Newport Beach, California (PRWEB) March 31, 2015

Newport Beach based charity Coalition Duchenne has launched an interview series titled Making a Difference in Duchenne on its Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/CoalitionDuchenne) focused on individuals making a difference in Duchenne muscular dystrophy research, care, awareness, and education.

The first interview features Dr. Eduardo Marbn MD, PhD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, talking about cardiac derived stem cells. Dr. Marbn was featured in a November 2011 Economist article Repairing Broken Hearts, read by Coalition Duchenne founder and executive director Catherine Jayasuriya. She lobbied for a focus on Duchenne because cardiac scarring severely compromises the life span of those with the disease. Coalition Duchenne funded successful research applying Marbns stem cell technology to Duchenne. The approach has been clinically proven to mitigate scarring cause by heart attacks. In Marbns therapy, human heart tissue is used to grow specialized heart stem cells, which are injected back into the patients heart.

We need to focus on changing the course of the disease. We lose many young men to cardiac issues. We hope that working with cardiac stem cells is one way we will eventually change that outcome, said Jayasuriya.

The second interview in the Making a Difference in Duchenne series features actor Cody Saintgnue, who plays Brett Talbot in MTVs Teen Wolf. Saintgnue has a unique relationship with Duchenne. He played a young man with muscular dystrophy in his break out role on House MD in 2009. Saintgnue talks about his experience learning to mimic the physicality of a young man with Duchenne, as well as the inspiration he draws from the way those young men overcome many obstacles to live happy, fulfilling lives.

Upcoming interviews will feature: Professor Rachelle Crosbie-Watson from the University of California, Los Angeles, who teaches the first university course focused entirely on Duchenne; Dr. Ron Victor, a Cedars-Sinai cardiologist and researcher looking at the benefits of Cialis and Viagra for Duchenne cardiomyopathy; and, Scotty Bob Morgan, a daredevil wingsuit pilot, who has raised awareness worldwide about Duchenne, flying a specially made Coalition Duchenne wingsuit.

About Duchenne muscular dystrophy: Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a progressive muscle wasting disease. It is the most common fatal disease that affects children. Duchenne occurs in 1 in 3,500 male births, across all races, cultures and countries. Duchenne is caused by a defect in the gene that codes for the protein dystrophin. This is a vital protein that helps connect the muscle fiber to the cell membranes. Without dystrophin, the muscle cells become unstable, are weakened and lose their functionality. Life expectancy ranges from the mid teenage years to the mid 20s. Their minds are unaffected.

About Coalition Duchenne: Jayasuriya founded Coalition Duchenne in 2010 (http://www.coalitionduchenne.org) to raise global awareness for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, to fund research and to find a cure for Duchenne. Coalition Duchenne is a 501c3 non-profit corporation.

Read more:
Coalition Duchenne Launches Youtube Interview Series 'Making a Difference in Duchenne'

The growing number of biological structures being grown on chips in various laboratories around the world is rapidly replicating the entire gamut of major human organs. Now one of the most important of all a viable functioning heart has been added to that list by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley) who have taken adult stem cells and grown a lattice of pulsing human heart tissue on a silicon device.

Sourced from human-induced pluripotent stem cells able to be persuaded into forming many different types of tissue, the human heart device cells are not simply separate groups of cells existing in a petri dish, but a connected series of living cells molded into a structure that is able to beat and react just like the real thing.

"This system is not a simple cell culture where tissue is being bathed in a static bath of liquid," said study lead author Anurag Mathur, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley. "We designed this system so that it is dynamic; it replicates how tissue in our bodies actually gets exposed to nutrients and drugs."

Touted as a possible replacement for living animal hearts in drug-safety screening, the ability to easily access and rapidly analyze a heart equivalent in experiments presents appealing advantages.

"Ultimately, these chips could replace the use of animals to screen drugs for safety and efficacy," said professor of bioengineering at UC Berkeley, and leader of the research team, Kevin Healy.

The cardiac microphysiological system, as the team calls its heart-on-a-chip, has been designed so that its silicon support structure is equivalent to the arrangement and positioning of conjoining tissue filaments in a human heart. To this supporting arrangement, the researchers loaded the engineered human heart cells into the priming tube, whose cone-shaped funnel assisted in aligning the cells in a number of layers and in one direction.

