PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

13-Mar-2014

Contact: Toni Baker tbaker@gru.edu 706-721-4421 Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University

Augusta, Ga. Researchers want to know whether patients with debilitating heart failure can benefit by having their own stem cells injected into their ailing heart muscle.

The severe condition is ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy, a currently incurable condition resulting from significantly compromised blood flow to the heart muscle as well as heart attacks, which leave the muscle bulky and inefficient and patients unable to carry out routine activities.

"We want to know if stem cell therapy is an option for patients who have essentially run out of options," said Dr. Adam Berman, electrophysiologist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University and Director of Cardiac Arrhythmia Ablation Services at Georgia Regents Health System. "It's a very exciting potential therapy, and these studies are designed to see if it works to help these patients."

Berman is a Principal Investigator on the multi-site study in which stem cells are removed from the bone marrow, their numbers significantly increased by technology developed by Aastrom Biosciences, then injected into multiple weak points in the heart. At GR Health System, the procedure is performed in the Electrophysiology Lab where Berman threads a catheter into an artery from the groin into the heart. Three-dimensional maps of the heart are created to provide a clear picture of its natural geography as well as major sites of damage.

"Everyone's heart is different, their scar burden is different, everything is different," Berman said. From that vantage point, small needles - similar in size to those used for skin testing - are used to make about 12 to 20 strategic injections of mesenchymal stem cells, which can differentiate into a variety of cell types. In this case, researchers hope the cells will improve blood flow and function of the heart.

Half of the study participants receive the stem cell treatment called ixmyelocel-T and the remainder a saline placebo. Patients go home the next day but researchers follow all participants for 12 months to assess heart function and quality of life. GR Health System plans to enroll a handful of patients in the clinical trial.

Treatment options for heart failure include frontline therapies such as diuretics to more extreme measures such as implantable ventricular assist devices and heart transplants.

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Stem cell therapy may help severe congestive heart failure

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

6-Mar-2014

Contact: Robert Miranda cogcomm@aol.com Cell Transplantation Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair

Putnam Valley, NY. (Mar. 6, 2014) When human umbilical cord blood cells were transplanted into rats that had undergone a simulated myocardial infarction (MI), researchers investigating the long term effects of the transplantation found that left ventricular (LV) heart function in the treated rats was improved over those that did not get the stem cells. The animals were maintained without immunosuppressive therapy.

The study will be published in a future issue of Cell Transplantation but is currently freely available on-line as an unedited early e-pub at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/pre-prints/content-ct0860Chen.

"Myocardial infarction induced by coronary artery disease is one of the major causes of heart attack," said study co-author Dr. Jianyi Zhang of the University of Minnesota Health Science Center. "Because of the loss of viable myocardium after an MI, the heart works under elevated wall stress, which results in progressive myocardial hypertrophy and left ventricular dilation that leads to heart failure. We investigated the long term effects of stem cell therapy using human non-hematopoietic umbilical cord blood stem cells (nh-UCBCs). These cells have previously exhibited neuro-restorative effects in a rodent model of ischemic brain injury in terms of improved LV function and myocardial fiber structure, the three-dimensional architecture of which make the heart an efficient pump."

According to the authors, stem cell therapy for myocardial repair has been investigated extensively for the last decade, with researchers using a variety of different animal models, delivery modes, cells types and doses, all with varying levels of LV functional response. They also note that the underlying mechanisms for improvement are "poorly understood," and that the overall regeneration of muscle cells is "low."

To investigate the heart's remodeling processes and to characterize alterations in the cardiac fiber architecture, the research team used diffusion tensor MRI (DTMRI), used previously to study myofiber structure in both humans and animals.

While most previous studies have been focused on the short term effects of UCBCs, their study on long term effects not only demonstrated evidence of significantly improved heart function in the treated rats, but also showed evidence of delay and prevention in terms of myocardial fiber structural remodeling, alterations that could have resulted in heart failure.

When compared to the age-matched but untreated rat hearts with MI, the regional myocardial function of nh-UCBC-treated hearts was significantly improved and the preserved myocardial fiber structure may have served as an "underlying mechanism for the observed function improvements."

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Transplanted human umbilical cord blood cells improved heart function in rat model of MI

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

6-Mar-2014

Contact: B.D. Colen bd_colen@harvard.edu 617-413-1224 Harvard University

After more than a decade of incremental and paradigm shifting, advances in stem cell biology, almost anyone with a basic understanding of life sciences knows that stem cells are the basic form of cell from which all specialized cells, and eventually organs and body parts, derive.

But what makes a "good" stem cell, one that can reliably be used in drug development, and for disease study? Researchers have made enormous strides in understanding the process of cellular reprogramming, and how and why stem cells commit to becoming various types of adult cells. But until now, there have been no standards, no criteria, by which to test these ubiquitous cells for their ability to faithfully adopt characteristics that make them suitable substitutes for patients for drug testing. And the need for such quality control standards becomes ever more critical as industry looks toward manufacturing products and treatments using stem cells.

Now a research team lead by Kevin Kit Parker, a Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) Principal Faculty member has identified a set of 64 crucial parameters from more than 1,000 by which to judge stem cell-derived cardiac myocytes, making it possible for perhaps the first time for scientists and pharmaceutical companies to quantitatively judge and compare the value of the countless commercially available lines of stem cells.

"We have an entire industry without a single quality control standard," said Parker, the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics in Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a Core Member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

HSCI Co-director Doug Melton, who also is co-chair of Harvard's Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, called the standard-setting study "very important. This addresses a critical issue," Melton said. "It provides a standardized method to test whether differentiated cells, produced from stem cells, have the properties needed to function. This approach provides a standard for the field to move toward reproducible tests for cell function, an important precursor to getting cells into patients or using them for drug screening."

