Stem cell research forges ahead

Written by: Cynthia Hernandez on October 7, 2010.

Despite opposition, use of embryos for testing continues

Why is the United States such a powerful country? Is it because we have a democracy?

Is it because our military capabilities exceed those of others? Is it because we have succeeded at prioritizing those policies that are most beneficial to the citizenry?

From civil rights movements to fighting a war on terror, the United States is at the forefront of advancement or is it?

It is safe to assume that most Americans support research and education. It is usually the case that anyone who is influential in some form or another has a significant educational background.

From lobbyists to police officers to the president of the United States, education plays a critical role in numerous professions.

One critical aspect of education is research. For example, political scientists research the political implications of differing democratic systems, biologists research DNA and English scholars research literary and poetic forms.

These topics will usually only interest and be of importance to people in similar fields.

But when research on a particular topic ignites controversy, it becomes a battle of academia versus personal beliefs.

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Stem cell research forges ahead

Salk, Stanford partner in genomics program

Instead of being shut out of a $40 million stem cell grant awarded to Stanford University, San Diego researchers will be major partners, say the scientists who lead the project.

Joseph Ecker of the Salk Institute and Michael Snyder of Stanford say that under an informal arrangement, they will jointly allocate money granted from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine for a new center on stem cell genomics. CIRM is responsible for distributing $3 billion in state bond money to turn stem cell research into disease treatments.

Joseph Ecker, a Salk Institute researcher and co-principal investigator of the new center for stem cell genomics created with a $40 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. / Salk Institute

Genomics, the study of the complete set of genes and DNA in an organism, is necessary to help understand how stem cells function. Stem cells contain virtually the same genes as adult cells but differ in which genes are turned on and off. The signals that cause stem cells to differentiate are not well understood.

By analyzing the genomes of stem cells, researchers expect to better understand how stem cells can produce more stem cells, and which genes are involved in directing stem cells down the path to becoming adult cells of interest, such as islet cells that make insulin, bone or retinal cells.

Last months decision had been characterized as a big win for Stanford, because the university had been awarded the grant over competing applications, including one from The Scripps Research Institute and San Diego DNA sequencing giant Illumina.

Ecker and Snyder said that belief is a misunderstanding, because their proposal is a cooperative venture involving extensive participation from San Diego biomedical scientists.

Michael Snyder, a Stanford University researcher and co-principal investigator of the new center for stem cell genomics created with a $40 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. / Stanford University

The leadership issue is confusing, because CIRM requires a single institute to be listed as the lead on funding proposals, even if the institutions are sharing leadership, Ecker said by email. In fact, Mike Snyder and I, by proxy Stanford and Salk, are equal partners. Responsibility for administration of the center will fall equally to Stanford and Salk researchers, as well as strategic steering and decision-making on what projects to pursue.

Besides Salk and Stanford, partners are UC San Diego, the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, the J. Craig Venter Institute, The Scripps Research Institute and UC Santa Cruz. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute also plays a role.

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Salk, Stanford partner in genomics program

Researchers turn adult cells back into stem cells | wfaa …

by KAREN WEINTRAUB

USA TODAY Special Contributor

Posted on January 29, 2014 at 10:32 AM

In a step that has implications for stem cell research, human biology and the treatment of disease, researchers in Japan and at Harvard University have managed to turn adult cells back into flexible stem cells without changing their DNA.

The researchers discovered that they could put cells in various challenging circumstances including in acidic solutions and under physical pressure and turn mature blood cells into cells that were capable of turning into virtually any cell in the body.

The research, published today in the journal Nature, was in mice. If it can be repeated in people, it has the potential to transform research using stem cells to treat disease, and it may lead to a new understanding of how the body heals from injury, said Charles Vacanti, the Harvard Medical School stem cell and tissue engineering biologist who led the research.

Biology textbooks say that once a cell matures to serve a specific role, like, say a red blood cell, it can never go back into a less mature state. Vacanti and his colleagues say their new research upends that dogma.

"This study demonstrates that any mature cell when placed in the right environment can go back, become a stem cell, which then has the potential to become any cell needed by that tissue," said Vacanti, also of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

He believes that that process happens naturally in the body after injury, and the more significant the injury, the farther back these cells will revert. "With a very significant injury, you will cause it to revert clear back to what is basically an embryonic stem cell," he said.

