By combining a synthetic scaffolding material with gene delivery techniques, researchers at Duke University are getting closer to being able to generate replacement cartilage where it's needed in the body.

Performing tissue repair with stem cells typically requires applying copious amounts of growth factor proteins -- a task that is very expensive and becomes challenging once the developing material is implanted within a body. In a new study, however, Duke researchers found a way around this limitation by genetically altering the stem cells to make the necessary growth factors all on their own.

They incorporated viruses used to deliver gene therapy to the stem cells into a synthetic material that serves as a template for tissue growth. The resulting material is like a computer; the scaffold provides the hardware and the virus provides the software that programs the stem cells to produce the desired tissue.

The study appears online the week of Feb. 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Farshid Guilak, director of orthopaedic research at Duke University Medical Center, has spent years developing biodegradable synthetic scaffolding that mimics the mechanical properties of cartilage. One challenge he and all biomedical researchers face is getting stem cells to form cartilage within and around the scaffolding, especially after it is implanted into a living being.

The traditional approach has been to introduce growth factor proteins, which signal the stem cells to differentiate into cartilage. Once the process is under way, the growing cartilage can be implanted where needed.

"But a major limitation in engineering tissue replacements has been the difficulty in delivering growth factors to the stem cells once they are implanted in the body," said Guilak, who is also a professor in Duke's Department of Biomedical Engineering. "There's a limited amount of growth factor that you can put into the scaffolding, and once it's released, it's all gone. We need a method for long-term delivery of growth factors, and that's where the gene therapy comes in."

For ideas on how to solve this problem, Guilak turned to his colleague Charles Gersbach, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and an expert in gene therapy. Gersbach proposed introducing new genes into the stem cells so that they produce the necessary growth factors themselves.

But the conventional methods for gene therapy are complex and difficult to translate into a strategy that would be feasible as a commercial product.

This type of gene therapy generally requires gathering stem cells, modifying them with a virus that transfers the new genes, culturing the resulting genetically altered stem cells until they reach a critical mass, applying them to the synthetic cartilage scaffolding and, finally, implanting it into the body.

See more here:
Regenerating orthopedic tissues within the human body

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The Personalized Medicine Approach to Treating Myeloma
Dr. Noopur Raje, Director of the Center for Multiple Myeloma at Massachusetts General Hospital, shares information on the latest approaches to personalized m...

By: Patient Power

See more here:
The Personalized Medicine Approach to Treating Myeloma - Video

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Woman performs publicly for the first time since her spinal cord injury
Kristina Shelden was a passionate guitarist and folk music singer until a spinal cord injury resulted in a dramatic loss of hand function that prevented her ...

By: Spinal Cord Injury BC

The rest is here:
Woman performs publicly for the first time since her spinal cord injury - Video

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Ultrasound Guided Stem Cell Treatment | Pectoralis Muscle Injection 2
Dr. Mercado performed an ultrasound guided stem cell injection into the pectoralis muscle. Learn more about our stem cell treatments at eternamdregenerativem...

By: Eterna MD Regenerative Medicine

View original post here:
Ultrasound Guided Stem Cell Treatment | Pectoralis Muscle Injection 2 - Video

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Ultrasound Guided Stem Cell Treatment | Pectoralis Tendon Injection 1
Dr. Mercado performed an ultrasound guided stem cell injection into the pectoralis tendon. Learn more about our stem cell treatments at eternamdregenerativem...

By: Eterna MD Regenerative Medicine

The rest is here:
Ultrasound Guided Stem Cell Treatment | Pectoralis Tendon Injection 1 - Video

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Ultrasound Guided Stem Cell Treatment | Pectoralis Muscle Injection 1
Dr. Mercado performed an ultrasound guided stem cell injection into the pectoralis muscle. Learn more about our stem cell treatments at eternamdregenerativem...

By: Eterna MD Regenerative Medicine

See the original post here:
Ultrasound Guided Stem Cell Treatment | Pectoralis Muscle Injection 1 - Video

Recommendation and review posted by sam

by GEORGE RIBA

WFAA Sports

Posted on February 18, 2014 at 12:41 PM

DALLAS -- Malena Brownwas hoping for a match onValentines Day weekend, butnot the kind of match you expect.

