“Latest Stem Cells News”

Pfizer said Sunday that it was buying the rights to a somewhat controversial cell therapy from Athersys, a biotechnology company — a sign of big pharmaceutical companies’ growing interest in stem cells.

Pfizer will have the rights to develop Athersys’s cells to treat inflammatory bowel disease, the companies are expected to announce on Monday. It will pay Athersys $6 million initially and up to $105 million in the future.

Incoming search terms:

Deep in the brain, buried in the hippocampus and subventricular zone, reside adult neural stem cells, cells that retain the ability to become other types of neural cells and could serve as possible treatments for ailments ranging from vision impairment to Parkinson’s to spinal cord injuries. Doctors, scientists and patients, however, are understandably hesitant to go digging around for them, their location being “a great deterrent,” Sally Temple, founder of the New York Neural Stem Cell Institute, said at the 2009 World Stem Cell Summit here on Wednesday.

Researchers, therefore, are anxious to uncover other, more accessible neural stem cell candidates. Temple and her team have turned their sights to the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), a layer of tissue at the base of the retina that comes into being within 30 to 50 days of conception, before many other parts of the neural system differentiate. Cells from this area of the eye can be easily harvested from retinal fluid that is usually discarded during retinal surgery, she explained (…)

from http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=stem-cells-bring-new-insights-to-fu-2009-09-24

Incoming search terms:

It expects a satisfactory outcome of the 3700 patients who were treated with stem cells until December of 2011, as part of the studies conducted in Cuba on this therapy.

The effects are similar to those from developed countries to avoid most major amputations sick, the newspaper Granma said Porfirio Hernandez, coordinator of the National Group for Regenerative Medicine, Ministry of Public Health.

But he said that the procedure is still in clinical trials with strict selection criteria, although such services are provided in 10 of the 15 provinces of the Caribbean country.

Six of 10 patients treated with the procedure had severe ischemia of the lower limbs, followed by number of regenerative cell therapy.

Hernandez said Cuba has achievements that are real contributions to international scientific literature in this area, as experienced improvement in individuals with chronic lymphedema of the lower limbs.

Incoming search terms:

Researchers from the Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and the Department of Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University claim that a gene shown to play a role in the aging process appears to play a role in the regulation of the differentiation of embryonic stem cells.

In the study, published online in the journal Aging Cell, the researchers identified a protein interaction that controls the silencing of Oct4, a key transcription factor that is critical to ensuring that embryonic stem cells remain pluripotent. The protein, WRNp, is the product of a gene associated with Werner syndrome, an autosomal recessive disorder hallmarked by premature aging. The gene expression in Werner syndrome closely resembles that of normal aging, and as a result, Werner syndrome is an accepted model of aging.

An Iranian scientist managed to develop a new method to propagate human spermatogonial stem cells from small testicular biopsies to obtain adequate number of cells for successful transplantation for 18000-fold in vitro, leading to protection of the fertility of immature boys suffering from cancer.

The research carried out jointly with Amsterdam University in Holland is the first developed method in the world.

Hooman Sadri-Ardekani, Ph.D in Reproductive Medicine and a Professor in Avicenna Institute-ACECR told ISNA, “Young boys treated with high-dose chemotherapy are often confronted with infertility once they reach adulthood and cryopreserving testicular tissue before chemotherapy and auto transplantation of spermatogonial stem cells at a later stage could theoretically allow for restoration of fertility.”

Incoming search terms:

Vet-Stem Inc. announced that over 8000 animals have now been treated with Vet-Stem cell therapy.

Vet-Stem began providing stem cells to veterinarians in 2004 and has now provided stem cells for the treatment of over 8,000 animals. Vet-Stem was the first company to introduce rapid turnaround stem cell services in the US.

After providing stem cells for thousands of horses, Vet-Stem pioneered stem cell therapy in dogs and cats and is now the world leader in Regenerative Veterinary Medicine. The rapid adoption of stem cell therapy by equine veterinarians and horse owners provided a springboard for use in small animal veterinary medicine.

Greater than 75% of horses treated with Vet-Stem cell therapy for tendon and ligament injuries are able to return to their previous level of performance. Dog owners report that greater than 80% of dogs treated with Vet-Stem cell therapy have an improved quality of life.

Incoming search terms: