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Donor bid inspired by Rhiane's fight against 'poorly bug'

By Stem Cell Treatment

Buy photos Rhiane with kickboxing coach Dev Barrett and Specials front man Neville Staple. Picture by Jon Mullis 05.014.015.cov.jm5 (www.buyphotos247.com)

A SERIOUSLY ill girl needs help from the public in finding a matching blood stem cell donor.

Rhiane Francois, from Whitley, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia last September and has undergone several rounds of chemotherapy, the latest of which started on Monday.

Once her treatment has finished, the seven-year-old is likely to need a stem cell donation to save her life.

For many blood cancer patients a blood stem cell donation is their only chance of survival, but only half of the people diagnosed in the UK find a matching donor.

And Rhiane, her family and friends are working with Delete Blood Cancer UK to encourage people to register as potential stem cell donors.

When the family were told about Rhiane being diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, obviously we had mixed emotions, said her aunt Natalie Francois.

You don't expect a child to have such an illness, but seeing just how positive Rhiane has continued to be inspired us to do something positive that would not just potentially save Rhiane but also one of the many other patients in need of a stem cell donation.

On Saturday they held an event at the Belgrade Theatre which attracted over 400 visitors to make people aware of Rhiane's condition and create interest in becoming a donor.

Organisers said it was a huge success with similar events also being held in London and Glasgow.

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Donor bid inspired by Rhiane's fight against 'poorly bug'

Stem cell – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

By Stell Cell Research

Stem cells are undifferentiated biological cells that can differentiate into specialized cells and can divide (through mitosis) to produce more stem cells. They are found in multicellular organisms. In mammals, there are two broad types of stem cells: embryonic stem cells, which are isolated from the inner cell mass of blastocysts, and adult stem cells, which are found in various tissues. In adult organisms, stem cells and progenitor cells act as a repair system for the body, replenishing adult tissues. In a developing embryo, stem cells can differentiate into all the specialized cellsectoderm, endoderm and mesoderm (see induced pluripotent stem cells)but also maintain the normal turnover of regenerative organs, such as blood, skin, or intestinal tissues.

There are three accessible sources of autologous adult stem cells in humans:

Stem cells can also be taken from umbilical cord blood just after birth. Of all stem cell types, autologous harvesting involves the least risk. By definition, autologous cells are obtained from one's own body, just as one may bank his or her own blood for elective surgical procedures.

Adult stem cells are frequently used in medical therapies, for example in bone marrow transplantation. Stem cells can now be artificially grown and transformed (differentiated) into specialized cell types with characteristics consistent with cells of various tissues such as muscles or nerves. Embryonic cell lines and autologous embryonic stem cells generated through therapeutic cloning have also been proposed as promising candidates for future therapies.[1] Research into stem cells grew out of findings by Ernest A. McCulloch and James E. Till at the University of Toronto in the 1960s.[2][3]

The classical definition of a stem cell requires that it possess two properties:

Two mechanisms exist to ensure that a stem cell population is maintained:

Potency specifies the differentiation potential (the potential to differentiate into different cell types) of the stem cell.[4]

In practice, stem cells are identified by whether they can regenerate tissue. For example, the defining test for bone marrow or hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is the ability to transplant the cells and save an individual without HSCs. This demonstrates that the cells can produce new blood cells over a long term. It should also be possible to isolate stem cells from the transplanted individual, which can themselves be transplanted into another individual without HSCs, demonstrating that the stem cell was able to self-renew.

Properties of stem cells can be illustrated in vitro, using methods such as clonogenic assays, in which single cells are assessed for their ability to differentiate and self-renew.[7][8] Stem cells can also be isolated by their possession of a distinctive set of cell surface markers. However, in vitro culture conditions can alter the behavior of cells, making it unclear whether the cells will behave in a similar manner in vivo. There is considerable debate as to whether some proposed adult cell populations are truly stem cells.

Embryonic stem (ES) cells are stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst, an early-stage embryo.[9] Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 45 days post fertilization, at which time they consist of 50150 cells. ES cells are pluripotent and give rise during development to all derivatives of the three primary germ layers: ectoderm, endoderm and mesoderm. In other words, they can develop into each of the more than 200 cell types of the adult body when given sufficient and necessary stimulation for a specific cell type. They do not contribute to the extra-embryonic membranes or the placenta.

