside and out. Learn more about Kyni at https://www.kyani.com/ or the official Kyni News Site https://news.kyani.com/.

Media Contact: Jon Rea Director of Global Communications (844) 701-5049

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/announcement-of-fleuresse-skin-care-product-line-by-kyani-inc-300422249.html

SOURCE Kyani

https://www.kyani.com/ https://news.kyani.com/en-us/introducing-kyani-skin-care-customer

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Announcement of Fleuresse Skin Care Product Line by Kyni, Inc. - PR Newswire (press release)

New Delhi [India]: Bura na mano holi hai., said Reena and ran away smearing a fistful of artificial colours on her sisters face.

Reena could have never imagined the after-effect this little prank would have on her sisters skin.

The festival of Holi can be a nightmare for people who are allergic to colours. While a couple of measures can be taken beforehand to prevent the skin from any damage, artificial colours can be nasty and can take time to leave your skin.

While a few like to protect themselves from the harsh colours and chemicals, fewer still, pay any heed to the potential skin damage before setting out to have fun.

Most of the inorganic colours have harmful chemicals that can cause allergies, reddening of the skin and burning sensation. Therefore, in order to usher in the festival of colours with pomp and celebration, it is essential to make sure that your skin comes out of the colour explosion perfectly fine.

Instead of scrubbing too much soap or heading to a beauty salon to get rid of the stubborn colours, this Holi, try your hand at Dead Sea Minerals that are high on magnesium, sodium and potassium, says Manisha Chopra, Co-Founder, SeaSoul Cosmeceuticals.

Dead Sea salts can act as an effective exfoliating agent and cleanser. To remove the stubborn colours, try out the dead sea facial mud mask that is loaded with essential ingredients such as Moroccan Argan oil, plant stem cells, noni fruit, goji berries, dead sea minerals, squalane, Aloe Vera, grape seed oil, sodium hyaluronate and Glycerin.

They dramatically help to clear the skin of all impurities and give a transformative effect on the face. Dead Sea Minerals help to get rid of the nasty colours and let you gain back smooth and healthy skin.

The products infused with Dead Sea salts are gentle and safe for all skin types as they are free of parabens and sulphates. Several medical journals have long exalted Dead Sea muds ability to promote radiance as well as its other therapeutic benefits for chronic skin conditions.

A facial polish works amazingly to get rid of the Holi colour as it removes the dead skin which has colours & then polishes the skin & cleanses the skin removing off the Holi colours. After removal of the colour, apply Dead Sea mud mask.

After removing the mask, apply Vitamin C serum to save your skin from after effects of Holi colours.

According to researchers, the Dead Sea water consists of 32% salts with a relatively high concentration of 21 minerals such as magnesium, calcium, bromide and potassium. The calcium present in the Dead Sea salt helps to cleanse pores and soothes and relieves the skin cells.

Magnesium works as an anti-allergic agent and boosts the metabolism of cells. The bromide present in the salt heals and relieves skin disorders and acts as an anti-inflammatory agent.

Sodium Chloride nourishes and hydrates skin cells and removes toxic waste, improving its permeability. Zinc promotes the natural regulation of cell growth and regeneration. It also aids in cell renewal and stimulates collagen and renews skin.

A great antioxidant, this mineral is a free-radical scavenger. It also improves anti-acne properties, anti-inflammatory properties and is a natural UV-rays blocker.

Thus, this Holi, steer clear of any rashes or breakouts on your skin as a result of stubborn colours and opt for miraculous Dead Sea products and play Holi stress-free.

Dead Sea salts can be found in facial care products such as cleansers, toners, moisturizers and masks. Avail the benefits of the wonderful minerals present in the Dead Sea and get ready to celebrate Holi to the fullest. (ANI)

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This Holi, let your skin soak in benefits of Dead Sea Minerals - The Siasat Daily

Jonathan Pitre with his Boston terrier, Gibson. Tina Boileau / -

Bracing for his second stem-cell transplant in seven months, Jonathan Pitre knows all too well the mountain in front of him, its hardships and precipices.

So hes doing what he always does when confronted with such a steep challenge. Its all about staying positive, I think, Pitre, 16, said in a telephone interview from Minneapolis.

Theres no checklist to prepare for his perilous journey, and no book that can calm all his misgivings.

Its mostly thinking about sticking together with the people you care about, your family, he said of his preparation. You have to stick to them very, very tightly and tell each other that, Its going to be OK and that were stronger than this. Were going through this together, not just alone.

