Category Archives: Stem Cell Treatment


Sabathia out until at least July

New York Yankees left-hander CC Sabathia, on the disabled list with a right knee injury, will be out until at least July.

Sabathia received a stem cell treatment injection in the inflamed knee from Dr. James Andrews last week.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman told the New York Post that the team was informed that if the process works, Sabathia would need at least six weeks of recovery time.

"Our dialogue with Andrews has been good and the small sample of stem cell procedures, the results are very successful," Cashman said. "But he has to be pain free before strengthening, so there is a way to go. Because he is a starter it will take longer. I have no idea how long it will be and if it will be successful. We are hoping it is six weeks to a major league return."

Sabathia was scheduled to stop using crutches Monday and begin pool therapy on Tuesday. The Yankees hope Sabathia can steadily build strength in the knee and then go through an abridged spring training before getting back on the mound.

The Yankees are also without starter Ivan Nova for the season after having Tommy John surgery. Michael Pineda, who has an injured lat, is throwing bullpen sessions. Cashman said Pineda's target return date is in the second week of June.

The Yankees' current rotation includes Masahiro Tanaka, Hiroki Kuroda, David Phelps, Vidal Nuno and Chase Whitley. Cashman said Adam Warren is the next pitcher the team would turn to if it has a rotation spot opening due to injury or performance.

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Sabathia out until at least July

Human stem cell treatment helps mice with MS-like condition walk again

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Washington, May 16 : Mice severely disabled by a condition that was similar to multiple sclerosis (MS) were able to walk less than two weeks following treatment with human neural stem cells.

In striking contrast to active, healthy mice, those with an MS-like condition must be fed by hand because they cannot stand long enough to eat and drink on their own. When scientists transplanted human neural stem cells into the MS mice, they expected no benefit from the treatment. They thought the mice would reject the cells, much like rejection of an organ transplant.

Co-senior author, Tom Lane, Ph.D., a professor of pathology at the University of Utah, said my postdoctoral fellow Dr. Lu Chen came to me and said, 'The mice are walking.' I didn't believe her.

He began the study with co-first author Chen at the University of California, Irvine.

Within a remarkably short period of time, 10 to 14 days, the mice had regained motor skills. Six months later, they showed no signs of slowing down.

The findings have been published online in the journal Stem Cell Reports.

--ANI (Posted on 16-05-2014)

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Human stem cell treatment helps mice with MS-like condition walk again

MS mice walk after stem cell treatment

Treatment with human stem cells has allowed mice crippled by a version of multiple sclerosis to walk again after less than two weeks.

Scientists admit to being astonished by the result and believe it opens up a new avenue of research in the quest for solutions to MS.

Prof Tom Lane, from the University of Utah, who led the US team, recalled: My postdoctoral fellow Dr Lu Chen came to me and said the mice are walking. I didnt believe her.

The mice had a condition that mimics the symptoms of human MS. They were so disabled they could not stand long enough to eat and drink and had to be hand-fed.

The scientists transplanted human neural stem cells into the mice expecting them to be rejected. But within 10 to 14 days, the mice had regained motor skills and were able to walk again.

Six months later, they showed no sign of relapsing.

The findings, published in the journal Stem Cell Reports, suggest the mice experienced at least a partial reversal of their symptoms.

A similar outcome in humans could help patients with potentially disabling progressive stages of the disease for which there are no treatments.

This result opens up a whole new area of research for us to figure out why it worked, said co-author Dr Jeanne Loring, director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.

Weve long forgotten our original plan.

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MS mice walk after stem cell treatment

Stem cell therapy shows promise for multiple sclerosis

In this image, the top row shows the stem cells transplanted into the mouse spinal cord. The lower row shows a close-up of the stem cells (brown). By day 7 post-transplant, the stem cells are no longer detectable. Within this short period of time, the stem cells have sent chemical signals to the mouses own cells, enabling them to repair the nerve damage caused by MS. (image: Lu Chen)

For patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), current treatment options only address early-stage symptoms of the debilitating disease. Now, new research has found a potential treatment that could both stop disease progression and repair existing damage.

In a study published in Stem Cell Reports, researchers utilized a group of paralyzed mice genetically engineered to have an MS-like condition. Initially, the researchers set out to study the mechanisms of stem cell rejection in the mice. However, two weeks after injecting the mice with human neural stem cells, the researchers made the unexpected discovery that the mice had regained their ability to walk.

This had a lot of luck to do with it; right place, right time co-senior author Jeanne Loring, director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, told FoxNews.com. [co-senior author Tom Lane] called me up and said, Youre not going to believe this. He sent me a video, and it showed the mice running around the cages. I said, Are you sure these are the same mice?

