Category Archives: Alabama Stem Cells

April 21, 2017 by Tyler Greer This normothermic perfusion machine pumps the liver with warm, oxygenated blood and nutrition at or just below body temperature for up to 24 hours before transplant. Credit: UAB News

Physicians in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Surgery have transplanted Alabama's first patient with a cadaver liver that was recovered from the donor and "kept alive" and preserved at body temperature instead of the standard cold solutiona technique that enables the patient to receive a liver that surgeons can watch produce bile before it is transplanted.

The transplant was performed recently by UAB Medicine surgeons on Lana Wiggins, a Valley, Alabama, resident, as part of a clinical trial using a normothermic machine perfusion technique developed by OrganOx. Surgeons place the cadaver liver in the normothermic machine, which then pumps the organ with warm, oxygenated blood and nutrition at or just below body temperature for up to 24 hours before transplant. Devin Eckhoff, M.D., director of UAB's Division of Transplantation, says the technique has shown great success in European studies and appears to provide a significant improvement in the quality of the transplanted cadaver organ.

"Because there is a large shortage of livers available for transplantation, the transplant community is continuing to push the boundaries to increase the availability of organs," Eckhoff said. "These normothermic machines enable us to preserve the liver under near perfect physiological conditionsas opposed to the usual hypothermic conditions in which the organ is typically transplanted. With the normothermic preservation, the liver maintains all aspects of graft function throughout the preservation process; it allows for pre-transplant assessment of organ function and thereby viability to predict suitability for implantation and the delivery of potential agents such as stem cells to further improve the tissue damage caused when blood supply returns to the tissue after a lack of oxygen."

UAB's School of Medicine and UAB Hospital have joined 14 other transplant centers in the United States in this study. Research efforts like this clinical trial have focused on overcoming the limitations of cold storage, which is the current universal standard for organ preservation, with a move toward normothermic machine perfusion.

Wiggins, who educated and aided families on the value of being an organ donor as a registered nurse at East Alabama Lanier Hospital for 25 years, says she feels better than she has in three years. That was when the combination of a blood clot, fatty liver disease and medications she had taken her whole life for lupus converged to cause the beginning of liver failure.

"I'm doing fantastic, just wonderful, and I'm already back home doing everything I did before my transplant," said the 63-year-old. "It's ironic that I would be the one in need after all of the years of talking about organ donation with patients or patient families. Even before I was a donor coordinator, I believed in organ donation. I signed up when I was in my early 20s. I'm beyond grateful to have received this gift now."

Normothermic preservation advantages

Although limited in terms of the duration of preservation, cold storage has the major advantages of simplicity, portability and affordability. However, with increased use of marginal organs in recent years because of the dearth of livers available, the limitations of static cold storage are a major factor influencing patient and graft survival rates.

The machine that houses the liver to preserve it prior to transplant is the first completely automated liver perfusion device of its kind. It works similar to a greenhouse, and is constructed from basic components that make up conventional cardiopulmonary bypass, including basic roller pumps, oxygenators and heat exchangers.

"This machine can really help in a number of ways," said Stephen Gray, M.D., liver transplant surgeon and director of UAB's Abdominal Transplant Fellowship. "The fact that the machine can perfuse the organ with oxygenated red blood cells at normal body temperaturejust as it would be inside the bodyand that we can observe it making bile before transplant is just an extraordinary feat, and a significant benefit to us as surgeons and our patients. With these normothermic machine-perfused livers, we can assess whether it is going to work before we transplant it into the patient, whereas we typically do not know if the liver will work until the transplant takes place."

This kind of advancement could mean livers can eventually be shipped from coast to coast in the United States, an impossibility for cold-stored livers. If that is the case, geography would not be as much of a hurdle to transplant those most in need. It also means surgeons would not have to operate overnight if a liver can be kept viable for up to 24 hours.

"You can use a liver for transplant that was placed in cold storage for up to 12 hours; but cooling the organ to ice temperature to slow down its metabolism does not stop it from deteriorating, usually within the first six to eight hours," Gray said. "And if the organ is damaged in some way, perhaps by being deprived of oxygen, the combined effect can be catastrophic for the organ. The perfused machine would allow us to extend the storage time and only enhance the viability of the liver."

Eckhoff added that preliminary evidence from clinical trials in Europe have shown organ preservation by normothermic machine perfusion is superior to static cold storage, a breakthrough that could be a major benefit to those with end-stage liver disease.

"If this is as successful as it appears it can be, it will be a significant benefit to those in need of liver transplantation," Eckhoff said. "About 60,000 patients die of liver disease annually in the United States, and many of them could theoretically have been treated with a liver transplant. This device has the potential to change that radically by enabling us to transplant many organs that are simply unusable with current techniques."

The clinical trial at UAB is expected to last 18 months.

For Wiggins, she is just happy to have a second chance at a healthy life.

"It's hard to describe how you feel about someone who makes the decision to give life to others after they are gone by choosing to be an organ donor," Wiggins said. "I had a cousin who died when he was 19, and his parents donated all of his organshis heart, kidneys, livereverything they could. He was a healthy young boy who helped save several lives. To have someone do the same for me is overwhelming. A tremendous blessing."

