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By the time Dr. Spencer Misner had carved away the dead and diseased flesh from Bobby Rice’s right foot last year, little remained other than bones and tendons. “I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t look real. It looked like something out of a movie,” recalled Rice, a Whitfield County resident. Today, the ankle has almost completely healed. It looks like Rice had simply scraped it. And Rice’s foot has largely healed, too. Misner credits cutting-edge stem cell treatments for saving Rice’s foot and leg.

A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the National Human Genome Research Institute has evaluated the whole genomic sequence of stem cells derived from human bone marrow cells -- so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells -- and found that relatively few genetic changes occur during stem cell conversion by an improved method. The findings, reported in the March issue of Cell Stem Cell, the official journal of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), will be presented at the annual ISSCR meeting in June. "Our results show that human iPS cells accrue genetic changes at about the...

Enlarge Image Governor Rick Perry Credit: Gage Skidmore Tomorrow the Texas Medical Board will decide whether to sign off on what's said to be the first state-level policy imposing oversight on the medical use of experimental treatments using adult stem cells. The hotly debated plan has drawn mixed views from the scientific community over whether it's a good way to raise standards—and has generated confusion in the media. Some experts say the rule will allow unscrupulous doctors to evade review by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) because it may clear methods that haven't been rigorously examined. But others...

Generally speaking, the American public is well accustomed to the concept of tissue and organ transplantation, as stories of life-saving heart and kidney transplants, or American Red Cross blood drives collecting blood and platelets for transfusions have become commonplace. Since these procedures typically require a transfer of tissue from one patient to another, physicians must be careful to choose well-matched donors to avoid rejection by the recipient’s immune system. But what about other specialized tissues that can be affected by disease, such as those of the eye? A recent study published in the journal Stem Cells by Winston Kao and...

When you hear the term “stem cells”, what comes to mind? Religious controversy? Ethical debate? embryonic stem cell research? These associations are common, and unfortunately could be limiting how often stem cells are donated for use as a life-saving transplant. Many people equate stem cells with embryonic stem cell research but non-embryonic (or adult) stem cells are different and they’re used every day in modern medicine to save lives. Furthermore, to date, embryonic stem cells have not been used for many human therapeutic purposes.Nearly everyone knows someone that has had or needed a bone marrow transplant, but did you know...

For the first time ever, stem cells from umbilical cords have been converted into other types of cells, which may eventually lead to new treatment options for spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis, among other nervous system diseases.  “This is the first time this has been done with non-embryonic stem cells,” says James Hickman, a University of Central Florida bioengineer and leader of the research group, whose accomplishment is described in the Jan. 18 issue of the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience.“We’re very excited about where this could lead because it overcomes many of the obstacles present with embryonic stem cells.” ...

Surgeons in Sweden have replaced the cancerous windpipe of a Maryland man with one made in a laboratory and seeded with the man’s cells. The windpipe, or trachea, made from minuscule plastic fibers and covered in stem cells taken from the man’s bone marrow, was implanted in November. The patient, Christopher Lyles, 30, whose tracheal cancer had progressed to the point where it was considered inoperable, arrived home in Baltimore on Wednesday. It was the second procedure of its kind and the first for an American. “I’m feeling good,” Mr. Lyles said in a telephone interview from his home, where...

A new research breakthrough has enabled scientists to grow human tissue to repair or replace organs, and someday, maybe even limbs. Science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports.Be advised: Some of the images are graphic.MILES O'BRIEN: I am not sure when or why I thought it was a good idea to go for a bike ride on a 100-degree Texas afternoon with a 26-year-old Marine corporal. There I was eating Isaias Hernandez's dirt. No surprise, right? Well, take a look at his right thigh.CPL. ISAIAS HERNANDEZ, U.S. Marine Corps: It looked like a chicken, like if you would take a bite out...

