WASHINGTON D.C: Scientists have developed a revolutionary 3D-bioprinted patch that could one day be used to repair damage to the human heart.

The patch can help heal scarred heart tissue after a heart attack. The discovery is a major step forward in treating patients with tissue damage after a heart attack.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The research study is published in Circulation Research, a journal published by the American Heart Association.

See the article here:
Breakthrough in cardiac health: 3D-printed patch can help mend a 'broken' heart - Economic Times

Cardiac Stem Cells Comments Off on Breakthrough in cardiac health: 3D-printed patch can help mend a ‘broken’ heart – Economic Times | April 15th, 2017

Having worked at University Malaya Medical Centres (UMMC) Paediatrics Department for 20 years, senior consultant paediatric oncologist Prof Dr Hany Mohd Ariffin has had to tell her fair share of parents that there is nothing more that can be done for their terminally ill child.

As head of the Paediatric Haematology-Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplantation Unit, this is usually because there is no suitable donor available for a life-saving bone marrow transplant for the child.

Bone marrow transplants, also called stem cell transplants, are used in conditions where the patients bone marrow is damaged or destroyed by disease or intensive cancer treatment, and is unable to carry out its job of producing healthy red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets.

Because white blood cells or leukocytes are part of the immune system that protects our body against foreign invaders, it is critical in such a procedure to match the so-called immunological fingerprints of the patient and the donor.

As Prof Hany explains, these fingerprints are known as human leukocyte antigens (HLAs).

HLAs help the immune system distinguish between the bodys own cells and foreign cells, usually bacteria and viruses that infect us, so that our white blood cells can find and destroy them.

It is crucial that a bone marrow donor and the patient have the same HLAs in order to minimise the chances of the donated bone marrows white blood cells considering its new host body as foreign and attacking it.

Perfect match needed

Standard bone marrow transplantations require that all 10 HLAs in both patient and donor are a match.

As HLAs are inherited half from each parent, this means that only a patients siblings are a possible perfect match.

Explains Prof Hany: If you look at statistics, out of four, one sibling will be completely matched, one sibling will be completely not matched, and two siblings would be half-matched.

So, the chances of finding a match is 25%, but that is statistical randomisation.

In the real world, you can have 10 siblings and all of them might not be matched with you.

If a patient does not have a sibling that matches perfectly with them, or does not have a sibling at all, their only other option is to check for an unrelated match in international stem cell registries or blood banks.

However, Prof Hany notes that this usually requires a sum of RM100,000 for a unit of bone marrow and at least three to four months of waiting two luxuries not all patients have.

She adds: But it is not easy to get a good match for Asians as these registries are usually Caucasian.

And its even worse if you are an Indian patient, as you cant even go to a Taiwanese blood bank.

In the case of Muhammad Yusuff Iskandar Mohd Hambali, time was a critical factor.

The firstborn of two teachers had been referred to UMMC at 10 months of age for recurrent pneumonia.

His mother, secondary school physical education teacher, Aduratun Nasyihin Mokhtar shares: He started falling sick at the age of seven months he had a persistent cough.

Initially, the doctor thought it was pertussis, but it didnt get better after three months as pertussis should, so he was admitted to the hospital.

However, none of the antibiotics they tried worked, so he was referred to UMMC to check his lungs.

This filepic shows a thalassaemia patient with his infusion pump machine for iron-chelating therapy. Thalassaemia is one of the conditions curable by a bone marrow transplant.

It was in UMMC that Yusuff, as he is called, was discovered to have X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID).

This rare genetic condition, also known as bubble boy disease, results in the malfunction or lack of two specialised white blood cells called T and B cell lymphocytes.

This means that Yusuff effectively had a non-existent immune system.

This was the reason he could not fight off the pneumonia. In fact, his lungs had deteriorated so badly that he was on oxygen therapy from the age of eight months.

In addition, the Mycobacterium bovis in his BCG vaccination had spread to his back, he had chronic diarrhoea and he was very much underweight.

Yusuff needed a bone marrow transplant, and he needed it fast.

Having reached out to her international colleagues at that time, Prof Hany says: One thing constant in all their advice was that if we delayed the procedure, he would never get better from his disseminated BCG, his pneumonia would just worsen, and once you reach a critical point, there would be no turning back.

He would have been dead by six months.

The problem was that Yusuff was then an only child.

Although his mother was pregnant with his younger sister at that time, she would not have been born in time to help him, assuming that she was a match for him in the first place.

With no time to waste, Prof Hany and her team decided to try a procedure called haplo-identical bone marrow transplantation.

On whether she and her team were ready to carry out the new procedure, Prof Hany says that you will never be ready until a life is dangling precariously in front of you. Photo: The Star/Samuel Ong

In this procedure, only five out of 10 HLAs need to be matched in order for the donor to be able to give bone marrow to the patient.

The beauty of this procedure is that you always have two parents (to donate), says Prof Hany.

So, Yusuffs father, sports science and physical education teacher Mohd Hambali Din @ Ismail, could now donate his bone marrow cells to his son.

First though, Yusuff needed to be fattened up via nutritional fluids infused into his veins, his pneumonia brought under control and his M. bovis infection treated with anti-tuberculosis therapy.

This was so that he would be in a decent enough condition to withstand the procedure.

Following the protocol established by Johns Hopkins University in the United States, but modified to suit Yusuffs condition, Prof Hany and her team first killed off Yusuffs remaining bone marrow cells through chemothera-py, before infusing 30ml of his fathers donated bone marrow into him.

Prof Hany explains that it takes two to three weeks for the new bone marrow cells to grow, during which time the patient is completely vulnerable to any infection.

This is why they remain in a completely sealed room where the air is hepa-filtered, they receive no visitors, and their food and linen are completely sterile, she says.

He was also treated with high-dose cyclophosphamide, a chemotherapy drug that targets T cell lymphocytes.

This was in order to destroy the half-matched mature T cells that came with his fathers donated bone marrow.

T cells are your soldier cells. His fathers T cells would recognise Yusuff as foreign and destroy everything in their wake.

And that is what has precluded mismatched transplants all this while, explains Prof Hany.

After the mature T cells are destroyed, she says: What you then get are T cells from stem cell origin, which learn to tolerate the environment of being in Yusuffs body, and therefore, they will be less aggressive and more friendly to these cells that they consider foreign.

Despite that, Yusuff still experienced graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) where his new white blood cells attacked the cells of his skin, gut and lungs.

In between, he also had two episodes of sepsis and he had to go to the ICU once.

He also had to go on the ventilator at one point, says Prof Hany.

She explains that GvHD, which is due to aggressive donor white blood cells, and infections, which are due to the still incomplete immune system, can co-exist, creating a dilemma for the medical team.

On the one hand, to ameliorate GvHD, you have to give steroids (in addition to standard immunosuppresants) to dampen down the immune system.

You dampen down the immune system, then you allow bacteria and fungi to grow.

And that is why it is very challenging, she says.

