Stem Cell Clinic

The Shady Business Of Experimental Stem Cell Treatments – Worldcrunch

By Stem Cell Treatment

GENEVA At the Geneva University Hospitals, pneumologist Jean-Paul Janssens receives patients suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). This rare disease is caused by the degeneration of motor neurons and kills patients within a few years. It is incurable.

And yet patients often receive invitations from private clinics or doctors promising a miracle cure using stem cells, which can be multiplied in specialized settings or surfaces. "Patients are ready to enter into any protocol or clinical trial rather than stay inactive. Even if it means overstepping clinical research rules," says Janssens.

The pneumologist tries to warn patients about the illegal nature of the untested stem-cell treatments. Some listen. But others, usually those with more money to spend, try their luck anyway. Janssens remembers one patient, a few years back, who accepted an offer from a clinic in Tel Aviv in Israel. The treatment cost him 35,000 Swiss francs (a little under 33,000 euros). The plan was to remove some of his cells in French-speaking Switzerland, send them for isolation and cultivation in Israel, and then send the cells back to Switzerland for injection.

"We realized this was a bad procedure when the Swiss clinic refused to remove the cells," the doctor recalls. "So the patient had to go to Israel, but his condition prevented him from making the trip. A family member went instead to give his cells. The Swiss clinic then withdrew from the protocol, so the stem cells were injected into the patient at home." He died a short while later, for reasons "unrelated to this treatment," says Janssens.

A global affair

That kind of desperation on the part of patients is boosting a growing market for clinics that offer non-approved stem-cell treatments for conditions such as ALS, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, diabetes or heart attacks. Already well established in some developing countries, these kinds of clinics are now despite the presence of powerful health agencies regulating the pharmaceutical market gaining a foothold in places like Switzerland, Australia, Italy, Japan or in U.S. states like Florida or California.

In an article published last June in the review Cell Stem Cell, bioethicist Leigh Turner of the University of Minnesota counted 570 clinics illegally offering such treatments, a number big enough to exert economic power and bend laws in the sector's favor.

The clinics often look very respectable.

In Switzerland, investigations led in recent months by the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products (Swissmedic) led to authorities to ban two clinics, Med Cell Europe and Swiss Medica, from offering these treatments, and to identification of Intercare as a brokering service. While Stem Cell Europe has ceased all activity in Switzerland, Swiss Medica continues to recruit patients in its premises in Saint Gall, whence they are sent to affiliated centers in Serbia or Russia to undergo treatments banned in Switzerland.

Networking between patients, brokers, clinics and doctors is "what is making things difficult" says Christian Schaerer, head of investigations at Swissmedic. He says such treatments are not in any case offered by well-known clinics, and "can be done in a hotel room" where a foreign guest has brought in a doctor. "It's quite a global affair through international websites where a patient can search for a treatment or doctor, or choose a clinic of interest from among various proposed worldwide," he says.

A sample of stem cells for research conducted in Germany Photo: Oliver Berg/DPA/ZUMA

No reliable data

Clinics like to wrap themselves in legitimacy by stating with the backing of scientific references that their treatments work. Doctors practicing them are raised to the level of pioneers of the new age of regenerative medicine, all in a discourse that tends to ignore the lack of reliable clinical data, not to mention documented and serious risks to patients, like pulmonary embolism, heart attacks, tumors or blindness.

Leigh Turner says the clinics often look very respectable. They cite studies published in scientific journals, he says, and provide guarantees on the doctors they employ. But unless patients make the effort to actually look at those studies, they don't know that the only research done "is on mice," the University of Minnesota bioethicist explains.

In the United States, this illegal market draws strength from the libertarian discourse elaborated since the 1970s by several winners of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences and adopted today in business papers like the Wall Street Journal. Its partisans say the U.S. Food and Drug Administration impedes innovation and access to medicines by making the evaluation process too long and costly.

Doug Sipp, a political science researcher at the Riken Institute in Japan, says that with regards to stem cell research, supporters of deregulation see "an opportunity to make their discourse heard and apply their theories."

The lack of reliable clinical data is only one of the serious ethical questions surrounding stem cell treatments. People with serious illnesses, as Turner points out, will go to desperate lengths to find a treatment. Which is "understandable," he adds. "But does that mean we should allow a market that profits from that despair and vulnerability?"

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The Shady Business Of Experimental Stem Cell Treatments - Worldcrunch

Alumni Weekend Teach-Ins 2017: stem cell research and standing up to "alternative facts" – UC Santa Cruz (press release)

By Stell Cell Research

The always-popular Teach-In lecture series returns to UC Santa Cruzs Alumni Weekend this year, with button-pushing presentations about the role of the humanities in a "post-truth" world and the intriguing potentials of stem cell research.

