“Latest Stem Cells News”

About five years ago, Professor Janet Sawicki at the Lankenau Institute in Pennsylvania read an article about nanoparticles developed by MIT’s Daniel Anderson and Robert Langer for gene therapy, the insertion of genes into living cells for the treatment of disease. Sawicki was working on treating ovarian cancer by delivering — through viruses — the gene for the diphtheria toxin, which kills tumor cells (…)

Incoming search terms:

Concha Herrera Arroyo, from El Pais

The Cardiology department and the Area of Cell Therapy of Cordoba hospital Reina Sofia are carrying out clinical tests with patients who have suffered from a severe heart attack. With the implantation of the patient’s stem cells, the heart regenerates thus improving its wall motion, that is, its cardiac performance.

Indeed for the last four years, the Area of Cell Therapy of Cordoba hospital, led by haematologist Dr. Concha Herrera, has been implementing a therapy program with adult stem cells in patients with heart-related problems. However, this therapy is not a service the hospital offers yet. More specifically, at the end of 2007 the hospital ended a clinical test with patients who had suffered a severe myocardial infarction, that is, an obstruction of one of the main coronary arteries that stops the blood pump to the heart.

The test consisted of treating 30 people split into three groups of ten each at random. The first group was the control group, where patients received standard treatment for acute myocardial infarction; the second group was treated with stem cells directly implanted into the coronary artery affected using a catheterization; the third group was treated with a medicine called G-CSF, which makes cells move from the marrow to the blood, so that they get to the heart in a natural way, without having to do so through a catheter.

At the end of the test, the results revealed that the two groups treated without cells improved slightly, whereas patients transplanted with stem cells through the coronary arteries (vessels which bring the blood to the Herat muscle) did improve their ventricular function much more. This was interpreted as a significant decrease of the cardiac failure symptoms such as pain, fatigue and breathlessness when making small efforts.

Moreover, with this process it is possible to prevent some acute arrhythmias (change or irregularity in the rhythm of the heartbeat), which in many cases could result in the patient’s death. ‘However, it does not prevent a future heart attack’, Dr. Herrera assures.

In short, the stem cells transplanted from the marrow into the heart muscle have a double function: on the one hand they regenerate the heart cells, the cardiomiocites. In addition to this, they segregate a series of proangiogenic factors that produce blood vessels (angiogenesis) and can also produce the recruitment of stem cells that are in the myocardium itself.

Incoming search terms:

Stem cells can thrive in segments of well-vascularized tissue temporarily removed from laboratory animals, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Once the cells have nestled into the tissue’s nooks and crannies, the so-called “bioscaffold” can then be seamlessly reconnected to the animal’s circulatory system.

The new technique neatly sidesteps a fundamental stumbling block in tissue engineering: the inability to generate solid organs from stem cells in the absence of a reliable supply of blood to the interior of the developing structure.

“Efforts to use tissue engineering to generate whole organs have largely failed,” said Geoffrey Gurtner, MD, associate professor of surgery, “primarily due to the lack of available blood vessels. Now we’ve essentially hijacked an existing structure to overcome this problem.” The key, the researchers discovered, is to keep the tissue adequately supplied with oxygen and nutrients while outside of the body.

In the near future, the researchers believe that the stem cells in the tissue could be induced to become an internal, living factory of healthy, specialized cells churning out proteins missing in people with conditions such as hemophilia or diabetes. In the long run, they hope to encourage the cells to become entire transplantable organs such as livers or pancreases.

Incoming search terms:

A new report brings bioengineered organs a step closer, as scientists from Stanford and New York University Langone Medical Center describe how they were able to use a “scaffolding” material extracted from the groin area of mice on which stem cells from blood, fat, and bone marrow grew. This advance clears two major hurdles to bioengineered replacement organs, namely a matrix on which stem cells can form a 3-dimensional organ and transplant rejection.

Incoming search terms:

A research group at Imperial College London has designed a new treatment able to significantly improve the body’s capacity to repair damage caused by a heart attack or bone fracture. The new therapy, described in Cell Stem Cell, ‘fools’ the spinal cord inducing it to ’overproduce’ stem cells which repair damaged tissues in the body. Researchers hope to test the treatment on animals by the end of the year. If testing is successful, the next step will be to experiment on human beings attempting to induce them to use their own stem cells to regenerate damaged or infected organs.

Incoming search terms:

One in every 20 Americans over the age of 50 suffers from something called, peripheral arterial disease or PAD. It can result in clogged arteries in your legs, which can cause a heart attack, if left untreated. But now there’s a new approach. Doctors using a patient’s own stem cells to clear things up. (…)

The arteries in her leg are clogged with plaque which puts her at risk for heart attack, stroke and amputation. Traditionally, doctors treat PAD with stents, angioplasties or bypasses. But now, they’re using a patient’s own stem cells to try and save her legs.

“We basically take stem cells from their hips to help grow blood vessels,” said Dr. Randall Franz of Grant Medical Center.

Doctors use a needle to remove bone marrow from the patient’s hip. The marrow goes into a centrifuge to separate the stem cells.

“When we put it in you can see it was just all red. Now we have plasma, a buff coat and stem cells,” said Dr. Tom Hankins of Grant Medical Center.

Then, doctors inject the stem cells into the patient’s leg.

Incoming search terms: