Category Archives: Stem Cell Human Trials

Diabetics may only need one injection a year Experts believe the new technique will make it possible to treat patients with an annual injection of insulin. The new research, published in the leading Journal of Molecular Therapy Nucleic Acids last week, involves engineering blood stem cells into insulin-secreting cells. Experts at London's Imperial College, led by Professor Nagy Habib, and scientists at Hammersmith Hospital are now planning human trials of the new treatment after success in laboratory studies. Dr Paul Mintz, a leading stem cell researcher at Imperial College, who is part of the team pioneering the research, said: "This is a fantastic breakthrough that we hope will end the burden of daily jabs for diabetics." He added: "The beauty of this treatment is that we manipulate the patient's own stem cells, avoiding the complication of giving them something foreign which their body will reject." This is a fantastic breakthrough that we hope will end the burden of daily jabs for diabetics. Dr Paul Mintz, a leading stem cell researcher at Imperial College In diabetes the pancreas fails to make any insulin which crucially controls blood sugar levels or it doesn't make enough. In laboratory studies the researchers have been … Continue reading →

Season 6 of HBOs vampire drama True Blood premieres on Sunday night, presumably following up on last years cliffhanger where the factory that produces Tru-Blood the bottled synthetic blood that allows vampires go vegetarian was burned to the ground, destroying the product that made it possible for vampires to non-violently co-exist with people. But out here in the real world, the future of synthetic blood is just beginning. After decades of global research, controversies, and failed approval petitions, the UKs Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency finally gave researchers at the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine the go-ahead late last month to start developing synthetic blood with adult stem cells. The license allows the researchers to use already-recognized stem cell technology to create a compound that would both eliminate the risk of infusion-transmitted infections and supplement (if not eventually take the place of) chronically limited blood banks worldwide. After years of partial synthetic successes at best, it will permit the first-ever human clinical trials of synthetic blood. Oh, also? The license permits blood manufacturing on an industrial scale. Cue the True Blood overture (albeit sans vampires). And according to Ruha Benjamin, a sociologist at Boston University, the arrival of synthetic … Continue reading →

New York, NY (PRWEB) June 13, 2013 By transferring four genes into mouse fibroblast cells, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have produced cells that resemble hematopoietic stem cells, which produce millions of new blood cells in the human body every day. These findings provide a platform for future development of patient-specific stem/progenitor cells, and more differentiated blood products, for cell-replacement therapy. The study, titled, Induction of a Hemogenic Program in Mouse Fibroblasts, was published online in CELL STEM CELL on June 13. Mount Sinai researchers screened a panel of 18 genetic factors for inducing blood-forming activity and identified a combination of four transcription factors, Gata2, Gfi1b, cFos, and Etv6 as sufficient to generate blood vessel precursor cells with the subsequent appearance of hematopoietic cells. The precursor cells express a human CD34 reporter, Sca1 and Prominin1 within a global endothelial transcription program. The cells that we grew in a petri dish are identical in gene expression to those found in the mouse embryo and could eventually generate colonies of mature blood cells, said the first author of the study, Carlos Filipe Pereira, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow of Developmental and Regenerative Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine. … Continue reading →

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BioTime, Inc. (NYSE MKT:BTX) today announced that Henry L. Nordhoff, former CEO and Chairman of Gen-Probe Inc., has been appointed to its Board of Directors. We are pleased to welcome an accomplished healthcare executive of Hank's caliber to BioTime's board, said Alfred D. Kingsley, Chairman of the Board of BioTime. Hank's 43 years of experience in the pharmaceutical business, including most recently his leadership role in managing impressive growth at Gen-Probe over a 15-year period should prove valuable as BioTime continues to pursue multiple growth opportunities. BioTime is a leading company in the emerging field of Regenerative Medicine, said Mr. Nordhoff. I am pleased to be joining BioTime at this important juncture, as the company moves towards translating a magnificent array of technologies into products, and then introducing those products into the marketplace to alleviate suffering and cure diseases. Mr. Nordhoff is the former CEO and Chairman of Gen-Probe, Inc., a leading molecular diagnostics company which was acquired in 2012 in an all-cash transaction that valued the company at $3.72 billion. Under Mr. Nordhoff's leadership, Gen-Probe introduced numerous innovative diagnostic products to test for a host of infectious disease-causing viruses and bacteria, screening products to help identify … Continue reading →

SANTA MONICA, Calif., June 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --Leonhardt Ventures and CORE Manufacturing, LLC, are pleased to announce a new partnership. Leonhardt Ventures has partnered with CORE Manufacturing to manufacture and bring to market a lineup of breakthrough medical technologies, including: CORE Manufacturing is a relatively new entity in a long-standing active implantable device cGMP manufacturing facility. While the entity is new, the CORE Manufacturing team has active implantable device development and manufacturing experience dating back to the 1970s. Under the new agreement, CORE Manufacturing will provide world-class manufacturing services for active implantable devices on behalf of Leonhardt Ventures' portfolio of companies and developments. CORE Manufacturing is a unique resource for OEMs looking for commercialization of complex medical devices, with capabilities that include rapid-turn prototyping and full turnkey device-level assembly, sterilization and testing, specializing in active implantable devices. The combination of CORE Manufacturing's world-class assembly and test capability with CIRTEC's advanced active implant design, development and pilot manufacturing enables Leonhardt Ventures' portfolio companies to leverage the most sophisticated, single-stop outsource solution for bringing their active implantable devices to market safely, without the enormous expense and risk of developing this capability internally. "We have long admired the team at CORE Manufacturing, as … Continue reading →