The 15-year-old daughter of Dallas Cowboys running backs coach Gary Brown is looking for an "angel donor" whose bone marrow stem cells will match hers and help her overcome what's known as CML, or chronic myeloid leukemia.

Well, its kind of scary knowing that there wasn't a match for me, but we're doing a bone marrow drive now and hopefully find somebody that matches me, Malena said.

Neither one of Malena's siblings is a match, and trying to find one has become a challenge.

The No. 1 challenge has been trying to find a match based on her ancestry, and she being biracial, has been extra difficult because the registry is under-represented with African-American and other multiracial people, said Kim Brown, Malenas mother.

We've had nothing but people trying to help us in any way they can, said father Gary Brown. When you know your daughter is going through something hard, and there are other people out there that care as much as you do and want to help her as much as you do.

To add your name to the national registry, all you do is a simple swab test, add it to a booklet, and send it in.

Link:
Cowboys coach seeks marrow match for daughter

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

By Liisa Vexler

A new age in biology and biotechnology may be upon us as scientists in London, England have successfully created embryonic-type stem cells without the use of actual embryos. By re-engineering mature cells, scientists may be close to overcoming one of the largest ethical debates in stem cell research, the use of human embryos. Though the initial research was conducted with cells from mice, scientists believe the technique could be successful in humans.

Researchers at the University College London were able to generate pluripotent cells from fully developed, or mature cells. Chris Mason, Chair of Regenerative Medicine Bioprocessing at the institution described the process as the most simple, lowest-cost and quickest method to-date. These pluripotent cells have unlimited therapeutic potential as they are able to develop into different cell types.

Mason explained to Reuters, If it works in man, this could be the game changer that ultimately makes a wide range of cell therapies available using the patients own cells as starting material.

Researchers from other institutions including Brigham and Womens Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the RIKENCenter for Developmental Biology in Japan took part in this study.

Scientists performed the experiment by allowing mature cells to multiply and then, using a number of methods, stressing them almost to the point of death. According to the researchers, the cells were able to survive and recover by returning to a state similar to that of an embryonic stem cell.

Stem Cells Defined

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the ability to differentiate into specialized types of cells that the body needs. There are two types of stem cells, embryonic stem cells found in embryos, and adult or IPS stem cells, which are harvested from the blood or skin and genetically reprogrammed into stem cells.

According to scientists, the stem cells ability to regenerate tissue makes them valuable in the fight against degenerative diseases including Parkinsons and cardiovascular disease.

Source: http://www.euronews.com/2014/01/29/stem-cells-produced-without-embryo-in-major-scientific-breakthrough/

More:
Biologists Create Embryonic-Type Stem Cells Without Embryos

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

stem cell therapy treatment for right brachial plexus by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india
improvement seen in just 5 days after stem cell therapy treatment for right brachial plexus by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india. Stem Cell Therapy done date 21/...

By: Neurogen Brain and Spine Institute

Original post:
stem cell therapy treatment for right brachial plexus by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

18-Feb-2014

Contact: Greg Lester glester@wistar.org 215-898-3943 The Wistar Institute

cientists at The Wistar Institute have developed a mathematical method for classifying forms of glioblastoma, an aggressive and deadly type of brain cancer, through variations in the way these tumor cells "read" genes. Their system was capable of predicting the subclasses of glioblastoma tumors with 92 percent accuracy. With further testing, this system could enable physicians to accurately predict which forms of therapy would benefit their patients the most.

Their research was performed in collaboration with Donald M. O'Rourke, M.D., a neurosurgeon at the University of Pennsylvania Brain Tumor Center, who provided the glioblastoma samples necessary to validate the Wistar computer model. Their findings were published online in the journal Nucleic Acids Research.

"It has become increasingly obvious that understanding the molecular makeup of each patient tumor is the key to personalizing cancer treatments for individual patients," said Ramana Davuluri, Ph.D., Wistar's Tobin Kestenbaum Family Professor and associate director of Wistar's Center for Systems and Computational Biology. "We have developed a computational model that will allow us to predict a patient's exact variety of glioblastoma based on the transcript variants a given tumor produces."

