“Latest Stem Cells News”

President Obama lifted restrictions on funding for human embryonic stem cell research this morning and issued a presidential memorandum aimed at insulating scientific decisions across the federal government from political influence.

Obama took care to emphasize that the order would not “open the door” to allow human cloning, which he said is “dangerous, profoundly wrong and has no place in our society, or any society.” But the president said stem cell research has enormous potential to further understanding and treatment of many devastating diseases and conditions. America, he said, should play a leading role in exploring the stem-cell research frontier.

David Scadden, M.D., co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Insitute, was online Monday, March 9, at 2:30 p.m. ET to discuss what today’s executive order means to the scientific, medical and research communities, and ultimately to the individual…

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An experimental treatment in Spain has shown promising possibilities to rebuild breasts damaged by tumors with the use of fat taken from the patient’s abdomen, removing stem cells, then injecting them into the chest, in a process that takes from four to five hours and does not leave scars.
Five patients from Madrid were the first in Spain to undergo the pioneering operation performed at Gregorio Maranon in collaboration with three other European hospitals in Great Britain, Italy, and Belgium. Mesenchymal stem cells, adult stem cells with the ability to transform into different tissues, are the key in this process. If the technique functions, something that will be able to be assessed in a year, it will mean that the cells have generated new blood vessels to heal the area.

The candidates were all recovering from a tumor called T1 No Mo. These are very small tumors that have not metastasized to the ganglion or anywhere else. The conditions to participate in the experiment were very strict in order to avoid complications feared by stem cell researchers, since stem cells have a great reproductive capacity and could cause cancer. “In this case, the stem cells are separated, but not stimulated. The women will also undergo ultrasounds in Lyon”, explained plastic surgeon, Jose’ Maria Lasso.

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A biopolymer could aid in the regrowing of nerves induced by the use of stem cells according to a new research project that gives hope to people who have been in an accident and have lost the use of one or more limbs. The procedure will enter into clinical testing in January after animal testing has been completed.
The Experimental Neurological Institute (INSPE), founded in 2005 at San Raffaele Hospital of Milan became operational with the inauguration of more than 1,200 square meters of lab space entirely dedicated to general and clinical research therapies for serious neurological diseases, like multiple sclerosis, strokes, spinal trauma, and peripheral neuropathy.
Director Giancarlo Comi, the head of the Department of Neurology at San Raffaele said, “Until now, when trying to induce nerves to grow back we were using veins that had the defect of being empty internally.”

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Scientists may be growing impatient, but President Obama has been rightly taking his time in addressing a campaign promise to lift the ban on federal funding for research using new lines of stem cells to be taken from human embryos. Even for strong backers of embryonic stem cell research, the decision is no longer as self-evident as it was, because there is markedly diminished need for expanding these cell lines for either patient therapy or basic research. In fact, during the first six weeks of Obama’s term, several events reinforced the notion that embryonic stem cells, once thought to hold the cure for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and diabetes, are obsolete. The most sobering: a report from Israel published in PLoS Medicine in late February that shows embryonic stem cells injected into patients can cause disabling if not deadly tumors.

The report describes a young boy with a fatal neuromuscular disease called ataxia telangiectasia, who was treated with embryonic stem cells. Within four years, he developed headaches and was found to have multiple tumors in his brain and spinal cord that genetically matched the female embryos used in his therapy.

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Researchers have created mammalian cells containing a single set of chromosomes in research funded by the Wellcome Trust and EMBO. The technique should allow scientists to better establish the relationships between genes and their function.

Mammal cells usually contain two sets of chromosomes – one set inherited from the mother and one from the father. The genetic information contained in these chromosome sets helps determine how our bodies develop. Changes in this genetic code can lead to or increase the risk of developing disease.

To understand how our genes function, scientists manipulate the genes in animal models – such as the fruit fly, zebrafish and mice – and observe the effects of these changes. However, as each cell contains two copies of each chromosome, determining the link between a genetic change and its physical effect – or ‘phenotype’ – is immensely complex.

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Scientists at the Ottawa Health Research Institute have been awarded $2.4 million to develop stem-cell therapies that could reverse blindness.
The five-year grant is to help researchers develop better methods for turning stem cells, harvested from human embryos and from patients themselves, into different kinds of eye cells.

If successful, this form of stem-cell therapy would take medicine one more step toward rebuilding the body’s sick and damaged parts.
The treatment could benefit more than one million Canadians affected by degenerative eye diseases.

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