“Latest Stem Cells News”

“The tracheal team at Great Ormond Street Hospital is delighted that Ciaran is going home after his tracheal transplant. He is a wonderful boy who has become a great friend to us all, and he and his infinitely patient family have charmed us all. Ciaran has become our local iPad expert, and we will miss his advice. His recovery has been complicated, as one might expect for a new procedure, and we have kept him under close surveillance, hence the length of time he has been here. It is wonderful to see him active, smiling and breathing normally. We are very proud of him!

“Ciaran will continue to need regular follow up by us. This is so we can both make sure he is ok, and also learn what to expect for the next patient who needs this innovative therapy. The treatment offers hope to many whose major airways were previously considered untreatable or irreplaceable. We will continue to work with our colleagues in regenerative medicine throughout the world to ensure we can continue to improve both the science and treatment options.”

from http://www.ich.ucl.ac.uk/pressoffice/pressrelease_00852

Nerve stem cell transplants may help slow the progression of macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness in the developed world, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

They said putting nerve stem cells from StemCells Inc near the retinas of rats with a form of macular degeneration helped keep the disease from advancing to blindness for several months.

“These cells improve the chemical environment in the back of the eye,” said Ray Lund of the Casey Eye Institute at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, whose findings were presented at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago.

Lund said the mechanism is not clear, but he suspects that when immature nerve cells are placed near the retina, they produce growth factors that protect the cells from damage by the disease.

Hong Kong scientists say they have identified the cancer stem cells responsible for the spread of colorectal cancer to other organs and believe the find will revolutionise treatment.

Current treatments regard all cancer cells as alike, but the Hong Kong University researchers discovered that cancers contain a small number of stem cells responsible for starting and maintaining tumours.

“It will revolutionise the approach to cancer treatment in future,” one researcher, Ronnie Poon, told the South China Morning Post.

Hans Keirstead, a researcher at University of California, Irvine, is set to begin a small human trial of his embryonic stem cell treatment on patients with spinal cord injuries. The treatment is designed for patients within 14 days of suffering spinal cord injuries. In rat trials, paralyzed rats were injected with a stem cell formula. The paralyzed rats were able to walk six weeks later.

Researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, studied equivalent cells taken from mouse brains. Principal investigator Silvia Marino, Professor of Neuropathology at Queen Mary, University of London, and her team showed that medulloblastomas can grow from a type of brain stem cell and that these cancers are a distinct form of the disease which may require a completely different approach to treatment.

Like a Hole in the Head: Living with a Brain Tumour

A team of researchers from UCL has won a £500,000 grant to develop a synthetic artery that mimics a natural artery – and could revolutionise the treatment of coronary heart disease.

Professor Alexander Seifalian (UCL Surgery and Interventional Science) and Professor George Hamilton (UCL Surgery and Interventional Science & Royal Free Hospital) and their team will use the Wellcome Trust grant to take their work from the laboratory to a pre-clinical trial.

The team has been developing a new nanomaterial with mechanical properties similar to that of human arteries.

The nanomaterial’s inner surface has been modified to attract stem cells from blood circulating inside the body.

It converts these primary cells to endothelial cells, a type of cell that covers the interior of the natural blood vessel and protects it from blockage.

The breakthrough offers hope for sufferers of heart disease who are unable to donate suitable substitute blood vessels for bypass surgery.

Professors Seifalian and Hamilton, experts in nanotechnology, regenerative medicine and vascular surgery, explained: “Coronary heart disease is a condition where one or more blood vessels of the heart become narrowed or blocked. This causes the heart muscle to be starved of oxygen causing damage often leading to a heart attack and muscle death. This interferes with the heart’s ability to pump blood around the body, leading to infirmity and possibly death.

“The current treatment of the disease is to create a new route for blood to circulate, most often by balloon dilatation and stent (stent angioplasty). In many patients however this intervention cannot be performed and in this situation an operation called bypass surgery is needed which can either use substitute blood vessels from another part of the patient or made from a plastic material.

read more: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0908/09081101