Category Archives: Stem Cell Research

From left are Dr. Oz, researcher Sally Temple, patient Patricia Holman, television personality Montel Williams and Dr. Elisabeth Leamy. (Courtesy Sony Pictures Television) From left are Dr. Oz, researcher Sally Temple, patient Patricia Holman, television personality Montel Williams and Dr. Elisabeth Leamy. (Courtesy Sony Pictures Television) From left are Dr. Oz, researchers Sally Temple, patient Patricia Holman, Dr. Elisabeth Leamy and television personality Montel Williams. (Courtesy Sony Pictures Television) From left are Dr. Oz, researchers Sally Temple, patient Patricia Holman, Dr. Elisabeth Leamy and television personality Montel Williams. (Courtesy Sony Pictures Television) Dr. Oz with Sally Temple, scientific director and co-founder of the Neural Stem Cell Institute. (Courtesy Sony Pictures Television) Dr. Oz with Sally Temple, scientific director and co-founder of the Neural Stem Cell Institute. (Courtesy Sony Pictures Television) Local stem cell researcher to appear on Dr. Oz today Sally Temple has a plea for people considering stem cell therapy to cope with a chronic illness or life-threatening disease: Don't. Not yet. Temple, co-founder of the Neural Stem Cell Institute in Rensselaer and president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, has spent her career studying stem cells. Her pre-taped appearance on "The Dr. Oz Show" airs Tuesday, … Continue reading →

The undercover investigation youre about to see today is going to make you really angry, because were exposing the worst kind of scam one that takes advantage of those most vulnerable, stealing not just their money, but their hope, their dignity. Thats how Dr. Mehmet Oz introduces a series of segments scheduled to run on his daytime television program Tuesday. His quarry: those for-profit clinics offering supposed stem cell treatments for an implausible host of diseases unproven, unlikelyand very expensive cures. We reported on this noisome corner of medical pseudo-sciencelast year, outlining theabsence of scientific support for their treatmentand their intensive marketing pitches to hopeful patients. We reported that in a survey of stem cell tourism, stem cell scientist Paul Knoepfler of UC Davis and bioethicist Leigh Turner of the University of Minnesotaidentified 570 clinicsaround the U.S. offering stem cell interventions. Scores were concentrated in such hotspots as Beverly Hills, Phoenixand New York. Many were offering unproven therapies featuring the termstem cell as a marketing veneer. Dr. Ozs investigation of these clinics is a worthy addition to public awareness. Its must-viewing for patients and families desperate enough to contemplate turning to such clinics for succor, and for state and federal … Continue reading →

Almac Discovery and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI)have teamed up to research the effect of ALM201 on cancer stem cells. Early preclinical data suggest ALM201 may render cancer stem cells susceptible to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, a mechanism of action that opens the door to use of the drug to prevent recurrence of tumors. RCSIs Professor Tracy Robson, who performed the initial research that led to the development of ALM201, will head up a team tasked with exploring the interaction between the drug and cancer stem cells. ALM201 is a peptide based on the protein FKBPL. Almac Discovery, the cancer R&D wing of the CRO Almac, is now bankrolling research to better understand the mechanism of action behind early evidence of the effect of ALM201 on the cancer cells. Cancer stem cells are a major barrier to successful radiotherapy and chemotherapy and can result in failure of these treatments. Our initial data demonstrates that ALM201 can transform these cells so they are no longer resistant to these therapies, Robson said in a statement. Researchers have recognized the value of targeting the stem cellsa source of the regenerative and drug resistance capacity of cancerssince they were identified near the … Continue reading →

Science Daily Ovarian hormones awaken newly discovered breast stem cells Science Daily The discovery was made by Dr Nai Yang Fu, Dr Anne Rios, Professor Jane Visvader and Professor Geoff Lindeman as part of a 20-year research program into how the breast develops from stem cells, and how breast cancers can arise from stem cells and ... Stem cell linked to breast cancer foundTVNZ Melbourne scientists' breast cell study offers cancer treatment hopeHerald Sun all 5 news articles » Read more: Ovarian hormones awaken newly discovered breast stem cells - Science Daily … Continue reading →

February 13, 2017 by Nicholas Weiler Research led by scientists at UC San Francisco and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine has used brain "organoids"tiny 3-D models of human organs that scientists grow in a dish to study diseaseto identify root causes of Miller-Dieker Syndrome (MDS), a rare genetic disorder that causes fatal brain malformations. MDS is caused by a deletion of a section of human chromosome 17 containing genes important for neural development. The result is a brain whose outer layer, the neocortex, which is normally folded and furrowed to fit more brain into a limited skull, instead has a smooth appearance (lissencephaly) and is often smaller than normal (microcephaly). The disease is accompanied by severe seizures and intellectual disabilities, and few infants born with MDS survive beyond childhood. In the new studypublished online January 19, 2017 in Cell Stem Cellthe research team transformed skin cells from MDS patients and normal adults into induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs) and then into neural stem cells, which they placed in a 3 dimensional culture system to grow organoid models of the human neocortex with and without the genetic defect that causes MDS. Closely observing the development of these MDS organoids … Continue reading →