Parker said that starting in 2009, he and Sean P. Sheehy, a graduate student in Parker's lab and the first author on a paper just given early on-line release by the journal Stem Cell Reports, "visited a lot of these companies (commercially producing stem cells), and I'd never seen a dedicated quality control department, never saw a separate effort for quality control." Parker explained many companies seemed to assume that it was sufficient simply to produce beating cardiac cells from stem cells, without asking any deeper questions about their functions and quality.

"We put out a call to different companies in 2010 asking for cells to start testing," Parker says, "some we got were so bad we couldn't even get a baseline curve on them; we couldn't even do a calibration on them."

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Establishing standards where none exist; Harvard researchers define 'good' stem cells

Researchers have used 3D-printed models of the heart to create a personalized wrap-around heart sensor array which can transmit highly detailed information on a patients cardiac health and may thus help to predict and prevent serious medical problems.

The buzz surrounding 3D printing sometimes gives the impression that the technology provides a miracle solution for making any manufactured product more cheaply. In fact the main advantage of the technology is to be able to produce prototypes cheaper and faster or to customize products and components. The medical sector may well be among the first to benefit from this latter approach by using the technique, formally known as additive layer manufacturing (ALM), to produce tailor-made surgical implants. At the moment, medical researchers are focusing on highly ambitious projects such as printing replacement organs from a persons own stem cells, but this procedure will take years of development before it can be widely used on patients. Recently researchers have used 3D printing to help create a rather more modest device which could be incorporated fairly quickly into treatment procedures. Every heart has its own unique size and shape, and medical procedures need to be adjusted accordingly in order to deliver fully personalised treatment. Now researchers Igor Efimov of WashingtonUniversity in St Louisand John Rogers at the University of Illinoishave demonstrated a new type of tailor-made cardiac sensor array which increases the quantity and improves the quality of the information gathered, and thus help prevent certain cardiac problems.

Efimov, a cardiac physiologist and bioengineer, and Rogers, a materials scientist, used optical images of rabbits hearts to demonstrate the concept of creating an ALM model of the heart in order to make the sensor array. In fact CT or MRI scans of each persons heart would be used to make devices for human patients. Having 3D-printed the model of the heart, they then built a stretchy electronic mesh structure a sort of envelope to wrap round the model. The stretchy material can then be peeled off the printed model and wrapped around the real heart in a perfect fit. This technique enables a far more precise approach than has hitherto been feasible and the research team were able to integrate an unprecedented number of components into the device, including embedded sensors, oxygenation detectors, thermometers and electrodes that can, if need be, deliver electric shocks to stimulate a flagging heart. Although the device has been developed specifically to treat ventricular deformation andcardiacarrhythmia, it could incorporate different types of sensors in order to improve treatment for a number of other heart conditions, inter alia enabling medicines to be delivered to the exact spot where they are needed.

Igor Efimov reveals that the next step is a device with multiple sensors, and not just more electrical sensors. Sensors that measure acidity, for instance, could provide an early warning of a blocked coronary artery. So far, the researchers have tested their technology on beating rabbit hearts outside the body. The next stage will be to demonstrate that this approach can work in live animals before it can be tested on people. Although devices made in this kind of custom-manufacturing process would probably be more expensive than mass-produced medical implants, using ALM to print the basic heart model will bring the cost down considerably and help to ensure that the technology becomes available to patients who need it. In any case, argues Stanford University materials scientist Zhenan Bao, for these kinds of life-or-death applications, the market is likely to bear the cost, given the rich information that the device will provide, enabling early treatment of potentially serious conditions. The idea of incorporating IT devices into organs is becoming more commonplace and there could be many medical applications, such as devices to assist bladder control or mitigate conditions of the nervous system. In a less life-and-death field, the technology could also be used for body digitisation with a view to producing tailor-made clothing.

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3D printing helps create tailor-made wrap-around heart sensor array

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Newswise In a study that began in a pair of infant siblings with a rare heart defect, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have identified a key molecular switch that regulates heart cell division and normally turns the process off around the time of birth. Their research, they report, could advance efforts to turn the process back on and regenerate heart tissue damaged by heart attacks or disease.

This study offers hope that we can someday find a way to restore the ability of heart cells to divide in response to injury and to help patients recover from many kinds of cardiac dysfunction, says cardiologist Daniel P. Judge, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Heart and Vascular Institutes Center for Inherited Heart Diseases. Things usually heal up well in many parts of the body through cell division, except in the heart and the brain. Although other work has generated a lot of excitement about the possibility of treatment with stem cells, our research offers an entirely different direction to pursue in finding ways to repair a damaged heart.

Unlike most other cells in the body that regularly die off and regenerate, heart cells rarely divide after birth. When those cells are damaged by heart attack, infection or other means, the injury is irreparable.

Judges new findings, reported online March 4 in the journal Nature Communications, emerged from insights into a genetic mutation that appears responsible for allowing cells to continue replicating in the heart in very rare cases.

The discovery, Judge says, began with the tale of two infants, siblings born years apart but each diagnosed in their earliest weeks with heart failure. One underwent a heart transplant at three months of age; the other at five months. When pathologists examined their damaged hearts after they were removed, they were intrigued to find that the babies heart cells continued to divide a process that wasnt supposed to happen at their ages.

The researchers then hunted for genetic abnormalities that might account for the phenomenon by scanning the small percent of their entire genome responsible for coding proteins. One stood out: ALMS1, in which each of the affected children had two abnormal copies.