In this setup, the team created microfluidic channels on each side of the cell holding region to replicate blood vessels to imitate the interchange of nutrients and drugs by diffusion in human tissue. The researchers believe that this arrangement may also one day provide the ability to view and gauge the expulsion of metabolic waste from the cells in future experiments.

"Many cardiovascular drugs target those channels, so these differences often result in inefficient and costly experiments that do not provide accurate answers about the toxicity of a drug in humans," said Professor Healy. "It takes about US$5 billion on average to develop a drug, and 60 percent of that figure comes from upfront costs in the research and development phase. Using a well-designed model of a human organ could significantly cut the cost and time of bringing a new drug to market."

The use of animal organs to forecast human reactions to new drugs is problematic, the UC Berkeley researchers note, citing the fundamental differences between species as being responsible for high failure rates in using these models. One aspect responsible for this failure is to be found in the difference in the ion channel structure between human and other animals where heart cells conduct electrical currents at different rates and intensities. It is the standardized nature of using actual human heart cells that the team sees as the heart-on-a-chip's distinct advantage over animal models.

The UC Berkeley device is certainly not the first replication of an organ-on-a-chip, but potentially one of the first successful ones to integrate living cells and artificial structures in a single functioning unit. Harvard's spleen-on-a-chip, for example, replicates the operation of the spleen, but does so by using a set of circulatory tubes containing magnetic nanobeads.

Read the original here:
Heart-on-a-chip beats a steady rhythm

WASHINGTON: Researchers, including one of Indian-origin, have created a 'heart-on-a-chip' loaded with human cardiac muscle cells that mimic the real organ to serve as a novel tool to screen medicines. Researchers developed a network of pulsating cardiac muscle cells housed in an inch-long silicone de-vice that effectively models human heart tissue, and they have demonstrated the viability of this system as a drug-screening tool by testing it with cardiovascular medications.

This organ-on-a-chip represents a major step forward in the development of accurate, faster methods of testing for drug toxicity, researchers said. "Ultimately, these chips could replace the use of animals to screen drugs for safety and efficacy," said professor Kevin Healy from the University of California, Berkeley. The authors noted a high failure rate associated with the use of non-human animal models to predict human reactions to new drugs.

"It takes about 5 billion on average to develop a drug, and 60% of that figure comes from upfront costs in the research and development phase. Using a well-designed model of a human organ could significantly cut the cost and time of bringing a new drug to market," said Healy.

The heart cells were derived from human-induced pluripotent stem cells, the adult stem cells that can be coaxed to become many different types of tissue. Researchers designed their heart-on-a-chip so that its 3D structure would be comparable to the geometry and spacing of connective tissue fibre in a human heart.

Stay updated on the go with Times of India News App. Click here to download it for your device.

Visit link:
Drug testing on heart-on-a-chip gets a step closer

Cardiac Stem Cells: Making a Difference in Duchenne
Dr Eduardo Marban, Director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, discusses a possible Cardiac Stem Cell breakthrough for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Coalition Duchenne founder, Catherine ...

By: CoalitionDuchenne

Excerpt from:
Cardiac Stem Cells: Making a Difference in Duchenne - Video

No Mortality or Toxicity Noted With CryoStor Deployed as Vehicle Solution for Cells and Placebo in Direct Intramyocardial Injections

BioLife Solutions, Inc., a leading developer, manufacturer and marketer of proprietary clinical grade hypothermic storage and cryopreservation freeze media and precision thermal shipping products for cells and tissues (BioLife or the Company), recently announced its CryoStor cell freeze media was utilized in a porcine animal study of umbilical cord blood-derived mononuclear cells (UBC-MNC) to evaluate the safety and feasibility of these cells for cardiac regeneration in pediatric congenital heart disease (CHD).

The safety and feasibility study was performed at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, with the results recently published in an article titled Safety and Feasibility for Pediatric Cardiac Regeneration Using Epicardial Delivery of Autologous Umbilical Cord Blood-Derived Mononuclear Cells Established in a Porcine Model System, which appeared in the peer reviewed clinical journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine.

