Stem Cell Clinic

Cancer patient receives stem cell-made windpipe, first in U.S.

By Stem Cell Doctors

The artificial windpipe implanted in Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, of Eritrea, in July 2011.

(Credit: University College London)

(CBS) In only the second operation of its kind, a Baltimore man has received an artificial windpipe made from stem cells to replace one destroyed by cancer.

PICTURES - First lab-grown windpipe saves cancer patient

Christopher Lyles, 30, had tracheal cancer that had progressed so far it was considered inoperable, the New York Times reported. In November, doctors made him a new windpipe - or trachea - made out of tiny plastic fibers seeded with stem cells from his own bone marrow.

Two months after his successful operation, Lyles arrived home in Md. last week.

Surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, a professor of regenerative surgery at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, performed the surgery. He's also the doctor who performed the first surgery of this kind on a 31-year-old Eritrean man last July. Both surgeries were done in Stockholm.

"What we did is surgically remove his malignant tumor," Dr. Macchiarini told the Times. "Then we replaced the trachea with this tissue-engineered scaffold." The scaffold was placed in a container called a bioreactor and soaked in a solution that allows the cells to be fully absorbed. Once the windpipe was implanted, the cells continued to grow. "We're using the human body as a bioreactor to promote regeneration," Macchiarini said.

Is the operation fail-safe? "Time will tell what the longevity of these devices is, how long they last," Dr. Harald C. Ott, an instructor in surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, told the Boston Globe. Ott is unsure how the artificial material will integrate into the recipients' bodies, with both the biology of the body and the outside air that passes through the windpipe.

Researchers have used stem cell-seeding techniques to create other organs, including bladders and a urethra created at Wake Forest University.

Originally posted here:
Cancer patient receives stem cell-made windpipe, first in U.S.

Researchers turn skin cells into neural precusors, bypassing stem-cell stage

By Stem Cell Medical Center

The multiple successes of the direct conversion method could refute the idea that pluripotency (a term that describes the ability of stem cells to become nearly any cell in the body) is necessary for a cell to transform from one cell type to another. Together, the results raise the possibility that embryonic stem cell research and another technique called "induced pluripotency" could be supplanted by a more direct way of generating specific types of cells for therapy or research.

This new study, which will be published online Jan. 30 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a substantial advance over the previous paper in that it transforms the skin cells into neural precursor cells, as opposed to neurons. While neural precursor cells can differentiate into neurons, they can also become the two other main cell types in the nervous system: astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. In addition to their greater versatility, the newly derived neural precursor cells offer another advantage over neurons because they can be cultivated to large numbers in the laboratory — a feature critical for their long-term usefulness in transplantation or drug screening.

In the study, the switch from skin to neural precursor cells occurred with high efficiency over a period of about three weeks after the addition of just three transcription factors. (In the previous study, a different combination of three transcription factors was used to generate mature neurons.) The finding implies that it may one day be possible to generate a variety of neural-system cells for transplantation that would perfectly match a human patient.

"We are thrilled about the prospects for potential medical use of these cells," said Marius Wernig, MD, assistant professor of pathology and a member of Stanford's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. "We've shown the cells can integrate into a mouse brain and produce a missing protein important for the conduction of electrical signal by the neurons. This is important because the mouse model we used mimics that of a human genetic brain disease. However, more work needs to be done to generate similar cells from human skin cells and assess their safety and efficacy."

Wernig is the senior author of the research. Graduate student Ernesto Lujan is the first author.

While much research has been devoted to harnessing the pluripotency of embryonic stem cells, taking those cells from an embryo and then implanting them in a patient could prove difficult because they would not match genetically. An alternative technique involves a concept called induced pluripotency, first described in 2006. In this approach, transcription factors are added to specialized cells like those found in skin to first drive them back along the developmental timeline to an undifferentiated stem-cell-like state. These "iPS cells" are then grown under a variety of conditions to induce them to re-specialize into many different cell types.

