Stem Cell Clinic

Stem Cells Fast Facts – KABC

(CNN) Here is some background information about stem cells.

Scientists believe that stem cell research can be used to treat medical conditions including Parkinsons disease, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

About Stem Cells:Stem cell research focuses on embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells.

Stem cells have two characteristics that differentiate them from other types of cells:- Stem cells are unspecialized cells that replicate themselves for long periods through cell division.- Under certain physiologic or experimental conditions, stem cells can be induced to become mature cells with special functions such as the beating cells of the heart muscle or insulin-producing cells of the pancreas.

There are four classes of stem cells: totipotent, multipotent, pluripotent, and unipotent.- Totipotent stem cells that develop into cells that make up all the cells in an embryo and fetus. (Ex: The zygote/fertilized egg and the cells at the very early stages following fertilization are considered totipotent)- Multipotent stem cells can give rise to multiple types of cells, but all within a particular tissue, organ, or physiological system. (Ex: blood-forming stem cells/bone marrow cells, most often referred to as adult stem cells)- Pluripotent stem cells (ex: embryonic stem cells) can give rise to any type of cell in the body. These cells are like blank slates, and they have the potential to turn into any type of cell.- Unipotent stem cells can self-renew as well as give rise to a single mature cell type. (Ex: sperm producing cells)

Embryonic stem cells are harvested from four to six-day-old embryos. These embryos are either leftover embryos in fertility clinics or embryos created specifically for harvesting stem cells by therapeutic cloning. Only South Korean scientists claim to have successfully created human embryos via therapeutic cloning and have harvested stem cells from them.

Adult stem cells are already designated for a certain organ or tissue. Some adult stem cells can be coaxed into or be reprogrammed into turning into a different type of specialized cell within the tissue type for example, a heart stem cell can give rise to a functional heart muscle cell, but it is still unclear whether they can give rise to all different cell types of the body.

The primary role of adult stem cells is to maintain and repair the tissue in which they are found.

Uses of Stem Cell Research:Regenerative (reparative) medicine uses cell-based therapies to treat disease.

Scientists who research stem cells are trying to identify how undifferentiated stem cells become differentiated as serious medical conditions, such as cancer and birth defects, are due to abnormal cell division and differentiation.

Scientists believe stem cells can be used to generate cells and tissues that could be used for cell-based therapies as the need for donated organs and tissues outweighs the supply.

Stem cells, directed to differentiate into specific cell types, offer the possibility of a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat diseases, including Parkinsons and Alzheimers diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Policy Debate:Cloning human embryos for stem cells is very controversial.

The goal of therapeutic cloning research is not to make babies, but to make embryonic stem cells, which can be harvested and used for cell-based therapies.

Using fertilized eggs left over at fertility clinics is also controversial because removing the stem cells destroys them.

Questions of ethics arise because embryos are destroyed as the cells are extracted, such as: When does human life begin? What is the moral status of the human embryo?

Timeline:1998 President Bill Clinton requests a National Bioethics Advisory Commission to study the question of stem cell research.

1999 The National Bioethics Advisory Commission recommends that the government allow federal funds to be used to support research on human embryonic stem cells.

2000 During his campaign, George W. Bush says he opposes any research that involves the destruction of embryos.

2000 The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issues guidelines for the use of embryonic stem cells in research, specifying that scientists receiving federal funds can use only extra embryos that would otherwise be discarded. President Clinton approves federal funding for stem cell research but Congress does not fund it.

August 9, 2001 President Bush announces he will allow federal funding for about 60 existing stem cell lines created before this date.

January 18, 2002 A panel of experts at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recommends a complete ban on human reproductive cloning, but supports so-called therapeutic cloning for medical purposes.

February 27, 2002 For the second time in two years, the House passes a ban on all cloning of human embryos.

July 11, 2002 The Presidents Council on Bioethics recommends a four-year ban on cloning for medical research to allow time for debate.

February 2005 South Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk publishes a study in Science announcing he has successfully created stem cell lines using therapeutic cloning.