She admits: For the first 20 days, it was all very smooth and you think, Wah, Im a hero, but then the challenges came.

There were certain moments when I thought, Thats it, were going to lose him.

It took 149 days after the transplant before Yusuff was deemed well enough to be sent home.

And it was one year before Prof Hany and her team felt confident enough to declare him cured.

We estimate anything between six months to a year for the new bone marrow cells to grow and propagate.

So usually, after a year, if the GvHD doesnt appear anymore, it is very unlikely to suddenly appear, she explains.

This first anniversary of Yusuffs transplant, celebrated at UMMC on April 6, was not just sweet because of Yusuffs survival, it was also the opening of a new path for Prof Hany and her team.

On a personal note, there were many times when you have this period of self-doubt.

So, you think that we are just a bunch of stupid, gung-ho people, who are unrealistic; this is not America, this cannot be done that sort of feeling.

There were some moments when you think, have I done a disservice to this child? Would if it have been better to just let go, for the parents to just let go? Is God just testing me? shares Prof Hany.

However, a few months after Yusuffs transplant, she received the case of a baby boy with myelodysplastic syndrome.

Myelodysplastic children will progress to develop acute myeloid leukaemia within a year, and it is only curable with transplant, or not it is certain death by two years, she explains.

And this patient had two siblings, both of whom were only half-matched.

But we were able to offer a transplant to this child, because we knew that from the experience of Yusuff, if he has very bad GvHD of the gut, skin, lung, we would be able to handle it been there, done that.

We were already scarred for life, she says with a laugh. And in fact, due to their prior experience, Prof Hany and her team were able to more precisely determine the amount of donated bone marrow cells needed for transplant.

As a result, she says: The second patient sailed through and was discharged after only five weeks, as opposed to five months for Yusuff.

Explaining the potential impact of having this treatment option available, Prof Hany shares that bone marrow transplantation is a cure for conditions like leukaemia, blood disorders like thalassaemia, congenital defective immune systems and certain rare congenital metabolic conditions.

The major reason why transplants are not being done is because of the lack of an available donor, she says.

But haplo-identical bone marrow transplantation now opens the way for many more potential donors to help the patient.

The learning curve is steep, Prof Hany admits, but adds that after Yusuff, they were able to apply what they learnt to their second patient with great effect.

Im not saying it is easy, but I think it is worth developing further, because it can solve one of the greatest health problems in our country, which is inherited blood disorders.

Giving the example of thalassaemia, she estimates that it costs some RM3.5mil to treat a patient with regular blood transfusions and iron-chelating therapy for 30 years.

A haplo-identical bone marrow transplant costs approximately RM45,000 and will cure the patient.

The risk of dying from this procedure usually because of infections and GvHD during the period when the patient has no working immune system is estimated to be about 10%.

This is at the upper limit for standard bone marrow transplants, where the risk ranges from 5% to 10%.

She adds that studies have shown that the risk of severe GvHD is similar for haplo-identical transplants and sibling-matched transplants, which are both lower than transplants from an unrelated donor.

Although Yusuff is the first successful haplo-identical bone marrow transplant patient in the country, to the best of Prof Hanys knowledge, she believes that the procedure can be easily done in other major hospitals around the country.

The facilities are already there and specialists trained in bone marrow transplants need only learn the procedure once before they should be able to conduct it, she says.

So its not just having a big celebration to tell the world that we saved one boy with SCID, its having the ability to tell parents that there is always hope, as we can now do haplo-identical transplants in our centre, says Prof Hany.

It is about no longer having to tell parents that nothing more can be done for their terminally ill child.

All comments are moderated. Your comment may not show up immediately. Please keep it clean and on topic. Offensive comments will not be published.

The rest is here:
New hope with haplo-identical bone marrow transplant - Star2.com

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on New hope with haplo-identical bone marrow transplant – Star2.com | April 15th, 2017

Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co Ltd has ordered cell culture technologies from Hitachi as part of its effort to develop a treatment for Parkinsons disease.

The order financial terms of which were not provided will see Hitachi supply automated cell culturing technologies designed for the manufacture of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS).

Dainippon is developing a cell therapy for Parkinsons-related dopamine neuron loss and neurodegeneration in collaboration with both Hitachi and Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University (CiRA).

Part of the project which is funded by the Japanese Agency of Medical Research and Development (AMED) - involves the development of processing methods and technologies for the production of stem cells for regenerative therapies.

The Japanese drug firm has announced several regenerative medicine-based research projects in recent years, beginning in 2015 when it partnered with Sanbio to develop SB623, an allogenic cell therapy for ischemic stroke to improve motor abilities.

Regenerative meds

Regenerative medicine which engineers or replaces damaged cells within human patients has become a popular area of research in Japan sinceShinya Yamanaka won the 2012 Noel Prize for medicine for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.

Regenerative medicine is also a big focus for the Japanese Government.

Laws introduced in November 2014 therevised pharmaceutical affairs law and newregenerative medicines legislation mean such products could be reviewed and approved in just two years, if deemed to be effective.

Japans Government further underlined its commitment to regenerative medicine in its budget in January 2015, allocating Y2.5bn ($20.8bn) to the industrialisation of regenerative medicine evaluation fundamental technology development business.

Read more:
Sumitomo Dainippon buys cell therapy processing tech from Hitachi - In-PharmaTechnologist.com

IPS Cell Therapy Comments Off on Sumitomo Dainippon buys cell therapy processing tech from Hitachi – In-PharmaTechnologist.com | April 15th, 2017

A desperate mum-of-two says she is losing her memory so fast she may soon be unable to recognise her young daughters.

Chantelle Fox was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) last May after suffering fatigue and "a little numbness" in her arm.

Since the devastating diagnosis, the 41-year-old's condition has quickly deteriorated, leaving her fearful for the future.

She has 79 lesions on her brain and her short-term memory is fading, meaning she often forgets where she has put things.

She also forgets promising her "beautiful" daughters, Lilly, five, and Edie, three, that she will take them somewhere special.

Her worst fear is that in just four years, she may not even remember the little girls at all.

Now, she faces a race against time to fund radical stem cell treatment in Russia - which she believes could halt the progress of her disease.

MS is a chronic condition, for which there is currently no cure.

The disease is caused by the immune system malfunctioning and mistakenly attacking nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

It can lead to patients suffering from a range of mild or severe symptoms.

In a bid to stop the progress of the "monster" condition, Chantelle, from Australia, plans to undergo surgery in Moscow.

MS Australia has deemed the treatment risky, while one neurologist told the mum there is no evidence it works and it could be dangerous.

However, another neurologist reportedly told her she would be a great candidate for a haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) trial.

But Chantelle, who lives in Melbourne, said waiting a long time for the chance to take part in a clinical trial in her home country wasn't an option.

Instead, she plans to travel abroad in June to undergo surgery.

I have two beautiful kids and I might not remember them in four years time if I dont go to Russia," she told the Herald Sun .

