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Researchers have developed an improved version of an enzyme that degrades the dense scar tissue that forms when the central nervous system is damaged. By digesting the tissue that blocks re-growth of damaged nerves, the improved enzyme -- and new system for delivering it -- could facilitate recovery from serious central nervous system injuries...

Induced pluripotent stem cells could be a boon for regenerative medicine.REUTERS/Junying Yu/University of Wisconsin-Madison Given the right conditions, any adult cell can be coaxed into becoming stem-cell like, according to a team of researchers based in the United States. The team, led by Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, were also able to speed up the process, cutting the time required for cells to become stem-cell like by around half. The results are good news for those battling to work out the complex biology of these cells, know as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells...

It may not surprise parents that the head-banging, string-shredding world of heavy metal can seriously damage your health. But now Tony Iommi, the British guitarist who helped to invent the genre, has revealed that he is undergoing stem-cell treatment to save the hand that inspired a generation. The number of rockers suffering from repetitive strain injuries is on the increase, and medical specialists have warned that their careers will come to an end unless they seek professional help. As a founder member of Black Sabbath, the Birmingham rockers fronted by Ozzy Osbourne, Iommi, 61, hit on the distortion-heavy riffs that...

Stem cells have a unique ability: when they divide, they can either give rise to more stem cells, or to a variety of specialised cell types. In both mice and humans, a layer of cells at the base of the skin contains stem cells that can develop into the specialised cells in the layers above. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Monterotondo, in collaboration with colleagues at the Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas (CIEMAT) in Madrid, have discovered two proteins that control when and how these stem cells switch to being skin cells. The findings,...

Researchers are inching ever closer to bringing the latest stem-cell technologies from bench to bedside — and are, in the process, learning more about some diseases that long have remained medical black boxes. This week, scientists at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) reported the first success in generating new populations of insulin-producing cells using skin cells of Type 1 diabetes patients. The achievement involved the newer embryo-free technique for generating stem cells, and marked the first step toward building a treatment that could one day replace a patient's faulty insulin-making cells with healthy, functioning ones. (See the top 10...

Alternative tissues shown to yield reprogrammed cells aplenty. Fat cells are more easily turned into iPS cells than fibroblasts.Punchstock Fat cells and pigment-producing skin cells can be reprogrammed into stem cells much faster and more efficiently than the skin cells that are usually used — suggesting large bellies and little black moles could provide much-needed material for deriving patient-specific stem cells."More than one type of adult somatic cell can serve as a target for reprogramming to a pluripotent state," says William Lowry, a stem-cell biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the research. "You...

ONE way for surgeons to repair injured knees is to take cartilage and bone from another part of the knee and transplant it in the damaged area. Now companies are developing potentially simpler knee patches: small, off-the-shelf plugs engineered to mimic the composition of human bone and cartilage. These ready-made cylinders can be inserted in an arthroscopic procedure; they are often used after a sports injury. They are known as osteochondral scaffolds, because they support new bone and cartilage as it grows. Orthomimetics, a company in Cambridge, England, has developed a scaffold approved for use in Europe that resulted from...

An age of medical miracles is dawning. Obama administration federal funding rules for embryonic stem cells, or ES cells, will open wide the money floodgates for "the most remarkable potential of any scientific discovery ever made with respect to human health." It has "the capacity to cure maladies of all sorts,including cancer, heart disease, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's," and spinal cord injuries. Or so says Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) among others. But paraplegics shouldn’t post their wheelchairs on EBay just yet. If these cures are just around the corner, this corner is far, far away. And that's according to ES cell researchers...

MUMBAI: For 15 years, Rakesh Singh (name changed) went about his high-pressure job as a senior engineer in a central government firm with a transplanted kidney. Daily, he would pop immuno-suppressant pills to prevent his body from rejecting the donated organ. Then, about 18 months ago, he was struck by an "explosive" form of cancer called multiple myeloma — big cysts erupted across and within his body, impairing his ability to sign and speak. Singh's disease put doctors in the city's Jaslok Hospital in a bind about what line of treatment to follow: reducing the immuno-suppressants to let his body...