The Johns Hopkins researchers also contacted colleagues at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, who had found the same heart cell proliferation in five of its infant patients, including two sets of siblings. Genetic analysis showed those children had mutations in the same ALMS1 gene, which appears to cause a deficiency in the Alstrm protein that impairs the ability of heart cells to stop dividing on schedule. The runaway division may be responsible for the devastating heart damage in all of the infants, Judge says.

These mutations, it turned out, were also linked to a known rare recessive disorder called Alstrm syndrome, a condition associated with obesity, diabetes, blindness, hearing loss and heart disease.

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Researchers Find Protein 'Switch' Central to Heart Cell Division

In 2009, Steven Bustamante, 58, was in bad shape.

A major heart attack, along with nearly every complication in the book, had led to heart failure. He called his brother from the hospital to say his goodbyes, fearing he would fall asleep and never wake up.

But when he did wake up, an unfamiliar doctor from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine was sitting in his room, offering him the opportunity to participate in a clinical trial where his heart would be injected with stem cells extracted from his bone marrow.

The results were transformative.

I went from being a person who probably needed a heart transplant to someone whose heart is in a normal range, Bustamante said. I dont feel like a sick person anymore, at all.

Several studies at the UM Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute (ISCI) have shown that stem cells derived from adult bone marrow, which carry the potential to grow into various kinds of cells based on their environment, can help repair damaged heart tissue.

As researchers continue to explore the potential of stem cell therapy in current and upcoming studies, they are taking what some see as early but steady strides toward changing the future of cardiac care perhaps to one in which doctors help patients regenerate and rejuvenate their own hearts.

Weve taken some very important steps, said Dr. Joshua Hare, director of the ISCI, and we really envision the possibility that this may be an applicable therapy that could help a lot of people. But there are a lot of questions.

To answer those questions, researchers are simultaneously expanding trial sizes, branching into various cardiac diseases and trying to hone in on ideal treatment, dosage and delivery.

One of the pilot trials, published in November 2012, aimed to determine if stem cells from a donor are as safe and effective as a patients own stem cells. The results from 30 people showed that both types are safe good news because donor cells can be prepared in advance.

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University of Miami researchers explore potential of stem ...

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Newswise BETHESDA, Md., February 27, 2014 Six scientific societies will hold their joint scientific sessions and annual meetings, known as Experimental Biology (EB), from April 26-30, 2014, in San Diego. This meeting, EB 2014, brings together the leading researchers from dozens of life-science disciplines. The societies represented at the meeting will be: the American Association of Anatomists (AAA), the American Physiological Society (APS), the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), the American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP), the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) and the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET).

Below are some programming highlights:

Productive Public-Private Partnerships for Pharmacological Progress (ASPET) This timely symposium will explore new models of productive relationships used by pharmaceutical companies, academia, government and foundations to foster the discovery and development of new therapeutics to address unmet medical needs. Among the topics discussed will be the role of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health in helping to speed delivery of new drugs to patients, how public-private partnerships in the United States and the European Union are carrying out basic science that is relevant to drug discovery and how industry can build successful partnerships with academic institutions while avoiding the usual pitfalls. (Tues., 4/29)

Stem Cells for Heart Repair (ASIP) Heart failure is a leading cause of death, but most of todays therapies only delay the progression of disease. Recent clinical trials and laboratory experiments have conceptually demonstrated how stem cells could be used to repair the heart and improve cardiac function. In this session, leading investigators talk about using cardiac progenitor cells to regenerate contractile heart muscle cells in both developing and aging hearts as well as the potential use of stem cells for forming new vessels in the injured heart. (Sun., 4/27)

Molecular Basis of Addiction: Neurocognitive Deficits and Memory (ASBMB) This symposium will address the emerging idea that addiction is a disease of learning and memory. The general consensus is that the rewarding properties of addictive drugs depend on their ability to ultimately increase dopamine in the brain, but current research does not adequately explain the molecular mechanisms of drug addiction, how repeated dopamine release leads to compulsive use, why the risk of relapse can persist for years and how drug-related cues come to control behavior. This symposium will present new data providing evidence that addiction partly represents a pathological usurpation of processes involved in long-term memory. (Mon., 4/28)

Neurocognition: The Food-Brain Connection (ASN) Does food addiction exist? This double session will take a trans-disciplinary view of the emerging evidence on cognitive neuroscience, nutrition and food/sensory factors involved in understanding the brains role in food consumption. Topics include current perspectives and misunderstandings related to food and the brain as well as methods for studying food reward and control of food intake. (Mon., 4/28)

Signaling by Natural and Engineered Extracellular Matrices (AAA) This mini-meeting will explore how cells and tissues respond to the physical structure and biological properties of natural and engineered extracellular matrices. The presentations will show how interplay and bi-directional interaction between cells and their surrounding extracellular matrix scaffold play a pivotal role in the formation of new organs and tissues. Plenary speakers will discuss matrix-dependent mechanical regulation of organ development; the microenvironment of aging muscle stem cells as a therapeutic target; and how growth factors, the extracellular matrix and microRNAs regulate vessel formation. (Sun., 4/27)

Sex Differences in Physiology and Pathophysiology (APS) Scientists are discovering significant differences between males and females that affect health, illness and how the body responds to therapeutics. This symposium will discuss the latest animal and clinical research on sex differences in both disease and non-disease physiology. Topics include sex differences in chronic kidney disease, sex-specific signaling in heart muscle cells, mechanisms of hypertension in the transition to menopause, and a newly discovered peptide that controls hormonal release from the pituitary gland with differing effects in males and females. (Sun., 4/27)

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Experimental Biology 2014 Programming at a Glance

Freeport, The Bahamas (PRWEB) February 21, 2014

Okyanos Heart Institute, whose mission it is to bring a new standard of care and a better quality of life to patients with coronary artery disease using adult stem cell therapy, and Cytori Therapeutics have announced that they have established a ten year supply agreement for the Celution System family of products to be utilized by the Okyanos Heart Institute.