Umbilical cord blood-derived mononuclear cells were frozen in protein-free, serum-free CryoStor CS10, containing 10% dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). Thawed cells were administered to piglets via intramyocardial injections, with follow up extended to three months. CryoStor CS10 was also used as the placebo control solution without cells, which was injected into randomized piglets.

The authors observed no mortality or toxicity in any study animals and concluded:

Mike Rice, BioLife President & CEO, stated, The data from this study further support the use of our proprietary biopreservation media products in clinical applications. We are quite pleased to have an institution as renowned as the Mayo Clinic evaluate and use our products in their important clinical research.

BioLife management estimates that the Companys CryoStor cryopreservation freeze media andHypoThermosol storage and shipping media have been incorporated into the manufacturing and clinical delivery protocols of more than 175 cell and tissue-based regenerative medicine clinical trials for new products and therapies.

About BioLife Solutions BioLife Solutions develops, manufactures and markets hypothermic storage and cryopreservation solutions and precision thermal shipping products for cells, tissues, and organs. BioLife also performs contract aseptic media formulation, fill, and finish services. The Companys proprietary HypoThermosol and CryoStor platform of solutions are highly valued in the biobanking, drug discovery, and regenerative medicine markets. BioLifes biopreservation media products are serum-free and protein-free, fully defined, and are formulated to reduce preservation-induced cell damage and death. BioLifes enabling technology provides commercial companies and clinical researchers significant improvement in shelf life and post-preservation viability and function of cells, tissues, and organs. For more information, visit http://www.biolifesolutions.com.

See the original post here:
BioLife Solutions CryoStor Cell Freeze Media Used In Mayo Clinic Safety And Feasibility Study Of Umbilical Cord Blood ...

Lindsey Caldwell

Heart disease is the leading cause of death among Americans. Recently the bio-tech industry has been exploding with cardiac research like last week's heart attack preventing nanobots. New research by the team at the University of California, Berkley has created working human heart cells on a tiny chip designed to test the efficacy of new drugs in clinical trials. This heart-on-a-chip is officially known as a cardiac microphysiological system, or MPS. Using this heart-on-a-chip, scientists can measure the potential cardiac damage of a drug before it reaches expensive human trials.

Drug trials can take years, and to mitigate risk these drugs undergo testing in non-human subjects. Animals are often used in place of humans, but animal models can be problematic. Specifically, they are less effective at predicting cardiotoxicity, wherein a drug damages the heart. This is important because one-third of drugs withdrawn from testing are pulled due to cardiotoxic effects.

Drugs that are first tested in animal models can succeed to future testing stages without setting off alarms. After successful early stages more time and money is invested and the drugs progress to human trials, only to be stopped in their tracks because they are found to be toxic to human hearts.

The cells on this tiny MPS chip are human heart cells that were created from pluripotent stem cells. These cells react to drugs the same way as a human heart inside a living person. By creating a portable, low-risk, and accurate drug testing environment, scientists may be able to advance clinical trials of new drugs and bring them to market sooner.

Here is a video by the UC Berkley research team of their heart cells actually beating.

Source: Berkeley

Read the rest here:
Heart-on-a-chip tests drugs cardiotoxicity with its real heartbeat

Researchers have created a "heart on a chip" using actual cardiac muscles to help test the effects of heart medication.

Anurag Mathur/Healy Lab

A new device could help make drug testing safer, faster, cheaper -- and eliminate the need for animal testing. It's just an inch long, but inside its silicone body is housed a small piece of cardiac muscle that responds to cardiovascular medications in exactly the same way heart muscle does inside a living human body.

"Ultimately, these chips could replace the use of animals to screen drugs for safety and efficacy," explained Kevin Healy, UC Berkeley professor of engineering, who led the research team that designed the device.

The problems with using animals to test human heart medication aren't merely ethical -- such concerns about lab animals rarely enter scientific discussions. Rather, there are some serious physiological problems -- namely, that drugs designed for humans will not have the same effect on a species that is biologically different from a human.

"These differences often result in inefficient and costly experiments that do not provide accurate answers about the toxicity of a drug in humans," Healy explained.

"It takes about $5 billion on average to develop a drug, and 60 percent of that figure comes from upfront costs in the research and development phase. Using a well-designed model of a human organ could significantly cut the cost and time of bringing a new drug to market."

