337 replies to this topic

[Cyto]

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-=COMMENTARY=-
From nefastor::

Hello all,

Well if you haven't guessed yet from my posts, I'm an EECS engineer and not a biologist (although I attended medical school and have great knowledge of cytology, cell biology, genetics and bio-chemistry). I believe immortality implies the strengthening of our body (no, not doing more sports, rather : becoming machines or cyborgs).

I see great potential in stem cells however. And you'd have to be blind to see nothing there : cells that you can grow in your lab, that you can make evolve into specific cells or organs and use them to repair or replace whatever went wrong in your body... it's just too promising not to act on it !

Yet I see stupid struggles where people you'd usually call sane, intelligent even, say this : you can make embryos if you desperately want a kid you'll yell at or possibly beat up, kill or rape, but you can't make embryos if you just want to save lives !

How stupid is that ? My stupid-o-meter just went off-scale...again...

If you're going to make 12 embryos for only 1 kid at the end, and you're gonna trash the remaining 11, then why not DO SOMETHING on these 11 embryos ? Like trying to save lives ?

People get so emotionnal when you mention kids they transpose that to embryos. Come on people ! We're not talking about butchering babies here ! We're talking about taking appart stuff you're discarding, and would find über-gross if you got them on your lap !

Maybe there have been too many novels about cloning. Maybe people think Star Wars Episode 2 every time they hear "cloning". Maybe the pope said it was bad so it's bad, end of discussion.

I wouldn't take advice from the pope. I mean, he and his buddies have killed people for saying the Earth wasn't flat, or that the sun was the center of the solar system, because they only BELIEVED they knew better. Remember, Jean-Paul II even opposed condoms, because it's so obvious AIDS is divine punishment and we all deserve it.

We have done lots of research, in many fields, that could be considered horrible. Torquemada even wrote books, manuals on how to best torture the heretic to get the confession of their sins. Yet nobody has ever opposed any other research more strongly and stupidly than they oppose cloning and related research today.

I'll say this : I'd even give embryos I fathered if there was the slighest, remotest chance it could save just one life, help someone walk again (like Reeve) or extend my life even by a few days.

An embryo is not a person. It can't do anything except grow. Its brains isn't even completely formed (and I believe our brain is what makes us). If you want to be certain, I don't know, do the EEG of an embryo... it should be rather flat.

The brain of an embryo is a neural plate (I'm french so forgive any wrong words here), a sheet of neurons that, when the embryo becomes a foetus, will roll itself into our rachis (spinal cord), rachidian bulb and brain, making most neural connections along way. The neural plate is NOT a brain, it CANNOT work like a brain. So you might as well say an embryo is brainless and as such, mindless. A dead embryo is NOT a dead human, it's just a bunch of cells that didn't evolve into something that could have become viable.

Nobody ever cries when a man ejaculates millions of spermatozoids and most, or all, will die. So what reason is there to cry when an embryo dies, or is "killed" for the benefit of all of mankind ? Or even for the benefit of a single person ? None.

We can only cry about "what he/she might have been"... but if you're gonna do that, stop making embryos in clinics for reproductive purposes, unless you plan to turn them ALL into babies.

I know you won't do that, not even if you're christian : most christians I know have read the Bible which says, in essence :
- You'll only shag your only wife
- You'll only shag to make babies
Yet most christians today have sex outside of marriage, divorce, use contraception... and that's just your average Joe.

So leave our honest scientists do what they want with embryos, and go straighten your act. Think, and quit acting on feelings, beliefs, and what people tell you to feel and believe. If you can't, get out of the way.

Jean.


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This haiku is me : "Those unforgettable days, / for them / I live".
When you loose a needle in a haystack, don't be stupid : use a magnet !
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[Omnido]

Amen.

[Sophianic]

Some additional food for thought ...
Resource Page on Stem Cell Research

Most Notably: Are Stem Cells Babies?, by Ronald Bailey
An ongoing debate with Lee and George from NR Online

[Cyto]

First off I would like to thank the people who have posted and are planning to post their views etc.
Thanks for the link Sophianic I added it to the "All You Need to Learn About Stem Cells" (1st post).
If anyone else has any neat links (SC related) I would like to see them.

As for SC news. Nothing is really new except for an interview by Daniel Cappello of The New Yorker. It is a long interview where they ask questions centered around Christopher Reeve and flesh out topics from there. Jerome Groopman is the author of The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness (Here is the audio: 3 cassettes, 5 hrs. 15 )
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-=Author Talk=-
Highlights of...

THE REEVE FACTOR

“You know, it’s not like I’m just going to will my nerves to grow again, or I’m going to will my spinal cord to regenerate.” - C. Reeve

His accident eight years ago left him a quadriplegic. What kind of progress has he made since then?
He has had a return of sensation over almost his entire body, with all the different forms of sensation. He can feel pain, temperature changes, light touch, and, importantly, he also has what’s called proprioception, which is restored position sense; he knows where his body is in space. He’s also had recovery of some motor function in both his arms and his legs. This is most evident in situations where there is no gravity, like in a pool. He can actually push off with his legs from the side of a pool, and he can make snow angels with his arms in water.

One scientist you spoke to said that Reeve gets “impatient when he’s heard the answer, ‘We don’t know enough.’” Did you get a sense of how well he understands the realities of medical research?

I think that on one level he does understand it, but he also sees himself as a gadfly. He sees himself as the one who needs to push. So he doesn’t want junk science, he doesn’t want nonsense. He believes deeply in the scientific method. I don’t think he would want to push to the point of sloppiness. But, he certainly feels that a fire needs to be lit. It is easy to retreat into the lab and become fascinated and driven simply by curiosity. Curiosity is a healthy thing, but one can also become detached from clinical needs.

You describe several odd moments in Reeve’s medical history, including the disappearance and then the reëmergence of his sense of smell. To what extent is the nervous system still a mystery to scientists?

I think there are real sea changes that are going on in the understanding of the nervous system. When I was a medical student, in the early nineteen-seventies, I was very interested in neurology. And the dogma was that—as opposed to other parts of the body, like the skin or the liver, which can regenerate new cells—the nervous system of the adult was essentially fixed. So if there was damage, there was no possibility of regeneration. It’s now clear that the dogma was incorrect, and that there are primitive cells in the nervous system that can grow into new nerve cells. So we really are learning a lot that’s new about the nervous system; we are also deeply ignorant about its potential and its capacity. And Reeve is, of course, an experiment of one. So it’s key to study not only him but other people, and to begin to answer some of these mysteries, such as whether you can reawaken dormant nerve pathways that mediate sensation or muscle function.

