TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire -04/26/12)- Stem Cell Therapeutics Corp. (SSS.V - News) ("SCT" or the "Company") a life sciences development company of stem cell-related therapeutics, today reported its operational and financial results for the 2011 fiscal year, ended December 31. The second half of 2011 was dedicated to repositioning the Company as the commercialization partner of choice for early-stage stem cell-related technologies in regenerative medicine for Canadian and international research institutions. SCT is actively working towards identifying possible acquisitions of stem cell-related technologies from research institutions or other private companies who are unable to access the public capital markets. In December 2011, the Company announced important organizational changes resulting in a reduction of overhead expenses. The reorganization of the Company's management team positioned SCT as a fully operational life sciences development company. In addition to the CEO function, positions such as Chief Financial Officer, Chief Medical Officer, Vice President of Development, and Director of Intellectual Property have been filled. The cost of maintaining this fully-staffed organization has been minimized by retaining the executives on an as-needed basis. The Company continues to actively manage its existing patent portfolio, underpinning the potential products from the research of Dr. Sam Weiss of the University of … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2012) Can one feel too attached? Does one need to let go to mature? Neural stem cells have this problem, too. As immature cells, neural stem cells must stick together in a protected environment called a niche in order to divide so they can make all of the cells that populate the nervous system. But when it's time to mature, or differentiate, the neural stem cells must stop dividing, detach from their neighbors and migrate to where they are needed to form the circuits necessary for humans to think, feel and interact with the world. Now, stem cell researchers at UCLA have identified new components of the genetic pathway that controls the adhesive properties and proliferation of neural stem cells and the formation of neurons in early development. The finding by scientists at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA could be important because errors in this pathway can lead to a variety of birth defects that affect the structure of the nervous system, as well as more subtle changes that impair cognitive and motor functions associated with disorders such as autism. The results of the four-year study are … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (Apr. 26, 2012) Scientists from The Danish Stem Cell Center (DanStem) at the University of Copenhagen and Hagedorn Research Institute have gained new insight into the signaling paths that control the body's insulin production. This is important knowledge with respect to their final goal: the conversion of stem cells into insulin-producing beta cells that can be implanted into patients who need them. Insulin is a hormone produced by beta cells in the pancreas. If these beta cells are defective, the body develops diabetes. Insulin is vital to life and therefore today the people who cannot produce their own in sufficient quantities, or at all, receive carefully measured doses -- often via several daily injections. Scientists hope that in the not-so-distant future it will be possible to treat diabetes more effectively and prevent secondary diseases such as cardiac disease, blindness and nerve and kidney complications by offering diabetes patients implants of new, well-functioning, stem-cell-based beta cells. "In order to get stem cells to develop into insulin-producing beta cells, it is necessary to know what signaling mechanisms normally control the creation of beta cells during fetal development. This is what our new research results can contribute," explains Professor Palle Serup from … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2012) The University of Michigan's second human embryonic stem cell line has just been placed on the U.S. National Institutes of Health's registry, making the cells available for federally-funded research. It is the second of the stem cell lines derived at U-M to be placed on the registry. The line, known as UM11-1PGD, was derived from a cluster of about 30 cells removed from a donated five-day-old embryo roughly the size of the period at the end of this sentence. That embryo was created for reproductive purposes, tested and found to be affected with a genetic disorder, deemed not suitable for implantation, and would therefore have otherwise been discarded when it was donated in 2011. It carries the gene defect responsible for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a hereditary neurological disorder characterized by a slowly progressive degeneration of the muscles in the foot, lower leg and hand. CMT, as it is known, is one of the most common inherited neurological disorders, affecting one in 2,500 people in the United States. People with CMT usually begin to experience symptoms in adolescence or early adulthood. The embryo used to create the cell line was never frozen, but rather was transported from another … Continue reading →

Public release date: 26-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Beth Dunham bethdunh@usc.edu 213-740-4279 University of Southern California A new study, appearing in Cell Stem Cell and led by researchers at the University of Southern California, outlines the specifics of how autoimmune disorders can be controlled by infusions of mesenchymal stem cells. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are highly versatile stem cells that originate from the mesoderm, or middle layer of tissue, in a developing embryo. MSC can be isolated from many different kinds of human tissue, including bone marrow and the umbilical cord. Principal investigator Songtao Shi, professor at the Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology, said that recent studies have shown the benefits of administering MSC to patients with immune-related disorders such as graft versus host disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, and more. These studies showed that infusions of MSC appeared to quell the production and function of overactive immune cells, including T- and B-lymphocytes. However, the specific mechanism behind how MSC get the immune cells under control hasn't been fully understood. "Mesenchymal-Stem-Cell-Induced Immunoregulation Involves FAS-Ligand-/FAS-Mediated T Cell Apoptosis" shines light on how infused MSCs target and defeat overactive immune cells. Examining … Continue reading →

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire -04/25/12)- VistaGen Therapeutics, Inc. (VSTA.OB - News) (VSTA.OB - News), a biotechnology company applying stem cell technology for drug rescue, has secured a new United States patent covering the company's proprietary methods used to measure and type the toxic effects produced by drug compounds in liver stem cells. Test methods included in this new patent, (U.S. Patent 11/445,733), titled "Toxicity Typing Using Liver Stem Cells," cover all mammalian liver stem cells -- rat and mouse cells, for example, in addition to human cells. Liver stem cells used in drug testing can be derived from in vivo tissue or produced from embryonic stem cells (ES) or induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). H. Ralph Snodgrass, Ph.D., VistaGen's President and Chief Scientific Officer, said, "This patent covers the monitoring of changes in gene expression as an assay for predicting drug toxicities. It is well known that drugs activate and suppress specific genes, and that the changes in gene expression reflect the mechanism of drug toxicities. The specific sets of genes that are affected become a profile of that drug." VistaGen's new patent also covers techniques used to develop a database of gene expression profiles of drugs that have the … Continue reading →