Researchers found stem cells in mouse nails that performed two roles They cause nails to grow, and focus on repair when it is lost or injured The experts tracked how stem cells in the nails of mice split and grow It is hoped the same cells could be manipulated to grow tissue in other body parts

By Ellie Zolfagharifard for MailOnline

Published: 10:23 EST, 24 November 2014 | Updated: 10:23 EST, 24 November 2014

The blue-tailed skink has the remarkable ability to lose its tail to distract predators, and then grow a new one.

And someday, thanks to cells found in our nails, humans could have similar lizard-like abilities that will help us regrow lost limbs.

Researchers in the US recently found unique stem cells in nails that perform two roles - they cause nails to grow, and they focus on nail repair when it is lost or injured.

Researchers in the US recently found unique stem cells (shown in the above animation) in nails that perform two roles; they cause nails to grow, and focus on nail repair when it is lost or injured

The researchers claim these stem cells could be manipulated to grow tissue for other body parts, helping to someday recover lost limbs or organs.

The elusive stem cells were found at the University of Southern California by attaching dyes as 'labels' on mouse nail cells.

Many of these cells repeatedly divided, diluting the dyes and labels in the process.

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Could nails help us regrow LIMBS? Stem cells found on fingers and toes could someday give humans lizard-like abilities

Scientists have created pain in a dish by converting skin cells into sensitive neurons.

The laboratory-generated nerve cells respond to a range of different kinds of pain stimulation, including physical injury, chronic inflammation, and cancer chemotherapy.

In future they could be used to investigate the origins of pain and develop better pain-relieving drugs.

The work followed years of unsuccessful attempts to produce nerve cells from embryonic stem cells, immature blank slate cells with the potential to become any tissue in the body.

A turning point came with the development of technology that allowed ordinary skin cells to be re-programmed into induced stem cells.

A team led by Dr Clifford Woolf at Harvard Medical School used a cocktail of transcription factors proteins that control the activity of genes to transform mouse and human skin cells directly into pain-sensing neurons.

The researchers, whose findings are reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, were able to model pain hypersensitivity experienced by patients who donated skin cells to the study.

Originally posted here:
Scientists have created 'pain in a dish'

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

24-Nov-2014

Contact: Jen Middleton jen.middleton@ed.ac.uk 44-131-650-6514 University of Edinburgh @uniofedinburgh

Liver disease patients could be helped by a new cell therapy to treat the condition.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh have received funding to start testing the therapy in patients within the next year.

It will be the world's first clinical trial of a new type of cell therapy to treat liver cirrhosis, a common disease where scar tissue forms in the organ as a result of long-term damage.

The Edinburgh team has received funding from the Medical Research Council and Innovate UK to investigate the disease, which claims 4000 lives in the UK each year.

The only successful treatment for end-stage liver cirrhosis at present is an organ transplant. The new therapy is based on a type of white blood cell called a macrophage, which is key to normal repair processes in the liver.

Macrophages reduce scar tissue and stimulate the liver's own stem cells to expand and form into healthy new liver cells.

Scientists will take cells from the blood of patients with liver cirrhosis and turn them into macrophages in the lab using chemical signals.

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Cell therapy trial offers new hope to liver disease patients

Cambridge stem cell pioneer DefiniGEN is in China this week showcasing technology that arguably gives the UK a world lead in countering liver and pancreatic cancer.

The young company is seeking Chinese partners to broaden the reach of the technology which holds a potentially significant payback in regenerative medicine.

With US global stem cell innovator Roger Pedersen among its technology founders, DefiniGEN was founded two years ago to commercialise a stem cell production platform developed at the University of Cambridge.

The platform generates human liver and pancreatic cell types using Nobel Prize winning human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (iPSC) technology.

DefiniGEN is visiting Shanghai and Beijing on a trade mission organised by UKTI East of England in partnership with the China-Britain Business Council.

The company is actively looking to partner with Life Science distributors and pharmaceutical drug discovery companies in China. CEO Dr Marcus Yeo and Dr Masashi Matsunaga business development manager for Asia Pacific - are spearheading the initiative.

