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St. Petersburg Surgeon Dr. Christian Drehsen Lobbies FDA to Speed Approval of Non-Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy

By Stem Cell Treatment

St. Petersburg, FL (PRWEB) April 17, 2014

One of the most respected plastic surgeons in America is encouraging the FDA to move forward on approval of stem-cell based therapies inspired in part by Matthew McConaughey's recent Oscar win for the film Dallas Buyers Club. In the film, McConaughey portrayed Ron Woodroof, who fought the Food and Drug Administration over his use and distribution of unapproved but effective HIV/AIDS medications. In a letter to FDA comissioner Margaret A. Hamburg dated April 14th, Dr. Christian Drehsen of St. Petersburg claims that the story echoes current FDA treatment of stem cell therapies, of which almost none are approved for use in the United States.

Drehsen cites his extensive past experience working with stem cells, and calls on the FDA to provide more rapid approval for the procedures, which he says are safe and effective.

In the period 2009-2010, before the current regulatory embargo, Drehsen performed over 20 reconstructive and cosmetic stem-cell procedures using technology from the pioneering stem cell therapy research firm Cytori. In his letter, Drehsen writes that the results of his procedures were excellent, and hes frustrated with the limitations now in place.

Japan has approved these procedures. Much of Europe has approved them. Theyre changing peoples lives every day but not in the United States, the letter reads in part.

Stem cell therapies have myriad potential uses. Drehsen says that in his own practice at the Clinique of Plastic Surgery, their promise includes greatly improved outcomes for burn victims, patients with extensive sun exposure damage, and post-operative breast reconstruction procedures. Those therapies have been pioneered with good results in Europe and Australia, respectively.

Other treatments currently proven or under trial include treatments for traumatic hamstring injury (http://ir.cytori.com/investor-relations/News/news-details/2014/Cytori-to-Initiate-US-Clinical-Trial-of-Adipose-Derived-Regenerative-Cells-in-Hamstring-Injuries/default.aspx) and chronic heart failure (http://www.cytori.com/Innovations/ClinicalTrials/CardiovascularDisease.aspx).

Though much American resistance to stem cell research has been rooted in ethical concerns about the use of embryonic stem cells, the Cytori procedure uses Adipose-Derived Regenerative Cells, or ADRCs stem cells derived from the patients own body fat and altered for re-injection using a proprietary process. Dr. Drehsen was one of a handful of doctors in the United States to use this technology for plastic surgery before the FDA blocked its usage. This makes him one of the most experienced surgeons in the U.S. in non-embryonic stem-cell enhanced facelift procedures. Drehsens website (http://cliniqueps.com) features many examples of his past successful stem-cell procedure outcomes.

The FDA serves the vital function of ensuring patient safety. But these procedures have been proven safe," Drehsen concludes. "It should be no surprise that using a patients own tissue presents fewer risks than many alternatives. Its sad that these options have continued to be blocked by bureaucracy.

Drehsen says that much of the equipment used in his stem cell procedures now sits in storage, unused.

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St. Petersburg Surgeon Dr. Christian Drehsen Lobbies FDA to Speed Approval of Non-Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy

Proper stem cell function requires hydrogen sulfide

By Stem Cell Treatment

Stem cells in bone marrow need to produce hydrogen sulfide in order to properly multiply and form bone tissue, according to a new study from the Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology at the Ostrow School of Dentistry.

Professor Songtao Shi, principal investigator on the project, said the presence of hydrogen sulfide produced by the cells governs the flow of calcium ions. The essential ions activate a chain of cellular signals that results in osteogenesis, or the creation of new bone tissue, and keeps the breakdown of old bone tissue at a proper level.

Conversely, having a hydrogen sulfide deficiency disrupted bone homeostasis and resulted in a condition similar to osteoporosis -- weakened, brittle bones -- in experimental mice. In humans, osteoporosis can cause serious problems such as bone fractures, mobility limitations and spinal problems; more than 52 million Americans have or are at risk for the disease.