Cytoris Celution system is a CE-marked device that is compliant with the European Medical Device Directive, has a well established safety record and will be used by Okyanos to treat patients with coronary artery disease and other ischemic conditions, stated Matthew Feshbach, CEO and co-founder of Okyanos. In a small but rigorous double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial, strong signals of efficacy from the placement of adipose-derived stem and regenerative cells (ADRCs) in the heart were reported, added Feshbach.

For Cytori, this agreement represents our expanding customer base and an important new customer focused on utilizing the global standard CelutionTM System to process ADRCs to treat patients, stated Christopher Calhoun, CEO of Cytori.

The Bahamas Parliament passed stem cell legislation and regulations in August, 2013, which focus on patient safety and require scientific and clinical trial data supporting the treatment being provided. Okyanos is building out a state-of-the-art cath lab capable of treating more than 1,000 patients per year in Freeport, The Bahamas.

ABOUT OKYANOS HEART INSTITUTE: (Oh key AH nos) Based in Freeport, The Bahamas, Okyanos Heart Institutes mission is to bring a new standard of care and a better quality of life to patients with coronary artery disease using cardiac stem cell therapy. Okyanos adheres to U.S. surgical center standards and is led by Chief Medical Officer Howard T. Walpole Jr., M.D., M.B.A., F.A.C.C., F.S.C.A.I. Okyanos Treatment utilizes a unique blend of stem and regenerative cells derived from ones own adipose (fat) tissue. The cells, when placed into the heart via a minimally-invasive procedure, can stimulate the growth of new blood vessels, a process known as angiogenesis. Angiogenesis facilitates blood flow in the heart, which supports intake and use of oxygen (as demonstrated in rigorous clinical trials such as the PRECISE trial). The literary name Okyanos, the Greek god of rivers, symbolizes restoration of blood flow.

Okyanos LinkedIn Page: http://www.linkedin.com/company/okyanos-heart-institute

Okyanos Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/OKYANOS

Okyanos Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/#!/OkyanosHeart

Okyanos Google+ Page: https://plus.google.com/+Okyanos/posts

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Okyanos Heart Institute Inks Deal with Cytori Therapeutics For Long-Term Supply Agreement

Researchers at the southern Taiwan-based National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) recently announced in a press conference that they have identified a new drug that can be used to repair aged and damaged hearts.

The stem cell researchers, led by Professor Patrick Ching-Ho Hsieh, from the Institute of Clinical Medicine, NCKU, discovered that prostaglandin E2, a type of hormone-like medicine, is capable of rejuvenating aged hearts.

The discovery sheds light on cardiac cell regeneration and provides another effective option for heart disease patients other than heart transplantation.

Hsieh said that cardiovascular disease such as congestive heart failure is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the world. Currently, there are about 6 million patients of congestive heart failure in the US and about 0.4 million patients in Taiwan. In spite of intensive medical or surgical treatment, 80% of patients die within 8 years of diagnosis, Hsieh added.

He also noted that biomedical research nowadays has couple of milestones for heart diseases; however, the renewing mechanism is still unknown. It is also lacking a drug allowing stimulation of heart regeneration by endogenous stem cells.

After 7 years of work, Hsiehs team has identified the critical time period and the essential player for this cardiac repairing process.

Also a cardiovascular surgeon at the NCKU Hospital, Hsiehs research group used a special transgenic mouse model he developed when he was a research fellow at Harvard Medical School to investigate how endogenous stem cells regenerate cardiomyocytes following myocardial infarction, or heart attack.

They showed that the cardiac self-repairing process begins within 7 days after injury and it reaches its maximal activity on day 10.

The key player for this process is PGE2 and it is important for regulating cardiac stem cell activities.

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PGE2 promotes cardiac stem cell activity | Stem Cells Freak

Sunday, February 16, 20144:07:29 PM(IST)

Havana, Feb 16 (IANS): More than 5,000 patients have received stem cell treatment in Cuba since its procedure was introduced in 2004, a medical expert said.

Porfirio Hernandez, researcher and vice director at the Hematology and Immunology Institute in Cuba, said the stem cell treatment method has been implemented in 13 of the 15 provinces in Cuba.

As a widely acknowledged pioneer of this practice, Hernandez said that more than 60 percent of patients receiving the treatment had suffered from severe ischemia at lower limbs and other blood vessel related ailments, reported Xinhua.

The therapy has also been used to reduce the sufferings of patients with severe orthopedic and cardiac problems, Hernandez added.

Stem cells are capable of self-renewing, regenerating tissues damaged by diverse disease, traumas, and ageing, and stimulating the creation of new blood vessels.

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Over 5,000 Cubans receive stem cell treatment: Expert

ONEIDA >> There is an abundance of groundbreaking research going on at the Cardiac Research Institute, or Masonic Medical Research Laboratory in Utica. Myron Thurston III, the assistant director of development and communications at the institute, will host the next Community Media Lab to share some of the experimental cardiology projects and research with the public, as well as educate them on heart health.

The Community Media Lab will take place Feb. 27 at 6 p.m. at the Oneida Daily Dispatch office, 130 Broad St. in Oneida. It is free and open to the public.