Explore further: Organ transplants, deceased donors set record in 2016

Organ transplants performed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and across the United States in 2016 reached record highs, according to preliminary data from UAB and the United Network for Organ Sharing.

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UAB performs Alabama's first transplant where cadaver liver is 'kept ... - Medical Xpress

Biomedical engineering Associate Professor Brenda Ogle (right) and Ph.Dstudent Molly Kupfer, with a mouse heart (Credit: Patrick OLeary, University of Minnesota)

One of the problems with heart attacks (as if there weren't enough already) is that when the heart heals afterwards, it grows scar tissue over the part of the heart that was damaged. That scar tissue never does become beating heart tissue, so it leaves the heart compromised for the rest of the patient's life. There may be hope, however, as scientists from the University of Minnesota have created a new patch that allows the heart to heal more completely.

First of all, yes, this has been done before. We have already seen experimental "heart patches" from places like the University of Tel Aviv, Brown University and MIT, which allow the heart to heal with a minimum of scar tissue growth.

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One of the things that makes this latest patch unique is the fact that it's 3D-bioprinted out of structural proteins native to the heart. It takes the form of a scaffolding-like matrix, which is subsequently seeded with cardiac cells derived from stem cells. The result is a patch of material, similar in structure and material to heart tissue, containing actual functioning heart cells as opposed to inert scar tissue.

In lab tests, one of the patches was placed on the heart of a mouse that had suffered a simulated heart attack. Within just four weeks, the scientists noted a "significant increase in functional capacity." The patch was ultimately absorbed by the body, so no additional surgeries were required to remove it after its job was done.

"We were quite surprised by how well it worked given the complexity of the heart," says associate professor Brenda Ogle, who is leading the research. "We were encouraged to see that the cells had aligned in the scaffold and showed a continuous wave of electrical signal that moved across the patch."

A larger patch is now in the works, which will be tested on a pig heart.

Other institutions involved in the study include the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Alabama-Birmingham. A paper on the research was recently published in the journal Circulation Research.

Source: University of Minnesota

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Heart-healing patch has got the beat - New Atlas

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3D-printed Patch Can Help Mend a 'Broken' Heart Technology Networks In this study, researchers from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Alabama-Birmingham used laser-based 3D-bioprinting techniques to incorporate stem cells derived from adult human heart cells on ...

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3D-printed Patch Can Help Mend a 'Broken' Heart - Technology Networks

Photo courtesy of the University of Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL A team of biomedical engineering researchers, led by the University of Minnesota, has created a revolutionary 3D-bioprinted patch that can help heal scarred heart tissue after a heart attack. The discovery is a major step forward in treating patients with tissue damage after a heart attack.

The research study was published Apr. 14 inCirculation Research, a journal published by the American Heart Association. Researchers have filed a patent on the discovery.

According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. killing more than 360,000 people a year. During a heart attack, a person loses blood flow to the heart muscle and that causes cells to die. Our bodies cant replace those heart muscle cells so the body forms scar tissue in that area of the heart, which puts the person at risk for compromised heart function and future heart failure.

In this study, researchers from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Alabama-Birmingham used laser-based 3D-bioprinting techniques to incorporate stem cells derived from adult human heart cells on a matrix that began to grow and beat synchronously in a dish in the lab.

Watch a video of the cells beating on the patch.

Video credit:College of Science and Engineering, UMN

When the cell patch was placed on a mouse following a simulated heart attack, the researchers saw significant increase in functional capacity after just four weeks. Since the patch was made from cells and structural proteins native to the heart, it became part of the heart and absorbed into the body, requiring no further surgeries.

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This is a significant step forward in treating the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S., said Brenda Ogle, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Minnesota. We feel that we could scale this up to repair hearts of larger animals and possibly even humans within the next several years.

A team of biomedical engineering researchers has created a revolutionary 3D-bioprinted patch that can help heal scarred heart tissue after a heart attack. Two of the researchers involved are biomedical engineering associate professor Brenda Ogle (right) and PhD student Molly Kupfer (left).Photo credit: Patrick OLeary, University of MinnesotaOgle said that this research is different from previous research in that the patch is modeled after a digital, three-dimensional scan of the structural proteins of native heart tissue. The digital model is made into a physical structure by 3D printing with proteins native to the heart and further integrating cardiac cell types derived from stem cells. Only with 3D printing of this type can we achieve one micron resolution needed to mimic structures of native heart tissue.

We were quite surprised by how well it worked given the complexity of the heart, Ogle said. We were encouraged to see that the cells had aligned in the scaffold and showed a continuous wave of electrical signal that moved across the patch.

Ogle said they are already beginning the next step to develop a larger patch that they would test on a pig heart, which is similar in size to a human heart.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, University of Minnesota Lillehei Heart Institute, and University of Minnesota Institute for Engineering in Medicine.

In addition to Ogle, other biomedical engineering researchers who were part of the team include Molly E. Kupfer, Jangwook P. Jung, Libang Yang, Patrick Zhang, and Brian T. Freeman from the University of Minnesota; Paul J. Campagnola, Yong Da Sie, Quyen Tran, and Visar Ajeti from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Jianyi Zhang, Ling Gao, and Vladimir G. Fast from the University of Alabama,

To read the full research paper entitled Myocardial Tissue Engineering With Cells Derived from Human Induced-Pluripotent Stem Cells and a Native-Like, High-Resolution, 3-Dimensionally Printed Scaffold, visit theCirculation Researchwebsite.

