Category Archives: Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Two scientists who discovered the developmental clock could be turned back in mature cells, transforming them into immature cells with the ability to become any tissue in the body pluripotent stem cells are being honored with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The Nobel Prize honoring Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka was announced today (Oct. 8) by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Th duo's work revealed what scientists had thought impossible. Just after conception, an embryo contains immature cells that can give rise to any cell type such as nerve, muscle and liver cells in the adult organism; these are called pluripotent stem cells, and scientists believed once these stem cells become specialized to carry out a specific body task there was no turning back. Gurdon, now at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, England, found this wasn't the case when in 1962 he replaced the nucleus of a frog's egg cell with the nucleus taken from a mature intestinal cell from a tadpole. And voila, the altered frog egg developed into a tadpole, suggesting the mature nucleus held the instructions needed to become all cells in the frog, as if it were a young unspecialized cell. … Continue reading →

The 2012 Nobel Prize for medicine has been awarded to stem cell researchers John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka of Britain and Japan. They take the first Nobel prize of the year, with a flurry to follow over the next week. Judges in Stockholm said on Monday that the medicine prize had been awarded to the researchers "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent," saying that this discovery had "revolutionized our understanding of how cells and organisms develop." Gurdon and Yamanaka are stem cell researchers who are seeking ways to obtain embryonic stem cells - a kind of genetic blank slate, cells that can be 'programmed' to take on many different forms and perform different functions - from the cells of an adult. Embryos themselves are another more controversial source of stem cells. "We are trying to find ways of obtaining embryo cells from the cells of an adult," Gurdon writes on his Gurdon Institute website. "The eventual aim is to provide replacement cells of all kinds starting from usually obtainable cells of an adult individual." The British scientist also said such a system was advantageous because the stem cells could be obtained from the patient … Continue reading →

Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and John Gurdon of Britain won the Nobel Prize on Monday for work in cell programming, a frontier that has nourished dreams of replacement tissue for people crippled by disease. The two scientists found that adult cells can be transformed back to an infant state called stem cells, the key ingredient in the vision of regenerative medicine. "Their findings have revolutionised our understanding of how cells and organisms develop," the Nobel jury declared. "By reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy." Among those who acclaimed the award were Britain's Royal Society, Ian Wilmut, "father" of Dolly the cloned sheep, and a leading ethicist, who said it eased a storm about the use of embryonic cells. Stem cells are precursor cells which differentiate into the various organs of the body. They have stirred huge excitement, with hopes that they can be coaxed into growing into replacement tissue for victims of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other diseases. Gurdon, 79, said he was grateful but also surprised by the honour, since his main research was done a half-century ago. In 1962, he discovered that the DNA code in the … Continue reading →

John Gurdon (left) and Shinya Yamanaka showed how to reprogram cells into their embryonic states. J. Player/Rex Features; Aflo/Rex Features The discovery that cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic-like state has won this years Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for two leading lights of stem-cell research: John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka. Reprogrammed cells regain pluripotency, the potential to differentiate into many mature cell types. Many researchers hope that cells created in this way will eventually be used in regenerative medicine, providing replacement tissue for damaged or diseased organs. The field has become one of the hottest in biology, but the prizewinners discoveries were not without controversy when they were made. Gurdon, who is based at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, UK, was the first person to demonstrate that cells could be reprogrammed, in work published 50years ago1. At the time, scientists believed that cellular specialization was a one-way process that could not be reversed. Gurdon overturned that dogma by removing the nucleus from a frog egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus from a tadpoles intestinal cell. Remarkably, the process was able to turn back the cellular clock of the substitute nucleus. Although it had already committed … Continue reading →

JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, to the 2012 Nobel Prizes. The first was awarded today for groundbreaking work in reprogramming cells in the body. Ray Suarez looks at those achievements. MAN: The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute has today decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine,2012 jointly to John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka. RAY SUAREZ: The two scientists are from two different generations and celebrated today's announcement half-a-world apart. But today they were celebrated together for their research that led to a groundbreaking understanding of how cells work. Sir John Gurdon of CambridgeUniversity was awarded for his work in 1962. He was able to use specialized cells of frogs, like skin or intestinal cells, to generate new tadpoles and show DNA could drive the formation of all cells in the body. Forty years later, Dr. Yamanaka built on that and went further. He was able to turn mature cells back into their earliest form as primitive cells. Those cells are in many ways the equivalent of embryonic stem cells, because they have the potential to develop into specialized cells for heart, liver and other organs. Dr. Shinya Yamanaka is currently working at KyotoUniversity. Embryonic stem cells have had … Continue reading →