Pitre will face the transplant alongside his mother, Tina Boileau, who will also be his stem-cell donor.

Boileau has taken a second leave of absence from her government job to be at her sons side for a treatment that could keep them in Minnesota for six months or more.

Later this month, Pitre will undergo a series of tests to ensure his heart, kidneys and other organs are healthy enough to withstand the rigours of the transplant. Hes still fighting the effects of a cold, but the blood infection that put him in hospital last month has been brought under control.

According to his current treatment schedule, Pitre will be admitted to the University of Minnesota Masonic Childrens Hospital on March 28. Then, in early April, hell begineight days of high-dose chemo followed by one day of full-body radiation before his stem-cell transplant.

The chemo and radiation are designed to destroy his immune system and prevent it from attacking the donor cells.

Pitre is the first Canadian to take part in the clinical trial operated by the University of Minnesotas Dr. Jakub Tolar, a pediatric transplant specialist who has adapted stem-cell therapy as a treatment for the most severe forms of epidermolysis bullosa (EB). Its the only facility in the world that offers the treatment for EB patients.

Pitre suffers from recessive dystrophic EB, a rare, painful and deadly form of the disease.

Last September, Pitre suffered nausea, raging fevers and exhaustion in the aftermath of his first transplant, which ultimately failed when his own stem cells recolonized his bone marrow.

Pitre said he knows what to expect this time, but that doesnt necessarily make it easier. I know a lot of it was unpleasant. I know its going to happen again, he said. So I know a lot of that unpleasantness is going to come.

The Russell teenager, however, said hes prepared to face that future considering the promise that the transplants holds for him.

I think of my family, I think of Gibson (his Boston terrier) and I think of all the good things that will come from this procedure, and after the procedure, how much more Im going to be able to enjoy life, how much more Im going to be able to enjoy time with my family, with Gibson.

Although the procedure comes with life-threatening complications, it has produced dramatic improvements in two-thirds of those EB patients who have survived the transplant: tougher skin, reduced blistering and better wound healing.

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'Butterfly Boy' steels himself for second stem-cell transplant - Ottawa Citizen

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma is a highly invasive form of cancer and frequently spreads to the cervical lymph nodes. Currently, cisplatin is the standard therapeutic drug used for people with HNSCC. Yet, more than 50 percent of people who take cisplatin demonstrate resistance to the drug, and they experience a recurrence of the cancer. The five-year survival rates remain sorely low and researchers still don't understand the underlying mechanisms behind head and neck squamous carcinoma. Therefore, said UCLA cancer biologist Dr. Cun-Yu Wang, who led the study, there's an urgent need to understand why people with this type of cancer are resistant to therapy and to develop new approaches for treating it.

Wang's research is published online in the peer-reviewed journal Cell Stem Cell.

Cancer stem cells are known to be responsible for tumor formation and development; they also self-renew and tend to be unresponsive to cancer therapy. These cells have been found in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Given the unique challenges that cancer stem cells pose for oncologists, it remains unclear what the optimal therapeutic strategy is for treating HNSCC.

To address this, Wang, who holds the Dr. No-Hee Park Endowed Chair in Dentistry at UCLA and holds a joint appointment in the UCLA Department of Bioengineering, and his research team first developed a mouse model of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma that allowed them to identity the rare cancer stem cells present in HNSCC using in vivo lineage tracing, a method to identify all progeny of a single cell in tissues.

The researchers found that the cancer stem cells expressed the stem cell protein Bmi1 and had increased activator protein-1, known as AP-1, a transcription factor that controls the expression of multiple cancer-associated genes. Based on these new findings, the UCLA team developed and compared different therapeutic strategies for treating head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. They found that a combination of targeting cancer stem cells and killing the tumor mass, consisting of high proliferating cells, with chemotherapy drugs resulted in better outcomes.

The team further discovered that cancer stem cells were not only responsible for squamous cell carcinoma development, but that they also cause cervical lymph node metastasis.

"This study shows that for the first time, targeting the proliferating tumor mass and dormant cancer stem cells with combination therapy effectively inhibited tumor growth and prevented metastasis compared to monotherapy in mice," said Wang, who is a member of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA. "Our discovery could be applied to other solid tumors such as breast and colon cancer, which also frequently metastasizes to lymph nodes or distant organs."

