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Stem cells could help treat people with cataracts and even some who are blind by regenerating eye tissue and replacing flawed lenses, according to new experiments in children and rabbits. In order for people to see properly, both the lens of the eye and the cornea — the layer of tissue that covers the eye in front of the lens — must be transparent. Current treatments for people who have clouding in the lens or cornea involve artificial implants or donor transplants, respectively, but these surgical procedures can be risky, researchers said. In the new research, scientists performed minimally invasive...

If this human breakthrough had occurred with embryonic stem cells, the front page stories would have screamed around the world. But it was adult stem cells and so the reporting was muted. You see, the media still–after all these years–tend to judge the newsworthiness of a story based on whether a breakthrough is embryonic. The story is sensational, nonetheless. Adult stem cells have cured blindness and may provide a splendid treatment for cataracts. From the Telegraph story: Cataracts can be cured by using a patient’s own stem cells to regrow a ‘living lens’ in their eye, restoring sight in just...

Essentially, the 'traditional route' of lab-to-animals-to-clinical-trials takes too long, Weiss says, so he figured out how to game the system and start testing his new treatment on his own terms. The catch is that stem cells aren’t classified as a drug - they’re extracted from a patient's body, go through very little processing, and are used on that same patient, so Weiss was able to bypass FDA approval to register his NIH trials. He did need approval and oversight from an ethics review panel, and got his from the International Cellular Medicine Society, an independent, pro-stem cell therapy group based...

The U.K. press are reporting heartening results for the use of adult stem cells to treat relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS), including descriptions of “remarkable” improvements and “miraculous” results. Yet this is not hype; these are descriptions from some of the doctors themselves, who treated the patients, made detailed examinations of their progress, and scientifically validated the observations. The results are part of an FDA-approved, ongoing clinical trial, with collaborations between investigators in the U.S., U.K., Sweden and Brazil. The phase 3 trial originally started in 2006, and has been adding patients and observing results since that time. The adult stem...

UNITED KINGDOM, January 20, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – British sufferers from multiple sclerosis are reporting remarkable improvements in their condition after injection with adult stem cells taken from their own bodies. The treatment is part of a clinical trial of techniques pioneered at America's Northwestern University by Dr. Richard Burt. The adult stem cell treatment for MS is just one of many being applied around the world for more than 100 medical conditions, many to do with diseases of the auto-immune system. Sheffield patient Holly Drewry, a 25-year-old mother of one, went into that city's Royal Hallamshire Hospital in a wheelchair...

Planned Parenthood continues to lure collegians to its side but might be missing a fact or two when they sign up new supporters. For example, despite its claims to the contrary, Planned Parenthood’s primary activity is providing abortions. Indeed, Planned Parenthood performs more abortions annually than the entire country of France, Catholic University Professor David A. Prentice pointed out at the Family Research Council on December 3, 2015. Additionally, PP gets more than $500 million of its $1.3 billion in revenue from government funds, meaning all taxpayers support it. Dr. Prentice is a professor at the John Paul II Institute...

It’s time for scientists and bioethicists to establish a Embryonic Stem Cell Truth and Reconciliation Commission.It all seems so long ago now. But from 2002 to 2008 they barnstormed, fibbed, exaggerated, hyped, and caricatured to get government funding so that they could play God with human embryos. It was a brutal battle in which truth came second. "People need a fairy tale," said Ronald D.G. McKay, a leading stem cell scientist, in 2004.The claims made for the near-miraculous potential of human embryonic stem cells were extraordinary. Celebrities and scientists spoke with the breathless enthusiasm normally associated with crystal medicine or ayurvedic...

A BRITISH pensioner has become the first person to undergo revolutionary eye surgery aimed at curing blindness in millions of people. The 60-year-old woman, who had severely impaired sight and was in danger of going blind, is said to have had no complications so far following the three-hour operation last month. The surgical team hopes to determine how successful the treatment was by early December. The woman has asked to remain anonymous. The scientists behind the pioneering procedure hope it will dramatically transform lives, allowing the blind to recognise faces of loved ones again and regain the ability to carry...

Fears are growing over the side effects of cholesterol-lowering pillsScientists have found the heart disease drug badly affects our stem cells, the internal medical system which repairs damage to our bodies and protects us from muscle and joint pain as well as memory loss. Last night experts warned patients to “think very carefully” before taking statins as a preventative medicine. A GP expert in the field said: “They just make many patients feel years older. Side effects mimic the ageing process.” The new research by scientists at Tulane University in New Orleans has reignited the debate about statin side effects which many doctors...

In Brief Japanese researchers have successfully grown kidneys from stem cells that worked as they were supposed to after being transplanted into rats and pigs. The Breakthrough With all the parts, grown, the kidney was placed inside a rat, then the pathway was added, followed by the bladder they’d grown—the new bladder was then connected to the rat’s native bladder. After sewing up the rat, they found the whole system worked. The team then repeated what they had done with a much larger animal, one much closer in size to humans—a pig—and found the same results. The paper was published...

