Experimental eye treatment offers new hope for the blind
British researchers are testing a new form of gene therapy that has helped some blind people see. The operation replaces the defective gene inside of the eye...

By: CBSNewsOnline

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Gene Therapy Surprisingly Helps Blind to See
In a recent study to confirm a new surgical procedure #39;s safety in treating a type of blinding disease, patients reported quick and lasting vision improvement. Gene therapy has a partially...

By: GeoBeats News

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Human Gene Therapy Celebrates 25 Years
Dr. James Wilson, Editor-in-Chief of Human Gene Therapy, shares exciting news around the Journal #39;s 25th Anniversary and how you can get involved in the celeb...

By: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

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Can Gene Therapy Cure Blindness?
Over the past decade, researches have been testing gene therapy on blind dogs in attempt to restore vision. Earlier this week, six patients in Oxford had thi...

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Next Media: Gene therapy restores rare genetic blindness
A novel gene therapy developed by University of Oxford researchers may restore vision to patients with a previously incurable form of blindness. The results ...

By: The Malay Mail Online

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Coalition pushing for Spinal Cord Injury Research Program funding
David Carmel, co-founder of the coalition New Yorkers to Cure Paralysis, discusses the need for restored funding for the Spinal Cord Injury Research Program.

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C4-5-6 Walking Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury at TIRR Memorial Hermann
Using a walker during therapy at TIRR Memorial Hermann 5mo after motorcycle accident. C4-5-6 incomplete spinal shock with fusion.

By: Robert Miller

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Spinal Cord Injury-Wheel chair to bed transfer
This video is part of a video of a series documented to show progresses made by a client who had a C5-C6 incomplete quadriparesis after a Spinal Cord Injury....

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Wanlking After Spinal cord Injury
Walking after SCI.

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Consider Trying to Learn About Regenerative Medicine
Hopefully more young adults will consider trying to learn about regenerative medicine. Regenerative medicine can potentially have applications that relate to...

By: Michael Ten

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The Mayo Clinic in Rochester announced Friday that a decade-long research project on using stem cells to repair damaged heart tissue has won federal approval for human testing, a step that could have implications for millions of Americans with heart disease.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a multistate clinical trial of 240 patients with chronic advanced symptomatic heart failure to determine if the procedure produces a significant improvement in heart function.

Safety testing in humans, completed earlier in Europe, showed a preliminary 25 percent improvement in cardiac outflow, according to Dr. Andre Terzic, director of the Mayo Clinic's Center for Regenerative Medicine.

The procedure could be a "paradigm shift" in the treatment of heart disease, Terzic said.

Treatments going forward won't just focus on easing the symptoms of the disease, Terzic said, but rather, on curing it.

The process, developed in collaborations with Cardio3 BioSciences of Belgium, involves harvesting stem cells from a heart patient's bone marrow in the hip, directing the cells to become "cardiopoietic" repair cells, then injecting them back into the heart to do their work.

Mayo researcher Dr. Atta Behfar and other members of Terzic's team isolated hundreds of proteins involved in the transcription process that takes place when stem cells are converted to heart cells. They identified eight proteins that were crucial in the development of heart cells and used them to convert stem cells into heart cells.

"This is unique in the world," Terzic said.

Forty hospitals in Europe and Israel are enrolling heart patients in human trials to test Mayo's new treatment regimen for heart failure. Enrollments are expected to be completed by the end of the year, and early results should be available in 2015, according to Dr. Christian Homsy, CEO of Cardio3 BioSciences.

If things go well, patients could start being treated with the new technology by the end of 2016 in Europe, and perhaps a year later in the United States.

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Mayo wins FDA approval to test stem-cell technique for heart patients

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Jan. 16, 2014 The human body is daily exposed to external assaults such as bacteria, ultraviolet light or chemical agents. Skin, the largest organ of the body, is the first line of defense against these agents. Skin performs this function thanks to the close connections established between its cells (e.g. adherens junctions). The loss of cell adhesion between these cells is related to inflammatory diseases and cancer, hence the special interest in this area of research over the past years.

A study by the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), featured on the cover of the Journal of Cell Biology, shows how interactions between skin stem cells -- the cells responsible for the constant renewal of skin -- maintain the architecture of this organ. "We knew that these junctions were important in skin stem cells but the cellular components involved in their structure and function were not yet understood," says Mirna Prez-Moreno, head of the Epithelial Cellular Biology Group that led the study.