She added: I have to fight for my kids. I want to help them study, to see them married, to be a grandparent."

Chantelle has been accepted into an autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplant programme in Moscow.

She claimed the treatment has an "86 per cent success rate" in halting the progress of the neurological condition.

However, her family said the costs involved are "crippling".

They are trying to raise $150,000 (120,000) to cover the price of the treatment and transport to and from Russia.

Chantelle's sister, Maxine Parker, has set up dedicated GoFundMe and Facebook pages to help raise money for the surgery.

On the GoFundMe page, she describes how her younger sibling was "devastated" when she was diagnosed with MS.

She writes: "Chantelle was first diagnosed in May 2016. What started out as fatigue and a little numbness in her left arm, she put it down to just being tired from being a full time working mum of two young girls...

"A trip to her doctor one Sunday afternoon changed her and her family life forever. She was told to head straight to hospital, the dr believes she may have had a minor stroke.

"24 hours later, sitting in the hospital bed the neurologist suggests its either a brain tumour, motor neurone disease or MS and the only way to confirm is with a lumbar puncture and full MRI of her brain & spine.

"I will never forget sitting there holding my baby sister's hand as she lays on the bed with the nurse injecting a large needle into her spine to obtain spinal fluid. Almost an hour and half goes by and they confirm its been unsuccessful and they will need to try again.

"Next is the MRI and after two hours my sister returns to her hospital bed waiting for the news that will change her life forever."

She adds: "That neurologist returns to deliver the news, Chantelle you have multiple sclerosis... Chantelle is devastated, all she can think about is her two young girls and if she will be around to watch them grow up."

In a post on the page, Chantelle herself pays tribute to her sister, her husband Dara O'Donoghue and her two little girls.

Addressing Lilly and Edie, she writes: "You are the reason, I will never give up fighting this terrible disease, MS.

"You are my world and I will love you for eternity."

She also expresses her gratitude to her other relatives and friends.

It is estimated that around 100,000 people in the UK have MS.

HSCT involves the intravenous infusion of stem cells derived from peripheral blood, bone marrow or umbilical cord blood.

In autologous cases, the patient's own stem cells are used.

Their immune system is usually wiped out with chemotherapy treatment before it is regrown using their stem cells.

To visit Chantelle's GoFundMe page, click here .

See the original post:
Desperate mum's race against time to fund treatment before she forgets her two little girls - Mirror.co.uk

Spinal Cord Stem Cells Comments Off on Desperate mum’s race against time to fund treatment before she forgets her two little girls – Mirror.co.uk | April 14th, 2017

A quick glance at your calendar will reveal that we're now in 2017. 2017, you may recall, is the year when contraversial surgeon Sergio Canavero has promised to perform the world's first human head transplant.

But just how feasible is a human head transplant? Is it the stuff of science fiction, or does it have a basis in current sceintific thinking? Read on for everything you need to know about 2017 most alarming scientific development.

A human head transplant is exactly what it sounds like taking one living head and putting it onto a new body.

But actually, thats a little misleading. In real terms, its a body transplant, as the head will be gaining a new body to control. However, as the term whole body transplant is already used to mean transferring the brain between bodies, calling it a head transplant makes it clear that the whole head is to be switched, brain included.

Until recently, a head transplant seemed totally implausible, but the Italian scientist Dr Sergio Canavero believes its possible, and intends to conduct the first surgery in 2017.

Canavero outlines the procedure in detail here, but these are the basics of the process. Remember: dont try this at home, kids.

The donor body and the head to be attached are first cooled down to 12-15C to ensure that the cells last longer than a few minutes without oxygen. The tissue around the neck is then cut, with the major blood vessels linked with tiny tubes. The spinal cord on each party is then severed cleanly with an extremely sharp blade.

"Post coma, Canavero believes the patient would immediately be able to move, feel their face and even speak with the same voice."

At this point, the head is ready to be moved, and the two ends of the spinal cord are fused using a chemical called polyethylene glycol, encouraging the cells to mesh. This chemical has been shown to prompt the growth of spinal cord nerves in animals, although Canavero suggests that introducing stem cells or olfactory ensheathing cells into the spinal cord could also be tried.

After the muscles and blood supply are successfully connected, the patient is kept in a coma for a month to limit movement of the newly fused neck, while electrodes stimulate the spinal cord to strengthen its new connections.

Following the coma, Canavero anticipates that the patient would immediately be able to move, feel their face and even speak with the same voice. He believes physiotherapy would allow the patient to walk within a year.

He explains his suggested methods in the TED talk below.

Sceptical would be a nice way of putting it. Horrified would, in most cases, be more accurate.

Dr Hunt Batjer has attracted headlines for being particularly blunt: I would not wish this on anyone. I would not allow anyone to do it to me as there are a lot of things worse than death.

Dr Jerry Silver witnessed the 1970s monkey head transplant experiment more on which later and describes the procedure as bad science, adding that just to do the experiments is unethical. This is a particular blow to Canavero, as he states that Silvers own work in reconnecting rats spinal cords should give hope to the human head transplant. Silver dismisses this: To sever a head and even contemplate the possibility of gluing axons back properly across the lesion to their neighbours is pure and utter fantasy in my opinion.

Dr Chad Gordon, professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery and neurological surgery at Johns Hopkins University, agrees that Canaveros claims are scientifically implausible. He told BuzzFeed: Theres no way hes going to hook up somebodys brain to someones spinal cord and have them be functional.

On the conservative side, were about 100 years away from being able to figure this out, he continued. If hes saying two, and hes promising a living, breathing, talking, moving human being? Hes lying.

Dr Paul Myers, associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota at Morris, puts it even more explicitly: This procedure will not work... Try it with monkeys first. But he cant: the result would be, at best, a shambling horror, an animal driven mad with pain and terror, crippled and whimpering, and a poor advertisement for his experiment. And most likely what hed have is a collection of corpses that suffered briefly before expiring.

Others wonder whether Canavero might simply be enjoying the limelight with a PR stunt, including Dr Arthur Caplan, director of ethics at the NYU Langone Medical Centre. Describing the doctor as nuts, he explained to CNN: Their bodies would end up being overwhelmed with different pathways and chemistry than theyre used to, and theyd go crazy.

"We'll probably see a head on a robot before we see it on [another] body," he told Live Science.

Dr John Adler of Stanford University's school of medicine is slightly more optimistic... but not much more. "Conceptually, much of this could work, but the most favourable outcome will be little more than a Christopher Reeve level of function," he told Newsweek.

Canavero is aware of this criticism, claiming that silently hes received a lot of support from the medical community. Of Dr Batjers comments that the surgery would be a fate worse than death, Canavero is scathing. Hes a vascular surgeon. A vascular surgeon of the brain, yes, but he knows nothing, he argued. How can you say such a thing? Its incredible.

"The world is moving, the critics are dwindling. Of course, there will always be critics. Science teaches us that when you propose something groundbreaking, you must be confronted by criticism. If no critics really step forward, you are saying nothing special," he told Medical News Today.

