Category Archives: Cell Medicine

MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (ACT; OTCBB: ACTC), a leader in the field of regenerative medicine, announced today that the company is presenting at two upcoming conferences: the 2012 Bio International Convention and Clinical Outlooks for Regenerative Medicine meeting, both in Boston, on Tuesday, June 19. The presentations will cover the companys three ongoing clinical trials using human embryonic stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelial cells to treat macular degeneration, and other programs. Gary Rabin, chairman and CEO, will present at the 2012 Bio International Convention on Tuesday, June 19 at 8:15 a.m. EDT, at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. Matthew Vincent, Ph.D., director of business development, will present at the Clinical Outlooks for Regenerative Medicine meeting at 9:15 a.m. EDT on the same date, at the Starr Center, Schepens Eye Research Institute, at 185 Cambridge Street in Boston. Both presentation slide decks will be available on the conference presentations section of the ACT website. About Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., is a biotechnology company applying cellular technology in the field of regenerative medicine. For more information, visit http://www.advancedcell.com. Forward-Looking Statements Statements in this news release regarding future financial and operating results, future growth in … Continue reading →

CHILLY-MAZARIN, France, June 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- InGen BioSciences, specialised in the development and commercialisation of mono and multiparametric in vitro diagnostic tests announced a new exclusive partnership with Cylex Incorporated (Columbia, Maryland, US), a global life sciences company focused on in vitro diagnostic products intended to illuminate immunity. With this exclusive partnership with Cylex, InGen BioSciences will provide to the French medical community the only FDA-cleared, CE marked and IVDD compliant assay that detects changes in global immune function over time in patients undergoing immunosuppressive therapy for organ transplant: ImmuKnow. Organ transplantation is an effective therapy for end-stage organ failure and is widely practised around the world. Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation (GODT) 2010 data (produced by the WHO-ONT collaboration) report 106879 total solid organ transplants per year of which 73179 kidney transplants , 21 602 liver transplants and 5 582 heart transplants(1). Studies show that long-term use of immunosuppressants is associated with significant morbidity and mortality in transplant recipients and current monitoring systems of immunosuppression in those patients are typically focused on prevention of clinical toxicities of immunosuppressive drugs. Minimising the risk of infection and rejection in post-transplant patients is therefore crucial and challenging for clinicians.(2-5) Unfortunately, … Continue reading →

June 14, 2012, SEATTLE /PRNewswire/ -- Cell Therapeutics, Inc. ("CTI") (NASDAQ and MTA: CTIC), a company focused on translating science into novel cancer therapies, today announced that former OncoMed Pharmaceuticals executive, Steven E. Benner, M.D., M.H.S., has joined CTI as Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer ("CMO"), reporting to James A. Bianco, M.D., Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Benner will take over all drug development activities at the company.Dr. Benner was previously senior vice president and chief medical officer at OncoMed, a venture-backed biotechnology company focused on the development of cancer stem cell targeting agents. Prior to OncoMed, he was CMO at Protein Design Labs ("PDL"), where he was accountable for all development activities including clinical development, clinical operations, biometry, regulatory affairs, and safety. He also served as Chair of the Portfolio and Clinical Development Management Committees of PDL. Before PDL he held several senior executive roles at Bristol-Myers Squibb in global development, life cycle management, and licensing and alliances. "Dr. Benner brings to CTI his proven track record of success in advancing the development of innovative therapies for cancer patients," said Dr. Bianco. "His appointment is the first step in re-aligning our portfolio efforts, as we focus on advancing … Continue reading →

CALGARY , June 13, 2012 /CNW/ - Oncolytics Biotech Inc. ("Oncolytics") (TSX:ONC, NASDAQ:ONCY) announced today that a paper entitled "Cell Carriage, Delivery, and Selective Replication of an Oncolytic Virus in Tumor in Patients," has been published in the latest issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine (Vol. 4 Issue 138 138ra77). The paper covers findings from a U.K. translational clinical trial (REO 013) investigating intravenous administration of REOLYSIN in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer prior to surgical resection of liver metastases. The paper was jointly first-authored by researchers from the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Leeds , UK and The Institute of Cancer Research, London , UK. The trial was an open-label, non-randomized, single centre study of REOLYSIN given intravenously to patients for five consecutive days in advance of their scheduled operations to remove colorectal cancer metastasis in the liver. Ten patients were treated with intravenous REOLYSIN at 1x1010 TCID50, one to four weeks prior to planned surgery. After surgery, the tumor and surrounding liver tissue were assessed for viral status and anti-tumor effects. The researchers demonstrated that even though all the treated patients had preexisting immunity to the virus, intravenously administered reovirus could still specifically target and … Continue reading →

11-06-2012 20:40 Research & Compilation : by (Me) Nicholas Ellis @ "Everyone should consider his body as a priceless gift from one whom? he loves above all, a marvelous work of art, of indescribable beauty, and mystery? beyond human conception, and so delicate that a word,?? a breath, a look, nay, a thought may injure it."- Nikola Tesla "A human being is a microcosmos, ie the laws prevailing in the cosmos also operate in the minutest space of the human being."- Viktor Schauberger Note: fMRI's / Cardiopulmonary Capillary Hemo Dynamics, and its relationship with Magnetoencephalography Note: Cold-Core Eddy Current vs Warm-Core Eddy Current and its relationship with Thermohaline Circulation Systems "Electricians are now admitting that, in electric currents the energy does not flow through, or along the wire, itself; but is actually transmitted by the ether vibrations outside of the wire,"-John Keely Most people know that nerves work by passing electrical currents from cell to cell. But you might be surprised to learn that no one knows exactly how anesthetics stop nerves from carrying pain signals. That's why two scientists believe that we really don't know how nerves work after all. According to their controversial theory, electricity is just a … Continue reading →

