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 the dosing of the third patient in its Phase I/II trial for dry age-related macular degeneration (dry AMD) using retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). The outpatient transplantation surgery was performed successfully, and the patient is recovering uneventfully. Gary Rabin, chairman and CEO of ACT, commented, The completion of enrollment of the first cohort of patients in our dry AMD clinical trial is a significant step forward in our RPE clinical program. The first six patients in the U.S. trials have all been treated at UCLA, and as we have recently announced, the trials should soon expand to additional sites. As we have built our clinical team, we have been fortunate to have attracted the attention of some of the highest-caliber ophthalmologists and related institutions in the U.S. and Europe and recognize the huge value that their expertise provides us as we plan for the future of our therapeutic programs. With their guidance, we have also worked with the FDA to successfully expand the criteria of eligibility for patients to participate in our dry … Continue reading →

By Serena Gordon HealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, April 5 (HealthDay News) -- Developing stem cell lines that don't have cells that potentially grow into tumors has been one of the biggest challenges for stem cell therapies. But researchers from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have generated a new line of stem cells that may solve that problem, at least for stem cells destined for the digestive system or possibly the lungs. "The most significant use short-term will be for disease modeling. We've had to rely on mouse models, but we're different than mice. A model with human cells could be very powerful," said the study's senior author, Paul Gadue, an assistant professor in the department of pathology and laboratory medicine at the hospital's Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics. In the far future, he added, these stem cells could potentially be used as therapies for diseases such as diabetes or liver disease. For the current research, the scientists used embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are derived from human embryos, often unused embryos from fertility treatments that are donated for research. Induced pluripotent stem cells are genetically engineered from other human cells, such as skin cells … Continue reading →

California's $3 billion stem cell agency, now more than 7 years old, has joined research partnerships with science and health agencies in eight foreign countries, the San Francisco institute announced. The agreements call for collaboration in efforts aimed at speeding stem cell research from the laboratory to the hospital, where researchers hope that basic human cells will be programmed to treat scores of human degenerative diseases. Research partnerships between American and foreign stem cell scientists are encouraged, but the California institute's funds would only be spent within the state, institute officials said. Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, signed agreements with stem cell funding agencies in Brazil and Argentina last week, he said Thursday. "Both Brazil and Argentina have strong and robust stem cell research communities in basic science and transitional clinical science, which should create exciting synergies with many scientists in California," Trounson said in a statement. He has signed similar pacts with stem cell agencies in Canada, Britain, France, Spain, Australia, Japan, China and Indiana. The California institute was created in 2004 after Proposition 71, a $3 billion bond issue, was approved by California voters at a time when use of federal funds was … Continue reading →

PHILADELPHIA Rajan Jain, MD, cardiovascular fellow, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, has been honored with an American Medical Association (AMA) 2012 Seed Grant Research Program award for his promising research into congenital heart disease. "I'm very excited to have received this grant," said Dr. Jain. "Congenital heart disease is among the most prevalent congenital abnormalities, but surprisingly, we know very little about how the various abnormalities occur. We hope to continue to understand the fundamentals of cardiac development and to eventually provide novel avenues of diagnostics and therapeutics for patients with congenital heart disease." Dr. Jain, working under the guidance Jonathan A. Epstein, MD, scientific director of the Penn Cardiovascular Institute and chair, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, William Wikoff Smith Professor of Cardiovascular Research, Perelman School of Medicine, is interested specifically in how the aortic valve and aorta are formed, and how this process goes wrong in patients with congenital heart disease. Dr. Jain is one of 43 junior investigators nationwide awarded a grant by this initiative for basic science or clinical research projects in the areas of cardiovascular/pulmonary diseases, HIV/AIDS, neoplastic diseases and pancreatic cancer. The AMA's grant research program supports grant-writing and research skills in … Continue reading →

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At the American Association for Cancer Research 2012 Annual Meeting (Booth #2306), PerkinElmer, Inc., a global leader focused on improving the health and safety of people and the environment, today announced that it will be showcasing numerous solutions, posters and knowledge-sharing events in support of cancer-focused personalized medicine research. "PerkinElmer remains committed to the fight against cancer through enabling personalized medicine solutions that allow researchers to find, understand, and act upon the causes and processes of the disease, said Kevin Hrusovsky, President, Life Sciences & Technology, PerkinElmer. We are passionate about helping academic, biopharma and clinical researchers to achieve new insights for discovering advanced therapeutics and diagnostics to reduce the threat of cancer. Our solutions in Next Generation Sequencing, advanced cellular, in vitro and in vivo imaging, automation instrumentation, and reagent technologies, provide researchers the critical tools they need to combat this deadly disease." On the evening of Tuesday, April 3, PerkinElmer will be hosting an event, entitled "The Revolutionizing Medicine Rock 'n' Roll Reception," featuring distinguished speakers who are committed to the fight against cancer, discussing how personalized medicine is changing research and treatment of the disease. The event will also feature performances by Molecular Groove, … Continue reading →