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3D-Printed Patch Can Help Mend a 'Broken' Heart | Lab Manager - Lab Manager | News (press release) (blog)

A team of biomedical engineering researchers, led by the University of Minnesota, has created a revolutionary 3D-bioprinted patch that can help heal scarred heart tissue after a heart attack. The discovery is a major step forward in treating patients with tissue damage after a heart attack.

The research study is published today in Circulation Research, a journal published by the American Heart Association. Researchers have filed a patent on the discovery.

According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. killing more than 360,000 people a year. During a heart attack, a person loses blood flow to the heart muscle and that causes cells to die. Our bodies cant replace those heart muscle cells so the body forms scar tissue in that area of the heart, which puts the person at risk for compromised heart function and future heart failure.

In this study, researchers from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Alabama-Birmingham used laser-based 3D-bioprinting techniques to incorporate stem cells derived from adult human heart cells on a matrix that began to grow and beat synchronously in a dish in the lab.

Watch a video of the cells beating on the patch.

When the cell patch was placed on a mouse following a simulated heart attack, the researchers saw significant increase in functional capacity after just four weeks. Since the patch was made from cells and structural proteins native to the heart, it became part of the heart and absorbed into the body, requiring no further surgeries.

This is a significant step forward in treating the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S., said Brenda Ogle, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Minnesota. We feel that we could scale this up to repair hearts of larger animals and possibly even humans within the next several years.

Ogle said that this research is different from previous research in that the patch is modeled after a digital, three-dimensional scan of the structural proteins of native heart tissue. The digital model is made into a physical structure by 3D printing with proteins native to the heart and further integrating cardiac cell types derived from stem cells. Only with 3D printing of this type can we achieve one micron resolution needed to mimic structures of native heart tissue.

We were quite surprised by how well it worked given the complexity of the heart, Ogle said. We were encouraged to see that the cells had aligned in the scaffold and showed a continuous wave of electrical signal that moved across the patch.

Ogle said they are already beginning the next step to develop a larger patch that they would test on a pig heart, which is similar in size to a human heart.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, University of Minnesota Lillehei Heart Institute, and University of Minnesota Institute for Engineering in Medicine.

In addition to Ogle, other biomedical engineering researchers who were part of the team include Molly E. Kupfer, Jangwook P. Jung, Libang Yang, Patrick Zhang, and Brian T. Freeman from the University of Minnesota; Paul J. Campagnola, Yong Da Sie, Quyen Tran, and Visar Ajeti from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Jianyi Zhang, Ling Gao, and Vladimir G. Fast from the University of Alabama,

To read the full research paper entitled Myocardial Tissue Engineering With Cells Derived from Human Induced-Pluripotent Stem Cells and a Native-Like, High-Resolution, 3-Dimensionally Printed Scaffold, visit the Circulation Research website.

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3D-printed patch can help mend a broken heart - UMN News

A stroke left him struggling to walk, but the former NFL quarterback has improved after stem cell treatments in Moscow, Kazakhstan and Mexico, plus regular workouts.

Former NFL quarterbacks Bart Starr, left, and John Brodie met last week in San Diego.(Photo: Brent Schrotenboer, USA TODAY Sports)

SAN DIEGO Wearing a sporty black Green Bay Packers polo shirt, Bart Starr got off of a private jet here last weekand walked into the California sunshine.

This was quite a feat. Starr, 82, had suffered two strokes and a heart attack in 2014, followed by a bronchial infection that nearly killed him in 2015 and then a broken hip that put him back in a wheelchair inDecember.

Just a few weeks ago, the legendary former Packers quarterback even underwent surgery to remove stones from his bladder.

Yet here he was again, on his feet and smiling after flying in for another round of experimental stem cell treatments 20 miles south of here, in Tijuana, Mexico.

Three times, Starr interjected when asked by USA TODAY Sports about his visits here since June 2015.

Were really looking for big things to happen with this visit because this is probably the healthiest Barts been in two years, said Cherry Starr, Barts wife.

Cherry Starr believes her husband has bounced back from his health setbacks with help from these treatments, the same kind of treatments received by two other famous stroke victims: hockey great Gordie Howe and former NFL MVP quarterback John Brodie.

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The treatments involve a combination of stem cells derived from donated bone marrow and fetal brain tissue. They are manufactured by a company in San Diego, Stemedica, but they are not approved for use in the USA.

To gain such approval, they first would have to pass years of expensive tests on their safety and effectiveness.

But Brodie, 81, Starr and Howe, who died in June, didnt believe they had time to wait. They also believed they had little to lose by going to Mexico, where the company has said its more cost-effective to have its products tested than in the USA. Stemedica ships the cells to a sleek, modern clinic in an old, run-down part of Tijuana, not far from various dental clinics and a taco restaurant.

When I first went down there, I didnt really know what to expect, Cherry Starr said Thursday after returning home to Alabama. I thought,`Oh my gosh, what are we getting into? when we were driving through town. But its a lovely, lovely facility.