Scientists had thought that it was necessary for a cell to first enter an induced pluripotent state or for researchers to start with an embryonic stem cell, which is pluripotent by nature, before it could go on to become a new cell type. However, research from Wernig's laboratory in early 2010 showed that it was possible to directly convert one "adult" cell type to another with the application of specialized transcription factors, a process known as transdifferentiation.

Wernig and his colleagues first converted skin cells from an adult mouse to functional neurons (which they termed induced neuronal, or iN, cells), and then replicated the feat with human cells. In 2011 they showed that they could also directly convert liver cells into iN cells.

"Dr. Wernig's demonstration that fibroblasts can be converted into functional nerve cells opens the door to consider new ways to regenerate damaged neurons using cells surrounding the area of injury," said pediatric cardiologist Deepak Srivastava, MD, who was not involved in these studies. "It also suggests that we may be able to transdifferentiate cells into other cell types." Srivastava is the director of cardiovascular research at the Gladstone Institutes at the University of California-San Francisco. In 2010, Srivastava transdifferentiated mouse heart fibroblasts into beating heart muscle cells.

"Direct conversion has a number of advantages," said Lujan. "It occurs with relatively high efficiency and it generates a fairly homogenous population of cells. In contrast, cells derived from iPS cells must be carefully screened to eliminate any remaining pluripotent cells or cells that can differentiate into different lineages." Pluripotent cells can cause cancers when transplanted into animals or humans.

The lab's previous success converting skin cells into neurons spurred Wernig and Lujan to see if they could also generate the more-versatile neural precursor cells, or NPCs. To do so, they infected embryonic mouse skin cells — a commonly used laboratory cell line — with a virus encoding 11 transcription factors known to be expressed at high levels in NPCs. A little more than three weeks later, they saw that about 10 percent of the cells had begun to look and act like NPCs.

Repeated experiments allowed them to winnow the original panel of 11 transcription factors to just three: Brn2, Sox2 and FoxG1. (In contrast, the conversion of skin cells directly to functional neurons requires the transcription factors Brn2, Ascl1 and Myt1l.) Skin cells expressing these three transcription factors became neural precursor cells that were able to differentiate into not just neurons and astrocytes, but also oligodendrocytes, which make the myelin that insulates nerve fibers and allows them to transmit signals. The scientists dubbed the newly converted population "induced neural precursor cells," or iNPCs.

In addition to confirming that the astrocytes, neurons and oligodendrocytes were expressing the appropriate genes and that they resembled their naturally derived peers in both shape and function when grown in the laboratory, the researchers wanted to know how the iNPCs would react when transplanted into an animal. They injected them into the brains of newborn laboratory mice bred to lack the ability to myelinate neurons. After 10 weeks, Lujan found that the cells had differentiated into oligodendroytes and had begun to coat the animals' neurons with myelin.

"Not only do these cells appear functional in the laboratory, they also seem to be able to integrate appropriately in an in vivo animal model," said Lujan.

The scientists are now working to replicate the work with skin cells from adult mice and humans, but Lujan emphasized that much more research is needed before any human transplantation experiments could be conducted. In the meantime, however, the ability to quickly and efficiently generate neural precursor cells that can be grown in the laboratory to mass quantities and maintained over time will be valuable in disease and drug-targeting studies.

"In addition to direct therapeutic application, these cells may be very useful to study human diseases in a laboratory dish or even following transplantation into a developing rodent brain," said Wernig.

Provided by Stanford University Medical Center (news : web)

Originally posted here:
Researchers turn skin cells into neural precusors, bypassing stem-cell stage

Stanford scientists turn skin cells into neural precusors, bypassing stem-cell stage

By Uncategorized

Public release date: 30-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Krista Conger
kristac@stanford.edu
650-725-5371
Stanford University Medical Center

STANFORD, Calif. ? Mouse skin cells can be converted directly into cells that become the three main parts of the nervous system, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The finding is an extension of a previous study by the same group showing that mouse and human skin cells can be directly converted into functional neurons.