The students in both classes can bring their intellectual curiosity but leave those exam booklets behind.

This series will be one of the many highlights of Alumni Weekend festivities, which take place April 2830. Those who wish to attend this fun-filled weekend may register here.

There is no need to cram all night beforehand for these Teach-Ins. Just show up and enjoy. But be prepared with a couple of questions to ask. This will guarantee a lively and far-ranging discussion.

In the past, Teach-Ins were held simultaneously; returning Slugs wished they could have taken a class that would teach them how to clone themselves so they could attend all the talks. But this year, the lectures are being held at different times at Stevenson College, meaning that it is technically possible to attend both lecturesproviding that you register in advance to guarantee your spot.

The Teach-In lectures kick off on Saturday, April 29, at 1 p.m., at Stevenson College, room 150, with Rejuvenate Now: Stem Cell Research at UC Santa Cruz, a special talk by professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology Lindsay Hinck; professor of biomolecular engineering Camilla Forsberg; and assistant professor of biomolecular engineering Daniel Kim, who talk about the stem cell research taking place at the Institute for the Biology of Stem Cells (IBSC) at UC Santa Cruz.

Stem cells hold great promise for curing or mitigating the effects of many diseases and injuries. This talk will focus on three areas of stem cell research in particular: breast cancer, blood, and cellular reprogramming.

Attendees will learn how stem-progenitor cells that regulate breast development are targeted to become breast cancer stem cells, how stem cells decide to become a particular type of mature blood cell, and how this process can go haywire, causing disease in the process. Registration is required to attend this talk, and you can do so by visiting this link.

While stem cell research can fight disease, the humanities can fight lies and distortions in the political arena.

In a Teach-In entitled Ex Post Facto, Gina Dent, associate professor of feminist studies, history of consciousness, and legal studies at UC Santa Cruz, will discuss the role of the humanities in responding to the current discussion of alternative facts. How can we develop a critical relationship to facticity, while preserving the ability to think and act politically? The talk starts at 2:45 p.m. at Stevenson College, room 175.

This discussion could not be more timely in this era of suspect sourcing and plastic realities.Register here for this Teach-In.

Link:
Alumni Weekend Teach-Ins 2017: stem cell research and standing up to "alternative facts" - UC Santa Cruz (press release)

Using stem cells to create an endless supply of blood – My Twin Tiers.com

By Embryonic Stem Cells

Stem cells More health news

(CNN) - For decades, scientists have sought to create red blood cells in the lab -- a "holy grail" that some hoped could ease regional blood shortages, especially for people with rare blood types.

But now British researchers say they have overcome a major barrier that has plagued many scientists: creating enough red cells to fill a blood bag. Their findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

"When we kept (the cells) continually dividing for a year, we were quite excited," said Jan Frayne, a biochemist at the University of Bristol and one of the study's lead authors.

The latest study "is a dramatic step forward because it gives us the view that we can actually scale up to whole units of blood," said Dr. Harvey Klein, chief of the NIH Clinical Center's Department of Transfusion Medicine. Klein was not involved in the study.

Two to three drops of blood may contain a billion red cells, according to the American Red Cross.

"This technology gives us that particular dream, or at least it brings us a lot closer," said Klein.

To ramp up production, the UK researchers infected stem cells with cervical cancer genes. By inserting cancer genes from human papilloma virus (HPV) into bone marrow cells, Frayne and her colleagues were able to create the first adult red blood cells that could multiply an infinite number of times. These cells are referred to as "immortal."

The concept may be a familiar one to those who have read the book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," in which a related strain of HPV led to the production of HeLa cells, which are widely used in scientific research. These cells were taken from a cervical cancer biopsy from Lacks, who passed away in 1951 but whose cells still multiply in laboratories today.

As the red blood cells mature, they spit out the nucleus -- the core that houses their DNA -- giving the cells a signature round, dimpled shape. Frayne and her colleagues filtered those cells from the rest, so the final batch did not contain the active cancer genes.

Frayne said that a small number of these stem cells can be found in a simple blood draw, too; there's no need to do an invasive biopsy of the bone. Since her team completed the study last year, she said, they have already created two new immortal cell lines this way.

"It's a brilliant approach, and they seemed to have solved several of the really important bottlenecks," said Dr. Robert Lanza, Chief Scientific Officer at the Astellas Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Lanza is no stranger to the research; he tried to solve the same problem years ago using embryonic stem cells.

But his cells didn't eject the nucleus well enough, and fetal blood cells have too tight a grip on oxygen; they are less likely to drop off the oxygen where it needs to go. Eventually, though, he abandoned the research because "it's not really commercially viable."