Thurston will explain what were doing in the area of cardiac arrhythmias and irregular heartbeats. An arrhythmia is an abnormal heart rhythm caused by electrical instability within the heart.

Some of the most significant work done at the lab is with stem cell research and bio-engineering. Scientists at the lab are working on using skin cells to create genetically-matching heart cells that can ideally be used for regenerative therapy for failing hearts.

Thurston says the idea is that if the scientists can create a heart or organ made from the persons cells the body wouldnt reject it.

The lab is also pioneering efforts in cloning a human heart. In the beginning of 2013, scientists at the institute began to look into replicating a heart in their revolutionary bioreactor, or bio-engineering chamber, which provides a space for the growth and maturity of cloned organs. They have been testing with rabbit hearts, and hope to scale up from there.

The process begins with removing all of the genetic material from the heart, leaving a shell of the muscle, commonly called a ghost heart because it has a white appearance after decellularization. The goal is to put pluripotent stem cells, or stem cells capable of separating into one of many cell types, into the ghost heart to generate a cloned heart from the patients own cells. Scientist are in the process of putting cells back into the heart, and Thurston says so far its working.

This gets rid of the need for donor hearts, said Thurston. Donor hearts have to be harvested within minutes to be viable for a transplant, he said, which is less time than it takes to harvest most other organs.

Thurston says the next step is for scientists to test pig hearts, which are identical to human hearts once all the genetic material is removed.

While the lab has made several scientific accomplishments including producing revolutionary drugs and treatments for cardiac arrhythmias, it boasts the discovery and naming of the M cell as its most significant breakthrough in heart research. Through the finding of the M cell, researchers were able to determine that the heart was a heterogeneous organ, meaning differences exist in the organs function and drug interaction. The cells were found to be the main reason for many types of arrhythmias, leading to the development of new strategies to fight the irregular heartbeats by targeting the M cells. Continued...

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Media Lab to focus on heart research

Poets and physicians know that a scarred heart cannot beat the way it used to, but the science of reprogramming cells offers hope--for the physical heart, at least.

A team of University of Michigan biomedical engineers has turned cells common in scar tissue into colonies of beating heart cells. Their findings could advance the path toward regenerating tissue that's been damaged in a heart attack.

Previous work in direct reprogramming, jumping straight from a cell type involved in scarring to heart muscle cells, has a low success rate. But Andrew Putnam, an associate professor of biomedical engineering and head of the Cell Signaling in Engineered Tissues Lab, thinks he knows at least one of the missing factors for better reprogramming.

"Many reprogramming studies don't consider the environment that the cells are in -- they don't consider anything other than the genes," he said. "The environment can dictate the expression of those genes."

To explore how the cells' surroundings might improve the efficiency of reprogramming, Yen Peng Kong, a post-doctoral researcher in the lab, attempted to turn scarring cells, or fibroblasts, into heart muscle cells while growing them in gels of varying stiffness. He and his colleagues compared a soft commercial gel with medium-stiffness fibrin, made of the proteins that link with platelets to form blood clots, and with high-stiffness collagen, made of structural proteins.

The fibroblasts came from mouse embryos. To begin the conversion to heart muscle cells, Kong infected the fibroblasts with a specially designed virus that carried mouse transgenes -- genes expressed by stem cells.

Fooled into stem cell behavior, the fibroblasts transformed themselves into stem-cell-like progenitor cells. This transition, which would be skipped in direct reprogramming, encouraged the cells to divide and grow into colonies rather than remaining as lone rangers. The tighter community might have helped to ease the next transition, since naturally developing heart muscle cells are also close with their neighbors.

After seven days, Kong changed the mixture used to feed the cells, adding a protein that encourages the growth of heart tissue. This helped push the cells toward adopting the heart muscle identity. A few days later, some of the colonies were contracting spontaneously, marking themselves out as heart muscle colonies.

The transition was particularly successful in the fibrin and fibrin-collagen mixes, which saw as many as half of the colonies converting to heart muscle.

The team has yet to discover exactly what it is about fibrin that makes it better for supporting heart muscle cell. While most materials either stretch or weaken under strain, fibrin gets harder. Putnam wonders whether the fibrin was successful because heart muscles expect a material that toughens up when they contract.

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Help for a scarred heart: Scarring cells turned to beating ...

February 11, 2014 --

Freeport, Bahamas (PRWEB) February 11, 2014

Matt Feshbach, CEO of Okyanos Heart Institute whose mission it is to bring a new standard of care and better quality of life to patients with coronary artery disease using cardiac stem cell therapy, announces the company will host a hard hat reception for conference attendees at their new facility in Freeport. The conference, titled Bridging the Gap: Research to Point of Care, brings together medical scientists, clinicians, regulatory experts, and investors to discuss progress in the field of research and clinical protocols and the process of taking promising therapies to fight chronic disease to market in a responsible manner. Gold Sponsor Okyanos Heart Institute hosts a networking reception for conference attendees at their facility in Freeport on Friday, February 21st from 5:00 7:00 p.m. The company is calling the reception a hard hat reception metaphorically as the construction is not yet completed.

Chief Medical Officer Howard Walpole, M.D., M.B.A., F.A.C.C., F.S.C.A.I. and Chief Science Officer Leslie Miller, M.D., F.A.C.C. will host the reception, along with CEO Matthew Feshbach and offer tours of the commercial cath lab which will offer stem cell therapy to qualified patients with advanced coronary artery disease under the new laws and regulations in The Bahamas.

