How Age Affects Treatment Options
CLL experts, Dr. Michael Keating and Dr. Januario Castro, help listeners to understand why some CLL treatments have different effects depending on the age of the patient. Dr. Keating explains...

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How Age Affects Treatment Options - Video

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Enhancing Recovery for Acute SCI
Spinal cord injury present day treatment Spinal cord injury, cord, cervical spine, cervical spine dislocation, cranio-cervical dislocation, internal decapita...

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Enhancing Recovery for Acute SCI - Video

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CNI Cindy Acree Hope Awards 2014 - Ernie Hempel
Ernie Hempel, Spinal Cord Injury: Since experiencing a C5-6 spinal cord injury in 2002, Ernie has worked extremely hard to improve his independence and mobility. He has undergone difficult...

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Leg Muscles Restored in Regenerative Medicine Study
Damaged leg muscles grew stronger and showed signs of regeneration in three out of five men whose old injuries were surgically implanted with extracellular m...

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The future of the University of Minnesotas regenerative medicine research program is looking brighter than ever.

State and federal leaders in the past have denied funding for the Universitys Office of Regenerative Medicine, which includes the Stem Cell Institute, because some had ethical disagreements with stem cell research.

But this legislative session, with a DFL majority and an overall shift in public opinion, researchers and legislators are confident funding will come through this year.

The current House bill sets aside $450,000 for the Office of Regenerative Medicine, while the Senate version outlines a $5 million increase each year from 2015-17. The bills texts dont specify how funds should be used and how they would be divided between the University and the Mayo Clinic, its research partner.

The Senates bill mandates that anadvisory task force comprised of members from the University, the Mayo Clinic and private industry, as well as two other regenerative medicine experts, recommend how to spend the state funding.

Dayton didnt include funds for the research in his original budget proposal this year, but Sen. Terri Bonoff, DFL-Minnetonka, said there seems to be a general consensus among legislators to work together and decide on a funding amount.

I have not heard many naysayers, she said.

Changing perceptions

The state plays a major role in moving the institutes research forward.

These days, legislators are more open to it than they were in the past, said Dr. Andre Terzic, director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine.

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(PRWEB) May 02, 2014

The report Stem Cell Therapy Market by Treatment Mode (Autologous & Allogeneic), Therapeutic Applications (CNS, CVS, GIT, Wound Healing, Musculoskeletal, Eye, & Immune System) - Regulatory Landscape, Pipeline Analysis & Global Forecasts to 2020 analyzes and studies the major market drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges in North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Rest of the World (RoW).

Browse 57 market data tables 32 figures spread through 196 Slides and in-depth TOC on Stem Cell Therapy Market http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/stem-cell-technologies-and-global-market-48.html

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This report studies the global stem cell therapy market over the forecast period of 2015 to 2020.The market is poised to grow at a CAGR of 39.5% from 2015 to 2020, to reach $330million by 2020.

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The global stem cell therapy market on the basis of the mode of treatment is segmented into allogeneic and autologous stem cell therapy. In addition, based on the therapeutic applications, the global stem cell therapy market is segmented into eye diseases, metabolic diseases, GIT diseases, musculoskeletal disorders, immune system diseases, CNS diseases, CVS diseases, wounds and injuries, and others.

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A number of factors such as the increasing funding from various government and private organizations, growing industry focus on stem cell research, and increasing global awareness about stem cell therapies through various organizations are stimulating the research activities for stem cell therapies. Developing markets, emergence of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells as an alternative to embryonic stem cells (ESCs), and evolution of new stem cell therapies represent high growth opportunities for market players.

In 2015, North America will hold the largest share of the global stem cell therapy market. This large share is primarily attributed to the extensive government funding and increasing fast-track approval for stem cell therapeutics by the FDA. Moreover, development of advanced genomic methods for stem cell analysis and high number of ongoing research activities are further fueling the growth of the stem cell therapy market in North America. However, the Asia-Pacific stem cell therapy market is expected to grow at the highest CAGR in the forecast period, owing to factors such as increasing regulatory support through favorable government policies, strong product pipelines, and increasing licensing activities in this region.

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Stem Cell Therapy Market (Autologous & Allogeneic) Worth $330 Million in 2020 - New Report by MarketsandMarkets

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Image Caption: This image shows an implanted graft of cardiac cells derived from human stem cells (green) meshed and beat with primates' heart cells (red). Credit: Murry Lab/University of Washington

April Flowers for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

When a heart attack occurs, the oxygen-rich blood that normally flows through is interrupted by the blockage in an artery. The longer that blood flow is restricted or cut off, the more tissue and muscle in the area dies or is scarred. The eventual result can be heart failure, especially if one heart attack is followed by another.