Many others have attempted to create blood in the lab, using stem cells from umbilical cords and other sources. But these stem cells fizzle out and stop dividing at a certain point.

"It's almost like they desperately want to carry on differentiating" into mature cells, Frayne said.

In 2011, a group of French researchers transfused lab-grown red blood cells -- which grew from stem cells, though not Frayne's endless supply -- into one human. The cells functioned and survived normally.

Frayne said that the first human trials will begin in England later this year, though they will not be using the immortal cells from her new study. Making the new cells under industry standards, Frayne said, could take at least several more years.

A number of other prior studies have sought to create oxygen-carrying liquids without the need for blood cells, but none of them have proved to be widely usable. In fact, a 2008 analysis found that they carried an increased risk of heart attack and death. A blood substitute called PolyHeme was famously rejected by the US Food and Drug Administration after 10 patients suffered heart attacks out of 81 who received it.

Whole blood contains a lot of other bits and pieces that may not necessarily be grown in a lab, said Lanza: blood-clotting platelets, proteins, immune cells and ions like iron.

But Lanza also said that the advantage of lab-grown blood is that it avoids common problems for patients who require multiple transfusions over their lifetime, such as those with sickle cell disease. For example, iron, which can be toxic at high concentrations, can accumulate with successive blood bags, which are given during a transfusion. Human blood, though rigorously tested, also carries a very small risk of transmitting disease.

And stem cells could be used to create Type O cells, fit for nearly any patient's IV, Lanza said. Known as the "universal donor," Type O is the blood type most often requested by hospitals, but it is frequently in short supply, he said.

But where Lanza really expects to see this technology is on the battlefield.

The Department of Defense technology research agency, known as DARPA, has funded similar studies in the past, such as a "blood pharming" study with a medical device company formerly known as Arteriocyte.

Lanza, who met with DARPA officials about his own blood cell research in the past, said that the military wants to use lab-grown blood "for patients who have massive blood loss, particularly in the battlefield, where a soldier is blown up by a bomb and there isn't time for blood typing."

"I think the goal ultimately is to put this on the back of a Humvee," he said.

That research, however, met the same obstacles other scientists faced in the past, Klein said.

"They were not able to make sufficient amounts blood at any kind of reasonable cost," said Klein, who also serves on the FDA Blood Products Advisory Committee. Though familiar with the DARPA research, he was not involved in evaluating its products.

To mass produce blood in the lab, Frayne and her colleagues would need lots of expensive liquids to grow the cells and a battery of new equipment that complies with manufacturing standards -- all of which will cost money.

"To make big huge vats of it would be outside of our ability in a research lab," she said. "We'd have to have company interest."

A hospital in the US might pay hundreds to thousands of dollars to purchase and test a unit of donated blood, and it may charge far more to transfuse it to patients. Producing a pint of blood using her method, Frayne said, would likely be several times more expensive than buying bags from blood donors in the UK.

But Frayne is optimistic that costs will come down. She hopes that lab-grown cells will be shown to last longer, and therefore doctors might need to use less blood less frequently. That's because stem cells can be collected while they're young, Frayne said, while human blood has cells of all different ages. Many donated blood cells die not long after transfusion.

Collected blood expires, too. Currently, the Red Cross, which claims to provide 40% of the country's blood supply, stores red blood cells for up to 42 days.

That aside, Klein said that lowering the cost to $1,000 to $2,000 per unit of blood would make these cells worth the price for a small subset of patients who have rare blood types or need regular transfusions. For the typical hospital patient, however, it would probably not be very practical or cost-effective, he said.

But it is their willingness to invest money in the research, Klein said, that may have led to the British team's success where the US and other countries have faltered.

"They have put a great deal of financial muscle behind doing this on a national basis, which we simply haven't seen in the United States," he said, adding that perhaps there was an element of "healthy skepticism (in the US) that maybe it will never in our lifetime be practical."

"I don't share that skepticism," he said.

But what about the rogue red cell that slips through the filter with its cancer genes still intact? Lanza calls these cells "escapees."

"When you're dealing with such huge numbers of cells," said Lanza, "there may be a few of these cells that would slip in."

Frayne said that these cells are highly unlikely to cause any form of blood cancer. The cancer genes are only switched on by a certain antibiotic, and by the time the cells are collected, any remaining nuclei are no longer working. Before ablood transfusion, radiation can also be used to destroy any leftover DNA without affecting normal cells, she said.

Still, Frayne said, "These are all really good points to be raising, and they need to be looked at."

But none of these concerns have slowed a deluge of requests to use her cells, Frayne said, though perhaps not from whom you'd expect. It's not blood banks hoping to capitalize on a new, if untested, method. In fact, it's other researchers who, until now, have not had an unlimited way to study diseases like malaria, which infect red blood cells. "That's where all my requests are coming from," she said.