The multiple successes of the direct conversion method could refute the idea that pluripotency (a term that describes the ability of stem cells to become nearly any cell in the body) is necessary for a cell to transform from one cell type to another. Together, the results raise the possibility that embryonic stem cell research and another technique called "induced pluripotency" could be supplanted by a more direct way of generating specific types of cells for therapy or research.

This new study, which will be published online Jan. 30 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a substantial advance over the previous paper in that it transforms the skin cells into neural precursor cells, as opposed to neurons. While neural precursor cells can differentiate into neurons, they can also become the two other main cell types in the nervous system: astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. In addition to their greater versatility, the newly derived neural precursor cells offer another advantage over neurons because they can be cultivated to large numbers in the laboratory ? a feature critical for their long-term usefulness in transplantation or drug screening.

In the study, the switch from skin to neural precursor cells occurred with high efficiency over a period of about three weeks after the addition of just three transcription factors. (In the previous study, a different combination of three transcription factors was used to generate mature neurons.) The finding implies that it may one day be possible to generate a variety of neural-system cells for transplantation that would perfectly match a human patient.

"We are thrilled about the prospects for potential medical use of these cells," said Marius Wernig, MD, assistant professor of pathology and a member of Stanford's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. "We've shown the cells can integrate into a mouse brain and produce a missing protein important for the conduction of electrical signal by the neurons. This is important because the mouse model we used mimics that of a human genetic brain disease. However, more work needs to be done to generate similar cells from human skin cells and assess their safety and efficacy."

Wernig is the senior author of the research. Graduate student Ernesto Lujan is the first author.

While much research has been devoted to harnessing the pluripotency of embryonic stem cells, taking those cells from an embryo and then implanting them in a patient could prove difficult because they would not match genetically. An alternative technique involves a concept called induced pluripotency, first described in 2006. In this approach, transcription factors are added to specialized cells like those found in skin to first drive them back along the developmental timeline to an undifferentiated stem-cell-like state. These "iPS cells" are then grown under a variety of conditions to induce them to re-specialize into many different cell types.

Scientists had thought that it was necessary for a cell to first enter an induced pluripotent state or for researchers to start with an embryonic stem cell, which is pluripotent by nature, before it could go on to become a new cell type. However, research from Wernig's laboratory in early 2010 showed that it was possible to directly convert one "adult" cell type to another with the application of specialized transcription factors, a process known as transdifferentiation.

Wernig and his colleagues first converted skin cells from an adult mouse to functional neurons (which they termed induced neuronal, or iN, cells), and then replicated the feat with human cells. In 2011 they showed that they could also directly convert liver cells into iN cells.

"Dr. Wernig's demonstration that fibroblasts can be converted into functional nerve cells opens the door to consider new ways to regenerate damaged neurons using cells surrounding the area of injury," said pediatric cardiologist Deepak Srivastava, MD, who was not involved in these studies. "It also suggests that we may be able to transdifferentiate cells into other cell types." Srivastava is the director of cardiovascular research at the Gladstone Institutes at the University of California-San Francisco. In 2010, Srivastava transdifferentiated mouse heart fibroblasts into beating heart muscle cells.

"Direct conversion has a number of advantages," said Lujan. "It occurs with relatively high efficiency and it generates a fairly homogenous population of cells. In contrast, cells derived from iPS cells must be carefully screened to eliminate any remaining pluripotent cells or cells that can differentiate into different lineages." Pluripotent cells can cause cancers when transplanted into animals or humans.

The lab's previous success converting skin cells into neurons spurred Wernig and Lujan to see if they could also generate the more-versatile neural precursor cells, or NPCs. To do so, they infected embryonic mouse skin cells ? a commonly used laboratory cell line ? with a virus encoding 11 transcription factors known to be expressed at high levels in NPCs. A little more than three weeks later, they saw that about 10 percent of the cells had begun to look and act like NPCs.

