Source: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Date: November 29, 2011
Summary:
A team of scientists from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and CellThera, a private company located in WPI's Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center, have regenerated functional muscle tissue in mice, opening the door for a new clinical therapy to treat people who suffer major muscle trauma. The team used a novel protocol to coax mature human muscle cells into a stem cell-like state and grew those reprogrammed cells on biopolymer microthreads. The threads were placed in a wound created by surgically removing a large section of leg muscle from a mouse. Over time, the threads and cells restored near-normal function to the muscle published in the current issue of the journal Tissue Engineering. Surprisingly, the microthreads, which were used simply as a scaffold to support the reprogrammed human cells, actually seemed to accelerate the regeneration process by recruiting progenitor mouse muscle cells, suggesting that they alone could become a therapeutic tool for treating major muscle trauma.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Scientists Engineer Blood Stem Cells to Fight Melanoma
Source: University of California - Los Angeles
Date: November 28, 2011
Summary:
Researchers from UCLA's cancer and stem cell centers have demonstrated for the first time that blood stem cells can be engineered to create cancer-killing T-cells that seek out and attack a human melanoma. The researchers believe this approach could be useful in 40 percent of Caucasians with this malignancy.
Done in mouse models, the study serves as first proof-of-principle that blood stem cells, which make every cell type found in blood, can be genetically altered in a living organism to create an army of melanoma-fighting T-cells, said Jerome Zack, study senior author and a scientist with UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA. The study appears Nov. 28, 2011 in the early online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Date: November 28, 2011
Summary:
Researchers from UCLA's cancer and stem cell centers have demonstrated for the first time that blood stem cells can be engineered to create cancer-killing T-cells that seek out and attack a human melanoma. The researchers believe this approach could be useful in 40 percent of Caucasians with this malignancy.
Done in mouse models, the study serves as first proof-of-principle that blood stem cells, which make every cell type found in blood, can be genetically altered in a living organism to create an army of melanoma-fighting T-cells, said Jerome Zack, study senior author and a scientist with UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA. The study appears Nov. 28, 2011 in the early online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Cell Molecule Identified as Central Player in the Formation of New Blood Vessels
Source: University of North Carolina School of Medicine
Date: November 28, 2011
Summary:
Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have identified a cellular protein that plays a central role in the formation of new blood vessels. The molecule is the protein Shc (pronounced SHIK), and new blood vessel formation, or angiogenesis, is seriously impaired without it. The study appeared online Nov. 16, 2011 in the journal Blood.
Date: November 28, 2011
Summary:
Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have identified a cellular protein that plays a central role in the formation of new blood vessels. The molecule is the protein Shc (pronounced SHIK), and new blood vessel formation, or angiogenesis, is seriously impaired without it. The study appeared online Nov. 16, 2011 in the journal Blood.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Rebuilding the brain’s circuitry Healthy neurons can integrate into diseased areas
Source: Harvard Medical School
Date: November 24, 2011
Summary:
Neuron transplants have repaired brain circuitry and substantially normalized function in mice with a brain disorder, an advance indicating that key areas of the mammalian brain are more reparable than was widely believed. Collaborators from Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) transplanted normally functioning embryonic neurons at a carefully selected stage of their development into the hypothalamus of mice unable to respond to leptin, a hormone that regulates metabolism and controls body weight. These mutant mice usually become morbidly obese, but the neuron transplants repaired defective brain circuits, enabling them to respond to leptin and thus experience substantially less weight gain.
Repair at the cellular-level of the hypothalamus — a critical and complex region of the brain that regulates phenomena such as hunger, metabolism, body temperature, and basic behaviors such as sex and aggression — indicates the possibility of new therapeutic approaches to even higher-level conditions such as spinal cord injury, autism, epilepsy, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease.
The findings are to appear Nov. 25 in Science.
Date: November 24, 2011
Summary:
Neuron transplants have repaired brain circuitry and substantially normalized function in mice with a brain disorder, an advance indicating that key areas of the mammalian brain are more reparable than was widely believed. Collaborators from Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) transplanted normally functioning embryonic neurons at a carefully selected stage of their development into the hypothalamus of mice unable to respond to leptin, a hormone that regulates metabolism and controls body weight. These mutant mice usually become morbidly obese, but the neuron transplants repaired defective brain circuits, enabling them to respond to leptin and thus experience substantially less weight gain.