In 2013, Harvard Health Publications released a report taking a look at the state of stem cell research into the problem of regenerating heart tissue, and the results were mixed.

A new study from the University of Washington, however, reveals improvement in those results. The findings, published online in Nature, demonstrate that damaged heart muscles in monkeys have been restored by the use of heart cells created from human embryonic stem cells. The exciting implication, according to the research team, is that their approach should also be feasible in humans.

Before this study, it was not known if it is possible to produce sufficient numbers of these cells and successfully use them to remuscularize damaged hearts in a large animal whose heart size and physiology is similar to that of the human heart, said Dr. Charles Murry, UW professor of pathology and bioengineering and director of the UW Center for Cardiovascular Biology, in a recent statement.

Murray, who collaborated with Dr. Michael Laflamme and other colleagues at the UW Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine, predicts clinical trials with humans within the next four years.

[ Watch the Video: Regenerating Heart Muscle Damage With Stem Cell Therapy ]

For the study, the researchers induced controlled myocardial infarctions, a type of heart attack, in anesthetized pigtail macaques, by blocking the coronary artery for 90 minutes. This is the accepted practice for studying myocardial infarction in primates.

Coronary artery disease is the primary culprit in myocardial infarctions in humans. The infarcted heart muscle, damaged by a lack of oxygen, does not grow back, leaving the heart less able to pump blood. This often leads to heart failure, the leading cause of cardiovascular death. Researchers hope to use new heart cells created from stem cells in order to restore normal function to the failing heart.

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Heart Muscles Repaired After Heart Attack Using Human Embryonic Stem Cells

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It shows for the first time that we can do regeneration at a scale that the world has never seen before, said Dr Charles Murry, professor of pathology and bioengineering, at the University of Washington.

"Before this study, it was not known if it is possible to produce sufficient numbers of these cells and use them to re-muscularise damaged hearts in a large animal whose heart size and physiology is similar to that of the human heart."

Weve shown that (stem cells) will survive and they will organise to form new heart muscle and they will connect with the surrounding cardiac muscle cells and beat in synchrony.

The green area shows the regenerated heart muscle

Currently heart muscle cannot be repaired and people with severe heart failure must wait for a heart transplant.

In the study the team induced heart attacks, in anesthetised macaque monkeys.

Over the course of two weeks they injected one billion heart muscle cells derived from human embryonic stem cells.

The researchers found that the stem cells infiltrated into the damaged heart tissue, matured, and knitted into muscle fibers, before beginning to beat in rhythm with the macaque heart cells.

After three months, the cells had fully integrated into the heart. On average the transplanted stem cells regenerated 40 percent of the damaged heart tissue and improve the ability of the heart to pump blood.

Although the study has been carried out on macaque monkeys, the researchers at the University of Washington said "the approach should be feasible in humans".

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Stem cell injections may take place of heart swaps

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An implanted graft of cardiac cells derived from human stem cells (green) meshed with a monkey's own heart cells (red). Picture: Murry Lab/University of Washington/PA

Stem cell heart repair treatments could be tested on human patients within four years following a ground-breaking study of monkeys.

Scientists successfully restored damaged cardiac muscle in macaque monkeys suffering the after-effects of experimentally induced heart attacks, paving the way to clinical trials.

Researchers injected 1bn immature heart muscle cells derived from human embryonic stem cells into each animals heart.

Over several weeks, the new cells developed, assembled into muscle fibres, and began to beat in correct time. On average, 40% of the damaged heart tissue was regenerated.

It is the first time stem cell therapy for damage caused by heart attacks has been shown to work in a primate.

Lead scientist Prof Charles Murry, director of the Centre for Cardiovascular Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle, said: Before this study, it was not known if it is possible to produce sufficient numbers of these cells and successfully use them to remuscularise damaged hearts in a large animal whose heart size and physiology is similar to that of the human heart.

He expects the treatment to be ready for clinical trials in human patients within four years.

Heart attack symptoms were triggered in the monkeys by blocking the coronary artery the main artery supplying the heart with blood for 90 minutes.

In humans, the reduced blood flow caused by narrowing of the arteries has a similar effect. Lack of blood flow to the heart damages the heart muscle by depriving it of oxygen.

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Stem cells could be used to treat heart disease

6:30am Friday 2nd May 2014 in News

STEM cells taken from bone marrow could be used to treat heart disease by injecting them into damaged tissue, early results show.