The visit includes a range of medically-focused ventures from one to one meetings with key players to presentations at UK consulates.

DefiniGEN cells are provided to the drug discovery sector for use in lead optimisation and toxicity programmes.

The companys OptiDIFF platform produces validated libraries of disease-modelled human liver cells for a range of diseases. The phenotype (the composite of an organisms traits) and pathology of the diseases is pre-confirmed in the cells.

The technology provides pharmaceutical companies with more predictive in vitro cell products enabling the development of safer and more effective treatments.

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Cambridge stem cell pioneer targets China partners

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genucel - Intensive New Stem Cell Eye Therapy Treatment ...

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

A new stem cell gene therapy developed by researchers at UCLA is set to begin clinical trials early next year after the technique reportedly cured 18 children who were born without working immune systems due to a condition known as ADA-deficient Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID) or Bubble Baby disease.

The treatment was developed by Dr. Donald Kohn, a member of the UCLA Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research, and his colleagues, and according to the university, it is able to identify and correct faulty genes by using the DNA of the youngsters born with this life-threatening condition.

Left untreated, ADA-deficient SCID is often fatal within the first year of a childs life, reports Peter M. Bracke for UCLA. However, after more than three decades of research, Dr. Kohns team managed to develop a gene therapy that can safely restore the immune systems of children with the disease by using their own cells and with no noticeable side effects.

All of the children with SCID that I have treated in these stem cell clinical trials would have died in a year or less without this gene therapy, instead they are all thriving with fully functioning immune systems, Dr. Kohn, who is also a professor of pediatrics and of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics, said in a recent statement.

Children born with SCID have to be isolated in a controlled environment for their own safety, because without an immune system, they are extremely vulnerable to illnesses and infections that could be deadly. While there are other treatments for ADA-deficient SCID, Dr. Kohn noted that they are not always optimal or feasible for many children. The new technique, however, provides them with a cure, and the chance to live a full healthy life.

SCID is an inherited immunodeficiency that is typically diagnosed about six months after birth, the researchers said, and children with the condition are so vulnerable to infectious diseases that even the common cold could prove fatal to them. This particular form of the condition causes cells to not create ADA, an enzyme essential for the production of the white blood cells which are a vital component of a healthy, normally-functioning immune system.

Approximately 15 percent of all SCID patients are ADA-deficient, according to the university, and these youngsters are typically treated by being injected twice per week with the required enzyme. This is a process that must continue throughout a patients entire life, and even then it doesnt always work to bring their immune systems to optimal levels. Alternately, they could undergo bone marrow transplants from matched siblings, but those matches are rare and the transplanted cells themselves are often rejected by the childs body.

Dr. Kohn and his colleagues tested two therapy regimens on 18 ADA-deficient SCID over the course of two multi-year clinical trials starting in 2009. During the trials, the blood stem cells of the patients were removed from their bone marrow and genetically modified in order to correct the defect. All 18 of the patients were cured.

The technique used a virus delivery system first developed in Dr. Kohns laboratory in the 1990s a technique which inserts the corrected gene that produces the ADA into the blood forming stem cells in the bone marrow. The genetically corrected blood-forming stem cells will then produce the T-cells required to combat infections.

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New Stem Cell Treatment Found To Cure 'Bubble Baby' Disease

preservation laboratory, where stem cells were kept for use in transplants in children whose bone marrow has been damaged during chemotherapy.

Concerns were first raised when Sophie Ryan-Palmer, 12, who had acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, failed to make progress after her transplant in June 2013, which involved using a donors stem cells rather than her own.

She had been diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of two and had undergone three previous transplants. She began fundraising for cancer charities when she was six.

By October last year the hospital had identified that a higher than usual proportion of eight children who had undergone stem cell transplantation between March and August had suffered what doctors call delayed engraftment. But by the time it stopped freezing stem cells on site at its base in Bloomsbury, central London, and launched an investigation, three of the eight had died.

Ryan Loughran, aged 13 months, from Bournemouth, died on July 10. Sophie, from Sunbury in Middlesex, followed on July 17. Katie Joyce, from Hertfordshire, died on October 6. A fourth patient, Muhanna al-Hayany, aged five, died in August this year. He had come from Kuwait to have the treatment. Following the deaths it was discovered that the method used to freeze the stem cells had inexplicably stopped working and that, although still alive, the cells were unable to mature properly.