When it comes to treating heart disease, researchers are hoping that stem cells could prove to be a breakthrough. When immature heart muscle cells were implanted into newborn rats, mature adult cells developed, a new study has found. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine successfully injected about 200,000 immature heart muscle cells developed from mouse embryonic stem cells into the lower heart chamber of newborn rats that were engineered without an immune system for their bodies to accept the introduced foreign cells. Within a month, the cells began to appear as adult heart muscle cells, according to the study, which was recently published in Cell Reports. Chulan Kwon, leader of the study and member of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicines Institute for Cell Engineering, said his team's research could represent a key advancement in the study and treatment of heart disease. "Our concept of using a live animal host to enable maturation of cardiomyocytes can be expanded to other areas of stem cell research and really opens up a new avenue to getting stem cells to mature,"said Kwon. Read more Kwon and his research group turned to newborn rats after realizing that cells grown in … Continue reading →

OCASCR scientist Lin Liu at work. Photo provided. Working together, scientists from Oklahoma State University, the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation are advancing adult stem cell research to treat some of todays most devastating diseases. Under the umbrella of the Oklahoma Center for Adult Stem Cell Research (OCASCR), created with funding from the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust, these scientists have amassed groundbreaking findings in one of the fastest growing areas of medical research. We have made exciting progress, said OCASCR scientist Lin Liu, director of the Oklahoma Center for Respiratory and Infectious Diseases and director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Regenerative Medicine at Oklahoma State University. We can convert adult stem cells into lung cells using our engineering process in petri dishes, which offers the possibility to repair damaged lung tissues in lung diseases, said Liu, whose research primarily focuses on lung and respiratory biology and diseases. Using our engineered cells, we can also reverse some pathological features. These studies give us hope for an eventual application of these cells in humans. Adult stem cells in the body are capable of renewing themselves and becoming various types of cells. Until recently, stem … Continue reading →

OCASCR scientist Lin Liu at work. Photo provided. Working together, scientists from Oklahoma State University, the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation are advancing adult stem cell research to treat some of todays most devastating diseases. Under the umbrella of the Oklahoma Center for Adult Stem Cell Research (OCASCR), created with funding from the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust, these scientists have amassed groundbreaking findings in one of the fastest growing areas of medical research. We have made exciting progress, said OCASCR scientist Lin Liu, director of the Oklahoma Center for Respiratory and Infectious Diseases and director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Regenerative Medicine at Oklahoma State University. We can convert adult stem cells into lung cells using our engineering process in petri dishes, which offers the possibility to repair damaged lung tissues in lung diseases, said Liu, whose research primarily focuses on lung and respiratory biology and diseases. Using our engineered cells, we can also reverse some pathological features. These studies give us hope for an eventual application of these cells in humans. Adult stem cells in the body are capable of renewing themselves and becoming various types of cells. Until recently, stem … Continue reading →

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, attributed to Pieter Brueghel the Elder What happened to the disgraced Italian surgeon who dazzled the world with artificial tracheas built up with stem cells, Paolo Macchiarini? Despite all the hype, several of his patients eventually died; others are still seriously ill. The ensuing debacle dragged Swedens Karolinska Institute into the mire and Swedish police are investigating whether he should be charged with involuntary manslaughter. At the moment Macchiarini is the head of a research team in bioengineering and regenerative medicine at the University of Kazan, in Tatarstan, about 800 kilometers east of Moscow. But Russian authorities do not allow him to do clinical work. Instead he is confined to doing research on baboons. Unfortunately, the story of the Italian Icarus is the story of many research projects with stem cells noisily rising and rising and rising and then silently falling out of sight. Very few stem cell therapies have reached stage IV of clinical trials. As journalist Michael Brooks points out in the BMJ, stem cell research is a field plagued by unrealistic expectations. One study showed that 70% of newspaper articles about stem cell research have stated that clinical applications are just … Continue reading →

It's been more than 10 years since Japanese researchers Shinya Yamanaka, M.D., Ph.D., and his graduate student Kazutoshi Takahashi, Ph.D., developed the breakthrough technique to return any adult cell to its earliest stage of development (a pluripotent stem cell) and change it into different types of cells in the body. Called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), this technique opens the doors to medical advances, including generating cartilage cell tissue to repair knees, retinal cells to improve the vision of those with age-related macular degeneration and other eye diseases, and cardiac cells to restore damaged heart tissues. Despite its immense promise, adoption of iPSCs in biomedical research and medicine has been slowed by concerns that these cells are prone to increased numbers of genetic mutations. A new study by scientists at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health, suggests that iPSCs do not develop more mutations than cells that are duplicated by subcloning. Subcloning is a technique where single cells are cultured individually and then grown into a cell line. The technique is similar to the iPSC except the subcloned cells are not treated with the reprogramming factors which were thought to cause mutations. … Continue reading →