The chips were created using heart muscle grown in a lab from adult human induced pluripotent stem cells -- stem cells that can be coaxed to grow into many other types of cell. The team then carefully designed the structure to be similar to the geometry and spacing of connective tissue fibre in a living human heart.

Microfluidic channels carved into the silicone on either side of the cell matrix act the same way as blood vessels, mimicking the exchange of nutrients and drugs with human tissue as it would happen in the body.

The cells start beating on their own within 24 hours of being loaded into the chamber at a healthy resting rate of 55 to 80 beats per minute. In order to test the system, the team then administered four well-known cardiovascular drugs -- isoproterenol, E-4031, verapamil and metoprolol. By monitoring the beat rate, the team was able to observe -- and accurately predict -- the chip's response to the drugs. Isoproterenol, for example -- a drug used to treat slow heart rate -- caused the muscle's beat rate to increase from 55 beats per minute to 124 beats per minute half an hour after being administered.

The rest is here:
Human heart on a chip could replace animal drug testing

Coronary heart disease is the countrys leading cause of death A new treatment was designed to treat damaged heart muscle The capsule contains stem cells derived from the patients bone marrow

By Roger Dobson for the Daily Mail

Published: 17:33 EST, 9 March 2015 | Updated: 18:07 EST, 9 March 2015

A new treatment using a tiny grow-bag has been designed to treat damaged heart muscle

A tiny grow-bag could be a new way to mend hearts damaged by disease or heart attack.

The capsule, which is pea-sized, contains stem cells that trigger the growth of new cells.

An estimated 2.3 million people in Britain have coronary heart disease the countrys leading cause of death.

It occurs when the arteries supplying the heart become blocked by fatty substances, reducing the flow of blood.

If a bit of this fatty substance breaks off, it can trigger a blood clot, which in turn cuts off the blood supply to heart muscle, causing it to die off. This is what triggers a heart attack.

Heart disease and heart attacks can also lead to heart failure, where the heart becomes too weak to pump blood around the body properly.

Go here to read the rest:
The tiny grow-bag that could mend a heart damaged by disease

Though it may not look at all like the muscle in your chest, this heart-on-a-chip can beat like the real thing. A blend of microfluidics and biological cells, the device will be used as a more efficient means of testing for drug toxicity.

Developed by a team of bioengineers form University of California, Berkeley, the device is designed to mimic the geometry of fibers in a human heart. Pluripotent stem cellsthe cells that can be nudged to become one of the many different types of tissue present in our bodiesare introduced to a channel which is specially designed to encourage cells to grow in multiple layers in one direction, like real cardiac tissue. Here, they grow in to heart cells.

This section is then perfused with blood from microfluidic channels which act as blood vessels. Within 24 hours of lining the structure with heart cells, the structure began to beat at rate of between 55 to 80 beats per minutejust like a real human heart. Anurag Mathur, one of the researchers, explains to PhysOrg:

"This system is not a simple cell culture where tissue is being bathed in a static bath of liquid. We designed this system so that it is dynamic; it replicates how tissue in our bodies actually gets exposed to nutrients and drugs."

The system has already been used to test established cardiovascular drugs such as isoproterenol, E-4031, verapamil and metoprolol. The team observed effects upon the heart-on-a-chip consistent with those brought about in real humanso, drugs intended to speed up heart rate did exactly that to the cells in the device. The findings are published in Scientific Reports.

It's hoped that the device will be used to screen drugs, model human genetic diseasesand perhaps even link up with other organs-on-a-chip to predict whole-body reactions too. [Scientific Reports via PhysOrg]

Originally posted here:
This Heart-on-a-Chip Beats Like the Real Thing

When University of California, Berkeley, bioengineers say they are holding their hearts in the palms of their hands, they are not talking about emotional vulnerability.

Instead, the research team led by bioengineering professor Kevin Healy is presenting a network of pulsating cardiac muscle cells housed in an inch-long silicone device that effectively models human heart tissue, and they have demonstrated the viability of this system as a drug-screening tool by testing it with cardiovascular medications.

This organ-on-a-chip, reported in a study to be published Monday, March 9, in the journal Scientific Reports, represents a major step forward in the development of accurate, faster methods of testing for drug toxicity. The project is funded through the Tissue Chip for Drug Screening Initiative, an interagency collaboration launched by the National Institutes of Health to develop 3-D human tissue chips that model the structure and function of human organs.