"With this new and exciting study, Dr. Wang and his team have provided the building blocks for understanding the cellular and genetic mechanisms behind squamous cell carcinoma," said Dr. Paul Krebsbach, dean of the UCLA School of Dentistry. "The work has important translational values. Small molecule inhibitors for cancer stem cells in this study are available or being utilized in clinical trials for other diseases. It will be interesting to conduct a clinical trial to test these inhibitors for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma."

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences. Original written by Brianna Aldrich. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Targeting cancer stem cells improves treatment effectiveness, prevents metastasis - Science Daily

Targeting cancer stem cells may be a more effective way to overcome cancer resistance and prevent the spread of squamous cell carcinoma the most common head and neck cancer and the second-most common skin cancer, according to a new study by cancer researchers at the UCLA School of Dentistry.

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma is a highly invasive form of cancer and frequently spreads to the cervical lymph nodes. Currently, cisplatin is the standard therapeutic drug used for people with HNSCC. Yet, more than 50 percent of people who take cisplatin demonstrate resistance to the drug, and they experience a recurrence of the cancer. The five-year survival rates remain sorely low and researchers still dont understand the underlying mechanisms behind head and neck squamous carcinoma. Therefore, said UCLA cancer biologist Dr. Cun-Yu Wang, who led the study, theres an urgent need to understand why people with this type of cancer are resistant to therapy and to develop new approaches for treating it.

Wangs researchis published online today in the peer-reviewed journal Cell Stem Cell.

Cancer stem cells are known to be responsible for tumor formation and development; they also self-renew and tend to be unresponsive to cancer therapy. These cells have been found in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Given the unique challenges that cancer stem cells pose for oncologists, it remains unclear what the optimal therapeutic strategy is for treating HNSCC.

To address this, Wang, who holds the Dr. No-Hee Park Endowed Chair in Dentistry at UCLA and holds a joint appointment in the UCLA Department of Bioengineering, and his research team first developed a mouse model of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma that allowed them to identity the rare cancer stem cells present in HNSCC usingin vivolineage tracing, a method to identify all progeny of a single cell in tissues.

The researchers found that the cancer stem cells expressed the stem cell protein Bmi1 and had increased activator protein-1, known as AP-1, a transcription factor that controls the expression of multiple cancer-associated genes. Based on these new findings, the UCLA team developed and compared different therapeutic strategies for treating head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. They found that a combination of targeting cancer stem cells and killing the tumor mass, consisting of high proliferating cells, with chemotherapy drugs resulted in better outcomes.

The team further discovered that cancer stem cells were not only responsible for squamous cell carcinoma development, but that they also cause cervical lymph node metastasis.

This study shows that for the first time, targeting the proliferating tumor mass and dormant cancer stem cells with combination therapy effectively inhibited tumor growth and prevented metastasis compared to monotherapy in mice, said Wang, who is a member of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA. Our discovery could be applied to other solid tumors such as breast and colon cancer, which also frequently metastasizes to lymph nodes or distant organs.

With this new and exciting study, Dr. Wang and his team have provided the building blocks for understanding the cellular and genetic mechanisms behind squamous cell carcinoma, said Dr. Paul Krebsbach, dean of the UCLA School of Dentistry. The work has important translational values. Small molecule inhibitors for cancer stem cells in this study are available or being utilized in clinical trials for other diseases. It will be interesting to conduct a clinical trial to test these inhibitors for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Additional authors of the study include Demeng Cheng, first author and postdoctoral scholar in Wangs lab; Mansi Wu, Yang Li, Dr. Insoon Chang, Yuan Quan, Mari Salvo, Peng Deng, Dr. Bo Yu, Yongxin Yu, Jiaqiang Dong, John M. Szymanski, Sivakumar Ramadoss and Jiong Li who are all from the laboratory of molecular signaling in the division of oral biology and medicine at the UCLA School of Dentistry.

This work was supported in part by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research grants R37DE13848, R01DE15964 and R01DE043110.

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Targeting cancer stem cells improves treatment effectiveness and prevents metastasis - HealthCanal.com (press release) (blog)

OSAKA -- Three academic and business groups in Japan are planning to conduct clinical studies on donated stem cells in the fiscal year starting next month, aiming to commercialize such regenerative therapy.

So far, only one clinical study has looked at creating tissue from induced pluripotent stem cells. The cells could be harvested from donors and grown into skin and other body parts that would replace damaged tissue.

The method promises to be less costly. A bank of donated cells would also eliminate the time needed to grow tissues using the patient's own stem cells.