September 23, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Retired hockey star Gordie Howe and NFL football star John Brodie have both had fetal stem cells injected into their spines to treat strokes, but because they had adult stem cells administered intravenously at the same time, critics say there is no way to know if their recoveries derive from the fetal cells. "There is no way to learn which is responsible," Theresa Deisher of Seattle-based AVM Biotechnology, told LifeSiteNews. A second problem is more serious: fetal stem cells were the scientific rage a decade ago because of their capacity to turn into any kind...

A Federal Judge lifted the temporary restraining order blocking the Center for Medical Progress from releasing a video taken secretly with StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer. As the order was lifted, CMP immediately released a transcript of the conversation in advance of StemExpress trying to get another restraining order. David Daleiden, founder of CMP, told Breitbart News he is working feverishly to cut a new video. The transcript paints a graphic picture. StemExpress is a California-based privately held company that buys baby body parts, repackages them and sells them at enormous markups to research facilities around the country. Until this current...

A series of disturbing videos has brought this grisly practice to the forefront, even if it is nothing new. PhD chemist and theologian Stacy Trasancos dug into the scientific literature to discover some early references… Here’s one from 1972, entitled “Development of Mammalian Sulfur Metabolism: Absence of Cystathionase in Human Fetal Tissues,” published in Pediatric Research. According to the article’s introduction: “We have therefore examined the development of the transsulfuration pathway in 58 human fetuses, obtained at therapeutic abortion during approximately the 2nd-6th month of gestation and in liver from 5 full term and 3 prematurely born infants.” With this...

The Obama administration is getting grief from a pro-life group for approving an experiment using the remains of the bodies of unborn children victimized in abortion for research continues in U.S. laboratories. Scott Fischbach, the director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life uncovered the information showing a clinical trial approved by the Food and Drug Administration uses brain tissue from aborted unborn babies to treat macular degeneration. StemCells Inc. will inject fetal brain stem cells into the eyes of up to 16 patients to study the cells’ effect on vision. In its press release announcing the clinical trial, StemCells Inc....

The human body is a complex biological system. In order to fully understand this complex system, in vivo (live) analysis is often required. However, the study of human biology in vivo is severely limited due to ethical and technical constraints. In place of human models, humanized mice have been created to fill this role. These humanized mice have become important tools for the in vivo studies of human cells, tissues, and organs, without putting individuals at risk. Such humanized mouse models may be used to model the human immune system in scenarios of health and pathology. A successful means of...

A technician worked for a company partnered with Planned Parenthood to harvest fetal tissue said there’s “incentive to try and get the hard stuff ‘cause you’re going to get more money,” in latest Planned Parenthood undercover video. “For whatever we could procure, they would get a certain percentage,” said Holly O’Donnell, ex-procurement technician for StemExpress, LLC. GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: latest undercover Planned Parenthood video The new, graphic video from Center for Medical Progress appears shows technicians using tweezers to pick through aborted fetal tissue for baby parts. After one person in the video picks out a pair of intact kidneys...

After two shocking videos caught Planned Parenthood doctors discussing and arranging the sale of body parts of aborted babies, a third video has been released today catching a Planned Parenthood vice president negotiating the sale of aborted babies and attempting to get as much money as possible from the deal.As LifeNews reported, the first video of undercover footage shows Planned Parenthood Federation of AmericaÂ’s Senior Director of Medical Services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, describing how Planned Parenthood sells the body parts of aborted unborn children and admitting she uses partial-birth abortions to supply intact body parts.In the second video, Planned Parenthood...

I wrote this piece weeks ago. It has just now been published online. I had no idea that the Center for Medical Progress was about to drop the bomb on Planned Parenthood and their participation in the market for aborted baby parts. In case you were wondering what some companies use aborted baby parts for, read my latest at the National Catholic Register: "It has been several years since the height of the stem-cell controversy, where every day debate raged over the destruction of embryos for embryonic stem cells. These human embryos, conceived in a lab by the hundreds of...

The site selling aborted baby parts is gone, but you can still find out more in the wayback machine. Take a look and save it before they remove it too!

Abstract Here, we propose a new strategy for the treatment of early cancerous lesions and advanced metastatic disease, via the selective targeting of cancer stem cells (CSCs), a.k.a., tumor-initiating cells (TICs). We searched for a global phenotypic characteristic that was highly conserved among cancer stem cells, across multiple tumor types, to provide a mutation-independent approach to cancer therapy. This would allow us to target cancer stem cells, effectively treating cancer as a single disease of “stemness”, independently of the tumor tissue type. Using this approach, we identified a conserved phenotypic weak point – a strict dependence on mitochondrial biogenesis for...