At the inquest, Katie Beattie, the barrister representing Katie Joyces family, questioned whether the girls transplant in August should have been suspended, knowing Sophie and Ryan had died the previous month. Great Ormond Street went ahead even though there was plenty of time to stop it, she said.

Doctors from the hospital told St Pancras coroners court that they regretted not halting transplants sooner and Katies life might have been saved if they had. But they said they believed they were doing the right thing by continuing with the transplants because cancer doesnt wait.

Great Ormond Street said it has since overhauled its procedures to prevent further incidents, but is still investigating why the freezing process stopped working.

A spokesman said: Before giving our patients any frozen cells we carried out tests, which are standard across most laboratories in the UK, to ensure they were alive and viable. All of the samples passed these tests, so there was nothing to suggest there was a problem at this stage.

The coroner, Mary Hassell, is expected to deliver verdicts on all four deaths on Tuesday.

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Stem cell failure 'led to children's deaths' at Great Ormond Street

Stem Cell Therapy: Dr. Roberta Shapiro - A NY Physician #39;s Path to Panama
Special Guest Speaker, Roberta F. Shapiro DO, FAAPM R speaks about: A New York Doctor #39;s Path to Panama at the Stem Cell Institute #39;s Stem Cell Therapy Publi...

By: http://www.cellmedicine.com

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Stem Cell Therapy: Dr. Roberta Shapiro - A NY Physician's Path to Panama - Video

Researchers of CEU Cardenal Herrera University (CEU-UCH) for the first time transplanted bone marrow stem cells into damaged brain tissue while applying lipoic acid (a potent antioxidant), with the aim of improving neuroregeneration in the tissue. This new way of repairing brain damage, which combines cellular treatment with drug therapy, has shown positive results, especially in forming blood vessels (a process called angiogenesis) in damaged areas of the brains of adult laboratory mice. Angiogenesis is a process that is essential to the recovery of damaged neural tissues. The investigation was led by Jos Miguel Soria Lpez, deputy director of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at CEU-UCH, and its results were published in the international medical journal Brain Injury.

Professor Soria, who is affiliated to the Department of Biomedical Sciences at CEU-UCH, heads the investigative group 'Strategies in Neuroprotection and Neuroreparation', which carried out the investigation in cooperation with the Andalusian Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine Centre (CABIMER), located in Sevilla, and the Mediterranean Ophthalmological Foundation, located in Valencia. The research team used the experience they obtained from their previous investigations on the neuroregenerative efficiency of lipoic acid to develop a new remediation strategy for patients of brain damage. This new therapy combines the transplantation of bone marrow stem cells into the brain -- in this case, the brains of adult rats -- with the administration of the potent antioxidant lipoic acid.

Lipoic acid is already used in the treatment of degenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis or diabetic neuropathy. Professor Soria concluded from previous researches he conducted at CEU-UCH that it has the ability to increase the creation of blood vessels, which speeds up cerebral immune response after an injury and stimulates the restoration of damaged tissues. Several other researches, for their part, proved that after brain damage stem cell therapies using a patient's own bone marrow induce functional improvements. The two therapies -- one cellular; the other one pharmacological -- were both applied in this research so as to evaluate their combined effect.

New blood vessels

Angiogenesis -- the process that forms new blood vessels -- in the treated neuronal tissue began only eight days after the application of this new, combined therapy. CEU-UCH professor Soria says that "although bone marrow stem cells disappear from the brain tissue where they were transplanted after only 16 days, new cells keep forming. To put it another way, brain tissue is regenerated by new cells that appear in the brain as a result of stem cell transplantation. This proves the regenerative efficiency of the new combined therapy."

The research also shows how the blood vessels that formed after the treatment grow into the damaged area of the brain. "They act as a kind of scaffolding to that area that allows microglia cells to migrate," professor Soria says. "In the damaged area, they contribute to regeneration." He adds that "the application of both treatments results into high angiogenic activity, which is crucial for an efficient recovery of the damaged brain area." According to Soria, "the laboratory mice that recovered fastest from brain injuries were those that had a higher density of regenerated blood vessels."

