Stem Cell Articles - Page 351

manouli · 10-04-2009, 07:55 PM

Vital embryo research driven out of Britain

Scientists abandon plan to develop stem cells after funding dries up

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Monday, 5 October 2009

All research involving the controversial creation of animal-human "hybrid" embryos has been refused funding in Britain and one of the three scientists licensed to carry out the work has left the UK for a job in Australia.

Every one of the three projects to develop embryonic stem cells from cloned embryos created by fusing human cells with animal eggs has now been abandoned, after publicly-funded research councils refused to back the studies aimed at developing new treatments for incurable illnesses ranging from heart disease to Parkinson's.

Two of the projects fizzled out earlier this year and the third is now understood to have ended after a funding application was aborted and the research licence issued by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) expired in July without being renewed, The Independent has learned.

Related articles
Evan Harris: We owe it to the sick to support this research
The news is a blow to those who lobbied intensively last year for a change to the law that would allow the creation of hybrid embryos for research purposes. The new Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, which came into force this month, was specifically amended to permit the creation of cloned embryos from human cells mixed with the eggs of either cows, pigs, sheep or other animals.

When the issue was debated in Parliament, many leading scientists, including the heads of the funding councils, warned that it would be a travesty if this kind of research was banned in Britain. It now appears that their own research committees have dismissed the grant applications from all three licence holders as not worth funding.

Although the work was not specifically allowed under the old 1990 Act, it was permitted under licence by the HFEA.

Professor Justin St John of Warwick University, who held one of the three HFEA licences for research involving the cloning of human-animal hybrid embryos, has resigned from his post as head of reproductive biology and is due to fly to Australia today to take up a position at Monash University, which is renowned for its work in the field of embryonic stem cells.

more....

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...n-1797821.html

manouli · 10-05-2009, 05:35 PM

Gene Therapy Mated With Stem Cells to Boost Blood Flow in Mice

By Rob Waters

Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Researchers fused two technologies, stem cells and gene therapy, to trigger the growth of new blood vessels as a treatment for mice with heart disease.

A biodegradable carrier called a polymer was engineered by scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and ferried genes into stem cells. The genes promoted the release of chemicals called growth factors that helped the stem cells survive in the mice and create new blood vessels, said a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=acDSirxoeN08

manouli · 10-05-2009, 05:49 PM

Veterinarian uses stem cells to treat spinal cord disease Send us feedback about this article

October 2, 2009
By: Timothy Kirn
For The VIN News Service

With veterinarians across the country training to use stem cells for tendon and ligament repair, a professor at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) wants to take the technology a step further by applying them to chronic, cell-based diseases.

Richard Vulliet, DVM, is very early into the work. But he is optimistic about the evidence as it exists, of course, and he may have had a success.

Vulliet has treated four dogs with degenerative myelopathy with their own stem cells, which he prefers to call mesenchymal stem cells or pluripotent marrow stromal cells. The terminology has evolved and those names are more descriptive, he says.

The process works like this: Vulliet derives the mesenchymal stromal cells from bone marrow. The bone marrow aspirate is then filtered and plated (stromal cells adhere to plastic) because only about one cell in 100,000 is the proper mesenchymal stromal cell. He then cultures the cells into an enriched colony, and injects them back in.

He injects the cells systemically into the circulation because it appears that they home to an area of injury. Moreover, when the cells are injected directly into tissue, they tend to just clump there.

read...

http://news.vin.com/VINNews.aspx?articleId=14031

manouli · 10-05-2009, 05:53 PM

Adult stem cells offer new treatment for fractures that fail to heal
6 ► Retweetby ANI on October 5, 2009

Washington, October 5 (ANI): Adult stem cells can offer a new treatment for the 10 to 20 percent of fractures that fail to heal, according to a new study.

“Lack of fracture repair often leads to several surgeries, long periods of immobilization, pain, bone deformities, and sometimes death. The precise reason why a patient’s fracture does not heal remains unknown in most cases,” said senior investigator Dr. Anna Spagnoli, of the University of North Carolina.

The researchers are of the opinion that a deficiency in adult stem cells, which normally become reparative cells in response to damage, may be the main reason why broken bones sometimes fail to heal.

more....

http://trak.in/news/adult-stem-cells...o-heal/10575/#

manouli · 10-05-2009, 06:08 PM

Nanoparticles spur stem cells?
Posted by Victoria Stern
[Entry posted at 5th October 2009 09:37 PM GMT]
Comment on this news story

Nanoparticles may prove effective tools for improving stem cells therapy, new research suggests. Chemical engineers have successfully used nanoparticles to enhance stem cells' ability to stimulate regeneration of damaged vascular tissue and reduce muscle degeneration in mice, they report in a study published online today (October 5) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This is an intriguing finding," said Arnold Kriegstein, a regenerative biologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the study. "But it would need to be explored a good deal further before one could really be excited about this new approach."

more....

http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/56041/

manouli · 10-06-2009, 07:56 PM

Nobel winner not sold on results of embryonic stem cell research
October 6, 4:07 AMPublic Policy ExaminerJoseph PerkinsPrevious 1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe Subscribe

Elizabeth Blackburn returned to the national headlines yesterday after she and two other American scientists won this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine for their joint discovery of an enzyme that plays a key role in normal cell function, as well as in cell aging and most cancers.

