Stem Cell Clinic

Def Leppard's Vivian Campbell Addresses His Stem Cell Treatment

By Stem Cell Treatment

09/26/2014 . Def Leppard's Vivian Campbell has issued a statement about his upcoming stem cell transplant, which he hopes will keep Hodgkin's lymphoma from returning again.

Campbell was diagnosed with the cancer in 2013, which briefly went into remission only to return again. He received further treatment and cancer is once again in remission and he will be undergoing the stem cell transplant in an attempt to keep the cancer from returning once again.

He wrote on the band's official website, "As many of you know, I've been scheduled to start a stem cell transplant and as soon as I got home from tour I began the necessary tests and preparations. I'll be admitted to hospital soon for all the yucky bits, so in the meantime I'm headed to Target to stock up on cozy pajamas, fresh underwear, and a sackful of car-porn.

"Unfortunately, this means that I won't be able to perform with the band on the upcoming NFL broadcast on Sept. 28th, nor will I be able to do the shows scheduled for Oct/Nov.

"While I can't say that I'm looking forward to the process ahead, I'm very much looking forward to what I feel will be a most successful outcome. Next year will be very busy for Def Leppard with a new album and a world tour, and frankly, I don't think they would sound as loud without me, so I have no intention of letting the team down!

"See you all (with hair!) in 2015. - Viv"

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Def Leppard's Vivian Campbell Addresses His Stem Cell Treatment

Scientists Identify Key Factor That Maintains Stem Cell Identity

By Stem Cell Medical Center

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Newswise A protein implicated in several cancers appears to play a pivotal role in keeping stem cells in an immature pluripotent state, according to a new study by NYU Langone Medical Center scientists. The study is published online today in Cell Reports.

Stem cells are the perpetual adolescents of the cellular world, uncommitted to any cell fate. In principle, they can be programmed to differentiate into any mature cell type, holding the promise of regenerating tissues and organs. A fuller understanding of their biology, however, is needed.

Our finding provides a better understanding of the complexity of how the stem cell state is regulated, says Eva M. Hernando-Monge, PhD, associate professor of pathology and a member of the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Center for Stem Cell Biology at NYU Langone Medical Center.

The newly identified stem cell factor is BRD4, a protein associated with several cancers and the target of prospective therapies currently in clinical trials. In 2013, Dr. Hernando-Monge and colleagues found that BRD4 is overexpressed in melanoma cells and helps sustain their proliferation, whereas inhibiting BRD4 greatly slows their growth. The protein appeared to drive cancer in part by keeping cancer cells in a relatively immature, stem cell-like state. Intrigued, Dr. Hernand-Monge wanted to find out what role the protein played in actual stem cells.

In the new study, Dr. Hernando-Monges team inhibited BRD4s activity in mouse and human embryonic stem cells using BRD4-blocking compounds developed by collaborator Ming-Ming Zhou and colleagues at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. They also used special RNA molecules that block BRD4 gene transcripts, and observed the cells shift out of the stem cell state. As they divided, the cells began to show characteristics of young neurons. Stem cells are thought to maintain a state of quiescence until some signal forces them to divide, producing a differentiated, highly specialized cell.

BRD4 has been known to regulate gene activity by binding to the support structure of DNA, called chromatin, at special switch sites called super-enhancers distributed throughout the genome. These sites are believed to be top-level controllers, orchestrating the distinctive expression patterns of several genes that together determine specific cell types such as nerve or muscle.

We found that BRD4 occupies the super-enhancer sites of genes that are important for maintaining stem cell identity, says Raffaella Di Micco, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow who conceived the research project with Dr. Hernando-Monge and performed most of the experiments. These genes, including OCT4 and PRDM14, showed steep drops in expression when Dr. Di Micco applied BRD4 inhibitors to stem cells.

OCT4 also represses neuronal differentiation, so we think that the loss of that repression with BRD4 inhibition is the most likely reason for the induction of neuronal characteristics in the stem cells, says Dr. Di Micco.