Taking into consideration brain damage is, especially among children and adolescents, one of the leading causes of disability and death in the developed world, the good results that were obtained from the combination of the two therapies make the research team very hopeful. "Combining an antioxidant such as lipoic acid with bone marrow stem cells has proven to be an effective remedy," Soria observes. The team plans to conduct future research into similar combined therapies.

The image above shows the transplant of bone marrow stem cells from transgenic mice under the effects of cerebral cortex after suffering local brain damage. Also visible is a neuroprotective drug therapy.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Asociacin RUVID. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Continued here:
Brain injuries in mice treated using bone marrow stem cells, antioxidants

Katie Joyce, left, aged four, and Sophie Ryan Palmer, aged 12, were among the four children who died as a result of complications with transplants. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

Four children have died after failings in how stem cells used in life-saving operations were frozen at Great Ormond Street hospital, it emerged this week.

The four, who were between one and 12 years old, were among eight children with cancer whose bone marrow transplants did not work as a result of problems with the freezing process.

Britains best-known childrens hospital has admitted that one of them, four-year-old Katie Joyce, might have survived if it had acted more quickly when problems arose.

An inquest into the deaths this week heard that doctors were initially baffled as to why a decade of success using the procedures suddenly came to a halt in summer 2013. Despite extensive investigations, the hospital failed to pinpoint the source of the setbacks in its cryopreservation laboratory, used for freezing stem cells which were kept there for using in bone marrow transplants in children.

The transplanted stem cells were intended to help the childs bone marrow, damaged during chemotherapy, grow again to maximise the chance of recovery.

At the inquest, lawyers for two of the families whose children died accused Great Ormond Street of taking too long to halt the transplants once staff began having concerns.

The hospital has since overhauled its procedures to prevent further incidents and there are calls for the deaths to lead to tighter procedures around how stem cells are stored at hospitals and research centres across the UK.

Concerns were first raised in June 2013 when 12-year-old Sophie Ryan Palmer, who had acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, failed to make progress after her transplant at Great Ormond Street, which involved using a donors stem cells rather than her own.

By October 2013 the hospital had identified that a higher than usual proportion of eight patients who had undergone stem cell transplantation between March and August had suffered setbacks after encountering what doctors call delayed engraftment. It immediately stopped freezing stem cells on site at its base in Bloomsbury, central London, and launched an investigation.

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Great Ormond Street deaths caused by stem cell lab failures, inquest told

The Saint Mary's student club, SMC Stands up to Cancer, held a bone marrow registration drive Friday. Registrants' genetic information will be added to the Be the Match marrow database which searches for possible matches with blood cancer patients. Suitable donors can provide bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells to patients, saving lives.

Allison Lukomski, a communicative sciences and disorders major, was a match for a female cancer patient from last years drive. She said it is very rewarding, knowing she was able to help someone else.

"You could save a life," Lukomski said, "and I just think it is so incredible and it is such an incredible experience I had, my family had, everyone in my family decided to join because they thought it was a really cool process." She said everyone asks about the pain, but once they realize how much information there is every step of the way, many people sign up.

This is the second year for the bone marrow drive. For more information on joining the bone marrow donation registry, visit Be The Match.

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Saint Mary's holds bone marrow drive

Patients, aged one to 12, among eight children whose transplants failed Concerns arose in 2013 after operation on fundraiser Sophie Palmer, 12 Hospital says Katie Joyce, 4, could have been saved if quicker action taken Lawyers have also accused hospital of taking too long to stop transplants Ryan Loughran, 13 months, and Muhanna al-Hayany, 4, also died last year Doctors 'regret' not stopping sooner but decision seemed right at time Seventeen months on, investigations are still ongoing into exact cause

By Steph Cockroft for MailOnline

Published: 06:45 EST, 22 November 2014 | Updated: 08:49 EST, 22 November 2014

Four cancer-stricken children died at Great Ormond Street Hospital after a series of failures in stem cell transplants at the world-renowned hospital, an inquest has heard.