Clinica Santa Clarita in Tijuana has had about 250 patients take part in its clinical trial over the past two years. Patients are often charged for these experimental treatments, which cost $30,000. Bart Starr also paid for his treatment, Cherry said.

His treatment involved an injection of fetal-derived neural cells into his spine last week, followed by an injection of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal cells into his arm the next day.

Afterward, Cherry Starr said everything went absolutely great but that it was too early to notice any possible effects. Bart Starr, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, can walk slowly and usually with help at his sides. His speech also is limited, but its still a big improvement from being wheelchair-bound and barely able to feed himself after his stroke two years ago.

Stem cells, wow! said Brodie, who greeted Starr here Tuesday and is a former rival of Starrs as quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers.

USA TODAY

After stem cell treatments, Bart Starr ready for triumphant return to Lambeau Field

American stem cell experts stress caution about such treatments, either in the USA or especially in other countries where safety and effectiveness standards might not be as strict. For example, its not known how much Starr, Brodie or Howe improved on their own through natural healing or physical therapy.

Larry Goldstein, a stem cell expert and professor at the University of California San Diego, said it takes at least five to 10 years to test whether such treatments really work. In the meantime, few stem cell treatments are approved for use in the USA, though many American clinics have been offering legally and scientifically questionable stem cell treatments derived from a patients own fat or bone marrow.

Stemedicas stem cells are different than these because they are derived from donors and are replicated in a lab. They are considered unapproved biological drugs in the USA.

There is definitely a wild west of clinics in the U.S. and outside the U.S. offering unproven treatments of stem cells, Goldstein told USA TODAY Sports in June.

USA TODAY

Brett Favre shares special moment with Bart Starr at Lambeau Field

Stemedica is working toward approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, including with a clinical trial in Toledo for traumatic brain injury patients. It involves bone marrow-derived cells and is part of the Gordie Howe Initiative, named after perhaps the most famous stem cell patient in America. Before his death at age 88, his family credited the Tijuana treatments with boosting the last year and a half of his life after his stroke.

On Aug. 29, a subsidiary of Stemedica announced that data from a separate, pre-clinical study showed that its bone marrow-derived stem cells improved heart function after heart attacks.

Weve always known that our stem cells exhibit unique qualities and characteristics, and were very proud of what people call the `anecdotal evidence coming from patient testimonials, said Dave McGuigan, Stemedicas vice president for marketing and business development. But now that we can give the academic and scientific community statistical evidence to go alongside the anecdotal meaningful evidence, that can only help add to the Stemedica story.

Follow sports reporter Brent Schrotenboer on Twitter@Schrotenboer. E-mail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com

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Bart Starr returns to Tijuana for stem cells - USA Today

Newswise LOS ANGELES (April 4, 2017) - Two prominent Cedars-Sinai investigators one leading the development of biological treatments for heart disease, the other spearheading the design and analysis of clinical trials for cancer research were inducted April 3 into the Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars.

Eduardo Marbn, MD, PhD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, and Steven Piantadosi, MD, PhD, director of the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai, are among a select group of medical researchers to receive the honor.

Created in 1967, the society the first of its kind in the U.S. inducts former Johns Hopkins postdoctoral fellows, postdoctoral students and faculty members who have gained marked distinction in their respective fields. Members of the society include several Nobel laureates and Lasker Award winners.

Marbn and Piantadosi both led distinguished careers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine before joining the Cedars-Sinai faculty a decade ago. Shlomo Melmed, Cedars-Sinai executive vice president of Academic Affairs and dean of the medical faculty, said the honor was well-deserved.

Dr. Marbn has earned this prestigious honor for developing investigational stem cell and gene therapies for heart disease patients. His pioneering work has raised the hope that several irreversible conditions, such as heart failure, may actually be reversible, at least in part, Melmed said. Melmed added: Dr. Piantadosi has rightly been recognized with this high honor because of his incisive leadership in developing statistical design and analysis models of complex human investigations. His scholarly contributions have enriched discovery in multiple disease areas.

Before joining Cedars-Sinai, Marbn completed his medical residency and a fellowship in cardiology at Johns Hopkins, located in Baltimore. He then joined the Johns Hopkins faculty and eventually served as chief of Cardiology there.

He moved to Cedars-Sinai in 2007. Two years later, a team led by Marbn completed the worlds first cardiac stem cell infusion. Results from that clinical trial, published in The Lancet in 2012, showed the therapy resulted in a medical first: a stem cell infusion regenerated healthy heart muscle in a heart damaged by a heart attack.

Since then, Marbns research has led to several other clinical trials testing cardiosphere-derived stem cells (CDCs), targeting various types of heart disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and pulmonary arterial hypertension. Marbn also is pioneering a gene therapy project to create biological pacemakers as alternatives to electronic devices. Marbn served 10 years as editor-in-chief of Circulation Research and has been awarded numerous honors, including the Basic Research Prize of the American Heart Association.

Support for Marbns laboratory is provided by the National Institutes of Health, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the U.S. Department of Defense. The stem cells used in his research are manufactured by Capricor Inc. (NASDAQ: CAPR) as their product CAP-1002 and have been used in numerous human clinical trials.