Stem cells are cells in the body which have not yet specialised and can become any type.

Oxford University scientists hailed the encouraging evidence in results of 26 small clinical trails involving 1,255 people.

A year or more after treatment, just three per cent of people had died, compared with 15 per cent of people who had not had the procedure.

Hospital readmissions stood at only two in 100 for those testing out the new treatment.

Dr Enca Martin-Rendon, who carried out the study with the Cochrane Heart Review Group, said larger studies would be carried out to get more conclusive evidence.

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May 1, 2014

Image Caption: The continuous, necessary production of blood cells, including these red blood cells captured in a scanning micrograph by Thomas Deerinck, is the responsibility of hematopoietic stem cells found in bone marrow. Credit: Thomas Deerinck, UC San Diego

University of California San Diego

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that a protein called beta-catenin plays a critical, and previously unappreciated, role in promoting recovery of stricken hematopoietic stem cells after radiation exposure.

The findings, published in the May 1 issue of Genes and Development, provide a new understanding of how radiation impacts cellular and molecular processes, but perhaps more importantly, they suggest new possibilities for improving hematopoietic stem cell regeneration in the bone marrow following cancer radiation treatment.

Ionizing radiation exposure accidental or deliberate can be fatal due to widespread destruction of hematopoietic stem cells, the cells in the bone marrow that give rise to all blood cells. A number of cancer treatments involve irradiating malignancies, essentially destroying all exposed blood cells, followed by transplantation of replacement stem cells to rebuild blood stores. The effectiveness of these treatments depends upon how well the replacement hematopoietic stem cells do their job.

In their new paper, principal investigator Tannishtha Reya, PhD, professor in the department of pharmacology, and colleagues used mouse models to show that radiation exposure triggers activation of a fundamental cellular signaling pathway called Wnt in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells.

The Wnt pathway and its key mediator, beta catenin, are critical for embryonic development and establishment of the body plan, said Reya. In addition, the Wnt pathway is activated in stem cells from many tissues and is needed for their continued maintenance.

The researchers found that mice deficient in beta-catenin lacked the ability to activate canonical Wnt signaling and suffered from impaired hematopoietic stem cell regeneration and bone marrow recovery after radiation. Specifically, mouse hematopoietic stem cells without beta-catenin could not suppress the production of oxidative stress molecules that damage cell structures. As a result, they could not recover effectively after radiation or chemotherapy.

Our work shows that Wnt signaling is important in the mammalian hematopoietic system, and is critical for recovery from chemotherapy and radiation, Reya said. While these therapies can be life-saving, they take a heavy toll on the hematopoietic system from which the patient may not always recover.

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Protein Discovery Could Boost Efficacy Of Bone Marrow Replacement Treatments

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Newswise Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that a protein called beta-catenin plays a critical, and previously unappreciated, role in promoting recovery of stricken hematopoietic stem cells after radiation exposure.

The findings, published in the May 1 issue of Genes and Development, provide a new understanding of how radiation impacts cellular and molecular processes, but perhaps more importantly, they suggest new possibilities for improving hematopoietic stem cell regeneration in the bone marrow following cancer radiation treatment.

Ionizing radiation exposure accidental or deliberate can be fatal due to widespread destruction of hematopoietic stem cells, the cells in the bone marrow that give rise to all blood cells. A number of cancer treatments involve irradiating malignancies, essentially destroying all exposed blood cells, followed by transplantation of replacement stem cells to rebuild blood stores. The effectiveness of these treatments depends upon how well the replacement hematopoietic stem cells do their job.

In their new paper, principal investigator Tannishtha Reya, PhD, professor in the department of pharmacology, and colleagues used mouse models to show that radiation exposure triggers activation of a fundamental cellular signaling pathway called Wnt in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells.

The Wnt pathway and its key mediator, beta catenin, are critical for embryonic development and establishment of the body plan, said Reya. In addition, the Wnt pathway is activated in stem cells from many tissues and is needed for their continued maintenance.

The researchers found that mice deficient in beta-catenin lacked the ability to activate canonical Wnt signaling and suffered from impaired hematopoietic stem cell regeneration and bone marrow recovery after radiation. Specifically, mouse hematopoietic stem cells without beta-catenin could not suppress the production of oxidative stress molecules that damage cell structures. As a result, they could not recover effectively after radiation or chemotherapy.

Our work shows that Wnt signaling is important in the mammalian hematopoietic system, and is critical for recovery from chemotherapy and radiation, Reya said. While these therapies can be life-saving, they take a heavy toll on the hematopoietic system from which the patient may not always recover.