No-one has ever attempted a human head transplant before, and attempts on animals have to put it charitably had limited success.

Image: from Motherboard, uploaded under fair use from a 1959 issue of Life

The photo above really does show a dog with two heads and its not a fake. This was the work of Soviet scientist Vladimir Demikhov, and for four days the hybrid of two dogs lived as normally as such a scientific horror could be expected to. Then they died.

Demikhov tried the experiment more than 24 times, but was unable to find a way of avoiding the dogs dying shortly after surgery. Although the results are horrifying to see, Demikhovs research did pave the way for human organ transplants.

"For four days this hybrid of two dogs lived as normally as such a scientific horror could be expected to. Then they died."

But back to the topic of head transplants. The first time a straight swap was successful, was by Dr Robert White, in an experiment on a rhesus monkey in 1970. I feel the need to qualify the word successful with quotation marks, because although the monkey did live, he didnt live very long. Eight days, to be exact, and as the spinal cord wasnt attached to its new body, the monkey was paralysed for its remaining days. However, it could indeed see, hear, smell and taste before the body rejected the foreign head.

According to Canavero in his paper on human head transplants, the monkey lived eight days and was, by all measures, normal, having suffered no complications. However, Dr Jerry Silver who worked in the same lab as Dr White has more haunting memories. He toldCBS: I remember that the head would wake up, the facial expressions looked like terrible pain and confusion and anxiety in the animal. The head will stay alive, but not very long. It was just awful. I dont think it should ever be done again.

More recently, Chinese doctor Xiaoping Ren claims to have conducted head transplants on more than 1,000 mice. The Wall Street Journal reports to have witnessed a mouse with a new head moving, breathing, looking around and drinking. But, crucially, none of these mice have lived longer than a few minutes.

Still, Dr Rens studies continue, and the latest reports are said to be promising, offering a possible answer to the risk of severe blood loss (or brain ischemia) during transplantation. The experimental method that we have described can allow for long-term survival, and thus assessment of transplant rejection and central nervous system recovery, bringing us one step closer to AHBR in man, the researchers wrote.

Ren himself has not ruled out taking part in the first human head transplant operation, according to the Daily Mail. "A human head transplant will be a new frontier in science. Some people say it is the last frontier in medicine. It is a very sensitive and very controversial subject but if we can translate it to clinical practice, we can save a lot of lives," he said.

"Many people say a head transplant is not ethical. But what is the essence of a person? A person is the brain not the body. The body is just an organ," he added.

In January 2016, Canavero told New Scientist that a head transplant had been successfully completed on a monkey in China, although details were sparse. "The monkey fully survived the procedure without any neurological injury of whatever kind," he said, although the article notes that the monkey only kept alive for 20 hours after the surgery for "ethical reasons," limiting its use as a comparison somewhat.

In September 2016, Canavero revealeda further trial of the head transplant on dogs.New Scientisthas seen video footage of a dog appearing to walk three weeks after its spinal cord was severed, with Canavero claiming that the outcome is the result of the same techniques he plans to use on Spiridonov next year.

However, speaking to a number of scientists for their view on the new evidence, New Scientistcould find few sceptics converted. "These papers do not support moving forward in humans," said Jerry Silver a neuroscientist at Cape Western Reserve University in Ohio.

"The dog is a case report, and you cant learn very much from a single animal without controls. They claim they cut the cervical cord 90 per cent but theres no evidence of that in the paper, just some crude pictures," added Silver.

You could say so, though Canavero doesn't see it quite like that. In fact, controversially he sees it more as a failure of other types of medicine, telling Medical News Today, "It will be about curing incurable neurological disorders for which other treatments have failed big time, so gene therapy,stem cells- they all just came to nothing. We have failed despite billions of dollars being poured into this sort of research."

"So actually, head transplant or body transplant, whatever your angle is, is actually a failure of medicine. It is not a brilliant success, a brilliant advancement to medical science. When you just haven't tackled biology, you don't know how to treat genes, you don't really understand, and you really need to resort to a body transplant, it means that you've failed. So this must not be construed as a success of medical research," he added.

Read more from the original source:
Human head transplant: Sergio Canavero considers the UK as the venue for 2017's most talked about operation - Alphr

Spinal Cord Stem Cells Comments Off on Human head transplant: Sergio Canavero considers the UK as the venue for 2017’s most talked about operation – Alphr | April 14th, 2017

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

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

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

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

Watch a video of the cells beating on the patch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Originally posted here:
3D-printed patch can help mend a broken heart - UMN News

Cardiac Stem Cells Comments Off on 3D-printed patch can help mend a broken heart – UMN News | April 14th, 2017

The Cardiology Advisor (registration)

Theraputic Stem Cell-Sheet Transplantation May Improve ... The Cardiology Advisor (registration) A small phase I study identified positive benefits from utilizing stem cell-sheet transplantation as a therapy for ischemic and dilated cardiomyopathy. SCOTS Eye Stem Cell Study Exceeds Research GoalsMilTech all 23 news articles »

See the article here:
Theraputic Stem Cell-Sheet Transplantation May Improve ... - The Cardiology Advisor (registration)

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on Theraputic Stem Cell-Sheet Transplantation May Improve … – The Cardiology Advisor (registration) | April 14th, 2017

GETTY - STOCK IMAGE

'Cradle of life' stem cells taken from skin samples were developed into three-dimensional brain-like organisms capable of exchanging signals between each other in a network.

The petri dish cells behave in a similar way to the brain cells which produce messenger dopamine from neurons - and scientists hope they will be able to use them to come up with a cure for Parkinson's.

Dopamine maintains smooth body movements, but when the neurons die off, tremors, rigid muscles and other Parkinson's disease symptoms begin to take over.

The new developments mean scientists can now use the cells to test what environmental factors like pollutants have on the onset of the disease and potentially find a cure.

Lead author Professor Jens Schwamborn said: "Our cell cultures open new doors to brain research.

GETTY - STOCK IMAGE

"We can now use them to study the causes of Parkinson's disease and how it could possibly be effectively treated."

Our cell cultures open new doors to brain research

Professor Jens Schwamborn

The stem cells can be transformed into any cell type of the human body but cannot produce a complete organism.

PHD student Anna Monzel developed a procedure to convert the stem cells into brain cells as part of her doctoral thesis.

GETTY - STOCK IMAGE

Getty Images

1 of 9

Tremor - One of the most noticeable signs of Parkinson's is a tremor that often starts in the hands or fingers when they are relaxed

She said: "I had to develop a special, precisely defined cocktail of growth factors and a certain treatment method for the stem cells, so that they would differentiate in the desired direction."

Prof Schwamborn from the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine at Luxembourg University said: "Our subsequent examination of these artificial tissue samples revealed that various cell types characteristic of the midbrain had developed."

"The cells can transmit and process signals.

"We were even able to detect dopaminergic cells - just like in the midbrain."