The young patients, aged between one and 12, were among eight children whose transplants failed when the stem cell freezing system - used in life-saving operations - inexplicably stopped working.

Four children went on to recover. But well-known charity fundraiser Sophie Ryan Palmer, 12, one-year-old Ryan Loughran, four-year-old Katie Joyce and Muhanna al-Hayany, also four, died between July and October last year.

Katie Joyce (left) and Sophie Ryan (right) were among two of the four young patients who died after a series of failures in stem cell transplants at Great Ormond Street Hospital

The children's hospital has now admitted that Katie might have survived if it had acted more quickly to resolve the problems.

Lawyers for two of the families have also accused Great Ormond Street of taking too long to stop the transplants once concerns arose.

At an inquest into the deaths this week, the court heard that doctors were initially dumbfounded as to why the procedures suddenly started failing after a decade of success, the Guardian reports.

Excerpt from:
Four children dead at Great Ormond Street after stem cell transplant failure

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

20-Nov-2014

Contact: Cristy Lytal lytal@med.usc.edu 323-442-2172 University of Southern California - Health Sciences

There are plenty of body parts that don't grow back when you lose them. Nails are an exception, and a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reveals some of the reasons why.

A team of USC Stem Cell researchers led by principal investigator Krzysztof Kobielak and co-first authors Yvonne Leung and Eve Kandyba has identified a new population of nail stem cells, which have the ability to either self-renew or undergo specialization or differentiation into multiple tissues.

To find these elusive stem cells, the team used a sophisticated system to attach fluorescent proteins and other visible "labels" to mouse nail cells. Many of these cells repeatedly divided, diluting the fluorescence and labels among their increasingly dim progeny. However, a few cells located in the soft tissue attached to the base of the nail retained strong fluorescence and labels because they either did not divide or divided slowly -- a known property of many stem cells.

The researchers then discovered that these slow-dividing stem cells have the flexibility to perform dual roles. Under normal circumstances, the stem cells contribute to the growth of both the nails and the adjacent skin. However, if the nail is injured or lost, a protein called "Bone Morphogenic Protein," or BMP, signals to the stem cells to shift their function exclusively to nail repair.

The researchers are now wondering whether or not the right signals or environmental cues could induce these nail stem cells to generate additional types of tissue -- potentially aiding in the repair of everything from nail and finger defects to severe skin injuries and amputations.

"That was very surprising discovery, since the dual characteristic of these nail stem cells to regenerate both the nail and skin under certain physiological conditions is quite unique and different from other skin stem cells, such as those of the hair follicle or sweat gland," said Kobielak.

###

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Nail stem cells prove more versatile than press ons

Buddy the beagle can walk again
Buddy the beagle wasn #39;t able to walk when he first arrived at the University of Minnesota Veterinary Medical Center. With the help of U of M veterinarians and staff, using stem-cell therapy,...

By: UMN Veterinary Medical Center

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Buddy the beagle can walk again - Video

Elite Emage Stem Cell Therapy
Elite Emage Stem Cell Therapy.

By: Elite Emage

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Elite Emage Stem Cell Therapy - Video

AVON LAKE, OH (WOIO) - When Shannon Goulding's bloodhound Butler tore a ligament in his knee his entire personality changed.

"He was sedentary, and he wasn't as active as before," said Goulding.

Dr. Petti a veterinarianat the Avon Lake Animal Clinic told Goulding, who also works at the clinic, suggested that stem cell therapy could help.

"Watching him walk he looked stiff and uncomfortable," said Petti.

The therapy was successful. Goulding said after four weeks after the surgery she could see a change the way Butler moved.

Stem cell therapy helps animals suffering from sore knees and joints by using their own fat cells.

"You take them from the patient, you process them, make them active, and then you re inject them into the parts of the animal that are giving them problems," said Petti.

Petti said Avon Lake Animal Clinic has helped about 15 animals with stem cell therapy and people from all over the country have been calling.

One injection of stem cells can last up to three years, and after that a second injection may be needed.

Stem cell therapy is also an expensive procedure. It ranges from $2,000-2,500, but for Goulding she says seeing Butler run free without pain is worth it.

