CHAPEL HILL Kathy DeClue loves her youngest brother Don Hammed for many reasons. These days, Dons selflessness is at the top of her list.

Don donated the stem cells I received during my transplant, said Kathy, 57, of Trinity, in Randolph County. It was a favor I never thought Id have to ask for. But I would have done the same for him if he needed me to.

Kathy needed the stem cell transplant to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), a cancer of the blood cells. For some CLL patients, the disease progresses slowly and they may never need treatment. For others, like Kathy, the disease was on fast-forward and required aggressive medical attention.

From the start, we knew that the CLL was behaving like a high-risk disease and was resistant to just about all the therapies we have, said James M. Coghill, MD, assistant professor of hematology and oncology at the UNC School of Medicine, a member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the leader of Kathys health care team.

The stem cell transplant on April 25 was the best option for trying to get her disease under control, and Kathy had the luxury of three siblings who were a perfect match to donate stem cells. Shes had a supportive family every step of the way. Im sure they would be willing to donate bone marrow again if she needed it.

Besides Don, 46, of Kernersville, N.C., brother Butch Hammed, 56, and sister Rose Tucker, 60, both of Roanoke, Va., were perfect matches. Having multiple matches is unusual as most patients, at best, have a one-in-four chance of getting a perfect match, Dr. Coghill said.

Don got the nod because he was young, healthy and had never been pregnant, Dr. Coghill said. Generally, we try to go with males as donors because female donors who have been pregnant develop antibodies that can increase the chances of graft vs. host disease or rejection.

Rose, the mother of three children, jumped, cried and screamed when she found out she was a perfect match for her sister and her best friend.

I wanted to be a match and her donor so bad, and I was really disappointed when they went with Don, Rose said. They told me Id have enough to do as her caregiver, and as it turned out, I did.

Rose, who was laid off from her child day care job last year, came to Chapel Hill and tended to Kathys every need during the preparations for the transplant and the 100 days post-transplant that Kathy was required to stay at SECU Family House.

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Family ties: Trinity woman with leukemia receives stem cells from brother

COULD we stem the tide of ageing by delaying the deterioration of stem cells? A new compound that appears to do just that could help us find ways to protect our organs from age-related wear and tear, experiments in mice suggest.

As we age, so do our mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs): their numbers in our bone marrow decline, and those that are left lose the ability to differentiate into the distinct cell types - such as bone, cartilage, fat and possibly muscle cells - that help in the healing process.

"We think this ageing of stem cells may be linked to the onset of some age-related disorders, such as osteoporosis," says Ilaria Bellantuono at the University of Sheffield in the UK.

Earlier research in mice had suggested that the prion protein expressed by MSCs might play a role in holding back stem cell ageing. Mice lacking the prion protein were less able to regenerate blood cells. The study provided more evidence that correctly folded prions serve a useful purpose in the body, despite the role that misfolded prions play in BSE and vCJD.

Bellantuono and her colleagues have now found that the prion protein performs a similar function in humans - older MSCs from human bone marrow expressed less of the protein than younger ones.

In a bid to find a compound that might slow MSC ageing, the team tested numerous molecules known to target prion proteins on dishes of human stem cells. One molecule emerged as a potential candidate - stem cells treated with it produced 300 times the number of cells over 250 days than untreated stem cells. The treated cells kept on dividing for longer.

The team then injected treated cells into the thigh bones of mice, and three days later found that they had produced three times as many new cells as they would normally produce. After five weeks, there were 10 times as many cells.

The new cells appeared to be of higher quality, too, and readily differentiated into bone and fat cells, as well as those that support the tissue and blood vessels.

Bellantuono's team think the molecule works by helping the prions protect the stem cells from the DNA damage associated with normal ageing. When they exposed both treated and untreated cells to hydrogen peroxide - a compound known to cause DNA damage - they found that the treated cells were protected from damage (Stem Cells, DOI: 10.1002/stem.1065).

"You can delay the loss of stem cells' function by manipulating the prion protein," says Bellantuono, who presented the findings at the Aging Online Symposium last month. "In the long term, you may go a long way to maintaining tissue health in [old] age."