December 2005 Experts from Seoul National University Hwang of faking some of his research. Hwang asks to have his paper withdrawn while his work is being investigated and resigns his post.

January 10, 2006 An investigative panel from Seoul National University accuses Hwang of faking his research.

July 18, 2006 The Senate votes 63-37 to loosen President Bushs limits on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.

July 19, 2006 President Bush vetoes the embryonic stem-cell research bill passed by the Senate (the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005), his first veto since taking office.

June 20, 2007 President Bush vetoes the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, his third veto of his presidency.

January 23, 2009 The FDA approves a request from Geron Corp. to test embryonic stem cells on eight to 10 patients with severe spinal cord injuries. This will be the worlds first test in humans of a therapy derived from human embryonic stem cells. The tests will use stem cells cultured from embryos left over in fertility clinics.

March 9, 2009 President Barack Obama signs an executive order overturning an order signed by President Bush in August 2001 that barred the NIH from funding research on embryonic stem cells beyond using 60 cell lines that existed at that time.

August 23, 2010 US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth issues a preliminary injunction that prohibits the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

September 9, 2010 A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit grants a request from the Justice Department to lift a temporary injunction that blocked federal funding of stem cell research.

September 28, 2010 The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit lifts an injunction imposed by a federal judge, thereby allowing federally funded embryonic stem-cell research to continue while the Obama Administration appeals the judges original ruling against use of public funds in such research.

October 8, 2010 The first human is injected with cells from human embryonic stem cells in a clinical trial sponsored by Geron Corp.

November 22, 2010 William Caldwell, CEO of Advanced Cell Technology, tells CNN that the FDA has granted approval for his company to start a clinical trial using cells grown from human embryonic stem cells. The treatment will be for an inherited degenerative eye disease.

April 29, 2011 The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia lifts an injunction, imposed last year by a federal judge, banning the Obama administration from funding embryonic stem-cell research.

May 11, 2011 Stem cell therapy in sports medicine is spotlighted after New York Yankee pitcher Bartolo Colon is revealed to have had fat and bone marrow stem cells injected into his injured elbow and shoulder while in the Dominican Republic.

July 27, 2011 Judge Lamberth dismisses a lawsuit that tried to block funding of stem cell research on human embryos.

February 13, 2012 Early research published by scientists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Johns Hopkins University show that a patients own stem cells can be used to regenerate heart tissue and help undo damage caused by a heart attack. It is the first instance of therapeutic regeneration.

May 2013 Scientists make the first embryonic stem cell from human skin cells by reprogramming human skin cells back to their embryonic state, according to a study published in the journal, Cell.

April 2014 For the first time scientists are able to use cloning technologies to generate stem cells that are genetically matched to adult patients,according to a study published in the journal, Cell Stem Cell.

October 2014 Researchers say that human embryonic stem cells have restored the sight of several nearly blind patients and that their latest study shows the cells are safe to use long-term. According to a report published in The Lancet, the researchers transplanted stem cells into 18 patients with severe vision loss as a result of two types of macular degeneration.

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Stem Cells Fast Facts - KABC

Longbridge woman’s recovery an inspiration to others – Avoyelles Today

While crossing a street in Houston in July 2013, Mallory Mayeux was hit by a drunk driver, thrown 45 feet through the air and sustained a serious brain injury. She was put into a medically-induced coma and at one point was not expected to survive.

Now, almost four years after that near-fatal incident, Mallory is literally the poster child for the University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHealth) and an innovative treatment using a patients own stem cells to repair their injured brain.

Mallory, 32, is a native of Longbridge and the daughter of Steve and Vickie Mayeux of Longbridge. She is a 2002 graduate of Avoyelles High.

It is very confusing to wake up in a different month and not be fully aware of what happened, Mallory said. This was a huge turning point in my life. I think of everything in my life as either before the accident or after the accident.

While she is now fully recovered and living and working in Baton Rouge, her image is featured on a billboard at a busy Houston intersection as part of UTHealths ad campaign, entitled The many faces of UTHealth.

