29 - Genetic Engineering by Bailey Hanson
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Newswise PHILADELPHIA Using a zebrafish model of a human genetic disease called neurofibromatosis (NF1), a team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has found that the learning and memory components of the disorder are distinct features that will likely need different treatment approaches. They published their results this month in Cell Reports.

NF1 is one of the most common inherited neurological disorders, affecting about one in 3,000 people. It is characterized by tumors, attention deficits, and learning problems. Most people with NF1 have symptoms before the age of 10. Therapies target Ras, a protein family that guides cell proliferation. The NF1 gene encodes neurofibromin, a very large protein with a small domain involved in Ras regulation.

Unexpectedly, the Penn team showed that some of the behavioral defects in mutant fish are not related to abnormal Ras, but can be corrected by drugs that affect another signaling pathway controlled by the small molecule cAMP. They used the zebrafish model of NF1 to show that memory defects such as the recall of a learned task -- can be corrected by drugs that target Ras, while learning deficits are corrected by modulation of the cAMP pathway. Overall, the teams results have implications for potential therapies in people with NF1.

We now know that learning and memory defects in NF1 are distinct and potentially amenable to drug therapy, says co-senior author Jon Epstein, MD, chair of the department of Cell and Developmental Biology. Our data convincingly show that memory defects in mutant fish are due to abnormal Ras activity, but learning defects are completely unaffected by modulation of these pathways. Rather these deficits are corrected with medicines that modulate cAMP.

Over the last 20 years, zebrafish have become great models for studying development and disease. Like humans, zebrafish are vertebrates, and most of the genes required for normal embryonic development in zebrafish are also present in humans. When incorrectly regulated, these same genes often cause tumor formation and metastatic cancers.

Zebrafish have also become an ideal model for studying vertebrate neuroscience and behavior. In fact, co-senior author Michael Granato, PhD, professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, has developed the first high-throughput behavioral assays that measure learning and memory in fish. For example, Granato explains, normal fish startle with changes in noise and light level by bending and swimming away from the annoying stimuli and do eventually habituate, that is get used to the alternations in their environment. But, NF1 fish mutants fail to habituate. However, after adding cAMP to their water, they do learn, and then behave like the non-mutant fish.

This clearly indicates that learning deficits in the NF1 mutant fish are corrected by adding various substances that boost cAMP signaling. Our data also indicate that learning and memory defects are reversible with acute pharmacologic treatments and are therefore not hard-wired, as might be expected for a defect in the development of nerves, says Epstein. This offers great hope for therapeutic intervention for NF1 patients.

Co-first authors Marc A. Wolman and Eric D. de Groh, Sean M. McBride, and Thomas A. Jongens, all from Penn, were also on the paper.

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Sizegenetics My Results REAL Review 2014
best price online http://sizegenetics.uberdealster.com SIZEGENETICS REVIEW WHATS ALL FUSS ABOUT Here is my personal Size Genetics evaluation from the time it had been transported to my house...

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preimplantation embryo genetics testing

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Knee arthritis one year after bone marrow stem cells by Harry Adelson, N.D.
Christine discusses her results of her stem cell injection by Dr Harry Adelson for her arthritic knees http://www.docereclinics.com.

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GIOSTAR- STEM CELL THERAPY DR ANAND SHRIVASTAVA
Global Institute of Stem cell Therapy and Research - GIOSTAR Introduction to Stem Cell Therapy, and Dr.Anand Shrivastava - Chairman Co-founder of GIOSTAR.

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TIME Health medicine Woman Receives First Stem Cell Therapy Using Her Own Skin Cells A Japanese woman is the first to receive retinal cells made from her own skin cells

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Japan surgically transplanted a sheet of retinal pigment cells into the eye of a 70-year old woman on Friday.

The cells are the first induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, given to a human patient. They were made by Masayo Takahashi, who grew them from the patients own skin cells, which were treated with four genetic factors to revert back to an embryonic-like state. Takahashi then soaked the cells with the appropriate growth factors and other compounds so they developed into retinal pigment cells.

The patient was losing her sight due to macular degeneration, because her retinal pigment endothelial cells were damaged by an overgrowth of blood vessels. Replacing them with a new population of cells can restore her sight.