The scientists say their petri dish study can also reduce the amount of animal testing in brain research.

GETTY - STOCK IMAGE

Because cell cultures in the petri dishes are of human origin in some aspects they resemble human brains more than the brains of lab animals such as rats or mice.

Professor Schwamborn added: "There are also attractive economic opportunities in our approach.

"The production of tissue cultures is highly elaborate.

"In the scope of our spin-off Braingineering Technologies Sarl, we will be developing technologies by which we can provide the cultures for a fee to other labs or the pharmaceutical industry for their research."

The study was published in the Stem Cell Reports journal.

Link:
Scientists one step closer to turning stem cells into BRAIN | Health ... - Express.co.uk

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Scientists one step closer to turning stem cells into BRAIN | Health … – Express.co.uk | April 14th, 2017

It would seem the beautiful foxglove plant has more uses than just the garden.

A novel drug screen in liver-like cells shows that cardiac glycosides, which are found in the leaves of the digitalis or foxglove plant, could reduce low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol differently than statins, potentially providing a new treatment for patients.

The foxglove plant in bloom on MUSC's campus.

These findings were reported by the Medical University of South Carolina researcher Stephen A. Duncan, D.Phil., SmartState Chair of Regenerative Medicine at MUSC, and colleagues in the April 6 issue of Cell Stem Cell.

Duncan said the glycosides were identified through a stem cell screen for compounds that could be used off-label for the treatment of high cholesterol. The nice thing about finding new uses for drugs already on the market is that they can be used relatively quickly in patients because most of the needed safety trials have already been completed.

Not everyone with high LDL cholesterol responds to statins. Statins increase levels of a cell surface receptor that removes LDL cholesterol from the bloodstream. However, statins do not work in patients with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), who have a rare mutation in that receptor. It is an inherited disorder that leads to aggressive and premature cardiovascular disease. FH patients have very high cholesterol and can die of cardiovascular disease by their forties. The existing drugs for FH can cause fatty liver disease, and the best treatment is a liver transplant.

Duncan and his graduate student Max Cayo, who is finishing his M.D. at the Medical College of Wisconsin, developed a drug screen to identify an alternative to statins. Apolipoprotein B (apoB) is a molecule that liver cells use to make LDL. Drugs that decreased apoB could potentially lower cholesterol independently of the LDL receptor in FH patients and also in patients with other forms of high cholesterol.

FH was a perfect model for testing alternatives to statins. Yet the rarity of FH meant these liver cells were scarce. Duncans group made induced pluripotent stem cells out of skin fibroblasts taken from a single patient with FH. Stem cells continually double their numbers while in culture. This meant that a sample of converted skin cells from a single patient with FH provided a renewable source of liver-like cells that retained the mutation.

The group tested these liver-like cells with the SPECTRUM library, a collection of 2,300 pharmaceuticals, many of which have reached clinical trials. Surprisingly, all nine cardiac glycosides in the collection, some widely prescribed for heart failure, reduced apoB in liver-like cells from the patient with FH. In further tests, they also lowered apoB in human hepatocytes and in mice engineered to grow normal human livers without the FH mutation.

Next, the team combed through more than five thousand medical records of patients prescribed cardiac glycosides for heart failure who also had LDL cholesterol records. Similar drops in LDL levels were observed in these patients as in a matching group of patients prescribed statins.

This study provides the first evidence that cardiac glycosides could potentially reduce LDL cholesterol independently of the LDL receptor, where statins act, by reducing apoB.

The cardiac glycosides are always prescribed with care, as they are known to be toxic at high doses. However, they could offer inexpensive life-saving options for patients with FH. Additionally, a cardiac glycoside in a low dose could conceivably provide an added benefit to patients already taking a statin. Duncan is exploring plans for a clinical trial that would determine the correct dose in hypercholesterolemia patients.

Using patient stem cells to screen drugs that are already on the market is a great way to investigate treatments for liver diseases.

There are so few livers available for transplant, Duncan said. Having the stem cell model where we make liver cells in the culture dish opens up a possibility of using this not only to investigate a disease, but also as a way to discover drugs that could fix a disease.

This article has been republished frommaterialsprovided by theMedical University of South Carolina. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

Read more:
SPECTRUM Drug Screen Reveals Fox Gloves Can Treat High Cholesterol - Technology Networks

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on SPECTRUM Drug Screen Reveals Fox Gloves Can Treat High Cholesterol – Technology Networks | April 14th, 2017

GERMANTOWN, Md., April 12, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Neuralstem, Inc. (CUR), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of nervous system therapies based on its neural stem cell technology, announced that a new cohort of four patients will be added to its ongoing Phase 1 human clinical trial evaluating the safety and feasibility of using NSI-566 spinal cord-derived neural stem cells to repair chronic spinal cord injury (cSCI). The amended protocol was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Institutional Review Board at the study site, University of California San Diego (UCSD). NSI-566 is Neuralstems lead stem cell therapy candidate.

Under the amended protocol, updated on clinicaltrials.gov (NCT01772810), four qualifying patients with AIS-A complete, quadriplegic, cervical injuries involving C5-C7 cord will be added to the study. The injury must have occurred 1-2 years prior to the time of stem cell treatment, which is a one-time surgery involving six injections of NSI-566 into the affected area of the cord. The study has begun active recruitment of patients.

About 250,000 Americans are living with cSCI, and approximately 11,000 new injuries are reported each year1. Roughly 52% of these individuals will be considered paraplegic and 47% will be considered quadriplegic1. cSCI is a permanent and disabling condition with few to no treatments. Its devastating effect can be measured from social, healthcare, and economic perspectives.

This expansion of the study to cervical injuries builds on the results demonstrating that the implantation of NSI-566 stem cells in the first four patients with AIS-A complete thoracic cSCI was safe and feasible with no serious adverse events, said Karl Johe, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Neuralstem. There is a tremendous unmet need in the treatment of cSCI and we are privileged to have the experts at UCSD School of Medicine and the Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center at UC San Diego Health conducting the research. We look forward to further evaluating NSI-566 neural stem cells in chronic complete cervical injuries."

Long-term safety data from the first cohort of chronic complete thoracic injuries is currently being analyzed by the study team at UCSD School of Medicine.

About Neuralstem Neuralstems patented technology enables the commercial-scale production of multiple types of central nervous system stem cells, which are being developed as potential therapies for multiple central nervous system diseases and conditions.

Neuralstems technology also enables the discovery of small molecule compounds by systematic screening chemical compounds against its proprietary human hippocampal stem cell line. The screening process has led to the discovery and patenting of molecules that Neuralstem believes may stimulate the brains capacity to generate new neurons, potentially reversing pathophysiologies associated with certain central nervous system (CNS) conditions.

The company has completed Phase 1a and 1b trials evaluating NSI-189, a novel neurogenic small molecule product candidate, for the treatment of major depressive disorder or MDD, and is currently conducting a Phase 2 efficacy study for MDD.

