Category Archives: Stem Cells

Economic regeneration is the name of the game for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and cellular regeneration is one way to play it.

The government is pushing through bills to fast-track regulatory approval for cell-based products and set new research guidelines. Its also funding a $1.12 billion study of a type of stem cell free from ethical concerns over embryo harvesting that have dogged the science for more than a decade.

Abe aims to cement Japans leadership in a field of research that last year garnered the nations first Nobel Prize for medicine in a quarter of a century. Not only academic bragging rights are at stake: the government wants new industries to wean the worlds third-biggest economy from its dependence on autos and estimates stem cells potential to rejuvenate worn-out body parts or reverse degenerative diseases such as Alzheimers may yield $380 billion in sales by 2050.

Lawmakers will debate legislation as early as this month to make the approval process for cell therapies faster than in the U.S. and U.K. That marks a sea-change from the kind of conservative regime that held back Japanese scientists from research into cells derived from human embryos, said Alan Colman, executive director at Singapore Stem Cell Consortium.

They dont want to repeat that for the innovation Japan was totally responsible for, said Coleman, who helped pioneer cloning techniques that created Dolly the sheep in 1996. They are trying to reinvent themselves and show themselves to be progressive and sensible and not inhibitory.

Investor optimism at the prospects for Japans cell technology can be seen in some stocks. Japan Tissue Engineering Co. (7774), which makes cultured cartilage and skin tissue, has soared more than five-fold this year. ReproCell Inc. (4978), the first company licensed to make iPS cells, is almost three times higher than its initial public offering price in June.

In July, the Health Ministry gave the go-ahead for the worlds first clinical trial on humans with stem cells made using the Nobel Prize-winning technique of Shinya Yamanaka.

In an embryos early stages, stem cells are pluripotent, meaning they can become any type of tissue in the body. As the embryo develops, they begin to specialize, or differentiate, into building blocks for the bodys different structures.

Yamanaka showed how these later-stage cells in mice can be reprogrammed into what are termed induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells.

While New York-based Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and Advanced Cell Technology Inc. (ACTC) of Marlborough, Massachusetts, are already conducting trials on humans, these use cells harvested from embryos. As well as sidestepping ethical issues this raises, the Japanese technique reduces risks that immune systems will reject implanted cells because they are taken from patients own bodies.

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Abe Funds Stem Cells to Help Cure Japan Wasting Disease

LA JOLLA Richard A. Lerner made his scientific reputation by unraveling novel characteristics and uses of antibodies, helping invent new tools in the process. Upon stepping down as president of The Scripps Research Institute at the beginning of 2012, Lerner didn't walk out the building with a golden test tube or petri dish. The self-proclaimed lab rat continued his work on his great scientific love, and has contributed to a remarkable series of papers of antibodies establishing their virtuosity in various cellular processes.

Among the Lerner team's findings this year alone: Antibodies can convert bone marrow stem cells directly into neural progenitor cells; and they can mimic the effects of different chemicals such as the blood-clotting hormone thrombopoietin, or TPO.

The latest finding, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is that antibodies can convert stem cells into dendritic cells. These dendritic cells are immune system cells process fragments of protein that aren't part of the body and present them to other immune cells, so they recognize it as foreign.

The paper was published on Aug. 26, two days before Lerner's 75th birthday. Lerner was senior author on this paper, as he was on the first two. Kyungmoo Yea of the Scripps Korea Antibody Institute was first author.

Antibodies are best known for their infection-fighting role -- the body makes them in astronomical configurations, some of which by chance will bind to a molecular target. Lerner's work demonstrates that this conception grossly underestimates the versatility of antibodies.

Earlier in his career, Lerner helped develop methods of generating large libraries of antibodies, which could then be screened for utility. His work led to the discovery of Humira, which treats autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.

Humira blocks TNF from binding to receptors, thus inhibiting inflammation associated with some autoimmune diseases. But antibodies are more than just antagonists that block receptor activity, they are also agonists that turn on receptors. That's what the paper about the TPO agonist showed.

In the new paper, Lerner, Yea and colleagues extend this principle to describe a method for finding antibodies that act ac agonists to control stem cell fate, or what mature form a stem cell will ultimately take. The team inserted "libraries" of antibody genes into TF-1 erythroblasts using lentiviruses, which incorporate their genes into the genome of the host cell. The cells then express the antibody genes, and produce a range of antibodies, which have varied effects on the cells.

As the paper described the method, "each cell becomes a selection system unto itself." As for what to select, in this study, it was shape.