Link:
Local clinic treats animals with stem cell therapy

CLEVELAND -

Our bodies contain 23 pairs of them, 46 total, but if chromosomes are damaged, they can cause birth defects, disabilities, growth problems, even death.

Case Western Reserve University scientist Anthony Wynshaw-Boris is studying how to repair damaged chromosomes with the help of a recent discovery. He's taking skin cells and reprogramming them to work like embryonic stem cells, which can grow into different cell types.

"You're taking adult or a child's skin cells. You're not causing any loss of an embryo, and you're taking those skin cells to make a stem cell," said Wynshaw-Boris.

Scientists studied patients with a specific defective chromosome that was shaped like a ring. They took the patients' skin cells and reprogrammed them into embryonic-like cells in the lab. They found this process caused the damaged "ring" chromosomes to be replaced by normal chromosomes.

"It at least raises the possibility that ring chromosomes will be lost in stem cells," said Wynshaw-Boris.

While this research was only conducted in lab cultures on the rare ring-shaped chromosomes, scientists hope it will work in patients with common abnormalities like Down syndrome.

"What we're hoping happens is we might be able to use, modify, what we did, to rescue cell lines from any patient that has any severe chromosome defect," Wynshaw-Boris explained.

It's research that could one day repair faulty chromosomes and stop genetic diseases in their tracks.

The reprogramming technique that transforms skin cells to stem cells was so groundbreaking that a Japanese physician won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2012 for developing it.

Originally posted here:
Health Beat: Stem cells to repair broken chromosomes

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

20-Nov-2014

Contact: Jessica Mikulski jmikulski@nyee.edu 212-979-4274 The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine @mountsinainyc

The National Eye Institute (NEI), a division of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai a five-year grant totaling $1 million that will support an effort to re-create a patients' ocular stem cells and restore vision in those blinded by corneal disease.

About six million people worldwide have been blinded by burns, trauma, infection, genetic diseases, and chronic inflammation that result in corneal stem cell death and corneal scarring.

There are currently no treatments for related vision loss that are effective over the long term. Corneal stem cell transplantation is an option in the short term, but availability of donor corneas is limited, and patients must take medications that suppress their immune systems for the rest of their lives to prevent rejection of the transplanted tissue.

A newer proposed treatment option is the replacement of corneal stem cells to restore vision. The grant from the NEI will fund Mount Sinai research to re-create a patient's own stem cells and restore vision in those blinded by corneal disease. Technological advances in recent years have enabled researchers to take mature cells, in this case eyelid or oral skin cells, and coax them backward along the development pathways to become stem cells again. These eye-specific stem cells would then be redirected down pathways that become needed replacements for damaged cells in the cornea, in theory restoring vision.

"Our findings will allow the creation of transplantable eye tissue that can restore the ocular surface," said Albert Y. Wu, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Ophthalmology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and principle investigator for the grant-funded effort. "In the future, we will be able to re-create a patient's own corneal stem cells to restore vision after being blind," added Dr. Wu, also Director of the Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory in the Department of Ophthalmology and a member of the Black Family Stem Cell Institute at Icahn School of Medicine. "Since the stem cells are their own, patient's will not require immunosuppressive drugs, which would greatly improve their quality of life."

Specifically, the grant will support efforts to discover new stem cell therapies for ocular surface disease and make regenerative medicine a reality for people who have lost their vision. The research team will investigate the most viable stem cell sources, seek to create ocular stem cells from eyelid or oral skin cells, explore the molecular pathways involved in ocular and orbital development, and develop cutting-edge biomaterials to engraft a patient's own stem cells and restore vision.

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Mount Sinai researchers awarded grant to find new stem cell therapies for vision recovery

Durham, NC (PRWEB) November 20, 2014

With more soldiers returning from combat suffering devastating injuries, doctors are turning to a reconstructive surgery that uses tissue transplantation along with immuno-suppression therapy. This approach has had encouraging results; however, rejection of transplanted tissue from an unmatched donor remains a critical complication. A new study found in the latest issue of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine reports that researchers may have found a way around that.