PHILADELPHIA A study published this week in Cancer Cell from the Perelman School of Medicine and the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania describes how pancreatic cancer cells produce a protein that attracts immune cells and tricks them into helping cancer cells grow. Blocking the protein may be also prove to be a new way to treat pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly types of cancer, mostly due to its aggressiveness and its ability to suppress the cancer-fighting properties of the immune system. Most pancreatic cancer cells contain a mutation in the KRAS gene. The Penn team looked to see how mutated KRAS proteins give pancreatic cancer its distinguishing properties. A group from New York University School of Medicine led by Dafna Bar-Sagi took a complementary approach and reported its findings in another manuscript also published this week in Cancer Cell. "Both our group and the group from NYU have discovered a critical way in which pancreatic tumor cells cripple the immune system. From very early on, tumor cells produce a molecule that drives inflammatory cells to cloak the tumor and prevent other immune cells from killing the cancer," says Penn's senior author Robert … Continue reading →

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Advanced BioScience Laboratories, Inc. (ABL) will perform process development and cGMP manufacturing of recombinant scuPA, an enzyme therapy candidate for patients with pleural loculation or scarring surrounding the lung. scuPA reverses a defect in clot clearance that characterizes pleural loculation. The program is led by Dr. Steven Idell of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler. ABL will develop the production cell line and manufacturing process followed by scale-up and manufacture of toxicology and cGMP clinical materials. The materials produced at ABL will be used to support an IND, and will be used in clinical trial testing. This project is being funded in whole with federal support from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), under the Science Moving TowArds Research Translation and Therapy (SMARTT) program (Contract No. HHSN268201100014C). ABL is the biologics production facility for the five-year SMARTT program. The program is designed to fill product development gaps to propel clinic-ready products. SMARTT consists of the biologics production facility at ABL, a production facility for non-biologics and small molecules, a pharmacology/toxicology center, and a coordinating center. … Continue reading →

Ethical, Clinical and Commercial Issues to be Navigated before Full Potential of Stem Cell Therapies can be Unleashed LONDON, June 13, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Stem cells offer exciting potential in regenerative medicine, and are likely to be widely used by mid-2017. Pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies are showing increased interest in stem cell research. New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.pharma.frost.com), Analysis of the Stem Cell Markets-Unlocking the New Era in Therapeutics, finds that the market will be driven by stem cell applications in drug discovery platforms and by successful academia commercial company partnership models. "The high attrition rates of potential drug candidates has piqued the interest of pharmaceutical and biotech industries in stem cell use during the drug discovery phase," notes Frost & Sullivan Consulting Analyst Vinod Jyothikumar. "Previously, animal cell lines, tumours, or genetic transformation have been the traditional platform for testing drug candidates; however, these 'abnormal' cells have significantly contributed to a lack of translation into clinical studies." Many academic institutes and research centres are collaborating with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in stem cell research. This will provide impetus to the emergence of novel cell-based therapies. Key challenges to market development relate to reimbursement, ethics and … Continue reading →

Ethical, Clinical and Commercial Issues to be Navigated before Full Potential of Stem Cell Therapies can be Unleashed LONDON, June 13, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Stem cells offer exciting potential in regenerative medicine, and are likely to be widely used by mid-2017. Pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies are showing increased interest in stem cell research. New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.pharma.frost.com), Analysis of the Stem Cell Markets-Unlocking the New Era in Therapeutics, finds that the market will be driven by stem cell applications in drug discovery platforms and by successful academia commercial company partnership models. "The high attrition rates of potential drug candidates has piqued the interest of pharmaceutical and biotech industries in stem cell use during the drug discovery phase," notes Frost & Sullivan Consulting Analyst Vinod Jyothikumar. "Previously, animal cell lines, tumours, or genetic transformation have been the traditional platform for testing drug candidates; however, these 'abnormal' cells have significantly contributed to a lack of translation into clinical studies." Many academic institutes and research centres are collaborating with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in stem cell research. This will provide impetus to the emergence of novel cell-based therapies. Key challenges to market development relate to reimbursement, ethics and … Continue reading →

13 June 2012 Last updated at 08:31 ET Japanese stem cell scientist Dr Shinya Yamanaka has been awarded the Millennium Technology Prize. His award is for discovering how to reprogram human cells to mimic embryonic stem cells, which can become any cell in the body. Called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, these now aid research into regenerative medicine. He was joint-winner with Linus Torvalds, who created a new open source operating system for computers. This is the first time the prize has been shared by two scientists - they will split the 1.2m euros ($1.3m; 800,000) award. My goals over the decade include to develop new drugs to treat intractable diseases by using iPS cell technology and to conduct clinical trials using it on a few patients with Parkinson's diseases, diabetes or blood diseases. The President of the Republic of Finland, Sauli Niinisto, presented the prize at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki. Dr Ainomija Haarla, President of Technology Academy Finland - the foundation which awards the prize every two years - said: "The International Selection Committee has to judge whether an innovation has had a favourable impact on people's lives and assess its potential for further development to benefit … Continue reading →