The Catholic Church has never had a particularly easy relationship with science. After all, this is the institution that sentenced Galileo Galilei as a heretic for his theories on the universe during the Roman Inquisition. Two thousand years later, the church forgave Galileo and called the whole misunderstanding a tragic mutual incomprehension but it remains safe to say the Vatican doesnt have a great track record when it comes to empirical open-mindedness. So onlookers were surprised when the Vatican announced it would be hosting a global conference on the highly controversial issue of stem-cell research in Rome over four days in late April. The church held a similar conference in 2010 and 2011, which focused on its recommendation that stem-cell research should be limited to adult cells that can be harvested from live donors, not embryonic cells that destroy the source. But this years conference schedule featured some of the worlds foremost experts in embryonic research as keynote speakersleading some scientists to think that the Vatican might actually be looking for enlightenment on the topic. That was not exactly case. Instead, the Vatican seems to have hoped that by including embryonic researchers in the program, it would appear that these … Continue reading →

LOS ANGELES Blocking "don't destroy me" signals that normally sit on the surface of tumor cells and render them resistant to immune-cell attack slows the growth of a broad range of human cancers when they're implanted in mice, researchers have found. The approach, reported by immunologists at the Stanford University School of Medicine, was effective against ovarian, breast, colon, bladder, liver, prostate and brain cancer cells. If the work can be repeated in people, the approach may someday help doctors marshal defender cells in patients' own bodies to fight cancers, the researchers said. Key to the work is a cell protein called CD47, which is already being investigated in the treatment of leukemia. CD47 sits on cell membranes and communicates with various immune cells, including macrophages, which gobble up foreign invaders in the body. It plays an important role in the normal life cycle of healthy red blood cells, telling macrophages to leave the cells alone. In the study, the scientists injected the animals with antibodies that bind to CD47 and block out its protective signal. "If we can block this signal, we can get the immune system to eat (the cancer cells) up," said Stephen Willingham, a postdoctoral researcher … Continue reading →

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire -03/28/12)- Biotechnology stocks have been on an impressive run this year as favorable legislation out of Washington is allowing biotech companies of all sizes to more easily navigate regulations. Five Star Equities examines the outlook for companies in the Biotechnology industry and provides equity research on Advanced Cell Technology Inc. (OTC.BB: ACTC.OB - News) and PharmAthene Inc. (AMEX: PIP - News). Access to the full company reports can be found at: http://www.fivestarequities.com/ACTC http://www.fivestarequities.com/PIP The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) recently applauded the House Energy and Commerce Committee's passage of the Medicare Decisions Accountability Act, H.R. 452, which would repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) established in the health care reform law. BIO also issued a press release applauding the Senate on the passage of H.R. 3606, the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. The JOBS Act creates an "on-ramp" to the public market for emerging growth companies, allowing them five years to focus on conducting critical research that can lead to cures for debilitating diseases before having to divert funds to costly regulations, BIO reports. Five Star Equities releases regular market updates on the biotechnology industry so investors can stay ahead of the crowd and make the … Continue reading →

Foundation Medicine, Inc., a molecular information company that brings comprehensive cancer genomic analysis to routine clinical care, today announced that new data highlighting the companys next-generation sequencing approach in clinical oncology will be presented at the 103rd American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2012 being held March 31 through April 4 in Chicago. The presentations will highlight the technical feasibility and clinical relevance of the companys next-generation sequencing platform for oncology, which offers a fully informative genomic profile of the relevant alterations present in about 200 genes known to be somatically altered in human cancers. In these studies, the profile demonstrated concordance with existing commercial offerings and identified all classes of genomic alterations. In one study being presented, approximately 70 percent of cases were found to carry one or more actionable alterations, meaning the alteration could plausibly confer sensitivity or resistance to approved or experimental targeted therapies. The studies also identified more classes of alterations, including base pair mutations, insertions and deletions, copy number alterations and select gene fusions and rearrangements, than other commercially available molecular diagnostic tests. The data presented at AACR show that thebreadth and relevanceof Foundation Medicines genomic profile may offer important information for cancer … Continue reading →

In 2010, Hanyia Naqvi was working on a Yale School of Medicine project to study the effects of cell phone radiation on brain growth. The researchers taped old flip phones to the sides of cages with pregnant mice inside. The phones fascinated the mice, remembered Naqvi, a master's degree candidate at Southern Connecticut State University. "Some mice would just come and sit there," she said. Two years later, the data from the study, finally published, reveals that pregnant women should be wary of spending any unnecessary time with their phones. Hugh Taylor '83, one of the authors of the study, said his team exposed the unborn mice to radiation from phone signals constantly until their birth, a total of about 19 days. The pups later showed subtle but consistent differences in behavior, and samples of their brain tissue responded differently in electrical experiments. Taylor and the other authors stressed that their findings, published online in Scientific Reports on March 15, may not apply to humans. But as a simple precaution, Taylor suggested that pregnant women keep their phones away from their bodies as much as possible. This study adds to concern among scientists about a number of suspected health consequences … Continue reading →