Panama’s First Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Clinical Trial for Rheumatoid Arthritis Approved by Comité Nacional de …

Panama City, Panama (PRWEB) January 14, 2014

Translational Biosciences, a subsidiary of Medistem Panama has received the countys first clinical trial approval for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis with human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) from the Comit Nacional de Biotica de la Investigacin Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease in which the patients immune system generates cellular and antibody responses to various components of the joint such as type I collagen. As a result of this immune response, not only does joint destruction occur, but also other secondary complications such as pulmonary fibrosis, renal damage, and even heart damage. RA affects approximately 0.5-1% of the population in the United States.

Mesenchymal stem cells harvested from donated human umbilical cords after normal, healthy births possess anti-inflammatory and immune modulatory properties that may relieve RA symptoms. Because they are immune privileged, the recipients immune system does not reject them. These properties make MSC interesting candidates for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune disorders.

Each patient will receive five intravenous injections of umbilical cord stem cells over the course of 5 days. They will be assessed at 3 months and 12 month primarily for safety and secondarily for indications of efficacy.

The stem cell technology being utilized in this trial was developed by Neil Riordan, PhD, founder of Medistem Panama. The stem cells will be harvested and processed at Medistem Panamas 8000 sq. ft. laboratory in the prestigious City of Knowledge. They will be administered at the Stem Cell Institute in Panama City, Panama.

The Principle Investigator is Jorge Paz-Rodriguez, MD. Dr. Paz-Rodriguez also serves as the Medical Director at the Stem Cell Institute.

While this is just the first step, it is our hope that Panamas rapid emergence as a leader in applied stem cell research will lead to safe, effective treatments for debilitating diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and serve to benefit all Panamanians who suffer from it in the not-too-distant future, said Ruben Berocal, M.D., National Secretary of Science, Technology and Innovation (SENACYT). Oversight by the National Committee for Investigational Bioethics ensures patient safety by demanding ethical transparency and compliance with the highest levels of international standards, he added.

For detailed information about this clinical trial visit http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. If you are a rheumatoid arthritis patient who has not responded to disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARD) for at least 6 months you may qualify for this trial. Please email trials(at)translationalbiosciences(dot)com for more information about how to apply.

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Panama’s First Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Clinical Trial for Rheumatoid Arthritis Approved by Comité Nacional de ...

Nature Study Discovers Chromosome Therapy to Correct a Severe Chromosome Defect

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Newswise Geneticists from Ohio, California and Japan joined forces in a quest to correct a faulty chromosome through cellular reprogramming. Their study, published online today in Nature, used stem cells to correct a defective ring chromosome with a normal chromosome. Such therapy has the promise to correct chromosome abnormalities that give rise to birth defects, mental disabilities and growth limitations.

In the future, it may be possible to use this approach to take cells from a patient that has a defective chromosome with multiple missing or duplicated genes and rescue those cells by removing the defective chromosome and replacing it with a normal chromosome, said senior author Anthony Wynshaw-Boris, MD, PhD, James H. Jewell MD '34 Professor of Genetics and chair of Case Western Reserve School of Medicine Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences and University Hospitals Case Medical Center.

Wynshaw-Boris led this research while a professor in pediatrics, the Institute for Human Genetics and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UC, San Francisco (UCSF) before joining the faculty at Case Western Reserve in June 2013.

Individuals with ring chromosomes may display a variety of birth defects, but nearly all persons with ring chromosomes at least display short stature due to problems with cell division. A normal chromosome is linear, with its ends protected, but with ring chromosomes, the two ends of the chromosome fuse together, forming a circle. This fusion can be associated with large terminal deletions, a process where portions of the chromosome or DNA sequences are missing. These deletions can result in disabling genetic disorders if the genes in the deletion are necessary for normal cellular functions.

The prospect for effective counter measures has evaded scientistsuntil now. The international research team discovered the potential for substituting the malfunctioning ring chromosome with an appropriately functioning one during reprogramming of patient cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). iPSC reprogramming is a technique that was developed by Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, a co-corresponding author on the Nature paper. Yamanaka is a senior investigator at the UCSF-affiliated Gladstone Institutes, a professor of anatomy at UCSF, and the director of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) in Kyoto University. He won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2012 for developing the reprogramming technique.

Marina Bershteyn, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Wynshaw-Boris lab at UCSF, along with Yohei Hayashi, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Yamanaka lab at the Gladstone Institutes, reprogrammed skin cells from three patients with abnormal brain development due to a rare disorder called Miller Dieker Syndrome, which results from large terminal deletions in one arm of chromosome 17. One patient had a ring chromosome 17 with the deletion and the other two patients had large terminal deletions in one of their chromosome 17, but not a ring. Additionally, each of these patients had one normal chromosome 17.

The researchers observed that, after reprogramming, the ring chromosome 17 that had the deletion vanished entirely and was replaced by a duplicated copy of the normal chromosome 17. However, the terminal deletions in the other two patients remained after reprogramming. To make sure this phenomenon was not unique to ring chromosome 17, they reprogrammed cells from two different patients that each had ring chromosomes 13. These reprogrammed cells also lost the ring chromosome, and contained a duplicated copy of the normal chromosome 13.

It appears that ring chromosomes are lost during rapid and continuous cell divisions during reprogramming, said Yamanaka. The duplication of the normal chromosome then corrects for that lost chromosome.