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Scientists Identify Key Factor That Maintains Stem Cell Identity

Biomarkers, Stem Cells Offer New Ways to Treat Deadly Gut Disease in Premature Babies

By Stem Cell Medical Center

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Newswise Columbus, OH. Premature babies face a host of medical challenges at birth, but none as deadly and mysterious as a disease called necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). The condition creates an inexplicable combination of inflammation and infection that causes parts of the intestine to die. NEC progresses at a ruthless speed, leaving physicians with few options typically supportive care, emergency surgery or antibiotics. Only half of newborns who undergo surgery survive, and they often face serious life-long complications.

In the fifty years since necrotizing enterocolitis was first identified, weve accomplished relatively little to change its devastating course. Even worse, we dont know which babies will get it. One minute, a child can appear healthy, but then be dead from NEC hours later, said Gail Besner, MD, chief of pediatric surgery at Nationwide Childrens Hospital.

That may be about to change thanks to two major breakthroughs driven by Besner and Surgeon-in-Chief at Nationwide Childrens R. Lawrence Moss, MD.

After nearly two decades of work, their separate efforts have yielded both the discovery of a biomarker that can help predict which babies will get the disease, as well as treatments that can restore the intestines natural ability to protect itself against NEC.

These researchers advances offer innovative approaches to necrotizing enterocolitis that may someday make it a more predictable and better managed complication of prematurity, said John Barnard, MD, President of the Nationwide Childrens Research Institute and Pediatric Director of The Ohio State University Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS).

Growth factors, stem cells offer gut protection For Besner, the key has always been to prevent NEC before it can start. In the 1990s, she began looking closely at what was happening at the molecular level to an immature bowel in the throes NEC. Besner made a major discovery, observing that a protein called heparin-binding EGF-like growth factor (HB-EGF) which she initially discovered played a life and death role in protecting premature infants from NEC.

In numerous studies, Besner showed that without HB-EGF, the structures within the intestines that maintain barrier function and integrity, including a massive network of nerves and blood vessels, became easily injured and beyond repair. The addition of HB-EGF had the opposite effect, helping protect intestines from injury in animal models of NEC.

From that molecular level understanding of NEC, Besner developed a bigger picture hypothesis about how the nerve damage within an immature gut impacted the diseases development and progression and where a solution might be found.

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Biomarkers, Stem Cells Offer New Ways to Treat Deadly Gut Disease in Premature Babies

The Adult Stem Cell Technology Center, LLC Presents Its New Company Initiatives At The 2014 BioPharm America …

By Uncategorized

Boston, Massachusetts (PRWEB) September 25, 2014

The ASCTCs (website) Director James L. Sherleys first BioPharm America (conference website) experience got off to a remarkable beginning on Day 1 of the conference. After an impromptu decision to participate in the events Perfect Pitch competition, which involved about 40 company contestants, ASCTC tied for second place. As one of a few companies in the stem cell and regenerative medicine space at the conference, this success led to some attendees referring to Sherley as that stem cell guy. Sherley smiled, I take it as a fun compliment. I do think it was the unique presence of ASCTC as one of a few stem cell companies present in a sea of drug development companies that contributed to our success.

However, the ASCTCs pitch to a panel of Pharma investors was in fact more about drugs than stem cells. Sherley pitched the companys partnership venture with AlphaSTAR Corporation (ASC; website) located in Long Beach, California. ASC develops computer simulation analyses to predict the integrity failure of complex composite materials used to build aircraft, racing cars, and other high stress vehicles like the space shuttle. The two companies have integrated their respective expertise to produce a first-of-its-kind computer simulation-based technology for identifying, at the beginning of the drug development pipeline, drug candidates that are toxic to tissue stem cells. Such toxicity causes drugs to fail in expensive preclinical studies and clinical trials, and even after marketing.

At the conference, Sherley commented, I think we are starting to get their [drug companies] attention now. In his pitch of the new AlphaStem tissue stem cell toxicity technology, he emphasized that the ASCTC projects that this technology could save the U.S. Pharma industry about $4 billion of the estimated $40 billion that it spends on failed drug candidates each year. Besides reducing cost and accelerating the development of needed new drugs, the AlphaStem technology would reduce that exposure of patients to particularly harmful drug candidates.

