“Latest Stem Cells News”

Colin McGuckin, professor of regenerative medicine at the University of Newcastle and adult stem cell expert has said that government funding goes mostly to embryonic stem cells despite the fact that his work gives immediate practical results.

He has also complained that the university is not able to provide him with adequate structures to carry out his research, adding, “There aren’t many people in the city that know that there is research on adult stem cells.”

The professor, who is a Catholic, is a pioneer in umbilical cord stem cells research, with a study that creates tissue for skin and liver injuries.

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A woman received a transplant of her own bone marrow stem cells, was able to avoid an amputation, and has started to walk again following an operation performed at Catholic University in Campobasso. This is one of the few such operations performed in Europe on the cardiovascular system using adult stem cells. The results were announced yesterday, about a month after the operation, and it is now clear that it will not be necessary to amputate the woman’s leg. “We can say that the operation was a complete success surgically,” said doctors that worked under Francesco Alessandrini, the director of the Cardiovascular Disease Department. It was a team effort thanks to the collaboration of the Hematology Unit led by Sergio Stroti, the Medical Images Department led by Giuseppina Sallustio, the laboratory led by Bruno Zappacosta, and the Anaesthesia and Intensive Therapy Unit led by Marco Rossi.

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Western Pennsylvania Cancer Institute’s Dr. Entezam Sahovic: We are hopeful that this new technology will enable us to help more patients in need of transplants.

A joint venture between Gamida Cell and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. will carry out a study at Western Pennsylvania Hospital (WPH). WPH is currently enrolling patients for the study.
The ExCell study will assess the safety and efficacy of StemEx as a treatment for hematological malignancies, including leukemia and lymphoma, in a single arm, global, pivotal registration study.
StemEx is a graft of expanded stem/progenitor cells, derived from a single unit of umbilical cord blood and transplanted in combination with non expanded cells from the same unit. It is being developed by a joint venture equally owned and managed by Gamida Cell and Teva.

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After umbilical cord blood, the based LifeCell International is planning to save the umbilical cord tissue that is routinely discarded along with the placenta once a baby is delivered.

The cord tissue and cord blood are rich sources of stem cells.

LifeCell, which is into private banking, will start collecting umbilical cord tissue in the near future. It already collects and stores cord blood for private banking.
After a baby is delivered, the cord is first clamped before it is cut. Cord blood is collected and then the umbilical cord tissue is cut from the placenta to just above where it is clamped. About 20 cm of cord tissue is cut.

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New hope in treating Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, an incurable neurological disease, which is particularly frequent in former soccer players, may come from stem cells. Nicholas Maragakis and his colleagues from the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine in Baltimore in the United States, have successfully conducted an important experiment in mice. In a study published in the online edition of ‘Nature Neuroscience’, the American researchers transplanted precursor cells called astrocytes, which function as support cells for neurons, into the mice with ALS. This allow the mice to survive for much longer.

ALS, pointed out the authors, is caused by the degeneration and death of so-called motor neurons, which are nervous cells that send signals to muscles to move. Recent research has demonstrated that astrocytes, belonging to the family of glial support cells, could be struck by the disease. Based on this concept, Maragakis’ team tried to treat an animal with ALS by transplanting early astrocytes.

The cells managed to survive in the spinal cord and the mice, although they did not heal completely, were able to survive much longer than normal. The beneficial effects, specified the scientists, require the presence of a particular transport protein in the precursor astrocytes: a scavenger protein able to remove excess glutamated neurotransmitters, a substance that is involved in the development of ALS, from motor neurons tied to astrocytes.

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“The role of BMI1 in adult intestinal and pancreatic exocrine stem cells” is the name of the opening lecture of the 2008-2009 Biology Lectures promoted by the Institute of General Pathology at Università Cattolica in Rome, headed by Professor Tommaso Galeotti. The seminar will take place on Wednesday, March 18 at 3:00pm, in the Aula Moscati at the University in Rome (Biology Institute, Largo F. Vito 1), and will be led by Eugenio Sangiorgi, a researcher at the Institute of Medical Genetics for the university, and by the post-doctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Mario Capecchi, 2007 Nobel prize for Medicine winner, from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

The young geneticist from Cattolica University, a student of Professor Giovanni Neri, will present the results of his work, which demonstrate the presence of multipotent stem cells in the intestine and pancreas in adult animals, the premise for a better understanding of neoplastic transformation processes, and for interesting innovative treatments that could be potentially important for intestinal tumors and for diabetes mellitus.

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