Repair at the cellular-level of the hypothalamus — a critical and complex region of the brain that regulates phenomena such as hunger, metabolism, body temperature, and basic behaviors such as sex and aggression — indicates the possibility of new therapeutic approaches to even higher-level conditions such as spinal cord injury, autism, epilepsy, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease.
The findings are to appear Nov. 25 in Science.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Key to Aging? Key Molecular Switch for Telomere Extension by Telomerase Identified
Source: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: November 23, 2011
Summary:
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine describe for the first time a key target of DNA damage checkpoint enzymes that must be chemically modified to enable stable maintenance of chromosome ends by telomerase, an enzyme thought to play a key role in cancer and aging. Their findings are reported online in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.
Date: November 23, 2011
Summary:
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine describe for the first time a key target of DNA damage checkpoint enzymes that must be chemically modified to enable stable maintenance of chromosome ends by telomerase, an enzyme thought to play a key role in cancer and aging. Their findings are reported online in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Lab Creates Cells Used by Brain to Control Muscle Cells
Source: University of Central Florida
Date: November 22, 2011
Summary:
University of Central Florida researchers, for the first time, have used stem cells to grow neuromuscular junctions between human muscle cells and human spinal cord cells, the key connectors used by the brain to communicate and control muscles in the body. The success at UCF is a critical step in developing “human-on-a-chip” systems. The systems are models that recreate how organs or a series of organs function in the body. Their use could accelerate medical research and drug testing, potentially delivering life-saving breakthroughs much more quickly than the typical 10-year trajectory most drugs take now to get through animal and patient trials. The work, funded through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at the National Institutes of Health, is described in the December issue of Biomaterials.
Date: November 22, 2011
Summary:
University of Central Florida researchers, for the first time, have used stem cells to grow neuromuscular junctions between human muscle cells and human spinal cord cells, the key connectors used by the brain to communicate and control muscles in the body. The success at UCF is a critical step in developing “human-on-a-chip” systems. The systems are models that recreate how organs or a series of organs function in the body. Their use could accelerate medical research and drug testing, potentially delivering life-saving breakthroughs much more quickly than the typical 10-year trajectory most drugs take now to get through animal and patient trials. The work, funded through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at the National Institutes of Health, is described in the December issue of Biomaterials.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Implanted neurons, grown in the lab, take charge of brain circuitry
Source: University of Wisconsin
Date: November 21, 2011
Summary:
Among the many hurdles to be cleared before human embryonic stem cells can achieve their therapeutic potential is determining whether or not transplanted cells can functionally integrate into target organs or tissues. Writing today (Monday, Nov. 21) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of University of Wisconsin scientists reports that neurons, forged in the lab from blank slate human embryonic stem cells and implanted into the brains of mice, can successfully fuse with the brain's wiring and both send and receive signals.
The scientists also reported that the human neurons adopted the rhythmic firing behavior of many brain cells talking to one another in unison. And, perhaps more importantly, that the human cells could modify the way the neural network behaved. A critical tool that allowed the UW group to answer this question was a new technology known as optogenetics, where light, instead of electric current, is used to stimulate the activity of the neurons.
Date: November 21, 2011
Summary:
Among the many hurdles to be cleared before human embryonic stem cells can achieve their therapeutic potential is determining whether or not transplanted cells can functionally integrate into target organs or tissues. Writing today (Monday, Nov. 21) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of University of Wisconsin scientists reports that neurons, forged in the lab from blank slate human embryonic stem cells and implanted into the brains of mice, can successfully fuse with the brain's wiring and both send and receive signals.
The scientists also reported that the human neurons adopted the rhythmic firing behavior of many brain cells talking to one another in unison. And, perhaps more importantly, that the human cells could modify the way the neural network behaved. A critical tool that allowed the UW group to answer this question was a new technology known as optogenetics, where light, instead of electric current, is used to stimulate the activity of the neurons.
Regeneration After a Stroke Requires Intact Communication Channels Between Brain Hemispheres
Source: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Date: November 21, 2011
Summary:
The structure of the corpus callosum, a thick band of nerve fibres that connects the two halves of the brain with each other and in this way enables the rapid exchange of information between the left and right hemispheres, plays an important role in the regaining of motor skills following a stroke. A study by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research and the Department of Neurology at the University Hospital of Cologne currently published in the journal Human Brain Mapping has shown that in stroke patients with particularly severely impaired hand movement, this communication channel between the two brain hemispheres in particular was badly damaged.