"A gene can produce multiple variants, in the form of transcript variants and protein-isoforms. We found that when you use the gene expression information at variant/isoform-level, the statistical analyses recaptured the four known molecular subgroups but with a significant survival difference among the refined subgroups." said Davuluri. "Using patient data, we found that certain subgroups when combined with patient age, for example, could predict better outcomes using a given course of therapy."

"As more targeted therapies come into use, this is exactly the sort of information clinicians will need to provide the best hope of survival for their patients," Davuluri said. "In time, we think this could form the basis of a clinical test that will help oncologists decide a patient's course of treatment."

Glioblastoma multiforme is the most lethal of the malignant adult brain tumors, and accounts for over 50 percent of all cases of brain cancer. Even with aggressive combination therapies, the prognosis remains bleak, with median patient survival of 15 months after diagnosis. The disease is also molecularly heterogeneous, that is, composed of subtypes that are not genetically alike or produce the same array of proteins. Genetic data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) consortium has led to the identification of four subtypes of glioblastoma, but Davuluri and his researchers sought to find a way to quickly identify which patient was which subtype.

In previous studies, Davuluri and his Wistar colleagues have established how changes in the way a cell reads its own DNA can create multiple variations of a single protein. These variant proteins are called isoforms, and they are produced as cells alter how they transcribe a given gene into RNA. Slight changes in how the cellular machine reads a gene can result in protein isoforms with subtle differences in enzymatic activity or longevity.

See original here:
Wistar scientists develop gene test to accurately classify brain tumors

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

By Tim SpectorFeb. 18, 2014, 10:13 p.m.

Why does a "gay gene" paper still cause a stir? A similar paper on any other topic would probably have passed unnoticed. But this is sex research where public interest is huge but real funds and real science are very scarce and stories get recycled.

Why does a "gay gene" paper still cause a stir? A similar paper on any other topic would probably have passed unnoticed. But this is sex research where public interest is huge but real funds and real science are very scarce and stories get recycled.

A study which is not even yet a paper was presented in preliminary form on Valentine's Day by sex researcher Mike Bailey at a conference in Chicago saying that there is a genetic component to homosexuality. In fact, their study of 400 pairs of brothers, where at least one was gay, confirmed a smaller controversial study from 20 years before, and several twin studies in between. The 1993 study led the Daily Mail to run one of its most infamous headlines: "Abortion hope after gay genes finding".

The Bailey paper claims to have found large segments of chromosomes containing hundreds of genes that are common in gay men. The researchers admitted they couldn't find any specific "gay genes".

Last year, a paper in a relatively obscure journal also caused a public stir for saying just the opposite. The authors came up with a complicated biological explanation for why gay men have more female relatives, tend to have older brothers and why it involves testosterone in the womb and runs in families. Controversially, they said it wasn't due to their genes, but to small chemical signals that alter the genes (called epigenetics) which can pass from one generation to the next, and had some (unclear) evolutionary advantage.

The study was undoubtedly clever and involved high-powered maths, but was purely theoretical, didn't involve real people and made false assumptions leading to fatal flaws.

This latest round of reporting following the Bailey research has led to perhaps inevitable criticism that we have an obsession with male homosexuality.

One reason people react so violently to these studies is a lack of understanding of basic biology and science, and realising that homosexuality is for a scientist just another human characteristic or trait, like sporting ability, obesity, optimism or depression.

Almost all human traits studied have some genetic (heritable) component, usually in the range of 30-70 per cent. Homosexuality in males and females has a heritability in most studies of around 30-40 per cent with plenty of room for environment. And there is no single gene for any of these traits.

Read more:
Gay genetics research still causes irrational fears

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

18-Feb-2014

Contact: Tiffany Trent ttrent@vt.edu 540-231-6822 Virginia Tech

Led by biomedical engineer Justin Zook of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a team of scientists from Harvard University and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute of Virginia Tech has presented new methods to integrate data from different sequencing platforms, thus producing a reliable set of genotypes to benchmark human genome sequencing.

"Understanding the human genome is an immensely complex task and we need great methods to guide this research," Zook says. "By establishing reference materials and gold standard data sets, scientists are one step closer to bringing genome sequencing into clinical practice."

The methods put forth by the researchers make it increasingly possible to use an individual's genetic profile to guide medical decisions to prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases a priority of the National Institutes of Health. Their work was published this week in Nature Biotechnology.