The findings have significant clinical implications.

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Damage Control: Recovering From Radiation and Chemotherapy

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Researchers at Columbia Engineering announced today that they have successfully grown fully functional human cartilage in vitro from human stem cells derived from bone marrow tissue. Their study, which demonstrates new ways to better mimic the enormous complexity of tissue development, regeneration, and disease, is published in the April 28 Early Online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

"We've been able -- for the first time -- to generate fully functional human cartilage from mesenchymal stem cells by mimicking in vitro the developmental process of mesenchymal condensation," says Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, who led the study and is the Mikati Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia Engineering and professor of medical sciences. "This could have clinical impact, as this cartilage can be used to repair a cartilage defect, or in combination with bone in a composite graft grown in lab for more complex tissue reconstruction."

For more than 20 years, researchers have unofficially called cartilage the "official tissue of tissue engineering," Vunjak-Novakovic observes. Many groups studied cartilage as an apparently simple tissue: one single cell type, no blood vessels or nerves, a tissue built for bearing loads while protecting bone ends in the joints. While there has been great success in engineering pieces of cartilage using young animal cells, no one has, until now, been able to reproduce these results using adult human stem cells from bone marrow or fat, the most practical stem cell source. Vunjak-Novakovic's team succeeded in growing cartilage with physiologic architecture and strength by radically changing the tissue-engineering approach.

The general approach to cartilage tissue engineering has been to place cells into a hydrogel and culture them in the presence of nutrients and growth factors and sometimes also mechanical loading. But using this technique with adult human stem cells has invariably produced mechanically weak cartilage. So Vunjak-Novakovic and her team, who have had a longstanding interest in skeletal tissue engineering, wondered if a method resembling the normal development of the skeleton could lead to a higher quality of cartilage.

Sarindr Bhumiratana, postdoctoral fellow in Vunjak-Novakovic's Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering, came up with a new approach: inducing the mesenchymal stem cells to undergo a condensation stage as they do in the body before starting to make cartilage. He discovered that this simple but major departure from how things were usually? being done resulted in a quality of human cartilage not seen before.

Gerard Ateshian, Andrew Walz Professor of Mechanical Engineering, professor of biomedical engineering, and chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and his PhD student, Sevan Oungoulian, helped perform measurements showing that the lubricative property and compressive strength -- the two important functional properties -- of the tissue-engineered cartilage approached those of native cartilage. The researchers then used their method to regenerate large pieces of anatomically shaped and mechanically strong cartilage over the bone, and to repair defects in cartilage.

"Our whole approach to tissue engineering is biomimetic in nature, which means that our engineering designs are defined by biological principles," Vunjak-Novakovic notes. "This approach has been effective in improving the quality of many engineered tissues -- from bone to heart. Still, we were really surprised to see that our cartilage, grown by mimicking some aspects of biological development, was as strong as 'normal' human cartilage."

The team plans next to test whether the engineered cartilage tissue maintains its structure and long-term function when implanted into a defect.

"This is a very exciting time for tissue engineers," says Vunjak-Novakovic. "Stem cells are transforming the future of medicine, offering ways to overcome some of the human body's fundamental limitations. We bioengineers are now working with stem cell scientists and clinicians to develop technologies that will make this dream possible. This project is a wonderful example that we need to 'think as a cell' to find out how exactly to coax the cells into making a functional human tissue of a specific kind. It's emblematic of the progress being driven by the exceptional young talent we have among our postdocs and students at Columbia Engineering."

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research, and National Institute for arthritis and musculoskeletal diseases).

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1-May-2014

Contact: Krista Conger kristac@stanford.edu 650-725-5371 Stanford University Medical Center

STANFORD, Calif. Stem cells made from the skin of adult, infertile men yield primordial germ cells cells that normally become sperm when transplanted into the reproductive system of mice, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Montana State University.

The infertile men in the study each had a type of genetic mutation that prevented them from making mature sperm a condition called azoospermia. The research suggests that the men with azoospermia may have had germ cells at some point in their early lives, but lost them as they matured to adulthood.

Although the researchers were able to create primordial germ cells from the infertile men, their stem cells made far fewer of these sperm progenitors than did stem cells from men without the mutations. The research provides a useful, much-needed model to study the earliest steps of human reproduction.

"We saw better germ-cell differentiation in this transplantation model than we've ever seen," said Renee Reijo Pera, PhD, former director of Stanford's Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education. "We were amazed by the efficiency. Our dream is to use this model to make a genetic map of human germ-cell differentiation, including some of the very earliest stages."

