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A significant percentage of America’s 45.6 million dog owners and 38.2 million cat owners have first-hand familiarity with state-of-the-art medical facilities for pets that rival the most sophisticated human hospitals: animal emergency centers where veterinary specialists — including neurologists, orthopedists, oncologists, and criticalists — prolong the lives of pets whose owners can afford the service. The mainstream media rarely misses a chance to point out that animal medical care in the United States is almost on par with the best in human health care. But the reality is that the level of animal medical innovation has actually surpassed that of...

Initiative aims to clarify description of mesenchymal cells. Pamela Robey is used to being sent samples by scientists who are anxious to know whether the mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) they have extracted from fat can be coaxed to turn into either bone or cartilage. Robey, who directs the Stem Cell Unit at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), is also used to delivering bad news to many of those who seek her help. “They usually are not happy,” she says, when her attempts to differentiate the cells produce little more than fatty globules. To Robey, that disappointment reflects a...

Georgia Tech/Emory University Associate Professor Todd McDevitt and graduate student Anh Nguyen make microparticles to be used for delivering growth factors to stem cells. Credit: Rob Felt Before scientists and engineers can realize the dream of using stem cells to create replacements for worn out organs and battle damaged body parts, they'll have to develop ways to grow complex three-dimensional structures in large volumes and at costs that won't bankrupt health care systems. Researchers are now reporting advances in these areas by using gelatin-based microparticles to deliver growth factors to specific areas of embryoid bodies, aggregates of differentiating stem...

The youngest patient to receive an artificial trachea seeded with stem cells has died, The New York Times reported today. Hannah Warren, who was born with a rare birth defect that left her without a trachea, underwent surgery in April to have a synthetic trachea implanted that was seeded with stem cells from her bone marrow. She would have turned 3 in August. Her doctors told The New York Times that her death was due to complications related to a second surgery that was needed to repair her esophagus, which had not properly healed after the initial surgery. They said...

An international team of scientists led by Prof Cheng-Ming Chuong from the University of Southern California has discovered unique cellular and molecular mechanisms behind tooth renewal in American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis).Their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pave the way for tooth regeneration in people. “Humans naturally only have two sets of teeth – baby teeth and adult teeth. Ultimately, we want to identify stem cells that can be used as a resource to stimulate tooth renewal in adult humans who have lost teeth. But, to do that, we must first understand how they renew...

US researchers have reported a breakthrough in stem cell research, describing how they have turned human skin cells into embyronic stem cells for the first time. The method described Wednesday by Oregon State University scientists in the journal Cell, would not likely be able to create human clones, said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, senior scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. But it is an important step in research because it does not require the use of embryos in creating the type of stem cell capable of transforming into any other type of cell in the body.

Enlarge Image Young at heart. Cross-sections of mouse ventricles show the visible change in size when old hearts are immersed in young blood. Credit: Francesco Loffredo It's time to turn back the clock on an aging ticker. Drawing on an odd experimental technique invented more than a century ago but rarely done now, researchers have found that a blood-borne protein makes old mouse hearts appear young and healthy again. It's not clear yet whether humans would react the same way, but scientists are hopeful that this discovery may help treat one of the heart's most frustrating ailments. "This is probably...

This interview was conducted by George S. Mack of The Life Sciences Report (5/10/13) Stem cell companies have languished long enough in micro-cap territory. The industry is now approaching highly visible phase 2 and phase 3 catalysts that will produce results never before seen in medicine. Managing Director and Senior Biotechnology Analyst Jason Kolbert of the Maxim Group has staked out a select group of nascent cell therapy companies positioned to reap huge gains for investors willing to diversify. In this interview with The Life Sciences Report, Kolbert reflects on the regenerative medicine space following the recent RegenMed Investor Day...

Michigan is in the national news because of a disturbing development in human fetal stem cell experimentation. Neuralstem, Inc. announced that it has received approval from the Food and Drug Administration to expand an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) Phase II study to the University of Michigan. The stem cells used in the study come from spinal cord tissue taken from a healthy, 8-week-old aborted baby. Phase I of the trial tested whether human fetal stem cells can safely be injected into the spinal cord. According to Neuralstem, the aim of Phase II is to obtain the maximum tolerated...

First-in-humans study introduces next generation cell therapyROCHESTER, Minn. — Translating a Mayo Clinic stem-cell discovery, an international team has demonstrated that therapy with cardiopoietic (cardiogenically-instructed) or "smart" stem cells can improve heart health for people suffering from heart failure. This is the first application in patients of lineage-guided stem cells for targeted regeneration of a failing organ, paving the way to development of next generation regenerative medicine solutions. Results of the clinical trial appear online of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. VIDEO ALERT: Audio and video resources are available on the Mayo Clinic News Network. The multi-center,...

Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have made a discovery in neuroscience that could offer a long-lasting solution to eating disorders such as obesity. It was previously thought that the nerve cells in the brain associated with appetite regulation were generated entirely during an embryo's development in the womb and therefore their numbers were fixed for life. But research published today in the Journal of Neuroscience has identified a population of stem cells capable of generating new appetite-regulating neurons in the brains of young and adult rodents. Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally. More than 1.4 billion adults...

Ethical worries have slowed medical research into applications for stem cells. But scientists like Robert Lanza have developed less controversial ways to derive stem cells from normal body cells rather than embryos and are already launching the first clinical trials. … (T)here is a world premiere in the making: Lanza’s team has cultivated blood platelets that could be tested in hospitals as early as this year. The researcher and his team didn’t harvest the cells from embryonic stem cells, but rather from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells derived from normal body cells. …

The promise of repairing damaged hearts through regenerative medicine -- infusing stem cells into the heart in the hope that these cells will replace worn out or damaged tissue -- has yet to meet with clinical success. But a highly sensitive visualization technique developed by Stanford University School of Medicine scientists may help speed that promise's realization. The technique is described in a study published March 20 in Science Translational Medicine. Testing the new imaging method in humans is probably three to five years off. Human and animal trials in which stem cells were injected into cardiac tissue to treat...

The January special issue of Cell Research on Stem Cell Biology brings together the latest reviews and articles in the field. Together with the accompanying web focus, Cell Research delves into our current understanding and investigates recent advances in various aspects of stem cell biology, cell reprogramming, and their relevance to diseases.Special Issue on Stem Cell Biology

Diabetes is a detrimental disease. In order to combat the illness, University of British Columbia (UBC) researchers conducted a study with an industry partner and discovered that stem cells can reverse Type 1 diabetes in mice. The discovery leads the way for the development of innovative treatments of diabetes, which is caused by deficient production of insulin by the pancreas. Insulin allows glucose to be held by the bodyÂ’s muscle, fat, and liver; in turn, itÂ’s used as fuel for the body. Blindness, heart attack, kidney failure, nerve damage, and stroke are possible consequences of low insulin production. The research...

Gerard Cuomo loves to dance. Until recently, however, the 70-year-old couldn’t even do a two-step. After having three heart attacks in the early 1990s, Cuomo’s heart was severely damaged. The scar tissue that had formed around his heart left him easily fatigued. “I felt like an old man,” said Cuomo of Aventura. “I could barely climb the stairs. I could walk for about a quarter of a mile. Shopping at the mall — I wish I did not have to sit down all the time.” In May 2010, he participated in a University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s clinical...

University of Illinois comparative biosciences professor Suzanne Berry-Miller, veterinary clinical medicine professor Robert O’Brien.Researchers have shown that transplanting stem cells derived from normal mouse blood vessels into the hearts of mice that model the pathology associated with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) prevents the decrease in heart function associated with DMD. Their findings appear in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a genetic disorder caused by a mutation in the gene for dystrophin, a protein that anchors muscle cells in place when they contract. Without dystrophin, muscle contractions tear cell membranes, leading to cell death. The lost...

16 hours ago TOKYO — Researchers in Japan said Wednesday they have succeeded in growing human kidney tissue from stem cells for the first time in a potential breakthrough for millions with damaged organs who are dependent on dialysis. Kidneys have a complex structure that is not easily repaired once damaged, but the latest findings put scientists on the road to helping a diseased or distressed organ fix itself. Kenji Osafune of Kyoto University said his team had managed to take stem cells -- the "blank slates" capable of being programmed to become any kind of cell in the body...

A new method for generating stem cells from mature cells promises to boost stem cell production in the laboratory, helping to remove a barrier to regenerative medicine therapies that would replace damaged or unhealthy body tissues. The technique, developed by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, allows for the unlimited production of stem cells and their derivatives as well as reduces production time by more than half, from nearly two months to two weeks. "One of the barriers that needs to be overcome before stem cell therapies can be widely adopted is the difficulty of producing enough cells...

Stem cells derived from patients with disorders, such as these Parkinson’s cells, could foster drug screening to find treatments and also provide researchers a valuable tool to study disease. Europe certainly believes in the promise of stem cells.A joint public-private collaboration between the European Union and Europe’s pharmaceutical industry, called the StemBANCC project, will spend nearly 50 million euros to create 1,500 pluripotent stem cell lines. But the initiative’s goal isn’t to find a stem cell-based cure for diabetes or Alzheimer’s disease. They hope instead that their stem cell lines will prove to be faster and more effective drug screens...