"Ultimately, these chips could replace the use of animals to screen drugs for safety and efficacy," said Healy.

The study authors noted a high failure rate associated with the use of nonhuman animal models to predict human reactions to new drugs. Much of this is due to fundamental differences in biology between species, the researchers explained. For instance, the ion channels through which heart cells conduct electrical currents can vary in both number and type between humans and other animals.

"Many cardiovascular drugs target those channels, so these differences often result in inefficient and costly experiments that do not provide accurate answers about the toxicity of a drug in humans," said Healy. "It takes about $5 billion on average to develop a drug, and 60 percent of that figure comes from upfront costs in the research and development phase. Using a well-designed model of a human organ could significantly cut the cost and time of bringing a new drug to market."

The heart cells were derived from human-induced pluripotent stem cells, the adult stem cells that can be coaxed to become many different types of tissue.

The researchers designed their cardiac microphysiological system, or heart-on-a-chip, so that its 3-D structure would be comparable to the geometry and spacing of connective tissue fiber in a human heart. They added the differentiated human heart cells into the loading area, a process that Healy likened to passengers boarding a subway train at rush hour. The system's confined geometry helps align the cells in multiple layers and in a single direction.

Microfluidic channels on either side of the cell area serve as models for blood vessels, mimicking the exchange by diffusion of nutrients and drugs with human tissue. In the future, this setup could also allow researchers to monitor the removal of metabolic waste products from the cells.

"This system is not a simple cell culture where tissue is being bathed in a static bath of liquid," said study lead author Anurag Mathur, a postdoctoral scholar in Healy's lab and a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine fellow. "We designed this system so that it is dynamic; it replicates how tissue in our bodies actually gets exposed to nutrients and drugs."

Originally posted here:
Bioengineers put human hearts on a chip to aid drug screening

Durham, NC (PRWEB) February 27, 2015

Several studies showing the promise of stem cells for treating patients with heart failure have made headline news recently. However, all these studies dealt with adult patients only. New research appearing in this months STEM CELLS Translational Medicine shows that stem cells may have the same potential in treating children with congenital heart diseases that can lead to heart failure.

The study, undertaken by researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., looked at the feasibility and long-term safety of injecting autologous umbilical cord blood cells directly into the heart muscle at the pediatric stage of heart development. The study was conducted on pigs, due to their hearts similarity to human hearts.

The team injected the stem cells directly into the right ventricle of groups of three- and four-week old healthy piglets, and then compared the results to a control group that did not receive any cells. Over the next three months, the animals were monitored to assess cardiac performance and rhythm to determine how safe the procedure would be for humans.

During this follow-up period, we found no significant acute or chronic cardiac injury pattern caused by the injections directly into the heart, said lead author Timothy J. Nelson, M.D., Ph.D., of the Mayo Clinics Department of Medicine, and all the animals hearts appeared to be normal and healthy.

This led us to conclude that autologous stem cells from cord blood can be safely collected and surgically delivered to children. The study also establishes the foundation for cell-based therapy for children and aims to accelerate the science toward clinical trials for helping children with congenital heart disease that could benefit from a regenerative medicine strategy, he added.

The lead author, Susan Cantero Peral, M.D., Ph.D. commented, This work highlights the importance and utility of umbilical cord blood as it can be applied to new applications. Rather than discarding this sample at birth, individuals with congenital heart disease may one day be able to have these cells collected and processed in a specialized way to make them available for cardiac regeneration.

This work was funded by the Todd and Karen Wanek Family Program for Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome founded at the Mayo Clinic.

These data help establish the foundation of a cell-based therapy for juvenile hearts by showing that injections of autologous cells from cord blood are safe and feasible, said Anthony Atala, M.D., editor of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

###

See more here:
Study Shows Stem Cells Have Potential to Help Kids Hearts, Too

Albany, NewYork (PRWEB) February 27, 2015

ResearchMoz has announced the addition of a recent study that presents the analysis of the cell culture protein surface coating market across the globe. The research report discusses the current scenario and development prospects of the global cell culture protein surface coating industry for the period of 2015 to 2019.