In an early embryo, all cells are stem cells, capable of turning into any cell in the body. As the fetus develops, those cells differentiate into cells with specific functions in muscles, blood, organs, etc. Some of those mature cells develop diseases and injuries. The promise of stem cells as yet largely unrealized is to provide patients with healthy versions of their own cells that can then repair damage and reverse disease.

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Researchers turn adult cells back into stem cells | wfaa ...

Director of Women’s Guild Lung Institute Awarded Stem Cell …

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Director of Women's Guild Lung Institute Awarded Stem Cell ...

Study: Resilience in Parents of Children Undergoing Stem Cell Transplant

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Newswise A childs illness can challenge a parents wellbeing. However, a study recently published in the journal Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation shows that in the case of a childs stem cell transplant, parents feel increased distress at the time of the procedure, but eventually recover to normal levels of adjustment.

Across all study groups, what we basically showed is that parents are resilient. Overall, parents get better over time, says Jennifer Lindwall, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at the CU School of Medicine, teaching partner of the University of Colorado Cancer Center.

The study measured psychological distress and positive affect in 171 parent/child pairs from time of admission for a childs stem cell transplant until 6 weeks after the procedure, and also measured depression, posttraumatic stress and benefit-finding at the time of admission for the procedure and at 24 weeks after. Results in pediatric patients were previously reported in the journal Pediatrics. The current study reports the results in parents.

The aim of the study was to examine an intervention to promote positive adjustment of patients and their parents. In one group, children were given humor and massage therapy, in a second group parents were given relaxation/imagery training and massage therapy in addition to the child intervention, and a third group did not receive any additional intervention beyond standard care provided at the hospital, Lindwall says.

Though no significant differences were found across treatment groups, Lindwall and colleagues from St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital showed a consistent finding: In many respects, a parents distress parallels the childs distress. As things get better for the child, they get better for the parent as well. We saw this with distress in the acute period after transplant and also in global measures of depression, PTSD and benefit-finding, Lindwall says. Parents demonstrated remarkable recovery despite facing a significant life challenge.

Lindwall points out that the medical model in some hospital settings views patients and parents from a deficit perspective it seeks to right what is wrong. However, Lindwall and colleagues also see value in exploring the factors that create resilience in parents to understand what has gone right in these cases despite facing significant challenges.

While the study showed the norm is resilience and recovery, there are certainly some parents of children with significant medical illness who dont do well parents who remain distressed. Our challenge now is to predict which parents are at the highest risk for difficulties and to design interventions that can help these parents cope during their childs medical challenges, Lindwall says.

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Study: Resilience in Parents of Children Undergoing Stem Cell Transplant

Critical factor (BRG1) identified for maintaining stem cell pluripotency

21 hours ago 2014, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

The ability to reprogram adult cells so they return to an undifferentiated, pluripotent statemuch like an embryonic stem cellis enabling the development of promising new cell therapies. Accelerating progress in this field will depend on identifying factors that promote pluripotency, such as the Brg1 protein described in a new study published in BioResearch Open Access.

In "BRG1 Is Required to Maintain Pluripotency of Murine Embryonic Stem Cells," Nishant Singhal and coauthors, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Mnster, and University of Mnster, Germany, demonstrate the critical role the Brg1 protein plays in regulating genes that are part of a network involved in maintaining the pluripotency of embryonic stem cells. This same network is the target for methods developed to reprogram adult somatic cells.

"This work further clarifies the role of the Brg1 containing BAF complex in regulating pluripotency and has important implications for all cellular reprogramming technologies," says BioResearch Open Access Editor Jane Taylor, PhD, MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Explore further: SON ensures proper splicing of proteins to keep embryonic stem cells in a state of self-renewal

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Critical factor (BRG1) identified for maintaining stem cell pluripotency

Researchers turn adult cells back into stem cells | khou …

by KAREN WEINTRAUB

USA TODAY Special Contributor

Posted on January 31, 2014 at 5:49 PM

In a step that has implications for stem cell research, human biology and the treatment of disease, researchers in Japan and at Harvard University have managed to turn adult cells back into flexible stem cells without changing their DNA.

The researchers discovered that they could put cells in various challenging circumstances including in acidic solutions and under physical pressure and turn mature blood cells into cells that were capable of turning into virtually any cell in the body.

