“Latest Stem Cells News”

A biodegradable tissue to repair hearts after a heart attacks or to cure congenital malformations. A tissue that acts like a porous, accordion-like medium onto which cardiac stem cells are ‘implanted’ has been created by scientists from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston (MIT). This “bioscaffolding” integrates perfectly with cardiac tissue and creates a biological “band-aid” that is slowly reabsorbed and repairs cardiac muscle.

Compared to similar previous attempts, explained George Engelmayr in “Nature Materials” magazine, the advantage of the “bioscaffolding” is that it faithfully mirrors cardiac tissue structurally and mechanically, and therefore integrates well with it. Cardiac cells all have a certain orientation that allows them to transmit an electrical impulse that makes the heart beat.

The experts, using a laser similar to the kind used to cure short-sightedness, constructed this tissue “scaffolding” and then “implanted” neonatal cardiac cells from mice into it. They then electrically stimulated the tissue just like in the heart, and the cells oriented in the same direction, just as they do in the human body. “We have followed nature’s lessons as closely as possible and have created tissue very similar to the body’s own tissue, and therefore something truly useful for future therapeutic applications.”

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Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, known for “miracle” surgeries, has completed a medically historic procedure where doctors used stem cells taken from the fat tissue of a 14-year-old boy and combined them with growth protein and donor tissue to grow viable cheek bones in the teen.

Brad Guilkey, 15, suffers from a rare kind of genetic disorder known as Treacher Collins Syndrome, where the bones and other tissues are prevented to develop in the face (…)

The medical team implanted cadaver bone into Brad’s face in May, and then they injected his own stem cells into the donor bone to fill in the gaps (…)

from http://www.efitnessnow.com/news/2009/10/13/doctors-use-stem-cells-to-grow-bone-in-boys-cheek/

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Ning Zhang, PhD

An injectable hydrogel could aid recovery from brain injury by helping stimulate tissue growth at the site of the wound, researchers say.
Research on rats suggests the gel, made from synthetic and natural sources, may spur growth of stem cells in the brain (…)

Researchers say the advantage of the new gel, which is injected into the injury in liquid form, is that it can be loaded with different chemicals to stimulate various biological processes.

First, Dr Zhang used it to help re-establish a full blood supply at the site of a brain injury in rats, potentially providing a much more friendly environment for donor cells to thrive.
Then, in follow-up work, she loaded it with immature human stem cells and the chemicals they need to develop into fully fledged adult brain cells (…)

from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8233209.stm

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All those who have suffered ligament damage could benefit from artificial ligaments built biologically. But, experimentation on artificial ligaments, which could come from stem cells and naturally replace damaged tissue, will not continue. Speaking about the issue was Luigi Ambrosio, one of the researchers of the Institute of Technology of Composite Material of the National Research Council (CNR) in Naples, who contributed to the realization of this biological ligament. Two solutions were proposed by the Neapolitan laboratory.

One solution was to build a biodegradable structure out of hyaluronic acid, one of the components of ligament tissue that repairs or replaces the damaged parts of the ligament. The more efficient result was obtained by building an artificial ligament from adult stem cells, which grow and differentiate into tissue. Despite the good results obtained in animals in lab experiments, human experiments will not be done due to a lack of funds, even if the solution proposed by the CNR in Naples could help maintain a good physical condition for a longer time.

The alternative today is to replace damaged ligaments with ligaments from other parts of the body or replacing the damaged tissue with artificial materials, mainly polymers that mimic their structure. However, these techniques, chosen mainly for athletes who must recover quickly, can create long-term problems. As Ambrosio said, “various structures, especially polymers, have been constructed, but none have given the results hoped for and have almost all been abandoned. The material developed by our laboratories,” concluded the researcher “could help people overcome problems with an important improvement in the quality of life and a reduction in costs for the patient”.

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