The three groups announced their research plans at a recent gathering held in Sendai, a city north of Tokyo,by the Japanese Society for Regenerative Medicine. Japan Tissue Engineering, a Fujifilm Holdings subsidiary, is joining Kyoto University to heal victims of severe burns with grown skin grafts. The partners are mulling either physician-led clinical trials or preliminary clinical research. Kyoto University Hospital will certify the results.

Tissue reconstruction is expected to start in about a week depending on the substance exuded by the transplanted skin cells. The procedure is said to cost between 1 million yen and 2 million yen ($8,700 and $17,400) -- less than a quarter what's required for conventional methods. Apart from Japan, operations in Southeast Asia and other places are also on the table.

Rohto Pharmaceutical and a team at Niigata University led by Shuji Terai aim to cure liver cirrhosis through stem cells harvested from fatty tissues during surgeries. Substances excreted by the implanted stem cells will spur the regeneration of damaged liver tissue. The group will submit applications for clinical trials to the Japanese government and elsewhere by this summer.

A team led by associate professor Takanori Iwata at Tokyo Women's Medical University looks to repair the base of teeth lost to severe periodontal disease. For the clinical trial being planned, donor stem cells mainly from wisdom teeth will be implanted into patients.

(Nikkei)

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Japan kicking regenerative medicine development into high gear - Nikkei Asian Review

One of the current challenges for stem cell researchers is to understand how all the skin appendages are regenerated. This could lead to improved treatments for burn patients, or others with severe skin damage.

Researchers are also working to identify new ways to grow skin cells in the lab. Epidermal stem cells are currently cultivated on a layer of cells from rodents, called murine cells. These cell culture conditions have been proved safe, but it would be preferable to avoid using animal products when cultivating cells that will be transplanted into patients. So, researchers are searching for effective cell culture conditions that will not require the use of murine cells.

Scientists are also working to treat genetic diseases affecting the skin. Since skin stem cells can be cultivated in laboratories, researchers can genetically modify the cells, for example by inserting a missing gene. The correctly modified cells can be selected, grown and multiplied in the lab, then transplanted back onto the patient. Epidermolysis Bullosa is one example of a genetic skin disease that might benefit from this approach. Work is underway to test the technique.

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Skin stem cells: where do they live and what can they do? | Eurostemcell

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Founded in San Diego, California in 2014, StemCutis, LLC, a subsidiary of Stemedica Cell Technologies, Inc., is a global biotechnology company that develops stem cell-based dermatological therapies and over-the-counter (OTC) skin care products for dermatological applications. StemCutis therapies are based on the unique, proprietary technologies for the expansion of cells under hypoxic conditions, which provides critical benefits for safety, efficacy, scalability, and standardization. StemCutis has exclusive, worldwide licenses and rights from Stemedica and other Stemedica-related companies to develop and market the products for a range of conditions that affect skin and tissue appearance and function, such as compromised skin, hair loss, burns and hypertrophic, atrophic, and keloid scars, etc. For more information, visit http://www.stemcutis.com.

About Stemedica Cell Technologies Inc.

Stemedica Cell Technologies, Inc. is a specialty biopharmaceutical company that manufactures best-in-class, allogeneic, adult stem cells and stem cell-derived factors. The company is a government-licensed manufacturer of cGMP, clinical-grade stem cells currently used in clinical trials in the United States under FDA Investigational New Drug (IND) approval for chronic heart failure, ischemic stroke and Alzheimer's disease. Stemedica's products are also used by research institutions and hospitals outside of US under the auspices of international regulatory authorities for pre-clinical and clinical (human) trials. Stemedica is developing clinical trials for other indications using its adult, allogeneic stem cells. The company has headquarters in San Diego, California, and can be found online at http://www.stemedica.com.

All media inquiries:Jackie Townsend Konstanturos The Townsend Team Jackie@townsendteam.com

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New Synergy Collection By StemCutis Rejuvenates Skin And ... - PR Newswire (press release)

The skin cells of four adults with schizophrenia have provided an unprecedented window into how the disease began while they were still in the womb, according to a recent paper in Schizophrenia Research.

The paper was publishedby researchers at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo in collaboration with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. It provides what the authors call the first proof of concept for their hypothesis that a common genomic pathway lies at the root of schizophrenia.

The researchers say the work is a first step toward the design of treatments that could be administered to pregnant mothers at high risk for bearing a child with schizophrenia, potentially preventing the disease before it begins.

The authors gained insight into the early brain pathology of schizophrenia by using skin cells from four adults with schizophrenia and four adults without the disease that were reprogrammed back into induced pluripotent stem cells and then into neuronal progenitor cells.

