“Latest Stem Cells News”

IntelliCell BioSciences filed its patent application with the US Patent office that will claim priority to its provisional US patent serial #61/427, 221 that was filed on December 27, 2010. The title of the patent application is Ultrasonic Cavitation Derived Stromal or Mesenchymal Vascular Extracts and Cells Derived Therefrom Obtained from Adipose Tissue and use Thereof. It covers the methods of manufacturing using ultrasonic cavitation to dissociate the fat cells and blood vessels contained within the adipose tissue, thereby obtaining multi-potent, mesenchymal or stromal vascular fractions for use in human subjects. These methods do not include the use of any exogenous dissociating enzymes such as collagenase and result in increased number of cells which constitute the multi-potent, mesenchymal or stromal vascular fractions (about ten folds greater than methods which use collagenase to isolate these cells).

Dr. Steven Victor, the inventor, and CEO of IntelliCell BioSciences commented “we are extremely excited to have filed this patent in the US and around the world. The use of ultrasonic cavitation allows physicians to use less than 60cc’s of adipose tissue (fat) to manufacture approximately a half billion to 1.4 billion stromal vascular fraction cells (SVF cells) within five to ten minutes. The use of sound and water allows this manufacturing method to be utilized by physicians in the US underneath FDA (PHS Act Section 361 1271.10 (a)) of the health bill passed by Congress in 2009.

This manufacturing method has significant cost and time advantages over any other method of producing SVF cells. These cells have been used around the world for conditions caused by inflammation, such as lower back pain, migraines, MS, autism, fibromyalgia, tinnitus, arthritis; tissue repair, such as growing cartilage for bone on bone knee repair; bone and gingival tissue (gum disease): cosmetic indications such as fat grafting, wrinkle removal and other cosmetic procedures. The success rate for these patients has been approximately 80% plus. We believe that the use of non-enzymatic SVF cell therapy will find its first applications in treating sports related injuries. We are proud to have numerous luminaries on our advisory board who are leaders in the sports medicine world. We anticipate significant revenues from the utilization of SVF cells from the various IntelliCell BioSciences Centers of Excellence in the year 2012.

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A study published this week reinforces the potential value of stem cells in repairing major injuries involving the loss of bone structure.
The study shows that delivering stem cells on a polymer scaffold to treat large areas of missing bone leads to improved bone formation and better mechanical properties compared to treatment with the scaffold alone. This type of therapeutic treatment could be a potential alternative to bone grafting operations.

“Massive bone injuries are among the most challenging problems that orthopedic surgeons face, and they are commonly seen as a result of accidents as well as in soldiers returning from war,” said the study’s lead author Robert Guldberg, a professor in Georgia Tech‘s Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. “This study shows that there is promise in treating these injuries by delivering stem cells to the injury site. These are injuries that would not heal without significant medical intervention.” (…)

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CINCINNATI—New research from the University of Cincinnati may help in the recovery of lost vision for patients with corneal scarring.

Winston Whei-Yang Kao, PhD, professor of ophthalmology, along with other researchers in UC’s ophthalmology department found that transplanting human umbilical mesenchymal stem cells into mouse models that lack the protein lumican restored the transparency of cloudy and thin corneas.

Mesenchymal stem cells are “multi-potent” stem cells that can differentiate into a variety of cell types.

These findings are being presented Dec. 8 in San Diego at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Cell Biology.

“Corneal transplantation is currently the only true cure for restoration of eyesight that may have been lost due to corneal scarring caused by infection, mechanical and chemical wounds and congenital defects of genetic mutations,” Kao says. “However, the number of donated corneas suitable for transplantation is decreasing as the number of individuals receiving refractive surgeries, like LASIK, increases.”

“Worldwide, there is a shortage of suitable corneas for transplantation, and at the present time, there is no effective alternative procedure besides corneal transplantation to treat corneal blindness,” he continues. “There is a large need to develop alternative treatment regimens, one of which may be the transplantation of mesenchymal stem cells.”

Researchers used mouse models that did not have the lumican gene, also known as lumican knock-out models. Lumican is a protein that controls the formation and maintenance of transparent corneas.

“Lumican knock-out models manifested thin and cloudy corneas,” he says. “Transplantation of the umbilical stem cells significantly improved transparency and increased corneal stromal thickness in these mice.”

In addition, Kao says, the umbilical mesenchymal stem cells survived in the mouse stroma (connective tissue) for more than three months with minimal or no rejection and became corneal cells, repairing lost functions caused by mutations.

“Our results suggest a potential treatment regimen for congenital and/or acquired corneal diseases,” he says, adding that the availability of human umbilical stem cells is almost unlimited. “These stem cells are easy to isolate and can be recovered quickly from storage when treating patients.

“These findings have the potential to create new and better treatments—and an improved quality of life—for patients with vision loss due to corneal injury.”

This study was funded by grants from the National Eye Institute, Research to Prevent Blindness and the Ohio Lions Eye Research Foundation.

from http://healthnews.uc.edu/news/?/9613/

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What might become the first drug derived from human stem cells failed in two late-stage clinical trials, dealing a setback to the drug’s developer and to the stem cell field (…)

Prochymal is a preparation of mesenchymal stem cells, which are obtained from the bone marrow of healthy young adults.
Because the cells are derived from adults, they sidestep the ethical issues stemming from the destruction of human embryos needed to make embryonic stem cells. Unlike most other types of adult stem cells, mesenchymal cells grow well in culture, so thousands of doses can be produced from a single donation.

Stem cells, particularly in the form of bone marrow transplants, are already used in medicine. Osiris is hoping that Prochymal will become the first stem cell product approved by the Food and Drug Administration and sold as a mass-produced pharmaceutical product (…)

from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/health/research/09drug.html

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Research has indicated that certain sarcomas come from the mesenchymal stem cells. However, expression of neural stem cells has been noted in others. Identifying and isolating mesenchymal stem cells and neural stem cells relies on finding specific proteins expressed by both types.

In this study, eight different markers representing proteins associated with these two types of stem cells were applied to the 81 tumors. Through cluster analysis, the researchers organized the data into groups showing similar patterns. Two major subgroups of pediatric sarcomas emerged

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Russian scientists started clinical trials of treating false joints by means of demineralized bone matrix with introduced mesenchymal stem cells of a patient.

False joints often occur as a complication during fractures of long bones, when splinters do not adhere, and cartilage layer forms between them. This layer is called false joint, and in this case, additional surgery is required to help a bone to heal.

Modern surgeons fight this problem with bone transplants, but bone recovery takes about one year. Possible solution is transplantation of mesenchymal stem cells of bone marrow, which can turn into various cells, including osteocytes. However, before differentiating cells require a substrate to attach to, and false joint has neither appropriate surface, nor nutrients for stem cells. In this case, the majority of stem cells dies or migrates away the desired place.

Russian scientists suggest putting stem cells on demineralized bone transplants, made of human long bones. Cell were extracted from patient’s bone marrow, cultivated in nutrient medium, and then inhabited bone matrix.

from Russia IC

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