"We minimize biases toward any sequencing platform or data set by comparing and integrating 11 whole human genome and three exome data sets from five sequencing platforms," says Zook.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology organized the Genome in a Bottle Consortium to make well-characterized, whole-genome reference materials available to research, commercial, and clinical laboratories.

The team addressed the challenge with the expertise of David Mittelman, an associate professor of biological sciences at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, who creates tools that analyze vast amounts of genomic information.

The researchers created a metric to determine the accuracy of gene variations and understand biases and sources of error in sequencing and bioinformatics methods.

Visit link:
Research team establishes benchmark set of human genotypes for sequencing

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

See Inside

A foreign fungus nearly wiped out North America's once vast chestnut forests. Genetic engineering can revive them

In 1876 Samuel B. Parsons received a shipment of chestnut seeds from Japan and decided to grow and sell the trees to orchards. Unbeknownst to him, his shipment likely harbored a stowaway that caused one of the greatest ecological disasters ever to befall eastern North America. The trees probably concealed spores of a pathogenic fungus, Cryphonectria parasitica, to which Asian chestnut treesbut not their American cousinshad evolved resistance. C. parasitica effectively strangles a susceptible tree to death by forming cankerssunken areas of dead plant tissuein its bark that encircle the trunk and cut off the flow of water and nutrients between the roots and leaves. Within 50 years this one fungus killed more than three billion American chestnut trees.

Before the early 1900s the American chestnut constituted about 25 percent of hardwood trees within its range in the eastern deciduous forests of the U.S. and a sliver of Canadadeciduous forests being those composed mostly of trees that shed their leaves in the autumn. Today only a handful of fully grown chestnuts remain, along with millions of root stumps. Now and then these living stumps manage to send up a few nubile shoots that may survive for 10 years or longer. But the trees rarely live long enough to produce seeds because the fungus almost always beats them back down again.

2014 Scientific American, a Division of Nature America, Inc.

View Mobile Site All Rights Reserved.

Give a 1 year subscription as low as $14.99

Subscribe Now >>

See the rest here:
The American Chestnut's Genetic Rebirth

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

18-Feb-2014

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, February 18, 2014New evidence that chronic intake of THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, can protect critical immune tissue in the gut from the damaging effects of HIV infection is reported in AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses website at http://www.liebertpub.com/aid.

Patricia Molina and coauthors from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, report that chronic THC administration was associated with greater survival of T cell populations and reduced overall cell death in the gut in monkeys, which is known to be a key target for simian immunodeficiency virus (HIV) replication and infection-related inflammation. The researchers present their findings in the article "Modulation of Gut-Specific Mechanisms by Chronic 9-Tetrahydrocannabinol Administration in Male Rhesus Macaques Infected with Simian Immunodeficiency Virus: A Systems Biology Analysis." This report provides mechanistic insights into their previous observation that THC administration attenuates disease progression in SIV infected macaques (AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses 2011; 27: 585-592)

"To better treat HIV infection, we need a better understanding of how it causes the disease we call AIDS. We also need alternative approaches to treatment," says Thomas Hope, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses and Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL. "This study is important because it begins to explain how THC can influence disease progression in SIV-infected macaques. It also reveals a new way to slow disease progression."

###

For immediate release

Contact: Vicki Cohn, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc, (914) 740-2100, ext. 2156, vcohn@liebertpub.com

About the Journal

Continue reading here:
Can marijuana protect the immune system against HIV and slow disease progression?

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

WSU staff scientist Barri Herman, who oversees the field trials, holds a tray of genetically engineered poplar cuttings, Jan. 13, 2014. (Greg Gilbert/Seattle Times/MCT)

Under USDA regulations, every genetically engineered tree is tagged and its GPS coordinates noted, as seen, Jan. 13, 2014, in Washington State. (Greg Gilbert/Seattle Times/MCT)

SEATTLE _ Sniff the air around Norman Lewis' experimental poplars, and you won't pick up the scent of roses.

But inside the saplings' leaves and stems, cells are hard at work producing the chemical called 2-phenylethanol _ which by any other name would smell as sweet.

Sweeter still is the fact that perfume and cosmetics companies will pay as much as $30 an ounce for the compound that gives roses their characteristic aroma. Because what Lewis and his colleagues at Washington State University are really chasing is the smell of money.