Douglas Hammond, president of STEMSO, states, STEMSO will continue to provide a proactive and positive voice for organizations and jurisdictions using adult stem cells for therapies and transplants. The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, and our Gold Sponsor Okyanos Heart Institute provide an excellent example of the results that can be brought about with realistic, modern and balanced regulations that serve the national economic interest, patient needs for life-saving medicine and the business advantages for commercialization and translation of adult stem cells.

The reception in our facility will showcase the capabilities in The Bahamas to deliver high quality healthcare to patients in need, says Walpole. It will also provide an informal forum for relevant discussion on bridging the gap between research and point of care between scientists, regulatory experts, clinicians and government officials, and help to address issues of paramount importance such as patient safety and effective tracking of progress once the patients return home. We are proud to host this reception at Okyanos Heart Institute.

Treating patients with adipose-derived stem and regenerative cells (ADRCs) is showing existing promise in clinical trials, states Leslie Miller, M.D., F.A.C.C. an investigator in more than eighty clinical trials for heart failure. The next step in delivering stem cells to patients outside of clinical trials is close. I am enormously excited about the opportunity with this conference to engage in meaningful discussion around what parameters must exist to treat heart failure patients safely and tracking the effectiveness of these new options, which previously were unavailable to patients who have had heart attacks and/or stents, and who continue to worsen after exhausting all other interventions available to them.

The complete agenda for the conference can be found on STEMSOs website at http://www.stemso.org. Other speakers include stem cell researchers, scientists and practitioners from around the world with leading discoveries in the field, and investors in the healthcare space.

Registration is open for attending and exhibiting on STEMSOs website.

About Okyanos Heart Institute: (Oh key AH nos) Based in Freeport, The Bahamas, Okyanos Heart Institutes mission is to bring a new standard of care and a better quality of life to patients with coronary artery disease using cardiac stem cell therapy. Okyanos adheres to U.S. surgical center standards and is led by Chief Medical Officer Howard T. Walpole Jr., M.D., M.B.A., F.A.C.C., F.S.C.A.I. Okyanos Treatment utilizes a unique blend of stem and regenerative cells derived from ones own adipose (fat) tissue. The cells, when placed into the heart via a minimally-invasive catheterization, stimulate the growth of new blood vessels, a process known as angiogenesis. The treatment facilitates blood flow in the heart and supports intake and use of oxygen (as demonstrated in rigorous clinical trials such as the PRECISE trial). The literary name Okyanos (Oceanos) symbolizes flow. For more information, go to http://www.okyanos.com.

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Okyanos Heart Institute Hosts Networking Reception for the ...

Freeport, Bahamas (PRWEB) February 11, 2014

Matt Feshbach, CEO of Okyanos Heart Institute whose mission it is to bring a new standard of care and better quality of life to patients with coronary artery disease using cardiac stem cell therapy, announces the company will host a hard hat reception for conference attendees at their new facility in Freeport. The conference, titled Bridging the Gap: Research to Point of Care, brings together medical scientists, clinicians, regulatory experts, and investors to discuss progress in the field of research and clinical protocols and the process of taking promising therapies to fight chronic disease to market in a responsible manner. Gold Sponsor Okyanos Heart Institute hosts a networking reception for conference attendees at their facility in Freeport on Friday, February 21st from 5:00 7:00 p.m. The company is calling the reception a hard hat reception metaphorically as the construction is not yet completed.

Chief Medical Officer Howard Walpole, M.D., M.B.A., F.A.C.C., F.S.C.A.I. and Chief Science Officer Leslie Miller, M.D., F.A.C.C. will host the reception, along with CEO Matthew Feshbach and offer tours of the commercial cath lab which will offer stem cell therapy to qualified patients with advanced coronary artery disease under the new laws and regulations in The Bahamas.

Douglas Hammond, president of STEMSO, states, STEMSO will continue to provide a proactive and positive voice for organizations and jurisdictions using adult stem cells for therapies and transplants. The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, and our Gold Sponsor Okyanos Heart Institute provide an excellent example of the results that can be brought about with realistic, modern and balanced regulations that serve the national economic interest, patient needs for life-saving medicine and the business advantages for commercialization and translation of adult stem cells.

The reception in our facility will showcase the capabilities in The Bahamas to deliver high quality healthcare to patients in need, says Walpole. It will also provide an informal forum for relevant discussion on bridging the gap between research and point of care between scientists, regulatory experts, clinicians and government officials, and help to address issues of paramount importance such as patient safety and effective tracking of progress once the patients return home. We are proud to host this reception at Okyanos Heart Institute.

Treating patients with adipose-derived stem and regenerative cells (ADRCs) is showing existing promise in clinical trials, states Leslie Miller, M.D., F.A.C.C. an investigator in more than eighty clinical trials for heart failure. The next step in delivering stem cells to patients outside of clinical trials is close. I am enormously excited about the opportunity with this conference to engage in meaningful discussion around what parameters must exist to treat heart failure patients safely and tracking the effectiveness of these new options, which previously were unavailable to patients who have had heart attacks and/or stents, and who continue to worsen after exhausting all other interventions available to them.

The complete agenda for the conference can be found on STEMSOs website at http://www.stemso.org. Other speakers include stem cell researchers, scientists and practitioners from around the world with leading discoveries in the field, and investors in the healthcare space.

Registration is open for attending and exhibiting on STEMSOs website.

