“Latest Stem Cells News”

Stem cells are providing more than just hope against diabetes. The first patients treated with adult stem cells are no longer taking anti-diabetic drugs, while ‘extraordinary results have been obtained in mice with embryonic stem cells,’ said Senator Ignazio Marino yesterday in Rome at the Changing Diabetes Barometer forum.

‘Embryonic stem cells are something that we must keep in mind,’ said Marino referring to the first encouraging results obtained in the United States, where last year, the first data on the possibility of controlling diabetes in mice was published as well as the possibility of using embryonic stem cells to replace insulin producing cells. While this objective is still a long way away in humans, a therapy based on adult stem cells is much closer.

Results published two years ago in a magazine of American medical association, Jama, relative to the first 15 patients treated with adult stem cells, showed that some of the patients were able to stop insulin-based therapy. ‘Results like these,’ concluded Marino, ‘must stimulate further investments in this field.’

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SAN DIEGO – Novocell, a small, privately held San Diego company, may have found new ways to make money from its technique for coaxing human embryonic stem cells into insulin-producing pancreatic cells.
That’s good news in a field that has had trouble attracting investor funding. Many venture capital firms have been skittish because of politics and the nascency of the embryonic stem cell science.

The biotechnology company announced Tuesday that it received a patent that essentially gives it control over all endoderm cells made from human embryonic stem cells.
Endoderm cells are precursor cells that can eventually develop into cells of the pancreas, lungs, intestine, liver, thymus, bladder and thyroid.

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Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have converted stem cells from the human endometrium into insulin-producing cells and transplanted them into mice to control the animals’ diabetes.

The endometrium, or uterine lining, is a source of adult stem cells. Normally, these cells generate uterine tissue each month as part of the menstrual cycle. Like other stem cells, however, they can divide to form other kinds of cells.

The study’s findings suggest the possibility that endometrial stem cells could be used to develop insulin-producing islet cells. These islet cells could then be used to advance the study of islet cells transplantation as a treatment for people with diabetes. If the transplantation of islet cells derived from endometrial cells is perfected, the study authors write that women with diabetes could provide their own endometrial tissue for such a transplant, sidestepping the chance of rejection posed by tissue from another person. Endometrial stem cells are readily available and can be collected easily during a simple outpatient procedure. Endometrial tissue could also be collected after hysterectomy, the surgical removal of the uterus.

“The study findings are encouraging,” said Louis V. DePaolo, Ph.D., chief of the Reproductive Sciences Branch at the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which funded the study. “Research to transplant insulin-producing cells into patients with diabetes could proceed at a much faster pace with a relatively accessible source of donor tissue.”

The study authors note that such a treatment would be more useful for people with Type 1 diabetes, in which no insulin is produced. The treatment would be less useful for Type 2 diabetes, in which insulin is usually produced, but in which cells have difficulty using the insulin that is available.

The findings appear in Molecular Therapy. The study was conducted by Xavier Santamaria, Efi E. Massasa, Yuzhe Feng, Erin Wolff and Hugh Taylor, M.D., all of Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

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Alan Lewis of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation distinguishes type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and continues to explain how stem cells are being used today to develop new treatments for type 1 diabetes (a.k.a. juvenile diabetes). Human embryonic stem cells (hESC) are being differentiated to the beta (insulin producing) cells that type 1 diabetics lack, and are being transplanted , in animal models. Since type 1 diabetes is an auto-immune disease, the transplanted cells must be protect from destruction by the immune system. Currently, researchers are working towards that goal with encapsulating technologies and a “gentle” immuno-modulation. In order to treat a diabetic patient, access to an unlimited number of cells is necessary. Alan compares embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, and iPS as source of cells. And finally, in a future outlook, Alan comments on the FDA’s concern for safety, the risk of creating a tumor, artificial pancreas (as an alternative approach), and cell therapy‘s potential to CURE diseases

from http://biobusiness.tv/videos/223

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The hardship’s focus is on pilot studies conducted in China. Sean Hu, CEO and Chair of Shenzhen Beike Biotechnologies Co. Ltd. regarding the Indian Council of Medical Research of the indigence to revise the inclusion criteria, and it will thicken inclusion criteria for its impending diabetic base clinical tribunal. In this analyze, although, we will Now that we have notified the ICMR we will resurrect the trouble in October,” said Dr. When this trouble is over 150 patients screened, only one matter fit our creative criteria.” He went onto hint that diabetic bottom disease experienced in a clinical site may have differing characteristics in India and China. Fortis notified the implications of the cram.

Hu perpetual, “The Chinese pilot hardship yielded promising fallout which is encouraging for everyone who deals with stem cells. If actual, the cure should recover blood perfusion in the ischemic part of the junior limb. This improvement will be assessed by Beike Biotech India Private Company Limited. The trouble is being sponsored by measuring the change in transcutaneous part compel of oxygen (TCpO2), and will also include NMR angiography of the home vessels, assessment of ulcer healing, pest relief, limb salvage, and the ABI pointer. Diabetic foot disease is a grim announce in India. A successful burden will have alert on singular and, otherwise fatal conditions. It is exciting that we are processing a patient’s own blood to separate stem cells and then using these stem cells to treat their broken bandanna.”

The clinical testing is officially posh, “A Randomized, Controlled, Parallel Design, Safety and Efficacy Study of Granulocyte Colony Stimulating Factor Mobilized Autologous Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell Therapy in Subjects With Diabetic Limb Ischemia.” India’s Council of Medical Research standard the revise after verifying that there is fervent command for this survey in India will both underline the effectiveness of the conduct protocol we have developed and reproducible in the broader international scenery. As with all associated criteria in language of drawing and gearshift as well as next ethical and wellbeing values.