The billboard was erected in early May and is expected to be replaced with another message in early June.

UTHealths publicity campaign focused on its doctors and technicians, including Dr. Charles Cox, who was Mallorys stem cell doctor. The medical center decided it wanted to showcase some of its patients as well.

Since Mallory was one of its brightest success stories, UTHealth asked her if she would participate in the campaign.

Steve said a team of professional photographers and make-up artists descended on Mallorys home and spent the evening taking over 800 pictures. One of those was selected for the many faces billboard in Houston.

To repay her mother for those months of care, dedication and love during her recovery, Mallory asked her parents and younger brother Caleb, who lives in Austin, to go to Houston to see the billboard in person over Mothers Day weekend.

Mallory and Caleb paid for their parents hotel room, with a chilled bottle of wine and chocolate-covered strawberries and petit fours waiting for them in their room.

STEM CELL PROJECT

It is hard to describe what happened to Mallory as lucky, but in at least one way it was.

Because Mallory had no internal organ injuries or major broken bones, she was eligible to participate in a Department of Defense/UT Health program to use stem cells to treat brain injuries of soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

When her parents made the seven-hour trip to Houston, they arrived on a Sunday morning to find their daughter in a medically-induced coma in the ICU at Memorial Herman Hospital. They were asked if Mallory could be treated in the experimental program, given assurances that it could help and certainly would do no harm.

I looked at all of the equipment and all that the doctors were doing to save Mallorys life, Vickie said. I said that others let their sons and daughters participate in research projects to help my daughter, so we would do what was needed to help others.

That Monday, doctors told the anxious parents that their daughter might not survive.

But she did survive. For three weeks she remained in the ICU.

Steve Mayeux recalled that as soon as Mallory overcame one problem, there was another to take its place -- brain swelling, pneumonia and several infections. One after the other, the doctors overcame the problems.

Mallory said the injury was a life-changing event. She still has some issues as a result of damage caused in the accident.

There is no magic wand to cure everything that happened, Mallory said. The accident caused so much negative, but there was a lot of positives that came out of it, too.

For example, Mallory said she can recall many times when a friend was injured or ill and I think back now and say I shouldve done more, I shouldve been there for them, but I didnt know what to do or how to help them.

The injured person does not want to appear to be needy or demanding on their friends and family, and so may not let them know how they can help.

It may be just wanting someone to talk to, Mallory said. Dont be shy about making your truth known.

Friends and family should also not be hesitant to offer help without being asked.

Maybe you can go over to that persons house and mow the lawn, she said.

So many people were so awesome to me and my parents during my recovery, she continued. I was really touched by their care for me and my family.

Vickie and Steve said they hope Mallorys billboard gave hope to others going through a similar ordeal.

It may let them know that there are resources out there, Steve said.

PARENTS' FEARS

Vickie left home around 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning with a hastily packed suitcase and the clothes on her back. She returned to the Mayeux home in Longbridge four months later.

Steve stayed a few weeks before coming home. Vickie lived in Mallorys apartment. She said she is grateful her employer, the Avoyelles Parish School District, allowed her to take a sabbatical leave so she could care for Mallory.

Seven months after the accident, Mallory was once again driving and living on her own.

The man who struck her was sentenced to eight years in the Texas State Penitentiary.

Steve said that early-morning call gave them next to no information on Mallorys condition.

We didnt know if she just had a broken leg or if it was much worse, Steve said. All they told us was she had been in an accident.

When he and Vickie entered the ICU and saw Mallory hooked up to several machines, I took her hand. I was quite upset. I kept looking at the heart monitor to make sure she was alive, because she did not look alive or feel like she was alive.

Vickie said she got through those hard few weeks of not knowing if Mallory would pull through by playing ostrich. I said, I cant lose her, so I just told myself I wouldnt. I blocked all the bad possibilities out of my mind. When there was a new problem every day, I just didnt worry about it at the time. I just believed it would all be okay.

