“Latest Stem Cells News”

SCIENTISTS HAVE taken another important step towards producing replacement tissues for the body using stem cells. A group in Germany has developed a simpler way to produce these cells using just one special factor instead of the usual four.

The work helps build knowledge of how to produce the most powerful or “pluripotent” stem cells but new treatments using them are still some distance into the future, according to stem cell specialist Dr Stephen Sullivan.

Prof Hans Schöler led the work at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine and details are published this morning online by the journal Nature.

Pluripotent stem cells have huge potential to treat diseases because they are a kind of universal starter-cell, capable of becoming any of the 200 or so cells found in the body.

The best pluripotent cells are found in the developing foetus, but there are immediate ethical issues given they can only be recovered by destroying the foetus. Therefore researchers are trying to find ways to change other types of cells including adult cells into pluripotent stem cells.

Prof Schöler converted human fetal brain stem cells into pluripotent cells using just one special factor called OCT4.

Late in 2007, Prof Shinya Yamanaka and colleagues of Kyoto University announced he had used four special factors to turn human adult cells into pluripotent cells, the first to have accomplished this.

The question remains, however, whether these artificially produced stem cells will perform like natural pluripotent cells, stated Dr Sullivan, the chief scientific officer of the Irish Stem Cell Foundation, which will be formally launched towards the end of September.

from Irish Times

All over the world there are desperate patients looking for institutions that promise to heal them with stem cells. But the treatments that are promised must be controlled and regulated, said two scholars in Science magazine. Today, recognized treatments with stem cells involve blood diseases or immune system defects, wrote the Thai researcher Sorapop Kiatpongsan and his Japanese colleague Douglas Sipp. In reality, many other treatments have been offered without proof of their effectiveness.

For example, treatments are being offered to cure heart disease, autism, Down’s syndrome, and epilepsy. These treatments are ineffective and are mainly offered in countries with low scientific standards. However, at times they are also offered in countries with higher standards like Japan, the USA, and Germany. Proponents of the treatments normally use testimonies from patients on their Internet sites, blogs, or conferences to market the treatments. Since it would be difficult to institute a global ban against all unauthorized treatments, the two scholars have asked single governments to be particularly vigilant with regards to scientific research and results.

An efficient way to prevent scams could be strict regulations to establish both the quality of the drugs and their correct publication. There are already regulations of this type in the USA and Europe, and Thailand has also introduced more strict regulations on stem cells therapy. The media could also give a sound contribution to unmasking ineffective treatments, underlined Kiatpongsan (University of Bangkok) and Sipp (University of Kyoto). Finally, organizations like the “International society for stem cell research” and global health organizations should publish guidelines and information for patients in various languages.

Former Vice President Al Gore Endorses Trans-Pacific Collaboration to Promote Use of Patient Cells for Drug Discovery and Development and Cell-Based Therapies iZumi Bio, Inc., and Kyoto University’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA), today announced a collaboration to promote the basic research, development and application of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell technology – a form of cellular reprogramming which originated in Japan – with the goal of advancing drug discovery and enabling cell-based therapies.

“Stem cell research holds great promise for the creation of new therapies that could revolutionize the treatment of disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and muscular dystrophy. The discovery that iPScell technology brings, that “stem cell-like” cells can be generated from a small amount of human skin rather than from embryos, opens a new door for stem cell research and its application to therapeutic discovery,” said Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States and a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Noting that Science Magazine named cellular reprogramming the “breakthrough of the year” in 2008, Gore concluded, “The partnership between these two leading organizations is a critical step in furthering this research and turning stem cell research into therapeutic realities sooner.”

A team at Keio University has used stem cells to cure mice whose hind legs were paralyzed due to spinal cord damage, the researchers reported Wednesday at a Tokyo symposium.
The team transplanted neural stem cells grown from human iPS cells.

Team leader Hideyuki Okano, a physiology professor at Keio, said it is the first time in the world in which the curative effects of “induced pluripotent stem cells,” or iPS cells, have been confirmed.
Currently, there is no effective treatment for spinal nerve damage and treatment using iPS cells gives hope of a cure.

“It is valuable that treatment using human iPS cells has proved effective. We want to apply (the results) in a clinical setting as soon as possible,” Okano said.
The team generated neural stem cells, which will grow into nerve cells, from human iPS cells produced with a technique developed by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University.