Science Daily (July 26, 2009) — Johns Hopkins biomedical engineering students have demonstrated a practical way to embed a patient's own adult stem cells in the surgical thread that doctors use to repair serious orthopedic injuries such as ruptured tendons. The goal, the students said, is to enhance healing and reduce the likelihood of re-injury without changing the surgical procedure itself. The project team -- 10 undergraduates sponsored by Bioactive Surgical Inc., a Maryland medical technology company -- won first place in the recent Design Day 2009 competition conducted by the university's Department of Biomedical Engineering. In collaboration with orthopedic...

Bioethics: The former director of the National Institutes of Health, once an enthusiast for embryonic stem cells, now says their future has "dimmed." So why is the administration bailing out research into such therapies while troubled states like California have committed billions?Aside from creating or saving a few research jobs, the administration's decision to federally fund embryonic stem cell research is, as we've noted, a bailout of bad science. It throws money at an avenue of research that time and adult stem cell progress have passed by. Applauding the administration's move was Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., who echoed the claims...

Science: The president's Council on Bioethics is summarily dismissed when it disagrees on the need for more federally funded embryonic stem cell research. The scientific method doesn't include firing those who disagree with you.Inspectors general are apparently not the only ones to pay for annoying the White House by doing their job. The 18-member council existed to provide the president with advice on the moral and ethical implications of the rapid advances in science and medical research. It exists no more. The council existed to ponder whether we should do something just because we can. Apparently President Obama wanted not...

Look to the retina as a likely site for the first success in stem-cell therapy. "The eye is the best place to test proof-of-concept for stem cell-based therapies," says Martin Friedlander of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Friedlander is co-founder of EyeCyte, also in La Jolla, whose investors include industry heavyweight Pfizer. Several laboratories are exploring stem-cell-derived transplants to delay or prevent blindness, and Pfizer recently put up funds for a project nearing human trials at University College London (UCL). Why the eye appeal? As organs go, it is easily accessible, somewhat protected from the immune system's...

Four patients have had holes in their bones patched up using their own stem cells in a pioneering treatment. Doctors carried out the treatment on patients suffering from bone cysts on their hips, who would normally have the spaces plugged with metal plates. Experts said some of those treated were now able to walk without pain. They say more work is needed to take the procedure to the mass market, but predicted that it could be in clinics within five years. It could eventually also be used for hip replacement revisions, the approximately one in 10 such operations which need...

Scientists have been able to reverse the symptoms of multiple sclerosis using stem cells from patients' own body fat. Some have been left free from seizures and better able to walk after the treatment. Researchers said that the results suggest that the "very simple" injection of their own cells can stimulate the regrowth of tissue damaged by the progression of the disease. The preliminary findings add to the growing evidence that stem cells could be used to treat the crippling neurological disease, which affects about 85,000 people in Britain. Last year experts suggested that stem cell therapy could be a...

British scientists are among the world leaders in stem cell research - and their latest discoveries could transform medicine forever We have been told for almost a decade that stem cells are the future of medicine: that these tiny clumps of tissue could become a biological "repair kit", able to regenerate or heal almost any part of the body. But amid all the prophecies of patches for damaged hearts, new nerve cells for spinal injuries or stroke victims, and insulin-producing cells for diabetics, few people predicted that it would be British-based scientists who would be leading the way in mapping...

In a world-first breakthrough, University of New South Wales (UNSW) medical researchers have used stem cells cultured on a simple contact lens to restore sight to sufferers of blinding corneal disease. Sight was significantly improved within weeks of the procedure, which is simple, inexpensive and requires a minimal hospital stay. The research team from UNSW’s School of Medical Sciences harvested stem cells from patients’ own eyes to rehabilitate the damaged cornea. The stem cells were cultured on a common therapeutic contact lens which was then placed onto the damaged cornea for 10 days, during which the cells were able to...