Loring, whose lab specializes in turning human stem cells into neural precursor cells, or pluripotent cells, collaborated with Tom Lane, a professor of pathology at the University of Utah whose focus is on neuroinflammatory diseases of the central nervous system. The team was interested in stem cell rejection in MS models in order to understand the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms contributing to rejection of potential stem cell therapies for the disease.

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that affects more than 2.3 million people worldwide. For people with MS, the immune system misguidedly attacks the bodys myelin, the insulating coating on nerve fibers.

In a nutshell, its the rubber sheath that protects the electrical wire; the axon that extends from the nerves cell body is insulated by myelin, Lane, who began the study while at the University of California, Irvine, told FoxNews.com

Once the myelin has been lost, nerve fibers are unable to transmit electric signals efficiently, leading to symptoms such as vision and motor skill problems, fatigue, slurred speech, memory difficulties and depression.

The researchers inadvertent treatment appeared to work in two ways. First, there was a decrease of inflammation within the central nervous system of the mice, preventing the disease from progressing. Secondly, the injected cells released proteins that signaled cells to regenerate myelin and repair existing damage.

While the stem cells were rejected in the mice after 10 days, researchers were able to see improvements for up to six months after initial implantation.

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Stem cell therapy shows promise for multiple sclerosis

Mice with multiple sclerosis-like condition walk again after human stem cell treatment

Mice severely disabled by a multiple sclerosis (MS) -- like condition could walk less than two weeks following treatment with human stem cells. The finding, which uncovers new avenues for treating MS, will be published online on May 15, 2014, in the journal Stem Cell Reports.

When scientists transplanted human stem cells into MS mice, they predicted the cells would be rejected, much like rejection of an organ transplant.

Expecting no benefit to the mice, they were surprised when the experiment yielded spectacular results.

"My postdoctoral fellow Dr. Lu Chen came to me and said, 'The mice are walking.' I didn't believe her," said co-senior author, Tom Lane, Ph.D., a professor of pathology at the University of Utah, who began the work at University of California, Irvine.

Within just 10 to 14 days, the mice regained motor skills. Six months later, they still showed no signs of slowing down.

"This result opens up a whole new area of research for us," said co-senior author Jeanne Loring, Ph.D., co-senior author and professor at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif.

More than 2.3 million people worldwide have MS, a disease where the immune system attacks myelin, an insulation layer surrounding nerve fibers. The resulting damage inhibits nerve impulses, producing symptoms that include difficulty walking, impaired vision, fatigue and pain.

The MS mice treated with human stem cells experience a reversal of symptoms. Immune attacks are blunted, and damaged myelin is repaired, explaining their dramatic recovery. The discovery could help patients with latter, or progressive, stages of the disease, for whom there are no treatments.

Counterintuitively, the researchers' original prediction that the mice would reject the stem cells, came true. There are no signs of the cells after one week. In that short window, they send chemical signals that instruct the mouse's own cells to repair the damage caused by MS. This realization could be important for therapy development.

"Rather than having to engraft stem cells into a patient, which can be challenging, we might be able to put those chemical signals into a drug that can be used to deliver the therapy much more easily," said Lane.

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Mice with multiple sclerosis-like condition walk again after human stem cell treatment

Stem cell research offers new hope

May 14, 2014, 4 a.m.

STEM cell therapy is the great frontier of todays medical research.

STEM cell therapy is the great frontier of todays medical research.

While still in its infancy, stem cell technology has already moved from being a promising idea to delivering life-saving treatment for conditions such as leukaemia.

Last week about 70 people gathered at the Mid City Motel, Warrnambool, to hear about the advances from one of Australias leading researchers.

Stem cell researcher, Professor Graham Jenkin.

Professor Graham Jenkin, of the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at Monash University, is researching the use of stem cells harvested from umbilical cord blood to treat babies at risk of developing cerebral palsy as the result of oxygen deprivation during birth.

The event was hosted by the Warrnambool branch of the Inner Wheel Club as part of a national fund-raising program by the organisation.

Professor Jenkin, deputy director of The Ritchie Centre, said treating infants deprived of oxygen with cord blood stem cells was showing promising results in preventing the brain damage that leads to cerebral palsy.

We are looking at treating infants within a 24-hour window after birth, Professor Jenkin said. We would be aiming for treatment after about six hours if possible, which is about as soon as the stem cells can be harvested.

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Stem cell research offers new hope

Stem cell technology points to early indicators of schizophrenia

Using new stem cell technology, scientists at the Salk Institute have shown that neurons generated from the skin cells of people with schizophrenia behave strangely in early developmental stages, providing a hint as to ways to detect and potentially treat the disease early.