The ASCTC was not the only company at the conference active within the regenerative medicine space. On the first evening of the conference, ASCTC was one of several guest companies and academic institutions in the regenerative medicine space that were invited to a VIP dinner co-hosted by BioPharm Americas producer, EBD Group, and the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine. The guest party dined at the Top of the Hub Restaurant on the top floor of Bostons Prudential Tower.

BioPharm America conferences are designed to arrange many one-to-one meetings among participants of diverse expertise in the international pharmaceutical industry. Over the three-day conference, ASCTC Director Sherley met with Pharma executives, contract research organization directors, Pharma business development consultants, and Pharma investment group partners towards establishing new strategic relationships for the company.

On the final morning of the conference, the ASCTC was one of eleven companies selected to present in the Next Generation Company session. Director Sherley focused his presentation on how the ASCTCs unique expertise in tissue stem cell asymmetric self-renewal gives the company its exclusive position in commercialization of technologies for counting, manufacturing, and monitoring human tissue stem cells. Asymmetric self-renewal is the defining property of tissue stem cells that allows them to maintain the genomic blueprint of human tissues while continuously producing the building block cells of body tissues at the same time. Sherley expressed that asymmetrically self-renewing stem cells in organs and tissues of children and adults will eventually be understood as the fulcrum at the center, between the mature industry of pharmaceutical therapeutics and the emerging industry of cell-based therapeutics. Thats the ASCTC vision.

************************************************************************************************************* The Adult Stem Cell Technology Center, LLC is a Massachusetts life sciences company established in September 2013 (ASCTC; join mailing list). ASCTC Director and founder, James L. Sherley, M.D., Ph.D. is the foremost authority on the unique properties of adult tissue stem cells. The companys patent portfolio contains biotechnologies that solve the three main technical problems production, quantification, and monitoring that have stood in the way of successful commercialization of human adult tissue stem cells for regenerative medicine and drug development. In addition, the portfolio includes novel technologies for isolating cancer stem cells and producing induced pluripotent stem cells. Currently, ASCTC is employing its technological advantages to pursue commercialization of mass-produced therapeutic human liver cells and facile assays that are early warning systems for drug candidates with catastrophic toxicity due to adverse effects against adult tissue stem cells.

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The Adult Stem Cell Technology Center, LLC Presents Its New Company Initiatives At The 2014 BioPharm America ...

Stem cell transplant does not cure SHIV/AIDS after irradiation of infected rhesus macaques

By Stem Cell Treatment

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

25-Sep-2014

Contact: Guido Silvestri gsilves@emory.edu 404-727-9139 PLOS

A study published on September 25th in PLOS Pathogens reports a new primate model to test treatments that might cure HIV/AIDS and suggests answers to questions raised by the "Berlin patient", the only human thought to have been cured so far.

Being HIV-positive and having developed leukemia, the Berlin patient underwent irradiation followed by a bone-marrow transplant from a donor with a mutation that abolishes the function of the CCR5 gene. The gene codes for a protein that facilitates HIV entry into human cells, and the mutationin homozygous carriers who, like the donor, have two defective copiesprotects against HIV infection.

Several factors could have contributed to the cure of HIV/AIDS in the patient: (1) the ablation of blood and immune cells following irradiation killed all or many of the viral reservoir cells that are not eliminated by antiretroviral treatment (ART); (2) the CCR5 deletion mutation in the donor cells protected them and their progeny from HIV infection; (3) a "graft versus host" reaction occurred, where the transplanted cells and their progeny recognize the host cells as foreign and attacked and eliminated HIV-positive reservoir cells that survived the irradiation.

Guido Silvestri, from Emory University in Atlanta, USA, and colleagues investigated the relative contribution of the irradiation to eliminate the reservoir of HIV-infected cells. The scientists worked with the animal model of Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV, a close relative of HIV that infects primates and causes a disease similar to AIDS) infection in rhesus macaques. Using a total of six monkeys (three of which served as controls and did not receive transplants) they performed, for the first time, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in rhesus macaques infected with a chimeric simian/human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV) and treated with ART.