Read Complete Report With TOC @ http://www.researchmoz.us/global-cell-culture-protein-surface-coating-market-2015-2019-report.html

The research report, titled Global Cell Culture Protein Surface Coating Market, offers an analytical study, providing an in-depth assessment of the industry based on market trends, growth drivers as well as challenges. This is done taking various segments of the market into consideration. The report also forecasts that the worldwide cell culture protein surface coating industry will expand at a CAGR of 12.91% during the forecast period of 2014 to 2019.

Cell culture protein surface coating is defined as the coating process wherein cell culture surfaces are covered with extra-cellular matrix elements or with protein to improve in-vitro linkage and propagation in the cells.

The various kinds of proteins that are available in our surroundings are synthetic proteins, human-derived proteins, plant-derived proteins, and animal-derived proteins. Fibronectin, collagen, laminin, osteopontin, and vitronectin are some of the proteins that are utilized for cell culture protein surface coating. Cell culture protein surface coating assists in the development of several kinds of cells such as epithelial, endothelial, fibroblasts, muscle cells and myoblasts, leukocytes, CHO cell lines, and neurons.

The wide range of applications for cell culture protein surface coatings consist of enhanced adhesion of cells, better propagation and development of cells, cell matrix studies, morphogenesis studies, receptor-ligand binding studies, signal transduction studies, genetic engineering, differentiation of individual cell types, drug screening, and metabolic pathway studies.

Stem cells have high potential for the treatment of severe diseases such as cardiac ailments, neuro degenerative diseases, and even diabetes. This fact has resulted in the increase in demand for highly developed cell culture products for stem cell manufacturing and studies. Cell culture protein surface coating offers enhanced adhesion, propagation, and rapid development of cells during the period of isolation and cultivation.

The main factor that is adding to the growth of the global cell culture protein surface coating industry is increased focus of top market players towards stem cell research. However, the drawbacks of animal-derived protein surface coating is a factor that is soon becoming a matter of concern, hindering the growth of the cell culture protein surface coating market.

Top players of the cell culture protein surface coating industry are EMD Millipore, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Corning, and Sigma-Aldrich.

See the original post:
Global Cell Culture Protein Surface Coating Industry: Rising Focus towards Stem Cells Research to Trigger Market Growth

Posted by Richard Dietman (@rdietman) 3 day(s) ago

Mayo Clinic Radio: Cardiac Regeneration/Stop-Smoking Drug/Juicing

On this weeks Mayo Clinic Radio,fixing a broken heart. Cardiac regeneration uses the bodys own stem cells to repair damage done by heart disease. Mayo Clinic cardiologist Dr. Atta Behfar explains. Also on the program, nicotine dependency expert Dr. Richard Hurt discusses results of a new study about the stop-smoking drug varenicline (Chantix). And Mayo Clinic registered dietitian Katherine Zeratsky explains the risks of juice-only diets.

Myth or Matter-of-Fact: Cardiac regeneration may someday replace the need for surgery to repair heart damage.

To listen to the program at 9 a.m. Saturday, February 21, clickhere.

Follow#MayoClinicRadioand tweet your questions.

Mayo Clinic Radio is available oniHeartRadio.

Mayo Clinic Radiois a weeklyone-hour radio program highlighting health and medical informationfrom Mayo Clinic.

To find and listen toarchived shows,click here.

Read this article:
Mayo Clinic Radio: Cardiac Regeneration/Stop-Smoking Drug/Juicing

Kansas City, MO (PRWEB) February 09, 2015

One in five Americans will develop heart failure in their lifetime. It is the number one cause of hospitalization for adults over 65. The cost to treat heart failure is $32 billion and expected to double by 2030. There is no doubt heart failure is a significant health problem. The good news is proper care and treatment can dramatically improve a patients outcome and potentially promising new treatments are on the horizon.

February 8-14, 2015 is National Heart Failure Awareness Week. Saint Lukes Mid America Heart Institute, in Kansas City, Missouri specializes in treating heart failure and other complex cardiovascular conditions and has long been one of the leaders in cardiovascular care not only in the Midwest, but across the country.

Heart failure occurs when the heart is unable to efficiently move blood to the rest of the body either due to thickening or weakness. Onset can come from a variety of causes including heart attack, viral illness, abnormal heart valves, genetic traits and even after pregnancy. Symptoms can be subtle; shortness of breath, fatigue, dizziness, swelling in the legs and or stomach.