Is Christopher Reeve having an effect on how research is conducted in the U.S.?

I think that he is definitely shaking things up. His strategy with regard to stem cells is extremely innovative. The vast majority of the scientific community is desperate to be able to work, unfettered, on stem cells. Because of President Bush’s imperatives, the N.I.H. won’t fund work on human embryonic stem cells, unless the cell lines have been acquired earlier. And the existing lines are extremely limited in their potential. By going to the states, and having states allow stem-cell research and provide money for stem-cell research—that could well break the field open, not only for spinal-cord or other forms of paralysis but for a whole variety of diseases.

Are the advances in China and Spain based on stem-cell research?

In China it’s based on fetal work, and there is also work on stem-cell research in China, as well as some in Japan. But, that said, some of the most promising work that is being done in Spain and China has to do with the fact that the olfactory nerve, the nerve that mediates smell, does regenerate, for a reason not understood. There are what might be called nurture cells, or supporting cells, that ensheathe, or protect, the nerves. And if you implant these ensheathing or protecting cells into the spinal cord of rats, there is remarkable improvement after injury. A neurosurgeon who was working in the United States on rats went back to China and is now doing it in human beings there.

Can the olfactory cells be cultivated from the patients themselves, as a way around the debate over stem cells?

They can be. There’s an ear, nose, and throat surgeon in Australia—Reeve went to meet him—who operates on adults, and takes the cells out from the back of the nose, cultures them in the laboratory, and then puts them into the spinal cords of people with chronic injury. So he doesn’t use tissue from aborted fetuses. He hasn’t published his results yet.

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[Sophianic]

CarboniX: Thanks for the link Sophianic I added it to the "All You Need to Learn About Stem Cells" (1st post).

My pleasure. I am both encouraged and dismayed by the fight that Christopher Reeves is putting up in his quest to be whole again. Encouraged by his remarkable progress, dismayed by the lack of progress in stem cell research. Having said that, I'm also heartened by the activism of Reason at the Longevity Meme in spreading the word about the importance of, and need for, this type of research, and the forces that are gathering against it.

[reason]

I need to be doing more, as do we. So much to do, so little time. Getting attention and being heard at this stage is certainly the most important thing. Government can only continue blocking life-saving research for as long as people remain silent.

Christopher Reeve is just an amazing human being. I'm fairly certain that, having beaten everything he's beaten so far, he isn't going to let a minor thing like the US government stop him.

Much as things look dark, there is at least a large body of people who get it, and examples of getting it are showing up in the media more often.

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme
reason@longevitymeme.org
http://www.longevitymeme.org

[Cyto]

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-=CAN WE REGENERATE THE HEART?=-

Highlights of...

Texas Heart Institute Finds Clues to Heart Cell Regeneration with Angiogenix; Endovasc Encouraged by New Results

I don't know about you people but I'm tired of politics! Ready for a shake-up?

Endovasc Inc. released today that "nicotine has significant effects on both the proliferation and differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells."

"We are narrowing the mechanistic action of nicotine that accelerates stem cell division while closing in on the signal transduction pathway underlying the process of myocardiogenesis," said Dr. Geng.

In this study, Dr. Geng used embryonic cardiac stem cells isolated from rodents, as well as embryonic stem cell lines, cultured in special media to support their growth and development. In cultures treated with very low levels of nicotine, the rate of stem cell division increased significantly, compared to untreated cells. This observation alone could account for the increase in the number of stem cells found in the ischemic tissue of animals treated with nicotine, compared to control animals. However, in additional studies, using a variety of molecular probes, Dr. Geng and his collaborators could detect changes or alterations in gene expression at different stages of development in response to nicotine treatment. They observed increased expression of cardiovascular cell proteins in the nicotine-treated cells, suggesting the potential for nicotine regulation of cardiovascular cell development.

Angiogenix is derived from the tobacco plant. Recently investigators have begun to look at the potentially beneficial effects of purified nicotine in an alternative formulation and at doses far below that ingested by smoking. The Company believes that Angiogenix could effectively stimulate stem cells for therapeutic regeneration for a variety of medical therapies.

**THIS DOES NOT, AT ALL, MAKE SMOKING JUSTIFIED**
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[Cyto]

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-=CAN WE REGENERATE THE BRAIN?=-
Yea, this isn't new (some of it is) but having a record of some good articles for the questioning layperson isn't a bad thing to have
Highlights of...

Parkinson's 'reversed by cloning'
22.16PM BST, 21 Sep 2003

Scientists have demonstrated for the first time that therapeutic cloning can be used to treat brain diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

They used the controversial technique to create cells that were implanted into the brains of mice with a Parkinson's-like illness.

The researchers said the treatment produced a "robust alleviation" of symptoms.

It marks a significant step towards developing new ways of tackling degenerative and incurable brain disorders.

Neurons grown from embryonic stem cells had been used previously to treat Parkinsonian mice.

But these cells raised genetic safety concerns, and were not cloned. Therapeutic cloning opens the way to implanting replacement tissue into patients without it being rejected by their immune systems.

Parkinson's disease is caused by the loss of cells that generate dopamine, an essential chemical messenger.

Although the symptoms of rigidity and shaking can be alleviated with drugs, there is no cure.

But replacing the lost neurons with new cells grown in the laboratory could potentially reverse the disease.

Scientists hope one day to manufacture dopamine neurons from stem cells - the body's "master" cells, which can be programmed into different kinds of tissue.

One way of achieving this would be to clone early-stage embryos from one of the patient's own cells.

Stem cells extracted from the embryos could then be used to produce dopamine neurons that genetically match the patient.

Dr Lorenz Studer, from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York, led the team that cloned embryonic stem cells from mice using cells taking from their tails.

These were used to mass produce unlimited numbers of genetically-matched dopamine nerve cells in the laboratory.

The scientists were able to selectively develop neurons specific to the forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain and spinal cord. Glial cells, which provide support for neurons, were also produced.

Neurons were also generated from stem cells taken from embryos made by traditional fertilisation.

Dopamine-producing neurons were then transplanted into the brains of mice with Parkinson's symptoms.
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[ddhewitt]

Human Cloning can it be made Safe?

Nature Reviews Genetics 4, 855-864 (2003)

Susan M. Rhind, Jane E. Taylor, Paul A. De Sousa, Tim J. King, Michelle McGarry & Ian Wilmut

Ian Wilmut is the creator of Dolly the first cloned mammal and has spoken out strongly about human reproductive cloning. This review maintains that stance but supports therapeutic cloning.

Abstract
There are continued claims of attempts to clone humans using nuclear transfer, despite the serious problems that have been encountered in cloning other mammals. It is known that epigenetic and genetic mechanisms are involved in clone failure, but we still do not know exactly how. Human reproductive cloning is unethical, but the production of cells from cloned embryos could offer many potential benefits. So, can human cloning be made safe?

Link to full article.
http://www.nature.co...nrg1205_fs.html


Duane

[chubtoad]

http://www.scienceda...31111071905.htm

"Stem Cell Clone"

Orlando, Fla., Nov. 10 – A "universal stem cell clone" found in adult bone marrow regenerated blood vessels and heart muscle, according to research reported at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2003.

The cells, called human bone marrow-derived multipotent stem cells (hBMSC), were implanted into animal hearts where they formed multiple cell types.

The hBMSC improved animals' heart function, said the study's lead author, Young Sup Yoon, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.

"This study is exciting because it is the first to show that human bone marrow includes a clonal stem cell population that can differentiate into both vessels and heart muscle. These cells can regenerate the essential tissues of the heart," Yoon said. This finding comes from animal and laboratory research. Such stem cells might be used to regenerate damaged hearts for people who have acute and chronic heart failure. They also might help people with hypertension, diabetes or other blood vessel diseases.

The researchers found that these stem cells didn't belong to any previously known bone marrow-derived stem cell population (such as hematopoietic cells, the source for all types of blood cells or mesenchymal cells that give rise to cell types like bone and cartilage).

These adult bone marrow stem cells have been shown to differentiate into all three so-called "germ layers." The three germ layers of cells in early human development are the beginnings of the body's tissues and organs. Differentiation is the term that describes the process in which stem cells change into these specialized cells.

To find out if these unique stem cells would repair heart damage, the researchers induced a heart attack in rats and introduced the hBMSC into heart tissue around the affected area. They injected unselected bone marrow cells and saline as controls.

Heart function was measured by non-invasive echocardiography and by a pressure transducer, an instrument at the tip of a tiny catheter that is threaded through an artery into the heart to measure blood pressure and heart function.

Heart function after 28 days was better in rats that received the hBMSC than in the rats that received total bone marrow cells or saline.

The transplanted hBMSC differentiated into heart muscle cells and blood vessel cells.

Important proteins that encourage blood vessel growth, called angiogenic cytokines, also increased or were newly expressed. The same thing occurred with factors important to the development of the heart in utero, called cardiac transcription factors. The number of heart and vessel cells also increased after hBMSC transplantation.

[Cyto]

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Link:	http://home.business...161&newsLang=en
Date:	11-13-03
Author:	David L. Greenwood
Source:	http://home.businesswire.com
Title:	Geron Announces Presentation of Preclinical Studies on Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Based Treatment of Acute Spinal Cord Injury

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MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 13, 2003--Geron Corporation (Nasdaq:GERN) today announced the presentation of results demonstrating that the transplant of cells differentiated from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) can result in functional improvement in animals with spinal cord injuries. This work provides proof of concept of the efficacy of hESC-based therapies in spinal cord injury.
In two presentations at the Society for Neurosciences Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Dr. Hans Keirstead and his colleagues from the University of California at Irvine detailed studies demonstrating that when hESC-derived oligodendroglial progenitors were transplanted into rats that had received a thoracic spinal cord contusion injury, statistically significant improvements in the ambulatory activity of the rats could be observed approximately one month later. In these blinded studies, animals showed evidence of improved weight-bearing capacity, paw placement, tail elevation and toe clearance activity compared to injured untreated animals. Control animals that received transplants of human fibroblasts instead of oligodendroglial progenitors showed little, if any improvement.

"These results are exciting. They show that cells derived from hESCs can have therapeutic efficacy in a model of human disease," stated Jane S. Lebkowski, Ph.D., Geron's vice president of regenerative medicine.

In these studies, the cells were transplanted directly into the spinal cord lesions seven days after injury. Dr. Keirstead found evidence of both increased oligodendrocyte-mediated myelination and some neural sprouting upstream of the lesion in the test animals. These observations were further supported by additional transplant studies from Dr. Keirstead's lab in which the oligodendroglial progenitors were implanted into the spinal cord of Shiverer mice, a mutant mouse that is deficient in myelin basic protein and hence lacks normal neuronal myelination. In those mice the researchers observed evidence of oligodendrocyte-mediated remyelination of nerve cell axons. No evidence of tumor formation from the transplanted cells or other adverse events was observed in any of these studies.

In a third presentation at the meeting, Dr. Keirstead and his colleagues presented data showing how hESCs can be differentiated in tissue culture to oligodendroglial progenitors, the precursors of oligodendrocytes. Oligodendrocytes are specialized neural cells that produce myelin, the protective sheath that insulates the axons of nerve cells allowing normal nerve impulse conduction. Oligodendrocytes also produce a variety of neurotropic factors which can induce the sprouting of nerve cells. In a spinal cord contusion injury, neurons that are spared during the initial injury can be demyelinated during the subsequent inflammatory response. Such demyelination can lead to decreased nerve conduction velocity and eventual death of the "denuded" axons, producing impaired sensory and motor function.

"This work demonstrates the versatility of hESCs and their potential utility for broad-based cellular therapeutics," added Thomas B. Okarma, Ph.D., M.D., Geron's president and chief executive officer. "In these studies, oligodendroglial progenitors were produced multiple times from the same human embryonic stem cell line over a period of months. The success of these studies and potential economies from large batch production of oligodendroglial progenitors from hESCs supports development of this potential product for the treatment of patients with acute spinal cord injury."

Geron is now initiating formal preclinical safety and efficacy studies and is planning for scaled-up production of the cells for potential use in human clinical trials.



Pics from http://www.voanews.c...A12FF05E0260542

Edited by kevin, 17 November 2003 - 05:29 AM.

[Cyto]

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Link:	http://www.boston.co...stem_cell_pool/
Date:	11/15/2003
Author:	Raja Mishra
Source:	http://www.boston.com
Title:	Scientist at Harvard boosts stem cell pool
Comment:	People may not have to move to Singapore after all! [lol]

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A Harvard researcher has quietly grown a massive new batch of human embryonic stem cells for research, the most dramatic achievement to date in a burgeoning international movement to circumvent restrictions on stem cell science set by the Bush administration and other governments.