MORE: Stem-Cell Research: The Quest Resumes

Stem cell scientists are starting to test their treatments in eye-related diseases, because parts of the eye are protected from the bodys immune system, which could recognize the introduced cells as foreign and destroy them. Thats not a problem with the iPS cells, since they are made from the patients own skin cells, but its an added safety net to ensure that the therapy is safe and hopefully effective.

Because iPS cells are genetically treated to erase their skin cell development and revert them back to an embryonic-like state when they can become any type of cell, there are still concerns about their safety when transplanted into patients. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved a trial involving iPS cells so far, only stem cells made from excess IVF embryos have been approved for treating macular degeneration. A 19-member committee of the Japanese ministry of health approved the experimental procedure four days ago, according to Nature, after Takahashi made her case, with the help of Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, who shared the 2012 Nobel Prize for discovering iPS cells.

MORE: Stem Cell Miracle? New Therapies May Cure Chronic Conditions like Alzheimers

Japans stem cell scientists are hoping the surgery is a success; the field has been struggling since a well-publicized paper about a new way to make iPS cells was retracted amid allegations of fraud.

Its not known whether the cells will continue to grow and form abnormal tumors, or whether they will migrate to other parts of the body. But now that the first patient has received them, those questions and more, about the effectiveness of stem cell therapy might be answered soon.

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Researchers at EMBL-EBI have resolved a long-standing challenge in stem cell biology by successfully 'resetting' human pluripotent stem cells to a fully pristine state, at point of their greatest developmental potential. The study, published in Cell, involved scientists from the UK, Germany and Japan and was led jointly by EMBL-EBI and the University of Cambridge.

Embryonic stem (ES) cells, which originate in early development, are capable of differentiating into any type of cell. Until now, scientists have only been able to revert 'adult' human cells (for example, liver, lung or skin) into pluripotent stem cells with slightly different properties that predispose them to becoming cells of certain types. Authentic ES cells have only been derived from mice and rats.

"Reverting mouse cells to a completely 'blank slate' has become routine, but generating equivalent nave human cell lines has proven far more challenging," says Dr Paul Bertone, Research Group Leader at EMBL-EBI and a senior author on the study. "Human pluripotent cells resemble a cell type that appears slightly later in mammalian development, after the embryo has implanted in the uterus."

At this point, subtle changes in gene expression begin to influence the cells, which are then considered 'primed' towards a particular lineage. Although pluripotent human cells can be cultured from in vitro fertilised (IVF) embryos, until now there have been no human cells comparable to those obtained from the mouse.

Wiping cell memory

"For years, it was thought that we could be missing the developmental window when nave human cells could be captured, or that the right growth conditions hadn't been found," Paul explains. "But with the advent of iPS cell technologies, it should have been possible to drive specialised human cells back to an earlier state, regardless of their origin -- if that state existed in primates."

Taking a new approach, the scientists used reprogramming methods to express two different genes, NANOG and KLF2, which reset the cells. They then maintained the cells indefinitely by inhibiting specific biological pathways. The resulting cells are capable of differentiating into any adult cell type, and are genetically normal.

The experimental work was conducted hand-in-hand with computational analysis.

"We needed to understand where these cells lie in the spectrum of the human and mouse pluripotent cells that have already been produced," explains Paul. "We worked with the EMBL Genomics Core Facility to produce comprehensive transcriptional data for all the conditions we explored. We could then compare reset human cells to genuine mouse ES cells, and indeed we found they shared many similarities."

Together with Professor Wolf Reik at the Babraham Institute, the researchers also showed that DNA methylation (biochemical marks that influence gene expression) was erased over much of the genome, indicating that reset cells are not restricted in the cell types they can produce. In this more permissive state, the cells no longer retain the memory of their previous lineages and revert to a blank slate with unrestricted potential to become any adult cell.

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San Diego scientists have taken a neurochemical fingerprint of schizophrenia. And they did it without probing the brains of lab mice.

UC San Diego's Vivian Hook, first author of a paper published Thursday in Stem Cell Reports, says mice just wouldn't cut it for her research on schizophrenia.

"The basic reason I didn't do it in mice is because mice naturally don't get schizophrenia," Hook said.

Hook and her colleagues tried a fairly new approach. They took skin cells from three schizophrenia patients, converted them into stem cells, and then turned those stem cells into brain cells. They ended up with tiny brain fragments in a dish, which mirrored the cells inside the actual brains of those human patients.

