“Latest Stem Cells News”

New Technology to Increase Efficacy of Adult Stem Cells in COPD Treatment

Entest BioMedical announced today it has filed a second patent application in the area of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). This new patent application builds upon the Company’s previously filed COPD patent application and involves the use of photoceutical devices to target stem cells toward areas impacted by COPD in the lungs.

Steve Josephs, PhD, a Scientific Advisor to the Company stated “that by using photoceutical devices in treating COPD, it is believed stem cells can be focused on areas of the lungs where there is damage. Furthermore, being able to target specific areas and draw stem cells to those areas should produce greater efficacy in patient treatment outcomes. ”

David Koos, Chairman and CEO of Entest stated, “This new patent application we filed covers methods of enhancing our previously disclosed adult stem cell technologies in the treatment of COPD. It is our belief the use of photoceuticals devices coupled with adult stem cell therapy is a treatment model completely new and unique to addressing this terrible disease.”

Entest’s treatment approach for COPD is based on the development of easy-toimplement therapies involving the use of stem cells, and other cells found in the fat tissue of the patient. By incorporating photoceutical devices currently in use for other clinical treatments, this invention discloses methods of increasing the rate of cell homing, retention, and growth factor production in the lung.

from http://www.entestbio.com/latest-news/entest-biomedical-files-patent-application-for-selective-targeting-of-stem-cells-to-lung-using-photoceutical-devices.html

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Researchers at UTHealth have demonstrated in rats that transplanting genetically modified adult stem cells into an injured spinal cord can help restore the electrical pathways associated with movement. The results are published in today’s issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

In spinal cord injury, demyelination, or the destruction of the myelin sheath in the central nervous system, occurs. The myelin sheath, produced by cells called oligodendrocytes, wraps around the axons of nerves and helps speed activity and insulate electrical conduction. Without it, the nerves cannot send messages to make muscles move.

The research team, led by Qilin Cao, M.D., principal investigator and associate professor of neurosurgery at UTHealth (The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston), discovered that transplanted adult stem cells (oligodendrocyte precursor cells or OPC) from the spinal cord could become oligodendrocytes. The new cells helped restore electrical pathways of the spinal cord and therefore, function, in a process called remyelination.

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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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