Unlike many other cellular and physiological processes, human reproduction varies in significant ways from that of common laboratory animals like mice or fruit flies. Furthermore, many key steps, like the development and migration of primordial germ cells to the gonads, happen within days or weeks of conception. These challenges have made the process difficult to study.

Reijo Pera, who is now a professor of cell biology and neurosciences at Montana State University, is the senior author of a paper describing the research, which will be published May 1 in Cell Reports. The experiments in the study were conducted at Stanford, and Stanford postdoctoral scholar Cyril Ramathal, PhD, is the lead author of the paper.

The research used skin samples from five men to create what are known as induced pluripotent stem cells, which closely resemble embryonic stem cells in their ability to become nearly any tissue in the body. Three of the men carried a type of mutation on their Y chromosome known to prevent the production of sperm; the other two were fertile.

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Stem cells from some infertile men form germ cells when transplanted into mice, study finds

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hide captionNew research could be promising for infertile men. Scientists were able to make immature sperm cells from skin cells. Their next challenge is to make that sperm viable.

New research could be promising for infertile men. Scientists were able to make immature sperm cells from skin cells. Their next challenge is to make that sperm viable.

Scientists reported Thursday they had figured out a way to make primitive human sperm out of skin cells, an advance that could someday help infertile men have children.

"I probably get 200 emails a year from people who are infertile, and very often the heading on the emails is: Can you help me?" says Renee Reijo Pera of Montana State University, who led the research when she was at Stanford University.

In a paper published in the journal Cell Reports, Pera and her colleagues describe what they did. They took skin cells from infertile men and manipulated them in the laboratory to become induced pluripotent stem cells, which are very similar to human embryonic stem cells. That means they have the ability to become virtually any cell in the body.

They then inserted the cells into the testes of mice, where they became very immature human sperm cells, the researchers report.

"It's much easier than we actually expected," Pera told Shots.

Other researchers caution that there's still much more research that is needed to prove these cells would actually become healthy sperm that could make a baby. But they said the report was intriguing.

"It's one step closer to being able to make sperm in a petri dish," says George Daley, a stem-cell researcher at Harvard. "So I think that's very provocative."

But others worry the techniques could be misused.

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'Provocative' Research Turns Skin Cells Into Sperm

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Stem cells made from the skin of adult, infertile men yield primordial germ cells -- cells that normally become sperm -- when transplanted into the reproductive system of mice, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Montana State University.

The infertile men in the study each had a type of genetic mutation that prevented them from making mature sperm -- a condition called azoospermia. The research suggests that the men with azoospermia may have had germ cells at some point in their early lives, but lost them as they matured to adulthood.

Although the researchers were able to create primordial germ cells from the infertile men, their stem cells made far fewer of these sperm progenitors than did stem cells from men without the mutations. The research provides a useful, much-needed model to study the earliest steps of human reproduction.

"We saw better germ-cell differentiation in this transplantation model than we've ever seen," said Renee Reijo Pera, PhD, former director of Stanford's Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education. "We were amazed by the efficiency. Our dream is to use this model to make a genetic map of human germ-cell differentiation, including some of the very earliest stages."

A difficult process to study

Unlike many other cellular and physiological processes, human reproduction varies in significant ways from that of common laboratory animals like mice or fruit flies. Furthermore, many key steps, like the development and migration of primordial germ cells to the gonads, happen within days or weeks of conception. These challenges have made the process difficult to study.

Reijo Pera, who is now a professor of cell biology and neurosciences at Montana State University, is the senior author of a paper describing the research, published May 1 in Cell Reports. The experiments in the study were conducted at Stanford, and Stanford postdoctoral scholar Cyril Ramathal, PhD, is the lead author of the paper.

The research used skin samples from five men to create what are known as induced pluripotent stem cells, which closely resemble embryonic stem cells in their ability to become nearly any tissue in the body. Three of the men carried a type of mutation on their Y chromosome known to prevent the production of sperm; the other two were fertile.

The germ cells made from stem cells stopped differentiating in the mice before they produced mature sperm (likely because of the significant differences between the reproductive processes of humans and mice) regardless of the fertility status of the men from whom they were derived. However, the fact that the infertile men's cells could give rise to germ cells at all was a surprise.

Previous research in mice with a similar type of infertility found that although they had germ cells as newborns, these germ cells were quickly depleted. The Stanford findings suggests that the infertile men may have had at least a few functioning germ cells as newborns or infants. Although more research needs to be done, collecting and freezing some of this tissue from young boys known to have this type of infertility mutation may give them the option to have their own children later in life, the researchers said.

