Stem Cell Clinic

Seattle company allows blood donors to deep freeze cells for future medical technology – KOMO News

SEATTLE - Melissa Wasserman is used to getting stuck. Shes a regular donor of blood but, this trip to Bloodworks Northwest is not intend to save the life of another, but quite possibly her own in the future.

My cells are not getting any younger, so collecting them now is kind of insurance, said Wasserman.

Wasserman is one of the first official customers for Silene Biotech, a pharmaceutical-grade cell preservation service with a relatively simple idea. The intent is a long-term freezing of a customers blood, with the hope that scientists will develop cures to what ails us and the cells could then be thawed and used to heal ourselves.

The older we get, our cells just get damaged and mutilated, said Dr. Alex Jiao, co-founder and CEO of Silene Biotech. We are looking right now to regenerate peoples bodies using stems cells and thats incredible."

Work by scientists at the University of Washington to regenerate portions of the human heart is already showing some success.

Customers of Silene Biotech are banking their blood on the hope the stem cells can be used to regenerate portions of their own faulty organs or joints when the technology become available.

While technology for regenerating people's body's and treating your diseases are still being developed we can preserve their cells today. said Jiao That way they will have a better opportunity to use their own cells for regenerative medicine or personalize therapies."

The process involves a low-volume blood draw. Silene Biotech then processes the blood then isolates the cells and freezes them in their Seattle lab. The blood is then sent to a long-term medical storage facility in Indianapolis, Ind.

The customer retains full ownership of their own cells and can retrieve or destroy them at any time. Customers can also opt in to have the cells used anonymously for scientific purposes.

Jiao said all personal information is kept confidential with Silene Biotech. Theres even a provision in case the company goes out of business.

We prepay a lot of the storage costs, but if we go out of business and [the customers] storage is up, they have the ability to pay for the storage themselves, said Jiao.

Wendy Riedy was one of the companys early beta testers after she saw KOMO Newss initial story on Jiaos idea more than a year ago.

I thought why not, it cant hurt and Im not getting any younger, said Riedy.

In the future, a persons own stem cells could be used to reverse macular degeneration, which runs in Wendys family.

My mother had both knees replaced, said Riedy. If I could not do that using my own stem cells, why would I not want to do that."

The younger the donor, the better shape the stem cells could be and likely free from pre-cancer factors said Jiao. So, Wendy convinced her daughter to bank her blood just in case.

Id like to have that option to utilize my own cells and helping my body heal itself, said Riedys daughter, Chandler Batiste.

The company currently offers two payment options. There is a $50 annual payment plan with a one-time processing fee of $299. Or theres one-time lifetime payment of $999.

Core blood storage via freezing is not a new concept. Its been done for years for diagnostic reasons and large qualities can be frozen for future surgeries.

But, Jiao believes their niche will be smaller, affordable blood storage for future stem cell harvesting.

The ethics come into play when you over-promise and you say theres something today and its not, said Jiao. We definitely dont do that."

Who better to help yourself in the future than yourself.

I do hope that my own self will make me less miserable, said Wasserman.

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Seattle company allows blood donors to deep freeze cells for future medical technology - KOMO News

Calcium imbalance within brain cells may trigger Alzheimer’s disease – Medical News Today

New research investigates the role of calcium production in Alzheimer's disease. The neurodegenerative process may be caused by a calcium imbalance within the brain cell.

Mitochondria - sometimes referred to as the "powerhouse of the cell" - are small structures that transform energy from food into cell "fuel."

In the mitochondria of a brain cell, calcium ions control how much energy is produced for the brain to function. Previous research has shown that an excessive production of calcium can cause neurons to die, therefore linking a calcium imbalance with the neurodegenerative process involved in Alzheimer's disease.

Until now, however, the exact mechanism that links Alzheimer's-related neurodegeneration and mitochondrial calcium imbalance was unknown. The new research - led by Pooja Jadiya, a postdoctoral fellow at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA - sheds light on this association.

