ASC and Gene Therapy

A fascinating article from Science Daily:

"They used synthetic proteins called zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) to target a corrective gene at a specifically defined location in the genome of the X-CGD iPS cells. The iPS cells were then carefully screened to identify those containing a single copy of the corrective gene properly inserted only at the safe site. The researchers observed that some of the gene-corrected iPS cells could differentiate into neutrophils that produced normal levels of hydrogen peroxide, effectively 'correcting' the disease."

Taking defective blood stem cells, and patching their programming!

Heart Repair

An interesting article from Science Daily:

"they could find a cocktail that would reprogram fibroblasts into cardiac muscle, without having to revert to a stem cell state in the process."

Direct conversion from support cells into heart muscle cells, in mice.

ASC and Spinal Cords (again)

Right on the heels of the last post, another from Science Daily:

"Three months after initial treatment, the mice demonstrated significant and persistent recovery of walking ability in two separate tests of motor function when compared to control groups."

This group is from UC Irvine. The previous from Japan.

ASC and Spinal Cord Injury

An interesting article from Science Daily:

"mice with severe spinal cord injury were transplanted with NSCs and administered a drug known as valproic acid... therapy resulted in impressive restoration of hind limb function."

ESC Shutdown

Just got to this from early September... I'm processing all this news in order, so, no spoilers please!

From CNN:

"'Congress has mandated that the public interest is served by preventing taxpayer funding of research that entails the destruction of human embryos,' Lamberth said"

I like the hyperbole on the part of the administration:

"The court's order causes irrevocable harm to the millions of extremely sick or injured people who stand to benefit from continuing research as well as to the taxpayers who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this research"

Really? Irrevocable harm? From research that has little or no useful applications currently?

Is this a victory? Not really. Private funds can still be used (and have been). Not to mention research being done outside the US.

ASC and Heart Repair

We've seen a lot of applications of adult stem cells in treating various heart conditions. From Science Daily:

"The cardiogenic cocktail was then used to induce this signature in non-reparative patient stem cells to program their capacity to repair the heart. Mouse models with heart failure, injected with these cells, demonstrated significant heart function recovery along with improved survival rate after a year, compared to those treated with unguided stem cells or saline."

Also:

"The pre-clinical data reported in this seminal paper have cleared the way for safety and feasibility trials in humans, which were recently conducted in Europe."

The language here isn't 100% clear, but it seems that this may already be under way in humans (there is significant lag between collecting data and publishing it. So while preparing the paper on mouse results, human tests might have started.)

ASC and Parkinson's

A variant on a story I saw earlier, from Science Daily:

"Researchers in the Zeng lab used human iPSCs that were derived from skin and blood cells and coaxed them to become dopamine-producing neurons." (in rats)

(the earlier results were from a different group, using different starter cells, and mice)

ASC Research

An interesting article from Science Daily:

"engineers used human mesenchymal stem cells, which are found in bone marrow and other connective tissues such as fat. The stem cells differentiated into bone when grown on stiffer scaffolds, and into fat when grown on more flexible scaffolds."

ASC Supply

An interesting article from Science News:

"The findings 'represent a huge and important progression in the field,'...The new studies accomplished the reprogramming feat by using viruses to deliver a four-gene cocktail that reverts the cells"

ASC Production

An interesting article from Science Daily:

"Now, for the first time, MIT researchers have shown that they can deliver those same reprogramming genes using RNA"

ESC Research

An article at Science Daily on the state of ESC research:

"Dr. Denis Evseenko... placed human embryonic stem cells into culture and, after three or four days, found a small subset of the cells that had lost a key cell surface marker characteristic of the pluripotent state and had gained a new marker that is a hallmark of mesodermal cells"

ASC and Heart Attacks

Encouraging news from Science Daily on combining stem cells (presumably adult) and genetic engineering in rats:

"the researchers observed significant improvements in blood pressure function in the rats implanted with scaffolds seeded with stem cells modified to overproduce Akt1, SDF-1 and HGF"

ASC Research

An interesting article from Science Daily on using adult stem cells to investigate Parkinson's disease:

"iPS cells provide new and exciting opportunities to grow and study dopamine neurons from patients for the first time"

ASC Supply

An interesting story from Science Daily on growing adult stem cells in hydrogel.

ESC and Tumors

From Science Daily:

"Using small molecule compounds that inhibit this pathway, the scientists were able to dramatically reduce the potential of embryonic stem cells to form teratomas [unusual tumors]."

So, we have scientists using human embryonic stem cells (putting them into mice)- in an attempt to figure out how to deal with problems caused by ESC.

ASC and Leukemia

Somewhat related to a previous article...
From Science Daily:

"blood stem cells are collected from a donor and then infused into the patient where they travel to the bone marrow and begin to produce new blood cells"

"After treatment with alloSCT, more than 40 percent of participants with this otherwise fatal disease enjoyed long-term freedom from relapse."

ASC and Sepsis

An encouraging article from Science Daily:

"Six hours after inducing the infection, approximately half the mice were given an intravenous injection of mouse mesenchymal stem cells, while the other half received a control injection of a salt solution. Both groups of animals also received antibiotics, which is the standard treatment for sepsis in the clinic. After five days, 50 per cent of the animals that received the cells were alive, compared to just 15 per cent of the control animals"

And:

"About a quarter of patients with severe sepsis die... To achieve approximately 70 per cent reduction in mortality is pretty remarkable, even in a mouse model" (quoting two of the researchers there)

ESC and Lungs

An interesting article from Science Daily:

"they seeded mouse embryonic stem cells into 'acellular' rat lungs... The result: empty lung-shaped scaffolds of structural proteins on which the mouse stem cells thrived and differentiated into new cells appropriate to their specific locations."

In the research phase it is easier to work with animal ESCs. There doesn't seem to be any reason this would work with ASCs (probably reprogrammed ISCs).

ASC Risk

A cautionary tale from Science Daily:

"The case involves an adult patient with severe kidney disease, who was treated at a private clinic, by direct injection of her own stem cells into her kidneys"

"underscores a growing risk associated with the increased number of private clinics offering stem cell therapies to patients with little or no oversight from the scientific stem cell community"

ASC Supply

Another potential source of adult stem cells, possibly available for transplant, from Science Daily:

"Analysis of these data demonstrates the promising potential of dental pulp cell collections as a source of cell banks for use in regenerative medicine"