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Nature Study Discovers Chromosome Therapy to Correct a Severe Chromosome Defect

Study discovers chromosome therapy to correct severe chromosome defect

Jan. 13, 2014 Geneticists from Ohio, California and Japan joined forces in a quest to correct a faulty chromosome through cellular reprogramming. Their study, published online today in Nature, used stem cells to correct a defective "ring chromosome" with a normal chromosome. Such therapy has the promise to correct chromosome abnormalities that give rise to birth defects, mental disabilities and growth limitations.

"In the future, it may be possible to use this approach to take cells from a patient that has a defective chromosome with multiple missing or duplicated genes and rescue those cells by removing the defective chromosome and replacing it with a normal chromosome," said senior author Anthony Wynshaw-Boris, MD, PhD, James H. Jewell MD '34 Professor of Genetics and chair of Case Western Reserve School of Medicine Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences and University Hospitals Case Medical Center.

Wynshaw-Boris led this research while a professor in pediatrics, the Institute for Human Genetics and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UC, San Francisco (UCSF) before joining the faculty at Case Western Reserve in June 2013.

Individuals with ring chromosomes may display a variety of birth defects, but nearly all persons with ring chromosomes at least display short stature due to problems with cell division. A normal chromosome is linear, with its ends protected, but with ring chromosomes, the two ends of the chromosome fuse together, forming a circle. This fusion can be associated with large terminal deletions, a process where portions of the chromosome or DNA sequences are missing. These deletions can result in disabling genetic disorders if the genes in the deletion are necessary for normal cellular functions.

The prospect for effective counter measures has evaded scientists -- until now. The international research team discovered the potential for substituting the malfunctioning ring chromosome with an appropriately functioning one during reprogramming of patient cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). iPSC reprogramming is a technique that was developed by Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, a co-corresponding author on the Nature paper. Yamanaka is a senior investigator at the UCSF-affiliated Gladstone Institutes, a professor of anatomy at UCSF, and the director of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) in Kyoto University. He won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2012 for developing the reprogramming technique.

Marina Bershteyn, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Wynshaw-Boris lab at UCSF, along with Yohei Hayashi, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Yamanaka lab at the Gladstone Institutes, reprogrammed skin cells from three patients with abnormal brain development due to a rare disorder called Miller Dieker Syndrome, which results from large terminal deletions in one arm of chromosome 17. One patient had a ring chromosome 17 with the deletion and the other two patients had large terminal deletions in one of their chromosome 17, but not a ring. Additionally, each of these patients had one normal chromosome 17.

The researchers observed that, after reprogramming, the ring chromosome 17 that had the deletion vanished entirely and was replaced by a duplicated copy of the normal chromosome 17. However, the terminal deletions in the other two patients remained after reprogramming. To make sure this phenomenon was not unique to ring chromosome 17, they reprogrammed cells from two different patients that each had ring chromosomes 13. These reprogrammed cells also lost the ring chromosome, and contained a duplicated copy of the normal chromosome 13.

"It appears that ring chromosomes are lost during rapid and continuous cell divisions during reprogramming," said Yamanaka. "The duplication of the normal chromosome then corrects for that lost chromosome."

"Ring loss and duplication of whole chromosomes occur with a certain frequency in stem cells," explained Bershteyn. "When chromosome duplication compensates for the loss of the corresponding ring chromosome with a deletion, this provides a possible avenue to correct large-scale problems in a chromosome that have no chance of being corrected by any other means."

"It is likely that our findings apply to other ring chromosomes, since the loss of the ring chromosome occurred in cells reprogrammed from three different patients," said Hayashi.

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Study discovers chromosome therapy to correct severe chromosome defect

DaSilva Institute Brings World-Class Medicine to Sarasota, Florida

Sarasota, FL (PRWEB) January 13, 2014

The DaSilva Institute opened their brand new state-of-the-art medical facility in Sarasota, Florida on December 16, 2013.

The DaSilva Institute combines functional medicine with anti-aging and regenerative medicine, making it the most unique multi-specialty medical center of its kind in the U.S.

One major advantage that the DaSilva Institute has over similar centers found elsewhere in the US and overseas is its focus on autologous stem cell therapy. Used to reverse degenerative diseases and injuries, this innovative therapy involves harvesting stem cells from the patients own body fat without the controversial use of embryos, umbilical cords, placentas or donors, thus eliminating the risk of viruses and rejection.

The DaSilva Institute is also known for their expertise in bio-identical hormone replacement therapies, functional gastrointestinal disorders, mood disorders, nutritional counseling, IV nutrition and chelation, natural cancer support, regenerative orthopedics, platelet rich plasma (PRP), prolotherapy, and several new aesthetic treatments including facial rejuvenation, natural breast and buttocks augmentation and gentle liposculpture.

Guy DaSilva, MD, founder and medical director of the DaSilva Institute, states, Our vision is to make this extraordinary form of medicine accessible and affordable for people in the U.S. You shouldnt have to fly to other countries and spend tens of thousands of dollars for what you can receive in your own backyard for much less.

After outgrowing their previous office in the Lakewood Ranch area, the decision to move into a larger, more optimally equipped facility led them to the heart of Sarasota.

Dr. DaSilva states, My hope is that people will benefit from our extended menu of services and enjoy the beautiful and comforting ambiance of our new office, as well as the convenience of the new Sarasota location. And above all, we want to help more people discover health without limits.

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DaSilva Institute Brings World-Class Medicine to Sarasota, Florida