International Stem Cell Corp. Gets FDA Clearance

International Stem Cell Corp., a Carlsbad-based biotech company developing stem cell therapies and biomedical products, announced that the U. S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared the companys human parthenogenetic stem cell line for investigational clinical use.

Human embryonic stem cells typically come from fertilized eggs. In 2007, however, scientists at International Stem Cell Corp. (ISCO) reported the first successful creation of human stem cell lines from unfertilized eggs, according to Scientific American. They used a process called parthenogenesis, in which researchers use chemicals to induce the egg to begin developing as if it had been fertilized. The egg called a parthenote behaves just like an embryo in the early stages of division. Because it contains no genetic material from a father, however, it cannot develop into a viable fetus. Just like embryonic stem cells, parthenogenetic stem cells can be coaxed to grow into different kinds of human cells or tissue, ready to be transplanted into diseased areas of the body.

"Many stem cell lines can never be used to develop commercial therapeutic products because they don't meet the FDA's ethical and quality standards, said Ruslan Semechkin, ISCOs chief scientific officer. With this clearance from the FDA, based on the safety of our cells and quality of our manufacturing processes, the company has removed any uncertainty in the potential clinical use of human parthenogenetic stem cells. Not only does this increase the chance that our regulatory submission for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, which we will be submitting before the end of the year, will be approved, but it also means that our human parthenogenetic stem cells can serve as the basis for investigational clinical studies for other indications, for example stroke or traumatic brain injury."

To be approved by the FDA for use in human trials and commercial therapeutic products, stem cells must be grown under what's known as good manufacturing practice (GMP) conditions. GMP standards require that each batch of cells is grown in identical, repeatable conditions, ensuring that they have the same properties, and each person receiving a stem cell therapy would be getting an equivalent treatment. According to ISCO, achieving this level of consistency is difficult and requires knowing the exact identity and quantity of every component of the media that the cells grow in and characterizing cell batches extremely precisely, as well as rigorous quality control and assurance.

ISCO (OTCQB: ISCO) will use its own GMP facilities in Oceanside to produce the cells in preparation for the first clinical trial.

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International Stem Cell Corp. Gets FDA Clearance

Def Leppard – Chumash Casino Resort 10/30/14 #3 – Video

Def Leppard - Chumash Casino Resort 10/30/14 #3
Joe Elliott intros Steve Brown of Trixter, filling in for Vivian Campbell who was getting stem cell treatment at the time of this show. #39;Armageddon It #39; and #39;Make Love Like A Man #39; - Samala Showroom...

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Def Leppard - Chumash Casino Resort 10/30/14 #3 - Video

Cancer-stricken Vivian Campbell On Course For Early Hospital Release

Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell is remaining upbeat as he undergoes his latest round of stem-cell treatment for cancer as he is on course to be released from hospital a month earlier than planned.

The Pour Some Sugar On Me hitmaker announced his Hodgkin's lymphoma had returned at the beginning of 2014 after declaring he was in remission last November (13).

The rocker took a break from touring with the group in order to focus on his health, and now his bandmate Joe Elliott reveals Campbell has been given some good news as he continues to battle the illness.

He tells Billboard.com, "The latest that I'm aware of with Viv, they were harvesting stem cells from him and do whatever they do in a Petri dish with them, and then they were gonna carpet bomb him with chemo for a week and he was gonna be kept in the hospital...

"Then they're gonna put the stem cells back in and do whatever they do, wave the magic wand and say 'Abracadabra...' We were under the impression he would be in the hospital until Christmas (25Dec14), but the last email he sent me, which was about two weeks ago, said, 'It looks like I may be able to get out of here by mid-November.'"

Trixter guitarist Steve Brown was tapped to fill in for Campbell on Def Leppard's current tour, and made his debut with the band in September (14).

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Cancer-stricken Vivian Campbell On Course For Early Hospital Release

Stem Cell Treatment in Malaysia | Advanced Clinical …

Stem Cell Treatment for Stroke

Research Protocol registered with Stem Cell Registry of the Ministry of Health, Malaysia:

Presented at the 3rd International Association of Neurorestoratology Annual Congress (IANRAC III), Beijing 23-25 April 2010: Foo-Chiang Lee (Malaysia): Multicentre phase II study assessing the safety and efficacy of intracerebral autologous mesenchymal stem cells in chronic stroke patients http://www.ianr.org.cn/English/new.asp?id=1226

Forthcoming presentation at 8th Asian Congress of Neurological Surgeons, Kuala Lumpur, 20-21 November 2010:

Dr. Chee-Pin CHEE, Foo-Chiang LEE, Dr. Moon-Keen LEE, Sze-Piaw Chin, Zaliha Omar. Autologous bone marrow stem cell transplantation for stroke patients: an initial report.

ABSTRACT OF PAPER presented at IANRAC III Beijing

MULTICENTRE PHASE II STUDY ASSESSING THE SAFETY AND EFFICACY OF INTRACEREBRAL AUTOLOGOUS MESENCHYMAL STEM CELLS IN CHRONIC STROKE PATIENTS.

Dr. Foo-Chiang LEE 1, Dr. Chee-Pin CHEE 2, Dr. Moon-Keen LEE3, Assoc Prof Sze-Piaw Chin4 and Dr. Zaliha Omar5

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Letter: Adult stem cells can change the healthcare landscape

Adult stem cells can change the healthcare landscape

A recent Colorado political advertisement highlighting a candidates stance on stem cell research shows the issue is still at the forefront of public consciousness. Part of what makes stem cell research such a hot button issue is the number of persistent myths that propagate many of the heated emotions surrounding the topic.

Much of the stem cell controversy comes from the fact many people only know of embryonic stem cells, which are generated from fertilized, frozen eggs at in-vitro fertilization centers. These are not the only type of stem cells. Other types include umbilical cord blood and adult stem cells.

Umbilical cord blood is extracted from birth and preserved for the future benefit of the child. While this type of stem cell technique is safe and it is becoming commonplace to store the cells, there is currently no way to utilize these cells beyond compassionate care cases which are few and far between. However, adult stem cells are currently in clinical use today and are easily and safely harvested from the patients fat and bone marrow reserves. The adult stem cells can be utilized for a variety of treatment options, which include joint, ligament and tendon injuries, back pain, and autoimmune diseases.

Polls indicate a shifting paradigm in how people view stem cell use and research. A Pew Research survey conducted in 2013 revealed only 16 percent believed non-embryonic stem cell research was immoral. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI recently gave his approval on adult stem cell research, I pray that your commitment to adult stem cell research will bring great blessings for the future of man and genuine enrichment to his culture.

Those with an understanding of adult stem cells know there is no controversy as they do not require the harming of an embryo. While progress in the realm of public opinion is being made, regulatory and administrative difficulties are still hampering medical innovation according to some healthcare experts.

Adult stem cells hold great promise for the future of medicine because of their potential to improve cartilage health, repair lumbar discs, and slow progression of autoimmune diseases. The ability to utilize stem cells from ones own body to safely and naturally heal itself from many different ailments is beginning to revolutionize healthcare.

With more public support and cooperative regulatory policies, adult stem cells have the potential to forever change the healthcare landscape as profoundly as the mark antibiotics made on medicine.

Dr. Scott Brandt

ThriveMD Aspen

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Letter: Adult stem cells can change the healthcare landscape

Iraqi child gets stem cell treatment in city

Special Arrangement Nourl Al Zahara suffered from cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart muscles get enlarged and weak.

A seven-year-old girl from Iraq underwent stem cell treatment for a heart ailment at Frontier Lifeline Hospital, recently.

The child, Nourl Al Zahara from Baghdad, is the only child of Salem, a botany teacher, and Raza, a lawyer. She was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart muscles get enlarged and weak. When she was six months old, she had trouble breathing, and when she began walking, would get tired easily. Her skeletal muscles were also weak.

Stem cell treatment was chosen, a release from the hospital said, as doctors wanted to give Nourls heart a chance to regenerate and ensure her quality of her life was not compromised.

As the heart does not have the capacity to heal by itself, stem cell therapy helps in the process. The treatment was successful and the child is now healthy and looking forward to going to school, said CEO and chairman of the hospital K.M. Cherian, according to the release.

The hospital has permission and approval from the Indian Council of Medical Research for stem cell treatment for heart diseases. Over 100 children have benefited from stem cell implantations at the hospital, the release said.

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Iraqi child gets stem cell treatment in city

Can scientists patent life? The question returns to the Supreme Court

The thorny and unresolved question of whether life itself can be patented may come again before the U.S. Supreme Court, if it accepts a motion filed Friday by Santa Monica-based Consumer Watchdog. (H/T to David Jensen's California Stem Cell Report.)

The issue isn't a new one either for the consumer group or the court. Consumer Watchdog launched its challenge of a patent on human stem cells issued to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF, in 2006. Since then the battle has been waged before the U.S. Patent Office, which overturned the patent then reinstated a narrower version; and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears patent appeals.

The group has challenged the patent on two grounds: first, that the work covered wasn't novel or original, and second, that the Supreme Court has ruled that a "product of nature" can't be patented.