Here's something that people with poor or no vision will be excited about: three patients had their sight restored in less than a month by contact lenses cultured with stem cells. All three patients were blind in one eye. The researchers extracted stem cells from their working eyes, cultured them in contact lenses for 10 days, and gave them to the patients. Within 10 to 14 days of use, the stem cells began recolonizing and repairing the cornea. Of the three patients, two were legally blind but can now read the big letters on an eye chart, while the third,...

In a world-first breakthrough, University of New South Wales (UNSW) medical researchers have used stem cells cultured on a simple contact lens to restore sight to sufferers of blinding corneal disease. Sight was significantly improved within weeks of the procedure, which is simple, inexpensive and requires a minimal hospital stay. The research team from UNSW’s School of Medical Sciences harvested stem cells from patients’ own eyes to rehabilitate the damaged cornea. The stem cells were cultured on a common therapeutic contact lens which was then placed onto the damaged cornea for 10 days, during which the cells were able to...

Robert Lanza is now reporting that his research group has produced induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPS) that are safe for use in humans. The website, Red Orbit, has provided a link to the original (.pdf)article. See the Time magazine news article, here. Lanza gives credit to the pioneering work of Shinya Yamanaka: Dr. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), reported today in the journal Cell that his team has created stem cells using human skin cells and four proteins. The innovation builds on the breakthrough discovery in 2006 by Shinya Yamanaka, who similarly coaxed human skin...

Research using adult stem cells has saved the life of a Texas boy suffering from sickle cell anemia.   Dallas-area residents Joe and Darlene Davis welcomed the news of a pregnancy and later the birth of their first son. Texas Alliance for Life recorded an interview with the couple. "I was very excited to find that I had a son -- but finding out that he had sickle cell anemia, as a nurse I knew there was going to be a lot of problems associated with that disease," Joe said. "The child can have strokes," Darlene also noted. "It can stunt his growth and...

Genetically engineered stem cells from bone marrow showed promise as a potential new way to deliver a cancer-killing protein to tumors, British researchers said on Tuesday. Experiments in cell cultures and in mice showed the adult stem cells — a type known as mesenchymal stem cells — could home in on cancer cells and deliver a lethal protein that attacked only the cancer while sparing normal healthy tissue. “We’ve developed cells which specifically target cancer through the body and deliver an anti-cancer protein to where it is needed in a seek-and-destroy approach,” said Dr. Michael Loebinger of University College London,...

TUESDAY, (HealthDay News) -- Injecting bone marrow cells into the heart's muscular wall restored blood flow to hearts with blocked arteries for which conventional treatments had proven ineffective, Dutch physicians have reported. "I think this is very good news for patients who are at the end of the line and have no options left," said Dr. Douwe E. Atsma, an interventional cardiologist at Leiden University Medical Center and an author of the study, which appears in the May 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The 50 people in the study, 43 of them men, were experiencing...

April 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A preliminary study on the use of stem cells obtained from a patient's own adipose tissue in the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) has shown promising results. The three case studies, described in BioMed Central's open access Journal of Translational Medicine support further clinical evaluation of what are known as stromal vascular fraction (SVF) cells in MS and other autoimmune conditions. Thomas Ichim, from Medistem Inc., and Dr. Boris Minev, from the Division of Neurosurgery, University of California San Diego, worked with a team of researchers to demonstrate the possible effectiveness of SVF cells in...

Doctors ... removed the stem cells from the patient's bone marrow in the leg, then separated or purified the stem cells and intravenously returned them to the patient within a few hours. Because they are the patient's own stem cells, rejection was not an issue as is the case with embryonic stem cells. "Research shows that stem cells have an instinctive guidance system and migrate to the area of injury. While the stem cells do not produce new brain cells for this patient, they enhance the repair process in the brain and reduce damage," the doctors said in a press...