About Okyanos Heart Institute: (Oh key AH nos) Based in Freeport, The Bahamas, Okyanos Heart Institutes mission is to bring a new standard of care and a better quality of life to patients with coronary artery disease using cardiac stem cell therapy. Okyanos adheres to U.S. surgical center standards and is led by Chief Medical Officer Howard T. Walpole Jr., M.D., M.B.A., F.A.C.C., F.S.C.A.I. Okyanos Treatment utilizes a unique blend of stem and regenerative cells derived from ones own adipose (fat) tissue. The cells, when placed into the heart via a minimally-invasive catheterization, stimulate the growth of new blood vessels, a process known as angiogenesis. The treatment facilitates blood flow in the heart and supports intake and use of oxygen (as demonstrated in rigorous clinical trials such as the PRECISE trial). The literary name Okyanos (Oceanos) symbolizes flow. For more information, go to http://www.okyanos.com.

Okyanos LinkedIn Page: http://www.linkedin.com/company/okyanos-heart-institute Okyanos Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/OKYANOS Okyanos Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/#!/OkyanosHeart Okyanos Google+ Page: https://plus.google.com/+Okyanos/posts Okyanos You Tube Physician Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/okyanosforphysicians

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Okyanos Heart Institute Hosts Networking Reception for the International Stem Cell Society (STEMSO) World Conference ...

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (Ivanhoe Newswire) - Statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services reveal that an average of 18 people dies waiting for organ transplants each day. There are about 2,500 hearts available and a waiting list of about 100,000 patients in need. Now, researchers at the University of Minnesota hope to bridge that gap.

"I couldn't walk, or breathe, or eat," congestive heart failure patient Allan Isaacs told Ivanhoe.

That was life with congestive heart failure for 71-year-old Isaacs, but after a left ventricular assist device was implanted into his chest, Allan's life got moving again.

"(I do)15 minutes on the elliptical and about 30 minutes on the treadmill," Allan said.

The LVAD helps pump oxygen rich blood throughout the body, but Allan's recovery may also have to do with the fact that his treatment may have included injections of his own bone marrow stem cells. Allan's taking part in a leading edge blind study at the University of Minnesota's Medical Center.

"We isolate the stem cells and when they go for surgery we inject those cells on the heart wall," Ganesh Raveendran, MD, MS, Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, told Ivanhoe.

One-third of the patients receive a placebo, the rest get ten injections of stem cells into their hearts. Muscle tissue is then analyzed to, "see whether these cells have made any meaningful change, whether the cells have transformed into cardiac muscle," Dr. Raveendran explained.

In many cases an LVAD is a bridge to transplant, but researchers and Allan hope this stem cell therapy could eliminate that need.

"Now, I can do whatever I feel like doing," Allan said.

The research team at the University of Minnesota Medical Center hopes to wrap up the study by end of this year and collaborate on a multicenter study involving seven medical centers throughout the nation.

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3-Feb-2014

Contact: Herb Booth hbooth@uta.edu 817-272-7075 University of Texas at Arlington

A UT Arlington bioengineer has received a four-year, $1.4 million National Institutes of Health grant to create a nanoparticle system to shore up arterial walls following angioplasty and stenting procedures to treat coronary arterial disease.

Kytai Nguyen, a UT Arlington associate professor of bioengineering, said the research looks to improve an established procedure like angioplasty, which opens arteries and blood vessels that are blocked.

"We have discovered a way to use nanoparticles to help the arteries heal themselves more effectively following one of the most common surgical procedures," said Nguyen, who joined UT Arlington in 2005. "This process promises to reduce complications that can occur in the arteries following surgery and may extend opportunities for patients to live longer, healthier lives."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that nearly 1 million people in the United States have angioplasty or stent procedures done annually.

Khosrow Behbehani, dean of the College of Engineering, said Dr. Nguyen is specializing in developing innovative techniques for drug delivery which critical to advancing health care.

"Earning a National Institutes of Health grant puts Dr. Nguyen in very exclusive company," Behbehani said. The NIH reported that only 16.8 percent of its nearly 50,000 applications in 2013 were awarded grants. "Receiving this grant reflects the cutting-edge research that Dr. Nguyen is conducting. Her investigation will help improve the efficacy of stents in treating cardiovascular anomalies."

Following the angioplasty or stent, surgeons would insert the nanoparticles at the affected site, and the nanoparticles would attach themselves to the arterial wall. The nanoparticles would be programmed to recruit stem cells, which would regenerate the arterial wall's weakened cells naturally, Nguyen said.

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Newswise When it comes to finding cures for heart disease, scientists at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai are working to their own beat. They may have developed a tissue model for the human heart that can bridge the gap between animal models and human clinical trial patients.

Mount Sinai researchers generated their engineered cardiac tissue from human embryonic stem cells with the resulting muscle having remarkable similarities to native heart muscle, including the ability to beat and contract like the human heart. This research breakthrough study was highlighted as the cover story of the February 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal.

"We hope that our human engineered cardiac tissues will serve as a platform for developing reliable models of the human heart for routine laboratory use," said lead researcher Kevin D. Costa, PhD, Associate Professor of Cardiology and Director of the Cardiovascular Cell and Tissue Engineering Laboratory at the Cardiovascular Research Center of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

"This could help accelerate and revolutionize cardiology research by improving the ability to efficiently discover, design, develop, and deliver new therapies for the treatment of heart disease, and by providing more efficient screening tools to identify and prevent cardiac side effects, ultimately leading to safer and more effective treatments for patients suffering from heart disease," says Dr. Costa.

The international team of researchers led by Mount Sinai created human engineered cardiac tissue, known as hECTs, within a custom bioreactor device designed to exercise the tissue and measure its contractile force throughout the culture process. Within 7-10 days, the human cardiac cells self-assembled into a three-dimensional tissue strip that beats spontaneously like natural heart muscle, and can survive a month or more for long-term experimental testing. These hECTs displayed contractile activity in a rhythmic pattern of 70 beats per minute on average, similar to the human heart.