Born out of the frustrating quest to wring biofuels from woody plants, the WSU project takes a different tack. Instead of grinding up trees to produce commercial quantities of so-called cellulosic ethanol, their goal is to turn poplars into living factories that churn out modest levels of chemicals with premium price tags.

The potential market for specialty chemicals _ many of which are now synthesized from petroleum _ is big, said Lewis, director of WSU's Institute of Biological Chemistry. He's already patented some of the technology, which relies on genetic engineering, and created a spinoff company called Elasid.

In the longer term, the profits from high-end products could boost the struggling biofuel industry by helping companies survive what's called the "valley of death" _ the point where firms need to scale up production, but money is hard to come by.

The ideal operation would combine the two product lines, extracting valuable chemicals and using the waste for biofuel. But that's a long way off, Lewis said.

"Biofuels don't provide a compelling economic case at this point in time," he said. "We've been trying for many decades to understand how plants make these special chemicals that can be used in flavorings, fuels and medicinals, and that seemed like the obvious first place to target."

Read the rest here:
Rose scent in poplar trees? University turns to genetic engineering

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

17-Feb-2014

Contact: Caron Lett caron.lett@york.ac.uk 44-019-043-22029 University of York

An international team of scientists has used detailed analysis of ancient and modern DNA to show that the distribution and lack of genetic diversity among modern European beavers is due largely to human hunting.

The research, which was led by University of York researcher Professor Michi Hofreiter, provides important new insights into the genetic history of the Eurasian beaver Castor fiber. Crucially, it shows the European beaver has been strongly affected by expanding human populations for many thousands of years.

The researchers say that centuries of hunting, rather than changing climate conditions since the beginning of the Holocene (or recent) period, accounts for the lack of genetic diversity, as well as the geographic distribution of genetic diversity, seen in modern European beavers.

The research, which also involved researchers from Germany, USA, Norway, New Zealand, Russia, Poland, Sweden, Austria and the Netherlands, is reported in the journal Molecular Ecology.

Through DNA sequencing, the research team discovered that the Eurasian beaver can be divided into three distinct groups. The two main ones are in western and eastern Europe, with a now extinct, and previously unknown, third group in the Danube basin. This population existed at least 6,000 years ago but went extinct during the transition to modern times.

Professor Hofreiter, from York's Department of Biology and the University of Potsdam's Faculty of Mathematics and Life Sciences, said: "While beaver populations have been growing rapidly since the late 19th century when conservation efforts began, genetic diversity within modern beaver populations remains considerably reduced to what was present prior to the period of human hunting and habitat reduction.

"In addition, the rapid loss of diversity prior to conservation efforts appears to have established a very strong pattern for the geographic distribution of genetic diversity among present-day beaver populations." Beavers have long been an important resource for human populations across the northern continents. Their fur is of exceptional quality, and has been a highly traded commodity. Beavers have also been hunted for meat and for castoreum - an anal gland secretion often used in traditional medicine. Stone engravings at Lake Onega in northern Europe indicate that beavers played a role in ancient human societies from around 3,000-4,000 years ago.

Read more from the original source:
Researchers shed new light on the genetic history of the European beaver

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

18-Feb-2014

Contact: Tom Vasich tmvasich@uci.edu 949-824-6455 University of California - Irvine

Irvine, Calif., Feb. 18, 2014 UC Irvine researchers have found a specific genetic flaw that is connected to sudden death due to heart arrhythmia a leading cause of mortality for adults around the world.

While a number of genes have been linked with arrhythmias, UC Irvine's Geoffrey Abbott and his colleagues discovered that the functional impairment of a gene called KCNE2 underlies a multisystem syndrome that affects both heart rhythm and blood flow and can activate chemical triggers that can cause sudden cardiac death.

"With these findings, we can now explore improved early detection and prevention strategies for people who are at higher risk of sudden cardiac death, such as those with diabetes," said Abbott, a professor of pharmacology and physiology & biophysics in the UC Irvine School of Medicine.

Study results appear in the February issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics, a publication of the American Heart Association.

Distinct from a heart attack, in which the heart continues to beat but blood flow is blocked, sudden cardiac death occurs when the heart ceases to beat because of the uncontrolled twitching of muscle fibers in its ventricles. Without defibrillation within minutes, this type of event is fatal.

