“Latest Stem Cells News”

Stem Cell Therapeutics Corp. or the  wishes to announce the acceptance and publication of the paper entitled “The Beta-hCG + Erythropoietin in Acute Stroke (BETAS) Study” by the journal “Stroke”, on March 8, 2010.
This paper was authored by Dr. Steven C. Cramer, from the University of California, Irvine, Dr. David Brown at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, New Port Beach, Dr. Michael D. Hill of Foothills Hospital at the University of Calgary, and colleagues.

Dr. Allen Davidoff, VP of Product Development, commented as follows:

“The Stroke journal, published by the American Heart Association, is the top journal in the field of stroke research. Stem Cell Therapeutics is pleased to congratulate Dr. Steven C. Cramer, David Brown and Michael Hill for their efforts, acceptance and successful publication of this novel study by this highly respected, peer reviewed journal.

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International Stem Cell Corporation, announced today its wholly-owned subsidiary, Lifeline Cell Technology (Lifeline), has signed a distribution agreement with Tokyo-based Veritas Corporation to distribute its human cell culture products throughout Japan.

Lifeline, located in Maryland and California, specializes in the development, manufacture, and distribution of products to culture human cells for the study of human disease, including products to culture primary human cells and human stem cells. These products are being requested by customers overseas, including customers in Japan, Korea and India and this agreement is the first step in Lifeline’s plan to meet these requests.

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In a world first in children, British and Italian doctors have transplanted a new airway (trachea) into a child and used the child’s own stem cells, in the body, to rebuild it.

The donated trachea was stripped of the donor’s old cells, down to the inert collagen. The child recipient’s bone marrow stem cells were collected, and applied to the graft in situ in the body, to rebuild the cellular component of the trachea. Thus the child’s own cells will be used to make the new airway sealed and effective.

This is the first time that this has been performed in a child. It is also the first time the entire length of the trachea has been transplanted.

The application of this technology should reduce greatly the risk of rejection of the new trachea, as the child’s stem cells will not generate any immune response.

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A year after President Barack Obama issued a landmark executive order to remove eight years of limitations on U.S. federal funding of stem cell research, the WiCell Research Institute has expanded the number of cell lines available through its WISC Bank (Wisconsin International Stem Cell) to 33.

WiCell, host of the former National Stem Cell Bank (NSCB) for five years under a contract from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has transitioned the distribution of all of the 20 human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines formerly available through the NSCB to its own stem cell bank. The bank also continues to carry its previously banked seven induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell lines and six genetically modified hES cell lines.

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The great promise of induced pluripotent stem cells is that the all-purpose cells seem capable of performing all the same tricks as embryonic stem cells, but without the controversy.

However, a new study published this week (Feb. 15) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences comparing the ability of induced cells and embryonic cells to morph into the cells of the brain has found that induced cells — even those free of the genetic factors used to program their all-purpose qualities — differentiate less efficiently and faithfully than their embryonic counterparts.

The finding that induced cells are less predictable means there are more kinks to work out before they can be used reliably in a clinical setting, says Su-Chun Zhang, the senior author of the new study and a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.

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Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientists have discovered that endothelial cells, the building blocks of the vascular system, keep blood stem cells dividing healthily in a lab dish much longer and more effectively than previous methods of growing the cells. The new advance dramatically improves scientists’ ability to manufacture large quantities of authentic adult blood stem cells, which may help revolutionize the field of bone marrow transplantation.

Shahin Rafii, an HHMI investigator at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, and his colleagues report on the development of an endothelial cell platform that supports self-renewal of the blood stem cells, known as long-term hematopoietic stem cells (LT-HSCs), in the March 2010 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell. Their study also describes a novel mechanism by which endothelial cells support propagation of LT-HSCs in adult mice.

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