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Stem cells from some infertile men form germ cells when transplanted into mice

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Topics: editors picks, family, relationships, science, sex

INFERTILE men could in future be offered a new form of treatment based on converting their skin cells into the sperm-making tissue that is missing in their testicles, scientists have said.

A study has found that it is possible to convert skin cells into male "germ cells" which are responsible for sperm production, using an established technique for creating embryonic-like stem cells, in a form of genetic engineering.

The research, published in the journal Cell Reports, showed that stem cells derived from human skin become active germ cells when transplanted into the testes of mice - even when the man suffers from a genetic condition where he lacks functioning germ cells in his own testes.

Although the mice had functioning human male germ cells, they did not produce human sperm, said Renee Reijo Pera, of Montana State University, who led the study.

"There is an evolutionary block that means that when germ cells from one species are transferred to another, there is not full spermatogenesis unless the species are very closely related," she added.

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

1-May-2014

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

Researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports on May 1st have successfully coaxed stem cells made from the skin cells of infertile men into producing sperm cell precursors. These induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) produced sperm precursors following transplantation into the testes of mice.

The findings help to explain a genetic cause of male infertility and offer a window into basic sperm biology. The approach also holds considerable potential for clinical application, the researchers say.

"Our results are the first to offer an experimental model to study sperm development," said Renee Reijo Pera of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology & Regenerative Medicine and Montana State University. "Therefore, there is potential for applications to cell-based therapies in the clinic, for example, for the generation of higher quality and numbers of sperm in a dish.

"It might even be possible to transplant stem-cell-derived germ cells directly into the testes of men with problems producing sperm," she added. However, getting to that point will require considerable study to ensure the safety and practicality.

Infertility affects 10% to 15% of couples. Moreover, as the researchers note, genetic causes of infertility are surprisingly prevalent among men, most commonly due to the spontaneous loss of key genes on the Y sex chromosome. But the causes at the molecular level have not been well understood.

Reijo Pera said her primary motivation is to understand the fundamental decision early in development that enables the production of sperm cell precursors and ultimately sperm. One way to do that is to study cells lacking genes that are required for sperm production.

The researchers looked to infertile but otherwise normal men with deletions encompassing three Y chromosome azoospermia factor (AZF) regions, which are associated with the production of few or no sperm. They found that iPSCs derived from AZF-deleted cells were compromised in their ability to form sperm in a dish. But when those cells were transplanted into the seminiferous tubules of mice, they produced germ-cell-like cells (though significantly fewer than iPSCs derived from people without the AZF deletion do).

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New York, NY (PRWEB) April 29, 2014

The Stem Cell Institute located in Panama City, Panama, welcomes special guest speaker Roberta F. Shapiro, DO, FAAPM&R to its public seminar on umbilical cord stem cell therapy on Saturday, May 17, 2014 in New York City at the New York Hilton Midtown from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm.

Dr. Shapiro will discuss A New York Doctors Path to Panama.

Dr. Shapiro operates a private practice for physical medicine and rehabilitation in New York City. Her primary professional activities include outpatient practice focused on comprehensive treatment of acute and chronic musculoskeletal and myofascial pain syndromes using manipulation techniques, trigger point injections, tendon injections, bursae injections, nerve and motor point blocks. Secondary work at her practice focuses on the management of pediatric onset disability.

She is the founder and president of the Dayniah Fund, a non-profit charitable foundation formed to support persons with progressive debilitating diseases who are faced with catastrophic events such as surgery or illness. The Dayniah Fund educates the public about the challenges of people with disabilities and supports research on reducing the pain and suffering caused by disabling diseases and conditions.

Dr. Shapiro serves as assistant clinical professor in the Department of Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center.

Stem Cell Institute Speakers include:

Neil Riordan PhD Clinical Trials: Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy for Autism and Spinal Cord Injury

Dr. Riordan is the founder of the Stem Cell Institute and Medistem Panama Inc.

Jorge Paz-Rodriguez MD Stem Cell Therapy for Autoimmune Disease: MS, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus

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The long-term consumption of too much high-energy and high-fat food leads to overweight. Behind this trivial statement lies the extremely complex regulation of lipid metabolism. Together with colleagues from Japan, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have now discovered that the Sirt7 gene plays a central role in energy metabolism. Despite consuming high-fat food, genetically modified mice that lack the gene maintain their normal weight.