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Protecting prion protein keeps stem cells young

Researchers at Kings College London have developed the first artificial functioning blood vessel outside of the body, according to a release from the college. The vessels are made from reprogrammed stem cells from human skin. The team also saw the cells develop into a blood vessel inside the body for the first time.

The hope is that this new technique will eventually lead to a treatment for patients with heart disease. The plan is that the reprogrammed cells would be injected into a leg or even directly into the heart to restore blood flow. Another possibility would be to graft one of the artificially developed vessels into the body as a replacement for blocked or damaged vessels. The research team also believes the newly created vessels could be used to prevent leg amputation in diabetic patients with poor circulation.

The study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reports that the reprogrammed vascular cells have no risk turning into tumors.

The release quotes Professor Qingbo Xu of the British Heart Foundation as saying, "This is very exciting research . . . If we can develop this approach as personalized treatments for patients with the condition, it will be a significant step forward."

The researchers cautioned that this is an early study and that more research needs to be done regarding how this approach will works in patients, but Dr Hlne Wilson, Research Advisor at the British Heart Foundation, said: "The discovery could help lead towards future therapies to repair hearts after they are damaged by a heart attack. As well as playing a part in a possible future regenerative treatment, these cells might also be used in drug screening to find new treatments to tackle inherited diseases."

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Stem Cells as Blood Vessels=Heart Tx?

CTVNews.ca Staff Published Friday, Aug. 17, 2012 8:36AM EDT

A Toronto research team hopes to make hip and knee replacements a thing of the past as it explores the growth of new human cartilage using stem cells.

With an estimated four million Canadians suffering from arthritis, and that number expected to grow to seven million by 2031, doctors are hoping to use the stem cells to treat the deterioration of cartilage in joints. Although hip and knee replacements are a great operation, they improve patients lives in terms of pain, quality and function, theyre not your own joint, Dr. Nizar Mahomed told CTVs Canada AM on Friday. They dont last forever and they bring risks and limitations.

Mahomed, an orthopedic surgeon at Torontos Western Hospital, said 45,000 hip and knee replacement surgeries are performed in Canada each year. Many of the surgeries are to treat the damage left by arthritis, which he said is caused by aging, obesity and injuries.

The incident of arthritis increases with age, so as our population ages the prevalence of arthritis is going to continue to increase.

Mahomed and his colleagues are one of the first research teams in the world that have been able to grow human cartilage.

The team is now embarking on the next stage of the study, which will see the new tissue used in animals.

If we actually make it work in animals then one day well be able to bring it back into patients, said Mahomed.

He added that stem cells hold much hope for medicine in the future as studies are looking at using the cells to regenerate cardiac tissue and in the treatment of nerve and spinal cord injuries.

Mahomed said he hopes within five to 10 years the new technology can be used in human patients while putting an end to joint replacement surgeries.

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New research uses stem cells as possible treatment for arthritis

Even after 18 years of frozen storage, human embryos can still produce viable stem cells for drug screening and biomedical research.

By Hayley Dunning | August 16, 2012

Cryopreservation of embryos in fertility centers is common, and concerns over damage to the embryo during thawing were largely allayed by the birth of a healthy boy in 2010 from 20-year old cryopreserved embryo. Last week (August 10), researchers in Thailand reported in BioResearch Open Access that they successfully induced the growth of stem cells from a set of 17- and 18-year-old frozen embryos.

The embryos were thawed, then cultured to the blastocyst stage and co-cultured with human foreskin fibroblasts which acted as feeder cells to maintain the growth of embryonic stem cells. The team used the same method to induce stem cells to grow from fresh embryos for comparison, and in cells from both sources they found similar levels of pluripotency.

The importance of this study is that it identifies an alternative source for generating new embryonic stem lines, using embryos that have been in long-term storage, BioResearch Open Access Editor-in-Chief Jane Taylor told Asian News International.

By Cristina Luiggi

A postdoctoral research fellow at Emory University falsifies stem cell research data.

By Megan Scudellari

Human embryonic stem cells swiftly kill themselves in response to DNA damage.

By Edyta Zielinska

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Embryonic Stem Cells Survive Freezing