Subsidies: A firm that received tax dollars to pursue embryonic stem cell research abandons what was touted as the most promising avenue of research for medical miracles. Then there's that "conscience thing." When Geron Corp. announced in January 2010 that the first clinical trial using its embryonic stem cells to treat an actual human patient was under way, its stock shot up 6.4%. Geron got the first Food and Drug Administration license to use embryonic stem cells to treat people in a clinical trial, in this case patients with a spinal cord injury. Last week Geron announced that it was...

Geron, the company that helped pioneer human embryonic stem (hES) cell research, said yesterday that it is stopping its first-in-the-world clinical trial and pulling out of further stem cell work. The company, based in Menlo Park, California, will instead concentrate on its anticancer therapies, CEO John Scarlett said in a statement. "Deciding to move out of the stem cell business was a very difficult decision to make," he told investors and journalists this morning. Geron helped to fund the work of James Thomson at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who in 1998 was the first to isolate hES cells. That...

Cardiac stem cell infusion improves left ventricular function and reduces infarct size in a phase I trial in patients with post-myocardial infarction heart failure, according to a study published online Nov. 14 in The Lancet to coincide with presentation at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2011, held from Nov. 12 to 16 in Orlando, Fla. MONDAY, Nov. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Cardiac stem cell (CSC) infusion improves left ventricular (LV) function and reduces infarct size in a phase I trial in patients with post-myocardial infarction (MI) heart failure, according to a study published online Nov. 14 in The Lancet...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who recently underwent an experimental injection of his own adult stem cells to relieve back pain, pushed a bill through the Legislature in June that paves the way for a company co-owned by his doctor to become the first state-approved "bank" to store and cultivate such cells for medical treatment, according to internal emails and corporate records obtained by NBC News. The measure, which was adopted without any public hearings, could prove a financial bonanza for Celltex Therapeutics Corp. — a Houston company headed by Stanley Jones, the surgeon who injected the cells into Perry, and...

He calls it innovative. Others call it a big risk. In any case, the stem cell procedure that Texas Gov. Rick Perry had last month was an unusual experiment to fix a common malady: a bad back. Perry, the newest GOP presidential candidate, has access to the best possible care and advice. Yet he and his doctor chose a treatment beyond mainstream medicine: He had stem cells taken from fat in his own body, grown in a lab and then injected into his back and his bloodstream during a July 1 operation to fuse part of his spine. … His...

A major clinical trial will investigate whether stem cells can be safely used to treat multiple sclerosis (MS).It is hoped eventually to slow, stop or even reverse the damage MS causes to the brain and spinal cord. The trial, involving up to 150 patients across Europe, is due to start later this year. Dr Paolo Muraro from Imperial College London said: "There is very strong pre-clinical evidence that stem cells might be an effective treatment." Researchers will collect stem cells from the bone marrow of patients, grow them in the laboratory and then re-inject them into their blood. The stem...

Al Gore on board for $20M stem cell venture

SEONGNAM, South Korea (Reuters) - More than five years after South Korea's scientific reputation was shattered by a cloning research scandal, the country has approved stem cell medication in the form of a treatment for heart attack victims for the world's first clinical use... --snip-- SHARES SOAR ON GROUND-BREAKING TREATMENT FCB-Pharmicell specializes in developing stem cell drugs for incurable diseases. Hearticellgram-AMI takes somatic stem cells extracted from the patient's own bone marrow that are then cultured and directly injected into the damaged heart. "Our first goal is to apply them in patients with illnesses that are not curable through conventional...

Scientists have raised hope that stem cell therapy could provide significant relief for patients disabled by untreatable chest pain.Patients with severe angina had stem cells from their blood injected into their heart.The therapy, carried out by Chicago's Northwestern University, halved the number of bouts of angina chest pain.But UK experts have stressed the work is still at an early stage, and the potential longer benefit is unknown.The procedure may also carry a risk: it is suspected of causing heart muscle damage in two patients, and others reported bone and chest pain.The study, reported in the journal Circulation Research, was carried...