The research, published today in the journal Nature, was in mice. If it can be repeated in people, it has the potential to transform research using stem cells to treat disease, and it may lead to a new understanding of how the body heals from injury, said Charles Vacanti, the Harvard Medical School stem cell and tissue engineering biologist who led the research.

Biology textbooks say that once a cell matures to serve a specific role, like, say a red blood cell, it can never go back into a less mature state. Vacanti and his colleagues say their new research upends that dogma.

"This study demonstrates that any mature cell when placed in the right environment can go back, become a stem cell, which then has the potential to become any cell needed by that tissue," said Vacanti, also of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

He believes that that process happens naturally in the body after injury, and the more significant the injury, the farther back these cells will revert. "With a very significant injury, you will cause it to revert clear back to what is basically an embryonic stem cell," he said.

In an early embryo, all cells are stem cells, capable of turning into any cell in the body. As the fetus develops, those cells differentiate into cells with specific functions in muscles, blood, organs, etc. Some of those mature cells develop diseases and injuries. The promise of stem cells as yet largely unrealized is to provide patients with healthy versions of their own cells that can then repair damage and reverse disease.

Read more here:
Researchers turn adult cells back into stem cells | khou ...

Stem cells to treat lung disease in preterm infants

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

6-Feb-2014

Contact: Becky Lindeman journal.pediatrics@cchmc.org 513-636-7140 Elsevier Health Sciences

Cincinnati, OH, February 6, 2014 -- Advances in neonatal care for very preterm infants have greatly increased the chances of survival for these fragile infants. However, preterm infants have an increased risk of developing bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), a serious lung disease, which is a major cause of death and lifelong complications. In a new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers evaluated the safety and feasibility of using stem cell therapies on very preterm infants to prevent or treat BPD.

Won Soon Park, MD, PhD, and colleagues from Samsung Medical Center and Biomedical Research Institute, Seoul, Republic of Korea, conducted a phase I, single-center trial of intratracheal transplantation of human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells to nine very preterm infants (24-26 weeks gestational age) who were at high risk of developing BPD.

All patients who received the treatment tolerated the procedure well without any immediate serious adverse effects. Thirty-three percent of treated infants developed moderate BPD and none developed severe BPD, and 72 percent of a matched comparison group developed moderate or severe BPD. Another serious side effect of very preterm birth, retinopathy of prematurity requiring surgery, tended to occur less often in treated infants. Overall, all nine treated infants survived to discharge, and only three developed moderate BPD.

This phase I study suggests that intratracheal administration of mesenchymal stem cells is safe and feasible. According to Dr. Park, "These findings strongly suggest that phase II clinical trials are warranted to test the efficacy of mesencymal stem cell transplantation, which could lead to new therapies to prevent or cure BPD." Dr. Park and colleagues are currently conducting a long-term safety and follow-up study of these nine preterm infants (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01632475).

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Excerpt from:
Stem cells to treat lung disease in preterm infants

Center for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine – UTHealth

Phone 713.500.3429; Fax 713.500.2424

Brian R. Davis, Ph.D., Associate Professor and DirectorQi Lin Cao, M.D., Associate Professor Charles S. Cox, Jr., M.D., Professor Radbod Darabi, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant ProfessorDong H. Kim, M.D., ProfessorMikhail G. Kolonin, Ph.D., Associate Professor Yong Li, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor Ying Liu, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor Nami McCarty, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Naoki Nakayama,Ph.D., Associate Professor Laura A. Smith Callahan,Ph.D., Assistant Professor Pamela L. Wenzel, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Jiaqian Wu, Ph.D., Assistant Professor

About the Center

A major focus of contemporary medicine is the development of effective therapies for the restoration of human tissues and organs lost to diseases and trauma. Regenerative Medicine is a rapidly emerging field that stands at the intersection of a variety of rapidly developing scientific disciplines: stem cell biology, tissue engineering, biomaterials, molecular biology, immunology and transplantation biology and clinical research. Implicit in the successful design, implementation and application of regenerative medicine/tissue engineering approaches to the repair of a damaged tissue or organ is the reliance on the unique biological properties of stem cells.