"We found that the schizophrenic neurons showed aberrant increases in certain neurotransmitters. The cells were pumping out more dopamine, norepinephrine and epinephrine than non-schizophrenic brain cells," Hook said. "There's a chemical imbalance that has been predicted in schizophrenia, and these model schizophrenic-derived nerve cells provide data showing that."

Hook says the study also proves that stem-cell derived neurons can secrete neurotransmitters, just like cells in living human brains. That could open up research into new drugs for schizophrenia, and could potentially help answer longstanding questions about conditions like autism, ALS and Alzheimer's.

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TOKYO: Japanese researchers on Friday (Sep 12) conducted the world's first surgery to implant "iPS" stem cells in a human body in a major boost to regenerative medicine, two institutions involved said.

A female patient in her 70s with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a common medical condition that can lead to blindness in older people, had a sheet of retina cells that had been created from iPS cells implanted. "It is the first time in the world that iPS cells have been transplanted into a human body," a spokeswoman for Riken, one of the research institutions, told AFP.

The research team used induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells - which have the potential to develop into any cell in the body - that had originally come from the skin of the patient. Until the discovery of iPS several years ago, the only way to obtain stem cells was to harvest them from human embryos.

"We feel very much relieved," ophthalmologist Masayo Takahashi, the leader of the project at Riken, told a news conference after the surgery in Kobe. "We want to take it as a big step forward. But we must go on and on from here."

In a statement, the institution said that "no serious adverse phenomena such as excessive bleeding occurred" during the two-hour procedure. The surgery is still at an experimental stage, but if it is successful, doctors hope it will stop the deterioration in vision that comes with AMD.

The patient - one of six expected to take part in the trial - will be monitored over the next four years to determine how well the implants have performed, whether the body has accepted them and if they have become cancerous.

AMD, a condition that is incurable at present, affects mostly middle-aged and older people and can lead to blindness. It afflicts around 700,000 people in Japan alone.

The study was being carried out by researchers from government-backed research institution Riken and the Institute of Biomedical Research and Innovation Hospital.

Stem cell research is a pioneering field that has excited many in the scientific community with the potential they believe it offers. Stem cells are infant cells that can develop into any part of the body. Harvesting from human embryos is controversial because it requires the destruction of the embryo, a process to which religious conservatives, among others, object.

Groundbreaking work done in 2006 by Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University, a Nobel Laureate in medicine last year, succeeded in generating stem cells from adult skin tissue.

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A 25X closeup of a fruit fly intestine, where UCLA biologists recently activated a gene that slowed the aging process. Jessica Von Stetina

You may not have heard of AMPK, but if new research out of the University of California at Los Angeles is any indication, it might become a hot gene of the 21st century.

AMPK has been shown to activate autophagy, or cells' mechanism for discarding unnecessary or damaged components. The UCLA biologists deliberately activated AMPK in the intestines of fruit flies, and found that the little buggers' life-spans increased from about six weeks to eight weeks, a bump of about 30 percent.

Human bodies have AMPK as well -- though generally not at high levels -- so the hope is that one day, activating it could help extend our lives as well, or at least protect us from age-related diseases, some of which involve the buildup of a type of cellular garbage that can damage cells in the brain.

"Instead of studying the diseases of aging -- Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, cancer, stroke, cardiovascular disease, diabetes -- one by one, we believe it may be possible to intervene in the aging process and delay the onset of many of these diseases," David Walker, associate professor of integrative biology and physiology at UCLA, said in a statement. Walker is senior author of the research, which was reported earlier in September in the journal Cell Reports (PDF). "We are not there yet," he added, "and it could, of course, take many years, but that is our goal and we think it is realistic."

Notably, even though the researchers activated the genes in the fruit flies' intestines, they found that the autophagy process increased in the flies' brains as well. The reverse was also true; when the gene was turned on in the brain, the process increased in the intestine. The researchers believe this is a critical finding because one of the challenges of increasing our life-spans is that our organs need to be protected from the natural degradation that time brings. Introducing an anti-aging treatment into one organ that could benefit others as well could make the treatment extremely beneficial.

This isn't the first time Walker and a UCLA team have identified genes in fruit flies that can help slow the aging process. In 2013, they identified a gene called parkin that also helps cells clear out damaged components. By increasing levels of parkin, the researchers extended the lives of the flies. They believe that increasing the expression of parkin in the body could help prevent Parkinson's disease and other age-related illnesses in humans.