The study was carried out by researchers from the Center for Translational Medicine at Temple University, and the findings were presented at the 61st Meeting of the Biophysical Society in New Orleans, LA.

Jadiya and colleagues studied brain samples from Alzheimer's patients, a mouse model genetically modified to replicate Alzheimer's-like symptoms, and a mutant Alzheimer's-affected cell line.

They examined the mitochondrial alterations in calcium processing, together with reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, the metabolism of the active amyloid precursor protein, membrane potential, and cell death. They also looked at the activation of the mitochondrial permeability transition pores and oxidative phosphorylation.

In a healthy brain, calcium ions leave a neuron's mitochondria to prevent an excessive buildup. A transporter protein - called the mitochondrial sodium-calcium exchanger - enables this process.

In Alzheimer's-affected tissue, Jadiya and team found that the sodium-calcium exchanger levels were extremely low. In fact, the protein was so low that it was difficult to detect.

The researchers hypothesized that this would cause an overproduction of ROS, which would, in turn, contribute to neurodegeneration.

ROS are molecules that, in high levels, have been shown to damage proteins, lipids, and DNA, thus causing oxidative stress.

The team did find a correlation between the reduced activity of the sodium-calcium exchanger and increased neuronal death.

Additionally, in the mouse model, the scientists found that right before the onset of Alzheimer's, the gene that encodes the exchanger was significantly less active. A decrease in this gene's expression further suggests that the protein exchanger plays a key role in the progression of the disease.

Finally, the scientists also tested this mechanism in an Alzheimer's-affected cell culture model, by artificially boosting the levels of the exchanger.

As hypothesized, the affected cells recovered to a point where they were almost identical to healthy cells. Furthermore, the levels of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) increased, the ROS levels decreased, and fewer neurons died.

ATP is a molecule considered to be the "energy currency of life" by some biologists, as it is required by every activity our body engages in.

John Elrod, a co-author of the study, explains the significance of the findings:

"No one has ever looked at this before using these model systems. It is possible that alterations in mitochondrial calcium exchange may be driving the disease process."

The study may also pave the way for new treatment options, Elrod explains. The team is currently working to reverse the neurodegeneration typical of Alzheimer's disease in mouse models by stimulating the expression of the gene that encodes the sodium-calcium exchanger. This could be achieved with new drugs or gene therapy.

"Our hope is that if we can change either the expression level or the activity of this exchanger, it could be a viable therapy to use early on to perhaps impede Alzheimer's disease development - that is the home run," Elrod says. "We are not even close to that, but that would be the idea."

Learn how scientists can stop and reverse Alzheimer's-related brain damage in mice.

Written by Ana Sandoiu

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Calcium imbalance within brain cells may trigger Alzheimer's disease - Medical News Today

Cancer: New method tags elusive tumors for targeted therapy – Medical News Today

Researchers have discovered a way to tag cancer cells of tumors that are difficult to target because they lack suitable receptors. They suggest that their approach, which they tested in mice, could lead to new targeted therapies for cancers that do not respond to those currently available, such as triple-negative breast cancer.

The team - including scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and research centers in China - reports the findings in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

The method uses small-molecule sugars to produce unique, artificial cell surface receptors on cancer cells.

Study leader Jianjun Cheng, a professor in materials science and engineering at Illinois, explains that there is a lack of targeted therapies for certain cancers because they do not have any of the receptors that available treatments normally target.

One such cancer is triple-negative breast cancer - an aggressive cancer with a low survival rate.

Prof. Cheng says that this got them thinking that perhaps they could create an artificial receptor.

Targeted cancer therapies are treatments that target specific molecules involved in the growth, progression, and spread of cancer. They belong to a relatively new field called precision medicine.

There are several differences between targeted cancer therapy and conventional chemotherapy, the main one being that most chemotherapy treatments target all rapidly dividing cells, including healthy ones.