Repeated experiments allowed them to winnow the original panel of 11 transcription factors to just three: Brn2, Sox2 and FoxG1. (In contrast, the conversion of skin cells directly to functional neurons requires the transcription factors Brn2, Ascl1 and Myt1l.) Skin cells expressing these three transcription factors became neural precursor cells that were able to differentiate into not just neurons and astrocytes, but also oligodendrocytes, which make the myelin that insulates nerve fibers and allows them to transmit signals. The scientists dubbed the newly converted population "induced neural precursor cells," or iNPCs.

In addition to confirming that the astrocytes, neurons and oligodendrocytes were expressing the appropriate genes and that they resembled their naturally derived peers in both shape and function when grown in the laboratory, the researchers wanted to know how the iNPCs would react when transplanted into an animal. They injected them into the brains of newborn laboratory mice bred to lack the ability to myelinate neurons. After 10 weeks, Lujan found that the cells had differentiated into oligodendroytes and had begun to coat the animals' neurons with myelin.

"Not only do these cells appear functional in the laboratory, they also seem to be able to integrate appropriately in an in vivo animal model," said Lujan.

The scientists are now working to replicate the work with skin cells from adult mice and humans, but Lujan emphasized that much more research is needed before any human transplantation experiments could be conducted. In the meantime, however, the ability to quickly and efficiently generate neural precursor cells that can be grown in the laboratory to mass quantities and maintained over time will be valuable in disease and drug-targeting studies.

"In addition to direct therapeutic application, these cells may be very useful to study human diseases in a laboratory dish or even following transplantation into a developing rodent brain," said Wernig.

###

In addition to Wernig and Lujan, other Stanford researchers involved in the study include postdoctoral scholars Soham Chanda, PhD, and Henrik Ahlenius, PhD; and professor of molecular and cellular physiology Thomas Sudhof, MD.

The research was supported by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the New York Stem Cell Foundation, the Ellison Medical Foundation, the Stinehart-Reed Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation's top medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://mednews.stanford.edu. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. For information about all three, please visit http://stanfordmedicine.org/about/news.html.

PRINT MEDIA CONTACT: Krista Conger at (650) 725-5371 (kristac@stanford.edu)
BROADCAST MEDIA CONTACT: M.A. Malone at (650) 723-6912 (mamalone@stanford.edu)

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Stanford scientists turn skin cells into neural precusors, bypassing stem-cell stage

Stage-4 breast cancer survivor talks about stem cell treatment – Video

By Stem Cell Treatment

25-01-2012 18:06 A former stage-IV breast cancer patient talks about being treated at Stanford over a dozen years ago as part of a small clinical trial testing whether high-dose chemotherapy, followed by blood stem cell rescue with purified hematopoietic stem cells, could cure her cancer.

See the original post here:
Stage-4 breast cancer survivor talks about stem cell treatment - Video

Frank Young Joins Bioheart as Financial Consultant

By Stem Cell Medical Center

SUNRISE, Fla., Jan. 30, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --
Bioheart (OTCBB:BHRT.OB
-
News), a leader in developing stem cell therapies to treat
cardiovascular diseases, today announced that Frank Young will join
Bioheart
to be a financial consultant. Young will provide financial
oversight of the company's capital fundraising efforts and
cultivate relationships within the financial and health care
communities to support Bioheart's business goals.

Young previously served as chief financial officer (CFO) with
Bioheart from 2003 to 2005. He has more than 30 years'
experience launching and managing venture-backed companies in
the technology and health care industries.

"Frank's entrepreneurial spirit and successful fundraising
strategies, combined with his previous accomplishments at
Bioheart, make him an ideal fit for Bioheart," said Mike Tomas,
Bioheart's president and CEO. "Frank has a proven track record
launching, managing and financially advising numerous companies
across the healthcare industry."

Previously Young worked as CFO with CURNA,a health care company
known for its discovery of new therapeutic compounds. He
engineered the sale of the company in fewer than two years for
more than five times the invested capital. He also worked as
CFO with Mitral Solutions and Hyperion. As CFO with Bioheart,
Young assisted in raising more than $9.5 million from investors
in addition to negotiating international manufacturing
arrangements and joint ventures.

