Monthly Archives: March 2014

Researchers at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital aim to grow a human ear via stem cells taken from a patient's fat tissue. Relatively little attention has been given to the reconstruction of damaged cartilage around the cranial area, however the new method is hoped to modernize this area of reconstructive surgery.

Currently to repair damaged or non-existent cartilage in the ear, an operation is usually carried out when the patient is a child. Cartilage is extracted from the patient's ribs and painstakingly crafted into the form of an ear, before being grafted back onto the individual.

Whilst this method of reconstruction achieves good results, it also has some unpleasant side effects. The patient is left with a permanent defect around the area from where the cells were harvested, as the cartilage between the ribs does not regenerate. Since any operation to replace the cartilage in the ear is for cosmetic purposes only, curing one defect by creating another (albeit in a less obvious place) is not an optimal solution.

The cartilage cells used in the new technique are engineered from mesenchymal stem cells, extracted from the child's abdominal adipose tissue (fat). The benefit of this new system is that unlike the cartilage in the ribs, the adipose tissue regenerates, therefore leaving no long-term defect to the host. There is also the potential to begin reconstructive treatment with stem cells derived from adipose tissue earlier than previously possible, as it takes time for the ribs to grow enough cartilage to undergo the procedure.

Dr. Patrizia Ferretti, a researcher working on the project, told Gizmag, One of the main benefits in using the patients own stem cells is that there is no need for immune suppression which would not be desirable for a sick child, and would reduce the number of severe procedures a child needs to undergo."

To create the form of the ear, a porous polymer nano-scaffold is placed in with the stem cells. The cells are then chemically induced to become chondrocytes (cartilage cells) while growing into the holes in the scaffold to create the shape of the ear.

"Cellularized scaffolds integrate much better than fully synthetic implants, which are more prone to extrusion and infection," Dr. Ferretti explained.

The new, and potentially more advantageous technique would replace the current set of procedures in the treatment of defects in cartilage in children such as microtia, a condition which prevents the ear from forming correctly.

Dr. Ferretti continued that While we are developing this approach with children with ear defects in mind, it could ultimately be utilized in other types of reconstructive surgery both in children and adults." Such reconstructive technology has the potential to be invaluable in improving the quality of life of those who have been involved in a disfiguring accident or even those injured in the line of service.

Source: Journal of Nanomedicine

Go here to see the original:
Researchers hope to grow human ears from fat tissue

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers recently demonstrated advancements in the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, according to a university press release.

The researchers presented their findings in a paper centered around the geometries of substrates, molecules that bind with acting enzymes to allow chemical reactions to occur, as they relate to stem and heart-muscle cells, according to the release.

The research focused on the development of stem cells into mature-heart muscle

cells, otherwise known as cardiomyocytes, and the optimization of the these cells function.

Wendy Crone, a professor of engineering physics, biomedical engineering and material science, and lead author of the paper said cardiomyocytes derived from stem cells could be groundbreaking in the scientific and medical field.

Im hoping that our research will be able to help better treatments for disease and particularly heart disease, Crone said.

Moreover, Crones study could lead to progress in tissue engineering and drug research.

We can use [the cells] for things like testing out the side effects for drugs, Crone said. Frequently new drugs have negative impact on heart function.

Crone also expressed in the release one of her teams biggest challenges was finding a suitable environment for the stem cells to exist outside of the body.

Its really hard to culture stem cells effectively and to provide them with an environment thats going to help them to thrive and differentiate in the way you want, Crone said in the release.

Here is the original post:
UW-Madison researchers advance understanding of stem cells, heart-muscle cells

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

4-Mar-2014

Contact: Jen Middleton jen.middleton@ed.ac.uk 44-131-650-6514 University of Edinburgh

Horses suffering from neurological conditions similar to those that affect humans could be helped by a breakthrough from stem cell scientists.

Researchers who are the first to create working nerve cells from horse stem cells say the advance may pave the way for cell therapies that target conditions similar to motor neurone disease.

The research could also benefit horses affected by grass sickness, a neurological condition that affects around 600 horses a year in the UK.

Little is known about the disease, which causes nerve damage throughout the body. It is untreatable and animals with the most severe form usually die or have to be put down.

The advance by the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute will provide a powerful tool for those studying horse diseases. It will also help scientists to test new drugs and treatments.

The researchers took skin cells from a young horse and turned them into stem cells using a technique that was originally developed for human cells. The reprogrammed cells are pluripotent, which means they can be induced to become any type of cell in the body.

The team used them to create nerve cells in the laboratory and tested whether they were functional by showing that they could transmit nerve signals in a test tube.

Read the rest here:
Horses set to gain health benefits from stem cell advance

Current ratings for: Reconstructing faces using human stem cells from fat

Public / Patient:

5 3 ratings

Health Professionals:

0 0 ratings

Researchers in London, UK, are investigating the effectiveness of stem cell therapies for facial reconstruction.

A joint team, from London's Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and University College London's Institute of Child Health, has published the findings of their research in the journal Nanomedicine.

This follows the recent news that another UK-based team, of The London Chest Hospital, has begun the largest ever trial of adult stem cells in heart attack patients.

Great Ormond Street has a proven track record in facial reconstruction, particularly with regard to treating children with a missing or malformed ear - a condition called microtia. This kind of reconstructive surgery involves taking cartilage from the patient's ribs to craft a "scaffold" for an ear, which is then implanted beneath the skin.

Despite successes with this method, the researchers thought the treatment may be improved by bringing stem cells into the process.

More:
Reconstructing faces using human stem cells from fat

A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has induced human embryonic stem cells (hESC) to differentiate toward pure-population, mature heart muscle cells, or cardiomyocytes.

Wendy Crone

A substrate patterned with a precisely sized series of channels played a critical role in the advance.

Published online in the journal Biomaterials, the research could open the door to advances in areas that include tissue engineering and drug discovery and testing.

Researchers currently can differentiate hESC into immature heart muscle cells. Those cells, however, don't develop the robust internal structures repeating sections of muscle cells called sarcomeres that enable cardiomyocytes to produce the contracting force that allows the heart to pump blood. Other cell components that allow heart muscle cells to communicate and work together also are less developed in immature cardiomyocytes.

One barrier to efforts to produce more mature cells is the culture surface itself; hESC are notoriously finicky. "It's really hard to culture stem cells effectively and to provide them with an environment that's going to help them to thrive and differentiate in the way you want," says lead author Wendy Crone, a professor of engineering physics, biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering at UW-Madison.

Recently, three-dimensional and micropatterned substrates have emerged as more accurately mimicking the cells' physiological environment. However, the majority of previous research studies using patterning were conducted using cells from rats, says Max Salick, a Ph.D. student in materials science at UW-Madison and first author on the paper.

"One of the unique aspects of our research is that it observes human cardiomyocytes' response to micropatterning geometries," he says.

Working in laboratories in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, the UW-Madison researchers focused on finding the pattern, including the right size scale, that suits the human stem cells.

Link:
Stem cell advance yields mature heart muscle cells