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Stem cell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cell Therapy StemCell Doctors

By Stem Cell Doctors

ELLSWORTH Visitors to the Bellaire pet crisis center With a Little help From My Friends get an official welcome from Moka.

The Labrador retriever was found behind a Bellaire restaurant in 2011 and now serves as the centers mascot.

Peforming her duties has been increasingly difficult for the dog, who suffers from severe arthritis in her hips. So recently the center turned to Ellsworth veterinarian Christian Randall of North Country Veterinary Services, the first in northern Michigan to offer in-clinic adipose stem cell therapy.

The procedure uses a pets own blood and tissue to produce plasma-rich platelets and stem cells that proliferate growth in damaged areas.

Dormant stem cells are separated from adipose fat tissue and activated with an LED technology that uses three different wave lengths of light. Then the cells are injected directly into the affected area or administered intravenously to help promote regeneration. The result is a decrease in pain and lameness and increased range of motion.

Its using the bodys own repair cells to repair damage, said Trey Smith, director of laboratory services for MediVet America, which developed the technology Randall uses.

The therapy is the first treatment to help heal and slow the progression of osteoarthritis and degenerative joint disease rather than just cope with the symptoms, said Randall, who saw the results while studying at Virginia Equine Imaging and now plans to use it on equine as well as canine and feline patients.

It concentrates, speeds up and amplifies the bodys own healing power, he said.

Stem cell therapy has been around for a while, but in-clinic availability of the technology is new. Only a handful of veterinarians in Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids offer the services, said Randall, who charges $1,800 to treat a dog or cat. Repeat injections are possible with banked plasma-rich platelets and stem cells.

Before the one-day procedure, veterinarians had to send blood and tissue to an outside lab for processing, a more costly three-day procedure that requires an animals return visit to the vet for injection.

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Cell Therapy StemCell Doctors

The Record: Stem cell advance

By Stem Cell Doctors

TWO NEW studies offer extraordinary hope that we may be closer to the day when people can use their own cells to treat significant medical conditions, without using controversial stem cell methods that involve harvesting human embryos.

Stem cell research has provided a glimpse of a future in which doctors can reverse the effects of certain ailments and decrease people's suffering. But the topic also carries with it a passionate ethical debate. This new, faster method if proved successful could push us past much of that controversy.

Researchers in Japan published studies in the journal Nature this week that described how they "reprogrammed" blood cells taken from mice by soaking them in an acidic solution. The scientists found that when the cells which they called stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency were injected back into mice, they multiplied and grew into heart, bone, brain and other organs.

Medical researchers have worked for years to use pluripotent stem cells to treat diseased organs, severed spinal cords and other conditions like diabetes, blindness and muscular dystrophy.

While not all stem cell research has involved human embryos, that method is commonly known by the public and makes many people uncomfortable. Some religious groups have pushed to have the practice banned. Scientists aren't even sure that method would work, since a patient's body could reject foreign cells.

However, researchers say this new method could increase the chance of success because it would use a person's own cells.

"If it works in man, this could be the game changer that ultimately makes a wide range of cell therapies available using the patient's own cells as starting material," said Chris Mason, a professor of regenerative medicine bioprocessing at University College London. "The age of personalized medicine would have finally arrived."

Mason wasn't involved in the study but is one of several outside experts who have weighed in expressing that this study looks extremely promising.

"It's remarkable," said Rudolf Jaenisch, a pioneering stem cell researcher at MIT. "Let's see whether it works in human cells, and there's no reason why it shouldn't."

The lead study author, Haruko Obokata, a biochemistry researcher at the RIKEN research institute in Japan, said they have started looking at how this method works with human cells.

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The Record: Stem cell advance

Herald News: A hopeful discovery on stem cells

By Stem Cell Doctors

TWO NEW studies offer extraordinary hope that we may be closer to the day when people can use their own cells to treat significant medical conditions, without using controversial stem cell methods that involve harvesting human embryos.

