“Latest Stem Cells News”

Spinal cord injuries, resulting in permanent disability or paralysis in most cases, account for around eleven thousand new cases in the US, annually. Due to the lack of effective treatment strategies, it is considered as the most devastating of all traumatic conditions. Now, a recent study published in the journal Stem Cells reports that activation of ependymal stem/progenitor cells from injured spinal cord (epSPCi), using endogenous stem cell-associated mechanisms, may aid in rescuing neurological function, thereby reversing paralysis associated with spinal cord injuries.

Douglas A. Melton

Scientists have created stem cells from patients suffering from 10 incurable diseases, from Down syndrome to diabetes and Parkinson’s – immortal cells that might one day be turned into repair material for wasting muscles or damaged brains.
The Harvard University-led team has taken skin and bone marrow cells from diseased patients and re-programmed those cells to behave like cells from days-old embryos.

The feat allows scientists for the first time to watch muscular dystrophy and other diseases unfold in a petri dish, “that is, to watch what goes right or wrong,” said Doug Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. The cells will also allow researchers to screen new drugs to treat the diseases.
“In these complex genetic diseases, we’re so ignorant at the moment we don’t even know when a patient gets diabetes if they all get it the same way,” Melton said. “There could be 50 different ways to get Type 1 diabetes.” The stem cell lines could help researchers hone in on exactly which mutations are responsible and find “the weak point where you could try to prevent, or treat it.”
“We have good reason to believe that this will make it possible to find new treatments, and eventually drugs, to slow or even stop the course of a number of diseases,” Melton said.
The new cells are “pluripotent” cells that can be coaxed into making any tissue in the human body, and can grow forever.

A new report brings bioengineered organs a step closer, as scientists from Stanford and New York University Langone Medical Center describe how they were able to use a “scaffolding” material extracted from the groin area of mice on which stem cells from blood, fat, and bone marrow grew. This advance clears two major hurdles to bioengineered replacement organs, namely a matrix on which stem cells can form a 3-dimensional organ and transplant rejection.

Adult stem cell research has produced treatments for 73 different conditions, while embryonic stem cell research has not produced a single therapy or helped a single patient. But those facts were conveniently omitted from a recent column advocating increased taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research (“Stem cell opportunity,” Commentary, Feb. 20).
The column also neglected to mention the biggest advance in stem cell research in the last decade – the creation of induced pluripotent stem cells.
That development allows researchers to reprogram adult stem cells to behave like embryonic stem cells without destroying human embryos. It was hailed by the journal Science as the scientific breakthrough of 2008 and trumpeted on a recent Time magazine cover.

A team of researchers lead by Dr Thimios Mitsiadis at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, has identified a gene responsible for the formation of enamel, which is the key component of the teeth. The experiments were accomplished in mice carrying a deletion of the transcription factor Tbx1, a gene that plays a principal role in several human malformations (heart, thymus, parathyroid, face, and teeth) associated to the DiGeorge syndrome.

“Subjects afflicted by DiGeorge syndrome exhibit teeth with enamel defects. We have demonstrated that a direct link between impaired Tbx1 function and enamel defects exists. Enamel forms via the mineralization of specific enamel proteins that are secreted by dental epithelial cells called ameloblasts. Our results clearly show that teeth of Tbx1 null mice lacked enamel and ameloblasts,” explains Prof Mitsiadis.

The Ministry of Health is considering developing new regulations to protect patients who will undergo stem cell treatment in Bermuda.

Nelson Bascome

The proposal — which would cover desperately ill people flying to the Brown-Darrell Clinic in Winterhaven, Smith’s — comes after vociferous complaints from international doctors about the Island’s lack of legislation.
Breaking his silence on the controversial topic by responding to Parliamentary Questions from Shadow Health Minister Louise Jackson, Health Minister Nelson Bascome also revealed the clinic will only be treating foreigners.

Asked by Mrs. Jackson whether moves are being made to oversee patient protection, Mr. Bascome replied: “There presently does exist a qualified, independent, ethical review committee which has a remit over services provided by the Bermuda Hospitals Board.
“The Ministry of Health is presently considering the development of a regulatory framework for any therapeutic or research stem cell treatment in Bermuda.”

The Brown-Darrell Clinic — a partnership between Premier Ewart Brown, his wife Wanda, and California-based Stemedica — was initially scheduled to open in 2007.
However, no information on the project has been provided since International Society For Stem Cell Research president George Daley was extremely critical of any group running experimental treatment in jurisdictions without regulatory oversight.