“Latest Stem Cells News”

Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston announced this morning it has done the nation’s first stem cell transplant to successfully treat a stroke patient.

The patient came to the hospital last Wednesday, too late to receive clot-busting drugs to treat the stroke, according to a news release about the procedure. So doctors decided to try a therapy they are investigating as part of a clinical trial with the University of Texas Medical School at Houston: using stem cells from the patient’s own bone marrow. The adult stem cells — not controversial embryonic stem cells — came from marrow in the patient’s leg. The theory of how they work is that the stem cells migrate to the area of injury in the brain to do repairs, according to the release.
“The patient is recovering remarkably well and has not shown any signs of paralysis,” the release says. “He remains in the hospital under observation, but will be discharged later this week.”

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Stem cell researcher Dr. Ann Kiessling announced today the discovery of cell characteristics that may explain important differences between embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Scientists have for years been frustrated in their efforts to grow the trillions of adult stem cells needed for therapies, which is why embryonic stem cells seem promising — they can multiply endlessly and also develop into any cell in the body.

Kiessling discovered that early human embryo cells express CLOCK, and other circadian genes, that other human cells growing in laboratories did not. This was a surprise. Although scientists have recently become aware that human tissues have a circadian oscillator that cycles every 24 hours, in phase with the master circadian pacemaker in the brain that responds to light and dark, early embryos seemed too small to function like a tissue.

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Researchers at the University of Sheffield have created the complex hair cells and the neurons needed for hearing from human stem cells.
They found they could encourage stem cells from the inner ears of human foetuses to grow into these highly specialised hearing cells.
The scientists hope they will eventually be able to use the cells to perform cell transplants in deaf patients to replace the hair cells and neurons that are damaged in a form of deafness known as sensorineural hearing loss.
Sensorineural hearing loss one of the most common forms of deafness, accounting for 90 per cent of cases and affecting more than 6 million people.

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The flattening of the world’s economy has spawned a new trend in the local medical-tourism industry: Foreigners are starting to come to the Philippines because of the country’s ever-growing availability of cheap but reliable regenerative or stem-cell treatments.
Dr. Samuel Bernal, consultant on regenerative medicine for the Medical City, said some hospitals in the Philippines are starting to gain vigor in stem-cell treatments. Patients treated last year reached over 100 in number.

“Ours [Philippines] is cheaper compared to other developed and developing nations,” Bernal told the BusinessMirror in a phone interview on Monday after a briefing with the media on “Bioregenerative Medicine for Health and Wellness.”
In the US, for instance, stem-cell medicine costs $120,000 and above. In the Philippines, it is 40 percent lower than that of the US.

But all stem-cell medicine that local hospitals have, according to Bernal, have similar approaches with other countries.
He said the Philippines, which is home to the best medical professionals around the globe, can develop
its own regenerative-medicine methodology.

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The walls of the blood vessels could be the natural location of ‘multipotent mesenchymal’ stem cells (cells that are able to regenerate various tissues of human organs). This was discovered in an international study published in Cell Stem Cell by researchers from the Milan General Hospital Foundation, led by Lorenza Lazzari. The discovery, explained the experts, “could represent a true turning point for stem cell research.” It would give a precise location for mesenchymal stem cells, which until now has been unknown, and it would also demonstrate that multipotent stem cells do not belong to the organ from which they are removed, but rather are connected to the vascular tissue that is part of the structure of every organ.

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One of the most advanced research centers for the therapeutic applications of epithelial stem cells in the world, the ‘Stefano Ferrari’ regenerative medicine center at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, opened its doors with the ambitious goal of becoming the flagship research center in Italy. It was completely financed by the Modena Savings Bank, which invested 13 million euros for its completion and was inaugurated by Welfare Minister Maurizio Sacconi and Emilia-Romagna President Vasco Errani. It includes a new three floor, 30,000 square meter building (half of which is contamination controlled) at the University of Modena, and will employ 50 researchers and experts when fully operational.

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