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Shaking Science with style from IMGGE University of Belgrade, Serbia
Shaking Science with style made by the Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering (IMGGE), University of Belgrade, Belgrade Serbia Video made for the Competition The Art of Shaking...

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By RTT News, September 10, 2014, 12:14:00 PM EDT

(RTTNews.com) - Seattle Genetics Inc ( SGEN ) and Genmab A/S (GNMSF.PK) on Wednesday entered into an additional antibody-drug conjugate collaboration.

Under the new agreement, Genmab will pay an upfront fee of $11 million for exclusive rights to utilize Seattle Genetics' auristatin-based Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) technology with Genmab's HuMax-AXL, an antibody targeting AXL which is expressed on multiple types of solid cancers.

Seattle Genetics is also entitled to receive more than $200 million in potential milestone payments and mid-to-high single digit royalties on worldwide net sales of any resulting products.

In addition, prior to Genmab's initiation of a Phase III study for any resulting products, Seattle Genetics has the right to exercise an option to increase the royalties to double digits in exchange for a reduction of the milestone payments owed by Genmab. Irrespective of any exercise of option, Genmab remains in full control of development and commercialization.

Seattle Genetics and Genmab entered into an ADC collaboration for HuMax-TF-ADC in September 2010. HuMax-TF-ADC, targeting the Tissue Factor antigen, is in a Phase I trial for solid tumors. Seattle Genetics has the right to exercise a co-development option to share all future costs and profits for HuMax-TF-ADC at the end of Phase I.

Genmab said that today's announcement will not impact its 2014 financial guidance.

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27 - Gene Therapy by Jasmine Costa
27 - Gene Therapy by Jasmine Costa.

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Delivering on the Promise of Personalized Medicine
Life sciences and technology are coming together to revolutionize scientific and medical discoveryfrom human genome sequencing to worldwide healthcare colla...

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Accelerating Personalized Medicine with Intel Xeon Processor E5-2600 v3 Product Family
How do you deliver cures for disease faster? What does a world with personalized medicine look like? Find how it can happen with this demo of the latest Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3...

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Personalized Medicine and the Omics Revolution [Part 2]
Personalized medicine is expected to benefit from the combination of genomic information with the global monitoring of molecular components and physiological...

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Spinal cord injury breakthrough! Aldo Takes His First Steps @aim2walk more @whatshesaid167
Aldo Vercillo was injured in a work accident Dec, 2013 and told he would never walk again because of an injury to his spinal cord. In March 2014, Aldo surpri...

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Dan Bacher: Speak Your Mind Foundation for Paralytic Disorders
Dan Bacher MS, BS from Brown University spoke of his organization, "Speak Your Mind", and the actual work it does for paralyzing disorders, including Stroke, ALS, Traumatic Brain Injury and...

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TEAM T.H.I. REGENERATIVE MEDICINE
Doris Taylor, Ph.D. Texas Heart Institute, Houston, TX http://paloaltoprize.com (c) Palo Alto Prize.

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30 - Regenerative Medicine by Devyn Arnoldusse
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Kotlikoff lab

Optogenetic proteins enable visualization of a developing heart.

New technologies involving optogenetic proteins, which use light to control and observe cells with unprecedented precision, have begun to illuminate processes underlying cellular behavior and the effects of cell- and gene-based therapies. Cornell researchers are developing advanced forms of these proteins to create a toolkit to make them more widely available to scientists.

With a five-year, $3.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Healths Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the team will develop the Cornell Heart, Lung and Blood Resource for Optogenetic Mice (CHROMus), which will incorporate optogenetic proteins in mice and human stem cells. Scientists use such tools to control and observe how different types of cells function and interact.

We will target these tools so that they can be combined to study diseases of the heart, lungs, vasculature and blood, said Dr. Michael Kotlikoff, the Austin O. Hooey Dean of Veterinary Medicine at Cornells College of Veterinary Medicine and the projects lead investigator. Researchers will be able to use them to address a broad set of health issues, including heart attack, stroke, asthma and immune diseases.

