“Latest Stem Cells News”

Some Steamboat Springs residents are forgoing the Tooth Fairy, hoping their teeth wind up being worth much more than a quarter.
Steamboat Springs oral surgeon Dr. John Lupori offers patients the chance to store the stem cells in the teeth he extracts. Lupori partners with StemSave, a New York-based company that freezes and stores stem cells found in the pulp at the base of teeth. Science is moving fast, those involved said, and the cells might someday save the patient’s life.

“Potentially, they’re incredibly miraculous,” said Dr. Bob Pensack, who had his daughter, Miriam, save her cells. “They’ve already been miraculous in the lab.”
Stem cells exist throughout the body and differentiate into organs and tissue. Stem cells that could be used to grow new organs, for example, are the type that haven’t differentiated. Dental stem cells fall into this category, StemSave CEO Art Greco said.

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A 3-year-old South Dakota boy whose brain tumor treatment had been in question because of an insurance dispute is set to begin chemotherapy in Minnesota this week.
Cooper Urbaniak, who suffers from ependymoma, is to be admitted to the University of Minnesota Medical Center Tuesday to begin high-dose chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant.

The family’s insurance provider initially declared the procedure experimental and refused to pay for it. But under an agreement reached last month between Sanford Health Plan and the university, Sanford will pay for the chemotherapy and pay a discounted rate on the stem cell transplant.
Cooper’s father, Joe Urbaniak, said his son will undergo eight days of chemotherapy treatments followed by a day of rest. Doctors then will give him back the stem cells they harvested earlier this fall.

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Mandi Schwartz ’11 completed a crucial step in her battle with leukemia Wednesday afternoon.

The women’s hockey player received a long-awaited stem cell transplant at about 3:30 p.m. local time at the inpatient transplant unit of the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance at the University of Washington Medical Center. The procedure took 32 minutes and there were no complications, said Dean Forbes, a spokesman for the cancer center.

Schwartz, a native of Saskatchewan, Canada has been in and out of chemotherapy for more than 20 months since first being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in December 2008. After months of searching for an adequate bone marrow or stem cell donor, two “five-out-of-six” stem cell matches were located and Schwartz’s transplant was slated for Aug. 27, as she was declared in remission on June 9. But the timeline changed when Schwartz learned on Aug. 11 that her cancer had returned for a third time.

On Aug. 31, Schwartz entered remission once again after completing additional chemotherapy. She underwent a daily pair of hour-long radiation sessions between Sept. 15 and 17, and had another two days of chemotherapy on Sunday and Monday to prepare for the transplant.

Now, with the procedure completed at last, Schwartz will wait to see if the stem cells engraft. Forbes said it will take about three weeks to determine whether the transplant was successful. Schwartz will remain in the hospital during that stretch of time because her immune system is still weak.

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An experimental drug currently being tested against breast and lung cancer shows promise in fighting the brain cancer glioblastoma and prostate cancer, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found in two preclinical studies.

The drug’s actions, observed in isolated human cells in one trial and in rodents in the other, are especially encouraging because they attacked not only the bulk of the tumor cells but also the rare cancer stem cells that are believed to be responsible for most of a cancer’s growth, said Dr. Jerry Shay, professor of cell biology and a senior co-author of both papers. The glioblastoma study appears in the January issue of Clinical Cancer Research. The prostate cancer study is available online in the International Journal of Cancer.

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(…) Participation in this drive and thus registration with the National Marrow Donor Program consists of simple swabs of the cheeks using Q-tips for a DNA test. DNA information is entered into this lifesaving donor program database. If a potential donor is identified as a potential match for David or someone else in need, he/she will be contacted by the donor program to have a small amount of blood drawn for lab testing.

If that person is then confirmed as a match, he/she will be asked to provide stem cells through a simple donation procedure where blood is taken from one arm through a needle and run through a machine, which separates the stem cells from the blood, and returned into the other arm.

Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) are a group of diseases that affect the bone marrow and blood. Some types of MDS are mild and easily managed, which other types are severe and life-threatening. Mild MDS can grow more severe over time. It can develop into a fast-growing, severe leukemia called acute myelogenous leukemia. Stem cell transplant is the only treatment that can cure MDS.

In this treatment, the patient receives high-dose chemotherapy and/or total body irradiation to kill the cells in the bone marrow (including the abnormal bone marrow cells). The patient would then receive new functioning blood-forming stem cells harvested from the donor (…)

from http://www.nj.com/warrenreporter/index.ssf/2009/11/centenary_college_to_hold_stem.html

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For children born with immunodeficiencies, researchers may have found a better way for them to get the help they need from stem-cell transplants (…)

Children with primary immunodeficiencies have genetic defects in their immune system that leave them open to infection and other complications. Stem-cell transplants can replace the defective immune system with one derived from healthy donor bone marrow, but without a stem-cell transplant, many of these children might die, the researchers noted in a journal news release.

In order to create space for the donor stem cells and prevent rejection, the patient usually undergoes chemotherapy, radiotherapy or both. This chemoradiotherapy can cause severe liver or lung damage, as well as hair loss and sickness. It may also cause problems with growth, puberty and infertility in later life, according to the news release (…)

With this approach, the 16 children with primary immunodeficiencies in this study, who were too sick for a traditional stem-cell transplant, were able to avoid much of the toxicity caused by chemotherapy (…)

read full article on http://www.ajc.com/health/content/shared-auto/healthnews/bird/630592.html

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