Klein, Lanza and Frayne all said lab-grown blood cells are not meant to replace blood donors. To fill a national blood service, or even a single hospital, will require another major leap in the research.

"They're not going to put the Red Cross out of business," said Lanza. "Volunteer blood donations are always going to be the first line of defense -- but with this technology, you have a safety net."

Link:
Using stem cells to create an endless supply of blood - My Twin Tiers.com

The risks of unproven stem cell treatments – Radio New Zealand

By Stem Cell Treatment

An expert in stem cell treatment is warning of dodgy operators in New Zealand offering unproven and potentially dangerous treatments.

Auckland University Medical School lecturerBronwen Connor's warning comesafter arecently-released scientific paper documented a case of three women in the United States who were blinded by an experimental treatment for macular degeneration.

She said many people had stem cell therapy in the belief it was scientifically valid, but that was not often the case.

Dr Connor told Nine To Noon the cells used most often for the treatments were known as adipose cells, which were obtained from fat tissue in the body. They were popular because they couldbe obtained from a patientby liposuction, isolated out, then re-injected for supposed therapeutic use.

"Adipose stem cells obviously have a very important job, but predominantly their job is to make bone and cartilage. They also do have some anti-inflammatory properties. But they, to date, have not been shown to have any potential or ability to generate brain cells, for example, or new kidney cells or heart cells."

Websites for clinics offering the treatments listed up to 20 or 30 different types of diseases, disorders or conditions that one source of cells could supposedly treat. That was worrying, she said.

Adipose stem cells might be the right choice to help repair cartilage damage in the knee. "However, it wouldn't be your stem cell choice if you ... had Parkinson's disease and you were going to try and replace some of those lost cells in your brain."

Dr Connor said people needed to be sceptical and check if, for example, there hadbeen any human clinical trials involving the treatment.

"There are always dangers around treatments that we haven't taken out long-term and which there haven't been sufficient rigorous human clinical trials undertaken [on]. This is the purpose of clinical trials, to see what is the safety aspect and the efficacy of this procedure."

She advisedpeople to think about it in terms of medicines and drugs that people were used to taking, like aspirin. "If you inject yourself with a stem cell population and you have a bad side effect, you can't get those cells out. So ... we really need to know what those cells are going to do long-term and what any potential risk is, because they cannot be retrieved."

The Ministry of Health did not regulate stem cell therapy in this country because the cells were not regarded as medicine. She said it was a grey area, because cells were being taken from a patient and re-injected into the same patient with their consent. "But really, moving forward in the next 10 to 20 years, we're going to see more and more of these type of therapies that don't involve a pill or a tablet or our traditional thought of a medicine, and we really need to get regulations around that type of therapy."

She had spoken to people who paid large sums of money for the treatments.

"When I questioned them a little bit more ... did it help, they would sort of sheepishly say 'well, no not really'."

Dr Connor said clinics offering the treatments often emphasised the benefits according to the scientific literature, but it might be benefits in animals - not from human trials. She wanted quality control addressed and standardisedprocedures, along with safety and efficacy.

Dr Connor wanted to see clinical trials of many of the therapies,as they hadpotential. "Our fear is that, as with the three women with the macular degeneration, is that anything that goes wrong will really hinder the field because people will just see it as stem cell therapy."

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The risks of unproven stem cell treatments - Radio New Zealand

A Japanese man just got another person’s stem cells transplanted in … – ScienceAlert

By Stem Cell Treatment

In what's reported to be a world-first, last Tuesday, a Japanese man received a pioneering retinal cell transplant grown from donor stem cells instead of his own.

Doctors took skin cells from a donor bank and reprogrammed them into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which can be coaxed to grow into most cell types in the body.

For this procedure, the physicians grew the iPS cells into atype of retinal cell, and then injected them into the retina of the patient's right eye.

The test subject was a man in his 60s who has been living with age-related macular degeneration-a currently incurable eye disease that slowly leads to loss of vision.

If this news sounds somewhat familiar, it's because the same team of Japanese doctors successfully performed a similar transplant in 2014. But in that case, the iPS cells came from the patient's own skin, not from a donor.

The 2014 treatment involved culturing a patient's cells into a thin sheet of retinal pigment epithelium cells, which they transplanted directly under her retina.

One year later, their results showed that the patient's disease had not progressedas it would have without any treatment, and she continues to do well.

But a second case study after the 2014 success never went ahead - the researchers found genetic abnormalities in the iPS cells they had derived from an additional patient's skin. To avoid complications, the doctors fromRIKENand Kobe City Medical Centre General Hospital decided to halt the trial and refine their approach.