Date: November 21, 2011
Summary:
The structure of the corpus callosum, a thick band of nerve fibres that connects the two halves of the brain with each other and in this way enables the rapid exchange of information between the left and right hemispheres, plays an important role in the regaining of motor skills following a stroke. A study by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research and the Department of Neurology at the University Hospital of Cologne currently published in the journal Human Brain Mapping has shown that in stroke patients with particularly severely impaired hand movement, this communication channel between the two brain hemispheres in particular was badly damaged.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Researchers uncover mechanism that regulates human pluripotent stem cell metabolism
Source: University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences
Date: November 15, 2011
Summary:
Human pluripotent stem cells, which can develop into any cell type in the body, rely heavily on glycolysis, or sugar fermentation, to drive their metabolic activities. In contrast, mature cells in children and adults depend more on cell mitochondria to convert sugar and oxygen into carbon dioxide and water during a high energy-producing process called oxidative phosphorylation for their metabolic needs.
How cells progress from one form of energy production to another during development is unknown, although a finding by University of California Los Angeles stem cell researchers provides new insight for this transition that may have implications for using these cells for therapies in the clinic.
Based mostly on visual appearance, it had been assumed that pluripotent stem cells contained undeveloped and inactive mitochondria, which are the energy-producing power plants that drive most cell functions. It was thought that stem cell mitochondria could not respire, or convert sugar and oxygen into carbon dioxide and water with the production of energy. This led most scientists to expect that mitochondria matured and gained the ability to respire during the transition from pluripotent stem cells into differentiated body cells over time.
Surprisingly, UCLA stem cell researchers discovered that pluripotent stem cell mitochondria respire at roughly the same level as differentiated body cells, although they produced very little energy, thereby uncoupling the consumption of sugar and oxygen from energy generation. Rather than finding that mitochondria matured with cell differentiation, as was anticipated, the researchers uncovered a mechanism by which the stem cells converted from glucose fermentation to oxygen-dependent respiration to achieve full differentiation potential.
The four-year study appears in the Nov. 15, 2011 issue of The EMBO Journal, a peer-reviewed journal of the European Molecular Biology Organization.
Date: November 15, 2011
Summary:
Human pluripotent stem cells, which can develop into any cell type in the body, rely heavily on glycolysis, or sugar fermentation, to drive their metabolic activities. In contrast, mature cells in children and adults depend more on cell mitochondria to convert sugar and oxygen into carbon dioxide and water during a high energy-producing process called oxidative phosphorylation for their metabolic needs.
How cells progress from one form of energy production to another during development is unknown, although a finding by University of California Los Angeles stem cell researchers provides new insight for this transition that may have implications for using these cells for therapies in the clinic.
Based mostly on visual appearance, it had been assumed that pluripotent stem cells contained undeveloped and inactive mitochondria, which are the energy-producing power plants that drive most cell functions. It was thought that stem cell mitochondria could not respire, or convert sugar and oxygen into carbon dioxide and water with the production of energy. This led most scientists to expect that mitochondria matured and gained the ability to respire during the transition from pluripotent stem cells into differentiated body cells over time.
Surprisingly, UCLA stem cell researchers discovered that pluripotent stem cell mitochondria respire at roughly the same level as differentiated body cells, although they produced very little energy, thereby uncoupling the consumption of sugar and oxygen from energy generation. Rather than finding that mitochondria matured with cell differentiation, as was anticipated, the researchers uncovered a mechanism by which the stem cells converted from glucose fermentation to oxygen-dependent respiration to achieve full differentiation potential.
The four-year study appears in the Nov. 15, 2011 issue of The EMBO Journal, a peer-reviewed journal of the European Molecular Biology Organization.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Stem Cell Study Helps Clarify the Best Time for Therapy to Aid Heart Attack Survivors
Source: Mayo Clinic
Date: November 14, 2011
Summary:
ORLANDO, Fla. — A research network led by a Mayo Clinic physician found that stem cells obtained from bone marrow delivered two to three weeks after a person has a heart attack did not improve heart function. This is the first study to systematically examine the timing and method of stem cell delivery and provides vital information for the field of cell therapy. The results were presented this morning at the 2011 Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association Meeting in Orlando, Fla. They also will be published online in JAMA to coincide with the presentation.