These cells were grown in colonies in soft agar, and their structures observed. Those with interesting shapes different from control cells were examined, and their antibody genes extracted. They then chose three antibodies for further study because they came from colonies with the most interesting shapes. The choice was arbitrary.

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Antibodies turn stem cells into immune cells

Ear, eye, liver, windpipe, bladder, and even a heart. The list of body parts grown from stem cells is getting longer and longer. Now add to it one of the most complex organs: the brain.

A team of European scientists has grown parts of a human brain in tissue culture from stem cells. Their work could help scientists understand the origins of schizophrenia or autism and lead to drugs to treat them, said Juergen Knoblich, deputy scientific director at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Science and one of the paper's co-authors.

The advance could also eliminate the need for conducting experiments on animals, whose brains are not a perfect model for humans.

To grow the brain structures, called organoids, the scientists used stem cells, which can develop into any other kind of cell in the body. They put the stem cells into a special solution designed to promote the growth of neural cells. Bits of gel interspersed throughout the solution gave the cells a three-dimensional structure to grown upon. In eight to ten days the stem cells turned into brain cells. After 20 days to a month, the cells matured into a size between three and four millimeters, representing specific brain regions, such as the cortex and the hindbrain.

Growing brain tissue this way marks a major advancement because the lab-grown brain cells self-organized, and took on growth patterns seen in a developing, fetal brain.

Currently, the organoids are limited to how big they can get because they do not have a circulatory system to move around nutrients.

Knoblich's team didn't stop of growing the brain organoids, though. They went a step further and used the developing tissue to study microcephaly, a condition in which the brain stops growing. Microcephalic patients are born with smaller brains, and impaired cognitive development. Studying microcephaly in mice doesn't help because human and mouse brains are too different.

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Tiny Brain Parts Teased from Stem Cells

MIAMI -

Each year, 700,000 people suffer a stroke in the United States. Until now, the only recovery for paralysis brought on by the stroke was lengthy rehabilitation.

Now, a new stem cell therapy is helping stroke patients move again.

James Anderson is a triathlete and physical education teacher who was visiting Florida from Maine when suddenly, "I started to feel a little dizzy a little tingling in my right hand and ah I ended up having a stroke," he said.

Anderson did not respond to clot-busting medication or blockage treatments. So, he became paralyzed on the left side of his body.

Dr. Dileep R. Yavatal, a neurologist, treated him as part of a clinical trial in which some of the patients were treated with their own stem cells.

While Anderson doesnt know if he was injected with his own stem cells, two months after treatment, Anderson said, "I have had more movement and strength in my legs."

For the clinical trial, stem cells must be injected into the brain no later than two weeks after the stroke occurs.

Anderson is now able to move around with a walker during rehab and hopes to be able to compete in a triathlon again.

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Health Beat: Stem cells and stroke

Sep. 1, 2013 Stem cell therapy used to regenerate injured tissue in the heart restores synchronous pumping, shows research published today [1 September] in The Journal of Physiology. The study proposes a novel strategy of 'biological resynchronisation' in which stem cells repair heart muscle damage to reestablish correct cardiac motion.

Heart attacks limit local oxygen, which can kill areas of cardiac tissue -- called 'infarcted' areas -- and also leave scarring. This damage leads to a lack of synchrony in the heart beat motion.

Current therapies use pacing devices, but these require healthy tissue for optimal outcome, meaning a third of patients do not respond well to this treatment. However, this new approach discovered by a team at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, USA overcomes this limitation as stem cells actually form functional cardiac tissue and reconstruct heart muscle.

Professor Andre Terzic, who led the study, explains the importance of this potential new therapy: "Heart chambers must beat in synchrony to ensure proper pumping performance. Damage to the heart can generate inconsistent wall motion, leading to life-threatening organ failure.

"The heart is vulnerable to injury due to a limited capacity for self-repair. Current therapies are unable to repair damaged cardiac tissue. This proof-of-principle study provides evidence that a stem cell-based regenerative intervention may prove effective in synchronizing failing hearts, extending the reach of currently available therapies."

Doctor Satsuki Yamada, first author of the study, further explains how the research was carried out:

"Stem cells, with a capacity of generating new heart muscle, were engineered from ordinary tissue. These engineered stem cells were injected into damaged hearts of mice. The impact on cardiac resynchronization was documented using high-resolution imaging."

The observed benefit, in the absence of adverse effects, will need to be validated in additional pre-clinical studies prior to clinical translation.

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Harmonizing a broken heart: Stem cells keep cardiac beat in synchrony