The process to grow cardiac-derived stem cells was developed by Marbn when he was on the faculty of Johns Hopkins and further developed at Cedars-Sinai. Capricor has licensed the process from Johns Hopkins and from Cedars-Sinai for clinical and commercial development. Capricor has licensed additional intellectual property from Cedars-Sinai and the University of Rome. Cedars-Sinai and Marbn have financial interests in Capricor.

Piantadosi is one of the worlds leading experts in the design and analysis of clinical trials for cancer research. Prior to assuming the directorship of the cancer institute, Piantadosi was a professor of Oncology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of Biostatistics at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. He earned his medical degree from the University of North Carolina and doctorate in biomathematics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He was a senior staff fellow at the National Cancer Institute.

Piantadosi has advised dozens of academic programs and collaborations nationally regarding clinical trial design and conduct, and has served on external advisory boards for the National Institutes of Health and other prominent cancer programs and centers. He also has served on numerous Food and Drug Administration panels that decided approvals of new drugs, and on a Cancer Moonshot working group on clinical trials.

The investigator is the author of more than 260 peer-reviewed scientific articles, and has published extensively on research results, clinical applications and trial methodology. He also authored Clinical Trials: A Methodologic Perspective, which is widely considered a classic textbook for clinical trials. His collaborations expand to disciplines outside cancer, including lung disease and degenerative neurological disease. He has taught clinical trials extensively in the classroom and national workshop venues for young investigators.

Piantadosi, a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine health policy forum, currently leads Cedars-Sinais programs in cancer research, treatment and education, enhances academic activities related to cancer and brings together physicians and researchers for innovative collaborations.

Outside of the medical center, Piantadosi hand crafts violins, a skill he honed over several summers at the Violin Craftsmanship Institute at the University of New Hampshire, where he was instructed by the renowned German violin maker Karl Roy. The Public Library of Science recently published Piantadosis paper, Three-Dimensional Mathematical Modeling of Violin Plate Surfaces: An Approach Based on an Ensemble of Contour Lines.

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Pioneering Investigators in Experimental Heart Stem Cell and ... - Newswise (press release)

GLENS FALLS It was on the back porch of Annies Baltimore group home that she, while pausing from pulling in the inhaled vapors of a Pall Mall, recited without announcement or ceremony the Gettysburg Address.

And it was in this moment that Michael Mack made sense of it all. Made sense of his mothers life. Made sense of her years of living with schizophrenia, her electroshock therapy, her lengthy hospitalizations, her arrests, her time living on the streets.

I was stunned by it, he said in a phone interview Thursday from his Cambridge, Massachusetts home. It was a testimony to her life. When I think of all of the others who had mental illness, these people have not died in vain.

Mack, an award-winning poet, playwright and actor, now weaves the Gettysburg Address into his poems, his full-length play about how his family waded through life with his mothers mental illness and her eventual recovery.

In his poem, Heart, Mack writes, At the words from these honored dead we take increased devotion I imagined the tens of thousands of mental patients before her who died locked up, forgotten, nameless, these words her call to the unfinished work of finding in their memory a purpose that these dead shall not have died in vain. She closed her textbook circuit road trip of the Gettysburg Address with a drag on her cigarette.

On April 8, Mack will join other writers, poets, artists and musicians for an evening of sharing at the Charles R. Wood Theater for the Come As You Are performance. Through staged readings and songs by area and national writers and musicians, affected in some way by mental illness, the audience gets a first-hand glimpse of how mental illness winds into and around our lives.

And organizers hope the performance begins to dispel the myths and stigma associated with mental illness.

Featured cast members include Mack and Marya Hornbacher, an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, and Pulitzer-nominee for her book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia.

Organizer and director Logan Beth Fisher, who has experienced mental illness in her family and she herself has struggled with clinical depression, said this years theme is Embrace.

Doing these shows is a way to do something, to feel a little less helpless. This is my way to contribute of doing something to make the taboo less, she said. When you share stories, there is an inspiration (for people to know,) I am not alone.

We hope people will understand and realize that people with mental illness are your neighbors, co-workers. They are really successful human beings, she said in an interview on Wednesday. It doesnt have to be taboo. One in five people this year will experience some kind of mental illness.

The proceeds from the show will support the services of the Warren-Washington Association for Mental Health. They do such incredible work, Fisher said.

WWAMH serves thousands of individuals in the area. There are 12,000 visits to our outpatient clinic in Hudson Falls, said Nicole Casey, human resources director and community relations manager of WWAMH. Part of our mission is to talk about mental illness in the community. We are hoping the public embraces this event and it puts mental illness on the map.

The brain, with its 100 billion neurons, 900 billion glial cells, 100 trillion branches and 1,000 trillion receptors, reacts to stimuli in a series of electrical bursts, spanning a complex map of connections.

And these synaptic connections fire in ways that are not always easy to explain and in ways that scientists are starting to understand as they study what makes us do what we do.

We study the synaptic connections in brains and our goal is to understand electrical activity during behavior. But understanding the brain is not the same as understanding the heart, we know that is a pump, said Linda Overstreet-Wadiche, an associate professor at the University of Alabama School of Medicine, Department of Neurobiology, who studies learning, memory and synaptic plasticity. We havent been that successful because we dont understand how the electrical activity and synapses between neurons work.