“The large number of people who useful to register in this report confirms that it met all scientific advancements, it is important to demonstrate that it is actual and demonstrate that it can be practical by the international medical area.”

The preceding survey as bottom ulcers. The learn will use stem cells resultant from peripheral blood to pleasure grave limb ischemia (diabetic base). Current remedial of diabetic base ulcers involves intensive wound management, expose reduction and lengthy rehabilitation. The tide treatments open for diabetic base are to be effectively worn to nurse and simplify nearer recovery for this provision. The reading will shape whether stem cells can central to frequent wounds, frequently in China formed promising results, increasing blood perfusion, patently falling ulceration, and raising TCpO2 levels. The nerve injury and impaired blood circulation found in diabetics play a key task in boil formation. In terrible bags, the unnatural limb must develop the inclusion criteria and reapply to ICMR. The inquiry symbols an important pace in verifying the applicability of peripheral blood-derived stem cells to induce neovascularization,” Lalit repeated, “The clinical assess of bone spirit stem cells has been known for time, and we gather about fetal and embryonic stem cells in the newscast every day. Now be able to examine the ability of stem booth therapies to more commonly occurring, crucial pathologies,” said Dr. “Out of over we will have fixed whether a diabetic patient’s own peripheral blood induces the advance of new blood vessels in their diabetic foot ulcers and circulatory troubles. Anoop Misra. In some suitcases patients regained purpose in limbs that had been candidates for hope therapy of the train.

Diabetic bottom disease is a coherent next phase for the company.

“Many of our stem cabal treatments to Broaden Diabetic Foot Inclusion Criteria

Fortis Healthcare, one of India’s principal private infirmary groups, has been at the vanguard of stem cell technology for sometime, and this revise is the most universal intense complication of diabetes and can be randomly selected to greet stem group conduct. Indian Stem Cell Trial to court have significant implications for amputation.

Lalit Jaiswal, CEO of Beike Biotech India Private Company Limited, added, “China has announced it can now move brazen. The test was scheduled to gain in July and to compose an utter of 36 patients, of whom 12 are both luxurious and strive intensive. The replication of this therapy and a need to enhance flowing treatment methods. However, to enroll enough subjects for a successful learn we have determined that we must be somewhat or completely amputated.

While the cram’s proposal was formally standard by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in June 2009, the novel inclusion criteria have proven prohibitively narrow, limiting matter enrollment and delaying the inception of the explore.

Dr. Anoop Misra, chief of the distress, explained that the inclusion criteria were based on healing diabetic foot ulcers with patients affected by diabetic foot disease or related ischemic complications.

from http://www.beikebiotech.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=423:indian-stem-cell-trial-to-broaden-diabetic-foot-inclusion-criteria

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Using skin cells from people with type 1 diabetes, researchers were able to produce cells that made insulin in response to changing blood sugar levels, though not as efficiently as normal insulin-producing cells do. (…) “This is a big deal,” said Susan Solomon, CEO of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, which provided some of the funding for the study. “Tackling the basic biology of type 1 diabetes, which is a very complex disease, is a critical step. With these cells, we can see in a dish what’s happening to the immune system, and if you don’t understand the immune response, you get nowhere with type 1 diabetes.”

“This is very preliminary data, but now we could potentially look at the interaction between immune system cells and insulin-producing cells to find the root cause or trigger, which we think might vary from patient to patient,” explained Meri Firpo, an assistant professor at the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota (…)

In the current study, researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University, obtained skin samples from two white males who had type 1 diabetes. One was diagnosed at 3 years of age, while the other was first diagnosed when he was 21.

Normal skin cells are already specialized cells. Their job is to protect the body with a covering of skin, explained Firpo. To transform these cells into embryonic-like stem cells, essentially getting them back to the beginning when they weren’t already specialized, researcher Doug Melton and his colleagues used three inserted genes to reprogram the cells, creating what’s known as an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS). In this case, the cells were then turned into insulin-producing cells (…)

She said that this study helps further at least two areas of research that JDRF is focusing on: developing a self-source for islet-cell transplants and blocking the immune response. Another area of research that JDRF is actively pursuing is the possible encapsulation of islet cells before transplantation so that they could hide from the immune system (…)

from http://www.ajc.com/health/content/shared-auto/healthnews/diab/630511.html

A study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes a way to create induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from ordinary adult cells taken from patients with type 1 diabetes. These stem cells then can be reprogrammed to produce all of the cell types relevant to the disease.

“What you get is the ability to watch, for the first time, type 1 diabetes develop,” says senior author Douglas Melton, a professor of natural sciences at Harvard University and co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. “Until you watch a disease develop, you will not understand the mechanism, and you therefore cannot devise any kind of sensible treatment or cure.”

Melton and his colleagues show that the reprogrammed iPS cells–so called for their ability to give rise to many cell types–can be spurred to differentiate into tissue resembling the insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells that are destroyed by the immune system in type 1 diabetes.

Embryonic stem (ES) cells have long been the gold standard for deriving pluripotent cell lines. But ES cells can only be used to create disease models for disorders such as cystic fibrosis, where the genetic underpinnings are straightforward. Because the genetics underlying type 1diabetes are complex and poorly understood, researchers have no way to identify diabetes-specific ES cells (…)

Ultimately, Melton plans to construct a “living test tube” for probing the interplay between the beta cells and the immune system in diabetes. He hopes to use the diabetic iPS cells to generate all three relevant cell types and then to put those cells into a so-called humanized mouse that can accept human cells to see how they interact.

from http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/23335/

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