NEWARK, Calif., June 10, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- StemCells, Inc. (STEM) today announced key hires to strengthen its product development capabilities and announced the creation of a new corporate function responsible for establishing scientific and strategic alliances and for building on the Company's existing stem cell technology platform. Eliseo Salinas, M.D., has joined the Company as Executive Vice President and Head of Research and Development, and will be responsible for the Company's research, product development and clinical translation activities. Dr. Salinas will report to Martin McGlynn, President and CEO of the Company. Ann Tsukamoto, Ph.D., who has most recently served as the Company's Executive Vice President of Research and Development, will assume the new role of Executive Vice President, Scientific and Strategic Alliances, responsible for developing the Company's alliances with research institutions, corporations, government agencies and disease foundations. Dr. Tsukamoto will continue to report to Mr. McGlynn. The Company also announced that Nicki Vasquez, Ph.D., has joined the Company as Vice President of Program and Portfolio Management, and Allyson Gage, Ph.D., has joined as Senior Director of Clinical Development. "The Company's clinical trials have so far been single-arm open-label studies, involving a small number of patients and conducted at one … Continue reading →

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BioTime, Inc. (NYSE MKT:BTX) today announced that it has closed the equity financing it announced on June 3, 2013 and received gross proceeds of $9,057,966. BioTime intends to use the net proceeds from the sale of its common shares and warrants for working capital and other general corporate purposes, and may invest a portion of the proceeds in one or more of its subsidiaries, including funding of the expansion of the LifeMap Sciences, Inc. product development and research programs. The common shares and warrants, and the shares issuable upon exercise of the warrants, were sold pursuant to a prospectus supplement dated as of June 3, 2013, which has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in connection with a takedown from the Companys shelf registration statement on Form S-3 (File No. 333-183557), which became effective on September 7, 2012, and the base prospectus dated September 7, 2012. Copies of the prospectus supplement, together with the accompanying prospectus, can be obtained at the SECs website at http://www.sec.gov. About BioTime, Inc. BioTime, headquartered in Alameda, California, is a biotechnology company focused on regenerative medicine and blood plasma volume expanders. Its broad platform of stem cell technologies is … Continue reading →

Posted Friday, June 07, 2013-9:45 am Researchers from UCLAs Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology have isolated a new population of primitive, stress-resistant human pluripotent stem cells easily derived from fat tissue able to differentiate into virtually every cell type in the human body without genetic modification. The cells, called Multi-lineage Stress-Enduring (Muse-AT) stem cells from fat, or adipose, tissue, were discovered by scientific accident when a piece of equipment failed in the lab, killing all the stem cells in the experiment except for the Muse-AT ones. The research team further discovered that not only are Muse-AT cells able to survive severe stress, they may even be activated by it, said study senior author Gregorio Chazenbalk, an associate researcher with UCLA Obstetrics and Gynecology. These pluripotent cells, isolated from fat tissue removed during liposuction, expressed many embryonic stem cell markers and were able to differentiate into muscle, bone, fat, cardiac, neuronal and liver cells. An examination of genetic characteristics confirmed their specialized functions, as well as a capacity to regenerate tissue when transplanted back into the body following their awakening. This population of cells lies dormant in the fat tissue until subjected to very harsh conditions. These cells can survive in … Continue reading →

A donor egg is held by a pipette prior to nuclear extraction. Scientists have found a new source of potentially useful stem cells in liposuctioned fat tissue. The stem cells discovered in adipose, or fat tissue, are considered "pluripotent," meaning they can be differentiated into essentially any type of body cell, making them potentially useful for a variety of medical uses. Researchers believe that pluripotent stem cells will be used to treat neurological disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Diseases. Until the most recent discovery, made by University of CaliforniaLos Angeles researcher Gregorio Chazenbalk and described in the journal PLOS ONE, the two main types of pluripotent stem cells were embryonic and induced pluripotent cells, which are made by re-engineering skin cells. Several years ago, scientists discovered stem cells in fat tissue that could not be differentiated into other types of cells. According to Chazenbalk, the newly-discovered pluripotent stem cells that exist in fat tissue are known as Muse-AT cells and are particularly stress-resistant, meaning they would be useful for treating traumatic injuries. [READ: Stem Cell Therapy Cures Type 1 Diabetes in Mice] "This population of cells lies dormant in the fat tissue until it is subjected to very harsh … Continue reading →

NEWARK, Calif., June 3, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- StemCells, Inc. (STEM) today announced that Health Canada has authorized the Company to expand its Phase I/II clinical trial for chronic spinal cord injury into Canada. The Phase I/II trial, currently underway in Zurich, Switzerland, is designed to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of the Company's proprietary HuCNS-SC(R) product candidate (purified human neural stem cells) as a treatment for chronic spinal cord injury. With this authorization from Health Canada, the Company is actively working to open one or more trial sites in Canada and begin screening patients. "This should be very welcome news for spinal cord injury patients in North America," said Stephen Huhn, MD, FACS, FAAP, Vice President and Head of the CNS Program at StemCells, Inc. "One of the patients in our trial is a Canadian and he endured some challenging logistics to get to and from Switzerland. The addition of sites located in North America will significantly ease the burden on Canada- and US-based patients and their families who may wish to participate in our trial. "In addition, given the excellent safety profile and encouraging results seen to date in the three patients with complete injury, we have … Continue reading →