Marrying optics and genetics, optogenetics enables scientists to use light to trigger and monitor the behavior of cells engineered to contain one or both of two types of designer proteins: effectors, which respond to light by activating the cell they are on, or sensors, which fluoresce when a cell has been activated.

Effectors and sensors can be engineered into specific kinds of cells and color-coded, letting scientists noninvasively trigger one type to see how another type responds. One can see different cell types light up in living animals, giving direct insight into specific cells roles in complex biological systems.

The lines of CHROMus mice developed in this project are designed to be easily crossbred, creating a combinatorial platform that will allow scientists to customize sets of effectors and sensors including new sensors from the Kotlikoff lab into the specific cell types they want to study.

For example, our lab is particularly interested in using these tools to study the control of blood flow to tissues what happens before, during and after major events like stroke and cardiac infarction, and how abnormal rhythms develop after heart injury, said Kotlikoff. Arrhythmias following a heart attack are the single most common cause of acute death in the western world, and how they can be prevented requires a better understanding of how, why and where they arise. Optogenetic tools let us look directly at relevant cells throughout the heart to determine their role in these dangerous and often fatal events.

The tools will be designed to allow scientists to ask and answer similar questions related to vascular and lung diseases, such as the role of the immune system in asthma and stroke, and how therapeutic stem cells integrate within the tissue that they are designed to repair.

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Study Links Sex Hormone Levels in the Blood to Risk of Sudden Cardiac Arrest Measuring the levels of sex hormones in patients blood may identify patients likely to suffer a sudden cardiac arrest, a heart rhythm disorder that is fatal in 95 percent of patients. A new study, published online by the peer-reviewed journal Heart Rhythm, shows that lower levels of testosterone, the predominant male sex hormone, were found in men who had a sudden cardiac arrest. Higher levels of estradiol, the major female sex hormone, were strongly associated with greater chances of having a sudden cardiac arrest in both men and women. CONTACT: Sally Stewart, 310-248-6566; Email sally.stewart@cshs.org

Cedars-Sinai Shortens Premature Infants Intensive Care Stays by 21 Percent in Past Three Years The amount of time premature babies spend in Cedars-Sinais Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, part of the Maxine Dunitz Childrens Health Center, has declined dramatically during the past three years, with the average length of stay dropping from 21 days to 17 days. In recent years there have been some notable medical advances, such as personalized nutrition therapy that helps the smallest infants gain weight, nonsurgical procedures to heal heart defects and new medical protocols for mothers likely to deliver a premature infant. All have contributed to more rapidly improving the health of premature infants and shortening the infants hospital stays. But one of the main reasons for the shorter hospitalizations is a renewed emphasis on coordinating each babys various and complex health needs. CONTACT: Soshea Leibler, 213-215-8000; Email soshea.leibler@cshs.org

Combining Antibodies, Iron Nanoparticles and Magnets Steers Stem Cells to Injured Organs Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute infused antibody-studded iron nanoparticles into the bloodstream to treat heart attack damage. The combined nanoparticle enabled precise localization of the bodys own stem cells to the injured heart muscle. The study, which focused on laboratory rats, was published in the online peer reviewed journal Nature Communications. The study addresses a central challenge in stem cell therapeutics: how to achieve targeted interactions between stem cells and injured cells. CONTACT: Sally Stewart, 310-248-6566; Email sally.stewart@cshs.org

Cedars-Sinai Presents Educational Program on Pituitary Disorders for Patients and Families Disorders of the pituitary gland often cause gradual onset of challenging and difficult-to-manage symptoms, and it is not uncommon for patients to consult doctor after doctor in search of an accurate diagnosis and the hope of treatment. In a one-day conference in Huntington Beach on Sept. 28, pituitary experts from Cedars-Sinai will provide an update for patients and their families on the most recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of pituitary disorders. Patients will be able to engage in discussions and Q&A sessions with the faculty. CONTACT: Sandy Van, 808-526-1708; Email sandy@prpacific.com

Researchers Developing Noninvasive Method for Diagnosing Common, Painful Back Condition An interdisciplinary research team in the Cedars-Sinai Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Regenerative Medicine Institute and Department of Surgery received a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop the first imaging technique used to identify biomarkers that could indicate patients have a painful, degenerative back condition. Biomarkers are certain body substances, such as proteins or body fluids that can indicate specific health conditions. When noninvasive imaging procedures can identify exactly where the biomarkers are, researchers may alleviate the need for painful and invasive diagnostic procedures and, in the future, provide targeted, stem cell-based therapies to patients with the condition. CONTACT: Cara Martinez, 310-423-7798; Email cara.martinez@cshs.org

