Stem Cell Clinic

Mini-Stomachs Let Scientists Study Ulcers in a Lab Dish

By Stem Cell Medical Center

Scientists have grown miniature stomachs in a lab dish using stem cells, and are already using them to study stomach cancer. They hope they can grow patches to fix ulcers, find new drugs to treat and even prevent stomach cancer, and perhaps even grow replacement stomachs some day.

They discovered that the bacteria that cause stomach cancer begin doing their dirty work almost immediately, attaching to the stomach lining and causing tumors to start growing in response. Helicobacter pylori causes many, if not most, cases of stomach cancer, which affects more than 22,000 Americans a year and kills half of them. Stomach cancer is a major killer globally, affecting close to a million people a year and killing more than 70 percent of them.

And the team grew their mini-stomachs using two different types of stem cells human embryonic stem cells, grown from very early human embryos, but also induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells, which are made by tricking bits of skin or other tissue into acting like a stem cell.

In our hands they worked exactly the same, James Wells of Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center, who led the research. Both were able to generate, in a petri dish, human stomach tissue.

Immunofluorescent image of human stomach tissue made using stem cells

Stem cells are the body's master cells. Embryonic stem cells and iPS cells are both pluripotent meaning they can give rise to any tissue in the body. They've been used to grow miniature human livers, retinas, brain tissue and have been injected into eyes to treat eye disease.

Growing anything close to a real stomach or even a patch for an ulcer is a long way off. The gastric organoids Wellss team made the name up are just about the size of a BB bullet.

Its not easy getting stem cells to do what you want them to do. Wells and his team, including graduate student Kyle McCracken, had to use various growth factors and chemicals, each introduced at precisely the right time, to coax the cells into becoming three-dimensional blobs of stomach tissue. The stomach is a complex organ, with layers of muscle cells, cells that make up the stomach lining and glands that secrete proteins and acid to digest food.

"The bacteria immediately know what to do and they behaved as if they were in the stomach.

But the process worked, and the mini-stomachs look just like stomach tissue, the team reports in this weeks issue of the journal Nature.

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Mini-Stomachs Let Scientists Study Ulcers in a Lab Dish

Scientists grow miniature human stomachs from stem cells

By Stem Cell Medical Center

A CT scan of a human abdomen with stomach cancer. Photograph: Bojan Fatur/Getty Images

Scientists have grown miniature human stomachs from stem cells as a way of studying gastric diseases such as ulcers and stomach cancer and in the future creating tissue to repair patients stomachs.

The mini-stomachs are grown in petri dishes from stem cells. Fully formed, they are the size of a pea and shaped like a rugby ball. They are hollow with an interior lining that is folded into glands and pits like a real stomach.

Crucially, the researchers found that the miniature stomachs, known as gastric organoids, respond to infection very much like ordinary human stomachs.

There hasnt been any good way to study human stomach disease before because animals just dont get the same diseases, said James Wells, director of the Pluripotent Stem Cell Facility, Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center, who led the research which is published in Nature.

Human gastric diseases are associated with chronic infection by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori. Half the worlds population is infected with the bug, which can be picked up from food. Although most people do not show symptoms, once the infection is present up to 20% of carriers will develop gastric ulcers during their lifetimes. Around 2% will develop stomach cancer.

In developing countries, where H. pylori infection is more prevalent, gastric cancers are the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths.

Having grown the mini-stomachs, the researchers then injected them with H. pylori. In animals, H. pylori has little effect and disease does not follow but in the gastric organoid, the invading bacteria behaved as if it were a real human stomach.

The bacteria began injecting their proteins into the surrounding cells, and started to multiply. This is the hallmark of infection, said Wells. We can now very effectively study the bacteria and how it generates diseases. This has never been possible before with human tissue in vitro.

This is not the first time that miniature organs have been grown from stem cells. In 2013, scientists grew miniature kidneys and successfully transplanted into a rat. Replacement windpipes, grown from stem cells on lab-made scaffolds, have also been grown and transplanted into patients.