Date: November 14, 2011
Summary:
ORLANDO, Fla. — A research network led by a Mayo Clinic physician found that stem cells obtained from bone marrow delivered two to three weeks after a person has a heart attack did not improve heart function. This is the first study to systematically examine the timing and method of stem cell delivery and provides vital information for the field of cell therapy. The results were presented this morning at the 2011 Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association Meeting in Orlando, Fla. They also will be published online in JAMA to coincide with the presentation.
Results of trial using adult stem cells for heart failure triple researchers’ projections
Source: Brigham and Women's Hospital
Date: November 14, 2011
Summary:
ORLANDO, Fla. – Patients suffering from heart failure due to a previous myocardial infarction showed an average of 12 percent improvement one year following an investigative treatment that involved infusing them with their own stem cells. The results triple the 4 percent improvement average the researchers projected for the Phase I trial.
Results of the trial are published today (Nov. 14) in The Lancet and concurrently presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Fla. They are the first report of administering subjects’ own cardiac stem cells in humans; previous studies have used stem cells harvested from bone marrow.
Date: November 14, 2011
Summary:
ORLANDO, Fla. – Patients suffering from heart failure due to a previous myocardial infarction showed an average of 12 percent improvement one year following an investigative treatment that involved infusing them with their own stem cells. The results triple the 4 percent improvement average the researchers projected for the Phase I trial.
Results of the trial are published today (Nov. 14) in The Lancet and concurrently presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Fla. They are the first report of administering subjects’ own cardiac stem cells in humans; previous studies have used stem cells harvested from bone marrow.
Self-Organized Pituitary-Like Tissue from Mouse ES Cells
Source: RIKEN
Date: 14 November 2011
Summary:
The possibility that functional, three-dimensional tissues and organs may be derived from pluripotent cells, such as embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), represents one of the grand challenges of stem cell research, but is also one of the fundamental goals of the emerging field of regenerative medicine. New research has shown that when ES cells are cultured under the appropriate conditions, they can be driven to self-organize into complex, three-dimensional tissue-like structures that closely resemble their physiological counterparts, a remarkable advance for the field.
New work by Hidetaka Suga of the Division of Human Stem Cell Technology, Yoshiki Sasai, Group Director of the Laboratory for Organogenesis and Neurogenesis, and others has unlocked the most recent achievement in self-organized tissue differentiation, steering mouse ESCs to give rise to tissue closely resembling the hormone-secreting component of the pituitary, known as the adenohypophysis, in vitro. Conducted in collaboration with Yutaka Oiso at the Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, this work was published in Nature.
Date: 14 November 2011
Summary:
The possibility that functional, three-dimensional tissues and organs may be derived from pluripotent cells, such as embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), represents one of the grand challenges of stem cell research, but is also one of the fundamental goals of the emerging field of regenerative medicine. New research has shown that when ES cells are cultured under the appropriate conditions, they can be driven to self-organize into complex, three-dimensional tissue-like structures that closely resemble their physiological counterparts, a remarkable advance for the field.
New work by Hidetaka Suga of the Division of Human Stem Cell Technology, Yoshiki Sasai, Group Director of the Laboratory for Organogenesis and Neurogenesis, and others has unlocked the most recent achievement in self-organized tissue differentiation, steering mouse ESCs to give rise to tissue closely resembling the hormone-secreting component of the pituitary, known as the adenohypophysis, in vitro. Conducted in collaboration with Yutaka Oiso at the Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, this work was published in Nature.
Phase I trial shows adult stem cell heart treatment three times more effective than expected
Source: University of Louisville
Posted: November 14, 2011 09:03 AM
Summary:
Patients who suffered from heart failure due to a heart attack showed an average of 12 percent improvement in heart function one year after they underwent an investigative treatment that involved infusing them with their own stem cells. Pre-trial projections were for a 4 percent improvement average. University of Louisville researcher Roberto Bolli, the lead investigator on the Phase I clinical trial, will present the findings today at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Fla. He also is lead author on a paper set for publication today in The Lancet.
Posted: November 14, 2011 09:03 AM
Summary:
Patients who suffered from heart failure due to a heart attack showed an average of 12 percent improvement in heart function one year after they underwent an investigative treatment that involved infusing them with their own stem cells. Pre-trial projections were for a 4 percent improvement average. University of Louisville researcher Roberto Bolli, the lead investigator on the Phase I clinical trial, will present the findings today at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Fla. He also is lead author on a paper set for publication today in The Lancet.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Einstein Researchers Discover Key To Cell Specialization
Source: Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Date: November 10, 2011
Summary:
(BRONX, NY) — Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have uncovered a mechanism that governs how cells become specialized during development. Their findings could have implications for human health and disease and appear in the November 10 online edition of the journal Cell.