"I have always been impressed with Bioheart and its success
with stem cell research," Young said. "I look forward to
becoming an integral part of Bioheart's financial future as it
continues to develop life-saving technologies for victims of
heart
disease."

About Bioheart

Bioheart (OTCBB:BHRT.OB
-
News) is committed to developing stem cell therapies to
treat congestive heart failure, lower limb ischemia, chronic
heart ischemia, acute myocardial infarctions and other medical
problems. The company focuses on the discovery and development
of therapies that will improve patients' quality of life and
reduce health care costs and hospitalizations. Bioheart's
leading product, MyoCell, is a muscle-derived cell therapy
designed to populate regions of scar tissue within a patient's
heart to improve cardiac function. For more information, visit

http://www.bioheartinc.com.

For more information on Bioheart, visit
http://www.bioheartinc.com.

Forward-Looking Statements: Except for historical matters
contained herein, statements made in this press release are
forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of
the foregoing, words such as "may," "will," "to," "plan,"
"expect," "believe," "anticipate," "intend," "could," "would,"
"estimate," or "continue" or the negative other variations
thereof or comparable terminology are intended to identify
forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks,
uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual
results, performance or achievements to be materially different
from any future results, performance or achievements expressed
or implied by the forward-looking statements. Also,
forward-looking statements represent our management's beliefs
and assumptions only as of the date hereof. Except as required
by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking
statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results
could differ materially from those anticipated in these
forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes
available in the future.

The Company is subject to the risks and uncertainties described
in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission,
including the section entitled "Risk Factors" in its Annual
Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, and
its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended
September 30, 2011.

Go here to see the original:
Frank Young Joins Bioheart as Financial Consultant

StemCells, Inc. Announces Publication of Preclinical Data Demonstrating Its Human Neural Stem Cells Preserve Vision

By Stem Cell Clinic

NEWARK, Calif., Jan. 30, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- StemCells, Inc.
(Nasdaq:STEM
-
News) today announced the publication of preclinical data
demonstrating that its proprietary HuCNS-SC(R) cells (purified
human neural stem
cells) protect host photoreceptors and preserve vision
in an animal model of retinal disease. The preclinical
results are highly relevant to human disorders of vision loss,
the most notable of which is dry age-related macular degeneration
(AMD). The study is available online at
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2011.07970.x/abstract
and will be featured as the cover article in the February issue
of the international peer-reviewed European Journal of
Neuroscience.

This research was conducted in collaboration with a team of
researchers led by Raymond Lund, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of
Ophthalmology, and Trevor McGill, Ph.D., Research Assistant
Professor at the Casey Eye Institute, Oregon Health and Science
University.

The results of the study show that photoreceptors, the key
cells of the eye involved in vision, were protected from
degeneration following transplantation of HuCNS-SC cells into
the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rat. The RCS rat is a
well-established model of retinal disease which has been used
extensively to evaluate potential cell therapies. Moreover, the
number of cone photoreceptors, which are responsible for
central vision, remained constant over an extended period,
consistent with the sustained visual acuity and light
sensitivity observed in the study. In humans, degeneration of
the cone photoreceptors account for the unique pattern of
visual loss in dry AMD.

"These results are the most robust shown to date in this animal
model," said Dr. Lund, one of the study's lead investigators.
"One of the more striking findings is that the effect on vision
was long-lasting and correlated with the survival of HuCNS-SC
cells more than seven months after transplantation, which is
substantially longer than other cell types transplanted into
this same model. Also important, particularly for potential
clinical application, was that the cells spread from the site
of initial application to cover more of the retina over time.
These data suggest that HuCNS-SC cells appear to be a
well-suited candidate for cell therapy in retinal degenerative
conditions."