SAN CARLOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Cellerant Therapeutics Inc., a biotechnology company developing novel hematopoietic stem cell-based cellular and antibody therapies for blood disorders and cancer, announced today that it has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 contract and a Phase 2 option from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) valued up to $1,683,503. The SBIR Contract funds the development of CLT-009, a first-in-class, human allogeneic Megakaryocyte Progenitor Cell therapy for the treatment of thrombocytopenia in cancer patients and allows the Company to conduct studies to enable an Investigational New Drug (IND) Application to be filed with the FDA in the next two years. Thrombocytopenia is characterized as a significant reduction in the concentration of circulating platelets. Platelets are crucial in the process of coagulation to stop bleeding, and thrombocytopenia can increase the risk of severe bleeding in patients. It is becoming an increasingly common problem among oncology patients and a significant dose-limiting toxicity, especially in the treatment of hematological malignancies. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy are the most common causes of thrombocytopenia because the platelet-producing cells, megakaryocytes, and their precursors are highly sensitive to myelosuppressive cytotoxics and ionizing radiation. Thrombocytopenia typically occurs during the initial cycles of high-dose chemotherapy … Continue reading →

A company with the first FDA-approved personalized cell therapy for reducing wrinkles has raised $45 million in a private stock sale. The financing was sought to improve manufacturing capacity for the therapy and advance other uses for it such as treating burn victims, according to a company statement. Fibrocell Sciences aesthetic therapeutic, Laviv, secured got the green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year. Laviv uses individuals fibroblast cells to reduce nasolabial fold wrinkles, creases on the face that start from the outer corners of the nose and go down to the corners of the mouth. It also has an acne therapy in phase 3 clinical trials and a burn scar therapy in phase 2 trials. The Exton, Pennsylvania biopharmaceutical companys personalized cell development platform technology isolates, purifies and multiplies a patients fibroblast cells, connective skin cells that make collagen. Additionally, Fibrocell agreed to a strategic collaboration with biotechnology firm Intrexon which can provide genome engineering, cell processing, and cell system engineering, among other services, to help advance Fibrocells personalized cell therapy program. As part of the financing deal, Third Security LLC will get two seats on Fibrocells board. Personalized stem cell development fits into the broader … Continue reading →

The 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for research into stem cells. "The Nobel Prize recognizes two scientists who discovered that mature, specialized cells can be reprogrammed to become immature cells capable of developing into all tissues of the body. Their findings have revolutionized our understanding of how cells and organisms develop," the Nobel Committee at the Karolinska Institute wrote in a statement on Monday. The Local asked the panel how the discovery affects debate about moral aspects of stem cell research. "We have a very open debate in science, the Nobel Committee does not participate so much in that, but we as individual scientists and physicians do, and regulations evolve according to a general consensus of what is acceptable in society," said Anna Wedell, professor and researcher at the Karolinksa Institute. "Every great discovery in biology that has applications in humans needs to be discussed and that is being done. We try to contribute to the best of our knowledge." Gurdon discovered in 1962 that the specialization of cells is reversible. He replaced the immature cell nucleus in an egg cell of a frog with the nucleus from … Continue reading →

8 October 2012 Last updated at 06:08 ET Two pioneers of stem cell research have shared the Nobel prize for medicine or physiology. John Gurdon from the UK and Shinya Yamanaka from Japan were awarded the prize for transforming specialised cells into stem cells, which can become any other type of cell in the body. Prof Gurdon used a gut sample to clone frogs and Prof Yamanaka altered genes to reprogramme cells. The Nobel committe said they had "revolutionised" science. In 1962, John Gurdon took the genetic information from a cell in the intestines of a frog and placed it inside a frog egg, which developed into a normal tadpole. Shinya Yamanaka showed that specialised mouse cells could be reprogrammed to become stem cells by intoducing four genes. The resulting stem cells could then be converted to other types of cell. The Nobel committee said the discovery had "revolutionized our understanding of how cells and organisms develop". Here is the original post: Stem cell experts win Nobel prize … Continue reading →

Hopes of a cure for infertility in humans were raised Friday after Japanese stem cell researchers announced they had created viable eggs using normal cells from adult mice. The breakthrough raises the possibility that women who are unable to produce eggs naturally could have them created in a test tube from their own cells and then planted back into their body. A team at Kyoto University harvested stem cells from mice and altered a number of genes to create cells very similar to the primordial germ cells that generate sperm in men and oocytes -- or eggs -- in women. They then nurtured these with cells that would become ovaries and transplanted the mixture into living mice, where the cells matured into fully-grown oocytes. They extracted the matured oocytes, fertilised them in vitro -- in a test tube -- and implanted them into surrogate mother mice. The resulting mice pups were born healthy and were even able to reproduce once they matured. Writing in the US journal Science, which published the findings, research leader professor Michinori Saito said the work provided a promising basis for hope in reproductive medicine. "Our system serves as a robust foundation to investigate and further … Continue reading →