Using skin cells derived from mice, researchers have discovered that one of the key elements in the formation and stabilisation of these junctions are microtubules, tubular structures that are part of all cells and that serve as pillars to maintain their form and function.

"We have seen for the first time that skin stem-cell microtubules connect with cell-cell junctions to form velcro-like structures that hold the cells together," says Marta Shahbazi, a researcher on Prez-Moreno's team and the first author of the study.

The connection between these two cellular components -- microtubules and cell-cell junctions -- occurs via the interaction between the CLASP2 and p120 catenin proteins, linked to microtubules and cell junctions respectively.

"We found that the abscence of CLASP2 or p120 catenin in epidermal stem cells caused a loss of their adhesion, and therefore the structure of these cells," says Shahbazi.

"Our results will open up new paths for exploring how these proteins regulate skin physiology," says Prez-Moreno, adding that this knowledge will be "important for the possible development of future regenerative or anti cancer therapies."

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'Molecular scaffolding' found that maintains skin structure, organization

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Durham, NC (PRWEB) January 17, 2014

A new assessment tool is helping scientists determine which treatments might benefit patients with a type of eye disorder called limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD). The tool, developed by researchers at University College London and Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and funded by the UKs National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre at these institutions, has already shown that the majority of these patients can benefit in the short term from a stem cell transplantation and up to 30 percent are still experiencing better sight three years later, according to the study published in the current issue of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine.

LSCD is an eye disorder in which the stem cells responsible for forming the surface skin of the cornea are destroyed by injury or disease. This results in pain, loss of vision and a cosmetically unpleasant appearance. Many new treatments, including limbal stem cell transplants, are emerging for this condition but their effectiveness remains to be proven.

Assessing how well they perform has been severely hampered by the lack of biomarkers for LSCD and/or validated tools for determining its severity, said Alex Shortt, M.D., Ph.D., of University College Londons Institute of Ophthalmology and lead investigator in the study. In virtually all studies of limbal stem cell transplantation to date the clinical outcome has been assessed subjectively by the investigating clinician. This is clearly open to significant measurement and reporting bias.

His teams aims, then, were to design and test the reliability of a new tool for grading LSCD, to define a set of core outcome measures to use in evaluating treatments and to demonstrate the treatments impact on two common types of LSCD: a genetic disorder called aniridia and Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS), an inflammatory disorder.

They began developing an assessment tool by paring down a list of clinical signs taken from previously published studies to four key LSCD indicators: corneal epithelial haze, superficial corneal neovascularization, corneal epithelial irregularity and corneal epithelial defect. A standardized grading plate was then produced for each of these parameters, ranging from normal to severe. They named their assessment method the Clinical Outcome Assessment in Surgical Trials of Limbal stem cell deficiency [COASTL] tool and validated its performance in 26 patients with varying degrees of LSCD.

Once they had the COASTL tool in place, they used it to evaluate treatment outcomes in 14 patients with aniridia or SJS. All had undergone a limbal epithelial transplantation (allo-CLET), using cells taken from a deceased donor, cultivated in the lab before being transplanted into the recipient.

The COASTL tool showed that following allo-CLET there was a decrease in LSCD severity and an increase in visual acuity up to 12 months post-treatment, but thereafter LSCD severity and visual acuity progressively deteriorated, Dr. Shortt said. However, despite a recurrence of clinical signs, the visual benefit persisted in 30 percent of aniridic and 25 percent of SJS patients at 36 months.

A reliable method of obtaining objective outcome data for surgical trials of limbal stem cell deficiency will greatly contribute to the effective evaluation of current and new treatments, said Anthony Atala, M.D., editor of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

The full article, Three-Year Outcomes of Cultured Limbal Epithelial Allografts in Aniridia and Stevens-Johnson Syndrome Evaluated Using the Clinical Outcome Assessment in Surgical Trials Assessment Tool, can be accessed at http://www.stemcellstm.com.

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New Assessment Tool Shows Potential of Stem Cells in Restoring LSCD Patients’ Sight

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Poway, California (PRWEB) January 18, 2014

The leading Regenerative Veterinary Medicine Company, Vet-Stem, Inc., is proud to announce that its regenerative stem cell therapy has been used to treat 10,000 animals in the last 10 years of offering tissue processing services to veterinarians. Vet-Stem was founded in 2002, seeking to discover a successful treatment for horses with potentially fatal injuries to tendons and ligaments.