Steve said this type of experience changes the way a person looks at life.

When Mallory was going through rehab, we would get so excited when she would be able to do something new -- something minor, Steve said. Before this, those kind of minor achievements would have seemed so discouraging.

Mallory said she was in out-patient rehab for about a year. There were times when she wanted to get up and walk out and never come back.

They started with very basic skills, she said. They had me working with building blocks on the floor. I felt disheartened and humiliated. I had an office a few blocks from the hospital that I felt I should be in making adult decisions and here I was playing with blocks on the floor.

She said she later realized that the activity was not aimed at building towers out of blocks, but rather to train her brain to start and finish a task without getting frustrated.

Rehab helped me so much, she said. I made tremendous improvements.

If this kind of tragedy had to happen, she said she is glad it happened in Houston. She is also glad she had good insurance and was a Texas resident at the time.

Those factors, combined with her eligibility for the stem cell project, resulted in what many call a miraculous recovery.

Steve and Vickie said they met with other brain injury patients and their families, and so many of them were not making anywhere close to the progress Mallory was making.

DON'T GIVE UP

Mallory said the most important thing for someone with a serious injury is dont give up. Dont stop trying to get better.

Progress may be slow and they may feel frustrated, she said, but it is important to stay with the rehab and keep working toward a full recovery.

It takes more energy to sit around and feel sorry for yourself than it does to stick to the program and work toward recovery, Mallory said.

People say I hit the home run in the World Series in my recovery, but I am still struggling, she continued. I still get frustrated at times. I know I cannot be embarrassed about my brain injury. It was not something I did, but it is part of my reality -- and thats okay.

I am a work in progress, Mallory said. Its like they say, You only live once, and I dont want to miss out on a single part of it.

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Longbridge woman's recovery an inspiration to others - Avoyelles Today

Mice headed for space to test bone-building drug – Medical Xpress

June 2, 2017 by Mirabai Vogt-James A bone densitometer will accompany the mice to the space station. It measures the bone density of the animals. Credit: University of California, Los Angeles

What do space travel, rodents and a bone-building protein all have in common? A team of UCLA scientists is bringing these three elements together to test an experimental drug that could one day result in a treatment for osteoporosis, which affects more than 200 million people worldwide.

The drug could also potentially help those with bone damage or loss, a condition that afflicts people with traumatic bone injury, such as injured military service members, as well as astronauts who lose bone density while in space.

Led by Dr. Chia Soo and Dr. Kang Ting, who met and married while working on this project, as well as Dr. Ben Wu, the UCLA research team is scheduled to send 40 rodents to the International Space Station this week. Once there, the rodents will receive injections of the experimental drug, which is based on a bone-building protein called NELL-1. The project is being done in collaboration with NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, which manages the U.S. National Laboratory on the space station.

"This is really a pivotal point in the study of NELL-1's effect on bone density," said Soo, principal investigator on the study, the vice chair for research in the UCLA Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and a member of the UCLA Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research. "We would not be at this point without many years of funding and support from the National Institutes of Health, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and several UCLA departments and centers. We are honored to conduct the next phase of our research in the U.S. National Laboratory."

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The UCLA researchers have been conducting studies on NELL-1 for more than 18 years and were excited when Julie Robinson, NASA's chief scientist for the International Space Station Program, visited UCLA in early 2014 and encouraged them to submit a grant that would fund their NELL-1 research in space. The team received the necessary funding from the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space in September 2014 to move forward with the project.

"The preparations have been very exciting; we've had conference calls with NASA's Ames Research Center every two weeks to go over all the fine details," said Dr. Jin Hee Kwak, an assistant professor of orthodontics in the UCLA School of Dentistry and project manager on the study. "Everything is choreographed down to the tiniest details, such as whether you're going to fill a syringe half way or all the waythat small amount affects the total weight of the rocket."

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft is currently targeted to blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida today. It will be the first time that UCLA scientists send rodents to the International Space Station. After living in microgravity and receiving NELL-1 injections for about four weeks, half of the rodents will return from space and land in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja, California.

