“Latest Stem Cells News”

Sufferers from the debilitating bowel condition Crohn‘s disease may be cured using a groundbreaking stem cell treatment, according to the British doctor leading the research.

Initial findings from the world’s first controlled trial of the procedure have raised hopes that it could banish the disease’s symptoms for many years in up to half of the patients who undergo it.

The pioneering therapy involves “rebooting” the patient’s immune system, by first destroying the cells that have attacked it to cause the Crohn’s, and then replacing them.

Professor Chris Hawkey, a gastroenterologist at Nottingham University, is leading the Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation in Crohn’s Disease (Astic) trial. So far, 15 patients from six European countries, including three Britons, have taken part, though others are being recruited.

“I’m hopeful that half or more of the patients who undergo stem cell transplantation may either be cured or have a long-term remission,” said Hawkey.

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Progress has been made against strokes thanks to stem cells. British researchers, thanks to these cells, have managed to repair brain tissue damaged by a stroke. The study, financed by the research council on biological and biotechnological sciences of the United Kingdom, was published in Nature Biomaterials. The team from the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of Nottingham, used a biodegradable polymer called Plga to build a scaffold for neural cells.

Using these they filled the cavity left by a stroke. This allows, explained Mike Modo, psychiatrist at King’s College in London and coordinator of the study, “stem cells to create connections with the other cells, contributing to the re-stabilization of the damaged tissue”. One of the main obstacles for scientists has been overcome in this way: normally, stem cells do not find any support in the cerebral area affected

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