In a study published in February, Overstreet-Wadiche and fellow scientists reported that stem cells in the hippocampus the part of the brain where memories are made make newborn neurons.

These newborn neurons can make new memories, and change older memories which can be altered or disappear.

While this science is still very new and evolving, Overstreet-Wadiche said it has been known for some time that our brain maps can be altered. And contrary to those who believe that we cannot change our brains, we can.

To simplify: We have a comfortable rut worn in our brain that we travel each day. And even if the behaviors tied to this rut are not healthy, we keep doing them because it is familiar.

The good news is, because our brains are malleable, we can alter these ruts or paths to create new ones.

And the same is true for people with mental illness; new roads can be formed.

Nonetheless, forging a new way of doing things is often painful and uncomfortable, but recovery can happen.

Connections are changing and new connections are being made, said Overstreet-Wadiche.

Come As You Are director Fisher said that her awareness came about through 20 years of therapy. And in a Wednesday afternoon interview just after her Big Cross Street School fourth-graders left for the day, Fisher discusses her own journey.

For me, its the unraveling of what was dysfunctional and learning new strategies to survive. The road is painful to let go for me it was managing the black, she said. I am a living example of that constant hard work.

Mack was a little boy when his mother was first diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Her presence was so big in our family, each of us struggled with the effects of growing up with that chaos, he said. And Mama herself endured more than any of us. She spent a lot of time in state hospitals, in jail. She was on the streets, at halfway houses.

And while Mack admits it was very sad to see her in these situations, he said things started to change for her, and the 1990s is when the family marks her recovery.

The way he explained it, two group homes she stayed in helped.

But one in particular, that focused on the aspect of community and doing things together, really helped his mother thrive. Everyone helped out with chores, they had a say in how things were done and my Mom flourished, he said. They cared for her and about her my message is about recovery, about the reality of recovery.

A few years ago, Fisher performed as a cast member in Listen to Your Mother on Broadway, and in 2015 she was invited to co-direct This is My Brave in Boston.

Representatives from the area WWAMH saw her Boston show and asked her if she would bring it to this community, and last year the show at the Wood Theater sold out, she said.

For the 2017 performance, after inviting several nationally known cast members, Fisher held auditions for the local cast at Crandall Public Library. We had 21 audition and we chose five, she said, adding that for those who did not make it, they will use excerpts and quotes from the essays not chosen as part of the evening event.

Fisher said the show has some very funny and memorable moments. Anna Rose Johnson her essay is in list form, and it is so funny, she said. Last night at rehearsal, it is brilliant, its not to be missed.

I wanted to add outside elements to keep the audience entertained, she said.

Mack said he does not charge for his performance for this event because of the important work being done.

Overcoming the stigma is part of the great work they are doing, he said about the April show.

Casey, of WWAMH, said people often look at mental illness negatively. The more the conversation opens up and these community members are so brave, facing people they know (for the performance), she said. Logan (Beth Fisher) is the creative mind behind it. Were so grateful.

In trying to explain the stigma, Casey said it is not like a broken arm. A mental illness is often invisible. And because it is invisible, it is hard for people to understand that it is real.

People are often afraid to talk about it, she said. Our work is to help people be part of the community.

Fisher hopes the April show will open minds and hearts.

Find out someones story before you make a judgment with a diagnostic twist, Fisher said. This kind of show shows you this is what mental illness looks like.

See more here:
The mystique of the invisible: Understanding mental illness - Glens Falls Post-Star

Equities Research Analysts updated eps estimates for Monday, March 20th:

Aimmune Therapeutics (NASDAQ:AIMT) was downgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a hold rating to a sell rating. According to Zacks, Aimmune Therapeutics, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company which is engaged in the development of desensitization treatments for peanut and other food allergies. The Companys characterized oral desensitization immunotherapy includes AR101, a product for the treatment of peanut allergy in children and adults which is in clinical trial stage. Aimmune Therapeutics, Inc. is headquartered in Brisbane, California.

American Midstream Partners (NYSE:AMID) was upgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a sell rating to a hold rating. According to Zacks, American Midstream Partners, LP owns, operates, develops and acquire a diversified portfolio of natural gas midstream energy assets. The Company is engaged in the business of gathering, treating, processing and transporting natural gas through its ownership and operation of gathering systems, processing facilities and pipelines. Its primary assets, which are located in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas, provide infrastructure that links producers and suppliers of natural gas to diverse natural gas markets, including various pipelines, as well as utility, industrial and other commercial customers. American Midstream Partners, LP is based in Denver, Colorado.

Aurinia Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AUPH) (TSE:AUP) was upgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a sell rating to a hold rating. According to Zacks, Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc. is a late stage biopharmaceutical company. It focuses on the development of therapeutic immunomodulating drug candidate. The companys lead drug includes Voclosporin for the treatment of lupus nephritis. Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc. is headquartered in Victoria, Canada.

American Vanguard Corp. (NYSE:AVD) was upgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a sell rating to a hold rating. According to Zacks, AMERICAN VANGUARD CORP. is a holding company, which through its subsidiaries, is engaged in the manufacturer and formulation of chemicals for crops, human and animal health protection. These chemicals which include insecticides, fungicides, molluscicides, growth regulatorsain, and soil fumigants, are marketed in liquid, powder, and granular forms.