Dr. Robin Smith, CEO of NeoStem, announces the joint venture at the Vatican on June 16, 2011 Vatican City, Jun 16, 2011 / 12:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican has signed its first ever commercial agreement with an outside company. The contract with U.S.-based bio-pharmaceutical firm NeoStem will advance ethical research into stem cells. “We would like to create a hotspot for scientists, benefactors, academics (and) Church leaders that will now join this group and would work together for the benefit of humanity,”Fr. Tomaz Trafny of the Vatican’s Council for Culture told CNA June 16. The deal was announced...

Bartolo ColonBOCA RATON, Florida, June 7, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Bartolo Colon’s career seemed to be going down the drains, after being one of major league baseball’s top starting pitchers. In 2005 Colon won the American League Cy Young award, but a series of shoulder and elbow injuries sidelined him until, in 2010, he didn’t play in the majors at all. By 2009, Colon’s astonishing 97 mph fastball had slowed down considerably and every pitch he threw resulted in agonizing pain: so he went home to the Dominican Republic, defeated. But in March of 2010, a doctor in the Dominican Republic,...

Stem cells, it seems, have become almost as ubiquitous in medicine as stethoscopes. Yankees pitcher Bartolo Colon received injections of stem cells from his own fat and bone marrow to treat an injured shoulder and elbow, his doctor recently revealed. Meanwhile, a Texas hospital is testing whether stem cells from a patient's bone marrow will improve the effectiveness of cardiac bypass surgery. It's enough to suggest that the bitter religious, ethical, and political battles over stem cells that began in 1998 were pointless. If cells harvested from patients themselves can treat disease, perhaps there's no need to use ones obtained...

Stem cell research continues to move ahead. Not embryonic stem cell research, however, which relies on the destruction of young human life.After over 30 years of embryonic stem cell research, first with mouse and then human embryonic stem cells, not a single patient has been helped. And while over the past year, three experimental trials have been approved in the U.S., even many embryonic stem cell scientists believe the practical dangers of embryonic stem cells (tumors, incorrect tissue growth, immune problems) make such trials preliminary; simply using patients for experiments. Embryonic stem cells fail on both ethical and practical aspects,...

Findings hold potential for solution to baldness, with wider implications for stem cell researchIn one of the first studies to look at the population behavior of a large pool of stem cells in thousands of hair follicles – as opposed to the stem cell of a single hair follicle – Keck School of Medicine of USC scientists deciphered how hair stem cells in mice and rabbits can communicate with each other and encourage mutually coordinated regeneration, according to an article published in the April 29 edition of the journal Science. The team collaborated with mathematical biologists from the University of...

The Stem-Cell WarUnlike embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells do have a record of healing. You wouldn't know it from the media. An enduring liberal myth, that of the Republican “war on science,� got a subtle rebuke this week when the first and only patient to receive FDA-approved embryonic-stem-cell therapy publicly revealed his identity. Timothy J. Atchison, a 21-year-old nursing student, had been partially paralyzed in a car crash. Six months ago, scientists at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta sought to test on him the safety of a drug concocted from stem cells of the kind derived by destroying a...

WASHINGTON, DC – Heart failure affects roughly six million Americans, yet treatment consists of either a heart transplant or the insertion of mechanical devices that assist the heart. This is unacceptable to Roberto Bolli, MD, Chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Ky., which is why he is on a mission to make cardiac stem cell treatment an option for all who must cope with the limitations of a failing heart. Dr. Bolli is conducting the groundbreaking study, "Cardiac Stem Cell Infusion in Patients with Ischemic cardiOmyopathy (SCIPIO)," in which researchers at the...

A study of the salamander brain has led researchers at Karolinska Institutet to discover a hitherto unknown function of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In an article published in the prestigious scientific journal Cell Stem Cell they show how in acting as a kind of switch for stem cells, dopamine controls the formation of new neurons in the adult brain. Their findings may one day contribute to new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's. The study was conducted using salamanders which unlike mammals recover fully from a Parkinson's-like condition within a four week period. Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disease characterised...