Dr. Robert Harman, CEO and Founder of Vet-Stem has spoken at many human and veterinary conferences sharing the results of real treatments. He has also authored or co-authored numerous peer-reviewed papers on stem cells as well as written book chapters on stem cells.

In 2003 Vet-Stem signed a worldwide exclusive license for adipose-derived (fat derived) stem cell technology for veterinary application, and the first horse was treated. Shortly after, the first dogs were treated with Vet-Stem Regenerative Cell Therapy. Vet-Stem started providing stem cell banking to their clients from the beginning so that cells could be stored for future use. By August of 2005 500 horses had been treated. Vet-Stem had effectively introduced a new, natural, injectable treatment to the equine and small animal veterinary industry that could serve as an alternative to euthanasia for some conditions.

By April 2006, 1000 animals had been treated using Vet-Stem cell therapy, including the first cat. Another milestone was the first ever randomized double-blinded placebo-controlled multi-centered study that was published reporting that using Vet-Stem processing, intra-articular injection of adipose-derived stem cells into the hip joint of a dog decreases patient discomfort and increases patient functional ability in relation to arthritis.

Only nine months after formally launching a Small Animal application, over 1,000 dogs had been treated for orthopedic conditions. At the same time Veterinary Therapeutics published a peer-reviewed study on the use of stem cells for treatment of chronic osteoarthritis in the elbow of dogs. The clinical trial reported significant improvement in lameness, range of motion, and functional ability in dogs treated with Vet-Stem Regenerative Cell Therapy.

Although the large majority of animals treated have been horses, dogs and cats, Vet-Stem has provided services for exotic species as well. The U.S. Navy, Office of Naval Research, awarded Vet-Stem a contract to engage in a collaborative study of stem cell biology in marine mammals in 2009. From this, the first peer-reviewed article was published showing successful isolation of stem cells from dolphin fat. Several media outlets featured a story on a panther from the Tallahassee Museum who received stem cell therapy by Vet-Stem for arthritis of the elbow in 2011. After the therapy he was able to stand up and scratch on his favorite tree with both front paws.

I started Vet-Stem in order to help horses with career ending injuries to their tendons and ligaments but so many more animals have been saved from a life of pain or even from euthanasia. I feel privileged and excited to be a part of this therapy that has changed how veterinary medicine is practiced as well as contributing to changes in human medicine, Robert Harman, DVM, CEO and Founder of Vet-Stem, Inc.

About Vet-Stem, Inc. Vet-Stem, Inc. was formed in 2002 to bring regenerative medicine to the veterinary profession. The privately held company is working to develop therapies in veterinary medicine that apply regenerative technologies while utilizing the natural healing properties inherent in all animals. As the first company in the United States to provide an adipose-derived stem cell service to veterinarians for their patients, Vet-Stem, Inc. pioneered the use of regenerative stem cells in veterinary medicine. The company holds exclusive licenses to over 50 patents including world-wide veterinary rights for use of adipose derived stem cells. In the last decade over 10,000 animals have been treated using Vet-Stem, Inc.s services, and Vet-Stem is actively investigating stem cell therapy for immune-mediated and inflammatory disease, as well as organ disease and failure. For more on Vet-Stem, Inc. and Veterinary Regenerative Medicine visit http://www.vet-stem.com or call 858-748-2004.

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Vet-Stem, Inc. is Proud to Announce Its 10,000th Animal in 10 Years of Stem Cell Therapy

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Jan. 16, 2014 Gene therapies developed by University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine researchers have worked to correct different forms of blindness. While effective, the downside to these approaches to vision rescue is that each disease requires its own form of gene therapy to correct the particular genetic mutation involved, a time consuming and complex process.

Hoping to develop a treatment that works more broadly across diseases, a Penn Vet team used canine disease models to closely examine how retinal gene activity varied during the progression of three different forms of inherited vision disease. Their results turned up an unexpected commonality: Early on in each of the diseases, genes involved in the same specific pathway of cell death appeared to be activated. These findings point to possible interventions that could curb vision loss across a variety of inherited retinal diseases.