Neuralstems stem cell therapy product candidate, NSI-566, is a spinal cord-derived neural stem cell line. Neuralstem is currently evaluating NSI-566 in three indications: stroke, chronic spinal cord injury (cSCI), and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

Neuralstem is conducting a Phase 1 safety study for the treatment of paralysis from chronic motor stroke at the BaYi Brain Hospital in Beijing, China. In addition, NSI-566 was evaluated in a Phase 1 safety study to treat paralysis due to chronic spinal cord injury as well as a Phase 1 and Phase 2a risk escalation, safety trials for ALS. Subjects from all three indications are currently in long-term observational follow-up periods to continue to monitor safety and possible therapeutic benefits.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release contains forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements relate to future, not past, events and may often be identified by words such as expect, anticipate, intend, plan, believe, seek or will. Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain. Specific risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements include risks inherent in the development and commercialization of potential products, uncertainty of clinical trial results or regulatory approvals or clearances, need for future capital, dependence upon collaborators and maintenance of our intellectual property rights. Actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements. Additional information on potential factors that could affect our results and other risks and uncertainties are detailed from time to time in Neuralstems periodic reports, including the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, and Form 10-Q for the nine months ended September 30, 2016, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and in other reports filed with the SEC. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

Read More

________________________

1http://www.sci-info-pages.com/facts.html

Read more:
Neuralstem Expands Phase 1 Safety Trial of NSI-566 Neural Stem Cells in Spinal Injury - Yahoo Finance

Spinal Cord Stem Cells Comments Off on Neuralstem Expands Phase 1 Safety Trial of NSI-566 Neural Stem Cells in Spinal Injury – Yahoo Finance | April 14th, 2017

Germantown, Md.-based Neuralstem is involved in a Phase 1 human clinical trial testing the safety and feasibility of using NSI-566 spinal cord-derived neural stem cells to repair chronic spinal cord injury.

A biopharmaceutical company, Neuralstem develops nervous system therapies derived from neural stem cell technology.

Here are six takeaways:

1. NSI-566 represents the company's lead stem cell therapy candidate.

2. University of California San Diego serves as the study site, and just added a new cohort of four patients.

3. The four new patients all have AIS-A complete, quadriplegic, cervical injuries involving C5-C7 cord.

4. The patients suffered the injury one to two years before undergoing stem cell treatment.

5. The treatment involves six injections of NSI-566 into the spinal cord's affected area.

6. UCSD researchers are analyzing long-term safety data from the study's first cohort on chronic complete thoracic injuries.

More articles on spine: Dr. Scott Blumenthal performs 1st US herniated disc surgery with Anchor Orthopaedics tissue kit 5 highlights Private practice in spine surgery: Key challenges & opportunities from Dr. Scott Blumenthal Cervical Spine Research Society names 5 new officers

View post:
UC San Diego adds 4 patients to Neuralstem's neural stem cell study for spinal cord injury: 6 takeaways - Becker's Orthopedic & Spine

Spinal Cord Stem Cells Comments Off on UC San Diego adds 4 patients to Neuralstem’s neural stem cell study for spinal cord injury: 6 takeaways – Becker’s Orthopedic & Spine | April 14th, 2017

Science Daily

'Neuron-reading' nanowires could accelerate development of drugs for neurological diseases Science Daily "We envision that this nanowire technology could be used on stem-cell-derived brain models to identify the most effective drugs for neurological diseases," said Anne Bang, director of cell biology at the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics at ... and more »

Continued here:
'Neuron-reading' nanowires could accelerate development of drugs for neurological diseases - Science Daily

Cardiac Stem Cells Comments Off on ‘Neuron-reading’ nanowires could accelerate development of drugs for neurological diseases – Science Daily | April 14th, 2017

It will be several weeks before Jonathan Pitre finds out if his second stem-cell transplant was successful. Tina Boileau / -

The perilous wait now begins for Jonathan Pitre.

Pitre, 16, was transfused with blood and marrow drawn from his mothers hip late Thursday afternoon. The stem-cell rich material holds the power to alter the course of Pitres aggressive skin disease, epidermolysis bullosa (EB), and change his life.

So far, so good, saidPitres mother, Tina Boileau.

It will be several weeks before Pitre finds out whether the transplant has worked its magic.

While waiting for that answer, theRussell teenager will have to travel the most difficult part of his medical journey: a time when his immune system is at its lowest ebb, and when he feels the full effects of high-dose chemotherapy and radiation.

His physician, Dr. Jakub Tolar, has warned that the period represents the highest risk for complications, the most common of which are infections and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). It is a potentially life-threatening situation in which the implanted stem cells produce T-cells that attack normal cells.

In about two weeks time, doctors will start to look for signs that Boileaus stem cells have successfully established themselves in Pitres bone marrow.The presence of white blood cells is one of the earliest signs of stem-cell growth; an improvement in the condition of Pitres skin could also signal that the stem cells have started to work.

Last year, after his first stem-cell transplant, Pitre and his mother were thrilled when doctors discovered new white cells in his bloodstream. But their hopes were crushed when tests showed Pitres own stem cells had recolonized his bone marrow, and were producing the cells.

This time, Boileau said, they will wait to see more lab results before getting their hopes too high.

I think we will have that uncertainly until we know for sure through skin and bone marrow biopsies that the engraftment worked, she said.

Boileau went into surgery early Thursday morning to have blood and bone marrow drawn from her hip. She was at her sons bedside later in the afternoon to watch as the stem cells dripped through an intravenous tube connected to the right atrium of her sons heart.

If the transplant works, Boileaus stem cells will establish themselves in her sons bone marrow, grow, divide and make new blood cells equipped with the power to provide Pitre with the key protein he needs to rebuild his damaged skin.

Visit link:
His stem-cell transplant complete, the wait begins for Jonathan Pitre - Ottawa Citizen

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on His stem-cell transplant complete, the wait begins for Jonathan Pitre – Ottawa Citizen | April 14th, 2017

Science Daily

Brain tissue from a petri dish: Stem cell research -- ScienceDaily Science Daily The most complex organ in humans is the brain. Due to its complexity, it is extremely difficult to do scientific experiments on it -- ones that could help us to ... and more »

Link:
Brain tissue from a petri dish: Stem cell research -- ScienceDaily - Science Daily

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Brain tissue from a petri dish: Stem cell research — ScienceDaily – Science Daily | April 14th, 2017

Q. Im in doubt regarding myelodysplasia is it multipotent or pluripotent?

A. Thats a great question because it lets us talk about hematopathology (yay!) and also stem cells (which can be confusing unless someone explains some simple stuff).

What is a stem cell? First, lets talk about stem cells. The thing that makes a stem cell a stem cell, at least in my mind, is the ability to self-renew. This means that the stem cell can either divide into two daughter cells which will mature into grown up cells, or (and more commonly) it can give rise to two cells: one that will become a mature cell, and another which retains the capacity to divide again. Its called asymmetric division: instead of giving rise to two of the same cells, you get one regular cell and another stem cell (which can continue this cycle of replication for a long long time).

