AdultStemCell.com

Description and use for different types of stem cells: Multipotent & Pluripotent.

Cell biologist Dr Mirella Dottori and neuroscientist Dr Alice Pébay discuss how their work with induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells, aka adult stem cells, may hold the key to a cure for Friedreich’s ataxia and other genetically transmitted diseases. They also explain how adult stem cells differ from embryonic stem cells. With science host Dr Shane Huntington.

Stem Cells Explained – Regenerating Adult Stem Cells

Adult Stem Cells Cure Blindness. Remember, these are the cells from the patients bone marrow and blood so there is no donor rejection as there has been in using embryonic stem cells. The use of endogenous adult stem cells is ethical and legally straightforward. April 28, 2010 PRESS RELEASE – Statistics Confirm Spinal Cord Injury Patients Improving After Stem Cell Therapy more… March 25, 2010 Video Documentary of Dementia Patient, Giulia Serafini’s Remarkable Recovery Following Stem Cell Therapy more… March 10, 2010 NBC News Video Feature “Small Miracles: How life has changed for Dom and H” (cerebral palsy) more… March 10, 2010 Encouraging Stroke Treatment Results Now Available more… March 9, 2010 60% of Spinal Cord Injury Patients Improved – The Latest Statistics for 140 Spinal Cord Injury Patients more… March 8, 2010 XCell-Center Presents Impressive Results from Cerebral Palsy Stem Cell Treatment more… February 16, 2010 The Lewiston Morning Tribune: Stem Cell Therapy Works for Cousins more… February 9, 2010 Saving Limbs: Autologous Mesenchymal cells for the treatment of patients with critical limb ischemia — an Interim Analysis more… February 4, 2010 Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation by Lumbar Puncture: A safety Follow-up in 870 Patients more… February 2, 2010 Parkinson’s Treatment Results Available Now! more…

It is widely accepted that stem cells are involved in tissue regeneration. It is also widely accepted that (in most organs) stem cells are vanishingly rare. So: if there doesn’t happen to be a stem cell adjacent to a site of damage, how can stem cells be involved in the process of tissue repair?

One possible answer: There might be more stem cells than we think, because we’ve been missing them for some reason. This possibility (”both”) is strongly supported by the recent findings of Zuba-Surma et al., who have discovered a population of tiny pluripotent cells (termed, appropriately, very small embryonic-like, or VSELs) scattered throughout the body.

Very small embryonic-like stem cells in adult tissues—Potential implications for aging

Recently our group identified in murine bone marrow (BM) and human cord blood (CB), a rare population of very small embryonic-like (VSEL) stem cells. We hypothesize that these cells are deposited during embryonic development in BM as a mobile pool of circulating pluripotent stem cells (PSC) that play a pivotal role in postnatal tissue turnover both of non-hematopoietic and hematopoietic tissues.(cont.)

During in vitro co-cultures with murine myoblastic C2C12 cells, VSELs form spheres that contain primitive stem cells. Cells isolated from these spheres may give rise to cells from all three germ layers when plated in tissue specific media. The number of murine VSELs and their ability to form spheres decreases with the age and is reduced in short-living murine strains. Thus, developmental deposition of VSELs in adult tissues may potentially play an underappreciated role in regulating the rejuvenation of senescent organs. We envision that the regenerative potential of these cells could be harnessed to decelerate aging processes.

Note that both VSEL number and potency diminish with age, consistent with the decrease in proliferative and regenerative capacity that we see in older animals. (And recall that diminishing stem cell potency is just one side of the story: over the course of aging, tissue microenvironments themselves grow more hostile to stem cell growth and function).

The small size of the VSELs, along with their dispersal throughout the body, might explain why they’d been missed up until now. It makes sense that cells devoted to long-term storage of regenerative potential would be very little: other than surviving and maintaining the ability to respond to proliferative signals, they wouldn’t really have much in the way of functional requirements, and wouldn’t need much more than a nucleus, a membrane, and extremely vigilant signal-transduction pathways — the latter ready to awaken the dormant cell when it’s time to turn into a proper stem cell, divide, and differentiate. In a sense, then, these VSELs are not so much progenitors as “progenitor progenitors”, the of regenerative capacity lying silent until they are needed.

(Extending this admitted over-interpretation — small size, after all, does not mean low metabolism, but I’m reasoning by analogy to spores and other very small totipotent cellular forms — another advantage of keeping stem cells metabolically inactive is that they would be less likely to suffer mutations or other damage that could convert them into cancer stem cells.)

Required skepticism: VSELs are both brand new and (so far as I can tell) idiosyncratic to a single group’s work. Before we get too worked up about this, I’d like to see the work reproduced by other labs and in other systems. Hopefully that sort of confirmation is already underway.

LifeCell International India’s first & the largest stem cell banking service provider, which has also pioneered in stem cell research and technology, today announced its association with Harvest Technologies, a world leader in developing technologies that accelerate natural healing, to bring-in a next generation technology Bone Marrow Aspirate Concentrate (BMAC) system in India. BMAC is a USFDA and CE approved biological technology that accelerates the body’s natural healing capacity, thereby improving surgical outcomes.