Now they are back with a potentially safer technique that uses cells from a donor bank. The patient who received the transplant last week is the first of five approved for a study by Japan's health ministry in February this year. It's important to note that so far this is a safety study - a precursor to a clinical trial.

As team leader Masayo Takahashi from RIKEN told a press conference, we will have to wait and see for several years until we know for sure whether last week's transplant was a complete success - which is the whole point of doing a safety study like this.

"A key challenge in this case is to control rejection. We need to carefully continue treatment," she said.

The patient will be closely observed for a year, and then receive check-ups for three more years. The main things for the team to look out for are rejection of the new retinal cells, and the development of potential abnormalities.

An editorial in Nature praises the team's cautious approach, emphasising that this work with iPS cells could pave a smoother path for other trials in the emerging field of stem cell medicine.

If donor cells turn out to be a viable option in iPS cell procedures, it would be huge for creating more affordable stem cell treatments that anyone can benefit from.

Instead of having to induce stem cells out of each individual patient's samples, doctors could go down the cheaper and quicker route of simply picking a suitable match from a donor bank.

Stem cell treatments such as this new procedure are an extremely promising avenue in medicine, but scientists are right to remain cautious and proceed slowly. Just last month a devastating case report broke the news that three women lost their eyesight by participating in a dodgy stem cell trial.

On the other hand, in 2015, an experimental stem cell treatment showed promise in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, and just last year, stem cell injections were used to help stroke patients in recovery.

With all these exciting developments, we'll definitely be keeping an eye on further reports from the Japanese team.

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A Japanese man just got another person's stem cells transplanted in ... - ScienceAlert

Premier Wellness Group Offers Regenerative Cell Therapy for Knee … – GlobeNewswire (press release)

By Stem Cell Treatment

April 02, 2017 10:00 ET | Source: Premier Wellness Group

CAPE CORAL, Fla., April 02, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Regenerative cell therapy offers residents a way to reduce pain and support their bodys healing process from auto accident injuries, personal injuries, and sports injuries. Painful acute and chronic injuries can be healed using amniotic stem cells. Patients can experience pain relief without drugs with regenerative cell therapy injections that use the growth factors in amniotic stem cells to stimulate healing. Regenerative cell therapy can allow patients a safe form of pain relief and reduce their reliance on pain medications. Regenerative cell therapy is available as part of a patients individualized treatment program by the medical team at Premier Wellness Group.

Regenerative stem cell therapy offers pain relief for auto accident injuries and personal injuries, such as patients dealing with shoulder pain, knee pain, and back pain. Stem cells are a powerful tool for healing. The specialized cells begin as blank cells in that they can be used to regrow any cell needed. It is possible to regrow new cells, muscle, and tissue without surgery. Uninjured stem cells are injected into a targeted area and develop into needed cells. Stem cell therapy supports the bodys own healing process, allowing patients to benefit from injury management without surgery or painkillers.

Patients do not need to worry about any reactions due to rejection, and the amniotic regenerative stem cell therapy process is the least evasive of other forms of stem cell therapy. Patients need little, if any, downtime and stem cell therapy complements chiropractic treatments, massage therapy, nutritional counseling, and corrective exercises to guide the body back into a state of wellness. Stem cell therapy can reduce inflammation, promote healing, and increase range of motion.

We are pleased to provide patients with a natural form of pain relief and rehabilitation that takes into account the bodys own ability to heal itself, said Dr. Patrick King. Regenerative cell therapy requires no surgery- only injections performed by our physician. Stem cell therapy is safe and most patients require no downtime. We invite residents suffering from pain or trauma due to a car accident injury, sports injury, or personal injury to contact our team to learn more about this advanced therapy for healing and recovery.

Dr. Patrick King, clinic director and owner of Premier Wellness Group, has served the chiropractic and rehabilitation needs of residents of Cape Coral, Fort Myers, and surrounding communities for more than 15 years. Patients have made Premier Wellness Group their destination for drug-free, non-surgical pain relief, and rehabilitation. Services at Premier Wellness Group include regenerative cell therapy, trigger point therapy, corrective exercises, lifestyle recommendations, and chiropractic care.

Call (239) 573-7988 to learn more about Cape Coral regenerative cell therapy for knee and shoulder pain relief, or to schedule an appointment. Visit http://www.mypremierwellnessgroup.com/ for additional details.

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Originally posted here:
Premier Wellness Group Offers Regenerative Cell Therapy for Knee ... - GlobeNewswire (press release)

Stem Cell Research: Japanese Man’s Body Accepts Cells From … – International Business Times

By Stell Cell Research

On Tuesday, a 60-year-old Japanese man became the first human being to receive "reprogrammed" stem cells. The cells were derived from induced pluripotent stem (iPS), which were donated by another person.

