“Latest Stem Cells News”

Plerixafor has allowed doctors to collect stem cells from patients where there had been previous difficulties.
The drug, which has only recently been licensed, is being used at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre.

Stem cells therapies are used to treat people with cancer of the blood. The cells are collected and reintroduced to a patient after chemotherapy.
Doctors often encounter problems collecting enough stem cells from about one in 10 cancer patients to undergo treatment.

Plerixafor has, so far, had a 100% success rate in allowing doctors at the cancer centre to collect enough cells from patients who fall into this category.
Blood specialist, Dr Kenneth Douglas, explained how the drug worked.

“Basically it blocks a chemical scent that stem cells sniff for that tells them they’re in the bone marrow,” he said.
“If you block that chemical scent they get confused and agitated and they think they are not in the bone marrow any more and they start wandering into the blood stream looking for the bone marrow.”

When more stem cells “start wandering into the blood” doctors are able to collect them for future treatment.
One patient who has benefited from this approach is retired professional golfer, Billy McCondachie.

He said his age was a barrier to potential stem cell treatment.
“We were only able to get about half of my stem cells out until Dr Douglas came along with this new drug,” he said.

“One could say that pretty much saved my life.”
The centre in Glasgow has now treated 13 people with the drug and every one has been able to proceed with stem cell treatment.

from BBC news

Destroying abnormal stem cells could be a way to kill off bowel cancer in its very earliest stages, say UK experts.
Immature cells line the gut and normally replace and repair the tissue but malfunctions can lead to cancer.
Scientists believe detecting and obliterating these rogue cancer stem cells as soon as they appear could be a potent new anti-cancer strategy.

A UK National Stem Cell Network conference heard the same method might also work for other cancers.
Professor Malcolm Alison, of Barts and The London School of Medicine, has been looking at how bowel cancers grow and spread in the body.
He said there was mounting evidence to show that faulty self-renewing stem cells are to blame.

And like the root of a weed, unless they are removed they will continue to propagate.
Scientists are still uncertain exactly which cells in the gut become cancer stem cells.
But they know definitively that they exist – and that they play a central role in the formation of cancer.

Once these are found, it would be possible to identify and treat these cells before life-threatening tumours develop, said Professor Alison.