Last week, word spread that Harvard University molecular biologist Douglas Melton had developed 17 stem cell lines in his Cambridge lab, nearly doubling the world's research supply of the biological building blocks, which scientists are seeking to harness to treat a wide range of diseases. Melton, in an interview this week, said he will give the cells to a private lab in Virginia and a British government facility for distribution to researchers worldwide.

Melton said his work will help scientists fettered by the Bush administration's stem cell policy. In August 2001, President Bush approved 78 select stem cell batches for taxpayer-funded research, saying it was enough to jump-start the science while minimizing the human embryo destruction required to obtain the cells. But only 12 of those batches are currently available to scientists.

Many scientists say 200 or more stem cell batches are needed worldwide to speed disease research. The cells often go bad or get infected by animal viruses, they say. The owners of some batches also restrict access. Furthermore, scientists say, a wide variety of batches, each with differing DNA profiles, would reveal subtle nuances in the complex cells.

"This is exciting for the world stem cell community," said Dr. George Q. Daley, a stem cell specialist at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital. "It's hard to get them right now . . . this gives us more [batches] to figure out which ones will work the best."

Stem cells from human embryos can potentially morph into many body tissues that could offer powerful treatments for various afflictions, including spinal injuries and Parkinson's disease, as well as diabetes, Melton's specialty.

But opponents of the research equate the destruction of week-old human embryos, which is required to obtain stem cells, with abortion.

"For us, the bottom line is that this is the taking of a human life during its earliest point in life. These are people, human beings," said Marie Sturgis, executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, an antiabortion group.

Melton is part of an emerging global network of stem cell scientists who use regular meetings, informal contacts, and the Internet to try to work around the government's restrictions, encouraging colleagues to grow the cells and share them with others at low cost. He started growing the new cell batches shortly after Bush announced his policy two years ago, fearing the president's mandate would hamper research.

"And we were right," he said.

Because Melton's stem cells are not approved by the Bush administration, any US scientist working with them must use private funding, which can be more difficult to obtain.

Of the 12 Bush-approved, stem cell lines now accessible, five are held by Singapore-based biotech firm ES Cell Ltd., two by Australian biotech company BresaGen Ltd., and one by a South Korean hospital.

Universities in California and Wisconsin have the rest.

Dr. James F. Battey, chairman of the stem cell task force of the National Institutes of Health, said he expects four to six more of the approved stem cell lines to become available in the next year.

When Bush announced his stem cell policy in the summer of 2001, most of the cell lines he approved "were in a very primitive stage of development," Battey said. "Most of them are still frozen."

Stem cells must be carefully nurtured and maintained. At the time of Bush's announcement, few labs had this ability. Many simply froze them for storage.

In the last two years, the NIH has given out about 30 embryonic stem cell research grants worth nearly $60 million. The federal agency also has given money to nine institutions with frozen stem cells to assist in thawing and nurturing efforts.

The NIH is usually at the center of the nation's biomedical research, but in the case of stem cells, a parallel effort is emerging in the absence of NIH leadership, specialists said. The basic problem: without the NIH acting as a clearinghouse, researchers often are unaware where in the world stem cell batches are located or how to get them.

"The lines that are out there . . . are not sitting in one room. They tend to be scattered," said Dr. Robert Goldstein of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation.

In addition to the 17 lines grown by Melton, researchers in Sweden, Finland, Britain, the Netherlands, Australia, and Singapore, as well as a team at Rockefeller University in New York, are growing lines that may soon be available, said Goldstein, whose group monitors and funds research worldwide. Reports of new cell lines will be shared at the next gathering of these scientists at a Colorado conference early next year. Available supplies and contact information will be posted on websites that the researchers often visit. Scientists involved in this emerging clique charge one another low prices for the cells.

Melton's work was funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Boston IVF, a local fertility clinic, supplied Melton with embryos for his research, with the consent of parents. The embryos would otherwise have been discarded. Melton will give his stem cell lines to the Manassas, Va.-based American Type Culture Collection, a private tissue storage facility, and the UK Stem Cell Bank, a new British government lab that plans to supply stem cells worldwide.

[Cyto]

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Link:	http://www.nature.co...nrn1283_fs.html
Date:	11/14/2003
Author:	Heather Wood
Source:	http://www.nature.com/nrn/
Title:	State of the union

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[Cyto]

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Link:	Here
Date:	11/16/2003
Author:	Lyndsay Moss
Source:	http://www.news.scotsman.com
Title:	'Stem Cells Restore Feeling to Paralysed Patients'

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Scientists claim to have been successful in restoring feeling to patients who had been paralysed for two years or more by harvesting their stem cells and then putting them back into the body.

A team from the University of San Paulo in Brazil, led by Tarciscio Barros, said after treatment 12 out of 30 patients responded to electrical stimulation of their paralysed limbs.

But the experiments have raised ethical questions about what is still a developing area of research.

Professor Sam Pfaff, of the Salk Institute of Biological Sciences in California, told Chemistry and Industry Magazine that the source of stem cells from the patient’s own blood was likely to be controversial.

“Our concern is that stems cells have the potential to keep growing. They may even do more harm than good,” he said.

The Brazilian team harvested stem cells from the blood of 30 patients with spinal cord injuries.

They then reintroduced them into the artery supplying the area which was damaged.

A few months later they were given electrical stimulation to the paralysed limb and by monitoring brain activity the scientists were able to see that 12 patients were responding.

Stem cells taken from embryos have already been shown to restore movement in paralysed mice, but the use of these embryonic stem cells remains controversial in humans.

Many researchers believes stem cells hold the key to restoring movement in patients who at the moment are paralysed for life.

“If the stems cells are doing anything, it may not be what you would expect.

“They may be providing indirectly a cellular source that is somehow advantageous to the spinal cord, rather than replacing lost or damaged neuronal cells.

“Or they may be releasing growth factors that are helpful to the surrounding tissue,” Prof Pfaff said.

“If a paralysed person benefits, who really cares how it happens,” he added.

The research is now being looked at for publication in a peer-reviewed journal and the team is extending its research to new patients.