The next step in the research is to use these induced pluripotent stem cells to further study how the genome becomes dysregulated, allowing the disease to develop.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Faulty genomic pathway linked to schizophrenia developing in utero, study finds

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Skin cells of schizophrenia patients reveal faulty genetic pathway that began in womb - Genetic Literacy Project

Stem cell therapy is a quickly advancing treatment being used across the country. Now, its becoming more prevalent in eastern North Carolina to those living with chronic pain an alternative to surgery. The minimally invasive procedure is showing results in alleviating back, knee, hip and shoulder pain. Though stem cell therapy is classified by the Food and Drug Administration as experimental, patients say theyre finding relief. Meet New Bern resident and a local endodontist Dr. Donnie Luper. He was skeptical of the procedure at first.

How did you know what those stem cells were going to differentiate into? I mean was I going to grow a foot out of my shoulder or something like that?

Luper tore his rotator cuff 25 years ago during a tubing incident on the Trent River. A subsequent fall during a golf trip in 2015 sent him to a specialist.

I went to see a shoulder surgeon in Richmond. He told me that he didnt think it was a complete tear of my rotator cuff, that I could probably have a minor surgical procedure done and I asked him about stem cell.

After talking with a friend who opted for stem cell treatment for her knee pain, Luper decided to find out more.

My option was if I would have had that shoulder surgery and they had do that bicep tendon repair, I mean I would have been in a sling for six weeks and probably not working for three months.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, stem cells sometimes called the bodys master cells - have the ability to divide and develop into many different cell types. Each new cell has the potential to remain a stem cell or become another type of cell, such as a nerve cell, a skin cell, or a red blood cell. They may also help repair the body by dividing to replenish cells that are damaged by disease, injury or normal wear. Parkinsons disease, spinal cord injuries, damaged organs and cancer could all be possibly treated with the use of stem cells, but more research is needed. Dr. Angelo Tellis is the owner/physician of Aegean Medical, which provides stem cell therapy to patients in Cary, Jacksonville, Morehead City and New Bern.

The adult stem cells we call multipotent stem cells so they can only differentiate into very specific or certain kinds of tissue. Whereas the embryonic stem cells we call pluripotent and can become a variety, almost any tissue. But I only deal with adult stem cells, theyre found to be more useful in clinical applications.

Dr. Tellis says adult stem cells are more responsive to growing tissue in very specific locations. When patients go into Dr. Tellis office for the two hour procedure, he starts by numbing an area of the abdomen and performing liposuction to collect one or two syringes of body fat.

Stem cells can be found in a lot of different tissues throughout the body, but theyre actually in one of the highest concentrations in your own body fat.

The stem cell sample is combined with platelet rich plasma or PRP collected through a blood draw.

That has a lot of the chemical signals and messengers that activate stem cells. So Ill typically combine that with some of the stem cells collected from the body fat and then go under x-ray guidance and put it exactly in the targeted location where we want to create that healing process.

Soreness and stiffness can be expected immediately following the procedure and for about a week after. Dr. Tellis says the results tend to improve with time, taking about three to six months for full recovery. This was Lupers experience in 2016.

Really didnt have to take any pain medications. The joint was really sore over the weekend just because of the injection of the fluid there and after that, I had a small amount of discomfort, but nothing I really had to take medication for.

After three months, Luper says he felt 90 percent better. But he decided to get a second opinion from a shoulder surgeon.

And he told me he thought the stem cells had done a lot but that I still had one little bone spur that was rubbing against the muscle and constantly tearing the little bit of the muscle.

After surgery, Luper says his left shoulder started feeling significantly better in about a month. He was also able to return to one of his favorite pastimes golf. While surgery helped eliminate all of his pain, Luper believes stem cells helped regenerate tissue that was damaged years ago.

He said my rotator cuff muscle didnt even look like it had been torn. I actually tore that, Im sixty now, and I actually tore that when I was 34, 35 tubing on the river and I had to do physical therapy for about three months, but he said he saw absolutely no evidence that Id ever had a rotator cuff tear.

Even though some have found relief and possibly a cure through stem cell therapy, the Food and Drug Administration has not approved any stem cell-based products for use, other than HEMACORD (HE-muh-cord). According to their website, the use of stem cells raises safety concerns such as excessive cell growth, the development of tumors as well as cells migrating from the site of administration and differentiating into inappropriate cell types. And then, theres the cost of the procedure, which is not covered by insurance. The price for the treatment ranges from $2,500 to $5,000. But for those who want to avoid major surgery and the downtime associated with recovery, the risk and cost may be worth it.