The findings of the study, published online in April's Molecular Psychiatry, support the theory that the neurological dysfunction that eventually causes schizophrenia may begin in the brains of babies still in the womb.

"This study aims to investigate the earliest detectable changes in the brain that lead to schizophrenia," says Fred H. Gage, Salk professor of genetics. "We were surprised at how early in the developmental process that defects in neural function could be detected."

Currently, over 1.1 percent of the world's population has schizophrenia, with an estimated three million cases in the United States alone. The economic cost is high: in 2002, Americans spent nearly $63 billion on treatment and managing disability. The emotional cost is higher still: 10 percent of those with schizophrenia are driven to commit suicide by the burden of coping with the disease.

Although schizophrenia is a devastating disease, scientists still know very little about its underlying causes, and it is still unknown which cells in the brain are affected and how. Previously, scientists had only been able to study schizophrenia by examining the brains of patients after death, but age, stress, medication or drug abuse had often altered or damaged the brains of these patients, making it difficult to pinpoint the disease's origins.

The Salk scientists were able to avoid this hurdle by using stem cell technologies. They took skin cells from patients, coaxed the cells to revert back to an earlier stem cell form and then prompted them to grow into very early-stage neurons (dubbed neural progenitor cells or NPCs). These NPCs are similar to the cells in the brain of a developing fetus.

The researchers generated NPCs from the skin cells of four patients with schizophrenia and six people without the disease. They tested the cells in two types of assays: in one test, they looked at how far the cells moved and interacted with particular surfaces; in the other test, they looked at stress in the cells by imaging mitochondria, which are tiny organelles that generate energy for the cells.

On both tests, the Salk team found that NPCs from people with schizophrenia differed in significant ways from those taken from unaffected people.

In particular, cells predisposed to schizophrenia showed unusual activity in two major classes of proteins: those involved in adhesion and connectivity, and those involved in oxidative stress. Neural cells from patients with schizophrenia tended to have aberrant migration (which may result in the poor connectivity seen later in the brain) and increased levels of oxidative stress (which can lead to cell death).

These findings are consistent with a prevailing theory that events occurring during pregnancy can contribute to schizophrenia, even though the disease doesn't manifest until early adulthood. Past studies suggest that mothers who experience infection, malnutrition or extreme stress during pregnancy are at a higher risk of having children with schizophrenia. The reason for this is unknown, but both genetic and environmental factors likely play a role.

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Stem cell technology points to early indicators of schizophrenia

New Stem Cell Research Points to Early Indicators of Schizophrenia

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Newswise LA JOLLAUsing new stem cell technology, scientists at the Salk Institute have shown that neurons generated from the skin cells of people with schizophrenia behave strangely in early developmental stages, providing a hint as to ways to detect and potentially treat the disease early.

The findings of the study, published online in April's Molecular Psychiatry, support the theory that the neurological dysfunction that eventually causes schizophrenia may begin in the brains of babies still in the womb.

"This study aims to investigate the earliest detectable changes in the brain that lead to schizophrenia," says Fred H. Gage, Salk professor of genetics. "We were surprised at how early in the developmental process that defects in neural function could be detected."

Currently, over 1.1 percent of the world's population has schizophrenia, with an estimated three million cases in the United States alone. The economic cost is high: in 2002, Americans spent nearly $63 billion on treatment and managing disability. The emotional cost is higher still: 10 percent of those with schizophrenia are driven to commit suicide by the burden of coping with the disease.

Although schizophrenia is a devastating disease, scientists still know very little about its underlying causes, and it is still unknown which cells in the brain are affected and how. Previously, scientists had only been able to study schizophrenia by examining the brains of patients after death, but age, stress, medication or drug abuse had often altered or damaged the brains of these patients, making it difficult to pinpoint the disease's origins.

The Salk scientists were able to avoid this hurdle by using stem cell technologies. They took skin cells from patients, coaxed the cells to revert back to an earlier stem cell form and then prompted them to grow into very early-stage neurons (dubbed neural progenitor cells or NPCs). These NPCs are similar to the cells in the brain of a developing fetus.

The researchers generated NPCs from the skin cells of four patients with schizophrenia and six people without the disease. They tested the cells in two types of assays: in one test, they looked at how far the cells moved and interacted with particular surfaces; in the other test, they looked at stress in the cells by imaging mitochondria, which are tiny organelles that generate energy for the cells.

On both tests, the Salk team found that NPCs from people with schizophrenia differed in significant ways from those taken from unaffected people.

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New Stem Cell Research Points to Early Indicators of Schizophrenia