[Cyto]

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Link:	Here
Date:	11/18/2003
Author:	Lidia Wasowicz
Source:	http://washingtontimes.com
Title:	LEAD CAN AFFECT BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

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Neuroscientists have shown even low levels of lead can affect the growth and development of embryonic stem cells in the brain. Jay Schneider, professor of neurology, pathology, anatomy and cell biology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, says lead exposure has been known to have potentially adverse effects on children's cognitive abilities. Such exposure is particularly dangerous to the fetus, he said. In animal tests, Schneider and colleagues found levels of lead lower than those deemed safe for humans by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can retard the growth and development of certain neural stem cells. These are cells that can become one of three cell types: a neuron, an oligodendrocyte or an astrocyte. The latter two cell types play supportive roles in the brain. In the experiments, lead was found to curtail the ability of stem cells to develop into either neurons or oligodendrocytes, but increased their ability to become astrocytes, he said. Women exposed to lead as youngsters can, when pregnant, pass the toxin to their unborn children, Schneider said.

[Lazarus Long]

Actually many articles have links provided and also when citing an article referring to a Journal often it is possible to find at least a free abstract online that will include the Date, Issue, Vol-Text numbers, etc. These can make it possible to further research the issue for others that might have the access even if you don't.

But I came here to post this little tidbit today. It is good to get some good news occasionally.

http://story.news.ya...h_eu_embryos_dc

EU Parliament Says Yes to Embryo Cell Research
39 minutes ago Science - Reuters
By Robin Pomeroy

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - The European Parliament voted Wednesday to fund research using stem cells taken from human embryos, a controversial procedure opposed by anti-abortion activists

The assembly's opinion sends a message to European Union (news - web sites) ministers who are due to decide next month whether to lift a moratorium that prevents EU cash from going to such experiments, which are banned in several of the bloc's member states.

British Labor deputy David Bowe, who backs the research because of its potential to fight diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, was delighted.

"It will be a difficult decision (for ministers) but we are on the up at the moment," Catholic countries like Italy, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Luxembourg, were likely to oppose parliament's position, EU deputies said.

Parliament voted 298-241, with 21 abstentions, for a report which recommends releasing EU funds for experimenting on cells from human embryos, no more than 14 days old, left over from infertility treatments.
The move would allow money from the EU's $23.83 billion research budget for the period 2003-2006 to go to the research.

While most of the body's cells can only make copies of themselves, stem cells grow into other types of cells -- making them a potential source of hard-to-get cells for transplants.

Stem cells can be harvested from aborted embryos, embryos left over from in-vitro fertilization and embryos cloned specially for the purpose. This has led to objections from the Catholic Church, which believes destroying embryos is morally equivalent to killing people.

The issue is politically divisive and in April the parliament was hung -- 232 votes in each direction -- on a resolution calling for such research to be banned in the EU.

German Christian Democrat deputy Peter Liese, who drafted the report, voted against it when the assembly rejected his compromise proposal to allow such stem cells to be used only if procured before June 2002.

The United States, the world leader in biotechnology research, has set a similar cut-off point, one year earlier, designed to allow use of existing stem cell cultures but banning the production of new ones.

Those like Bowe, who have no qualms about the use of embryonic tissue that would otherwise be destroyed, argued against the setting of a U.S.-style cut-off date as newer stem cells would be cheaper and more effective for researchers.

[JonesGuy]

New paths to human ES cells?

Nature Biotechnology
October 2003 Volume 21 Number 10 pp 1154 - 1155
Davor Solter


Abstract
Somatic cell nuclear transfer from human donor cells to enucleated rabbit oocytes is being investigated as a way of generating embryonic stem cells.

Chen et al. describe the successful enucleation of rabbit oocytes and their electrofusion with skin fibroblasts isolated from 5-, 42- and 52-year-old human males and 60-year-old females. The percentage of reconstructed embryos that developed to blastocysts (10–13%) was independent of the age of the donor.

Actual Experiment

[Cyto]

Thanks Jones, I guess the Chinese decided to pursue it after-all. Bottom of Page 4 in SCRN::IMMINST.
Yea, I wasn't so into that idea. But what can I say.

Recently, some of the populations were adapted to grow in monolayer on irradiated mouse feeders. Initial analysis of human and rabbit mtDNAs show that both human and rabbit mtDNAs co-exist in ntES cells.

And who says whats not plasticit? [lol] Interesting stuff though.

---

On a Different Note. This Conservative crayon scribbler decided to poorly attempt a debunking of any reason to understand ESCs.

When Morons start looking through Science Articles

[Cyto]

Geron has 'set' Cuture Medium

4Geron Corp. of Menlo Park announced the development of a defined culture medium for the propagation of human embryonic stem cells.

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Scroll to Stem cell research

Geron is probably best known for research it sponsored at the University of Wisconsin, where scientists grew big batches of cells from a few that were plucked from discarded human embryos. These ``embryonic stem cells'' appear to have the ability to become any one of the hundreds of cell types present in an adult human and can be grown in limitless quantities.

The stem cells in theory can be used to generate replacements for patient cells destroyed by injury or disease, for example, rebuilding a heart weakened by a heart attack or replacing brain cells damaged by Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease.

This month, the company announced the results of experiments on rats whose spinal cords had been crushed. The rats were treated with nerve cells grown from Geron's stem cells. A month later, the treated rats were able to support their weight on all four paws and hold their tails up in the air.

All this is good news for a company that has disappointed investors in the past.

But skeptics remain.

``This is a company that historically has overpromised and underdelivered,'' said John McCamant, editor of the Medical Technology Stock letter. McCamant notes that he also runs a hedge fund that has sometimes taken a short position on Geron stock. His investment newsletter does not recommend the company's shares: ``These kind of companies attract traders to the sector rather than long-term investors.''

Rodman & Renshaw biotech analyst Reni Benjamin is more upbeat. He started covering Geron stock in June, when it was under $6 and saw it climb past $16 before settling back down again.

But now Benjamin, whose firm raised $20 million for Geron earlier this year, wonders whether the company is overvalued once again: ``It may be getting a little ahead of itself.''

[Cyto]

MIT Researcher Makes Adult Stem Cells Multiply, Then Revert To Normal

Embryonic stem cells can become virtually any human tissue or organ, offering potentially powerful treatments for damaged or diseased organs, spinal injuries, neurological diseases and more. Unlike embryonic stem cells, which exist only during early prenatal development, adult stem cells create new tissues throughout our lifetimes. Their potential to produce mature tissue cells may be limited to cells of the tissues in which they reside. Biomedical applications using adult stem cells have been limited by the fact that adult stem cells are notoriously hard to isolate and multiply.