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Scientists grow miniature human stomachs from stem cells

Stem Cells Used to Grow Mini-Stomachs Seeking Treatments

By Stem Cell Medical Center

Researchers are using stem cells to grow tiny three-dimensional human stomachs that are structurally similar to the real thing, helping investigators seek treatments for gastric diseases such as ulcers and cancer.

Researchers carefully added growth hormones to embryonic or induced stem cells in a lab for as long as five weeks to encourage the development of gastric tissue, according to the findings published today in the journal Nature. The mini-stomachs, which even produce hormones that regulate the secretion of acid and digestive enzymes, may help discover therapies for diseases that affect as much as 10 percent of the worlds population.

The researchers are experimenting with tissue from the mini-stomachs to use as grafts for treating peptic ulcers, said James Wells, a professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center in Ohio. Eventually they may be able to make larger organs that could be used for transplant, he said.

The transplant of a whole stomach is a way off, but its within a reasonable time frame to generate in a petri dish pieces of stomach to patch ulcers, Wells said in a telephone interview. There is no reason to think that if we can do this in miniature that we cant do it on a larger scale. This was a seminal step in that direction.

Some of the same investigators transplanted functioning human intestinal tissue grown from stem cells into mice, creating a model for studying intestinal diseases. Ultimately, tissue grown using a patients own stem cells may be used to treat their ailments, according to the study published last week in Nature Medicine.

The researchers are already able to use the tiny organs, about the size of a small green pea, to track the development of stomach ailments that are often caused by bacteria called Helicobacter pylori, Wells said. They inject the mini-stomachs with the bacteria and within hours they can see the cell replication it causes. One day they may be able to use the approach to see which experimental drugs block the damage.

The results may have more immediate impact on the production of lung and pancreatic cells that other researchers are crafting, he said. Those tissues are now grown on flat sheets, and using a three-dimensional approach may also work better for them, Wells said.

These are three-dimensional organs, he said. It makes sense to use a more functional approach.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michelle Fay Cortez in Minneapolis at mcortez@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net Andrew Pollack, Drew Armstrong

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Stem Cells Used to Grow Mini-Stomachs Seeking Treatments

Coalition calls on Ottawa to commit $500-million for stem cell research

By Stem Cell Clinic

A coalition of prominent scientists, entrepreneurs and charities is calling on Ottawa to commit half a billion dollars over the next 10 years to boost stem cell research and development in Canada.

The request to the federal government works out to one-third of the $1.5-billion in private and public funding the group says this country needs to remain at or near the top of a field that two Canadian scientists helped found with their discovery of adult stem cells in the early 1960s.

The rest of the world is not standing still, said Alan Bernstein, chair of the Canadian Stem Cell Foundation, the scientific charity that spearheaded the new Canadian Stem Cell Strategy and Action Plan, unveiled Wednesday in Ottawa. We risk slowing down our investment while the rest of the world is speeding up, so relatively we will fall further and further behind. This sort of research and the clinical trials are both long-term [prospects]. They need sustained investment and they are expensive.

In an accompanying report by the consulting firm KPMG, the coalition laid out its goal of producing between five and 10 new made-in-Canada therapies that could transform the health-care landscape in the next decade, such as developing a cell therapy to cure diabetes or using stem cells to potentially regenerate scarred tissue after a heart attack.

If the funding materializes, Canadas stem cell industry could create 20 new companies, $405-million in tax revenue and more than 12,000 jobs and between 2015 and 2025, according to the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine, a not-for-profit organization that tries to move stem-cell breakthroughs from the lab to the clinic.

The CCRM is one of a slew of organizations and companies participating in the coalition. Dr. Bernstein said some corporations and philanthropists have already offered to contribute financially, but the group is hoping Ottawa will come through with major funding averaging $50-million a year that could act as a catalyst for private-sector contributors.