The work, published in PLOS ONE, was conducted by Sem Genini, a senior research investigator; William A. Beltran, assistant professor of ophthalmology; and Gustavo D. Aguirre, professor of medical genetics and ophthalmology, all of Penn Vet's Department of Clinical Studies, Philadelphia.

The team examined three forms of retinal degenerative diseases, rod cone dysplasia 1 being the most severe, or earliest onset, followed by X-linked progressive retinal atrophy 2 and then early retinal degeneration. All of these diseases involve the death of photoreceptor cells and each is caused by a distinct genetic mutation. But what scientists did not know is how the mutations trigger a molecular signaling pathway that leads to the death of photoreceptor cells.

"What we have in mind is to be able to address multiple forms of disease with one treatment," Beltran said. "We wanted to get a better understanding of whether there are any common cell death or cell survival pathways that could be targeted in some of these diseases."

The researchers looked at the activity of 112 genes in diseased retinas and compared it to gene activity in normal retinas. They assessed gene activity at time points known to correspond with key phases of disease: the "induction phase," the time before the peak level of photoreceptor cell death; the "execution phase," when the highest rates of photoreceptor cell death occur; and the "chronic phase," during which photoreceptor cell death continues at somewhat reduced levels.

During the execution and chronic phases of disease, the researchers identified a number of genes involved in programmed cell death, or apoptosis, that had noticeably different patterns of expression between the diseased and normal dogs.

Of note, several proteins involved in the tumor necrosis factor, or TNF, pathway increased in activity during the induction and execution phases. This pathway is implicated in many diseases, from diabetes to cancer to rheumatoid arthritis.

"This is quite a new result," Genini said. "It was not expected to have the TNF pathway upregulated."

"We assumed," Aguirre said, "the diseases would be different from one another and that cells would commit suicide by their own specific pathway and that perhaps quite late they would have a common final pathway. But what this shows is that there is an early trigger that is quite similar among all three diseases."

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Same cell death pathway involved in three forms of blindness, study finds

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St. Louis, MO (PRWEB) January 17, 2014

Also called individualized or customized medicine, personalized medicine is an innovative subcategory of medicine that the FDA has recognized as topic of focus for treating diseases such as mesothelioma cancer. According to Harvard Medical Schools Partners Healthcare Center for Personalized Genetic Medicine (PCPGM), personalized medicine is the ability to determine an individual's unique molecular characteristics and to use those genetic distinctions to:

Individualized diagnosis, treatment, and prevention are crucial to the fight against mesothelioma and other types of cancers, said Neil Maune, partner at MRHFM. With the FDAs support, we hope that more funding and wide-spread information about personalized medicine for patients will be accessible in the United States.

In a 61-page report titled "Paving the Way for Personalized Medicine: FDA's Role" that was published on the FDAs website in October 2013, the organization states that it plans to help further personalized medicine by focusing on advanced regulatory science. Thanks to this commitment, a number of breakthroughs in genetic research have made it possible for researchers to target specific genetic mutations, which will help lead them to new and more effective mesothelioma treatments. While a traditional approach to mesothelioma treatment may very well be effective in some cases, researchers say that if treatment is more individualized based on the patients unique, specific traits, it will fulfill its purpose to better diagnose an individual's disease, reduce adverse reactions, and increase the chances of a positive outcome following treatment. You can find more information on mesothelioma treatment options at http://www.mesotheliomabook.com.

This individual approach to treatment will also minimize or eliminate the need to participate in experimental treatments and ease patient fears based on the idea that a personalized treatment path offers more promise than a one-size-fits-all approach to treating mesothelioma.

The law firm of MRHFM focuses exclusively on mesothelioma cases and works to educate the public about the mesothelioma industry and advancements in treatment for mesothelioma cancer. The law firm advocates for mesothelioma research also offers a free book about mesothelioma titled 100 Questions & Answers About Mesothelioma that is available for request online at http://www.mesotheliomabook.com.

About Maune Raichle Hartley French & Mudd, LLC Maune Raichle Hartley French & Mudd, LLC is a mesothelioma law firm based in St. Louis, MO. With offices across the country, their size and exclusive focus on mesothelioma cases allows them to represent clients through the process as quickly as possible and maximize their clients recovery. The attorneys at MRHFM have represented thousands of victims exposed to asbestos. The firm has 29 attorneys across the country, 16 investigators, 7 client service managers, and additional support staff including paralegals and legal assistants. For more information about Maune Raichle Hartley French & Mudd, LLC, visit http://www.mesotheliomabook.com.