However, Shi and his team demonstrated that the mice's condition could be rescued by administering small molecules that release hydrogen sulfide inside the body. The results indicate that a similar treatment may have potential to help human patients, Shi said.

"These results demonstrate hydrogen sulfide regulates bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, and restoring hydrogen sulfide levels via non-toxic donors may provide treatments for diseases such as osteoporosis, which can arise from hydrogen sulfide deficiencies," Shi said.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by University of Southern California. The original article was written by Beth Newcomb. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Proper stem cell function requires hydrogen sulfide

First Embryonic Stem Cells Cloned From A Man's Skin

By Stem Cell Treatment

hide captionThis mouse egg (top) is being injected with genetic material from an adult cell to ultimately create an embryo and, eventually, embryonic stem cells. The process has been difficult to do with human cells.

Eighteen years ago, scientists in Scotland took the nuclear DNA from the cell of an adult sheep and put it into another sheep's egg cell that had been emptied of its own nucleus. The resulting egg was implanted in the womb of a third sheep, and the result was Dolly, the first clone of a mammal.

Dolly's birth set off a huge outpouring of ethical concern along with hope that the same techniques, applied to human cells, could be used to treat myriad diseases.

But Dolly's birth also triggered years of frustration. It's proved very difficult to do that same sort of DNA transfer into a human egg.

Last year, scientists in Oregon said they'd finally done it, using DNA taken from infants. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology, says that was an important step, but not ideal for medical purposes.

"There are many diseases, whether it's diabetes, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, that usually increase with age," Lanza says. So ideally scientists would like to be able to extract DNA from the cells of older people not just cells from infants to create therapies for adult diseases.

Lanza's colleagues, including Young Gie Chung at the CHA Stem Cell Institute in Seoul, Korea (with labs in Los Angeles as well), now report success.

Writing in the journal Cell Stem Cell, they say they started with nuclear DNA extracted from the skin cells of a middle-age man and injected it into human eggs donated by four women. As with Dolly, the women's nuclear DNA had been removed from these eggs before the man's DNA was injected. They repeated the process this time starting with the genetic material extracted from the skin cells of a much older man.

hide captionDolly, the first mammal to be genetically cloned from adult cells, poses for the camera in 1997 at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Dolly, the first mammal to be genetically cloned from adult cells, poses for the camera in 1997 at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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First Embryonic Stem Cells Cloned From A Man's Skin

Stem-Cell Treatment for Blindness Moving Through Patient Testing

By Stem Cell Treatment

Advanced Cell Technology is testing a stem-cell treatment for blindness that could preserve vision and potentially reverse vision loss.

Vision support: The cells used in Advanced Cell Technologys clinical trials produce dark pigments and cobblestone-like patterns that can be readily recognized in cultures.

A new treatment for macular degeneration is close to the next stage of human testinga noteworthy event not just for the millions of patients it could help, but for its potential to become the first therapy based on embryonic stem cells.

This year, the Boston-area company Advanced Cell Technology plans to move its stem-cell treatment for two forms of vision loss into advanced human trials. The company has already reported that the treatment is safe (see Eye Study Is a Small but Crucial Advance for Stem-Cell Therapy), although a full report of the results from the early, safety-focused testing has yet to be published. The planned trials will test whether it is effective. The treatment will be tested both on patients with Stargardts disease (an inherited form of progressive vision loss that can affect children) and on those with age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss among people 65 and older.

The treatment is based on retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells that have been grown from embryonic stem cells. A surgeon injects 150 microliters of RPE cellsroughly the amount of liquid in three raindropsunder a patients retina, which is temporarily detached for the procedure. RPE cells support the retinas photoreceptors, which are the cells that detect incoming light and pass the information on to the brain.

Although complete data from the trials of ACTs treatments have yet to be published, the company has reported impressive results with one patient, who recovered vision after being deemed legally blind. Now the company plans to publish the data from two clinical trials taking place in the U.S. and the E.U. in a peer-reviewed academic journal. Each of these early-stage trials includes 12 patients affected by either macular degeneration or Stargardts disease.