We demonstrated in mice that a single infusion of adipose-derived stromal cells (ASC) which are stem cells taken from fat in a minimally invasive procedure from an unmatched donor combined with an extremely low dose of bone marrow cells resulted in stable long-term tolerance of the skin graft without undo consequences such as graft versus host disease, said Thomas Davis, Ph.D., a contractor from the Henry M. Jackson Foundation who is working at the Naval Medical Research Centers Regenerative Medicine Department. Dr. Davis is lead author of the study.

He added, As we move forward, we are cautiously optimistic, appreciating that the transition from these laboratory models to proof-of-principle preclinical studies is challenging and not straightforward. If successful, the technology has diverse therapeutic applications in clinical transplantation in both military and civilian settings.

The research team wanted to try using ASCs because these cells have proven to be more potent than bone marrow and cord-blood derived stem cells when it comes to inhibiting the bodys rejection of transplantations from an unmatched donor. They conducted the study by doing skin grafts in mice. One group of grafted mice received no stem cell transfusions; one group received human-derived ASCs after the graft occurred; and another group received a combination of human ASCs and stem cells harvested from the mouses own bone marrow, also after placement of the graft.

More than 200 days later, the combination of human ASC and limited numbers of blood marrow stem cells effectively prevented rejection, with no evidence of graft versus host disease, Dr. Davis reported.

Navy Capt. Eric A. Elster, M.D., professor and chair of the surgery department at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, helped lead the study. ASC constitutively produced high levels of anti-inflammatory/immunoregulatory factors, he said. While further work is needed to validate this approach in other laboratory models before clinical trials can begin, the ability to use ASC, which are non-donor specific and clinically feasible, to induce tolerance opens a new horizon in transplantation.

The implications of this research are broad, said Anthony Atala, MD, editor of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. If these findings are duplicated in additional models and in human trials, there is potential to apply this strategy to many areas of transplantation.

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This article, Adipose-derived Stromal Cells Promote Allograft Tolerance Induction, and more can be accessed at http://www.stemcellsTM.com.

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Fat and Bone Marrow-Derived Stem Cells Combo Shows Promise in Preventing Transplant Rejection

By Estel Grace Masangkay

A team of researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis reported that they have discovered a way to directly convert human skin cells into a type of brain cell that has been damaged by Huntingtons disease.

The team chose to produce a certain type of brain cell known as medium spiny neurons, which play a key part in controlling movement. Medium spiny neurons are the cells most affected by Huntingtons disease, a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by involuntary muscle movements and cognitive decline. The disease symptoms typically begin showing in mid-adulthood, and they steadily worsen over time.

For their experiment, the scientists used adult human skin cells instead of the typical mouse cells or embryonic human cells. The team placed the skin cells in an environment similar to the environment of brain cells and then exposed them to two small molecules of RNA named miR-9 and miR-124. In their past research, the scientists have discovered that these microRNAs turn skin cells into a mix of various neuron types. Dr. Yoo and his colleagues fine-tuned the chemical signals by further exposing the cells to transcription factors they knew are found in the part of the brain where medium spiny neurons thrive. Results show that the converted cells survived for at least six months after they were injected into mices brains. The cells also behaved in a similar fashion to native brain cells.

Not only did these transplanted cells survive in the mouse brain, they showed functional properties similar to those of native cells. These cells are known to extend projections into certain brain regions. And we found the human transplanted cells also connected to these distant targets in the mouse brain. That's a landmark point about this paper, said Dr. Andrew S. Yoo, assistant professor of developmental biology in Washington University School of Medicine and senior author of the study.

The new process differs from other techniques in that it does not need to undergo a stem cell phase, thereby avoiding production of multiple cell types. The scientists added that using adult human cells offers the opportunity to use the patients own cells in future procedures, which would radically minimize the risk of rejection by the patients immune system. Dr. Yoos team is now preparing to test skin cells taken from patients with Huntingtons disease using the approach. They also intend to inject healthy reprogrammed human cells into mice models of Huntingtons disease to check whether these have any effect on the diseases symptoms.

The researchers work was published in the previous months issue of the journal Neuron.

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Researchers Convert Skin Cells To Replace HD-Damaged Brain Cells