In studies on a mouse model with the KCNE2 gene removed, Abbott and his colleagues had found catalysts for sudden cardiac death including high blood cholesterol, anemia, high blood potassium, an age-related delay in the return to a resting position of the ventricle after contraction and, most surprisingly, diabetes.

Abbott said this link to diabetes and other systemic disturbances is significant because genes such as KCNE2 are better known for directly controlling the electrical signaling that ensures a steady heartbeat. The KCNE2 gene provides instructions for making a protein that regulates the activity of potassium channels, which play a key role in a cell's ability to generate and transmit electrical signals. Channels regulated by the KCNE2 protein are present in heart muscles and help recharge them after each heartbeat to maintain a regular rhythm.

Read the original here:
UCI study finds specific genetic cue for sudden cardiac death syndrome

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Hair Restoration Tampa, Florida 855-459-4247 Defy Genetics...Regrow Your Hair
Call Today For a Free Consultation 855-459-HAIR Undetectable Natural Results! http://tampahairtransplant.com/ ADVANTAGES OF NEOGRAFT NeoGraft is the very fir...

By: Tampa Hair Transplant

View post:
Hair Restoration Tampa, Florida 855-459-4247 Defy Genetics...Regrow Your Hair - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Mendelian Genetics Law of Independent Assortment tutorial
Genetics with Professor Matthew Schmidt and Dimitra Hasiotis For more information and to view the full video go to streamingtutors.com.

By: Streaming Tutors

More:
Mendelian Genetics Law of Independent Assortment tutorial - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Attack of the B-Team Modpack - Ep. 3 - Advanced Genetics
Download the technic launcher here: http://www.technicpack.net/download Advanced Genetics Wiki: http://ag.teamdna.de/wiki/?art=home.

By: RBootsGames

Continue reading here:
Attack of the B-Team Modpack - Ep. 3 - Advanced Genetics - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

New genetics to work
Grab these packs other day first of a collection run im goin on for my search for males an those special phenos.

By: Cornfed Dread H3Farms

Original post:
New genetics to work - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Genetics Study Consent Video

By: GRNShrinersHospital

Continue reading here:
Genetics Study Consent Video - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Floyd-Genetics Project

By: Rockmart High School

View original post here:
Floyd-Genetics Project - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

A molecular diagnosis gives doctors and patients better treatment options when suspicious lumps are found in the neck.

Genetic biopsy: A Veracyte technician tests 142 genes from patients with suspicious nodules in their thyroid glands.

Later this year, doctors in the U.S. will be able to use a gene test to guide thyroid cancer surgery. The test helps determine when patients harbor a particularly dangerous form of the disease, which can require surgeons to do a second operation on top of the initial diagnostic procedure. Knowing that a patient has this particular form of thyroid cancer could enable surgeons to instead do a single, more extensive surgery.

The company behind the test, Veracyte, already sells a unique genetic assay that helps doctors decide whether to perform surgery on thyroid cancer patients at all. Thyroids that are not cancerous are often removed, which means unnecessary surgery and lifelong hormone replacement therapy for some patients.

Both tests are part of a broader movement in recent years to bring genetic tests into medical care, with oncology leading the way. One test, from Myriad Genetics, looks for mutations linked to increased risk of cancer; others, such as one offered by Foundation Medicine, help doctors prescribe drugs tailored to a particular tumor (see Foundation Medicine: Personalizing Cancer Drugs).

Veracytes first test is the only one that rules out cancer. A lump, or nodule, is caused by growths of cells in the thyroid gland, which is located in the base of the neck. Most often these growths are not cancers. To figure out whether they are, doctors will first take a small needle to extract cells from the lump and then look at the cells under the microscope. And up to 30 percent of the time in U.S. clinics, that test is inconclusive. Because cancer cant be ruled out, typically the next step is to remove the thyroid. The gland normally produces important hormones that regulate metabolism and other body functions, so patients usually then have to take hormone replacement therapy for the rest of their lives.