Stem cell research has provided a glimpse of a future where doctors can reverse the effects of certain ailments and decrease people's suffering. But the topic also carries with it a passionate ethical debate. This new, faster method if proved successful could push us past much of that controversy.

Researchers in Japan published studies in the journal Nature this week that described how they "reprogrammed" blood cells taken from mice by soaking them in an acidic solution. The scientists found that when the cells which they called stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency were injected back into mice, they multiplied and grew into heart, bone, brain and other organs.

Medical researchers have worked for years to use pluripotent stem cells to treat diseased organs, severed spinal cords and other conditions like diabetes, blindness and muscular dystrophy.

While not all stem cell research has involved human embryos, that method is commonly known by the public and makes many people uncomfortable. Some religious groups have pushed to have the practice banned. Scientists aren't even sure that method would work, since a patient's body could reject foreign cells.

However, researchers say this new method could increase the chance of success because it would use a person's own cells.

"If it works in man, this could be the game changer that ultimately makes a wide range of cell therapies available using the patient's own cells as starting material," said Chris Mason, a professor of regenerative medicine bioprocessing at University College London. "The age of personalized medicine would have finally arrived."

Mason wasn't involved in the study but is one of several outside experts who have weighed in expressing that this study looks extremely promising.

"It's remarkable," said Rudolf Jaenisch, a pioneering stem cell researcher at MIT. "Let's see whether it works in human cells, and there's no reason why it shouldn't."

The lead study author, Haruko Obokata, a biochemistry researcher at the RIKEN research institute in Japan, said they have started looking at how this method works with human cells.

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Herald News: A hopeful discovery on stem cells

New Method of Creating Stem Cells is a "Game Changer"

By Stem Cell Medicine

STAP cells, glowing green, have been integrated into the mouse fetuss body tissues. Credit: Haruko Obokata

Researchers have observed that plants, when stressed, can reprogram their cells into stem cells, capable of differentiating into many different cell types. Now, it appears mammals can perform the same trick. Japanese scientists say they have successfully reverted blood cells back to their embryonic state after dipping them in a stress-inducing bath of acid.

The team accomplished the feat using blood cells from mouse spleens, but are now trying to replicate it using human blood cells. Independent researchers are praising the discovery for both its simplicity and its potential to usher in new therapies and cloning techniques.

Scientists currently deploy one of two methods to obtain stem cells: extract them from human embryos, or reprogram adult cells into a stem-cell state (called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells). However, both methods have their drawbacks. Taking cells from an embryo destroys it in the process, and creating iPS cells requires a complicated choreography of genetic modifications.

The new method called STAP, for stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency appears to be far easier. Chris Mason, a professor of regenerative medicine at University College of London, didnt mask his excitement for the BBC:

I thought my God thats a game changer! Its a very exciting, but surprise, finding If this works in people as well as it does in mice, it looks faster, cheaper and possibly safer than other cell reprogramming technologies personalized reprogrammed cell therapies may now be viable.

Haruko Obokata, the studys lead author, conceived of the idea after she noticed blood cells behaved peculiarly after squeezing them through a capillary tube. The cells would shrink to a size resembling stem cells. Intrigued, she replicated the technique by exposing blood cells to different types of stress. Three stressors perforating the cell membrane, exposure to an acidic solution, and physical squeezing caused the cells to behave like stem cells.

However, it was only the first step. Scientists needed to demonstrate that the transformed cells were truly pluripotent or capable of morphing into any type of cell.

To test that, scientists used mice bred to carry a gene that causes a protein in pluripotent cells to glow neon green. They injected the newly created stem cells into mouse embryos and the developing pups glowed all over, indicating that the embryos had successfully incorporated the stem cells into every tissue in their body. The team published their findings Wednesday in Nature.

Stressing blood cells harnesses a natural process, and could streamline the creation of stem cells. Jeff Karp, an associate professor at Brigham & Womens Hospital in Boston, told CNN the new method could produce stem cells up to 10 times faster than current methods.