Beadell Resources (NASDAQ:BDREF) was downgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a hold rating to a sell rating. According to Zacks, Beadell Resources Limited is a gold producer. It owns and operates the Tucano gold mine primarily in Brazil. Beadell Resources Limited is based in West Perth, Australia.

Bio-Path Holdings (NASDAQ:BPTH) was upgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a hold rating to a buy rating. Zacks Investment Research currently has $0.75 target price on the stock. According to Zacks, BIO-PATH is developing leading-edge, patented, liposomal drug delivery systems, with two clinical cancer drug candidates ready for the clinic and a third siRNA cancer drug undergoing final pre-clinical development. Bio-Paths drug delivery technology distributes nucleic acid drugs systemically, throughout the human body, via simple intravenous infusion. The delivery technology can be applied both to double stranded and single stranded nucleic acid compounds with the potential to revolutionize the treatment of cancer and other diseases where drugable targets of disease are well characterized.

COBHAM (NASDAQ:CBHMY) was downgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a hold rating to a sell rating. According to Zacks, Cobham Plc is engaged in designing and manufacturing equipment as well as components for defence and security, aerospace, space, marine and electronic industries. It primarily operates through segments which include Communications and Connectivity, Advanced Electronic Solutions, Mission Systems and Aviation Services. The Communications and Connectivity segment provides communication equipment, law enforcement and national security solutions and satellite communication equipment for land, sea and air applications. The Advanced Electronic Solutions segment provides technology and solutions for intelligence operations and systems to communicate on land, sea and air. The Mission Systems segment provides safety and survival systems for environments, weapons carriage and equipment for fast jets, transport aircraft, rotor craft, remote controlled robots and bomb disposal vehicles for military application. The Aviation Services segment provides outsourced aviation services for military and civil customers as well as

CBL & Associates Properties (NYSE:CBL) was upgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a sell rating to a hold rating. According to Zacks, CBL & Associates Properties, Inc. is a fully integrated real estate investment trust which owns, develops, acquires, leases, manages, and operates regional shopping malls, open-air centers, community centers and office properties. The Company conducts substantially all of its business through its operating partnership. It owns two qualified REIT subsidiaries: CBL Holdings I, Inc. and CBL Holdings II, Inc. CBL & Associates Properties is headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Carnival Corp (NYSE:CCL) was upgraded by analysts at William Blair from a market perform rating to an outperform rating.

China Unicom (Hong Kong) Limited (NYSE:CHU) was upgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a strong sell rating to a buy rating. The firm currently has $15.00 price target on the stock. According to Zacks, China Unicom Limited is engaged in the provision of cellular, paging, long distance, data and internet services in the Peoples Repulic of China.

Catalyst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:CPRX) had its buy rating reaffirmed by analysts at HC Wainwright. The firm currently has a $6.00 target price on the stock.

Carrefour Sa Spon (NASDAQ:CRRFY) was upgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a sell rating to a hold rating. According to Zacks, Carrefour S.A. operates hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores and cash and carry stores in Europe, the Americas and Asia. Carrefour S.A. is headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France.

Cytori Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CYTX) was downgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a hold rating to a sell rating. According to Zacks, Cytori Therapeutics, Inc. is discovering and developing proprietary cell-based therapeutics utilizing adult stem and regenerative cells derived from adipose tissue, also known as fat. The Companys preclinical investigational therapies target cardiovascular disease, spine and orthopedic conditions, gastrointestinal disorders, and new approaches for aesthetic and reconstructive surgery. To facilitate processing and delivery of adipose stem and regenerative cells, Cytori has developed its proprietary Celution System to isolate and concentrate a patients own stem and regenerative cells in about an hour. This system will dramatically improve the speed in which personalized cell-based therapies can be delivered to patients.

Countrywide (NASDAQ:CYWDF) was downgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a hold rating to a sell rating. According to Zacks, Countrywide plc provides property services which includes estate agency and lettings network. The companys business unit consists of Retail, London, B2B and Financial Services. Countrywide plc is headquartered in Milton Keynes, the United Kingdom.

Tableau Software (NYSE:DATA) had its buy rating reiterated by analysts at Rosenblatt Securities. Rosenblatt Securities currently has a $70.00 price target on the stock.

Evoke Pharma (NASDAQ:EVOK) was downgraded by analysts at Zacks Investment Research from a hold rating to a sell rating. According to Zacks, Evoke Pharma, Inc. is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused primarily on the development of drugs to treat gastrointestinal disorders and diseases. The Companys lead product candidate, EVK-001, is in late stage clinical testing which is intended for the treatment of diabetic gastroparesis. Evoke Pharma, Inc. is based in San Diego, California.

POWERSHARES GLBAL FUNDS IRELAND PLC POWERSHARES EQQQ NASDAQ-100 UCITS ETF (NASDAQ:IRELAND) was upgraded by analysts at Wells Fargo & Co from a market perform rating to an outperform rating.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) had its overweight rating reaffirmed by analysts at Barclays PLC. The firm currently has a $100.00 target price on the stock.

Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) had its outperform rating reiterated by analysts at Wells Fargo & Co. Wells Fargo & Co currently has a $65.00 target price on the stock.

