Category Archives: Stem Cell Human Trials

BOSTON - What's the secret to youth? Some say it's in your genes, but Harvard University stem cell researcher Amy Wagers says it may be in the blood. "There's this sort of long term communication that's happening through a number of different substances that are traveling in the blood and are sort of telling different parts of the body how old you are," Wagers said. Her team's research builds on a decade of studies showing young blood has anti-aging effects on older mice, utilizing a technique dating back 150 years. "It's called parabiosis and it involves basically conjoining the circulatory systems of two animals kind of like you would imagine Siamese twins," Wagers explained. Research shows the young blood rejuvenates the heart muscle and brain activity of older mice. "It appears not just to be a slowing of the accumulation of changes that occur with age, but an actual reversal of those changes," Wagers said. Now, Wagers' team believes a protein in the blood could be responsible for the effects known as growth differentiation factor eleven or GDF11. "We can add back this protein into animals that have already aged and restore function to them," Wagers said. Wagers is hoping … Continue reading →

Durham, NC (PRWEB) February 27, 2015 Several studies showing the promise of stem cells for treating patients with heart failure have made headline news recently. However, all these studies dealt with adult patients only. New research appearing in this months STEM CELLS Translational Medicine shows that stem cells may have the same potential in treating children with congenital heart diseases that can lead to heart failure. The study, undertaken by researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., looked at the feasibility and long-term safety of injecting autologous umbilical cord blood cells directly into the heart muscle at the pediatric stage of heart development. The study was conducted on pigs, due to their hearts similarity to human hearts. The team injected the stem cells directly into the right ventricle of groups of three- and four-week old healthy piglets, and then compared the results to a control group that did not receive any cells. Over the next three months, the animals were monitored to assess cardiac performance and rhythm to determine how safe the procedure would be for humans. During this follow-up period, we found no significant acute or chronic cardiac injury pattern caused by the injections directly into the heart, … Continue reading →

An industry-academic research collaboration yields a new strategy for delivering stem cells to the right location IMAGE:Researchers identified a small molecule that can be used to program mesenchymal stem cells (blue and green) to home in on sites of damage. view more Credit: Oren Levy, Brigham and Women's Hospital Bioengineers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) with collaborators at the pharmaceutical company Sanofi have identified small molecules that can be used to program stem cells to home in on sites of damage, disease and inflammation. The techniques used to find and test these small molecules may represent important tools in advancing cell-based therapy, offering a new strategy for delivering cells to the right locations in the body. The results of their work appear online this week in Cell Reports. Through a collaborative research project, the research team tested more than 9,000 compounds, and used a multi-step approach - including a sophisticated microfluidics set up and novel imaging technique - to narrow in on and test the most promising compounds. "There are all kinds of techniques and tools that can be used to manipulate cells outside of the body and get them to do almost anything we want, but once we … Continue reading →

Boston, MA (PRWEB) February 19, 2015 The actual problem with adult stem cell toxicity detection is not a matter of being unable to identify toxic drug candidates. Instead, the problem is identifying them too late in the drug development process, after large expenditures in failed pre-clinical animal testing and clinical trials have occurred. Adult stem cell toxicity shows up as organ and tissue failure. Because of the crucial role of adult stem cells in maintaining, renewing, and repairing human tissues and organs, drug candidates that attack adult stem cells induce intolerable toxicities. In some cases, catastrophic adult stem cell toxicities may not emerge until drugs have reached the marketplace either because of requiring more chronic dosing or because of being limited to susceptible subgroups of patients. Predictive Toxicology Summits have a mission of exchanging ideas and information that might lead to better tools for predicting the safety of new drug candidates earlier and at reduced cost. Of the estimated $50 billion the U.S. drug industry spends to bring 20-30 new drugs to market each year, about 20% of all the expense (est. $10 billion) is due to animal testing and clinical trials of compounds that fail because of unacceptable toxicity. … Continue reading →

Editors note: Upon request, some individuals interviewed for this article have been identified by first name only. _______________ The Statement is The Michigan Daily's weekly news magazine, distributed every Wednesday during the academic year. It is exciting for me to think that this tiny group of cells could be the seed to help people suffering with diseases in the future, Patricia said. In the Medical Science Building at the Universitys Medical School, I looked through a microscope at a 35-millimeter petri dish and saw microscopic organisms that could apparently one day provide treatments for a host of debilitating genetic diseases. These microscopic organisms are called human embryonic stem cell colonies. The room is the Universitys MStem Cell Laboratories, which develops human embryonic stem cell lines from disease-affected embryos. Last month The Michigan Daily reported on one such stem cell line developed from an embryo that had been donated by a University alumna. But as the University looks to grow such efforts, it remains unclear how the current political landscape might alter the path of such research. *** The difficulty in studying genetic diseases is observing how they begin and how they grow. Without access to the formation of the cells, … Continue reading →

