“Latest Stem Cells News”

Even Superman needed to retire to a phone booth for a quick change. But now scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have succeeded in the ultimate switch: transforming mouse skin cells in a laboratory dish directly into functional nerve cells with the application of just three genes. The cells make the change without first becoming a pluripotent type of stem cell — a step long thought to be required for cells to acquire new identities.

The finding could revolutionize the future of human stem cell therapy and recast our understanding of how cells choose and maintain their specialties in the body.

“We actively and directly induced one cell type to become a completely different cell type,” said Marius Wernig, MD, assistant professor of pathology and a member of Stanford’s Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. “These are fully functional neurons. They can do all the principal things that neurons in the brain do.” That includes making connections with and signaling to other nerve cells — critical functions if the cells are eventually to be used as therapy for Parkinson’s disease or other disorders.

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Although embryonic stem (ES) cells have been induced to differentiate into diverse neuronal cell types, the production of cortical projection neurons with the correct morphology and axonal connectivity has not been demonstrated.

Here, we show that in vitro patterning is critical for generating neural precursor cells (ES-NPCs) competent to form cortical pyramidal neurons.

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For the first time in the United States, stem cells have been directly injected into the spinal cord of a patient, researchers announced Thursday.

Doctors injected stem cells from 8-week-old fetal tissue into the spine of a man in his early 60s who has advanced ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It was part of a clinical trial designed to determine whether it is safe to inject stem cells into the spinal cord and whether the cells themselves are safe (…)

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In a ray of hope for millions of leukaemia patients, American scientists have claimed to have developed a technique which multiplies the small number of stem cells in the donor blood, making it much more potent for the treatment of the fatal disease.

It also eliminates the need for a matching donor, whose bone marrow is usually transplanted to the patient, according to a study which appeared in the journal Nature Medicine. Traditionally, there was always a risk that the patient’s body may reject the new cells from a donor.

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Call it pork in a petri dish – a technique to turn pig stem cells into strips of meat that scientists say could one day offer a green alternative to raising livestock and help alleviate world hunger.
Dutch scientists have grown pork in the laboratory since 2006, and while they haven’t gotten the texture right or even tasted the meat, they say the technology promises to have widespread implications for the food supply.

“If we took the stem cells from one pig and multiplied it by a factor of a million, we would need 1 million fewer pigs to get the same amount of meat,” said Mark Post, a biologist at Maastricht University involved in the In-vitro Meat Consortium, a network of research institutions that is carrying out the experiments.

Post describes the texture of the meat as sort of like a scallop, firm but a little squishy and moist.
Similar research was funded by NASA, which hoped that astronauts could grow their own meat in space. But after growing thin sheets of tissue, NASA decided that it would be better for astronauts to simply eat vegetarian.

from http://www.star-telegram.com/238/story/1897846.html

Dutch scientists say they haven’t got the texture right yet, but they have managed to grow pork in a lab using stem cells from pig muscles.
So far, they’ve only been able to grow meat strips half an inch long, but one of the researchers estimates a small pork chop would take about 30 days in the lab. Mark Post says the main problem is producing pork with the same protein content as regular meat. The lack of protein gives the petri pork a softer, flimsier consistency more like scallops.

Still, Post says the development could eventually offer an alternative to raising livestock and help ease hunger around the world.
One American researcher not involved in the Dutch study says the findings could also help develop healthier foods. For instance, healthy omega 3 fatty acids from fish stem cells could be mixed in to produce meat without the usual artery-clogging fats that come from livestock.

Other experts warn that lab-produced meat could pose health dangers.
None of the researchers have actually eaten the lab-made meat yet, but they’re guessing it won’t really taste like pork.

http://www.kgan.com/template/inews_wire/wires.international/22d7e1c1-www.kgan.com.shtml

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U.S. researchers have found that a supplemental protein may help restore impaired mobility of people who suffer from a stroke.
Naturally occurring in humans, the protein has proved to work well in restoring motor function in rats after a stroke, according to two new studies by researchers at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).
The researchers hope that the protein will also help humans.

Administered directly to the brain, the protein restores 99 percent of lost movement; if it’s given through the nose, 70 percent of lost movement is regained. Untreated rats improve by only 30 percent.

Report of the Brain Tumor Progress Review Group (SuDoc HE 20.3502:B 73/10)

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