Between 60 and 80 percent of the time, the nodule in the removed thyroid turns out to be benign. You have unnecessarily put a patient through surgery, says Kishore Lakshman, director of a community thyroid care center in Fall River, Massachusetts. This puts patients at risk for complications such as infection, and creates dependence on hormone therapy. Since 2011, Lakshman has been using Veracytes gene test to assess the risk of cancer in patients whose initial thyroid screen was inconclusive. When I found out that there was a very efficient way of knowing the benign potential of a nodule without exposing a patient to surgery, I was quick to jump on it, says Lakshman.

Veracyte analyzed gene expression levels in hundreds of patients with thyroid nodules, some cancerous, some not, and identified 142 genes that can reliably separate benign from malignant samples. Measuring every gene in the human genome, our scientific team was able to extract genomic information and interpret it with machine-learning algorithms taught to recognize patients with benign nodules, says Bonnie Anderson, CEO and cofounder of the South San Francisco-based company.

The performance of the test was evaluated and published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2012. That trial showed that Veracytes test can reclassify a nodule from indeterminate to benign 95 percent of the time.

In addition to saving patients from unnecessary surgeries, the test could save significant health-care dollars. A health economics study by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine researchers found that if the test were used universally in the U.S. for patients whose needle assay was inconclusive, then approximately $122 million in medical costs would be saved each year, primarily because of the significant reduction in surgeries.

Visit link:
Gene Test Helps Patients Avoid Thyroid Surgery

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BioTime, Inc. (NYSE MKT: BTX), a biotechnology company that develops and markets products in the field of regenerative medicine, today announced that Chief Executive Officer Michael D. West, PhD will present at the 9th Annual Stem Cell Summit in New York. Dr. West will speak in the session Disrupting the Pharma Model with Allogeneic Stem Cell Therapies on February 18, 2014, starting at 9:05 a.m. EST.

Dr. West will discuss the potential comparative advantages of treating disease with BioTime's PureStem-based therapeutics compared to traditional small molecule pharmaceuticals and BioTime's product development strategy. The presentation will be made available on BioTime's website at http://www.biotimeinc.com.

About BioTime, Inc.

BioTime is a biotechnology company engaged in research and product development in the field of regenerative medicine. Regenerative medicine refers to therapies based on stem cell technology that are designed to rebuild cell and tissue function lost due to degenerative disease or injury. BioTimes focus is on pluripotent stem cell technology based on human embryonic stem (hES) cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. hES and iPS cells provide a means of manufacturing every cell type in the human body and therefore show considerable promise for the development of a number of new therapeutic products. BioTimes therapeutic and research products include a wide array of proprietary PureStem progenitors, HyStem hydrogels, culture media, and differentiation kits. BioTime is developing Renevia (a HyStem product) as a biocompatible, implantable hyaluronan and collagen-based matrix for cell delivery in human clinical applications. In addition, BioTime has developed Hextend, a blood plasma volume expander for use in surgery, emergency trauma treatment and other applications. Hextend is manufactured and distributed in the U.S. by Hospira, Inc. and in South Korea by CJ CheilJedang Corporation under exclusive licensing agreements.

BioTime is also developing stem cell and other products for research, therapeutic, and diagnostic use through its subsidiaries:

Asterias Biotherapeutics, Inc. is a new subsidiary which has acquired the stem cell assets of Geron Corporation, including patents and other intellectual property, biological materials, reagents and equipment for the development of new therapeutic products for regenerative medicine.

OncoCyte Corporation is developing products and technologies to diagnose and treat cancer.

Cell Cure Neurosciences Ltd. (Cell Cure Neurosciences) is an Israel-based biotechnology company focused on developing stem cell-based therapies for retinal and neurological disorders, including the development of retinal pigment epithelial cells for the treatment of macular degeneration, and treatments for multiple sclerosis.

LifeMap Sciences, Inc. (LifeMap Sciences) markets, sells and distributes GeneCards, the leading human gene database, as part of an integrated database suite that also includes the LifeMap Discovery database of embryonic development, stem cell research and regenerative medicine, and MalaCards, the human disease database.

ES Cell International Pte Ltd., a Singapore private limited company, developed clinical and research grade hES cell lines and plans to market those cell lines and other BioTime research products in over-seas markets as part of BioTimes ESI BIO Division.

Continue reading here:
BioTime CEO Dr. Michael West to Present at 9th Annual Stem Cell Summit

Recommendation and review posted by simmons