This marks the first time that American researchers will bring back live rodents from the International Space Station. After retrieval, the rodents will be returned to UCLA where they will continue to receive the NELL-1 drug for an additional four weeks. The remaining half of the rodents that stay in the space station will also receive an additional four-week dosage of the drug and will return to UCLA later.

"To prepare for the space project and eventual clinical use, we chemically modified NELL-1 to stay active longer," said Wu, who is chair of the division of advanced prosthodontics in the UCLA School of Dentistry and professor in the schools of engineering and medicine. "We also engineered the NELL-1 protein with a special molecule that binds to bone, so the molecule directs NELL-1 to its correct target, similar to how a homing device directs a missile."

Discovered in 1996 by Ting, NELL-1 has a powerful effect on tissue-specific stem cells that create bone-building cells called osteoblasts. When exposed to NELL-1, the stem cells create osteoblasts that are much more effective at building bone. Furthermore, NELL-1 reduces the function of osteoclasts, which are the cells that break down bone.

"Our preclinical studies show that NELL-1's dual effect on both osteoblasts and osteoclasts significantly increases bone density," said Ting, chair of the section of orthodontics and the division of growth and development in the UCLA School of Dentistry.

After the age of 50, humans typically lose about 0.5 percent of their bone mass each year. But in space, bone loss significantly increases due to the lack of gravity. It is commonly known that bone density is improved by physical activity that puts pressure on bone, which helps it stay strong. Without gravity's pressure, astronauts can lose around 1.5 percent of their bone mass each month. Therefore, space is an ideal testing environment for NELL-1's effect on bone density.

Research on NELL-1 is supported by past or current grants from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center, the UCLA School of Dentistry, the UCLA Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and the UCLA Orthopaedic Hospital Research Center.

The experimental NELL-1 drug described above is used in preclinical tests only and has not been tested in humans or approved by the Food and Drug Administration as safe and effective for use in humans.

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Mice headed for space to test bone-building drug - Medical Xpress

Stem cell trial for stroke patients suffering chronic motor deficits begins at UTHealth – Chron.com

A clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a stem cell product injected directly into the brain to treat chronic motor deficits from ischemic stroke has begun at McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

McGovern Medical School at UTHealth is the only site in Texas and the central south portion of the country to open enrollment for the multi-institutional, phase 2B study the first in the U.S. for chronic stroke. Surgeries will be conducted at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center.

In the double-blind, sham-surgery controlled study, patients randomized to the study intervention will receive a stem cell product made by SanBio and patients must have chronic motor deficits from an ischemic stroke to be eligible for the study. The product, administered through tiny holes bored into the skull and placed near the site of the damage, came from the bone marrow of two healthy adult donors. Enrollment is limited to patients who are between six and 60 months post-stroke and have a chronic motor neurological deficit.

Results of a phase 1/2A study of the stem cell product, presented at the International Society of Stem Cell Research Meeting and published in the journal, Stroke, showed statistically significant improvements in motor function and no safety concerns.

The program was the first Comprehensive Stroke Center in the state certified by The Joint Commission and launched the first mobile stroke unit in the country. It has one of the largest telemedicine programs and is affiliated with Memorial Hermann Mischer Neuroscience Institute at the Texas Medical Center.

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Stem cell trial for stroke patients suffering chronic motor deficits begins at UTHealth - Chron.com

Mice headed for space to test bone-building drug developed at UCLA – UCLA Newsroom

What do space travel, rodents and a bone-building protein all have in common? A team of UCLA scientists is bringing these three elements together to test an experimental drug that could one day result in a treatment for osteoporosis, which affects more than 200 million people worldwide.

The drug could also potentially help those with bone damage or loss, a condition that afflicts people with traumatic bone injury, such as injured military service members, as well as astronautswho lose bone density while in space.