The iPS cells are developed by removing mature cells from one individual and reprogramming them to embryonic state. The fact that the transplanted cells were accepted by the patient opens up doors for research on the subject. In the future, scientists could use a combination of stem cells from different donors to treat diseases, according to the Nature journal.

Read:Bones Grown With Stem Cells Could Help Treat Injuries Easily

In the procedure, skin cells from an anonymous donor were reprogrammed into a type of retinal cells and then transplanted into the retina of the patient to treat age-related macular degeneration, which makes a person go blind in advanced age. Physicians hope that the cells will stop the disease from progressing.

This is not the first time such a procedure has been tried out. In 2014, a Japanese woman underwent a similar procedure, in which her iPS cells were transformed into retinal cells and transplanted for treating the same disease. The Nature report added that the procedure was successful and her body properly accepted the cells.

However, the difference between both procedures is that, in the womans case, the skin cells were taken from her own skin. The team working on Tuesdays procedure, which includes the surgeon who performed the earlier surgery, Yasuo Korimoto, decided to rework the old procedure with cells taken from another person.

Read:Mini-Brain Derived From Stem Cells Could Help Treat Rare Disorder

The biggest risk with using another persons iPS cells is that they could contain genetic abnormalities or they may not offer a genetic match, which could increase the chances of rejection.

The study was approved by Japans health ministry in February and will include a total of five patients.

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Stem Cell Research: Japanese Man's Body Accepts Cells From ... - International Business Times

Human Embryonic Stem Cells (hESC) Market Analysis By Application (Regenerative Medicines, Stem Cell Biology … – PR Newswire (press release)

By Embryonic Stem Cells

However, use of stem cells derived from viable embryos is fraught with ethical issues, prompting scientists to explore other methods to generate ESCs. The other methods include derivation of embryonic germ cells, stem cells from dead embryos, and other techniques.

Further Key Findings from the Report Suggest:

hESC derivation provides a unique opportunity for early human development studies

It is believed to hold a substantial potential for regenerative medicine and biopharma

Differentiated derivatives of these cells are applicable for screening assays in development of novel pharmaceutical moieties

Screening for mutagenic as well as toxic compounds can also be carried out using such derivatives

Presence of lack of suitable donor organs and tissues for regenerative medicine is expected to increase the demand thus influencing growth

Stem cell research is anticipated to exhibit fastest growth amongst the other applications

However, presence of controversies pertaining to their use as a consequence of ethical considerations is responsible for steady growth

Europe accounts for considerable share of the market, following North America

As per a recent survey carried out by Swiss government, citizens there are more willing to accept embryonic stem cell research than politicians

Asia Pacific is anticipated to drive market with fastest YoY growth

Rising awareness amongst the population and physicians with respect to associated therapies is anticipated to propel progress

Key players contributing in this market are CellGenix GmbH, International Stem Cell Corporation, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.; Kite Pharma, PromoCell GmbH, and Lonza

Presence of clinical trial pipeline for embryonic stem cell derived therapy for targeting different diseases is expected to fuel growth.

The diseases targeted include macular degeneration, Parkinson's disease, type I diabetes mellitus, and spinal cord injury. Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04785473-summary/view-report.html

About Reportlinker ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

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Human Embryonic Stem Cells (hESC) Market Analysis By Application (Regenerative Medicines, Stem Cell Biology ... - PR Newswire (press release)

In New Haven, Sickle Cell Disease Association targets home treatment, raising research dollars – New Haven Register

By Uncategorized

NEW HAVEN >> Sickle cell disease is a disease of pain, compelling its patients to frequent emergency departments and forcing many sufferers to be admitted to the hospital.

The Sickle Cell Disease Association of Americas southern Connecticut chapter plans to change that outcome, bringing care and treatment to patients in their homes. The organization also plans to push for better screening for couples at risk for passing on the disease and for more research into treatments for suffering patients.

Well be tracking how we can reduce [hospital] admissions as well as emergency room visits, said James Rawlings, chairman of the board of the local organization. He and others in the organization believe that bringing pain relief to patients in their homes will be far more effective than relying on hospital stays and emergency department visits.

This approach is necessary because sickle cell disease is a stubborn, debilitating illness. The only cure is a bone marrow or stem cell transplant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Weve plateaued in sickle cell and we just have not had any new treatment approaches in decades, said Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, chairwoman of the Medical Advisory Committee for the local association. She calls the progress of research the leaky pipeline its often just a dry pipeline, frankly. Nunez-Smith is professor of medicine and epidemiology and founding director of the Equity Research and Innovation Center at the Yale School of Medicine.