Alexandra Capela, Ph.D., another of the study's investigators
and a senior scientist at StemCells, commented, "This study
showed that the HuCNS-SC cells persisted and migrated
throughout the retina, with no evidence of abnormal cell
formation, which supports our hypothesis of a single transplant
therapeutic. With this research, then, we have shown that
vision can be positively impacted with a simple approach that
does not require replacing photoreceptors or the RPE cells. We
look forward to investigating this promising approach in the
clinic later this year."

About StemCells, Inc.

StemCells, Inc. is engaged in the research, development, and
commercialization of cell-based therapeutics and tools for use
in stem cell-based research and drug discovery. The Company's lead
therapeutic product candidate, HuCNS-SC(R) cells (purified
human neural stem cells), is currently in development as a
potential treatment for a broad range of central nervous system
disorders. Clinical trials are currently underway in spinal
cord injury and in Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD), a fatal
myelination disorder in children. In addition, the Company
plans to initiate a clinical trial of HuCNS-SC cells in the dry
form of age-related macular degeneration in 2012, and is also
pursuing preclinical studies of its HuCNS-SC cells in
Alzheimer's disease. StemCells also markets stem cell research
products, including media and reagents, under the SC Proven(R)
brand, and is developing stem cell-based assay platforms for
use in pharmaceutical research, drug discovery and drug
development. Further information about StemCells is available
at
http://www.stemcellsinc.com.

The StemCells, Inc. logo is available at
http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=7014

Apart from statements of historical fact, the text of this
press release constitutes forward-looking statements within the
meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and is subject to
the safe harbors created therein. These statements include, but
are not limited to, statements regarding the prospect of the
Company's HuCNS-SC cells to preserve vision in animal models of
retinal disease; the prospect of successful results from this
research collaboration and advancing to clinical testing in
age-related macular degeneration or other retinal disease; the
potential of the Company's HuCNS-SC cells to treat a broad
range of central nervous system disorders; the prospect and
timing associated with initiating a clinical trial in a retinal
disorder; and the future business operations of the Company,
including its ability to conduct clinical trials as well as its
other research and product development efforts. These
forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this
news release. The Company does not undertake to update any of
these forward-looking statements to reflect events or
circumstances that occur after the date hereof. Such statements
reflect management's current views and are based on certain
assumptions that may or may not ultimately prove valid. The
Company's actual results may vary materially from those
contemplated in such forward-looking statements due to risks
and uncertainties to which the Company is subject, including
the fact that additional trials will be required to demonstrate
the safety and efficacy of the Company's HuCNS-SC cells for the
treatment of any disease or disorder; uncertainty as to whether
the results of the Company's preclinical studies in retinal
disease will be replicated in humans; uncertainty as to whether
the FDA or other applicable regulatory agencies will permit the
Company to continue clinical testing in spinal cord injury, PMD
or in future clinical trials of proposed therapies for other
diseases or conditions given the novel and unproven nature of
the Company's technologies; uncertainties regarding the
Company's ability to recruit the patients required to conduct
its clinical trials or to obtain meaningful results;
uncertainties regarding the Company's ability to obtain the
increased capital resources needed to continue its current and
planned research and development operations; uncertainty as to
whether HuCNS-SC and any products that may be generated in the
future in the Company's cell-based programs will prove safe and
clinically effective and not cause tumors or other adverse side
effects; uncertainties regarding the Company's ability to
commercialize a therapeutic product and its ability to
successfully compete with other products on the market; and
other factors that are described under the heading "Risk
Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the
year ended December 31, 2010, and in its subsequent reports on
Forms 10-Q and 8-K.

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StemCells, Inc. Announces Publication of Preclinical Data Demonstrating Its Human Neural Stem Cells Preserve Vision

ACT Announces Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in Scotland as Additional Site for Phase 1/2 Clinical Trial Using hESC-Derived …

By Uncategorized

MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Advanced Cell Technology, Inc.
(“ACT”;
OTCBB: ACTC), a leader in the field of regenerative
medicine, announced today that the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, the largest
of the Grampian University Hospitals in Scotland, has been
confirmed as a site for its Phase 1/2 human clinical trial for
Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy (SMD) using retinal pigment epithelial
(RPE) cells derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs).
The Phase 1/2 trial is a prospective, open-label study designed
to determine the safety and tolerability of
the RPE cells following sub-retinal transplantation
into patients with SMD.