If Id have surgery, my deductible would have been that because I have an out-of-pocket max. And I would want to do anything to avoid surgery, especially something that would keep me out of work for three months.

The FDA recommends that consumers interested in stem cell therapy should start a conversation with their doctor about the potential risk to benefit ratio. In addition to Aegean Medical, Advanced Health and Physical Medicine in Greenville and Regenerative Medicine Clinic of Wilmington also provide stem cell therapy in eastern North Carolina.

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Stem Cell Therapy An Option For ENC Patients - Public Radio East

International Stem Cell Corporation Announces Third Patient with Parkinson's Disease in Phase I Clinical Trial P&T Community 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- International Stem Cell Corporation (OTCQB:ISCO), a California-based clinical stage biotechnology company developing stem cell-based therapies and biomedical products, today announced the third patient in the clinical trial ... and more »

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International Stem Cell Corporation Announces Third Patient with Parkinson's Disease in Phase I Clinical Trial - P&T Community

By Andy Coghlan

Sarah Harrison and Gaelle Recher, Zernicka-Goetz Lab, University of Cambridge

Artificial mouse embryos grown from stem cells in a dish could help unlock secrets of early development and infertility that have until now evaded us.

Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz at the University of Cambridge and her team made the embryos using embryonic stem cells, the type of cells found in embryos that can mature into any type of tissue in the body.

The trick was to grow these alongside trophoblast stem cells, which normally produce the placenta. By growing these two types of cell separately and then combining them in a special gel matrix, the two mixed and started to develop together.

After around four-and-a-half days, the embryos resembled normal mouse embryos that were about to start differentiating into different body tissues and organs.

They are very similar to natural mouse embryos, says Zernicka-Goetz. We put the two types of stem cells together which has never been done before to allow them to speak to each other. We saw that the cells could self-organise themselves without our help.

This is the first time something resembling an embryo has been made from stem cells, without using an egg in some way. Techniques such as cloning, as done for Dolly the sheep and other animals, bypass the need for sperm, but still require an egg cell.

The artificial embryos are providing new insights into how embryos organise themselves and grow, says Zernicka-Goetz. The team engineered the artificial embryos so the cell types fluoresced in different colours, to reveal their movements and behaviour as the embryos go through crucial changes.

Mammal embryos were already known to start as a symmetrical ball, then elongate, form a central cavity and start developing a type of cell layer called mesoderm, which ultimately goes on to form bone and muscle.

We didnt know before how embryos form this cavity, but weve now found the mechanism for it and the sequential steps by which it forms, says Zernicka-Goetz. Its building up the foundations for the whole body plan.

The work is a great addition to the stem cell field and could be extended to human stem cell populations, says Leonard Zon at Boston Childrens Hospital, Massachusetts. Using the system, the factors that participate in embryo development could be better studied and this could help us understand early events of embryogenesis.

But Robin Lovell-Badge at the Francis Crick Institute in London says that the embryos lack two other types of cell layer required to develop the bodies organs: ectoderm, which forms skin and the central nervous system, and endoderm, which makes our internal organs.

Zernicka-Goetz hopes to see these types of cell layers develop in future experiments by adding stem cells that normally form the yolk sac, a third structure involved in embryonic development, to the mix.

If a similar feat can be achieved using human stem cells, this could tell us much about the earliest stages of our development. Current research is limited by the number of excess embryos that are donated from IVF procedures. But the new technique could produce a limitless supply, making it easier to conduct in-depth research. These artificial embryos may also be easier to tinker with, to see what effect different factors have in early embryogenesis.

Disrupting development in this way may provide new insights into the causes of abnormal embryo development and miscarriage. You would be able to understand the principles that govern each stage of development. These are not normally accessible, because they happen inside the mother, says Zernicka-Goetz.

But it is doubtful that this work could ever lead to fully grown babies in the lab. Lovell-Badge says the artificial embryos are unlikely to develop in vitro much further than shown in the study, as they would soon need the supply of nutrients and oxygen that a placenta normally channels from the mother.

Were not planning to make a mouse in the lab using stem cells, says Zernicka-Goetz. But she is hopeful that adding yolk sac stem cells will allow these artificial embryos to survive long enough to study the beginnings of organs like the heart.

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.aal1810

Read more: Its time to relax the rules on growing human embryos in the lab

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Artificial embryo grown in a dish from two types of stem cells - New Scientist