Canadian scientists James Till and Ernest McCulloch demonstrated the existence of adult stem cells in Toronto in 1961.

Stem cells are unspecialized cells that have the unique ability to regenerate as they divide. Under certain conditions, stem cells can grow into organ or tissue cells with specific functions, which is why some scientists have invested so much hope in them as potential treatments or cures for Parkinsons disease, spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis, among other ailments.

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Coalition calls on Ottawa to commit $500-million for stem cell research

FDA awards grants to stimulate drug, device development for rare diseases

By Uncategorized

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced it has awarded 15 grants totaling more than $19 million to boost the development of medical device, drug, and biological products for patients with rare diseases, with at least a quarter of the funding going to studies focused solely on pediatrics.

The FDA awards grants for clinical studies on safety and/or effectiveness of products that could either result in, or substantially contribute to, approval of the products.

The FDA is in a unique position to help those who suffer from rare diseases by offering several important incentives to promote the development of products for rare diseases, one of which is this grants program, said Gayatri R. Rao, M.D., director of the FDAs Office of Orphan Product Development. The grants awarded this year support much-needed research in difficult-to-treat diseases that have little, or no, available treatment options.

The program is administered through the FDAs Orphan Products Grants Program. This program was created by the Orphan Drug Act, passed in 1983, to promote the development of products for rare diseases. Since its inception, the program has given more than $330 million to fund more than 530 new clinical studies on developing treatments for rare diseases and has been used to bring more than 50 products to marketing approval.

A panel of independent experts with experience in the disease-related fields reviewed the grant applications and made recommendations to the FDA.

The 2014 grant recipients are:

For the grants program therapies, a disease or condition is considered rare if it affects less than 200,000 persons in the United States. There are about 7,000 rare diseases and conditions, according to the National Institutes of Health. In total, nearly 30 million Americans suffer from at least one rare disease.

The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nations food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.

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FDA awards grants to stimulate drug, device development for rare diseases

Regulating genes to treat illness, grow food, and understand the brain

By Stem Cell Treatment

For his contribution to the understanding of gene regulation and its potential ability to change agriculture and the treatment of disease and mental health, Professor Ryan Lister has been awarded the 2014 Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year.

Genes are not enough to explain the difference between a skin cell and a stem cell, a leaf cell and a root cell, or the complexity of the human brain. Genes dont explain the subtle ways in which your parents environment before you were conceived might affect your offspring.

Another layer of complexitythe epigenomeis at work determining when and where genes are turned on and off.

Ryan Lister is unravelling this complexity. Hes created ways of mapping the millions of molecular markers of where genes have been switched on or off, has made the first maps of these markers in plants and humans, and revealed key differences between the markers in cells with different fates.

Hes created maps of the epigenome in plants, which could enable plant breeders to modify crops to increase yields without changing the underlying DNA.

Hes explained a challenge for stem cell medicineshowing how, when we persuade, for example, skin cells to turn into stem cells, these cells retain a memory of their past. Their epigenome is different to that of natural embryonic stem cells. He believes this molecular memory could be reversed.

He has also recently explored the most complex system we knowthe human braindiscovering that its epigenome is extensively reconfigured in childhood during critical stages when the neural circuits are forming and maturing. These epigenome patterns may even underpin learning and memory. All of this in just 15 years since the beginning of his PhD.

For his contribution to the understanding of gene regulation and its potential ability to change agriculture and the treatment of disease and mental health, Professor Ryan Lister of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology at the University of Western Australia has been awarded the 2014 Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year.

The human body is composed of hundreds of different types of cells. Yet all are formed from the same set of instructions, the human genome. How does this happen?

On top of the genetic code sits another code, the epigenome. It can direct which genes are switched on and which are switched off, Ryan Lister says. The genome contains a huge volume of information, a parts list to build an entire organism. But controlling when and where the different components are used is crucial. The epigenetic code regulates the release of the genomes potential. Cells end up with different forms and functions through using different parts of the genome.

