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Four University Technologies Receive $650,000 from Science Centers QED Program

By Stem Cell Medical Center

Philadelphia, PA (PRWEB) January 20, 2015

Researchers developing technologies for high-speed eye exams, cancer treatment, stem cell growth and healthcare sanitation will receive a total of $650,000 in funding through the seventh round of the University City Science Centers QED Proof-of-Concept Program. The program, started in 2009, funds novel university technologies with market potential, bridging the gap between academic research and product commercialization. The awardees were selected from a pool of 68 applicants and nine universities in the Greater Philadelphia region.

The QED grants will support researchers at Lehigh University, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Temple University and Thomas Jefferson University. Half of the $650,000 awarded will be contributed by the Science Center and half by the researchers institutions. Each project will also receive guidance from the Science Centers experienced team of business advisors. To date, 24 previously-funded QED projects have attracted $14.8 million in follow-on funding and led to six licensed technologies.

QED has received support from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvanias Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvanias Department of Health, the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, William Penn Foundation, and Wexford Science and Technology, a BioMed Realty Company.

QED continues to resonate with both the academic and funding community, says Science Center President and CEO Stephen S. Tang, Ph.D., MBA. The number of submissions continues to increase round over round as academic researchers identify ways to commercialize their emerging technologies. At the same time, the support of our funders enables us to continue to facilitate the development of these exciting technologies and contribute to the robust life science ecosystem in the Greater Philadelphia Region.

The Round 7 awardees include:

About the Science Center The University City Science Center is a dynamic hub for innovation, and entrepreneurship and technology development in the Greater Philadelphia region. It provides business incubation, programming, lab and office facilities, and support services for entrepreneurs, start-ups, and growing and established companies. The Science Center was the first, and remains the largest, urban research park in the United States. Since it was founded in 1963, graduate organizations and current residents of the University City Science Centers Port business incubators have created more than 15,000 jobs that remain in the Greater Philadelphia region today and contribute more than $9 billion to the regional economy annually. For more information about the Science Center, go to http://www.sciencecenter.org.

About the QED Program The QED Program was launched in April 2009. A common participation agreement that defines matching funds, indirect costs, and intellectual property management, has been signed by 21 universities and research institutions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware: The Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, Delaware State University, Drexel University, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, Lankenau Institute for Medical Research, Lehigh University, Monell Chemical Senses Center, New Jersey Institute of Technology, The Pennsylvania State University, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Philadelphia University, Rowan University, Rutgers University, Temple University, Thomas Jefferson University, University of Delaware, University of Pennsylvania, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, Widener University, and The Wistar Institute.

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Four University Technologies Receive $650,000 from Science Centers QED Program

Stem cell transplantation shows potential for reducing disability in patients with MS

By Stem Cell Treatment

Results from a preliminary study indicate that among patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS), treatment with nonmyeloablative hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (low intensity stem cell transplantation) was associated with improvement in measures of disability and quality of life, according to a study in the January 20 issue of JAMA.

Fifty percent of patients with MS are unable to continue employment by 10 years from diagnosis or are unable to walk by 25 years. Despite an annual cost of approximately $47,000 per patient to treat MS, no therapy approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been shown to significantly reverse neurological disability or improve quality of life, according to background information in the article.

Multiple sclerosis is thought to be an immunemediated disorder of the central nervous system. Autologous (the use of one's own cells) hematopoietic (blood) stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is a form of immune suppression but unlike standard immune-based drugs, autologous HSCT is designed to reset rather than suppress the immune system. Richard K. Burt, M.D., of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, and colleagues studied the association of nonmyeloablative HSCT with neurological disability and other clinical outcomes in patients with relapsing-remitting MS (defined as acute relapses followed by partial or complete recovery and stable clinical manifestations between relapses; n = 123) or secondary-progressive MS (defined as a gradual progression of disability with or without superimposed relapses; n = 28) treated between 2003 and 2014.

Outcome analysis was available for 145 patients with an average follow-up of 2.5 years. On a measure of disability (Expanded Disability Status Scale [EDSS] score), there was significant improvement in 41 patients (50 percent of patients tested at 2 years) and in 23 patients (64 percent of patients tested at 4 years). "To our knowledge, this is the first report of significant and sustained improvement in the EDSS score following any treatment for MS," the authors write.