“A leading medical institution in the United Kingdom, Aberdeen
Royal Infirmary is an ideal partner for our European clinical
trial for SMD,” said Gary Rabin, chairman and CEO of ACT.
“Moreover, we are particularly pleased that the lead
investigator is Dr. Noemi Lois, a leading expert in SMD.
We continue to forge ties with some of the best eye surgeons
and hospitals in the world and work towards bringing this
cutting-edge therapy closer to fruition. Our preliminary
results to date keep us optimistic that we are on the right
path both in terms of our science and the clinical team we are
working with, particularly eye surgeons such as Dr. Lois.”

Stargardt's Macular Dystrophy affects an estimated 80,000 to
100,000 patients in the U.S. and Europe, and causes progressive
vision loss, usually starting in people between the ages of 10
to 20, although the disease onset can occur at any age.
Eventually, blindness results from photoreceptor loss
associated with degeneration in the pigmented layer of the
retina, the retinal pigment epithelium. “The first Stargardt’s
patient to be treated in the U.S. with stem cell-derived RPE
cells was a patient who was already legally blind as a
consequence of this disease” stated Dr. Robert Lanza M.D., the
chief scientific officer at ACT. Preliminary results from the
treatment of the first SMD patient were recently
reported in
The Lancet (23 January 2012) and have been
characterized by experts in the field of regenerative medicine
as providing early signs of safety and efficacy.

This approved SMD clinical trial that Dr. Lois and her team
will participate in is a prospective, open-label study designed
to determine the safety and tolerability of RPE cells derived
from hESCs following sub-retinal transplantation to patients
with advanced SMD, and is similar in design to the FDA-cleared
US trial initiated in July 2011.

“It is an honor to have been designated as a site for this
path-breaking clinical trial,” said Noemi Lois, M.D., Ph.D. “We
could not be more pleased to be a part of this trial for a
promising potential new treatment for SMD, using hESC-derived
RPE cells.” Dr. Lois is a is a member of the Department of
Ophthalmology, NHS Grampian, and associated to the University
of Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom. Dr. Lois practices at
the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary; she is an Ophthalmologist with
special interest in Medical retina and Retinal surgery.

On January 23, 2012, the company
announced that the first patient in this SMD clinical trial
in Europe had been treated at Moorfields Eye Hospital in
London.

About Advanced
Cell Technology, Inc.

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. is a biotechnology company
applying cellular technology in the field of regenerative
medicine. For more information, visit
http://www.advancedcell.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this news release regarding future financial
and operating results, future growth in research and
development programs, potential applications of our technology,
opportunities for the company and any other statements about
the future expectations, beliefs, goals, plans, or prospects
expressed by management constitute forward-looking statements
within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform
Act of 1995. Any statements that are not statements of
historical fact (including statements containing the words
“will,” “believes,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “expects,”
“estimates,” and similar expressions) should also be considered
to be forward-looking statements. There are a number of
important factors that could cause actual results or events to
differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking
statements, including: limited operating history, need for
future capital, risks inherent in the development and
commercialization of potential products, protection of our
intellectual property, and economic conditions generally.
Additional information on potential factors that could affect
our results and other risks and uncertainties are detailed from
time to time in the company’s periodic reports, including the
report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010.
Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs,
opinions, and expectations of the company’s management at the
time they are made, and the company does not assume any
obligation to update its forward-looking statements if those
beliefs, opinions, expectations, or other circumstances should
change. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs,
opinions, and expectations of the company’s management at the
time they are made, and the company does not assume any
obligation to update its forward-looking statements if those
beliefs, opinions, expectations, or other circumstances should
change. There can be no assurance that the Company’s clinical
trials will be successful.