Targeted cancer therapy aims to single out only cancer cells and leave healthy cells intact. In order to do this, researchers must find features that distinguish the tumor cells of a particular cancer from healthy cells, so that the treatment can target those features specifically.

One feature that can differentiate cancer cells from healthy cells is the cell surface receptor, a type of molecule that protrudes on the outside of the cell and acts as a conduit for signals between the cell and its environment.

Scientists can devise antibodies that seek out the receptors that are specific to cancer cells in order to deliver targeted drugs or imaging agents.

However, some cancers are notoriously difficult to distinguish in this way because they lack suitable surface receptors.

One such cancer is triple-negative breast cancer. Tumor cells of this type of cancer lack the three most common types of receptor known to drive most breast cancer growth: estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2).

Prof. Cheng and colleagues found a way to insert unique molecules into cancer cells that the cells metabolize into cell surface receptors, without the molecules affecting healthy cells.

The molecules belong to a class of small-molecule sugars called azides. The cancer cell metabolizes the molecules and expresses them on their cell surfaces, where they can be uniquely targeted by another molecule called DBCO, as Prof. Cheng explains:

"It's very much like a key in a lock. They are very specific to each other. DBCO and azide react with each other with high specificity. We call it click chemistry. The key question is, how do you put azide just on the tumor?"

To ensure that the azide would only be expressed by the cancer cells, the team attached a chemical group to the azide that only enzymes in the cancer cell can remove.

The modified azide just passes through healthy tissue. In tumor cells, however, the enzymes digest the attached group and express the azide as a cell surface receptor that binds uniquely to DBCO, which can be used to deliver cancer drugs or imaging agents.

After showing that the method works in cells cultured in the laboratory, the team tested it in mice with triple-negative breast cancer, colon cancer, and metastatic breast cancer tumors, and they found that the tumors expressed very strong signals compared with other types of tissue.

"For the first time, we labeled and targeted tumors with small molecule sugars in vivo, and we used the cancer cell's own internal mechanisms to do it."

Prof. Jianjun Cheng

Learn how a prolactin receptor screen may lead to new treatments for triple-negative breast cancer.

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Cancer: New method tags elusive tumors for targeted therapy - Medical News Today

This startup preserves your cells for the future, to take advantage of medical breakthroughs yet to come – GeekWire

Silene Biotech co-founders Alex Jiao, left, and Jenna Strully. (Silene Biotech Photo)

Silene Biotech wants to help you grow a new heart or liver, in case those organs fail when you get older. The ambitious Seattle startup founded two years ago and a member of the 2017 TechStars Seattle class today is launching a new service that freezes and stores your white blood cells so they can be used decades later when troubling ailments set in.

The big idea? You could preserve the cells from your 23-year-old body for use when you are 65, and possibly facing life-threatening diseases.

Founded by four Seattleites, including two former University of Washington researchers, Silene is on the cutting-edge of a new field of regenerative medicine, which rebuilds parts of the body.

While growing a new heart with your own cells may be decades off, two of Silenes co-founders, Alex Jiao and Jenna Strully, believe preparing for those medical breakthroughs now could be a huge advantage.

Jiao and Strully came up with the idea for Silene after meeting in a science business class at the University of Washington, where Jiao was studying bioengineering and Strully, who is also a medical doctor, was in the MBA program.

They competed in the UWs business plan competition and won some initial funding during the process. The startup has raised $450,000 in total from UW grants and awards, angel investments, the founders own cash and funds from TechStars.

Jiao, who is just28 years old, said he hopes the startup will educate and raise awareness and provide a service, along with pushing the needle towards personalized medicine, a kind of medicine that tailors treatments to specific individuals.

The company was originally named miPS Labs, a nod to its focus on induced pluripotent stem (iPS)cell technology. Unlike most stem cells, which naturally occur in the body, these cells are engineered from an average adults white blood cells and could be used in regenerative medicine to grow extra tissue or even entire organs.

