“Latest Stem Cells News”

The latest developments in molecular biology in the prenatal diagnostic field, particularly regarding preserving stem cells extracted from amniotic liquid, were the focus of the latest S.I.Di.P conference (Italian Society of Prenatal Diagnosis and Maternal Fetal Medicine).

After a greeting from S.I.Di.P President Claudio Giorlandino and President of the Italian Gynecology and Obstetrics Society Giorgio Vittori, Professor Giuseppe Simone, the head of the Biocell Center in Busto Arsizio (VA), the first Italian center able to treat and store stem cells extracted from the amniotic liquid in liquid nitrogen, opened the conference.

“In the next five to ten years,” explained Professor Simoni, “scientific research will have developed therapy based on amniotic stem cells. They are very similar to embryonic stem cells, they are multipotent and young, and this means that they are preferable to embryonic stem cells.

Preserving them creates no risk and the embryo is not sacrificed. Investing into research in this field is an obligation to humanity. There are so many possibilities and the research into amniotic stem cells to treat diseases represents the new frontier for research in the third millennium.

Researchers hope that they can be used to combat many terrible diseases, as well as in reconstructive surgery, and to treat nerve system diseases.”

Stem cells derived from the amniotic liquid are able to differentiate into various tissues, including bone, fat, nerve, cartilage, muscle, hematopoietic tissue, and offer a wide range of clinical applications.

“The future,” continued Simoni, “is research into these types of stem cells, which many research groups, including research teams from Italy, are studying. Preserving them, from anyone who has already decided to undergo amniocentesis is a golden opportunity to donate a precious gift to the future: the gift of life itself. Cryoconservation will allow us to be ready when scientific progress achieves further developments, which will come soon.”

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Summit at Lake Como with 100 European stem cell experts.
At the summit, 16 research teams part of the Neurostemcell consortium that have been working for months on finding treatments for Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease met. The network, coordinated by Elena Cattaneo, Director of Unistem, the interdepartmental stem cell research centre of the University of Milan, met on April 1 in Bellagio, on the shores of Lake Como for their first annual meeting.

“The meeting is an opportunity to discuss the results obtained until now and to refine our methods,” explained Cattaneo, who pointed out the objective of the project, which is financed by the EU with 12 million euros: “Compares all stem cells and evaluates them as a potential tool for treatments for Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases.” The researchers, from various European laboratories, continued the specialist, “must work to institute stem cells to develop into neurons that die in individuals with Parkinson’s and Huntington’s. The strategy is to take immature stem cells and to push them in a specific direction, rebuilding the codes, or transcription factors of genes and proteins in the laboratory.

The stock of stem cells that we have available today is ample, observed Cattaneo. There are reprogrammed pluripotent stem cells (Ips), adult stem cells, and embryonic stem cells “which particularly fascinate me”. In Cattaneo’s view, for the two neurodegenerative diseases that are the focus of the project, “embryonic stem cells have a strong ability to produce neurons. We are not talking about treatment. These cells are exceptional because they mainly have the ability to receive messages that you send them. With adult stem cells, it does not exactly work in the same way, it seems that they do not have the same abilities to be manipulated.” Embryonic stem cells, concluded a smiling Cattaneo, “are wide awake. It is more satisfying working with them”.

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The subject of producing artificial blood from stem cells has become a hot topic in Italy. “Italy is close to reaching the same objective announced by British researchers, on a similar timeframe,” therefore possibly in three years, “but using adult stem cells. Certainly, it is one thing to say that in three years we will begin the experimental phase, it’s another thing to speak about industrial production. It needs to be specified that the procedure to produce artificial blood is very expensive. Therefore this would be a complementary solution, which will not replace donations,” Said Welfare Undersecretary Ferruccio Fazio, shortly after an announcement of a British study, during a meeting on blood transfusion by the Health Observatory in Rome.

“I would like to calm the enthusiasm after the announcement of the British study,” said Fazio. “There are Italian research groups that are doing very advanced projects on adult stem cells to produce artificial blood. The Italian way was also chosen by the US Armed Forces,” he specified. “We are working on adult stem cells also for long-term sustainability. There is also a collaboration in place between the Mayo Clinic in America and researchers of the Superior Institute of Health (ISS),” he added. “Therefore Italy is not behind in this sector. “This is a very expensive procedure though, which will never substitute donation,” confirmed Fazio.

Furthermore, the upcoming conference of the federal government and the regions should examine a provision “that proposes financing in all of the Italian regions for umbilical cord biobanks starting in 2009. This is something,” pointed out Fazio, “that will aid in research on blood from adult stem cells”. While labs in Italy have worked for years, Giuliano Graziani, the director of the national blood centre pointed out that “the production of artificial plasma will be extremely expensive. We are not disputing the importance of donating blood. Research like the British study is ongoing throughout the world. There are important studies,” he said, “whose results are not right around the corner, and which will never replace the key role of donations”.

“In addition to unacceptable ethical implications, this research has not demonstrated anything yet,” commented geneticist Bruno Dallapiccola regarding the announcement of several British researchers, published recently on the online edition of the Independent regarding the possibility of producing blood by using embryonic stem cells.

“There are no official results yet,” said the scientist in an interview with Vatican Radio, “and none of this research has been transferred to patients. Then,” he added, “rather than reading these results in the Independent, it would be appropriate to see them published in a scientific journal with critical revisers able to judge their basis.”

In the meanwhile, the geneticists said that embryonic stem cell research aimed at curing diseases like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s “have not given any results yet”. A group of British researchers said that they will be able to obtain, within three years, an unlimited quantity of red blood cells from unused human embryos.

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After US President Barack Obama opened up to embryonic stem cell research, “we will have an America that will begin to run ,and an Italy that risks becoming a parasite,” were the fears expressed by pharmacologist Elena Cattaneo, director of the stem cell research center of the University of Milan.

Obama’s attitude, observed the Italian researcher today during a meeting in Milan, “is very positive. He has opened the door to research,” she said to Adnkronos Salute, “but with caution, without crying miracle. With the idea that perhaps tomorrow future generations will be able to benefit from the results that will be obtained.”

The hope, said Cattaneo, is that these choices “will mark an opening to research in general, not only for embryonic stem cells. He has recognized their strength.” From a practical standpoint now “in the US, much more investment will be available, studies will be more daring to accept intellectual and experimental challenges, while Italy risks remaining behind. Unless we will be able to benefit from those studies, as long as we are capable of doing so.”

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Maria Grazia Roncarolo

It was stunning to see them closed inside of those plastic bubbles, kept far from all external contact because their immune system does not react against any foreign antigens. Today scientists can say that ADA-SCID (adenosine deaminase deficiency), a serious combined immunodeficiency caused due to a lack of the adenosine deaminase enzyme, has been definitively defeated by gene therapy developed at San Raffaele of Milan.

The final study, which combined the conclusions of clinical studies, which began in 2000 on strategic therapies developed by the HSR-TIGET (San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy) group, led by Maria Grazia Roncarolo and Alessandro Aiuti, and was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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It was stunning to see them closed inside of those plastic bubbles, kept far from all external contact because their immune system does not react against any foreign antigens. Today scientists can say that ADA-SCID (adenosine deaminase deficiency), a serious combined immunodeficiency caused due to a lack of the adenosine deaminase enzyme, has been definitively defeated by gene therapy developed at San Raffaele of Milan.

The final study, which combined the conclusions of clinical studies, which began in 2000 on strategic therapies developed by the HSR-TIGET (San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy) group, led by Maria Grazia Roncarolo and Alessandro Aiuti, and was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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