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Copy of PhytoScience Philippines Celeb Share good effect of Stem Cell Therapy – Video

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Copy of PhytoScience Philippines Celeb Share good effect of Stem Cell Therapy
PHYTOSCIENCE DOUBLE STEM CELL removes the apperance of age lines and restore smoth, radiant, youthful looking skin! LOOK YOUNGER REDUCE THE LOOK OF WRINKLES LINES ...

By: Emmanuel Villamor Jr

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The Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center Announces Adult Stem Cell Public Seminars in North County San Diego, California

By Stem Cell Treatment

San Marcos and Carlsbad, California (PRWEB) October 29, 2014

The Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center announces a series of free public seminars on the use of adult stem cells for various chronic, degenerative and inflammatory conditions. They will be provided by Dr. Thomas A. Gionis, Surgeon-in-Chief.

The seminars will be held on Wednesday, November 5, 2014, at 11:30am and 1:30pm at the Hampton Inn San Marcos, 123 E. Carmel St., San Marcos, CA 92078 and Thursday, November 6, 2014, at 11:30am, 1:30pm and 3:30pm at the Hampton Inn Carlsbad, 2229 Palomar Airport Rd., Carlsbad, CA 92011. Please RSVP at (949) 679-3889.

The Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center abides by investigational protocols using adult adipose derived stem cells (ADSCs) which can be deployed to improve patients quality of life for a number of chronic, degenerative and inflammatory conditions and diseases. ADSCs are taken from the patients own adipose (fat) tissue (found within a cellular mixture called stromal vascular fraction (SVF)). ADSCs are exceptionally abundant in adipose tissue. The adipose tissue is obtained from the patient during a 15 minute mini-liposuction performed under local anesthesia in the doctors office. SVF is a protein-rich solution containing mononuclear cell lines (predominantly adult autologous mesenchymal stem cells), macrophage cells, endothelial cells, red blood cells, and important Growth Factors that facilitate the stem cell process and promote their activity.

ADSCs are the body's natural healing cells - they are recruited by chemical signals emitted by damaged tissues to repair and regenerate the bodys injured cells. The Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center only uses Adult Autologous Stem Cells from a persons own fat No embryonic stem cells are used. Current areas of study include: Emphysema, COPD, Asthma, Heart Failure, Parkinsons Disease, Stroke, Multiple Sclerosis, Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Crohns Disease, and degenerative orthopedic joint conditions. For more information, or if someone thinks they may be a candidate for one of the adult stem cell protocols offered by the Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center, they may contact Dr. Gionis directly at (949) 679-3889, or see a complete list of the Centers study areas at: http://www.IrvineStemCellsUSA.com.

About the Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center: The Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center is an affiliate of the Cell Surgical Network (CSN); they are located in Irvine, California and Westlake, California. We provide care for people suffering from diseases that may be alleviated by access to adult stem cell based regenerative treatment. We utilize a fat transfer surgical technology to isolate and implant the patients own stem cells from a small quantity of fat harvested by a mini-liposuction on the same day. The investigational protocols utilized by the Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center have been reviewed and approved by an IRB (Institutional Review Board) which is registered with the U.S. Department of Health, Office of Human Research Protection; and the study is registered with Clinicaltrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). For more information visit our website: http://www.IrvineStemCellsUSA.com.

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The Irvine Stem Cell Treatment Center Announces Adult Stem Cell Public Seminars in North County San Diego, California

The Miracle of Stem Cell Therapy at Adler Footcare Regenerates Cells, Heals Foot Pain

By Stem Cell Treatment

New York, New York (PRWEB) October 29, 2014

Stem cell therapy is the future of foot pain treatment. New York podiatrists at Adler Footcare are using ethical stem cell treatments for foot problems to help speed healing, minimize pain, and reduce swelling.