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MRHFM and the FDA Support Personalized Medicine for Mesothelioma

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Lecture 5: Conservation Genetics

By: HimalayanTigers

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Lecture 5: Conservation Genetics - Video

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Lecture 7: How genetics can contribute to Conservation

By: HimalayanTigers

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Closing Ceremony of the Course #39;Conservation Biology and Wildlife Genetics #39;
A course #39;Conservation Biology and Wildlife Genetics #39; at the Kathmandu University, organised and sponsored by the Himalayan Tiger Foundation. See also http://www.hi...

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Operning Ceremony of the Course #39;Conservation Biology and Wildlife Genetics #39;

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By RTT News, January 17, 2014, 09:56:00 AM EDT

(RTTNews.com) - Seattle Genetics Inc. ( SGEN ) announced Friday that its collaborator, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (TKPYY.PK, TKPHF.PK), has received approval of Adcetris (brentuximab vedotin) from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) for the treatment of patients with CD30-positive relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and anaplastic large cell lymphoma or ALCL.

As a result, Seattle Genetics will receive two milestone payments from Takeda totaling $9 million upon final pricing agreement in Japan. Adcetris is an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) directed to CD30, a defining marker of classical HL and known to be expressed in some types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, including ALCL.

"ADCETRIS is now approved in 39 countries, and we continue to work with our collaborator, Takeda, to expand regulatory approvals globally," said Clay Siegall, President and Chief Executive Officer of Seattle Genetics.

The approval of the new drug application was based on two global pivotal phase 2 clinical trials of Adcetris, as well as a phase 1/2 clinical trial conducted in Japan, for patients with relapsed or refractory CD30-positive HL and ALCL.

In March 2012, the Japanese MHLW granted Adcetris orphan drug designation for the treatment of patients with HL and ALCL, which triggered priority review in Japan.

Seattle Genetics and Takeda are jointly developing Adcetris. Under the terms of the collaboration agreement, Seattle Genetics has U.S. and Canadian commercialization rights and Takeda has rights to commercialize Adcetris in the rest of the world.

Seattle Genetics and Takeda are funding joint development costs for Adcetris on a 50:50 basis, except in Japan where Takeda will be solely responsible for development costs. Seattle Genetics is entitled to royalties based on a percentage of Takeda's net sales in its territory at rates that range from the mid-teens to the mid-twenties based on sales volume, subject to offsets for royalties paid by Takeda to third parties.

For comments and feedback: contact editorial@rttnews.com

http://www.rttnews.com

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Seattle Genetics: Takeda Gets Approval For Adcetris In Japan

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SmartChoice Adult Stem Cell Procedures - Incredible pain relief in just one treatment
Patient Testimonial: Donna was a patient with severe knee and back pain. After just one treatment at SmartChoice, her life has significantly improved. Learn...

By: Hardesh Garg

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian medical researchers have succeeded in repairing bones using stem cells from fatty tissue, with a new technique they believe could become a benchmark for treating a range of bone disorders.

The team at the Saint Luc university clinic hospital in Brussels have treated 11 patients, eight of them children, with fractures or bone defects that their bodies could not repair, and a spin-off is seeking investors to commercialize the discovery.

Doctors have for years harvested stem cells from bone marrow at the top of the pelvis and injected them back into the body to repair bone.

The ground-breaking stem cell technique of Saint Luc's centre for tissue and cellular therapy is to remove a sugar cube sized piece of fatty tissue from the patient, a less invasive process than pushing a needle into the pelvis and with a stem cell concentration they say is some 500 times higher.

The stem cells are then isolated and used to grow bone in the laboratory. Unlike some technologies, they are also not attached to a solid and separate 'scaffold'.

"Normally you transplant only cells and you cross your fingers that it functions," the centre's coordinator Denis Dufrane told Reuters television.

His work has been published in Biomaterials journal and was presented at an annual meeting of the International Federation for Adipose Therapeutics and Science (IFATS) in New York in November.

BONE FORMATION

"It is complete bone tissue that we recreate in the bottle and therefore when we do transplants in a bone defect or a bone hole...you have a higher chance of bone formation."

The new material in a lab dish resembles more plasticine than bone, but can be molded to fill a fracture, rather like a dentist's filling in a tooth, hardening in the body.