The researchers harvested hematopoetic stem cells from three macaques prior to infection (of all six animals) with SHIV. They also treated the macaques with ART to reduce viral load and mimic the situation in human HIV-infected patients on ART. They then exposed the three monkeys from which they had collected hematopietic stem cells to a high dose of radiation. This killed most of their existing blood and immune cells, including between 94 and 99% of their CD4-T cellsthe main target of HIV infectionin the blood. The irradiation was followed by transplantation of each monkey's own virus-free hematopoietic stem cells. The latter can regenerate the blood and immune cells, and did so in all three monkeys within 3 to 6 weeks. Because the transplanted cells are not from a different donor, no graft versus host disease would be expected, and none was observed.

After that time, the scientists stopped ART in all six monkeys. As expected, the virus rebounded rapidly in the control animals. Of the three transplanted animals, two also showed a rapid rebound. The third monkey developed kidney failure two weeks after ART was stopped and was euthanized. It still had undetectable levels of virus in the blood at that time, but post-mortem analysis showed low levels of viral DNA in a number of tissues, arguing that none of the three transplanted monkeys was cured.

The researchers acknowledge a number of limitations of the study, including the small number of monkeys, and the relatively short period of ART prior to irradiation and transplantation. Nonetheless, they say their study "supports the hypothesis that myeloablative total body irradiation can cause a significant decrease in the viral reservoir in blood cells, even though it was not sufficient to eliminate all reservoirs". Their results, they say, suggest that in the cure of the Berlin patient, "the use of the CCR5 mutant donor and/or the presence of graft versus host disease played a significant role".

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Stem cell transplant does not cure SHIV/AIDS after irradiation of infected rhesus macaques

Def Leppard's Vivian Campbell Having Stem-Cell Surgery

By Stem Cell Doctors

09/24/2014 . Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliot revealed in a new radio interview this week that guitarist Vivian Campbell will be "out of action" until Christmas as he will be undergoing stem-cell surgery in his cancer fight.

Campbell is officially in remission for the second time and will be receiving the treatment in hopes that it will prevent the cancer from returning. Elliot told Las Vegas radio station KOMP 92.3's '92 Minutes of Hair With Mel' show (via Loudwire), "Vivian, for the second time, is now in remission.

"The first time we were told he was in remission and he was, but it didn't take. It didn't stay; it came back. But this time, through clever management with his doctors, they were able to monitor him through the whole tour, so he could do the tour with KISS this summer."

Elliot went on to say, "As we speak, he's getting ready to go in to have stem-cell surgery, which will hopefully get rid of this thing once and for all. So, up until Christmas, he's gonna be kind of out of action, because once they start on this, they have to keep him so locked down and away from germs and stuff.

"I think anybody visiting him has to put on one of those nuclear suits. He'll be locked away and he'll be the boy in the bubble, but he's very confident that he can do this and his spirits are great."

There is no word is Vivian will be joining the band this Sunday when they perform the pregame show at the NFL game between The Oakland Raiders and the Miami Dolphins in London.

Elliott had this to say about the show, "Having most recently visited Wembley in May to watch Sheffield United in the FA Cup semi-final, I know what the atmosphere in the ground is like for 'our' football so I'm really looking forward to performing there before the NFL game and of course soaking up the excitement of the actual match. I can't wait!"

Listen to the full interview at Loudwire here.

...end

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Def Leppard's Vivian Campbell Having Stem-Cell Surgery

Cell Isolation/Cell Separation Market Worth $5.1 Billion by 2019

By Stem Cell Medicine

DALLAS, September 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

According to the new market research report "Cell Isolation/Cell Separation Marketby Product (Reagent, Media, Bead, centrifuge), Cell Type (human, stem cell, animal), Technique (Filtration, Surface Marker),by Application (Research, IVD) &by End user (Hospital, Biotechnology) - Forecast to 2019", published by MarketsandMarkets, provides a detailed overview of the major drivers, restraints, challenges, opportunities, current market trends, and strategies impacting the Cell Isolation Market along with the estimates and forecasts of the revenue and share analysis.