Receipt of HSCT was also associated with improvement in physical function, cognitive function and quality of life. There was also a reduction on another measure of clinical disease severity, volume of brain lesions associated with MS seen on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Four-year relapse-free survival was 80 percent and progression-free survival was 87 percent.

Patient selection is important in determining outcome, the researchers write. "In the post hoc analysis, the EDSS score did not improve in patients with secondary-progressive MS or in those with disease duration longer than 10 years."

The authors note the results are limited because this was an observational study without a control group. "Definitive conclusions will require a randomized trial; however, this analysis provides the rationale, appropriate patient selection, and therapeutic approach for a randomized study."

Editorial: Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation for MS

Stephen L. Hauser, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, writes in an accompanying editorial that the study by Burt et al, taken together with other available evidence, enables several conclusions to be made with reasonable confidence.

"First, autologous HSCT does not appear to be effective against established progressive forms of MS and, absent new data, additional trials of these protocols are probably not indicated for patients with progressive MS. Second, immunosuppressive regimens that include HSCT appear to be effective against the relapsing-remitting form of MS, at least over several years of observation. However, it is by no means clear that the beneficial effects result from the infusion of stem cells rather than from the conditioning regimen. Given the availability of highly effective FDA-approved therapies against relapsing-remitting MS, it would seem reasonable to use these proven monotherapies in the clinical setting before considering complex HSCT regimens."

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Stem cell transplantation shows potential for reducing disability in patients with MS

Saskatoon woman snared in alleged fraudulent MS trial held in India

By Stem Cell Treatment

Published: January 19, 2015

Sharon Nordstrom feels ashamed for participating in a $38,000 multiple sclerosis stem cell treatment inIndia that was not all it was promoted to be. Submitted photo.

JONATHAN CHARLTON THE STARPHOENIX

Sharon Nordstrom feels ashamed for participating in a $38,000 multiple sclerosis stem cell treatment inIndia that was not all it was promoted to be.

Im going to be a real mouthpiece now for people who think theyre toosmartto fall for stuff like this, she said.

The WinnipegFreePress this week published aninvestigationinto Winnipeg-based Regenetek Research, finding that head researcher Doug Broeska fabricated his credentials, including his PhD, and overstated the effects of the stem-cell treatment.

The newspaper also discovered that the chairman of the medical ethics committee at the Inamdar Hospital in Pune,India, told Broeska his lack of credentials and followup violatedinternational ethical standards and ordered him to step down as principal investigator of the stem-cell study.

Broeska told theFreePress he was terminated only because it was decided to have a local principal investigator stationed inIndia.

TheFreePress further reported that the University of Winnipeg has cancelled a joint stem-cell treatment project involving Broeskas company.

Nordstrom says she last heard from Broeska on June 16, when he said in an email he would expel her from the trial after she questioned the absence of a followup care plan. For months, she kept her situation quiet.

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Saskatoon woman snared in alleged fraudulent MS trial held in India

Jabs of tummy fat can reduce incontinence in men following prostate surgery

By Stem Cell Treatment

Scientists are using stem cells extracted from abdominal fat Injections reduced leakage by up to 60 per cent Treatment involves taking fat from the tummy using liposuction Extracted stem cells from the fat are then injected into the patient

By Roger Dobson for the Daily Mail

Published: 18:37 EST, 19 January 2015 | Updated: 18:48 EST, 19 January 2015

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Researchers are using injections of belly fat to treat incontinence in men following prostate surgery.

Early research suggests the treatment - using stem cells extracted from abdominal fat - reduced leakage by up to 60 per cent, with results being seen within days of the injections.

The scientists say the therapy may also work for female incontinence.

Fat tissue, especially around the abdomen, has higher concentrations of stem cells compared with other sites

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Jabs of tummy fat can reduce incontinence in men following prostate surgery

MS patients given stem cells improve

By Stem Cell Treatment

Stem cell therapy may have helped patients with a form of multiple sclerosis, according to a preliminary study.

Patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis showed signs of improvement after being treated with their own, or autologous "nonmyeloablative hematopoietic stem cells," a class of blood-forming stem cells, the study found. It was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Half, or 41 patients, tested two years after treatment experienced significant improvement on the Expanded Disability Status Scale, a measure of disability. And of patients tested at 4 years, 23, or 64 percent, showed significant improvement. Four-year relapse-free survival was 80 percent and progression-free survival was 87 percent.