The more advanced trials will have dozens of participants, says ACTs head of clinical development, Eddy Anglade. If proved safe and effective, the cellular therapy could preserve the vision of millions affected by age-related macular degeneration. By 2020, as the population ages, nearly 200 million people worldwide will have the disease, estimate researchers. Currently, there are no treatments available for the most common form, dry age-related macular degeneration.

ACTs experimental treatment has its origins in a chance discovery that Irina Klimanskaya, the companys director of stem-cell biology, made while working with embryonic stem cells at Harvard University. These cells have the power to develop into any cell type, and in culture they often change on their own. A neuron here, a fat cell thereindividual cells in a dish tend to take random walks down various developmental paths. By supplying the cultures with fresh nutrients but otherwise leaving them to their own devices for several weeks, Klimanskaya discovered that the stem cells often developed into darkly pigmented cells that grew in a cobblestone-like pattern. She suspected that they were developing into RPE cells, and molecular tests backed her up.

Now that her discovery has advanced into an experimental treatment, Klimanskaya says she is excited by the hints that it may be able to preserve, and perhaps restore, sight. She recalls a voice mail she received during her second year at ACT: a person blinded by an inherited condition thanked her for her work, whether or not there was a treatment available for him. When you get a message like this, you feel like you are not doing it in vain, she says.

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Stem-Cell Treatment for Blindness Moving Through Patient Testing

MGH Findings Suggest Novel Treatment Approach For Brain Tumors

By Stem Cell Treatment

By Estel Grace Masangkay

A team of investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has identified four transcription factors characterizing the small proportion of glioblastoma cells behind the aggressiveness and treatment resistance of the brain tumor. The teams findings suggest a novel approach to treating glioblastoma stem cells.

The researchers identified a combination of four transcription factors (POU3F2, SOX2, SALL2 and OLIG2) able to reprogram differentiated tumor cells back into glioblastoma stem cells in vitro as well as in an animal model. The team confirmed that the four factors and their corresponding regulatory elements were active in from 2 to 7 percent of human glioblastoma cells, which also expressed a known stem cell marker.

Dr. Mario Suv of the MGH Department of Pathology and Center for Cancer Research, and co-lead author, said, We have identified a code of molecular switches that control a very aggressive subpopulation of brain cancer cells, so-called glioblastoma stem cells. Understanding what drives these aggressive cells will give us insights into alternative ways of eliminating them and potentially changing the course of this very deadly tumor.

Findings show that inhibition of a crucial regulatory protein complexs action involving a known target gene of one of the core transcription factors caused glioblastoma stem cells to lose their stem-like properties and eventually die.

Dr. Bradley Bernstein of the MGH Pathology and the MGH Cancer Center, and senior author of the study, said, This study brings us back to the fundamental idea that there are many reasons that cancer cells can be aggressive. Just as normal cells with the same genome differentiate into many different cell types, a single tumor characterized by specific genetic mutations can contain many different types of cells stem-like and more differentiated cells with the difference being rooted in their epigenetic information. Identifying the drivers of these different cellular states in glioblastoma stem cells could offer us the best opportunity for treating what remains an extremely difficult-to -treat tumor.

The MGH teams findings will be published in the April 24 issue of Cell and will receive an advance online release.

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MGH Findings Suggest Novel Treatment Approach For Brain Tumors

Silly Putty Ingredient Could Help Stem Cells Become Motor Neurons

By Stem Cell Treatment

April 14, 2014

Image Caption: University of Michigan researchers have found that mechanical forces in the environment of human embryonic stem cells influences how they differentiate, or morph into the body's different cell types. To arrive at the findings, they cultured the stem cells on ultrafine carpets made of microscopic posts of a key ingredient in Silly Putty. Credit: Ye Tao, Rose Anderson, Yubing Sun, and Jianping Fu

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports Your Universe Online

An ingredient found in Silly Putty could help scientists more efficiently turn human embryonic stem cells into fully functional specialized cells, according to research published online Sunday in the journal Nature Materials.