Browse 194 market data tables and 53 figures spread through 211 pages and in-depth TOC on"Cell Isolation/Cell Separation"

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/cell-isolation-market-103931479.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.

The global Cell Isolation Market is expected to reach $5.1 Billion by 2019 from $2.5 Billion in 2014, growing at a CAGR of 15.8% from 2014 to 2019.

The report segments this market on the basis of product, cell type, technique, application, and end user. Among various techniques, the centrifugation-based cell isolation technique is expected to account for the largest share in 2014, while surface marker-based cell isolation technique is expected to account for the fastest-growing segment in the cell isolation market, owing to technological advancement due to which new products are being launched in the market. Furthermore, rising usage of surface market-based cell isolation techniques in stem cell and cancer research is another major reason for the growth of this market.

Based on geography, the global Cell Isolation Market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (RoW). North America is expected to account for the largest share of the market by the end of 2014. The large share of this region can be attributed to various factors including increasing government support for cancer and stem cell research and expanding biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries in this region.

Further Inquiry:http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=103931479

Prominent players in the Cell Isolation Market are BD Biosciences (U.S.), Danaher Corporation (U.S.), GE Healthcare (U.K.), Merck Millipore (U.S.), Miltenyi Biotec (Germany), pluriSelect (U.S.), STEMCELL Technologies (Canada), Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (U.S.), Terumo BCT (U.S.), and Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (U.S.).

Browse related reports

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Cell Isolation/Cell Separation Market Worth $5.1 Billion by 2019

Image sensor for analysis of blood samples for early diagnosis of diabetes and Alzheimer's disease

By Stem Cell Medical Center

17 hours ago Fig. 1: Semiconductor image sensor

Professor Kazuaki Sawada and Dr. Takigawa of the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology and colleagues at Toyohashi University of Technology have established an easy to use, low-cost, rapid, and high sensitivity semiconductor-imaging based medical diagnostic biosensing system for analyzing blood and urine for early diagnosis of ailments including diabetes and Alzheimer's disease.

The new biosensing technology consists of a semiconductor image sensor ( 'charge coupled device' developed by Toyohashi University of Technology) that is sensitive to extremely small changes in electric potential, and microbeads on which antigen-antibody reactions take place. This technology will enable monitoring and diagnosis of diseases for which specific markers are known using very small volumes of blood or urine. Specifically, this technology has detected amiloid beta-peptide, an agent responsible for Alzheimer's disease.

Contracting a disease leads to expression of proteins specific to the diseases in the blood. This new technology is used for early diagnosis of diseases by using this specific protein as the antigen and a marker that captures the protein as the antibody and checking their antigen-antibody reaction. Conventional protocols used to monitor antibody-antigen reactions employ fluorescent probes and detection of fluorescence with microscopic cameras. This process is time consuming because of the necessity to measure fluorescence from the probes and cannot be used to detect low concentrations of antigens when the fluorescence intensity is too low to detect optically.

With this technology, an antigen-antibody reaction is used as in conventional methods, but fluorescence is not measured. Instead, this method employs a semiconductor image sensor to detect minute changes in electric potential generated during an antigen-antibody reaction.

The semiconductor image sensor [Fig. 1] consists of 128 128 pixels that independently sense minute changes in electric potential. The detection sensitivity of antigen-antibody reactions was significantly increased by using microbeads [Fig. 2]. The figures of merit of this technology are given in Table 1. Multiple diseases can also be simultaneously diagnosed by placing different antibodies on different sensing pixels out of a total of 16,384 pixels (128128).

Implementation of the technology will be tested for daily control of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and in future the technology will be expanded for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's and Parkinson' diseases.

Explore further: New technique could benefit Alzheimer's diagnosis

More information: Akiteru Kono et al, "Label free bio image sensor for real time monitoring of potassium ion released from hippocampal slices," Sensors and Actuators B 201, 439443, (2014). dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2014.04.019

A new recombinant antibody can detect and isolate mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), a nonembryonic source of stem cells with promising applications in tissue engineering, blood stem cell transplantation, and ...

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Image sensor for analysis of blood samples for early diagnosis of diabetes and Alzheimer's disease

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