Existing methods to produce a stem cell concentrate therapy are time consuming, labour intensive, and require complex logistical considerations. The BMAC System helps in safe and rapid preparation of cell concentrate from bone marrow. The process takes only about 15 minutes and can be conducted in the point of care setting.

The system is currently being used clinically in many developed countries like US and Europe for various medical disciplines. These applications range from fractures, non-unions, osteonecrosis, cartilage repair applications and critical limb ischemia (CLI). The system will soon be applied for cardio vascular regeneration.

LifeCell has implemented this technology for an ongoing Indian CLI study which is being led by Dr. K. S. Vijayragavan at Department of Vascular Surgery, SRMC. As per the data available on the interim study conduted on 30 patients after a 12 week followup major amputations were seen only in 4 patients and 6 of them went for minor amputation. The patients’s also reported significant reduction in their pain perception and considerable improvement in quality of life. The study also emphasised the fact that the BMAC process is safe and the Intra-arterial infusion does not cause any adverse reaction.

Talking on the association with Harvest Technologies, Mr. Mayur Abhaya, Executive Director, LifeCell International says, “We are excited to partner with Harvest Technologies to bring-in international standards to India. LifeCell International is today India’s only comprehensive stem cells solutions provider as we offer a complete spectrum of services and with this association we intend to accelerate the availability of advanced stem cell therapy in India.

According to Scott Shea, Managing Director, Harvests Technologies GmbH, “The Autologous regenerative cells from bone marrow offer profound potential for therapies. Harvest has conducted about 30,000 clinical procedures for various applications, the highest number of procedures in the world, using the BMAC System. Our novel technology now makes it possible to harvest the regenerative cells safely and rapidly in order to develop new therapies for heretofore incurable diseases.”
“We are delighted to be associated with LifeCell, an undisputed market leader in stem cell technology space and extend our services in India.  LifeCell has a well established network with hospitals and clinical institutions across India and we would leverage their strength to rapidly deploy our service across the country and provide HOPE in addressing unmet medical challenges by offering cellular therapeutic options.”

Commenting on the interim report presented on the studies conducted for CLI in India using the BMAC technology, Mr. Mayur added, “Through our clinical research, we have identified that the transplantation of autologous Bone Marrow Aspirate Concentrate (BMAC) into critically ischemic leg can increase blood flow and support in healing the wounds quickly. It also helps in reducing pain and avoiding leg amputation of otherwise incurable patients. This is also validated by the outcome of the CLI study which showed that 86.6% of patients could avoid amputation.”

The 2009 World Stem Cell Summit will focus on the science, business, policy, law and ethics of all stem cell types including human embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells.

To maximize the potential of stem cell research, the 2009 World Stem Cell Summit program is designed to cover the field’s most pressing topics including: progressive research strategies, translational and preclinical findings, cross disciplinary initiatives, drug discovery, funding opportunities (federal, public and private), commercialization plans, technology transfer platforms, venture capital insight, market trends, regulatory issues, ethical and societal implications, philanthropic opportunities, medical tourism challenges, cell banking projects, intellectual property landscapes, insurance questions, international perspectives, clinical use and the 2009-10 advocacy agenda.

What is Therapeutic Cloning?

When people think of the word ‘cloning’ they are often hit with frightening images of duplicate human beings being created in somewhat of a mad scientist style experiment. In fact, many members of the public were outraged when Dolly the sheep resulted from a cloning experiment in Scotland. Therapeutic cloning, however, is entirely different and does not involve the creation of a perfectly copied human being. It is reproductive cloning that results in a copy of a specific human being. In therapeutic cloning, no sperm fertilisation is involved nor is there implantation into the uterus to create a child.

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How is Therapeutic Cloning Performed?

Therapeutic cloning is another phrase for a procedure known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). In this procedure, a researcher extracts the nucleus from an egg. The nucleus holds the genetic material for a human or laboratory animal. Scientists then take a somatic cell, which is any body cell other than an egg or sperm, and also extract the nucleus from this cell. In practical human applications, the somatic cell would be taken from a patient who requires a stem cell transplant to treat a health condition or disease.

The nucleus that is extracted from the somatic cell in the patient is then inserted into the egg, which had its nucleus previously removed. In a very basic sense, it’s a procedure of substitution. The egg now contains the patient’s genetic material, or instructions. It is stimulated to divide and shortly thereafter forms a cluster of cells known as a blastocyst. This blastocyst has both an outer and inner layer of cells and it is the inner layer, called the inner cell mass that is rich in stem cells. The cells in the inner cell mass are isolated and then utilised to create embryonic stem cell lines, which are infused into the patient where they are ideally integrated into the tissues, imparting structure and function as needed.

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Benefits of Therapeutic Cloning

A major benefit of therapeutic cloning is that the cells removed are pluripotent.