"To our knowledge, this is the first report of significant and sustained improvement in the EDSS score following any treatment for MS," stated the study. It was led by Dr. Richard K. Burt of Northwestern University in Chicago.

However, only limited conclusions can be drawn from the uncontrolled study, according to scientists who examined the results. While the therapy was associated with improvement, the stem cell transplant may not have been key. A conditioning regimen that partially depleted the stem cells before transplantation may have been responsible, said Dr. Stephen L. Hauser in a JAMA article accompanying the study.

"According to Carl Sagan, 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,' a standard that is not always met in this report, and not claimed by the authors. Even though the authors appropriately acknowledge many of the limitations associated with their case series, their statement that 'to our knowledge, this is the first report of significant and sustained improvement in the EDSS score following any treatment for MS' could be challenged," Hauser wrote.

Jeanne Loring, a stem cell researcher who studies multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases, agreed that the results are far from conclusive.

"Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease, meaning that the patients' own immune cells attack their own nervous systems," Loring said by email after examining the study. "The authors of the JAMA article treated MS patients with their own blood stem cells in the hope that these cells would replace some of the self-destructive immune cells."

However, the uneven course of MS makes it hard to draw conclusions, wrote Loring, who heads the Center for Regenerative Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla.

"Most patients with MS have attacks, followed by recovery, followed by another attack. In a few of these patients, the blood stem cell treatment seemed to extend their time between attacks. It's important to understand that other treatments, including drugs, have shown similar modest improvements, so it's too soon to celebrate a stem cell therapy."

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MS patients given stem cells improve

Health researchers digging into own pockets to bridge gap in funding

By Stem Cell Doctors

Later this month, Torontos University Health Network is planning to enroll a dozen patients with arthritis-wracked knees in a clinical trial of a stem-cell treatment that researchers hope could one day make artificial joint replacements obsolete.

The trial, a Canadian first, wont be cheap, despite the small number of recruits. To cover the estimated $500,000 cost, the researchers turned to an unconventional source of funding: 10 orthopedic surgeons at UHNs Toronto Western site who donated a total of $1.25-million of their own money beginning five years ago to kick-start the networks research into a cure for arthritis.

The orthopedic surgeons decision to raid their own bank accounts to help pay for research is a rare but not unheard-of move in Canada, one that was driven in part by how much harder it has become to score publicly funded medical research grants in this country.

We felt very strongly that in order to go to anybody and say, Would you please give me support for this idea? we had to have our own commitment beyond just the time and effort we would all have to put in, said Nizar Mahomed, director of the UNH arthritis program and one of the surgeons who donated $125,000 over five years. We needed to make a commitment of actual dollars and put skin in the game.

The doctors gift prompted a philanthropic avalanche from grateful patients toward a campaign that has now raised $38-million to combat osteoarthritis, a disease that affects 4.6 million Canadians but does not traditionally have the fundraising pull of cancer or heart disease. The upcoming stem-cell experiment is the first human trial to be funded by the campaign.

In 2011, the neurosurgery team of 14 doctors at UHN, a network of four downtown Toronto hospitals, followed the lead of the orthopedic surgeons and made a collective $1-million donation to brain research. Last year, a group of eight orthopedic surgeons in Thunder Bay announced a $2-million personal donation over 10 years to a research project aimed at reducing diabetic limb amputations in Ontarios remote northern communities. And it is not uncommon for doctors and other health-care workers to give to the charitable foundations that support their hospitals.

What all these physicians have in common is the challenging research-funding climate in which they are operating.

I think its pretty clear that the accessibility to funds has never been more competitive, said Jim Woodgett, director of research at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Torontos Mount Sinai Hospital.

To give one telling example, the success rate for applications to the Canadian Institutes of Health Researchs open operating grant program the federal agencys largest pot of money, which accounts for a little over half of all the funding it doles out fell to 18 per cent for 2014-2015, down from 33 per cent less than a decade earlier.

Part of the explanation for the low success rate for the 2014-2015 granting year was an unusual spike in applications as investigators scrambled to submit proposals before an administrative revamp takes full effect at CIHR.