In a recent issue of the journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Sherley demonstrated a method that could produce new lines of adult stem cells for research and potential therapies.

REGENERATING TISSUES

Adult stem cells are thought to exist in at least 13 body tissues, but Sherley believes that virtually every tissue and organ, including the brain, has some innate ability to regenerate. "We are not static beings," he said. "Our tissues turn over constantly and there must be cells that remember the form" of the original organ.

Adult stem cells constantly produce new skin, intestinal lining, red blood cells and more. They are remarkably versatile: adult stem cells in bone marrow, for instance, can be channeled to become fat cells, cartilage-forming cells or bone-forming cells.

One of the problems of working with adult stem cells is that they are very rare and difficult to isolate. Researchers who attempt to grow adult stem cells in the laboratory find that they cannot increase the number of stem cells in culture, because when adult stem cells divide, they produce both new replacement stem cells and regular cells, which quickly proliferate and vastly outnumber the stem cells. Adult stem cells divide to replace themselves and create daughter cells, which either differentiate immediately or divide exponentially to produce expanded lineages of differentiating cells.

In previous work, Sherley created cells that divide the way adult stem cells do--by hanging onto their original DNA and passing copies on to the next generation of daughter cells. The theory goes that through this unique pattern of chromosome segregation, adult stem cells avoid mutations that may arise from DNA replication errors.

DIVIDING IN TWO

Sherley has dubbed this pattern asymmetrical cell kinetics because the cells don't divide symmetrically into two identical cells. His new approach to growing adult stem cells suppresses this asymmetrical mechanism. He calls it SACK (suppression of asymmetrical cell kinetics).

Through SACK, Sherley created a way to make cells that were dividing asymmetrically like stem cells revert to dividing symmetrically. This involves manipulating biochemical pathways regulated by the expression of the p53 gene (tied to many human cancers) by exposing cells to certain nucleotide metabolites that activate growth regulatory proteins. In the absence of the metabolites, cells are converted from asymmetric cell kinetics to symmetric cell kinetics.

When p53 is switched on, cells grow like adult stem cells. While others have attempted to alter adult stem cells genetically to force them to duplicate themselves, "what's neat about this approach is that we are regulating the biochemistry of the cell, not changing its genetics," Sherley said.

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Edited by CarboniX, 15 December 2003 - 05:40 AM.

[Cyto]

Central nervous system (CNS) treatments are big business – and are growing at the fastest rate among the largest therapeutic categories. The global sales of CNS therapeutics are second only to those sold for cardiovascular ailments. Starting in July for 12 trailing months, $53 billion worth of CNS treatments were sold, according to market research firm IMS Health.

Source Here

I'm thinking Nerve Stem Cells have a good push. Oh and if your interested there is a Neural Stem Cells: Development and Transplantation book out.
________________________________________________________________________

Legislature drops stem cell support

I know the title sounds bad, and its still not pretty. Overall, Massachusetts was stripped from the economic stimulus bill the Legislature approved late last week. Yea, not cool.

(By an overwhelming 37-to-3 vote, the Senate included the stem cell measure in a roughly $100 million package designed to stoke the state's economy with spending and tax credits.)

_________________________________________________________________________

What I want to know...and Im searching around for, is what happened to Neurons being able to track down brain cancers and destroy them - possibly repair them too. Or even the cool Neurospheres.

I'll see what I can find.

[kevin]

Link: http://www.newscient...p?id=ns99994418
Date: 11-26-03
Author: Andy Coghlan
Source: New Scientist
Comment: Holy Cow Batman

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Blood could generate body repair kit
19:00 26 November 03

A small company in London, UK, claims to have developed a technique that overturns scientific dogma and could revolutionise medicine. It says it can turn ordinary blood into cells capable of regenerating damaged or diseased tissues. This could transform the treatment of everything from heart disease to Parkinson's.

If the company, TriStem, really can do what it says, there would be no need to bother with conventional stem cells, currently one of the hottest fields of research. But its astounding claims have been met with bemusement and disbelief by mainstream researchers.

TriStem has been claiming for years that it can take a half a litre of anyone's blood, extract the white blood cells and make them revert to a "stem-cell-like" state within hours. The cells can be turned into beating heart cells for mending hearts, nerve cells for restoring brains and so on.

The company has now finally provided proof that at least some of its claims might be true. In collaboration with independent researchers in the US, the company has used its technique to turn white blood cells into the blood-generating stem cells found in bone marrow.

When injected into mice, these cells migrated to the bone marrow and generated nearly all the different types of human blood cells, the team will report in the January edition of Current Medical Research and Opinion (vol 20, p 87), a peer-reviewed journal.

Proof required

"I would be extremely sceptical of these findings and would need more proof," says stem cell expert Evan Snyder of the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, California, whose response is typical of many scientists New Scientist contacted.

"I was extremely sceptical," says team member Tim McCaffrey, a cardiovascular researcher at George Washington University in Washington DC, who was asked to evaluate TriStem's claims. "They did it in front of my eyes with my own blood," he says. "It's stunning." [:o]

Even if replacing bone marrow is all TriStem's method can achieve, it is still significant. Tens of thousands of people need bone marrow transplants each year. In some cases, doctors already extract stem cells from the blood instead of transplanting bone marrow itself. A donor is given growth factors that make their marrow stem cells proliferate and spill over into the blood, but the procedure takes several days.

TriStem's method might make it possible to obtain vast numbers of blood stem cells in a fraction of the time. "What's radical is the speed and ease with which it works," McCaffrey says.

Much, much more

But the company claims it can do much, much more. Ilham Abuljadayel, the founder of TriStem, says that by adapting standard culturing methods she has managed to turn white blood cells into heart, nerve, bone, cartilage, smooth muscle, liver and pancreatic cells.

TriStem has not yet published results proving all these claims. Since the company has worked only with human cells, it cannot perform what is regarded as the "gold standard" test of stem cells' versatility: inserting them into an embryo to show they can form all the different tissues. But if TriStem's method really can produce a wide range of cells, its potential is huge.

For starters, it would avoid the ethical issues associated with embryonic stem cells, the most versatile kind of stem cell. TriStem's method would also make it easy to treat individuals with their own cells, avoiding any problems with immune rejection. The only way to obtain ESCs that match a patient's own tissues would be therapeutic cloning, yet to be achieved with human cells.