Dr. Blackburn, a professor of biology and physiology at the University of California, San Francisco, last made national news back in 2004 when she was ousted from former President George W. Bush’s advisory Council on Bioethics.
Some 170 researchers signed an open letter to the Republican president protesting that Dr. Blackburn’s dismissal was politically motivated; insisting that she was kicked to the curb because her views on embryonic stem cell research did not comport with those of the Bush administration.
But while advocates of embryonic stem cell research tried to adapt Dr. Blackburn as their scientific poster gal, she really didn’t share their blind faith that embryonic stem cells were going to cure practically every disease known to humanity – from AIDS to Zellweger syndrome.

more...

http://www.examiner.com/x-15761-Publ...-cell-research

manouli · 10-06-2009, 08:52 PM

Scientists boost stem cells’ ability to promote tissue regeneration
9 ► Retweetby ANI on October 6, 2009

Washington, Oct 6 (ANI): Engineers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology have successfully enhanced stem cells’ ability to regenerate vascular tissue such as blood vessels by equipping them with genes that produce extra tissue growth factors.

Stem cells hold great potential as a way to promote tissue regeneration. However, this approach has been limited because stem cells don’t produce enough growth factors after transplantation.

To overcome the problem, the researchers removed stem cells from mouse bone marrow and used them to develop nanoparticles to deliver the gene for the growth factor VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor).

more...

http://trak.in/news/scientists-boost...eration/11074/

manouli · 10-06-2009, 08:59 PM

Maryland Stem Cell Commission requests funding applications
October 6, 2009

COLUMBIA, MD - The Maryland Stem Cell Commission has issued three official Requests for Applications (RFAs) for funding through the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund under the Maryland Stem Cell Research Act.

This is the fourth round of funding from the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund, which has a current operational budget of $12.4 million for 2010.

more...

http://www.techjournalsouth.com/news...l?item_id=8275

manouli · 10-06-2009, 10:08 PM

Cryo-Cell International's Stem Cell Research and Development Helps the Fight Against Breast Cancer
Ongoing Initiatives Include Research Partnership with National Institutes of Health to Study C'elle Menstrual Blood Stem Cells

OLDSMAR, Fla., Oct. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cryo-Cell International, a global leader in stem cell innovation, is proud to be making progress in the fight against breast cancer through research and development using stem cells from menstrual blood. In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Cryo-Cell is supporting Susan G. Komen for the Cure® through C'elle®, the company's service which enables women to collect and cryopreserve stem cells from their menstrual blood.

more...

http://southflorida.bizjournals.com/.../10/06/NY87749

manouli · 10-07-2009, 01:08 PM

This is amazing.

Public release date: 7-Oct-2009
[ Print | E-mail | Share ] [ Close Window ]

Contact: Leila Gray
leilag@u.washington.edu
206-685-0381

Major improvements made in engineering heart repair patches from stem cells
Pre-formed blood vessels in patches connect to rodents' heart circulation

University of Washington (UW) researchers have succeeded in engineering human tissue patches free of some problems that have stymied stem-cell repair for damaged hearts.

The disk-shaped patches can be fabricated in sizes ranging from less than a millimeter to a half-inch in diameter. Until now, engineering tissue for heart repair has been hampered by cells dying at the transplant core, because nutrients and oxygen reached the edges of the patch but not the center. To make matters worse, the scaffolding materials to position the cells often proved to be harmful.

Heart tissue patches composed only of heart muscle cells couldn't grow big enough or survive long enough to take hold after they were implanted in rodents, the researchers noted in their article, published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers decided to look at the possibility of building new tissue with supply lines for the oxygen and nutrients that living cells require.

The scientists testing this idea are from the UW Center for Cardiovascular Biology and the UW Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, under the guidance of senior author Dr. Charles "Chuck" Murry, professor of pathology and bioengineering. The lead author is Dr. Kelly R. Stevens, a UW doctoral student in bioengineering who came up with solutions to the problems observed in previous grafts. The study is part of a collaborative tissue engineering effort called BEAT (Biological Engineering of Allogeneic Tissue).

read...

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-mim100709.php

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10-04-2009, 07:55 PM	#3501
manouli Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: florida Posts: 9,339	Vital embryo research driven out of Britain Scientists abandon plan to develop stem cells after funding dries up By Steve Connor, Science Editor Monday, 5 October 2009 All research involving the controversial creation of animal-human "hybrid" embryos has been refused funding in Britain and one of the three scientists licensed to carry out the work has left the UK for a job in Australia. Every one of the three projects to develop embryonic stem cells from cloned embryos created by fusing human cells with animal eggs has now been abandoned, after publicly-funded research councils refused to back the studies aimed at developing new treatments for incurable illnesses ranging from heart disease to Parkinson's. Two of the projects fizzled out earlier this year and the third is now understood to have ended after a funding application was aborted and the research licence issued by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) expired in July without being renewed, The Independent has learned. Related articles Evan Harris: We owe it to the sick to support this research The news is a blow to those who lobbied intensively last year for a change to the law that would allow the creation of hybrid embryos for research purposes. The new Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, which came into force this month, was specifically amended to permit the creation of cloned embryos from human cells mixed with the eggs of either cows, pigs, sheep or other animals. When the issue was debated in Parliament, many leading scientists, including the heads of the funding councils, warned that it would be a travesty if this kind of research was banned in Britain. It now appears that their own research committees have dismissed the grant applications from all three licence holders as not worth funding. Although the work was not specifically allowed under the old 1990 Act, it was permitted under licence by the HFEA. Professor Justin St John of Warwick University, who held one of the three HFEA licences for research involving the cloning of human-animal hybrid embryos, has resigned from his post as head of reproductive biology and is due to fly to Australia today to take up a position at Monash University, which is renowned for its work in the field of embryonic stem cells. more.... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...n-1797821.html

10-05-2009, 05:35 PM	#3502
manouli Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: florida Posts: 9,339	Gene Therapy Mated With Stem Cells to Boost Blood Flow in Mice By Rob Waters Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Researchers fused two technologies, stem cells and gene therapy, to trigger the growth of new blood vessels as a treatment for mice with heart disease. A biodegradable carrier called a polymer was engineered by scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and ferried genes into stem cells. The genes promoted the release of chemicals called growth factors that helped the stem cells survive in the mice and create new blood vessels, said a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. more... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=acDSirxoeN08

10-05-2009, 05:49 PM	#3503
manouli Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: florida Posts: 9,339	Veterinarian uses stem cells to treat spinal cord disease Send us feedback about this article October 2, 2009 By: Timothy Kirn For The VIN News Service With veterinarians across the country training to use stem cells for tendon and ligament repair, a professor at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) wants to take the technology a step further by applying them to chronic, cell-based diseases. Richard Vulliet, DVM, is very early into the work. But he is optimistic about the evidence as it exists, of course, and he may have had a success. Vulliet has treated four dogs with degenerative myelopathy with their own stem cells, which he prefers to call mesenchymal stem cells or pluripotent marrow stromal cells. The terminology has evolved and those names are more descriptive, he says. The process works like this: Vulliet derives the mesenchymal stromal cells from bone marrow. The bone marrow aspirate is then filtered and plated (stromal cells adhere to plastic) because only about one cell in 100,000 is the proper mesenchymal stromal cell. He then cultures the cells into an enriched colony, and injects them back in. He injects the cells systemically into the circulation because it appears that they home to an area of injury. Moreover, when the cells are injected directly into tissue, they tend to just clump there. read... http://news.vin.com/VINNews.aspx?articleId=14031

10-05-2009, 05:53 PM	#3504
manouli Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: florida Posts: 9,339	Adult stem cells offer new treatment for fractures that fail to heal 6 ► Retweetby ANI on October 5, 2009 Washington, October 5 (ANI): Adult stem cells can offer a new treatment for the 10 to 20 percent of fractures that fail to heal, according to a new study. “Lack of fracture repair often leads to several surgeries, long periods of immobilization, pain, bone deformities, and sometimes death. The precise reason why a patient’s fracture does not heal remains unknown in most cases,” said senior investigator Dr. Anna Spagnoli, of the University of North Carolina. The researchers are of the opinion that a deficiency in adult stem cells, which normally become reparative cells in response to damage, may be the main reason why broken bones sometimes fail to heal. more.... http://trak.in/news/adult-stem-cells...o-heal/10575/#

10-05-2009, 06:08 PM	#3505
manouli Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: florida Posts: 9,339	Nanoparticles spur stem cells? Posted by Victoria Stern [Entry posted at 5th October 2009 09:37 PM GMT] Comment on this news story Nanoparticles may prove effective tools for improving stem cells therapy, new research suggests. Chemical engineers have successfully used nanoparticles to enhance stem cells' ability to stimulate regeneration of damaged vascular tissue and reduce muscle degeneration in mice, they report in a study published online today (October 5) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "This is an intriguing finding," said Arnold Kriegstein, a regenerative biologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the study. "But it would need to be explored a good deal further before one could really be excited about this new approach." more.... http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/56041/

10-06-2009, 07:56 PM	#3506
manouli Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: florida Posts: 9,339	Nobel winner not sold on results of embryonic stem cell research October 6, 4:07 AMPublic Policy ExaminerJoseph PerkinsPrevious 1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe Subscribe Elizabeth Blackburn returned to the national headlines yesterday after she and two other American scientists won this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine for their joint discovery of an enzyme that plays a key role in normal cell function, as well as in cell aging and most cancers. Dr. Blackburn, a professor of biology and physiology at the University of California, San Francisco, last made national news back in 2004 when she was ousted from former President George W. Bush’s advisory Council on Bioethics. Some 170 researchers signed an open letter to the Republican president protesting that Dr. Blackburn’s dismissal was politically motivated; insisting that she was kicked to the curb because her views on embryonic stem cell research did not comport with those of the Bush administration. But while advocates of embryonic stem cell research tried to adapt Dr. Blackburn as their scientific poster gal, she really didn’t share their blind faith that embryonic stem cells were going to cure practically every disease known to humanity – from AIDS to Zellweger syndrome. more... http://www.examiner.com/x-15761-Publ...-cell-research

10-06-2009, 08:52 PM	#3507
manouli Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: florida Posts: 9,339	Scientists boost stem cells’ ability to promote tissue regeneration 9 ► Retweetby ANI on October 6, 2009 Washington, Oct 6 (ANI): Engineers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology have successfully enhanced stem cells’ ability to regenerate vascular tissue such as blood vessels by equipping them with genes that produce extra tissue growth factors. Stem cells hold great potential as a way to promote tissue regeneration. However, this approach has been limited because stem cells don’t produce enough growth factors after transplantation. To overcome the problem, the researchers removed stem cells from mouse bone marrow and used them to develop nanoparticles to deliver the gene for the growth factor VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor). more... http://trak.in/news/scientists-boost...eration/11074/

10-06-2009, 08:59 PM	#3508
manouli Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: florida Posts: 9,339	Maryland Stem Cell Commission requests funding applications October 6, 2009 COLUMBIA, MD - The Maryland Stem Cell Commission has issued three official Requests for Applications (RFAs) for funding through the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund under the Maryland Stem Cell Research Act. This is the fourth round of funding from the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund, which has a current operational budget of $12.4 million for 2010. more... http://www.techjournalsouth.com/news...l?item_id=8275

10-06-2009, 10:08 PM	#3509
manouli Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: florida Posts: 9,339	Cryo-Cell International's Stem Cell Research and Development Helps the Fight Against Breast Cancer Ongoing Initiatives Include Research Partnership with National Institutes of Health to Study C'elle Menstrual Blood Stem Cells OLDSMAR, Fla., Oct. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cryo-Cell International, a global leader in stem cell innovation, is proud to be making progress in the fight against breast cancer through research and development using stem cells from menstrual blood. In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Cryo-Cell is supporting Susan G. Komen for the Cure® through C'elle®, the company's service which enables women to collect and cryopreserve stem cells from their menstrual blood. more... http://southflorida.bizjournals.com/.../10/06/NY87749

10-07-2009, 01:08 PM	#3510
manouli Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: florida Posts: 9,339	This is amazing. Public release date: 7-Oct-2009 [ Print \| E-mail \| Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Leila Gray leilag@u.washington.edu 206-685-0381 Major improvements made in engineering heart repair patches from stem cells Pre-formed blood vessels in patches connect to rodents' heart circulation University of Washington (UW) researchers have succeeded in engineering human tissue patches free of some problems that have stymied stem-cell repair for damaged hearts. The disk-shaped patches can be fabricated in sizes ranging from less than a millimeter to a half-inch in diameter. Until now, engineering tissue for heart repair has been hampered by cells dying at the transplant core, because nutrients and oxygen reached the edges of the patch but not the center. To make matters worse, the scaffolding materials to position the cells often proved to be harmful. Heart tissue patches composed only of heart muscle cells couldn't grow big enough or survive long enough to take hold after they were implanted in rodents, the researchers noted in their article, published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers decided to look at the possibility of building new tissue with supply lines for the oxygen and nutrients that living cells require. The scientists testing this idea are from the UW Center for Cardiovascular Biology and the UW Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, under the guidance of senior author Dr. Charles "Chuck" Murry, professor of pathology and bioengineering. The lead author is Dr. Kelly R. Stevens, a UW doctoral student in bioengineering who came up with solutions to the problems observed in previous grafts. The study is part of a collaborative tissue engineering effort called BEAT (Biological Engineering of Allogeneic Tissue). read... http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-mim100709.php