Cedars-Sinais New Comprehensive Transplant Center Opens The new home of the Cedars-Sinai Comprehensive Transplant Center opens Monday and consolidates the clinical and administrative services for liver, kidney, lung and pancreas transplant patients. The four programs were previously housed at several locations on the 24-acre medical center campus, but now transplant patients can have nearly all of their medical needs addressed at one location. The three-story facility covers 36,500 square feet and is located at 8900 Beverly Blvd., two blocks from the main medical center campus. The new center has 22 exam rooms, infusion therapy and phlebotomy services, patient education space and an outpatient procedure room. Two floors of underground parking and valet parking service are available to patients and their families. (High resolution photos available upon request) CONTACT: Laura Coverson, 310-423-5215; Email laura.coverson@cshs.org

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(PRWEB UK) 11 September 2014

Without doubt the best stem cells are those found in the baby teeth of young children.

Why? Apart from their unique ability to morph and change into other stem cells, thus treating a far wider range of illnesses and conditions, mesenchymal stem cells can proliferate outside the body, and where children are concerned no tooth extraction is needed as they fall out naturally. Above all it is important to remember that the best type of cells are those which are young, and therefore have not been contaminated by a lifetime of use and exposure.

So does that mean for adults there is no hope for stem cell retrieval from their adult teeth and little chance of success if they are needed in stem cell therapy?

Not necessarily, says Mike Byrom, Chief Scientific Officer at specialist tooth stem cell bank, BioEden.

Stem cell therapy is not a black and white type of event. There are varying degrees of success based on many factors of which the capacity of the cells is one. The functional capacity of a 44 year old cell is not as good as that of a 6 year old but that does not mean that they have no value. Our requirements for storing material mean that the cells demonstrate acceptable growth rates, expected cellular morphology and growth characteristics which indicate their ability to differentiate into tissue specific lineage cell types. If the cells do not meet our minimum criteria for usefulness we will not store them.'

Aside from these tests we cannot make any specific guarantees about the cells usefulness. Adults should not be put off attempting to store their stem cells and can have faith that if we successfully complete the process of stem cell extraction then the cells are of high enough quality to be useful should they be required.

BioEden do not make any charge for the process of harvesting stem cells where no viable stem cells can be found.

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Newswise LA JOLLAFor the first time, scientists have turned human skin cells into transplantable white blood cells, soldiers of the immune system that fight infections and invaders. The work, done at the Salk Institute, could let researchers create therapies that introduce into the body new white blood cells capable of attacking diseased or cancerous cells or augmenting immune responses against other disorders.

The work, as detailed in the journal Stem Cells, shows that only a bit of creative manipulation is needed to turn skin cells into human white blood cells.

"The process is quick and safe in mice," says senior author Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, holder of Salk's Roger Guillemin Chair. "It circumvents long-standing obstacles that have plagued the reprogramming of human cells for therapeutic and regenerative purposes."

Those problems includes the long timeat least two monthsand tedious laboratory work it takes to produce, characterize and differentiate induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, a method commonly used to grow new types of cells. Blood cells derived from iPS cells also have other obstacles: an inability to engraft into organs or bone marrow and a likelihood of developing tumors.

The new method takes just two weeks, does not produce tumors, and engrafts well.

"We tell skin cells to forget what they are and become what we tell them to bein this case, white blood cells," says one of the first authors and Salk researcher Ignacio Sancho-Martinez. "Only two biological molecules are needed to induce such cellular memory loss and to direct a new cell fate."

Belmonte's team developed the faster technique (called indirect lineage conversion) and previously demonstrated that these approaches could be used to produce human vascular cells, the ones that line blood vessels. Rather than reversing cells all the way back to a stem cell state before prompting them to turn into something else, such as in the case of iPS cells, the researchers "rewind" skin cells just enough to instruct them to form the more than 200 cell types that constitute the human body.

The technique demonstrated in this study uses a molecule called SOX2 to become somewhat plasticthe stage of losing their "memory" of being a specific cell type. Then, researchers use a genetic factor called miRNA125b that tells the cells that they are actually white blood cells.

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