Adult cells that have been reprogrammed into stem cells harbor a number of genetic mutations, some of which appear in genes that have been linked to cancer. While scientists don't yet know how this might affect the use of the cells in medicine, they say the findings show that the cells need to be studied much more extensively.

The U.S. District Court injunction that stops federal taxpayer funding of human embryonic stem cell research should make patients happy.  The judge ruled that federal funding for embryonic stem cell research violates a current law, passed annually since the Clinton administration, prohibiting government funding for research that involves the destruction of human embryos.He added that there is a limited amount of federal funding for stem cells, and funding embryonic stem cells competes with adult stem cells. But only adult stem cells are treating people. The good news is that this ruling should free up more funding for adult stem cell...

lifenews.com - Printer Friendly Page© V2.0 - CJ Website Designwww.cj-design.comPro-Life News: Adult Stem Cells, Bart Stupak, Pro-Life Day, Abby Johnson, Rome by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com Editor October 7, 2010 Email RSSPrint Best Kept Secret of Adult Stem Cells: They Are Treating Multiple Sclerosis by David PrenticeWashington, DC -- Adult stem cell success treating patients has been noted as “the best-kept secret in the galaxy” by Dr. Jean Peduzzi Nelson of Wayne State University. In her recent Senate testimony she described the case of Barry Goudy, who had relapsing-remitting MS. Barry had numerous relapses and medication was not helping his condition. He...

A remarkable device called the spray on skin gun is featured in a YouTube video from an upcoming National Geographic TV special. The skin gun promises to be a boon to burn victims as much as penicillin was to people with infections. The way the spray on skin gun works is that a burn victim's healthy stem cells are taken from his skin, are cultured in a liquid bath, and then are sprayed on the burned parts of his body. Within days, the burn is healed. The man in the video, who had severe second-degree burns on his face and...

 Despite having a rare neurodegenerative disease called Niemann-Pick Type C, the two oldest Hadley children, Peyton and Kayla, enjoy staying active and participating in events with their family at their Catholic parish in Medford, Ore. (Photos by Jared Cruce) Born three years apart, Peyton and Kayla Hadley began their lives as normal, healthy children. For their first seven years, both progressed normally as they began elementary school, scoring high on tests with excellent reading skills. Then, when Peyton turned 8, things began to change.  One of the first signs that something wasn't right began with Peyton's tendency to cock his...

Remarkable research pointing to a potential new treatment for diabetes was announced this week at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Scientists succeeded in transforming spermatogonal stem cells, early precursors of sperm cells, into insulin-secreting cells. It is likely that the work represents significant progress in accomplishing the Holy Grail of diabetes research, the replacement of insulin-secreting cells lost to the disease.In type I diabetes, the early onset form of the disease that often occurs in young children, cells of the pancreas called islet cells or beta cells, which normally secrete insulin, are lost due to autoimmunity. The...

Retinal pigment epithelial cells secrete neurotrophic factors and synthesize dopamine: possible contribution to therapeutic effects of RPE cell transplantation in Parkinson's diseaseRetinal pigment epithelial cells secrete neurotrophic factors and synthesize dopamine: possible contribution to therapeutic effects of RPE cell transplantation in Parkinson's disease

A good athlete is often called on to save a game. This is the story of a star football player who was asked to save a life of someone he didn't even know. CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews has the latest example of "The American Spirit." There were four finalists last night for the Gagliardi Trophy, basically the Heisman for Division III college football. But for finalist Matt Hoffman learning if he'd win wasn't the suspense of the night.  Meeting cancer patient Warren Sallach was.  Last year Matt donated his bone stem cells - in an anonymous donation that went...

Editor's note: Soon after this article was posted to AIDSmeds and POZ, the editorial staff discovered that the long-anonymous Berlin Patient has decided to come forward, for the first time ever, in a profile published in the December 9 issue of Stern magazine. He is 44-year-old Timothy Ray Brown. (Click here for an approximate English translation of the profile teaser posted to stern.de.) The “Berlin Patient�—a man living with HIV who underwent a transplant involving HIV-resistant stem cells in 2007 for the treatment of leukemia—has been classified as cured of his HIV, according to an update of the patient’s experience published online, ahead of print, on...

SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwire - December 10, 2010) - Medistem Inc. (PINKSHEETS: MEDS) announced today peer-reviewed publication of its data on what is believed to be the first "combination therapy" adult stem cell protocol for spinal cord injury. The patient treated, who was 29 years old at the time, suffered a spinal cord injury resulting from an airplane crash on May 13th of 2008. He had no walking ability, intermittent pain and loss of sexual function. The patient was injected with a combination universal donor stem cell therapy in November of 2008, and January and July of 2009. A gradual improvement was observed subsequent to each...

Enlarge Image Golden years. Mice without active telomerase (right) look much older than those with the enzyme (left). Credit: Mariela Jaskelioff/Harvard Medical School In F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," an old man gets younger with each passing day, a fantastic concept recently brought to life on film by Brad Pitt. In a lab in Boston, a research team has used genetic engineering to accomplish something similarly curious, turning frail-looking mice into younger versions of themselves by stimulating the regeneration of certain tissues. The study helps explain why certain organs and tissues break down...

Direct Conversion May Make Embryonic Stem Cell Research Obsolete New York, NY -- Scientists made a major step towards making embryonic stem cell research obsolete when they used direct reprogramming to convert adult stem cells to an embryonic-like state. Now direct conversion is moving the ball forward. The process of direct conversion involves changing one kind of specialized stem cell into another kind -- and it eliminates the need for controversial embryonic stem cells, which some scientists promote because they can change into most any kind of cells. http://LifeNews.com/bio-3220

Science: Supporters of California's failed 2004 stem-cell law will ask strapped taxpayers to support another $3 billion bond initiative in 2014. Maybe it's time to restore fiscal sanity as well as science to its rightful place. When it was passed in 2004, Proposition 71, with its $3 billion state fund and 10-year mandate for embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR), held out the promise of imminent miracle cures for everything from spinal disorders to Parkinson's. One campaign ad showed actor Christopher Reeve, aka Superman, asking California voters to "stand up for those who can't." Some six years later, with about $1.1 billion...

A retired military service dog is getting a new lease on life in Washington, D.C., after undergoing a revolutionary stem cell treatment. ... The cutting-edge treatment helps dogs grow new cartilage by injecting stem cells from their own fat, normally from the abdomen, into the affected joint. The treatment takes about three days and has an 80 percent success rate, MyFoxDC.com reported.

Science: After decades of promises, the first clinical trial using human embryonic stem cells has begun. Again, the success stories using adult stem cells are ignored as ideology, and profit, triumph over science. The announcement by Geron Corp. on Monday that the first clinical trial using its embryonic stem cells to treat an actual human patient was under way sent its stock up 6.4%. Geron has the first FDA license to use embryonic stem cells to treat people, in this case a patient with a spinal cord injury. We wish the patient well, but using stem cells to treat disease...

Enlarge Image New fate. Applying synthetic RNA for a muscle master-control gene turns embryonic cells into muscle cells. Credit: Warren et al., Cell Stem Cell, Advance Online Publication (2010) Four years ago, scientists took a major step toward overcoming the biggest ethical hurdle in stem cell research. Instead of using cells derived from embryos, researchers found a way to make adult cells behave as though they were embryonic. Simply inserting extra copies of four genes into these cells gave them the power to develop into almost any cell type in the body—a potential boon for studying and ultimately treating...

Bioethics: A federal judge rules that the administration violated congressional intent when it lifted restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. No, this will not usher in a new dark age. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth was striking enough. Lamberth said that when President Obama lifted Bush administration restrictions on ESCR, he violated the Dickey-Wicker Amendment. First passed in 1996, and passed every year as part of the federal budget, Dickey-Wicker blocks federal funds for stem cell research in which human embryos are destroyed. Perhaps more striking is the press coverage of Lamberth's ruling. The...