Food was not always available to such excess as it is in western societies today. On the contrary, our metabolism was tailored to the optimum exploitation of energy, as humans, for millennia, had to budget their calories carefully. Thus, the formation and depletion of fat depots as energy stores is subject to complex regulation. A series of regulators is involved in lipid metabolism in the liver for the purpose of storing excess energy and making it available again when required.

Working in cooperation with colleagues from the Sendai and Kumamoto Universities in Japan, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have now identified a protein from the sirtuin group that plays a major role in the utilization of energy in the context of a high-fat diet and is responsible for the formation of fat depots. Sirtuins are known as a group of proteins with wide-ranging biological functions.

The researchers carried out their tests on mice which lack a sirtuin known as SIRT7. These Sirt7-knockout mice and non-genetically-modified animals were fed particularly high-fat pellets for months. "We established that Sirt7-knockout mice put on significantly less weight than the control group. On the contrary, they maintained their normal weight," says Eva Bober, a scientist at the MPI. Moreover, compared with the non-genetically-modified mice, these animals tended to have lower triglyceride and cholesterol levels in their livers and normal insulin levels. "Everything pointed to the fact that the animals which lacked SIRT7 were able to process the excess energy in the food better and did not build up any pathological fat depots," says Bober.

To investigate the molecular processes behind this observation, the scientists studied the gene activities of the liver cells. In the process, it emerged that SIRT7 activates the expression of a large number of genes for lipid metabolism. In the liver cells from mice without SIRT7, this gene remains largely unactivated and fewer fat depots are formed as a result.

"We discovered a second mechanism as well," says Bober. "SIRT7 also inhibits the degradation of certain proteins. Because they are then active for longer, these proteins also make a greater contribution to energy storage than is actually intended." Conversely, if SIRT7 is missing, these proteins are degraded and fewer fat depots are formed.

The researchers hope that their study will provide the basis for new therapeutic approaches. "We would now like to examine substances with which the function of SIRT7 can be deliberately inhibited. We want to examine whether the same effects arise as observed in the mice that lack the Sirt7 gene," explains Bober. The long-term objective is the development of a drug that would reduce the efficiency of lipid metabolism. This would enable the avoidance of overweight.

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The above story is based on materials provided by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Fattening gene discovered by researchers

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Human Genetic Engineering Final Project

By: Jazmine Byrd

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Human Genetic Engineering Final Project - Video

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TTA14-OGM-Genetic Engineering
TTA14-OGM-Genetic Engineering.

By: Sallie Hill Outten

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TTA14-OGM-Genetic Engineering - Video

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John Sterling | 05/01/2014

The following article, reproduced in full below, was originally published at Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News.

Its been a hot year for biotech! As G. Steven Burrill, CEO of Burrill & Co., noted in a recent report, life science firms raised $2.9 billion in new equity capital globally from public investors in February. This included $1.1 billion raised by 18 companies that completed initial public offerings and $1.8 billion raised by 23 companies that completed follow-on offerings during the month.

In the U.S., 16 life sciences companies raised $959 million through IPOs and 22 companies raised $1.75 billion through follow-on offerings on U.S. exchanges during February, making the month the biggest for IPOs in terms of the number of completed deals since February 2000!

Why the excitement? Promising new biotherapeutics are emerging from the drug pipeline. Advances in stem cell research and regenerative medicine are occurring at a rapid pace. And OMICS technologies (e.g., genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, glycomics, and lipomics), originally developed and used in the lab, are now making their way into clinical medicine, truly ready to usher in an era of personalized medicine.

The 2014 BIO International Convention will be held in San Diego this June. As usual, the BIO conference committee did a superb job in putting together a first-class program that covers a wide range of topics with something to offer everyone involved in biotech R&D or commercialization. Its been a tough call this year but here are my picks for the top 10 cant miss sessions at the conference.

To learn more about the program and available registration packages for Convention, please visithere

John Sterling is editor-in-chief of Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN).

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GENs Top 10 Session Picks for the 2014 BIO International Convention

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Today virtually everything we eat is produced from seeds that have been genetically altered in some way. New methods of plant tinkering have emerged over the generations and so, too, have the fears

Today virtually everything we eat is produced from seeds that have been genetically altered in one way or another. Credit: Thinkstock

Editor's note: The following is the introduction to the May 2014 issue of Scientific American Classics: The Birth of the Great GMO Debate.

The idea of intentionally infecting a plant with a bacterium might seem strange. Just three decades ago, however, researchers discovered that they could use this infection to deliver new and potentially useful genes into crops.