Ted Horowitz/Corbis Three-person in vitro fertilization prevents women from passing on potentially harmful mutations in mitochondrial DNA. Following a 3 February vote in the UKHouse of Commons, the world may once again look to Britain to lead in fertility treatments, 37years after in vitro fertilization (IVF) was pioneered in the country. The vote lifts a ban on gene-altering fertilization techniques known as mitochondrial replacement, or three-person IVF, in which mitochondria the cells energy-processing structures from a donors egg cell contribute to a couples embryo. The procedures are intended to prevent the transmission of diseases caused by mutations in mitochondrial DNA. The vote, won by 382 in favour versus 128against, will still need to be confirmed by the House of Lords, which is widely expected to pass the law. Once approved, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), Britains fertility regulator, will be allowed to license clinics to carry out the procedures from October, although it could be some time before the first human trials begin. Many reproductive biologists see this as a step that will affect the field on a global scale. Weve been hoping that the UK will take the lead, says Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a stem-cell scientist at Oregon … Continue reading →

Published 04 February 2015 International Stem Cell, a California-based biotechnology company developing novel stem cell-based therapies and biomedical products, announced that the company has completed manufacturing of the cell bank of clinical-grade human neural stem cells using its patented process for the recently announced phase 1/2a clinical trial in Parkinson's disease. The cell bank contains over 2.6 billion human cells, sufficient to meet the company's foreseeable clinical trial requirements. "Completing the production of clinical-grade cells using the previously published protocol is one of the final steps before starting our clinical program," said Ruslan Semechkin, Ph.D., ISCO's Chief Scientific Officer. "Because of the complexity involved in manufacturing live human cell products, having our own GMP facility is not only a strategic advantage, but also allows us to control the production costs. We continue to anticipate, subject to regulatory agency approval, beginning the clinical trial in early 2015 and will provide a further update in the near future." ISCO's master cell bank of human parthenogenetic neural stem cells (ISC-hpNSC) is produced in compliance with current good manufacturing practices (cGMPs) and the chemistry and manufacturing controls (CMC) discussed in the previously reported pre-IND meeting with the FDA. The cells are karyotypically normal hpNSCs … Continue reading →

Contact Information Available for logged-in reporters only Newswise The governing board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has awarded two University of California, San Diego researchers almost $3 million in combined funding to pursue new technologies intended to accelerate advances moving stem cell therapies out of the lab and into the clinic. The funding was part of almost $30 million in new Tools and Technologies awards announced at CIRMs monthly meeting in San Francisco. Sometimes even the most promising therapy can be derailed by a tiny problem, said Jonathan Thomas, JD, PhD, chair of the CIRM Board. These awards are designed to help find ways to overcome those problems, to bridge the gaps in our knowledge and ensure that the best research is able to keep progressing and move out of the lab and into clinical trials in patients. Shaochen Chen, PhD, professor in the Department of Nanoengineering in the Jacobs School of Engineering and a member of the Institute of Engineering in Medicine at UC San Diego, received a $1.3 million in CIRM funding for development of 3D bioprinting techniques using human embryonic stem cell-derived heart muscle cells to create new cardiac tissue. Millions of Americans suffer … Continue reading →

LA JOLLA (CNS) - Two scientists with UC San Diego were awarded a combined $2.7 million in grants from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to pursue their studies on stem cell therapies, the school announced Monday. Shyni Varghese, an associate professor in the Department of Bioengineering and director of the Bio-Inspired Materials and Stem Cell Engineering Laboratory, received a $1.4 CIRM grant to improve the function of transplanted stem cells. Shaochen Chen, a professor in the Department of Nanoengineering in the Jacobs School of Engineering and a member of UCSD's Institute of Engineering in Medicine, received $1.3 million to develop three-diminensional bioprinting techniques that use heart muscle cells derived from human embryonic stem cells to create new cardiac tissue. The awards were part of almost $30 million in grants announced at CIRM's monthly meeting in San Francisco, according to UCSD. "Sometimes even the most promising therapy can be derailed by a tiny problem," said Jonathan Thomas, chairman of the CIRM Board of Directors. "These awards are designed to help find ways to overcome those problems, to bridge the gaps in our knowledge and ensure that the best research is able to keep progressing and move out of the lab … Continue reading →

Reduce variation with the most complete, defined system for human embryonic stem cell (ES cell) and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS cell) culture featuring mTeSR1 and the TeSR media family. From generation of iPS cells to maintenance, differentiation, characterization and cryopreservation of ES and iPS cells, see how you can "Maximize Your Pluripotential". A Complete System for Supporting Your Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Research Human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) research is an expanding field that has potential to change the way human diseases are studied and treated. The ability to differentiate ES cells and iPS cells to specific downstream cell types opens up new avenues for drug development and regenerative medicine. STEMCELL Technologies offers an array of products designed to support the various steps of your ES and iPS cell culture workflow, from isolation, reprogramming and expansion to directed differentiation and characterization. Small Molecules for Reprogramming iPS cells have been traditionally generated through exogenous expression of pluripotency genes (via viral or episomal vectors). However, small molecules are increasingly being utilized and have been demonstrated to increase reprogramming efficiency: Small Molecules for Maintenance Maintenance of stem cells in defined culture systems can reduce experimental variability. Small molecules have been used to … Continue reading →