“Latest Stem Cells News”

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.

A technique that combines nanotechnology with adult stem cells appears to destroy atherosclerotic plaque and rejuvenate the arteries, according to a study reported at the American Heart Association‘s Basic Cardiovascular Sciences 2010 Scientific Sessions – Technological and Conceptual Advances in Cardiovascular Disease.

In the study, nanoparticles (microscopic particles with at least one dimension less than 80 nm) were infused into the heart of pigs along with adult stem cells. After the nanoparticles were heated by laser light, they burned away arterial plaque. However, nanoparticles were less effective at eliminating plaque if not combined with adult stem cells.

“This unique approach holds promise for use in humans for acute care and urgent restoration of blood flow,” said Alexandr Kharlamov, M.D., lead author and research manager at the Department of Internal Medicine and Research Center of Regenerative Medicine, Ural State Medical Academy in Yekaterinburg, Russian Federation. “Biophotonics (light therapy), plasmonics (plasma therapy), stem cell therapy and nanotechnology might someday offer a completely novel treatment to reduce artery plaque build-up.”

(…) Bioheart’s MyoCell® is a regenerative cell therapy that uses myoblasts, or muscle stem cells, that are grown from a patient’s own muscle. MyoCell® has been tested successfully on patients in four clinical trials. The REGEN trial is designed to test the safety and effectiveness of a composition of muscle stem cells that have been gene-modified to induce a greater than usual release of the SDF-1 protein. The SDF-1 protein is a molecule in the human body that, after an injury, is naturally released by most tissues to attract stem cells. The stem cells assist with the healing process.

Unlike other tissues, the heart muscle does not release enough SDF-1 to attract the number of stem cells that would result in complete self-healing. As a result, scar tissue forms and impairs normal heart function.

Results from Bioheart’s preclinical animal studies have shown that the genetically modified MyoCell® is far more effective than MyoCell® alone in accomplishing repair and tissue regeneration. With SDF-1, there is a release of additional therapeutic proteins to assist in the tissue repair process, resulting in a more expansive and quicker repair. Once that repair or regeneration has occurred, the patient’s improved heart function permits the patient to return to a normal life style.

Scientists have for the first time succeeded in extracting vital stem cells from sections of vein removed for heart bypass surgery. Researchers funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) found that these stem cells can stimulate new blood vessels to grow, which could potentially help repair damaged heart muscle after a heart attack.

The research, by Paolo Madeddu, Professor of Experimental Cardiovascluar Medicine and his team in the Bristol Heart Institute (BHI) at the University of Bristol, is published in the leading journal Circulation.

A University of Bristol team extracted stem cells from the veins, then used them to stimulate new blood vessel growth in mice, Circulation reports.

The researchers say their findings could bring treatments to repair damaged heart muscle one step closer.

However, a stem cell expert warned that they remained some years away.

Stem cells are attractive to medical researchers because they have the ability to produce many different types of human cell, opening up the possibility of repair or renewal for tissues ravaged by disease or injury (…)

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 (…)