(Virtually) limitless replication Most cells have a limited number of times that they can divide. This is because the telomeres (little protective DNA sequences) on the end of the chromosomes get a little shorter every time the DNA replicates and eventually they are so short that they cant protect the DNA and the cell is unable to divide. Stem cells and cancer cells have an enzyme called telomerase that replenishes the telomeres, keeping them nice and long so the cell can keep on dividing. Stem cells do eventually die so technically, there are a limited number of cell divisionsbut its a really, really big number. Cancer cells, on the other hand, are often totally immortal they can just keep on dividing and dividing.

Totipotent Another cool thing about stem cells is that they can give rise to many different kinds of cells. Heres where things can get murky. There are stem cells in an embryo which are able to give rise to any of the cell types in the body: hepatocytes, epithelial cells, neurons, cardiac muscle cellseverything. This makes sense: if youre going to grow into a human, you have to have cells that give rise to all the necessary cell types. These stem cells are called totipotent or pluripotent stem cells. Theres a slight difference between the two words: totipotent means that the stem cell can give rise to any and all human tissue cells and it can even give rise to an entire functional human. The only totipotent cells in human development are the fertilized egg and the cells in the next few cell divisions.

Pluripotent After those few cell divisions, the cells become pluripotent. Pluripotent cells are similar to totipotent cells in that they can give rise to any and all human tissue cells. Theyre different, though, because they are not capable of giving rise to an entire organism. On day four of development, the tiny little embryo forms two layers: one that will become the placenta and the other that will become the baby. The cells that will become the baby can give rise to any human tissue type (obviously) but those cells alone cant give rise to the entire organism (because you cant form the baby without the placenta). Slight difference but enough to make a separate term.

Multipotent Another term you should know is multipotent. Multipotent stem cells cannot give rise to any old cell in the body they are restricted to a limited range of cell types. For example, there are multipotent stem cells in the bone marrow that can give rise to red cells, white cells and platelets. They cant give rise to hepatocytes, or any other cell type, though so they are not totipotent or pluripotent.

There are lots of multipotent stem cells in the adult human body. They reside in the bone marrow, skin, muscle, GI tract, endothelium, and mesenchymal tissues. This means that there is a nice source for replacing cells that have died or been sloughed away.

What about myelodsyplasia? So back to your question. Myelodysplasia is a hematopoietic disorder in which cells in the bone marrow grow funny (dysplasia) they might be binucleate, or not have the normal number of granules, or whatever. In addition, some cases have an increase in blasts in the bone marrow but not over 20%, or youd call it an acute leukemia. Some cases transform, eventually, into an acute myeloid leukemia; others just stay the way they are and dont become nasty.

Check out the image above, from a case of myelodysplasia. There is a bizarre, multinucleated erythroblast at 11 oclock (this is called dyserythropoiesis, or disordered red cell growth). There are also two messed-up neutrophils (dysgranulopoiesis) at 4 oclock and 10 oclock the one at 4 oclock has only two nuclear lobes, and both are hypogranular (not enough specific granulation). Theres also an increase in blasts, if this field is representative: theres one in the middle and (probably) one at 5 oclock.

This disorder (actually, its a group of disorders) involves stem cells in the bone marrow. Sometimes only one cell line is involved (red cells, say); other times all three cell lines are involved (red cells, white cells and platelets). Either way, the disorder involves a stem cell, and since the stem cells in the bone marrow are multipotent, it would be correct to say that myelodysplasia is a disorder of multipotent stem cells in the bone marrow. Its kind of redundant, though, because as far as we know, there arent any other kind of stem cells in the bone marrow! But at least you know the answer to your question now.

Read the original post:
Multipotent vs. pluripotent stem cells - Pathology Student

Cardiac Stem Cells Comments Off on Multipotent vs. pluripotent stem cells – Pathology Student | April 13th, 2017

Because of a bone marrow donation from a 20-year-old in Germany, Central Michigan University student Kyle Tanner has a new chance at life.

This is why we encourage students at CMU to become registered as acandidate to donate bone marrow or stem cells.

You can help save lives.

When Kyle Tanner learned he had Fanconi anemia at age 16, he didnt understand the toll the bone marrow disease would take on him.

It made definitely me anxious and it made me more inclined to do things that I wouldnt have otherwise did if I didnt know I had a life-threatening disease, Tanner said.

At any given moment, thousands of Americans are seeking an unrelateddonor for a potentially life-saving marrow transplant.

Donations help people diagnosed with blood cancers like Leukemia and other diseases.

For Tanner, a 22-year-old Hudson native, two transplants saved his life six years after he was diagnosed with a life-threatening bone marrow disease.

Donating bone marrow is not often talked about, but is vitally important especially on college campuses.

Because of our age, students are the bestdonors.

Young people have more and higher quality cells, which leads to a higher chance the patient receiving the transplant will survive.

While registries allow people ages 45-60 to donate, thosewho are18-44 are prime donors.It is also free to register for people in this age range.

The registration process has been made simple by organizations like Be The Match, which is operated by the National Marrow Donor Program. It is how Tanner got paired with his donor.

If you're registering online, Be The Match mails you a mouth-swab kit. You mail it back to them and it goes to the lab. Results come back in 8-10 weeks. If you qualify, you are placed on the registry and are able to be called on to donate.

According to Be The Match, only 25 percent of people donate actual bone marrow, which is extracted from the pelvic bone. The other 75 percent of donations are peripheral blood stem cell donations. Donating marrow can sometimesinvolve an over-night stay at the hospital, while a stem cell donation is similar to donating blood or plasma.

Be The Match also has traveling drives, which can be hosted by individuals and organizations.

We think it's a great idea for our Student Government Association or other registered student organizations to consider hosting a drive at CMU.

Raising awareness of the necessity to donate marrow and stem cellsand the know-how is important. Many of us know someone diagnosed with Leukemia or other diseases that desperately need a stranger to be their savior.

For people like Tanner, it took someone to decide to make a difference in his case, it wasa 20-year-old from Germany.

CMU students can make the decision to save someones life, too. Consider getting registered and potentially saving someone's life.

Go here to read the rest:
EDITORIAL: Donating bone marrow saves lives, students should consider becoming a match - Central Michigan Life

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on EDITORIAL: Donating bone marrow saves lives, students should consider becoming a match – Central Michigan Life | April 13th, 2017

Inkjet printers and lasers are parts of a new wayto produce cells important to research on nerve regeneration.

Schwann cells, for example, form sheaths around axons, the tail-like parts of nerve cells that carry electrical impulses. They promote regeneration of those axonsand secrete substances that promote the health of nerve cells. But theyre hard to come by in useful numbers.

This technology could lead to a better way to differentiate stem cells.

So researchers have been taking readily available mesenchymal stem cells (also called bone marrow stromal stem cells that can form bone, cartilage, and fat cells) and using a chemical process to differentiate them into Schwann cells. But its an arduous and expensive process.

Researchers at Iowa State University have developed a nanotechnology that uses inkjet printers to print multi-layer graphene circuits and also uses lasers to treat and improve the surface structure and conductivity of those circuits.

It turns out mesenchymal stem cells adhere and grow well on the treated circuits raised, rough, and 3D nanostructures. Add small doses of electricity100 millivolts for 10 minutes per day over 15 daysand the stem cells become Schwann-like cells.

This technology could lead to a better way to differentiate stem cells, says co-first author Metin Uz, a postdoctoral research associate in chemical and biological engineering. There is huge potential here.

The electrical stimulation is very effective, differentiating 85 percent of the stem cells into Schwann-like cells compared to 75 percent by the standard chemical process, according to the paper. The electrically differentiated cells also produced 80 nanograms per milliliter of nerve growth factor compared to 55 nanograms per milliliter for the chemically treated cells.

The researchers report the results could lead to changes in how nerve injuries are treated inside the body.

These results help pave the way for in vivo peripheral nerve regeneration where the flexible graphene electrodes could conform to the injury site and provide intimate electrical stimulation for nerve cell regrowth, the researchers write in a summary of their findings.

The paper reports several advantages to using electrical stimulation to differentiate stem cells into Schwann-like cells:

A key to making it all work is a graphene inkjet printing process that takes advantages of graphenes wonder-material propertiesits a great conductor of electricity and heat, its strong, stable, and biocompatibleto produce low-cost, flexible, and even wearable electronics.

But there was a problem: once graphene electronic circuits were printed, they had to be treated to improve electrical conductivity. That usually meant high temperatures or chemicals. Either could damage flexible printing surfaces including plastic films or paper.

The research group of lead author Jonathan Claussen, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and an associate of the US Department of Energys Ames Laboratory, solved the problem by developing computer-controlled laser technology that selectively irradiates inkjet-printed graphene oxide.

The treatment removes ink binders and reduces graphene oxide to graphenephysically stitching together millions of tiny graphene flakes. The process makes electrical conductivity more than a thousand times better.

That led to experimental attempts to grow stem cells on printed graphene and then to electrical stimulation experiments.

We knew this would be a really good platform for electrical stimulation, says Suprem Das, a postdoctoral research associate in mechanical engineering and an associate of the Ames Laboratory. But we didnt know it would differentiate these cells.

But now that it has, the researchers say there are new possibilities to think about. The technology, for example, could one day be used to create dissolvable or absorbable nerve regeneration materials that could be surgically placed in a persons body and wouldnt require a second surgery to remove.

The findings appear in Advanced Healthcare Materials. Funding came from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, and Iowa State.

Source: Iowa State University

View post:
How inkjet printers help transform stem cells - Futurity: Research News

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on How inkjet printers help transform stem cells – Futurity: Research News | April 13th, 2017

Virginia Western Community College will host a student-led Be the Match donor drive on April 19 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the courtyward between the Fralin Center and Business Science Building and the Pedestrian bridge. Through the drive, potential donors will learn if they could provide life-saving bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) transplants.

At the drive, potential donors will complete a registration form with contact information, health information and a signed agreement to join the Be The Match Registry. To help you complete the form, bring along:

Personal identification (such as a driver's license or passport)

Contact information for two family members or friends who would know how to reach you in the future if your contact information changes

You will provide a swab of cheek cells to be tissue-typed. We will use the results to match you to patients

During the drive, an individual who has battled leukemia and received a stem cell transplant will speak to perspective donors on the importance of donation. Please join us to learn how you could help those in need.

For more information on Be the Match, visit http://www.bethematch.org.

Submitted by Josh Meyer

Read more from the original source:
VWCC to host bone marrow donor drive April 19 - Roanoke Times

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on VWCC to host bone marrow donor drive April 19 – Roanoke Times | April 13th, 2017

Ottawa Sun

Jonathan Pitre 'anxious' as he readies for his second transplant Thursday Ottawa Sun Boileau goes into surgery at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital at 5:30 a.m. Thursday to have bone marrow drawn from her hip. Surgeons will bore two holes into her pelvis and withdraw the bone marrow, a material rich in stem cells; ... and more »

Link:
Jonathan Pitre 'anxious' as he readies for his second transplant Thursday - Ottawa Sun

Bone Marrow Stem Cells Comments Off on Jonathan Pitre ‘anxious’ as he readies for his second transplant Thursday – Ottawa Sun | April 13th, 2017

Eight young Otago people have won awards in the 2017 New Zealand Youth Awards.

The awards recognise young New Zealanders who have achieved outstanding results and given back to their communities, as well as those who have made a significant contribution to the support of young people.

Kelly Young (20) and Jo Mohan (19), both of Dunedin, won a Change Maker Cultural Award for co-founding the University of Otago Students Without Borders Club, which helps refugees integrate into the Dunedin community.

Damon Lillis (21), of Dunedin, won a Working for Youth Award for his work on the board of the Playhouse Children's Theatre and has directed several plays which helps young people to increase their confidence and self-esteem.

He also co-ordinates the Aspire programme which helps young people from low decile schools find out more about University life.

Bokyong Mun (20), of Dunedin, also won a Working for Youth Award for her support and development of the United Nations Youth Council.

Fawzan Dinnunhan (24), of Dunedin, won a Giving Back Award for his contribution to research and improving a number of key IT platforms for the Spinal Cord Society - a non-profit organisation that studies the use of stem cells as a cure for type-1 diabetes.

Leo Munro-Heward (16), of Wanaka, also won a Giving Back Award for his establishment of the Queer Straight Alliance in Wanaka, which aims to raise awareness and support.

Holly Robinson (22), of Dunedin, won a Youth with Disability Award for representing New Zealand as the flag bearer in the opening ceremony for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

She also broke the world record for the F46 javelin, and placed second overall.

Casey Davies-Bell (23), of Dunedin, won a Leadership Award for establishing Global Energy Impact Assessment (Geia) Ltd - a New Zealand based start-up company which aims to accelerate New Zealand's transition towards a sustainable future.

Youth Minister Nikki Kaye said about 190 nominations from around the country were received, and 50 were given awards at a ceremony in Parliament last night.

''The calibre of the award winners in the new Youth Enterprise category was outstanding, with the recipients including a number of under-20-year-olds who have founded successful businesses which have achieved significant social or business impact, both locally and internationally,'' she said.

''It's particularly encouraging to see the way these young leaders and entrepreneurs have embraced new technology and social media, to develop innovative new approaches to achieve their business or social vision.

''When you look at the drive, skills, compassion and integrity evident in the winners across all the categories, it's clear that our young people have enormous talent and potential, and the future of our country is in safe hands.''

john.lewis@odt.co.nz

Read this article:
Eight from Otago receive NZ youth awards - Otago Daily Times

Spinal Cord Stem Cells Comments Off on Eight from Otago receive NZ youth awards – Otago Daily Times | April 11th, 2017