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ACT Announces Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in Scotland as Additional Site for Phase 1/2 Clinical Trial Using hESC-Derived ...

Stem Cell’s in Sarasota by Regenerative clinic for Meniscus Damage. – Video

By Stem Cell Clinic

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Stem Cell's in Sarasota by Regenerative clinic for Meniscus Damage. - Video

Oxford, Harvard scientists lead data-sharing effort

By Stem Cell Medical Center

Public
release date: 29-Jan-2012
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Contact: Adi Himpson
adi.himpson@oerc.ox.ac.uk
44-186-561-0620
Harvard
University

Led by researchers at University of Oxford (UK) and the Harvard
Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) at Harvard University, (USA), more
than 50 collaborators at over 30 scientific organizations
around the globe have agreed on a common standard that will
make possible the consistent description of enormous and
radically different databases compiled in fields ranging from
genetics to stem cell science, to environmental studies.

The new standard provides a way for scientists in widely
disparate fields to co-ordinate each other's findings by
allowing behind-the-scenes combination of the mountains of data
produced by modern, technology driven science.

"We are now working together to provide the means to manage
enormous quantities of otherwise incompatible data, ranging
from the biomedical to the environmental," says Susanna-Assunta
Sansone, Ph.D, Team Leader of the project at the University of
Oxford's Oxford e-Research Centre.

This standard-compliant data sharing effort and the
establishment of its on-line presence, the ISA Commons ?
http://www.isacommons.org, is
described in a Commentary published today in the journal
Nature Genetics. The commentary is signed by all the
collaborators.

"An example of how this works at the Harvard Stem Cell
Institute is that we can now find a relationship between
experiments involving normal blood stem cells in fish and
cancers in children", says Winston Hide, director of HSCI's new
Center for Stem Cell Bioinformatics, and an associate Professor
of Bioinformatics at the Harvard School of Public Health.

ISA Commons is also being used at Harvard Medical School (HMS)
by the HMS LINCS
(Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures)
project, led by Professors Peter Sorger and Timothy
Mitchison.

It was necessary to establish common data standards, say the
commentary's authors, because of the tsunami of data and
technologies washing over the sciences. "There are hundreds of
new technologies coming along but also many ways to describe
the information produced" said Sansone, noting that "we can
take a jigsaw puzzle of different sciences and now fit the many
pieces together to form a complete picture".

"One of the things that I find most empowering about this
effort is that now small research groups can begin to store
laboratory data using this framework, complying with community
standards, without their own dedicated bioinformatics support.
It is a bit like Facebook allowing everyone to create their own
website pages - suddenly you don't need to be an expert in
computing to get your data out to the rest of the world", says
Dr. Jules Griffin, of the University of Cambridge.

"What we like about it is its unifying nature across different
bioscience fields and institutions", says Dr. Christoph
Steinbeck, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, The European
Bioinformatics Institute.

And "it also has the potential to work for large centers too",
says Scott Edmunds, editor of the journal published by
open-access publisher BioMedCentral and BGI Shenzhen
(previously known as the Beijing Genomics Institute) the
world's largest genomics institute, "We are working with this
framework to help harmonizing and presenting may large-data
types as possible in a common standardized and usable form,
publishing it in the associated GigaScience journal."

###

The work was funded, by among others, the Harvard Stem Cell
Institute, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the UK's
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

The Oxford e-Research
Centre works across the University of Oxford, and at
national and international level, to accelerate research
through development of innovative computational and information
technologies in multidisciplinary collaborations. The Harvard Stem Cell Institute
is a collaboration of more than 100 Harvard and
Harvard-affiliated scientists dedicated to using the power of
stem cell biology to advance basic understanding of human
development in order to develop treatments and cures for a host
of degenerative conditions and diseases.

B. D. Colen, Harvard Stem Cell Institute
bd_colen@harvard.edu
- 617-495-7821/617-413-1224

Adi Himpson, Oxford e-Research Centre, University of Oxford
adi.himpson@oerc.ox.ac.uk
- +44 1865 610620

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