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New Method of Creating Stem Cells is a "Game Changer"

Ordinary cells turned into stem cells 'game-changing'

By Stem Cell Medical Center

Japanese scientists say they have developed a new process to make stem cells that is simpler and faster than current methods. Sarah Toms reports.

EMBRYONIC FORM: A mouse embryo formed with Stimulus-Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency (STAP) cells.

BREAKTHROUGH: Stimulus-Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency (STAP) cells.

In experiments that could open a new era in stem cell biology, scientists have found a simple way to change mature animal cells back into an embryonic-like state that allows them to generate many types of tissue.

The research, described as game-changing by experts in the field, suggests human cells could in future be reprogrammed by the same technique, offering a simpler way to replace damaged cells or grow new organs for sick and injured people.

Chris Mason, chair of regenerative medicine bioprocessing at University College London, who was not involved in the work, said its approach in mice was "the most simple, lowest-cost and quickest method" to generate so-called pluripotent cells - able to develop into many different cell types - from mature cells.

"If it works in man, this could be the game changer that ultimately makes a wide range of cell therapies available using the patient's own cells as starting material - the age of personalised medicine would have finally arrived," he said.

The experiments, reported in two papers in the journal Nature this week, involved scientists from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Japan and Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the United States.

The researchers took skin and blood cells, let them multiply, then subjected them to stress "almost to the point of death", they explained, by exposing them to various events including trauma, low oxygen levels and acidic environments.

One of these "stressful" situations was simply to bathe the cells in a weak acid solution for around 30 minutes.

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Ordinary cells turned into stem cells 'game-changing'

Scientists report making stem cells in about 30 minutes

By Stem Cell Medical Center

In a feat that experts say is a significant advance for regenerative medicine, scientists have discovered a surprisingly simple method for creating personalized stem cells that doesnt involve human embryos or tinkering with DNA.

Two studies published Wednesday in the journal Nature describe a novel procedure for reprogramming the blood cells of newborn mice by soaking the cells in a mildly acidic solution for 30 minutes. This near-fatal shock caused the cells to become pluripotent, or capable of growing into any type of cell in the body.

When the reprogrammed cells were tagged and injected into a developing mouse, they multiplied and grew into heart, bone, brain and other organs, the scientists found.

It was really surprising to see that such a remarkable transformation could be triggered simply by stimuli from outside of the cell, said lead study author Haruko Obokata, a biochemistry researcher at the RIKEN research institute in Japan. Very surprising.

The simplicity of the technique, which Obokata and her colleagues dubbed stimulus triggered acquisition of pluripotency, or STAP, caught many experts off-guard.

So you mistreat cells under the right conditions and they assume a different state of differentiation? Its remarkable, said Rudolf Jaenisch, a pioneering stem cell researcher at MIT who was not involved in the study. Lets see whether it works in human cells, and theres no reason why it shouldnt.

Obokata said that researchers had already begun experiments on human cells, but offered no details.

VIDEO: A beating heart, grown from STAP stem cells

Due to their Zelig-like ability to form any number of specialized cells, pluripotent stem cells are considered the basic building blocks of biology. Scientists are working on ways to use them to repair severed spinal cords, replace diseased organs, and treat conditions as varied as diabetes, blindness and muscular dystrophy.

By using stem cells spawned from the patients own cells, replacement tissues would stand less of a chance of being attacked by the patients own immune system, researchers say. That would spare patients the need to undergo a lifetime regimen of dangerous, immune-suppressing drugs.

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Scientists report making stem cells in about 30 minutes

Family seeks stem cell donors in Meaford for child with leukemia

By Stem Cell Clinic

Meaford Express

By Junior Kindergarten, Katie Star Herron had already beat cancer once.

By 4-years-old, she had been through 25 months of intense treatment for leukemia, including lumbar punctures, bone marrow aspirations, chemotherapy, steroids and more time at the hospital than at home. She received her last does of chemotherapy in September 2012 and was in remission.

But the cancer is back, and now her family is reaching out everywhere they can to find a stem cell donor for Katie. A stem-cell transplant is her only hope.

In some cases, about 30 per cent, there's a compatible donor in the family somewhere.