The good news is a variety of treatments are available and proper care and treatment can dramatically improve symptoms and quality of life for patients.

Treatments include:

The exciting news for patients is we have promising treatments currently in the research phase of development, said Bethany Austin, M.D., Associate Medical Director of the Advanced Heart Failure Program at Saint Lukes Mid America Heart Institute. These treatments range from clinical trials involving catheter based treatments, treatment of sleep apnea, and gene therapy with stem cells for damaged heart muscles. In addition, there is a new medication which has shown in recent trials to provide significant benefit to heart failure patients compared to standard therapy although it is not yet commercially available. All of these offer new hope to heart failure patients.

Saint Lukes offers a multidisciplinary heart team, including the regions only team of cardiologists board certified in Advanced Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant, cardiothoracic surgeons, and critical care anesthesiologists.

The Saint Lukes Heart Failure Program also features:

In 2014, The Joint Commission awarded Saint Lukes Hospital Advanced Certification in Heart Failure. Only 53 other hospitals in the United States currently have Advanced Heart Failure Certification. Saint Lukes Hospital also received the Get With The GuidelinesHeart Failure Gold-Plus Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Foundation secondary prevention guidelines for heart failure patients.

Read more:
Saint Lukes Mid America Heart Institute Offers Tips & Treatments For Heart Failure Awareness Week 2015

Late-Breaking Basic Science Research Presented at American Heart Association Scientific Sessions Shows Stem Cell Treatment Restores Heart Function Damaged by Muscular Disease

Contact: Sally Stewart Email: sally.stewart@cshs.org

Los Angeles - Nov. 17, 2014 Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute have found that injections of cardiac stem cells might help reverse heart damage caused by Duchenne muscular dystrophy, potentially resulting in a longer life expectancy for patients with the chronic muscle-wasting disease.

The study results were presented today at a Breaking Basic Science presentation during the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Chicago. After laboratory mice with Duchenne muscular dystrophy were infused with cardiac stem cells, the mice showed steady, marked improvement in heart function and increased exercise capacity.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which affects 1 in 3,600 boys, is a neuromuscular disease caused by a shortage of a protein called dystrophin, leading to progressive muscle weakness. Most Duchenne patients lose their ability to walk by age 12. Average life expectancy is about 25. The cause of death often is heart failure because the dystrophin deficiency leads to cardiomyopathy, a weakness of the heart muscle that makes the heart less able to pump blood and maintain a regular rhythm.

"Most research into treatments for Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients has focused on the skeletal muscle aspects of the disease, but more often than not, the cause of death has been the heart failure that affects Duchenne patients," said Eduardo Marbn, MD, PhD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and study leader. "Currently, there is no treatment to address the loss of functional heart muscle in these patients."

During the past five years, the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute has become a world leader in studying the use of stem cells to regenerate heart muscle in patients who have had heart attacks. In 2009, Marbn and his team completed the world's first procedure in which a patient's own heart tissue was used to grow specialized heart stem cells. The specialized cells were then injected back into the patient's heart in an effort to repair and regrow healthy muscle in a heart that had been injured by a heart attack. Results, published in The Lancet in 2012, showed that one year after receiving the experimental stem cell treatment, heart attack patients demonstrated a significant reduction in the size of the scar left on the heart muscle.

Earlier this year, Heart Institute researchers began a new study, called ALLSTAR, in which heart attack patients are being infused with allogeneic stem cells, which are derived from donor-quality hearts. Recently, the Heart Institute opened the nations first Regenerative Medicine Clinic, designed to match heart and vascular disease patients with appropriate stem cell clinical trials being conducted at Cedars-Sinai and other institutions.

"We are committed to thoroughly investigating whether stem cells could repair heart damage caused by Duchenne muscular dystrophy," Marbn said.

In the study, 78 lab mice were injected with cardiac stem cells. Over the next three months, the lab mice demonstrated improved pumping ability and exercise capacity in addition to a reduction in heart inflammation. The researchers also discovered that the stem cells work indirectly, by secreting tiny fat droplets called exosomes. The exosomes, when purified and administered alone, reproduce the key benefits of the cardiac stem cells.