Stem cells are cells that havent quite yet determined their role in the body. This gives them the ability to turn into anything. The treatment is being used for problems causing foot pain, such as Achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, and arthritis of the first toe joint. Stem cells help regenerate new cartilage and helps tissue heal much quicker.

"Stem cells turn into everything," said Dr. Jeffrey Adler, Medical/Surgical Director & Owner of Adler Footcare. "So basically, if the damage is due to cartilage, they turn into cartilage. If the damage is due to soft tissue, they turn into soft tissue. Its the Swiss army knife of treatments."

The stem cells are not live embryos, but instead are generated from the placenta and ethically obtained during the C-sections of live births. The women who the cells are taken from are screened and tested for any communicable diseases beforehand.

Stem cell therapy uses a minimally invasive technique to inject the cells directly into the area where the patient is feeling the foot pain. Fluoroscopy is used to determine the exact position for injection. When stem cell therapy is used healing occurs twice as fast. As the tissues are regenerated and the swelling is minimized, the patient is able to experience more range of motion, less post-operative pain, and less inflammation.

The New York podiatrists at Adler Footcare have been using stem cell therapy for 2 years. They continue to stay up-to-date on the process and have seen only positive results.

To learn more about stem cell treatment for foot pain, contact a New York podiatrist at Adler Footcare.

About Dr. Jeffrey L. Adler

Dr. Jeffrey L. Adler, Medical/Surgical Director and Owner of Adler Footcare of Greater New York has been practicing podiatric medicine since 1979 and has performed thousands of foot and ankle surgeries. Dr. Adler is board certified in Podiatric Surgery and Primary Podiatric Medicine by the American Board of Multiple Specialties in Podiatry. Dr. Adler is also a Professor of Minimally Invasive Foot Surgery for the Academy of Ambulatory Foot and Ankle Surgeons. As one of only several in the country who perform minimally invasive podiatric surgery, Dr. Adlers patients enjoy significantly reduced recovery times.

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The Miracle of Stem Cell Therapy at Adler Footcare Regenerates Cells, Heals Foot Pain

Gene therapy, stem cell therapy trials underway

By Stem Cell Treatment

Stem cells and gene hold promising treatment options for Parkinson's, mandate doctors across the globe, including from Mumbai. Eleven trials to test stem cell and gene therapy for treating Parkinson's are underway currently of which the one in Mumbai had to be put on hold due to regulatory hurdles.

Currently, neuro-augmentative therapies such as usage of drugs or deep brain stimulation (DBS) are being used to treat Parkinson's disorder. "The future holds hope for neuro-restorative therapies like that of stem cells or gene infusion in the Parkinson's disorder treatment. It involves restoration of brain function to normal. In the next five to seven years, this may pave the way for future," said Dr Paresh Doshi, neurologist at Jaslok Hospital, Peddar Road in Mumbai.

Regulatory hurdles and resource constraints though have led to these trials being held up in Mumbai. Dr Doshi said that trials of Duodopa therapy which involves infusion of an active ingredient gel called Levodopa in the intestines has been kept on hold at the moment at privately-run Jaslok Hospital due to regulatory hurdles. The hospital was the only centre in entire South East Asia to have been running the trial.

"Levodopa gets converted into dopamine in the body. Normal levels of dopamine control Parkinsons disorder," said Dr Doshi.

Trials to infuse stem cells from the patient's body in the patient itself had been underway in small group of patients in India, but due to inability to recruit more patients, the trial was stopped. "We could only recruit four patients for two years. However, a similar trial is underway in China and another trial which explores adipose tissue stem cells in treating Parkinson's disease is underway in South Africa," said Dr Doshi.

In January this year, medical journal The Lancet reported that after sixteen years of trials, gene therapy is showing promising results in humans. "Three genes that promote the formation of dopamine generating cells in the brain were injected in the brain bound with a viral vector in fifteen patients. The genes are intended to boost the production of dopamine, a chemical that becomes deficient in patients withParkinson's," said The Lancet report.

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