A fundamental question in biology is how a fertilized egg gives rise to many different cells in the body, such as nerve, blood and liver. By providing insight into that process, known as differentiation, the findings by the Einstein researchers are relevant to cancer, stem cell research and regenerative medicine.
The scientists studied cell differentiation in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. They found that cell specialization depends on a pair of proteins that act as super regulators of proteins that were already known—one super-regulating protein encouraging a cell to differentiate and the other trying to hold back the process.
Date: November 10, 2011
Summary:
(BRONX, NY) — Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have uncovered a mechanism that governs how cells become specialized during development. Their findings could have implications for human health and disease and appear in the November 10 online edition of the journal Cell.
A fundamental question in biology is how a fertilized egg gives rise to many different cells in the body, such as nerve, blood and liver. By providing insight into that process, known as differentiation, the findings by the Einstein researchers are relevant to cancer, stem cell research and regenerative medicine.
The scientists studied cell differentiation in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. They found that cell specialization depends on a pair of proteins that act as super regulators of proteins that were already known—one super-regulating protein encouraging a cell to differentiate and the other trying to hold back the process.
Stem cell approach primes immune system to fight cancer
Source: Oxford University
Date: 10 November 2011
Summary:
Stem cell techniques have been used in the lab as a new way of priming the body’s own immune cells to attack cancer, in a proof-of-principle study by Oxford University scientists. The technical advance opens up the possibility of using stem cells derived from a patient’s skin as a source of key immune cells, called dendritic cells, which can orchestrate an immune response against a tumour. But much further work would be needed to turn this into a therapy ready to be used with cancer patients.
The Oxford researchers used recently established techniques to turn skin cells from a healthy adult back into a stem cell state. These ‘induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells’ are capable of renewing themselves indefinitely and can be coaxed to form any cell type – muscle, nerve, heart tissue, etc.
Dr. Paul Fairchild and Dr Kate Silk prompted the human iPS cells to form dendritic cells using an approach that would be suitable for clinical use. That is, no animal-based material or supplements to aid growth were used. After providing the dendritic cells with components of a melanoma, the team showed the cells could initiate a full immune response to melanoma markers in cell cultures in the lab.
The study was funded by the UK Medical Research Council and the Oxford Martin School, and is published in the journal Gene Therapy.
Date: 10 November 2011
Summary:
Stem cell techniques have been used in the lab as a new way of priming the body’s own immune cells to attack cancer, in a proof-of-principle study by Oxford University scientists. The technical advance opens up the possibility of using stem cells derived from a patient’s skin as a source of key immune cells, called dendritic cells, which can orchestrate an immune response against a tumour. But much further work would be needed to turn this into a therapy ready to be used with cancer patients.
The Oxford researchers used recently established techniques to turn skin cells from a healthy adult back into a stem cell state. These ‘induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells’ are capable of renewing themselves indefinitely and can be coaxed to form any cell type – muscle, nerve, heart tissue, etc.
Dr. Paul Fairchild and Dr Kate Silk prompted the human iPS cells to form dendritic cells using an approach that would be suitable for clinical use. That is, no animal-based material or supplements to aid growth were used. After providing the dendritic cells with components of a melanoma, the team showed the cells could initiate a full immune response to melanoma markers in cell cultures in the lab.
The study was funded by the UK Medical Research Council and the Oxford Martin School, and is published in the journal Gene Therapy.
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Gene Therapy Shows Promise as Hemophilia Treatment in Animal Studies
Source: Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
Date: November 3, 2011
Summary:
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – – For the first time, researchers have combined gene therapy and stem cell transplantation to successfully reverse the severe, crippling bleeding disorder hemophilia A in large animals, opening the door to the development of new therapies for human patients. Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine, collaborating with other institutions, report in Experimental Hematology that a single injection of genetically-modified adult stem cells in two sheep converted the severe disorder to a milder form.
Date: November 3, 2011
Summary:
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – – For the first time, researchers have combined gene therapy and stem cell transplantation to successfully reverse the severe, crippling bleeding disorder hemophilia A in large animals, opening the door to the development of new therapies for human patients. Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine, collaborating with other institutions, report in Experimental Hematology that a single injection of genetically-modified adult stem cells in two sheep converted the severe disorder to a milder form.
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