Led by Dr. Chia Soo and Dr. Kang Ting, who met and married while working on this project, as well as Dr. Ben Wu, the UCLA research team is scheduled to send40 rodents to the International Space Station this week. Once there, the rodents will receive injections of the experimental drug, which is based on a bone-building protein called NELL-1. The project is being done in collaboration with NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, which manages the U.S. National Laboratory on the space station.

This is really a pivotal point in the study of NELL-1s effect on bone density, said Soo, principal investigator on the study, the vice chair for research in the UCLA Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and a member of theUCLA Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research. We would not be at this point without many years of funding and support from the National Institutes of Health, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and several UCLA departments and centers. We are honored to conduct the next phase of our research in the U.S. National Laboratory.

The UCLA researchers have been conducting studies on NELL-1 for more than 18 years and were excited when Julie Robinson, NASA's chief scientist for the International Space Station Program, visited UCLA in early 2014 and encouraged them to submit a grant that would fund their NELL-1 research in space. The teamreceived the necessary fundingfrom the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space in September 2014 to move forward with the project.

The preparations have been very exciting; weve had conference calls with NASAs Ames Research Center every two weeks to go over all the fine details, said Dr. Jin Hee Kwak, an assistant professor of orthodontics in theUCLA School of Dentistryand project manager on the study. Everything is choreographed down to the tiniestdetails, such as whetheryoure going to fill a syringe half way or all the way that small amount affects the total weight of the rocket.

SpaceXs Dragon spacecraft is currently targeted to blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida today. It will bethe first time that UCLA scientists send rodents to the International Space Station. After living in microgravity and receiving NELL-1 injections for about four weeks, half of the rodents will return from space andland in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja, California.

This marks the first time that American researchers will bring back live rodents from the International Space Station. After retrieval, the rodents will be returned to UCLA where they will continue to receive the NELL-1 drug for an additional four weeks. The remaining half of the rodents that stay in the space station will also receive an additional four-week dosage of the drug and will return to UCLA later.

To prepare for the space project and eventual clinical use, we chemically modified NELL-1 to stay active longer, said Wu, who is chair of the division of advanced prosthodontics in the UCLA School of Dentistry and professor in the schools of engineering and medicine. We also engineered the NELL-1 protein with a special molecule that binds to bone, so the molecule directs NELL-1 to its correct target, similar to how a homing device directs a missile.

Discovered in 1996 by Ting, NELL-1 has a powerful effect on tissue-specific stem cells that create bone-building cells called osteoblasts. When exposed to NELL-1, the stem cells create osteoblasts that are much more effective at building bone. Furthermore, NELL-1 reduces the function of osteoclasts, which are the cells that break down bone.

Ourpreclinical studiesshow that NELL-1s dual effect on both osteoblasts and osteoclasts significantly increases bone density, said Ting, chair of the section of orthodontics and the division of growth and development in the UCLA School of Dentistry.

After the age of 50, humans typically lose about 0.5 percent of their bone mass each year. But in space, bone loss significantly increases due to the lack of gravity. It is commonly known that bone density is improved by physical activity that puts pressure on bone, which helps it stay strong. Without gravitys pressure, astronauts can lose around 1.5 percent of their bone mass each month. Therefore, space is an ideal testing environmentfor NELL-1s effect on bone density.

Courtesy of Techshot, Inc.

A bone densitometer will accompany the mice to the space station. It measures the bone density of the animals.

Research on NELL-1 is supported by past or current grants from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and SkinDiseases, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center, the UCLA School of Dentistry, the UCLA Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and the UCLA Orthopaedic Hospital Research Center.

The experimental NELL-1 drug described above is used in preclinical tests only and has not been tested in humans or approved by the Food and Drug Administration as safe and effective for use in humans.

Wu, Ting and Soo are inventors on multiple NELL-1-related patents and principalfounders of Bone Biologics Corp., which is a licensee of NELL-1 patents from the UC Regents. The UC Regents also hold equity in the company.

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Mice headed for space to test bone-building drug developed at UCLA - UCLA Newsroom