“Latest Stem Cells News”

Like Samson, researchers in the field of stem cells have used the jawbone to make a point. Dr. Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic and her team at Columbia University have manipulated adult stem cells to grow one of the most difficult sections of bone to replace, the temporomandibular joint. This jawbone was created by allowing pluripotent cells harvested from marrow to grow in a scaffold that was fashioned to mimic the TMJ’s shape.

It is the first accurate and anatomically sized bone created by stem cells in a lab. Dr. Vunjak-Novakovic hopes that this new creation will serve as a proof of concept — if they can make the complex TMJ, they should be able to grow many other bones in your body. While this work is truly amazing, it still has some major hurdles to jump before it could be used to replace damaged or cancerous bones in humans (…)

Growing a fully functional part of the human body depends not only on coaxing adult stem cells to replicate and specialize, it also requires one heck of a nursery. The Columbia team has developed a bioreactor which provides all of the necessary nutrients for stem cells to develop into bone. The shape of the scaffold inside the bioreactor was defined through the use of many digital pictures. Which raises the possibility that eventual bone recipients could have the new body part made to look exactly like the old one. While the bioreactor is top notch, work still has to be done to find a way for the newly created bone to carry its own blood supply that can be easily adapted into the host (…)

from http://singularityhub.com/2009/10/13/stem-cells-used-to-create-new-jaw-bone/

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Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, known for “miracle” surgeries, has completed a medically historic procedure where doctors used stem cells taken from the fat tissue of a 14-year-old boy and combined them with growth protein and donor tissue to grow viable cheek bones in the teen.

Brad Guilkey, 15, suffers from a rare kind of genetic disorder known as Treacher Collins Syndrome, where the bones and other tissues are prevented to develop in the face (…)

The medical team implanted cadaver bone into Brad’s face in May, and then they injected his own stem cells into the donor bone to fill in the gaps (…)

from http://www.efitnessnow.com/news/2009/10/13/doctors-use-stem-cells-to-grow-bone-in-boys-cheek/

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Two scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle have been awarded $16.7 million for stem cell research projects.
Dr. Irwin Bernstein and Beverly Torok-Storb received the federal funding from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Their award is part of a $170 million effort divided among 18 scientific teams.

Torok-Storb will work with Dr. Mortimer Poncz of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to develop molecular and cell-based therapies for a range of blood diseases, using an $8.2 million grant.
Bernstein will work with Edward Morrisey of the University of Pennsylvania to study how biochemical reactions inside cells affect cell development, using an $8.5 million grant.

from http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2009/10/05/daily41.html

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In a fresh demonstration of science’s newfound ability to alter the basic units of human life, researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin have turned the cells in human skin into those in the liver, work that opens new avenues for treating diseases of the liver without relying on organ transplants.

Professor and stem cell researcher Stephen A. Duncan and other scientists in his lab reported this week in the journal Hepatology that they have created reprogrammed mouse liver cells that were identical to those grown in nature and were able to integrate and grow alongside those in a mouse liver.

Duncan and his fellow researchers also showed that human liver cells made through reprogramming are virtually the same as those grown from embryonic stem cells, though both appear to differ from adult liver cells in one respect. Those grown with reprogrammed or embryonic stem cells in the lab had fewer of the enzymes that fulfill the liver’s function of filtering out toxins than adult liver cells that have developed in the body.

from http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/63820732.html

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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 (…)

Vulliet says he got interested in treating these conditions because he was working with mesenchymal stem cells and their interaction with connective tissue, and it was boring. Then he came across two papers.

In one of the papers, Japanese researchers described treating induced cardiomyopathy in experimental rats (Circulation 2005;112:1128-35). They reported that when the cells were injected into the myocardium, function improved, and there was evidence that the cells formed new vascular structures and produced collagen.

In the other paper, researchers at Tulane University in New Orleans induced spine injuries in experimental rats and treated them with mesenchymal stem cells. When they treated the animals immediately after the injury was induced, there was no apparent effect. However, when they waited one week before treating, they found that at five weeks, seven rats out of 12 could lift their trunks with their hind legs. By comparison, none of the 10 rats that were not treated showed similar signs of improvement.

Vulliet says notions of how mesenchymal stem cells might enhance the healing process have expanded beyond the idea that the cells migrate to a site of injury, differentiate into the proper type of cell and incorporate into the tissue. They might modulate immune response as well (…)

Stem cells are an ideal entrée into real-animal research, Vulliet explains. Experiments with human subjects and stem cells are not generally allowed, and federal regulators are unclear about whether they have the authority to regulate such research, since the cells are not drugs and usually are autologous tissue (…)

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

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(…) Since 2006, according to NECBB records, the number of banked units used in transplants has doubled. The company attributes this increase in cord blood usage to the ever evolving research surrounding cord blood stem cells.

“We have always reminded parents that stem cell therapies are advancing very quickly and it is difficult to know what the possibilities are. The fact that more parents are using cells they stored suggests that the scope of treatments available is encouraging,” said Dr. David Matzilevich, Chief Scientific Officer of NECBB. “We are confident that the cells found in cord blood are extremely valuable and will only prove to be more so as time goes on.”

Over 80 diseases can be treated with the use of cord blood, including some types of juvenile diabetes and chronic leukemia. Cord blood collection poses no threat to the baby and therefore, circumvents the ethical issues of embryonic stem cells. The cells are taken from the cord after it is cut from the mother and baby.

For over 20 years, cord blood transplants have produced positive results. In 1988, a three-year- old girl received a cord blood transplant to treat Fanconi’s anemia. In 1991, another child was treated for myelogenous leukemia with cord blood stem cells and the transplant was a success. Since then, two-thirds of cord blood transplants performed have been for malignant conditions and overall have shown a high rate of success. The rising numbers of transplants reported by NECBB proves further that the achievements of cord blood banking will only grow (…)

from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/165571.php

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