The first applications of this regenerative medicine technology are starting to hit clinical trials, Jiao said.

But the older we get, the less effectively the process works, he said. Silene Biotech is collecting and storing cells now, so customers can use them years or decades down the line.

Part of their plan is a newly-developed collection system. Instead of collecting urine samples, which the startup did in their beta trial, it is now partnering with Bloodworks Northwest to collect samples of customers blood.

Starting Thursday, customers can sign up to have blood drawn at Bloodworks Northwests downtown Seattle location.Jiao said they will soon also be taking samples at other Bloodworks locations throughout the Northwest.

The sample will then be processed by the company and stored in a facility in Indianapolis, far from Seattles threat of disruptive earthquakes. The service costs $299 for the initial processing and first year of storage, and $50 per year after that.

Customers can access their cells at any time, retrieving them to be used in medical procedures. The cells areanonymized during processing to protect patient confidentiality, and customers also retain the right to have the cells destroyed at any time.

Theres no way to know exactly what these cells could be used for in the future, but early possibilities includegrowing tissue to repair organs, using lab-grown tissue to test patients for drug resistance, and even growing entire organs for patients who need transplants.

To explain the possible uses of these specialized cells, Jiao cited the first clinical trial in which they were studied. In the trial, researchers took skin cells from a patient with vision loss and converted them into lab-grown stem cells. The cells were then grown into retinal cells and implanted in the patients eye, and halted her vision loss.

Maybe a decade or so off is when well really start seeing the fruits of this research turn into viable therapies that can treat and cure diseases, and maybe a couple more decades until we can regrow entire organs, Jiao said. Were not going to grow a heart tomorrow, he said, but trials are about to begin that aim to growing parts of a heart.

While iPS cells are the area of Jiaos expertise, he said the company changed its namebecause itrealized there were many more applications to its service than just iPS cells. Stored white blood cells are being studied as a treatment for Leukemia, for example.

But the switch was also inspired by a remarkable story.

In 2007, in the Northern reaches of Siberia, Russian scientists dug up a cache of seeds hidden by a squirrel. The seeds were estimated to be 32,000 years old.

A few years later, scientists were able togerminate one of the seeds and grow it into an adult plant: the silene stenophylla. That seed is officially the oldest living organism to survive being frozen.

Jiao said he hopes Silene Biotech will do a better job than squirrels did 32,000 years ago.

We caught up with Silenes founders for this Startup Spotlight, a regular GeekWire feature. Keep reading for a Q&A with Jiaoand Strully, and check out all our Startup Spotlights here.

Explain what you do so our parents can understand it:We store your younger cells today so you can use them in personalized therapies and diagnostics in the future.

Inspiration hit us when: Alex (Jiao) worked on deriving patient stem cells and turning them into heart cells and he realized he could be doing this easily for himself.

VC, Angel or Bootstrap: Bootstrap and angels. Need a fair amount of capital to start a lab, now trying to prove the market.

Our secret sauce is: Our passion, backgrounds, and our partnerships with UW and BloodworksNW

The smartest move weve made so far: Switching to blood and partnering with BloodworksNW

The biggest mistake weve made so far: Not moving faster

Would you rather have Gates, Zuckerberg or Bezos in your corner: Zuckerberg. Goals are more in line regarding biotech, pretty audacious (Chan + Zuckerberg initiative).

Our favorite team-building activity is: Grabbing snacks or meals (team loves food).

The biggest thing we look for when hiring is: Chemistry

Whats the one piece of advice youd give to other entrepreneurs just starting out: Meet and talk to everyone and keep an open mind.

Company Site: http://www.silenebiotech.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/silenebiotech

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/silenebiotech

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This startup preserves your cells for the future, to take advantage of medical breakthroughs yet to come - GeekWire