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Belgian clinic repairs bones with new ground-breaking stem cell technique

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Stem cells have made headlines in the scientific and medical realms for over a decade, and with good reason. Some can grow into any type of cell in the body. The therapeutic potential is staggering, and researchers are working towards using stem cells to treat everything from diabetes to spinal cord injuries.

More recently, stem cell has emerged as a cosmetics industry buzzword, cropping up in product names, claims and ingredient lists. Stem cells seem ideal for anti-aging skincare, and stem cell products allude to stimulating the skin to grow new, younger cells and reverse wrinkling.

Despite products with names such as Stem Cell Therapy and StemCellin, or ingredients that include stem cell extract and stem cell conditioned media, none of the beauty creams actually contain stem cells. And, none are proven to affect your own stem cells.

MORE: The First Anti-Wrinkle Pill?

So, whats going on here? Whats in these products, if not stem cells? YouBeauty explains whats inside, why it could be dangerous and how stem cell beauty companies are skimping on science.

Meet the Stem Cells

Before we delve into the beauty creams, a brief biology lesson. Stem cells come in several varieties: embryonic (ESC), adult (ASC), induced pluripotent (iPSC) and human parthenogenetic (hpSC). All can develop into other cell types, or differentiate, but not all are created equal. And, just two relate to stem cell beauty products.

In research, ESCs come from embryos that are made from an egg fertilized outside the body, in vitro. Embryos develop from just a small cluster of cells into an entire body, thus ESCs have the potential to differentiate into nearly all cell types, from brain to heart to liver. This quality, called pluriopotency, means they could potentially be used to treat any type of diseased or injured organ or tissue.

QUIZ: How Healthy is Your Skin?

ESCs, besides being difficult to grow, face an ethical quandary: using them destroys embryos, which is why theyve ignited in political debate. In the past few years, researchers introduced two methods that attempt to mimic ESCs pluripotency sans embryo, which could eventually avoid these thorny issues. One uses a cocktail of genes to reprogram differentiated cells back into an ESC-like state (iPSC). The other uses human parthenogenetic (translation: virgin birth) embryos, which come from non-fertilized eggs, but retain some characteristics of a normal embryo (hpSC). But, ongoing research must confirm the characteristics and safety of both cell types before they can replace ESC in research. Theres a long way to go.

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Stem Cells in Skincare - YouBeauty.com

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19 hours ago Mutant epidermal stem cells lose the connections to their neighbours (red, right) compared to normal stem cells (red, left). Credit: CNIO

The human body is daily exposed to external assaults such as bacteria, ultraviolet light or chemical agents. Skin, the largest organ of the body, is the first line of defense against these agents. Skin performs this function thanks to the close connections established between its cells (e.g. adherens junctions). The loss of cell adhesion between these cells is related to inflammatory diseases and cancer, hence the special interest in this area of research over the past years.

A study by the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), featured on the cover of the Journal of Cell Biology, shows how interactions between skin stem cellsthe cells responsible for the constant renewal of skinmaintain the architecture of this organ. "We knew that these junctions were important in skin stem cells but the cellular components involved in their structure and function were not yet understood", says Mirna Prez-Moreno, head of the Epithelial Cellular Biology Group that led the study.

Using skin cells derived from mice, researchers have discovered that one of the key elements in the formation and stabilisation of these junctions are microtubules, tubular structures that are part of all cells and that serve as pillars to maintain their form and function.

"We have seen for the first time that skin stem-cell microtubules connect with cell-cell junctions to form velcro-like structures that hold the cells together", says Marta Shahbazi, a researcher on Prez-Moreno's team and the first author of the study.

The connection between these two cellular componentsmicrotubules and cell-cell junctionsoccurs via the interaction between the CLASP2 and p120 catenin proteins, linked to microtubules and cell junctions respectively.

"We found that the abscence of CLASP2 or p120 catenin in epidermal stem cells caused a loss of their adhesion, and therefore the structure of these cells", says Shahbazi.

"Our results will open up new paths for exploring how these proteins regulate skin physiology", says Prez-Moreno, adding that this knowledge will be "important for the possible development of future regenerative or anti cancer therapies".

Explore further: Adult stem cells found to suppress cancer while dormant

Journal reference: Journal of Cell Biology

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Study finds a 'molecular scaffolding' that maintains skin structure and organisation

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