Pluripotent cells can give rise to all cells in the body with the exception of the embryo. This means that pluripotent cells can potentially treat diseases in any body organ or tissue by replacing damaged and dysfunctional cells. Another distinct advantage to this type of therapy is that the risk of immunological rejection is alleviated because the patient’s own genetic material is used. If a cell line were created with cells from another individual, the patient’s body would be more likely to recognise the foreign proteins and then wage an attack on the transplanted cells. The ultimate consequence would be a rejected stem cell transplant. This is one of the major challenges of organ transplants, alongside the fact that there is a huge shortage of available organs for those who require the procedure. This means that therapeutic cloning has the potential to dramatically reduce the wait times for organ transplants as well as the immunological concerns associated with organ transplant therapy.

Therapeutic cloning is also important to enhancing our understanding of stem cells and how they and other cells develop. This understanding can hopefully lead to new treatments or cures for some of the common diseases affecting people today. In addition, the procedure would allow for scientists to create stem cell therapies that are patient specific and perfectly matched for the patient’s medical condition.

Problems with Therapeutic Cloning

One problem with therapeutic cloning is that many attempts are often required to create a viable egg. The stability of the egg with the infused somatic nucleus is poor and it can require hundreds of attempts before success is attained.

Therapeutic cloning does result in the destruction of an embryo after stem cells are extracted and this destruction has stirred controversy over the morality of the procedure. Some argue that the pros outweigh the cons with regards to treating disease whilst others have likened the destruction to an abortion. Still others state that this doesn’t change the fact the embryo could potentially be a human being and so destruction of the embryo is no different than destruction of a human life.

Because reproductive cloning does utilise SCNT as the primary step, there is also still fear that given our knowledge base to perform reproductive cloning, a scientist may attempt to move beyond therapeutic cloning to creation of a human being.

To this date, no human being has been successfully cloned but the possibility of this occurring is a frightening one not only for the general public and policy makers, but also for most of the ethical scientific field. The majority of scientists are adamantly opposed to reproductive cloning and instead, support therapeutic cloning for treating disease. With policies and careful monitoring in place to ensure that therapeutic cloning is used responsibly, we can all benefit from the potential of this procedure to eventually treat, or perhaps one day cure, many diseases.

The bishops of the United States will meet in San Antonio next month and there is a new agenda item for them: Deal with the fallout from the controversy surrounding Notre Dame’s bestowal of an honorary degree upon the President.

At the center of that debate has been a document the bishops issued in 2004 entitled “Catholics in Political Life.” As the title indicates, it was unclear to many of us, including Notre Dame’s President, Father John Jenkins, C.S.C., why a document so entitled would even apply to President Obama who is not a Catholic at all. And the text was issued by a committee set up to focus on (and the text only refers to) “Catholic politicians.” Bishop John D’Arcy replied that if there was any question, Father Jenkins should have asked him. To clarify for everyone, however, the bishops need to decide if the document and the strictures it contemplates are meant to apply to everyone or just to Catholics.

Most opponents of Notre Dame’s decision to honor the President focused on one part of the text: “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.” Now, it is a fair question whether Barack Obama, in promising policies that seek to reduce the abortion rate, is acting in defiance of anyone’s fundamental moral principles. (The abortion reduction language he used throughout the campaign and again at Notre Dame certainly annoys and angers some pro-choice activists.) There was a time when Catholics could be skeptical of the claim by some that they were “pro-choice but not pro-abortion” but Obama seems to making that a distinction with a difference.

It is also the case that virtually every American politician acts in defiance of some fundamental principle of the Catholic Church. Former Vice-President Dick Cheney is justifying the use of torture (and his arguments are echoed on EWTN) by invoking the age old maxim that the ends justify the means, but that is a utilitarian principle not a Catholic one. Nor is the recourse to the category of intrinsic evil much help here. Lots of things are intrinsically evil including birth control and as I have pointed out before there is not a mayor nor a governor who does not sign a budget that funds some form of birth control policy.

Commentators have tended to ignore the second sentence in the document’s bullet point on the conferral of honors: “They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” Now, I thought Father Jenkins made it very clear, both in his initial announcement in March and at the commencement ceremony on Sunday, that Notre Dame was not honoring the President because of his positions on abortion and embryonic stem cell research but for his other notable accomplishments. The bishops may want to strike this sentence and say – do not honor these guys period. But, any fair-minded person would be wrong to fault Father Jenkins for violating this document when you read it in its entirety.

So, the bishops have their work cut out for themselves at San Antonio. I suspect that at the end of the day, the authority of the local bishop in such matters will, and should, be highlighted. As Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, one of the most thoughtful and theologically sophisticated bishops in the country, wrote in his weekly column last week discussing this very document, “While everyone may not agree with how an individual bishop applies this principle for institutions within his own diocese, it, nonetheless, is the bishop’s call.” That may not make everyone happy – indeed, it won’t make everyone happy. But, the central role of the bishop as teacher within his diocese is more important than any political point. Yes, some bishops may turn their universities into intellectual ghettoes, allowed to invite no one with a differing or provocative position to campus. Others will follow James Joyce’s view: “Here comes everybody!” But, as Wuerl said, at the end of the day, in a hierarchical church, it’s the bishop’s call.