The mission statement of the Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the IMM is: To study the fundamental properties of stem cells and to translate their unique biological properties into novel cellular therapies for graft engineering and tissue regeneration for currently intractable disorders. While it is therefore implicit that any such program would span basic-translational-clinical research, it is essential that such an endeavour is ultimately underpinned by excellence in fundamental stem cell research. The Director of the Center, Dr. Brian R. Davis is currently in the process of recruiting a multidisciplinary faculty with the appropriate breadth of expertise, innovation and scientific rigour in the discipline of stem cell biology with the dual intention to promote the excellence and innovation of research within the Center and secondly to ensure the quality and appropriateness of stem cell based translational research initiatives emanating from the Center. In addition, the Center is also envisioned as an educational resource, which in the medium to long-term will be the basis for the development of an academic program in stem cell biology on campus. Moreover, by interfacing effectively with other programs and institutions within the UTHSC, the Center will also act as a focus to stimulate the development and implementation of novel cellular therapies for a range of diseases and disorders.

Some of the current areas of research in the Center are highlighted below:

Brian R. Davis, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Molecular Medicine & Director, Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Annie and Bob Graham Distinguished Chair in Stem Cell Biology Ph.D. ~ California Institute of Technology / Pasadena, California

Qi Lin Cao,M.D. Associate Professor, The Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery & Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine M.D.~ Hunan Medical University / Hunan, China

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Center for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine - UTHealth

Stem Cell Medical Research Center

Functions of organism last properly depending on well organized and controlled reproduction, immigration, differentiation and maturation activities unions. It is possible when the cells in organ and tissues are produced regularly. Stem cells are at the top of this system in an organism. Stem cell is that are able to renew themselves by keeping on splitting for long time by remaining same (not differentiated) and they can differentiate according to needs of organism. Stem cells are major source of cell based treatments. Thus some of researches are using human or animal based stem cells from different kind of tissues.

In different kinds of stem cell researches state that mature stem cell have some significant advantage on the cure of damaged tissues. The advantage of using stem cell obtained from an adult is that stem cell can reproduce in patients own cultivation and then before facing regeneration, they can be given to the patient.

Stem cell researches and its treatments are still the very popular topic in the world

STEM CELLS AND WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT?

Research of stem cell has gained much prominence in recent years for its therapeutic potential in dealing with diseases many of which are essentially incurable by normal therapies. These diseases are characterized by progressive cell loss which has no regenerative potential: e.g. neurodegenerative process leads to Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases. These have become serious health problems as people in advanced societies now live longer. There is great variability in the occurrence and onset of these diseases and the underlying environmental and genetic factors are unknown. The destruction of the beta cells of pancreatic islets is the main cause of diabetes, another serious health problem, can be caused by autoimmune reactions resulting in cell loss (1).

Stem cells are distinct from other cell types by two important characteristics. First, they are unspecialized cells capable of renewing themselves through cell division, sometimes after long periods of inactivity (in G0). Second, under certain physiologic or experimental setting, they can be induced to become tissue or organ specific cells with special functions (2). In some organs, stem cells regularly divide to repair and replace worn out or damaged tissues such as the gut and bone marrow. In other organs, however, such as the heart and the pancreas, stem cells only divide under special conditions. They have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during early life and growth. On the other hand, they serve as a sort of internal repair system in many tissues, dividing essentially without limit to replenish other cells as long as the person or animal is still alive (2).

Scientists frequently worked with two kinds of stem cells from animals and humans: embryonic stem cells and non-embryonic somatic or adult stem cells. Researchers discovered ways to derive embryonic stem cells from early mouse embryos nearly 30 years ago, in 1981. In 1998, the detailed study of the biology of mouse stem cells led to the discovery of a method to derive stem cells from human embryos and grow the cells in the laboratory. These cells are called human embryonic stem cells. They are important for living organisms for many reasons. In the 3- to 5-day-old embryo, called a blastocyst, the inner cells give rise to the entire body of the organism, including all of the many specialized cell types and organs such as the heart, lung, skin, sperm, eggs and other tissues. In some adult tissues, such as bone marrow, muscle, and brain, discrete populations of adult stem cells generate replacements for cells that are lost through normal wear and tear, injury, or disease (2,3).

In 2006, researchers made another breakthrough by identifying conditions that would allow some specialized adult cells to be reprogrammed genetically to assume a stem cell-like state. This new type of stem cell was called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) (2).

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Stem Cell Medical Research Center