ONDON, April 15 (Reuters) - A stem-cell repair technique that has already been used to fix hundreds of injured race horses is to be tested for the first time in people with damaged Achilles tendons. Privately owned British biotech firm MedCell Bioscience Ltd said on Wednesday it would start clinical tests within 12 months and planned to run a larger confirmatory study at several European hospitals in 2011. Patients will receive injections containing millions of their own stem cells, which have been extracted and multiplied up in a laboratory, and can regenerate new tissue to repair damaged regions.

Researchers have used injections of patients' own stem cells to reverse the course of type 1 diabetes, reports a research team from the University of São Paulo in Brazil and Northwestern University in Chicago. The findings, published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, exemplify the remarkable gains made by diabetes researchers, who are battling a continuously spreading disease that now affects nearly 8% of adults and children. (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2008.) The research team, led by Dr. Julio Voltarelli of the University of Sao Paulo, is the first to successfully...

A team of UCSF researchers has for the first time used tiny molecules called microRNAs to help turn adult mouse cells back to their embryonic state. These reprogrammed cells are pluripotent, meaning that, like embryonic stem cells, they have the capacity to become any cell type in the body. The findings suggest that scientists will soon be able to replace retroviruses and even genes currently used in laboratory experiments to induce pluripotency in adult cells. This would make potential stem cell-based therapies safer by eliminating the risks posed to humans by these DNA-based methods, including alteration of the genome and...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A recent appearance by Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiovascular surgeon at Columbia University and a regular on Oprah Winfrey's popular eponymous television program, is generating buzz within pro-life circles. During the program, Oz told Americans the truth about embryonic stem cell research.Oz made it clear that the "stem cell debate is dead" mostly in part because embryonic stem cells have yet to catch up to their adult stem cell and iPS cell counterparts.The comments are drawing interest because Oz made them in front of the iconic television personality and embryonic stem cell research advocate Michael J....

Here’s Josh Brahm explaining this “Oprah” spot, in which Dr. Oz comes out against embryonic stem-cell research on scientific grounds (Warning: In it he handles, pokes and slices a real human brain).  Catholics remember sadly that Michael J. Fox was a huge proponent of clone-and-kill stem-cell research. How ironic that President Obama, who claims to want to “follow science” is funding precisely the kind of research that the medical community is abandoning. See Josh Brahm’s essay “9 Things the Media Messed Up About the Obama Stem Cell Story.”On the “Oprah” show, Dr. Mehmet Oz handles the brain of a 50-year-old...

Carbon 14 from Cold War–era nuclear bomb tests allowed researchers to track cell birth By monitoring carbon 14 emitted from Cold War–era nuclear bomb tests, researchers found that heart muscle cells continue to divide throughout adulthood, shows a study appearing in the April 3 Science. The low-level cell renewal may eventually be exploited to treat damaged hearts, says study coauthor Jonas Frisén of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The finding contradicts the belief of many scientists that the heart muscle cells sticking around until the end were present at birth. “The dogma has always been that cell division in the...

A STEM cell therapy offering “natural” breast enlargement is to be made available to British women for the first time. The treatment could boost cup size while reducing stomach fat. It involves extracting stem cells from spare fat on the stomach or thighs and growing them in a woman’s breasts. An increase of one cup size is likely, with the potential for larger gains as the technique improves. A trial has already started in Britain to use stem cells to repair the breasts of women who have had cancerous lumps removed. A separate project is understood to be the first...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- During his national press conference last night, President Barack Obama claimed to be supportive of ethical alternatives to using embryonic stem cells, namely adult stem cell research. However, he recently issued an executive order to rescind research into more ethical alternatives.Reporter Jon Ward of the Washington Times pointed out to Obama that "science so far has shown a lot of progress with adult stem cells but not a lot with embryonic.""I am glad to see progress is being made in adult stem cells. And if the science determines that we can completely avoid a set...