In the study, researchers from the University of Michigan report how they were able to coax stem cells to turn into working spinal cord cells by growing them on a soft, extremely fine carpet in which the threads were created from polydimethylsiloxane, one component of the popular childrens toy.

According to the authors, the paper is the first to directly link physical signals to human embryonic stem cell differentiation, which is the process by which source cells morph into one of the bodys 200-plus other types of cells that go on to become muscles, bones, nerves or organs.

Furthermore, their research increases the possibility that scientists will be able to uncover a more efficient way to guide differentiation in stem cells, potentially resulting in new treatment options for Alzheimers disease, ALS, Huntingtons disease or similar conditions, assistant professor of mechanical engineering Jianping Fu and his colleagues explained in a statement.

This is extremely exciting, said Fu. To realize promising clinical applications of human embryonic stem cells, we need a better culture system that can reliably produce more target cells that function well. Our approach is a big step in that direction, by using synthetic microengineered surfaces to control mechanical environmental signals.

He and his University of Michigan colleagues designed a specially engineered growth system in which polydimethylsiloxane served as the threads, and they discovered that by varying the height of the posts, they were able to alter the stiffness of the surface upon which the cells were grown.

Shorter posts were more rigid, while the taller ones were softer. On the taller ones, the stem cells that were grown morphed into nerve cells more often and more quickly than they did on the shorter ones. After a period of three weeks and two days, colonies of spinal cord cells that grew on the softer micropost carpets were four times more pure and 10 times larger than those growing on rigid ones, the study authors noted.

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Silly Putty Ingredient Could Help Stem Cells Become Motor Neurons

Beverly Hills Orthopedic Institute Now Working With R3 Stem Cell to Offer Bone Marrow and Amniotic Stem Cell …

By Stem Cell Treatment

Beverly Hills, CA (PRWEB) April 14, 2014

Top Los Angeles and Beverly Hills orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Raj, is now working with R3 Stem Cell at his Beverly Hills Orthopedic Institute to offer comprehensive regenerative medicine treatment. The stem cell procedures for shoulder, knee, and hip conditions typically work great for degenerative arthritis, tendonitis, and ligament injuries. For more information and scheduling with the top stem cell clinic in LA and Beverly Hills, call (310) 438-5343.

Dr. Raj treats athletes, celebrities, executives, grandparents, and everything in between. Oftentimes, the stem cell procedures are able to help athletes heal tendon and ligament injuries quickly, without surgery and get back to competition quickly. In addition, the stem cell procedures work well the majority of the time for degenerative arthritis of the hip, knee, and shoulder.

The stem cell material is either bone marrow derived from the patient or comes from amniotic fluid. The bone marrow derived stem cell injections are performed as an outpatient procedure. The bone marrow is harvested from the patient, immediately processed, and then injected into the problem area. The processing concentrates the stem cells and growth factors to increase the potential for repair and regeneration.

The amniotic fluid derived stem cells have been used tens of thousands of times around the world with no adverse events being reported, with the fluid being processed at an FDA regulated lab. The fluid contains stem cells, hyaluronic acid and growth factors to help repair damaged cartilage and injured tendons and ligaments. This can help patients avoid surgery for rotator cuff tendonitis and tears, elbow tendonitis, achilles tears, knee injuries and joint arthritis.

Dr. Raj is Double Board Certified and sees patients from the greater Los Angeles and Beverly Hills area. Numerous times, he has been named one of Los Angeles top orthopedic doctors, while also acting as an ABC News Medical Correspondent.

To schedule appointments for regenerative medicine stem cell procedures in Los Angeles for arthritis, tendon, or ligament injuries in Los Angeles, call Beverly Hills Orthopedic Institute at (310) 438-5343.

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Beverly Hills Orthopedic Institute Now Working With R3 Stem Cell to Offer Bone Marrow and Amniotic Stem Cell ...

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