“Latest Stem Cells News”

At the San Timoteo Hospital in Termoli-Larino (Molise, a small region in south central Italy, formerly part of the region “Abruzzi e Molise”) everything is ready for stem cells gathering - in conjunction with the orthopedy ward (branch of medicine dealing with diseases of the bones and joints) – which will be used for local treatments, above all on pseudo-arthrosis.

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Reviewing the technology, business models, intellectual property, regulatory concerns, transplantation and immune rejection.

from http://biobusiness.tv/videos/202

Joseph Wagner sees most cell-therapy companies offering little more than a bag of cells.
His company will give the bag a little direction.

Cell Targeting is developing technology that can point stem cell therapies to specific areas of the body. Among the many challenges in cell therapy is direction: not enough of the stem cells are getting to the tissues that needs treatment (…)

Currently a stem cell therapy can help different parts of the body. That attracts more customers, but doesn’t do much when the company wants to differentiate its product and charge a different price.

A stem cell therapy tweaked by Cell Targeting can become unique because it can be directed to different areas of the body to treat different afflictions, Wagner said.

“We make them distinct by our delivery,” Wagner said. “We have the ability to make those bags of cells into unique cell-therapy products.”

Cell Targeting’s product is a peptide, a tiny piece of protein, that coats stem cells and guides them to damaged tissue. The coating peels away like paint after it gets to its target and allows the therapy to do its work (…)

But Cell Targeting’s biggest competitor may be science itself and the research underway to better understand how stem cells work. It’s likely that stem cells on their own can find their way “home” to specific tissues, Gerson said.

“We just don’t know what those Velcro connections are,” Gerson said.

Wagner said the idea that stem cells head home is a bit of “voodoo.” Only a single-digit percentage of cells return to their point of origin — and there’s no evidence they return in a larger percentage to damaged tissues, he said. Also, Wagner pointed out that in many cases, cell therapy companies don’t want stem cells to go “home” but instead to another tissue that the stem cell can also heal (…)

from http://www.medcitynews.com/index.php/2009/09/cell-targeting-ready-to-bring-purpose-to-stem-cell-therapy/

Embryonic stem cells (ESC) can survive even when inserted into chains of polymers, in a process in which they are “weaved” into artificial and flexible tissues able to adapt to various types of transplants. In an innovative technique, stem cells could be used in the future to produce artificial organs, say researchers at University College London.

The technique was described in a study, published in Integrative Biology. It implements other research to shape living cells into engineered tissues, including a technique which would print a live tissue using an ink printer, which would substitute normal ink with a biological ink made up of cells.

This technique has already underwent various changes to minimize damage to biological tissue. With this technology it has been possible to ‘weave’ a network of threads containing live brain cells. In this new research, Suwan Jayasinghe and her colleagues have demonstrated that this is possible with a similar technique, to create embryonic stem cell ‘threads’.

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