Obama’s anti-life ideology ... Obama is not opposed to restricting adult stem cell research, because the same executive order which gives funding to embryonic stem cell research takes away funding from adult stem cell research. This is a senseless move on the part of the president; the only stem cell research he is interested in funding is precisely the most dangerous kind, the only kind that a large segment of the population is opposed to on moral grounds, and the only one that has consistently failed to produce the promised ‘miracle cure’ results. If he were really concerned about life-saving...

President Obama Also Kills Bush Executive Order for Adult Stem Cell Research by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com Editor March 10, 2009 Email RSSPrint Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- President Barack Obama did more on Monday than just force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research that requires the destruction of human life. He also rescinded an executive order President Bush put into place funding adult stem cells and new research with iPS cells.Obama also rescinded Executive Order 13435 of June 20, 2007.President Bush put that order in place in June 2007 when he vetoed a Congressional measure that would have required embryonic...

CHENNAI: In a heart-warming story of compassion, an Australian donor, a Singapore doctor and a Chennai philanthropist came together to give a student a new lease of life. Vigneshwaran, a 22-year-old Chennai student has been cured of blood cancer through stem cell therapy in Singapore using stem cells of a donor from Australia, thanks to a friend's mother who collected money for the treatment. While Dr Patrick Tan of Mount Elizabeth Hospital successfully carried out the stem cell transplant, the driving force behind the treatment was Shanti Suresh, a friend's mother who managed Rs 1.25 crore (approx. USD 2.5 million)...

CONVENT STATION - Medical research has been moving at such a lightening pace, it almost doesn't seem far off that doctors in the future might tell many of their seriously ill patients, "Take two stem cells and call me in the morning."  That joke, taken from a political cartoon, points to the fact that the rapidly developing field of stem cell research is growing at a breakneck pace, giving hope of cures to countless patients suffering from diseases such as brain cancer and heart disease and conditions such as spinal cord injury.About these medical developments, the Catholic Church asks a...

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in Philadelphia, have discovered stem cells in the esophagus of mice that are able to grow into tissue-like structures and form parts of an esophagus lining when placed into immune-deficient mice.1 “The immediate implication is that we’ll have a better understanding of the role of these stem cells in normal biology, as well as in regenerative and cancer biology,” stated senior author Anil Rustgi, MD, professor of medicine and genetics and chief of gastroenterology at Penn. “Down the road we will develop a panel of markers that will define these stem...

CHICAGO — Meet Zoey Walsh, a teenage stem-cell recipient who is pushing the frontier of medical science. He’s a dog. Unable to alleviate his pain with drugs and unwilling to risk another hip surgery on a dog so old, Zoey’s owners turned to a treatment that involved injecting stem cells, which had been extracted from Zoey’s fat, back into the animal. The stem cells stimulate repairs. The therapy is gaining momentum as a treatment option for pets. But it also holds promise for humans, researchers and companies involved say. “It did wonders,” Zoey’s owner, Raymond Walsh of Palos Heights, Ill.,...

Adult Stem Cells, +2; Embryonic Stem Cells, -1 Feb 23, 2009 — Two more successes were chalked up for adult stem cell therapies recently. Science Daily said that sufferers from Crohn’s disease may have a new treatment option by getting injections of their own bone marrow stem cells. This “now constitutes a treatment option to cure an intestinal disease that sometimes does not successfully respond to drugs and requires highly complex surgery that does not provide a cure.” Those afflicted with type 2 diabetes also have hope, thanks to adult stem cells. Science Daily also reported that progenitor cells exist...

Medical Advancement: It's the supporters of embryonic stem cell research who have politicized science. The desperation of a family and the pressure to produce results may have produced a medical tragedy instead.In the 2006 election, actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's, made a commercial for Democrats in which he urged voters to support Senate candidates who supported federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. As we noted then and do again, ESCR was not the "most promising" avenue of stem cell research. And no, that's not because of a lack of federal funds, but rather with the difficulties...