Read more from the original source:
Cardiac Stem Cell Therapy May Heal Heart Damage Caused by ...

LA JOLLA (CNS) - Two scientists with UC San Diego were awarded a combined $2.7 million in grants from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to pursue their studies on stem cell therapies, the school announced Monday.

Shyni Varghese, an associate professor in the Department of Bioengineering and director of the Bio-Inspired Materials and Stem Cell Engineering Laboratory, received a $1.4 CIRM grant to improve the function of transplanted stem cells.

Shaochen Chen, a professor in the Department of Nanoengineering in the Jacobs School of Engineering and a member of UCSD's Institute of Engineering in Medicine, received $1.3 million to develop three-diminensional bioprinting techniques that use heart muscle cells derived from human embryonic stem cells to create new cardiac tissue.

The awards were part of almost $30 million in grants announced at CIRM's monthly meeting in San Francisco, according to UCSD.

"Sometimes even the most promising therapy can be derailed by a tiny problem," said Jonathan Thomas, chairman of the CIRM Board of Directors. "These awards are designed to help find ways to overcome those problems, to bridge the gaps in our knowledge and ensure that the best research is able to keep progressing and move out of the lab and into clinical trials in patients."

Varghese's lab focuses on the interactions of cells with their surrounding micro-environment, and how the conditions necessary to promote normal, healthy survival and growth occur, according to UCSD.

Chen's studies focus on using stem cells to create new heart tissue that would help patients when transplants aren't immediately available.

View post:
UCSD scientists awarded $2.7M grants for stem cell research

What Happens When Stem Cells Go Into My Heart?
Renowned cardiologist, stem cell therapy expert and Okyanos Chief Science Officer Leslie Miller, MD, FACC, explains the importance of generating new blood ve...

By: Okyanos

Read the original:
What Happens When Stem Cells Go Into My Heart? - Video

Cardiac Muscle Derived from Pluripotent Stem Cells

By: CK LAB

See more here:
Cardiac Muscle Derived from Pluripotent Stem Cells - Video

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy May Be Helped With Cardiac Stem Cells
Study shows cardiac stem cells used to treat heart attacks may also help children with muscular dystrophy. Dr. Bruce Hensel reports for the NBC4 News at 5 on...

By: CoalitionDuchenne

Read more:
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy May Be Helped With Cardiac Stem Cells - Video

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY: Quote) has entered into a clinical collaboration agreement with Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY: Quote) to explore combination regimens from its immuno-oncology portfolio with other mechanisms of action that may accelerate the development of new treatment options for patients.

As per the agreement terms, a phase 1/2 trial will evaluate Bristol-Myers Squibb's approved immunotherapy Opdivo in combination with Lilly's investigational Galunisertib as a potential treatment option for patients with advanced (metastatic and/or unresectable) glioblastoma, hepatocellular carcinoma and non-small cell lung cancer.

Opdivo is approved by FDA for intravenous use for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma while Galunisertib is currently under investigation as an oral treatment for advanced/metastatic malignancies, including phase 2 evaluation in hepatocellular carcinoma, myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), glioblastoma, and pancreatic cancer.

In other related news, Lilly has also entered into a collaboration agreement with Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK: Quote) to evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of Merck's KEYTRUDA in combination with Lilly compounds in multiple clinical trials.

Merck's KEYTRUDA was granted accelerated approval by FDA last September for unresectable or metastatic melanoma with disease progression following Ipilimumab and, if BRAF V600 mutation positive, a BRAF inhibitor.

BMY closed Tuesday's trading at $63.12, up 1.51%.

Celsus Therapeutics plc (CLTX: Quote) has completed enrollment in its phase II study evaluating the safety and efficacy of MRX-6 cream 2% in a pediatric population with mild to moderate atopic dermatitis.

The topline data from the trial are expected by end-February, 2015.

CLTX closed Tuesday's trading 10.39% higher at $5.95.

Cellular Dynamics International (ICEL: Quote) has entered into a research collaboration with privately-held Cord Blood Registry to reprogram newborn stem cells into induced pluripotent stem cells.

More here:
LLY Collaborates With BMY And MRK, CLTX On Watchlist, ZLTQ Continues To Grow