Katie lives with her parents in Cambridge, but she has extended family in Meaford. Katie's grandparents Georgina (Sewell) and Glenn Hodgkinson grew up in Meaford and they are hoping there might be family left in town who can help their little granddaughter.

One Match is a Canadian registry connected to an international network of stem-cell and bone marrow donor registries, and the family of Katie has arranged for a cheek-swabbing clinic in Cambridge on Saturday, February 22 at the Cambridge Sports Park at 1001 Franklin Boulevard from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The other option for people in Meaford is to register on their own as a donor on One Match by visiting http://www.onematch.ca or calling 1-888-236-6283 to fill out a health questionnaire and receive a swab kit in the mail.

About 70 per cent of stem-cell transplant patients receive donations from strangers and non-family members. So it's important to register as a donor on One Match. By registering at One Match, a donor can give stem cells to a patient anywhere in the world.

Ideal donors are between the ages of 17 and 35 and in good health.

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Family seeks stem cell donors in Meaford for child with leukemia

Acid bath turns cells from any tissue into stem cells

By Stem Cell Treatment

The development of human embryonic stem cells, which have the ability to form any cell in the body, may enable us to repair tissues damaged by injury or disease. Initially, these cells could only be obtained through methods that some deemed ethically unacceptable, but researchers eventually developed a combination of genes that could reprogram most cells into an embryonic-like state. That worked great for studies, but wasn't going to work for medical uses, since one of the genes involved has been associated with cancer.

Researchers have since been focusing on whittling down the requirements needed for getting a cell to behave like a stem cell. Now, researchers have figured out a radically simplified process: expose the cells to acidic conditions, then put them in conditions that stem cells grow well in. After a week, it's possible to direct these cells into a state that's even more flexible than embryonic stem cells.

The catalyst for this work is rather unusual. The researchers were motivated by something that works in plants: expose individual plant cells to acidic conditions, grow them in hormones that normally direct plant development, and you can get a whole plant back out. But we're talking about plants here, which evolved with multicellularity and with specialized tissues in a lineage that's completely separate from that of animals. So there's absolutely no reason to suspect that animal cells would react in a similar way to acid treatmentand a number of reasons to expect they wouldn't.

And yet the researchers went ahead and tried anyway. And, amazingly, it worked.

The treatments weren't especially harshonly a half-hour in a pH of 5.45.8. Afterward, the cells were placed in the same culture medium that stem cells are grown in. Many of the cells died, and the ones that were left didn't proliferate like stem cells do. But, over the course of a week, the surviving cells began to activate the genes that are normally expressed by stem cells. This was initially tried with precursors to blood cells, but it turned out to work with a huge variety of tissues: brain, skin, muscle, fat, bone marrow, lung, and liver (all of them obtained from micethis hasn't been tried with human cells yet).

While these cells didn't divide like stem cells, they did behave like them. Injecting them into embryos showed that they were incorporated into every tissue in the body, meaning they had the potential to form any cell. That suggests they are a distinct class of cell from the other ones we're aware of (the researchers call them STAP cells).

But, if they don't grow in culture, it's hard to use or study them. So, the authors tried various combinations of hormones and growth factors that stem cells like. One combination got some of the STAP cells to grow, after which they behaved very much like embryonic stem cells. But a second combination of growth factors got the cells to contribute to non-embryonic tissues, like the placenta, as well. So, in this sense, they seem to be even more flexible than embryonic stem cells, and seem more akin to one of the first cells formed after fertilization.

The people behind this development have done a tremendous amount of work, so much that it was spread across two papers. Still, like many good results, it raises lots of other questions. Many cells in our bodies get exposed to acidic conditions every daywhy do those manage to stably maintain their identity? A related question is what goes on at a molecular level inside the cell after acid treatment. Understanding that will help us learn more about the stem cell fate itself.

And then there are the practical questions. How close are these STAP cells to an actual embryonic cell, in terms of the state of its DNA and gene expression? And, if there are differences, are they significant enough to prevent these cells from being used in safe and efficient medical treatments?

January 30, 2014. DOI: 10.1038/nature12968, 10.1038/nature12969 (About DOIs).

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Acid bath turns cells from any tissue into stem cells

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