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Health researchers digging into own pockets to bridge gap in funding

Stem Cell Study | Perlmutter Health Center

By Stem Cell Medical Center

According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulation Physiology, (http://ajpheart.physiology.org) hyperbaric oxygen treatments increases by 800% the number of stem cells circulating in a patients body. Stem cells, also called progenitor cells, are important players in repairing the body after injury and in tissue regeneration. Stem cells exist in the bone marrow and are capable of changing their characteristics to become part of many different organs and tissues. When a body part is injured, stem cells are mobilized and provide the cells necessary for the healing process to occur. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) provides an important trigger or stimulus for this mobilization.It is for this reason that HBOT was utilized and likely responsible, at least in part, for the remarkable recovery Randal McCloy Jr., the only survivor of the recent of Sago Mineaccident.

CHEST: Hyperbaric Oxygen Credited for Miners Recovery CME Teaching Brief MedPage Today

This is the safest way clinically to increase stem cell circulation, far safer than any of the pharmaceutical options, said Stephen Thom, MD, Ph.D., Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, lead author of the study. This study provides information on the fundamental mechanisms for hyperbaric oxygen and offers a new theoretical therapeutic option for mobilizing stem cells We reproduced the observations from humans in animals in order to identify the mechanism for the hyperbaric oxygeneffect.

So, in addition to increasing blood supply and reducing the damaging effects of free radicals, this is yet another mechanism explaining the effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in a variety of brain disorders including head trauma, stroke, multiple sclerosis, hypoxic brain injury, Parkinsons disease, cerebral palsy and vasculardementia.

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Stem Cell Study | Perlmutter Health Center

I've been 'scammed': doctor

By Stem Cell Clinic

Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION

By: Mary Agnes Welch and Melissa Martin

Posted: 01/18/2015 10:42 PM | Comments:

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Medical researcher Doug Broeksas firm, Regenetek, is located at 1213 Chevrier Blvd. in Winnipeg. A family physician who worked with him says she is shocked by revelations he inflated his credentials. Photo Store

The Winnipeg physician who worked closely with a now-discredited medical researcher says she was "duped" by Doug Broeska and is shocked by recent revelations.

"Scammed, yes. Duped, yes," said Susan Hauch, a physician and associate professor at the University of Manitoba medical school. "Weve all been duped."

She said shes shocked by news Broeska inflated his credentials, overstated the effects of the stem cell treatment and was asked recently by an Indian ethics committee to resign as the studys principal investigator because he put patient safety at risk. "Its very unfortunate things had to come out this way because its shattered a lot of lives," Hauch said by phone Sunday. "This has been a very shocking situation."

For the last three years, patients with multiple sclerosis and, more recently, Lou Gehrigs disease, have paid Broeskas Winnipeg company, Regenetek Research, as much as $45,000 to travel to Pune, India, for stem cell treatment. Thats despite ethics rules that bar doctors from charging patients to be part of clinical trials.

While many Regenetek patients saw their MS symptoms shrink, many others did not, and began raising questions about Broeska and his treatment.

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I've been 'scammed': doctor

Optimism on stem cells, ahead of reality

By Stem Cell Treatment

Illustration: John Spooner

One of the joys for those who work in the health services area is bringing relief to patients from chronic conditions.

And as the level of desperation rises, some patients will pay over the odds for treatment, pursing unproven options in the hope of some improvement in their condition. And where there is unmet demand, supply soon steps in to fill the gap.

Last year, there was intense global media attention on stem cell treatments following a paralysed patient in Poland who walked after a cell transplant, a project involving Polish and UK researchers.

Stem cells may well offer significant potential promise for patients in a range of treatments. But to date, much of that optimism has run well ahead of the reality.

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Clinical trials to ensure the efficacy and safety of medical treatments is slow and laborious, taking several years, at the very least, to verify the merits of a treatment before then seeking approvals to offer the treatment to patients.

But for those searching for a stem cell treatment in Australia, there is a loophole: a referral from your doctor is often all it takes to get access, even though there is scant proof that the patient benefits.

Clearly, some patients so badly want to believe the treatment is good for them that this will override the necessary caution.

Much of this activity is taking place in private clinics, although sharemarket investors, too, have stem cell groups they can invest in.

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Optimism on stem cells, ahead of reality

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