Groundbreaking Paper Publishes Long Term Results Of A Successful Phase I Clinical Trial To Treat Parkinson's Disease Scientists announced the publication of a landmark peer-reviewed paper in the February issue of the Bentham Open Stem Cell Journal which outlines the long term results of the world's first clinical trial using autologous neural stem cells for the treatment of Parkinson's disease. According to lead author, Michel F. Levesque, MD, FRCS(C), FACS, "We have documented the first successful adult neural stem cell transplantation to reverse the effects of Parkinson's disease and demonstrated the long term safety and therapeutic effects of this approach."...

Adult Stem Cell Research Reverses Effects of Parkinson's Disease in Human Trial by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com Editor February 16, 2009 Email RSSPrint Los Angeles, CA (LifeNews.com) -- Scientists have published a paper in a medical journal describing the results of the world's first clinical trial using autologous neural stem cells for the treatment of Parkinson's disease. A leading bioethics watchdog says the results show more money should be put behind adult stem cells.UCLA researchers published their results in February issue of the Bentham Open Stem Cell Journal which outlines the long term results of the trial."We have documented the first...

This video is striking evidence of something that proponents of life-destroying embryonic stem cell research don’t like to admit. Adult stem cell therapies, which destroy no human lives, are delivering spectacular results in treating a broad range of serious health problems.

A bill to remove South Dakota’s restrictions against embryonic stem cell research was introduced yesterday in the state senate. SB 195 would strike from SDCL 34-14 the language prohibiting human embryos from being used for research.  The bill was sponsored by Senators Nesselhuf, Adelstein, Nelson, and Turbak Berry and Representatives Engels, Blake, Cutler, Dreyer, Hoffman, Hunhoff (Bernie), McLaughlin, and Street. We knew this was coming for some time now. Last summer the Argus Leader ran an article about Sanford Health in Sioux Falls under the heading “Sanford eyes stem cell study.”In that article we read A new donation from philanthropist T. Denny...

Family celebrates a bittersweet anniversary Click-2-Listen Mary Smith describes it as a year she can never forget, yet one that she never wants to relive.  It began when her youngest daughter Emily, now 8, was diagnosed at 17 months old with neuroblastoma, a type of cancer that starts in nerve cells and expands. Christy Wooten/The Daily Sentinel (ENLARGE) Emily Smith, left, gets a hug from her mother, Mary, during a classroom party Wednesday celebrating the seven year anniversary of Emily's stem cell transplant which helped her battle a form of cancer call neuroblastoma. She currently shows no signs of the...

Neurological disorders are among the most difficult disease for patients and their loved ones to deal with, as the root of what makes an individual, their mind, is attacked by disease or affected by injury. Scientists have now discovered a new stem cell therapy for Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease initially, that could have implications for neurological disorders as wide ranging as Alzheimer's, dementia, epilepsy and stem cell therapy for stroke. Adult stem cell cures via the new source, dental pulp, could be personalized and easily available, as they can be harvested during simple visits to the dentist. We look...

MS in remission w/own stem cells - JAMA Report

CHENNAI: Adult stem cells extracted from the patient’s bone marrow have been found to cure several ailments, but a therapy for regeneration of blood vessles hold out bigger hopes. The department of vascular surgery at the Sri Ramachandra Medical College Hospital and Research Institute in December 2007 has used adult stem cells to trigger growth of new blood vessels in the limbs of at least 30 patients who suffer from critical limb ischemia — a condition of blood vessels in the limb getting blocked, often resulting in amputation. When SRMC doctors told a 64-year-old diabetic patient in December, 2007 that...

The simple recipe scientists earlier discovered for making adult stem cells behave like embryonic-like stem cells just got even simpler. A new report in the February 6th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, shows for the first time that neural stem cells taken from adult mice can take on the characteristics of embryonic stem cells with the addition of a single transcription factor. Transcription factors are genes that control the activity of other genes. The discovery follows a 2006 report also in the journal Cell that showed that the introduction of four ingredients could transform differentiated cells...