The adult stem cells found in various tissues in the body could also solve both these problems. But there is still much debate about their versatility, and even if some are capable of forming just about any cell type, they are scarce. Extracting and multiplying them is difficult (not anymore - kp) and time-consuming.

In addition, TriStem's claims challenge the scientific dogma that specialised cells cannot revert back to an unspecialised state or be converted from one type to another. Other groups also claim that they can "transdifferentiate" cells (New Scientist print edition, 12 October 2002). But none can do so as swiftly and easily as TriStem.

Killer antibody

Its "miracle" hinges on an antibody manufactured by DakoCytomation of Denmark that is normally used to detect abnormal brain cells. In the early 1990s, while working as a consultant immunologist, Abuljadayel tried to use the antibody to kill leukaemia cells. Instead of dying, the cells altered form and flourished.

Abuljadayel says the antibody binds to a receptor on the cell surface. But how the antibody triggers "retrodifferentiation", if indeed it does, remains to be established. To avoid arguments about whether the cells produced are genuine stem cells, she calls them "stem-cell-like cells".

Abuljadayel applied for a patent on retrodifferentiation in 1994, and in 1999 founded TriStem with the help of her husband, Ghazi Dhoot, then an investment banker. The company has long struggled to convince mainstream scientists that its system works.

Like TriStem, McCaffrey encourages sceptics to try the procedure themselves before condemning it. "I don't think there's voodoo involved, but until a number of people do it, other scientists have every right to be cautious," he says.

For many researchers, alarm bells ring loudest over the failure of TriStem to get such groundbreaking results published in a leading journal. (maybe because her claims are so outlandish-kp) They also ask why Abuljadayel has had no permanent academic position.

Gross mortality

Then there is the question of whether TriStem really has achieved retrodifferentiation. Alexander Medvinsky at the Institute of Stem Cell Research in Edinburgh thinks the antibody might simply kill ordinary white blood cells, leaving stem cells behind.

But McCaffrey rejects this, saying that tests show the white blood cells remain alive. "There is no gross mortality, and the numbers surviving are of the order of 90 to 95 per cent."

Not all researchers are as sceptical. "The results reported here are impressive," says Bob Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology of Massachusetts. "If successfully repeated, this process could have broad clinical potential."

TriStem is sufficiently confident that its method works to start human trials. Earlier in November it received permission to carry out a clinical trial of its technology for creating stem cells from blood. Senior government research collaborators in the country hosting the trial have asked for the location to be kept secret for now.

The method will be used to treat a dozen patients with aplastic anaemia, a condition in which people have a severe lack of bone marrow. Abuljadayel plans to treat the patients with blood stem cells derived from tissue-matched donors. "Within a week, we should find if the cells have taken," she says, adding that any improvements in the patients' condition should be immediately noticeable.

The results should be in by the end of March. Watch this space.

Andy Coghlan

[Cyto]

Thanks kevin for the article! Quite exciting if the efficacy of the method is approved through other researchers!

___________________________________________________
Making Sense of Adult Stem Cells

In an attempt to better understand the complexities of adult stem cells, the National Institutes of Health has funded the Stem Cell Genome Anatomy Projects, a consortium of researchers studying stem cells from blood, bone, kidney, gut, liver, prostate and bladder cells. The consortium, which met this fall for the first time since its formation a year ago, plans to develop better ways to identify adult stem and progenitor cells and to characterize patterns of gene activity in the different types of cells.

Adult stem cells have been hailed for their potential to treat a variety of disorders, including diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, heart disease, and spinal cord injury because of their purported ability to replace damaged tissue.

Researchers studying adult stem cells would like to find the genes that control specific properties, such as the ability to replicate or renew themselves, or the ability to home into damaged tissue. But these attempts have been unsuccessful and results from different laboratories are sometimes in conflict.

The consortium consists of seven different groups from the United States and Australia, each consisting of researchers who study the biological aspects of the cells and bioinformatics specialists who focus on processing genomic data.

“The idea is to bring together people who don't normally meet,” says Leonard Zon, a researcher at Harvard Medical School in Boston, who heads one of the consortium's research groups. “We want to develop a common approach to try to compare different populations of cells.”

One of the first challenges of the consortium will be to develop ways to purify populations of cells and to identify markers that can distinguish between true stem cells, which can renew themselves and give rise to many cell types, and progenitor cells, which divide a limited number of times and produce only one or two different types of cells.

The researchers are trying to identify “genetic signatures”—sets of genes that may define similar activities in different cells. They also hope to find out what genes might distinguish stem cells from progenitor cells.

The consortium represents a growing trend in scientific research: bringing together large numbers of researchers with diverse background to achieve a common goal.

“The consortium may serve as a model for how bioinformatics can be done across organ systems,” says Zon. “We're trying to figure out the best way to share data and information.”

[Cyto]

Stem cells are used to grow new joint

The ball of a joint has been grown in a laboratory from cells, showing how tissue engineering could one day help repair jaws, knees and hips.

The adult stem cells, which can grow into other cell types, were turned into bone and cartilage, forming the ball structure, or condyle, of a joint found in the human jaw with its characteristic shape and tissue composition.

Though done with animal cells, the team at the University of Illinois in Chicago believes that the tissue-engineering procedure could one day be used to regenerate the ball structure of joints in the jaw, knee and hip that have been lost to injury or diseases such as arthritis.

"This represents the first time a human-shaped articular condyle with both cartilage- and bone-like tissues was grown from a single population of adult stem cells," said Dr Jeremy Mao, the director of the tissue engineering laboratory at the university, who will report the work in the Journal of Dental Research.

"Our ultimate goal is to create a condyle that is biologically viable - a living tissue construct that integrates with existing bone and functions like the natural joint."

To create the condyle, Dr Mao and colleague Adel Alhadlaq used adult stem cells taken from the bone marrow of rats. Using chemical substances and growth factors, the scientists induced the adult stem cells to develop into cells capable of producing cartilage and bone...

[Cyto]

Duke cardiologists offer new view of link between aging, atherosclerosis
http://www.eurekaler...c-dco120103.php

DURHAM, N.C. -- The exceptions have always fascinated Duke University Medical Center cardiologist Pascal Goldschmidt, M.D. In the case of atherosclerosis, these exceptions -- specifically how some people's bodies can repair arterial damage better than others -- might hold a key to a new way of looking at the link between aging and the disease process in general.

He cites as examples those individuals who smoke all their lives but do not get cardiovascular disease, or those who have always eaten an unhealthy diet but still make it to old age with clear arteries.