UCI study is first to show reversal of long-term hind-limb paralysisA UC Irvine study is the first to demonstrate that human neural stem cells can restore mobility in cases of chronic spinal cord injury, suggesting the prospect of treating a much broader population of patients. Previous breakthrough stem cell studies have focused on the acute, or early, phase of spinal cord injury, a period of up to a few weeks after the initial trauma when drug treatments can lead to some functional recovery. The UCI study, led by Aileen Anderson and Brian Cummings of the Sue and Bill Gross Stem...

When scientists play politics with science, society and science both suffer, sometimes with life-threatening implications.  One recent example is Climategate, with revelations that leading global warming researchers played with the data, concealed and tried to suppress data that challenged their assertions and attempted to game the peer-review system.  And as a result of scientists caught playing politics with science, claims of man-made global warming have been met with growing skepticism. But a similar scenario has played out regarding human embryonic stem cell research (hESCR),  With the introduction of legislation to codify the Obama administration's rules expanding the federal role in...

GREAT BEND - Beth Schneweis can see herself dashing after her young son, Christopher, as he runs off the airplane when they return from Germany this fall. Wednesday morning she was laughing out loud as she described the image that plays often in her mind. The sounds of his mother chuckling caused 5-year-old Christopher, strapped into his specially designed tilt chair, to roll his head toward her and smile. The idea of Christopher, who has cerebral palsy, walking off an airplane in a few months, after having additional stem cells injected into his spine at a clinic in Germany, is...

American scientists have developed 'artificial' blood that could soon be used to treat wounded soldiers in battle.The genetically-engineered blood is created by  taking cells from umbilical cords and using a machine to mimic the way bone marrow works to produce mass quantities of usable units of red blood cells.Known as 'blood pharming' the programme was launched in 2008 by the Pentagon's experimental arm, Darpa, to create blood to treat soldiers in far-flung battlefields. The firm Arteriocyte, which received $1.95 million for the project, has now sent off its first shipment of O-negative blood to the food and drugs watchdog in...

Blood drawn with a simple needle stick can be coaxed into producing stem cells that may have the ability to form any type of tissue in the body, three independent papers report in the July 2 Cell Stem Cell. The new technique will allow scientists to tap a large, readily available source of personalized stem cells. Because taking blood is safe, fast and efficient compared to current stem cell harvesting methods, some of which include biopsies and pretreatments with drugs, researchers hope that blood-derived stem cells could one day be used to study and treat diseases — though major safety...

Enlarge Image Lung "skeleton." The underlying air passages (left) and blood vessels (right) remain after lungs are decellularized. Credit: Petersen et al., Science For the first time, an animal has drawn a breath with lungs cultivated in the lab. Although preliminary, the results might eventually lead to replacement lungs for patients. People whose lungs are failing because of diseases such as emphysema or cystic fibrosis face a grim outlook. Only 10% to 20% of patients who undergo lung transplants survive for 10 years, versus about 50% for heart recipients. Research to create new lungs in the lab has lagged...

UK scientists have developed a method to control the behaviour and fate of stem cells using chemically-defined nanopatterned surfaces. This could aid development of tissues and organs for transplants.Stem cell research offers limitless opportunities to develop new medical therapies, such as growing organs and tissues in the lab for transplantation into humans. The ability to reproducibly control cultures of stem cells is very important to avoid variation in clinical trials but the lack of consistency in the material on which the cells are grown has so far made this difficult. Also, current methods used to control stem cell behaviour, such...

Norwegian scientists have developed a microfluidic platform to grow stem cells outside of the body in a controlled manner for a period of three weeks.  Stem cells from bone marrow are known as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and like all adult stem cells they survive in specific microenvironments within the body, known as niches. But it's not so easy to grow them outside the body as they spread out as they grow which makes it difficult to control their microenvironment in vitro, as they tend to inhabit and block feeding channels. Previous microfluidic systems using glass substrates use hazardous chemicals to...