That ruling came in 2013, in a case involving laboratory-isolated DNA. Even then, however, the court left the door open for patents of some biological products, notably "composite DNA," which is synthetically created in the lab.

The court's attempt to split hairs, so to speak, reflects its discomfort with the very question of where to draw the line on what sort of organisms can be patented.

As it happens, that question was placed before the court only indirectly by the Consumer Watchdog motion. The immediate issue is whether the organization had legal standing to appeal the patent office's ruling in the first place. The appeals court threw out its appeal last year on the grounds that it hadn't been injured by WARF's patent, normally a prerequisite for bringing a lawsuit in federal court.

Consumer Watchdog's lawyer, Daniel Ravicher at the Public Patent Foundation, says patent law explicitly allows parties that challenge a patent to appeal an adverse ruling to a higher court. He speculates that the appeals court raised the standing issue on its own last year because it was inclined to uphold the patent, and feared being overturned by the Supreme Court.

"This case is almost identical to the genes case," Ravicher says. His goal is for the Supreme Court to accept its motion and order the appeals court to reconsider the stem cell patent on its merits. If that happens, the underlying issue of the patentability of life is almost certain to land back in the Supreme Court's lap.

All this is happening, researchers say, because WARF made exceptionally broad claims for its patent rights and exercised them very aggressively. This is, in fact, WARF's business; the nonprofit foundation was formed in the 1920s to exploit a patent issued to a University of Wisconsin professor on fortifying food with vitamin D, which it promptly licensed to Quaker Oats. By 1930, the deal was producing $1,000 a day. WARF also owns the rights to the drug Warfarin, which is named after the foundation.

A stem cell patent was originally issued to Wisconsin's James Thomson in 1995 (two more followed later), covering his extraction of stem cells from human embryos. WARF at first maintained that the patents covered the use of any human embryonic stem cells, and even products eventually produced by research using them.

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Can scientists patent life? The question returns to the Supreme Court

Regulating genes to treat illness, grow food, and understand the brain

For his contribution to the understanding of gene regulation and its potential ability to change agriculture and the treatment of disease and mental health, Professor Ryan Lister has been awarded the 2014 Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year.

Genes are not enough to explain the difference between a skin cell and a stem cell, a leaf cell and a root cell, or the complexity of the human brain. Genes dont explain the subtle ways in which your parents environment before you were conceived might affect your offspring.

Another layer of complexitythe epigenomeis at work determining when and where genes are turned on and off.

Ryan Lister is unravelling this complexity. Hes created ways of mapping the millions of molecular markers of where genes have been switched on or off, has made the first maps of these markers in plants and humans, and revealed key differences between the markers in cells with different fates.

Hes created maps of the epigenome in plants, which could enable plant breeders to modify crops to increase yields without changing the underlying DNA.

Hes explained a challenge for stem cell medicineshowing how, when we persuade, for example, skin cells to turn into stem cells, these cells retain a memory of their past. Their epigenome is different to that of natural embryonic stem cells. He believes this molecular memory could be reversed.

He has also recently explored the most complex system we knowthe human braindiscovering that its epigenome is extensively reconfigured in childhood during critical stages when the neural circuits are forming and maturing. These epigenome patterns may even underpin learning and memory. All of this in just 15 years since the beginning of his PhD.

For his contribution to the understanding of gene regulation and its potential ability to change agriculture and the treatment of disease and mental health, Professor Ryan Lister of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology at the University of Western Australia has been awarded the 2014 Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year.

The human body is composed of hundreds of different types of cells. Yet all are formed from the same set of instructions, the human genome. How does this happen?

On top of the genetic code sits another code, the epigenome. It can direct which genes are switched on and which are switched off, Ryan Lister says. The genome contains a huge volume of information, a parts list to build an entire organism. But controlling when and where the different components are used is crucial. The epigenetic code regulates the release of the genomes potential. Cells end up with different forms and functions through using different parts of the genome.

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Regulating genes to treat illness, grow food, and understand the brain

The Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center Announces Adult Stem Cell Public Seminars in North County San Diego, California

San Marcos and Carlsbad, California (PRWEB) October 29, 2014

The Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center announces a series of free public seminars on the use of adult stem cells for various chronic, degenerative and inflammatory conditions. They will be provided by Dr. Thomas A. Gionis, Surgeon-in-Chief.

The seminars will be held on Wednesday, November 5, 2014, at 11:30am and 1:30pm at the Hampton Inn San Marcos, 123 E. Carmel St., San Marcos, CA 92078 and Thursday, November 6, 2014, at 11:30am, 1:30pm and 3:30pm at the Hampton Inn Carlsbad, 2229 Palomar Airport Rd., Carlsbad, CA 92011. Please RSVP at (949) 679-3889.

The Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center abides by investigational protocols using adult adipose derived stem cells (ADSCs) which can be deployed to improve patients quality of life for a number of chronic, degenerative and inflammatory conditions and diseases. ADSCs are taken from the patients own adipose (fat) tissue (found within a cellular mixture called stromal vascular fraction (SVF)). ADSCs are exceptionally abundant in adipose tissue. The adipose tissue is obtained from the patient during a 15 minute mini-liposuction performed under local anesthesia in the doctors office. SVF is a protein-rich solution containing mononuclear cell lines (predominantly adult autologous mesenchymal stem cells), macrophage cells, endothelial cells, red blood cells, and important Growth Factors that facilitate the stem cell process and promote their activity.

ADSCs are the body's natural healing cells - they are recruited by chemical signals emitted by damaged tissues to repair and regenerate the bodys injured cells. The Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center only uses Adult Autologous Stem Cells from a persons own fat No embryonic stem cells are used. Current areas of study include: Emphysema, COPD, Asthma, Heart Failure, Parkinsons Disease, Stroke, Multiple Sclerosis, Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Crohns Disease, and degenerative orthopedic joint conditions. For more information, or if someone thinks they may be a candidate for one of the adult stem cell protocols offered by the Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center, they may contact Dr. Gionis directly at (949) 679-3889, or see a complete list of the Centers study areas at: http://www.IrvineStemCellsUSA.com.

About the Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center: The Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center is an affiliate of the Cell Surgical Network (CSN); they are located in Irvine, California and Westlake, California. We provide care for people suffering from diseases that may be alleviated by access to adult stem cell based regenerative treatment. We utilize a fat transfer surgical technology to isolate and implant the patients own stem cells from a small quantity of fat harvested by a mini-liposuction on the same day. The investigational protocols utilized by the Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center have been reviewed and approved by an IRB (Institutional Review Board) which is registered with the U.S. Department of Health, Office of Human Research Protection; and the study is registered with Clinicaltrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). For more information visit our website: http://www.IrvineStemCellsUSA.com.

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The Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center Announces Adult Stem Cell Public Seminars in North County San Diego, California

The Miracle of Stem Cell Therapy at Adler Footcare Regenerates Cells, Heals Foot Pain

New York, New York (PRWEB) October 29, 2014

Stem cell therapy is the future of foot pain treatment. New York podiatrists at Adler Footcare are using ethical stem cell treatments for foot problems to help speed healing, minimize pain, and reduce swelling.

Stem cells are cells that havent quite yet determined their role in the body. This gives them the ability to turn into anything. The treatment is being used for problems causing foot pain, such as Achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, and arthritis of the first toe joint. Stem cells help regenerate new cartilage and helps tissue heal much quicker.

"Stem cells turn into everything," said Dr. Jeffrey Adler, Medical/Surgical Director & Owner of Adler Footcare. "So basically, if the damage is due to cartilage, they turn into cartilage. If the damage is due to soft tissue, they turn into soft tissue. Its the Swiss army knife of treatments."

The stem cells are not live embryos, but instead are generated from the placenta and ethically obtained during the C-sections of live births. The women who the cells are taken from are screened and tested for any communicable diseases beforehand.

Stem cell therapy uses a minimally invasive technique to inject the cells directly into the area where the patient is feeling the foot pain. Fluoroscopy is used to determine the exact position for injection. When stem cell therapy is used healing occurs twice as fast. As the tissues are regenerated and the swelling is minimized, the patient is able to experience more range of motion, less post-operative pain, and less inflammation.

The New York podiatrists at Adler Footcare have been using stem cell therapy for 2 years. They continue to stay up-to-date on the process and have seen only positive results.

To learn more about stem cell treatment for foot pain, contact a New York podiatrist at Adler Footcare.

About Dr. Jeffrey L. Adler

Dr. Jeffrey L. Adler, Medical/Surgical Director and Owner of Adler Footcare of Greater New York has been practicing podiatric medicine since 1979 and has performed thousands of foot and ankle surgeries. Dr. Adler is board certified in Podiatric Surgery and Primary Podiatric Medicine by the American Board of Multiple Specialties in Podiatry. Dr. Adler is also a Professor of Minimally Invasive Foot Surgery for the Academy of Ambulatory Foot and Ankle Surgeons. As one of only several in the country who perform minimally invasive podiatric surgery, Dr. Adlers patients enjoy significantly reduced recovery times.

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The Miracle of Stem Cell Therapy at Adler Footcare Regenerates Cells, Heals Foot Pain