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Press Releases from AlphaMed Press

August 14, 2013
Stem cell therapy shows promise in repairing brain damage even hours after stroke occurs

However, a new study released today in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine indicates that endothelial precursor cells, which are found in the bone marrow, umbilical cord blood, and as very rare cells in peripheral blood, could make a significant difference for these patients’ recovery — even in the later stages of stroke. In animal studies, the treatment minimized the initial brain injury and helped repair the stroke damage.

“Previous studies indicated that stem/progenitor cells derived from human umbilical cord blood (hUCB) improved functional recovery in stroke models,” noted Branislava Janic, Ph.D., a member of Henry Ford Health System’s Cellular and Molecular Imaging Laboratory in Detroit and lead author of the study. “We wanted to examine the effect of hUCB-derived AC133+ endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) on stroke development and resolution in rats.”

August 8, 2013
Stem cell-conventional treatment combo offers new hope in fighting deadly brain cancer

“In this work, we describe a highly innovative gene therapy approach, which is being developed along with the NIH and the FDA. Specifically, our group has developed an allogeneic neural stem cell line that is a carrier for a virus that can selectively infect and break down cancer cells,” explained Dr. Lesniak, the University of Chicago’s director of neurosurgical oncology and neuro-oncology research at the Brain Tumor Center.

The stem cell line, called HB1.F3 NSC, was recently approved by the FDA for use in a phase I human clinical trial.

GBM remains fatal despite intensive treatment with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. And while cancer-killing viruses have been used in clinical trials to treat therapeutically resistant and infiltrative tumor burdens throughout the brain, “there were major drawbacks,” Dr. Lesniak explained.

July 12, 2013
New method to produce blood cells from stem cells could yield a purer, safer cell therapy

As such, it could lead to a purer, safer therapeutic grade of stem cells for use in regenerative medicine.

The discovery of iPSCs holds great promise for regenerative medicine since it is possible to produce patient-specific iPSCs from the individual for potential autologous treatment — that is, treatment using the patient’s own cells. This avoids the possibility of rejection and numerous other harmful side effects.

CD34+ cells are a type of blood stem cell that has been linked to proliferation. However, collecting enough CD34+ cells from a patient to produce an adequate amount of blood usually requires a large volume of blood to be taken from the patient. But scientists found a way around this, as outlined in the new study conducted by researchers in the Department of Medicine and Institute for Human Genetic, University of California-San Francisco. They were led by Yuet Wai Kan, M.D., FRS, and Lin Ye, Ph.D.

July 9, 2013
Universal stem cell product could overcome key challenges in donor organ transplants

In addition, the research demonstrates that the transplanted organ retained its immunologically privileged state during a subsequent transplantation into another naïve recipient.

June 17, 2013
Are root canals headed for obscurity? Stem cell study indicates maybe so

“Dental cavities and inflammation of the surrounding pulp is a challenging public health issue, as tooth decay not only can cause a patient great pain but it also can lead to other serious health issues including heart disease,” explained Misako Nakashima, DDS, Ph.D., of the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology in Obu, Japan. “Generally we treat deep cavities by capping the tooth and removing any inflamed pulp surrounding it. But this has limited success and the problem frequently progresses until the tooth must be removed.”

June 12, 2013
Novel liver stem cell model could speed up process for developing new drugs

But now a research team reports that it has developed a way to speed up the process. Their work, which involves the creation of a highly stable and sensitive liver stem cell model, is reported in the latest issue of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine.

“Liver toxicity is the second most common cause of human drug failure,” explained David Hay, Ph.D., of the University of Edinburgh’s MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, who led the team made up of university colleagues and scientists from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton, N.J. “But one major bottleneck in safety testing new drugs has been finding a routine supply of good quality primary human hepatocytes from the desired genetic background.”

May 21, 2013
Stem cells from fat outperform those from bone marrow in fighting disease

Researchers at the Leiden University Medical Center’s Department of Immunohematology and Blood Transfusion in Leiden, The Netherlands, led by Helene Roelofs, Ph.D., conducted the study. They were seeking an alternative to bone marrow for stem cell therapies because of the low number of stem cells available in marrow and also because harvesting them involves an invasive procedure.

“Adipose tissue is an interesting alternative since it contains approximately a 500-fold higher frequency of stem cells and tissue collection is simple,” Dr. Roelofs said.

“Moreover,” Dr. Sara M. Melief added, “400,000 liposuctions a year are performed in the U.S. alone, where the aspirated adipose tissue is regarded as waste and could be collected without any additional burden or risk for the donor.”

May 16, 2013
New stem cell growth strategy could yield better way to treat brain lesions

Many medical experts have long believed that neural stem cells (NSCs) have great potential for treating neurological diseases. However, the problem is that just a small number of NSCs can be transplanted into the brain, yielding relatively low levels of new cell growth and, thus, a limited effect. “We wanted to investigate whether using a specific population of neural cells would help increase the number of mature brain cells that the stem cell graft yields,” Dr. Wolfe explained.

The team began by harvesting NSCs from the brains of baby mice and used a process known as fluorescence activated cell sorting to identify cells with markers for CD15, a type of carbohydrate found on a cell’s surface that plays an important role in cell migration, adhesion and in the growth factor signaling involved in cell maintenance and differentiation.

May 16, 2013
Reduced oxygen levels could double neural stem cells’ chance of survival

“Cell transplantation strategies therefore typically introduce a stress challenge at the time of transplantation as the cells are switched from 20 percent to 3 percent oxygen, which is the average in adult organs,” she added.

A previous study had indicated that cardiac stem cells showed a better survival rate when the oxygen tension during their culturing was reduced. In this study, the Cambridge and Edinburgh teams wanted to learn if the same might prove true for neural stem cells (NSCs). So they modeled the oxygen stress that occurs during transplantation and, using NSCs collected from young rats, demonstrated that reducing the oxygen tension during culture in the laboratory from 20 percent to 3 percent resulted in significant cell death, while maintaining a 3 percent level protected them.

They saw similar results when they transplanted the stem cells into the brains of adult rats.

April 18, 2013
Scientists find way to fast-track production of stem cells that show promise in treating AMD

In fact, the dysfunction and death of RPE is thought to be behind the leading cause of blindness in the Western world — age related macular degeneration.

Transplantation of RPE cells into the retina to treat AMD has been demonstrated in animals and is now being tested in clinical trials in humans. However, protocols to generate RPE from human pluripotent stem cells are time consuming and relatively inefficient. But a team of scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, reports in the latest issue of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine that it has found a way to isolate RPE cells as early as 14 days following the onset of differentiation.

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