Steel Dynamics (NASDAQ:STLD) had its neutral rating reiterated by analysts at Macquarie.

See the original post:
The Equities Research Analysts' Updated EPS Estimates for March, 20th (AIMT, AMID, AUPH, AVD, BDREF, BPTH ... - Petro Global News 24

How far should scientists be allowed to go in creating things that resemble primitive human brains, hearts, and even human embryos?

That's the question being asked by a group of Harvard scientists who are doing exactly that in their labs. They're using stem cells, genetics and other new biological engineering techniques to create tissues, primitive organs and other living structures that mimic parts of the human body.

Their concern is that they and others doing this type of "synthetic biology" research might be treading into disturbing territory.

"We don't know where this going to go," says John Aach, a lecturer in genetics at Harvard Medical School. "This is just the beginning of this field."

Aach helped write a paper in the journal eLife, published Tuesday, calling for an international effort to establish guidelines for this provocative area of research.

While all this may sound like something out of Frankenstein, the goal is to find new ways to decipher the mysteries of human biology and to discover novel treatments for health problems ranging from infertility to aging.

"We want to understand biology of natural human development and disease and come up with ways of addressing the problems of disease," Aach says. "The more precisely you can make something that is like a tissue or a system of tissues in a dish, the easier it is to experiment on it."

But in the process of conducting their experiments, Aach and his lab colleagues realized scientists might cross disturbing ethical lines.

For example, scientists could create primitive beating hearts and primordial brains.

"How much moral concern should we have for these things? If it has a brain that doesn't look like a human brain, but it operates like one, it could still feel pain," Aach says.

Some scientists have already started creating entities that resemble the very early stages of human embryos. Scientists use different names to describe them. They're sometimes called "embryoids," but Aach's group has dubbed them "SHEEFs" synthetic human entities with embryo-like features.

In some of these experiments, researchers have seen early signs of the formation of the "primitive streak," which is the beginning of a central nervous system and, potentially, the ability to sense pain.

That work raises the prospect that the experiments might violate the 14-day rule, which has been in place for decades to avoid raising too many ethical concerns about experimenting on human embryos. Two weeks into embryonic development is usually when the primitive streak begins to appear.

But Aach and his colleagues argue that the 14-day rule, which is a guideline in the United States and law in some other countries, has become outdated by this latest generation of experiments.

It's based on the predictable, linear development of a normal human embryo. But the new synthetic biology techniques do not necessarily follow that road map.

"The primitive streak was like a stop sign," Aach says. "If you stopped there you would never get a brain. You would never get a heart. You would never get something that would be morally concerning."

"But now with these tissue engineering and stem cell techniques you can simply go around that," Aach says. "You could create something at a point beyond that. It might become sentient."

It's also possible that some day these embryoids could become so much like a normal human embryo that they could actually be used to create a baby.

So, in essence, "you've gone off-road," Aach says. "With these synthetic tissues there's no longer one highway of development. A stop sign is no longer good enough."

The ethical concerns are not just limited to structures that resemble embryos, Aach says.

As a result, he and the co-authors of the report say new guidelines are needed to replace that clear stop sign with something that's more like a guardrail or fence that will keep scientists from inadvertently steering into ethically troubling terrain.

"What we're proposing is, instead of doing stop signs, we get these perimeter fences where there's an agreement that there's an area of concern," Aach says.

For example, scientists, philosophers, bioethicists and others may reach a consensus that "we can't make a brain that will allow it to feel pain" or "we can't make something like a heart but we can make up to it," Aach says, "as long as it doesn't start beating."

Others scientists praised the researchers for raising these tough issues early.

"I absolutely support this," Magdelena Zernicka-Goetz tells Shots in an email; she is doing similar research at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. "The time is right to begin discussion of these issues in a forum that includes scientists and has a wide representation of society," Zernicka-Goetz says.

Some bioethicists also welcomed a debate about these issues.

"I really have to give them credit for raises these issues proactively," says Insoo Hyun, a Case Western Reserve University bioethicist. "Our current standards for oversight and ethics are not adequate to capture this new area of science."

But it could be difficult to draw the line in some cases, Hyun notes, such as in experiments aimed at developing treatments for pain or those aiming to understanding the heart better.

"Those types of experiments may be exactly the point of why you'd want to create a synthetic entity that does have some kind of pain sensation, or that has some sort of neural network, or has some sort of heart beat, if that's actually the body system you want to study," Hyun says.

And, he says, there may be some experiments people find disturbing on a visceral level.

"Some people may just find that the experiments are just kind of creepy," Hyun says. "There may be some people concerned about scientists taking the research too far, creating entities in the dish that are quasi-human and [that they] de-value life in the process."

Ali Brivanlou, an embryologist at the Rockefeller University who is conducting some of the most advanced work in this area, also says he welcomes a debate. But worried about putting too many limitations on the research.

"We have to dive into this carefully, but I think we really need to move forward," he tells Shots. "I think it's important that we don't somehow let religion or political conviction be a guiding force in this argument. The truth has to come from science."

Originally posted here:
Harvard Scientists Call For Better Rules To Guide Research On 'Embryoids' - Alabama Public Radio