“Latest Stem Cells News”

How will stem cells change the way we think about treating diseases? Here is the 5 year forward look at the world of Stem Cells, from some of the greatest experts in the field.

What are the diseases we’ll be treating, and the tools we’ll be using in 2015? Where will we be in terms of clinical trials? What are the dangers in the stem cell hype, and medical tourism? How will stem cells pave the way for personalized medicine, and more rational treatments? How important will stem cells become in the drug discovery process? Discussed in the episode are the eye (macular degeneration), the skin, diabetes (type 1 & 2), blood and autoimmune diseases, glioblastoma, HIV, and more.

Presented by Bill Kridel, and featuring George Daley, Ron McKay, Rudolf Jaenisch, John Sinden, Alan Trounson, Alan Colman, John Walker, Shinya Yamanaka, Irv Weissman, David Scadden, and Greg Bonfiglio.

from http://biobusinesstv.cmail2.com/t/y/l/uruja/kykdujyhl/k

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BLACK SABBATH guitar legend Tony Iommi spoke with The Radcliffe & Maconie Show on BBC Radio 2 this week about his recent hand injury. “We’re just taking a break now,” Iommi says about the brief HEAVEN AND HELL hiatus – the band also featuring singer Ronnie James Dio, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Vinnie Appice.

“I’ve had this problem with my hand and I’m having stem cell treatment on it,” Iommi continues. “I have to wear a guard on my hand to prevent me from banging it. But it’s coming along good. The cartilage went out on the joints, so the joints were rubbing on the joints. It was bone on bone and it was getting a bit painful. I’ve had pain for about 18 months and have been taking anti-inflammatories and pain killers. But I wanted to stop doing it because it upsets your stomach. This is the latest thing, so we’ll see if it works.”

Iommi also chats about the band’s vital OZZY OSBOURNE-era catalog reissues that are currently out in the UK. Iommi says that “everything will come out” as a deluxe edition at some point in time.

Regarding the 30th Anniversary of the Heaven & Hell album in 2010, Iommi promises more shows next year.

from http://www.bravewords.com/news/124701

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A husband and wife pair in western Washington state are trying to raise money for him to go to Germany for a stem cell transplant for his failing heart. Erik and Jenn Gelhar have already raised $40,000 of the $100,000 they need to get him to Germany for the treatment at XCELL Centre in Dusseldorf Germany.

So why does an American have to travel to Germany to get such a treatment? Why are they farther ahead than the United States in adult stem cell treatments for heart disease? According to this article that quotes Dr. Charles Murray of University of Washington, it is because of Bush’s funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and cloning:

Erik Gelhar is unable to get treatment in the United States because they are not as advanced as Germany in stem cell research. Germany has cutting edge technology and the people’s view about stem cell therapy is different, Jenn Gelhar said.

Dr. Charles Murry, co-director at the University of Washington’s Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, said the U.S. is still in the early stages of stem cell research. He said the ban that the Bush administration put on federal funding for the research slowed down the progression since it was a controversial and political issue (…)

The reason Germans are so far ahead in adult stem cell treatments is because they don’t waste time or money on stem cell research that does not now, and may never, treat patients i.e. embryonic stem cell research and cloning. (Imagine where the United States would be if millions of dollars that are spent on embryo destructive research were put into adult stem cell research instead.)

Gelhar also has to fly to Germany because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S. has ruled that harvesting one’s own stem cells and using them as treatment, a procedure called an autologous stem cell transplant, falls under the same strict guidelines as a new drug. This means that an autologous stem cell transplant, like the one Eric wants, has to go through long years of clinical trials.

I wish the Gelhars all the best in their efforts. (If I lived closer I would go to the concert they are putting on to help raise money.) I pray that Erik gets his stem cell transplant and gets to live a long and happy life. I hope he will not fall victim to the politics of embryonic stem cell research.

from http://www.marymeetsdolly.com/blog/index.php?/archives/904-Why-Germany-is-REALLY-ahead-in-stem-cell-treatments.html

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Dean Third used to look forward to weekends spent refereeing local football matches, and outings with his young family. But now even walking to the end of the road can leave him breathless and exhausted.

For the past four years, the father of four has suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a disease of the heart muscle which causes it to enlarge, affecting its ability to pump blood to the arteries.
The condition afflicts 12,000 people in the UK, and for most sufferers the cause is unknown. If uncontrolled it can be fatal, and patients must adhere strictly to a regime of medication.

For Dean, a mature student from Brightlingsea, Essex, the only chance of a normal life is a heart transplant. But he says: ‘I am way down the list because there are so few. I may die before one becomes available.’
Dean, 39, also has to live with the knowledge that he may have given the disease to his children. Although his wife, Cathy, 40, does not have it, there is a 50 per cent chance he could have given it to Nadine, 16, William, 14, Ross, 12, and Charlotte Rose, nine.

They will have to be monitored for the rest of their lives.
However, Dean has just taken part in a BBC Horizon TV programme where he discovered that medics are on the brink of a major breakthrough, meaning conditions such as his could be cured by making new hearts from the patient’s own stem cells.

Often referred to as the body’s ‘building blocks’, stem cells have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during early life and growth. In addition, in many tissues they serve as a sort of internal repair system, dividing without limit to replenish other cells as they die out.

When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the ability either to remain a stem cell or become another type of cell with a more specialised function, such as a brain cell, a red blood cell or, as Dean learnt, healthy heart cells.
The documentary team examined the cases of three patients with chronic conditions to discover whether, within their lifetimes, they might be cured.

Dean visited Dr Anthony Mathur, from University College London, to witness the world’s first trial using stem cells taken from bone marrow. The cells are injected into the muscles of the heart to regenerate damaged tissue.
He also travelled to Minnesota in America to visit laboratories carrying out research to produce new hearts using stem cells (…)

But the prospect of creating new functioning hearts from a patient’s own tissue is now a real possibility. While researchers have yet to get results in human subjects, scientists at the University of Minnesota have produced new working hearts using rats’ and pigs’ stem cells.

Dr Doris Taylor, of the Centre for Cardiovascular Repair, has taken a heart from a dead rat and drained it of all its stem cells so that it is nothing more than a lump of protein, a process called whole-organ decellularisation.
She then took stem cells from a live rat and injected them into the inert heart. The stem cells are able to recognise it is a heart and begin working to form new cells, producing a new organ (…)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1222671/Well-soon-building-new-hearts-order-just-24-hours-say-stem-cell-scientists.html

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What are the biological processes that stem cells go through? What are the industrial processes we need to manufacturing? What do we know about cancer stem cells? How do iPS cells fit into the picture vs. embryonic stem cells? In this episode we investigate how the science and research of stem cells is being translated into industrial cell processes to create FDA approvable, and commercializable products. Differentiation, proliferation, migration, retro-differentiation, trans-differentiation, transformation into cancer cells, the role of tumors‘ micro environments and epigenetics and all reviewed here by the field’s foremost experts.

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Reviewing the technology, business models, intellectual property, regulatory concerns, transplantation and immune rejection.

from http://biobusiness.tv/videos/202

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