In addition, research results show the heart tissue model responds to electrical stimulation and is able to incorporate new genetic information delivered by adenovirus gene therapy. During functional analysis, some of the responses known to occur in the natural adult human heart were also elicited in hECTs through electrical, mechanical, and pharmacological interventions, while some responses of hECTs more closely mimicked the immature or newborn human heart.

"We've come a long way in our understanding of the human heart," said Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, "but we still lack an adequate tissue model which can be used to test promising therapies and model deadly diseases. This advance, if it proves successful over time, will beat anything that's currently available."

About the Mount Sinai Health System The Mount Sinai Health System is an integrated health system committed to providing distinguished care, conducting transformative research, and advancing biomedical education. Structured around seven member hospital campuses and a single medical school, the Health System has an extensive ambulatory network and a range of inpatient and outpatient servicesfrom community-based facilities to tertiary and quaternary care.

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Engineered Cardiac Tissue Developed to Study the Human Heart

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3-Feb-2014

Contact: Kim Newman sciencenews@einstein.yu.edu 718-430-3101 Albert Einstein College of Medicine

February 3, 2014 (Bronx, NY) Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center have found a chemical "signature" in blood-forming stem cells that predicts whether patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) will respond to chemotherapy.

The findings are based on data from nearly 700 AML patients. If validated in clinical trials, the signature would help physicians better identify which AML patients would benefit from chemotherapy and which patients have a prognosis so grave that they may be candidates for more aggressive treatments such as bone-marrow transplantation. The paper was published today in the online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Sparing Patients from Debilitating Side Effects

According to the American Cancer Society, AML accounts for nearly one-third of all new leukemia cases each year. In 2013, more than 10,000 patients died of AML.

"AML is a disease in which fewer than 30 percent of patients are cured," said co-senior author Ulrich Steidl, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of cell biology and of medicine and the Diane and Arthur B. Belfer Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research at Einstein and associate chair for translational research in oncology at Montefiore. "Ideally, we would like to increase that cure rate. But in the meantime, it would help if we could identify who won't benefit from standard treatment, so we can spare them the debilitating effects of chemotherapy and get them into clinical trials for experimental therapies that might be more effective."

Analyzing Methylation Patterns

The Einstein study focused on so-called epigenetic "marks" chemical changes in DNA that turn genes on or off. The researchers focused on one common epigenetic process known as methylation, in which methyl (CH3) groups attach in various patterns to the genes of human cells. Researchers have known that aberrations in the methylation of hematopoietic, or blood-forming, stem cells (HSCs) can prevent them from differentiating into mature blood cells, leading to AML.

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Chemical stem cell signature predicts treatment response for acute myeloid leukemia

The heart beats in a mouse embryo grown with stems cells made from blood.

Back in 1958, a young biologist at Cornell University made a stunning discovery.

He took a single cell from a carrot and then mixed it with some coconut milk. Days went by and the cell started dividing. Little roots formed. Stems started growing. Eventually, a whole new carrot plant rose up from the single cell.

Imagine if you could perform a similar feat with animal cells, even human cells.

A team of Japanese biologists say they've taken a big step toward doing just that, at least in mice. Instead of using coconut milk, though, the magic ingredient is something akin to lemon juice.

Biologist Haruko Obokata and her colleagues at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology say they've figured out a fast, easy way to make the most powerful cells in the world embryonic stem cells from just one blood cell.

The trick? Put white blood cells from a baby mouse in a mild acid solution, Obokata and her team report Wednesday in the journal Nature. Eventually a few stem cells emerge that can turn into any other cell in the body skin, heart, liver or neurons, you name it.

For decades, scientists have been searching for easy ways to make human embryonic stem cells. These cells hold great potential for treating diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease and diabetes.

But for a long time, human stem cells were essentially off limits for researchers because the only way to get them was by destroying human embryos.

Then in 2007, another team of scientists at the RIKEN center figured out a way to make human stem cells from skin and blood by manipulating the cell's genes.

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A Little Acid Turns Mouse Blood Into Brain, Heart And Stem ...

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Scientists were able to reprogram mature stem cells to revert back to an embryonic state, a breakthrough that could make stem cell research easier and less expensive.

In experiments that could open a new era in stem cell biology, scientists have found a cheap and easy way to reprogram mature cells from mice back into an embryonic-like state that allowed them to generate many types of tissue.

The research, described as game-changing by experts in the field, suggests human cells could in future be reprogrammed by the same technique, offering a simpler way to replace damaged cells or grow new organs for sick and injured people.

Chris Mason, chair of regenerative medicine bioprocessing at University College London, who was not involved in the work, said its approach was "the most simple, lowest-cost and quickest method" to generate so-called pluripotent cells - able to develop into many different cell types - from mature cells.

RELATED: NEW YORK DOCS' 3D-PRINTED WINDPIPE REPRESENTS FUTURE OF TRANSPLANTS

"If it works in man, this could be the game changer that ultimately makes a wide range of cell therapies available using the patient's own cells as starting material - the age of personalized medicine would have finally arrived," he said.

The experiments, reported in two papers in the journal Nature on Wednesday, involved scientists from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Japan and Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the United States.

Beginning with mature, adult cells, researchers let them multiply and then subjected them to stress "almost to the point of death", they explained, by exposing them to various events including trauma, low oxygen levels and acidic environments.

RELATED: SCIENTISTS GROW TEETH USING STEM CELLS FROM URINE

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Stem cell breakthrough: Scientists create embryonic-type ...