What has long appeared to be simply the agent of a bothersome plant disease is likely to become a major tool for the genetic manipulation of plants: for putting new genes into plants and thereby giving rise to new varieties with desired traits, announced acclaimed scientist Mary-Dell Chilton in 1983 in a pioneering article, one of many in this collection from the archives of Scientific American. Today genes introduced this way are yielding some of the most exciting new approaches to food securityas well as a hearty amount of debate.

Despite the excitement about the potential benefits of genetic engineering 30 years ago, the broader historical perspective highlighted in this collection reveals that this is just one of many thrilling and surprising advances in the long history of plant genetic alteration, which began well before this retrospective issue could document. (Scientific American extends back only to 1845.) Consider the assessment of the new technology of cross-pollination described in 1717 by botanist Richard Bradley: A curious person may by this knowledge produce such rare kinds of plants as have not yet been heard of.

For 10,000 years, in fact, we have altered the genetic makeup of our crops. For example, the ancient ancestor of modern corn was created some 6,000 years ago by Native Americans who domesticated a wild plant called teosinte, which looks nothing like a modern corn plant. If humans still depended on this wild relative, we would need hundreds, if not thousands, of times more plantsand acresto replace corn.

Today virtually everything we eat is produced from seeds that have been genetically altered in one way or another. The old approaches were crude and have been refined over the centuries. Modern methods include grafting and forced pollination (mixing genes of distantly related species) and radiation treatments to create random mutations in seeds. The newest method is genetic engineeringa technology developed after scientists observed that the bothersome plant pathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens habitually introduced its own genes into plants. With a little laboratory work, the bacterium can instead implant desirable genes, such as those that increase nutrients or help the plant resist pests or drought.

The planting of genetically engineered crops during the past 20 years has drastically reduced the amount of synthetic insecticides sprayed worldwide, shifted the use of herbicides to those that are less toxic, rescued the U.S. papaya industry from disease, and benefited the health and well-being of farmers and their families and consumers. Every scientific review of the crops on the market so far has concluded that the plants are safe to eat.

Just as the excitement surrounding the benefits of genetic engineering paralleled those of our predecessors, so, too, has the fear of plant tinkering technologies persisted over time. Consider the comments of Maxwell T. Masters, president of the International Conference of Hybridization, in his 1899 Scientific American article: Many worthy people objected to the production of hybrids on the ground that it was an impious interference with the laws of Nature. Today we are all too familiar with similar arguments about the application of genetic engineering in agriculture.

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Plant Engineers Sow Debate

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30-Apr-2014

Contact: Gail Wilson gail.wilson@imperial.ac.uk 44-020-759-46702 Imperial College London

A distinctive genetic 'signature' found in the blood of children with tuberculosis (TB) offers new hope for improved diagnosis of the disease.

TB is very difficult to diagnose in children and is often recognised late when the child is already critically ill and the disease has spread from the lungs to the brain or other organs. Now an international team of researchers has shown that the disease can be identified in over 80 percent of cases by looking at 51 specific genes in the blood of affected children.

The researchers hope the findings published on 30 April in the New England Journal of Medicine could be used to develop a cheap, quick and effective diagnostic test.

Lead researcher, Professor Michael Levin, Director of the Wellcome Centre for Clinical Tropical Medicine at Imperial College London, explained: "We urgently need better methods to diagnose TB in children, so treatment can be started earlier and to avoid unnecessary treatment of children who are wrongly diagnosed. The symptoms of TB in children are common to many other childhood diseases, and the standard tests used on adults are not effective in children. Although the disease is treatable, thousands of children still die each year due to late diagnosis and many more are left with damage to their brain, bones and lungs."

The study funded through the EU and carried out at Wellcome Trust-supported units in Africa looked at over 2,800 children admitted to hospitals in South Africa, Malawi and Kenya with symptoms of TB. The researchers identified those who had proven TB and those in whom TB was excluded as the cause of the child's illness.

Blood samples from the South African and Malawian children were examined to see which genes were activated or suppressed in those with the disease. The researchers found that TB could be distinguished from other diseases by looking at just 51 genes from over 30,000 in the human genome and seeing whether they were activated or suppressed. This information was used to give a single TB risk score for each child which, when tested in the Kenyan patients, accurately diagnosed over 80 percent of the children with TB.

Professor Levin said: "It has taken seven years and the combined efforts of clinicians and scientists in the UK, Africa and Singapore to identify this gene signature of childhood TB. What we now need is collaboration from biotechnology and industrial partners to turn these findings into a simple, rapid and affordable test for TB that can be used in hospitals worldwide."

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Diagnosis of childhood TB could be improved by genetic discovery

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