That lack of research into new treatments has been frustrating to those involved in care and treatment of its patients. Overall I think people would say that innovation in treating the disease has been slow, said Dr. Dowin Boatright, a member of the Medical Advisory Committee. I think it has to do a lot with the fact that a lot of people in this country who have the disease have been African American.

Boatright is a clinical instructor in the medical schools Department of Emergency Medicine and a fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program.

Patients also carry a stigma, often being seen as drug seeking, he said. In surveys of emergency department doctors, a majority of them will say that they felt that sickle cell patients are addicted to opioids.

I think race does impact that type of interaction, Boatright said.

Advocates for sickle cell disease research are especially frustrating because the cause of sickle cell disease was discovered back in 1951 by Dr. Linus Pauling, who labeled it a molecular disease inherited from two parents who carry the sickle cell trait in their genes.

The disease is the most common inherited blood disorder in the United States, affecting 70,000 to 80,000 Americans, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. It occurs in one in 500 African Americans and in more than one in 1,000 Hispanics. It is also found in people of Mediterranean, Latin American and Caribbean descent.

Nunez-Smith called sickle cell a disease of young adults, because life expectancy is only 45. That is an improvement from the 1970s, however, when a typical life span was only 21.

That was the impact of penicillin, Rawlings said. However, sufferers of sickle cell disease may also be afflicted with diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, making treatment complicated.

The disease is caused by a mutation in the sufferers hemoglobin, which causes red blood cells to form in a crescent, or sickle, shape. The cells are unable to deliver enough oxygen to the bodys tissues, causing debilitating pain, said Nunez-Smith. All treatments are basically designed to increase oxygen delivery, she said. Those include administering the drug hydroxyurea and hydration.

One of the mainstays of therapy, hydroxyurea, was developed as a chemotherapy agent, so its a harsh medication with some harsh side effects, Nunez-Smith said. I see that as one of our great pressing issues in terms of sickle cell, is identification of better, newer agents for therapy.

While hydroxyurea manages symptoms of sickle cell disease, many patients resist it because of the side effects, Nunez-Smith said. Those include gastrointestinal problems, hair loss, infertility and a suppressed immune system, making the patient more likely to contract other diseases. Patients are reticent to start therapy because the side effects are so harsh, she said.

And those patients not on hydroxyurea therapy come into hospitals with pain crises, Nunez-Smith said. They dont have medications to keep them well and then, when they get unwell, interacting with the health care system is hard. Sickle cell disease patients average 5.6 hospital admissions per year, she said.

You should have those days just to do what you want, not to be in the hospital, she said.

One of the programs wed like to pilot is thinking about earlier-stage intervention in terms of pain crisis, Nunez-Smith said. If we can deliver them earlier and at home, we might be able to reduce emergency department use and hospital admission and improve quality of life.

If we have a 10 or 15 percent reduction in admissions, thats millions of dollars that are saved by the state, Rawlings said, because 100 days spent in the hospital can cost $1 million, and many patients are on state assistance.

Because of the difficulties of hospital treatment, patients for understandable reasons try to postpone pain care, Nunez-Smith said. The message that the association would like to get across to patients is, at the first inkling of a pain crisis, call us. A nurse can come to your home, she said.

I think patients would like to have more options for pain management and have more options at home as well, Boatright said. In the hospital were able to give stronger medications with an IV and there is potential for doing that with a visiting nurse but thats not standard practice right now, he said.

Boatright said there is an infusion center at Yale New Haven Hospital, where patients can receive opioid medications, but its often crowded, so patients end up in the emergency department.

Probably for the majority of patients theyre not able to access the infusion center during an acute pain crisis, he said.

In the emergency department, patients run into suspicions that theyre opioid addicts. I think its even more problematic in this heated climate that we have for opioid awareness, Boatright said. Last year, 917 people died of opioid overdoses in Connecticut.

Rawlings said the plan for home infusions is ground-breaking. No one else has done it, he said. The hope is that other cities will build on New Havens experience. If they can see the way weve done it other communities across the country can benefit, he said.

In addition to bringing opioid medications to patients in their homes, one of our initiatives is in screening marriage licensing, which isnt routinely done anywhere, said Nunez-Smith. Connecticut no longer requires a blood test to get a marriage license, according to a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Health, so the only screening is of newborns.

The association wants to distribute information about how sickle cell disease is inherited so couples can make informed decisions about whether to have children. You can be a carrier of sickle cell or you can have sickle cell disease and you can certainly be a silent carrier, Nunez-Smith said. Two people who are unaware they are carriers for sickle cell may have children with the disease.

By and large individuals dont know their status, Nunez-Smith said. They both may be carriers; they dont even know it.

Boatright said many people find out about sickle cell disease either by having sickle cell themselves or knowing someone closely that has sickle cell, but we dont feel theres enough information about sickle cell otherwise.

A third goal is thinking about how we train a broader base of clinicians to provide comprehensive care to patients with sickle cell, Nunez-Smith said.

Its a really diverse, interdisciplinary, interprofessional [effort], she said. We have every kind of patient provider. The help has been available in the community. What we lacked is really the creativity to think about all the resources we already have in place, she said.

She said a fourth goal of the association is raising awareness about the need for more drug discovery and development. If you look across diseases, sickle cell research [receives] a pretty low proportion of funding, she said.

Rawlings compared efforts to find treatments and a cure for sickle cell disease to the early days of the AIDS epidemic, even though sickle cell predates AIDS by 100 years, he said.

This year, an estimated $3 billion in federal dollars will be spent on HIV/AIDS, and $78 million on sickle cell disease, according to the National Institutes of Health.

I think its been an orphan disease in America thats been a disease of minorities The clients are by and large socioeconomically poor and challenged, Rawlings said.

The local sickle cell disease chapter has launched a capital campaign to support its initiatives. Donations can be made at http://www.scdaaofsouthernct.org.

The things that were doing, not only are they innovative but theyre the first time theyre being done in the United States, Rawlings said.

Call Ed Stannard at 203-680-9382.

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In New Haven, Sickle Cell Disease Association targets home treatment, raising research dollars - New Haven Register

Doctors say that keeping your kid’s baby teeth could save their lives one day – AOL

By Stem Cell Doctors

Doctors are urging all parents to hold on to their kid's baby teeth after the tooth fairy comes to visit -- and not for sentimental reasons.

According to a recent study, baby teeth contain an abundance of stem cells, a very special type of cell that can potentially grow replacement tissue in the body and cure a number of diseases.

"Stem cells have this fancy term," Dr. Schmidt, a microbiology professor at Medical University of South Carolina, told WCIV. "They are called pluripotent which is code for they just make more. And when you add the right chemical combination to those stem cells you can expand them, you can grow as many as you need."

RELATED: 5 Effects of Not Brushing Your Teeth

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5 Effects of Not Brushing Your Teeth

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Stress and bad oral hygiene go hand in hand. The cause and effect is unclear, but stress is often tied to cavities or inflammation.

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Bacteria in your mouth is a favorite place for pathogens. They contribute to plaque buildup in your arteries and can boost your chances of suffering a heart attack or a stroke.

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Dry mouth and high bacteria levels can worsen conditions like diabetes for people living with them. If you have diabetes, try keeping floss or sugar-free gum handy to rid your mouth of molecules that could make it harder to regulate your blood sugar.

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Speaking of bacteria, Cosmo also points to studies suggesting poor oral hygiene can lead to inflammation of the body and gum disease, which in turn increases your risk of developing cognitive problems like Alzheimers as you age.

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Osteoporosis and oral health issues also seem to be linked. Thats because bacteria not only weakens the immune system, but it can wear away the tissues in your mouth keeping your teeth in place.

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If collected and properly stored, baby teeth could be used to potentially treat and cure a life-threatening illness a child or a close family member could develop years down the road.

"That day is not too far in the future," Schmidt said. "We will probably see it with our lifetimes where we will be able to dial a gene and figure out how we can fix what's wrong with us."

The option is reportedly appealing for many parents who missed their chance at having stem cells from their child's umbilical cord stored at birth, a growing trend for parents in the past few decades.

"Baby teeth just happen to be that one extra place that we can recover them," Schmidt continued. "Cord blood is great, but if you can get them from baby teeth so much the better because you don't have to bank them at the day you are born. You can actually wait until the teeth grow out."

SEE ALSO: Parents warned after baby girl suffocates from wearing big bow headband

Landon Sears, a dental student at the Medical University of South Carolina, told WCIV that the easiest way for parents to store stem cells from dental DNA is to be proactive in scheduling an appointment with the child's dentist when the tooth is close to falling out.

"The most common way is there are a number of labs that will send the dentist or patient a kit with preserving liquid to keep the tissue alive," Sears said. "They just send it to a lab and eventually they store the teeth for you."

"It may not seem like a big deal losing a baby tooth," Sears added. "But if you need a regenerative tissue procedure way down the road for an organ replacement or some type of surgery it could literally make the difference in a person's life."

More from AOL.com: Miracle boy born with 'no brain' astounds doctors three years after scans Drug shortage in 2011 tied to increased deaths Two thirds of cancers caused by random genetic mistakes, US study finds

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Doctors say that keeping your kid's baby teeth could save their lives one day - AOL

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