Goldschmidt, chairman of the department of medicine, and fellow cardiologist Eric Peterson, M.D., Duke Clinical Research Institute, believe that medicine has spent so much time investigating the risk factors for disease that they have neglected to appreciate the other half of the equation -- the body's innate ability to protect and repair itself.

"It is this relationship between the body's ability to keep up with the cumulative damage it suffers over time that could be the key to who gets sick and who stays healthy into old age," Goldschmidt explained. "We believe that the key resides in the bone marrow, which produces cells that can repair damage to the body, and it is not until this restorative ability is exhausted or overwhelmed that the disease process takes its toll."

The researchers published their theory on the online "Science of Aging Knowledge Environment" (SAGE KE), (http://sageke.sciencemag.org/), a joint effort of the journal Science and its publisher, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Said Peterson, "Age has always been considered a risk factor for heart disease, but we haven't really understood why. Why do some of us age faster than others? Why aren't the effects of aging consistent from individual to individual? It may have to do with the delicate balance between physical insults of daily life and the ability to repair them.

"On one side of the equation are the factors that damage blood vessels, like smoking, hypertension or high cholesterol," Peterson continued. "On the other side is the ability to repair that damage -- people who can repair with a high degree of success can withstand more damage and live longer."

Earlier this year (Circulation, July 29, 2003), Duke researchers discovered that a major outcome of aging is an unexpected failure of the bone marrow to produce progenitor cells needed to repair and rejuvenate arteries exposed to a genetically induced risk of high blood pressure in the mouse. Stem cells are immature cells produced in the bone marrow that have the potential to mature into a variety of different cells. The researchers demonstrated that an age-related loss of these particular stem cells – which reside in the marrow but are also designed to repair arteries -- is critical to determining the onset and progression of atherosclerosis, which causes arteries to clog and become less elastic.

Goldschmidt and Peterson believe that it might ultimately be possible to forestall or even prevent the development of atherosclerosis by injecting these cells into patients: or to retrain the patient's own stem cells to differentiate into progenitor cells capable of arterial repair.

"Our studies indicate that the inability of bone marrow to produce progenitor cells which repair and rejuvenate the lining of the arteries drives the process of atherosclerosis and the formation of plaques in the arteries," said Goldschmidt. "For a long time we've known that aging is an important risk factor for coronary artery disease, and we've also known that this disease can be triggered by smoking, bad diet, diabetes, high blood pressure, lack of exercise and other factors.

"However, if you compare the chance of having a heart attack between someone who is over 60 with someone who is 20 with the same risk factors, there is obviously something else going on as well," he continued. "The possibility that stem cells may be involved is a completely new piece of the puzzle that had not been anticipated or appreciated before. These findings could be the clue to help us explain why atherosclerosis complications like heart attacks and strokes are almost exclusively diseases of older people."

Once the repair cells from the marrow become deficient, the inflammatory process that destroys arteries is no longer held in check, said Goldschmidt.

"Over time, the damaged tissue is not repaired, so it continues to send out biochemical signals to continue the inflammatory response," he said. "It becomes a vicious cycle with a deadly end."

The researchers believe that living organisms, including humans, are born with a finite capacity for stem-cell-mediated repair of damaged tissues -- capacity that is perhaps determined by the genetic makeup of the individual. A reduction in the consumption of these cells may represent an important benefit of efficient preventative maneuvers such as diet and exercise, the researchers said. While they have proven the role of stem cells in repairing damaged arteries, they believe the same situation could also hold true for other organ systems in the body.

"A chronic problem in one organ system could divert cells from another," Goldschmidt explained. "We know for example that rheumatoid arthritis is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, so it may be the two are intimately related. The chronic process of joint disease could consume stem cells that could otherwise be used for the repair of the cardiovascular system at a later time."

While the direct use of stem cells as a treatment might be many years off, the researchers said it is likely that strategies currently used to reduce the risks for heart disease -- such as lifestyle modifications and/or different medications -- preserve these rejuvenating stem cells for a longer period of time, which delays the onset of atherosclerosis.

"For those people whose repair system is weak or inefficient, it would be very important to minimize their risk factors at a very early age," Peterson said.

"Our newly developing insight into the role of stem cells in the disease process should write new chapters in our understanding of the disease process," he said. "We really don't truly understand repair and rejuvenation, yet they are important factors in determining who is at risk for disease and our ability to treat it."

[Cyto]

Embryos and cancer

While this doesn't directly impact us as of now we can still see that current efforts in understanding pluripotent cell cancers will be valuable if you choose to undergo a stem cell treatment.

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The POU transcription factor Oct3/4 maintains the pluripotent state of inner cell mass cells—at the blastocyst stage of preimplantation development—that develop into the fetus after implantation. Different levels of Oct3/4 expression result in altered potential for a given embryonic cell, and the more pluripotent a cell, the less “mature” it appears in terms of epigenetic programming and gene expression profile. Oct3/4 is also expressed in spermatogonia in the adult male, and levels of expression again are correlated with the “maturity” of that cell.

Germ cell tumors (GCTs) account for a high proportion of malignancy in young men, and in the November issue of Cancer Cell, Sharon Gidekel and colleagues at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School report not only that Oct3/4 expression is found almost exclusively in GCTs, but also that the level of expression is related to the immaturity—and hence the malignancy—of the tumor. They also demonstrated for the first time that overexpression of Oct3/4 in a heterologous cell system confers tumorigenicity to that line when it is subsequently injected into nude mice, again with malignancy related to immaturity. Finally, tumor regression was observed when expression levels of Oct3/4 were inhibited. This suggests that Oct3/4 acts as an oncogene and could be a potential therapeutic target for this type of germ cell malignancy (Cancer Cell, 4:361-370, November 2003)...

[Cyto]

Yea, as long as research can keep going. No matter what it is, stem cell related, we can use it.
________________________

SwissPolitics
http://www.swisspoli...x...7594§ion=ch

The Swiss parliament has banned the use of non-fertilized eggs for purposes on human stem cells.
The Senate followed the House of Representatives in backing a new law governing stem cell research during the final debate.
Under the law, scientists have the right to use cells from some 1,000 frozen embryos until the end of 2008.
However, the production and trade in embryos stem is not allowed.

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http://home.business...431&newsLang=en

NewNeural LLC, (NewNeural) an emerging biotechnology company that is developing adult stem cell therapy products, today announced that Kiminobu Sugaya, PhD., NewNeural's founder, chairman, and chief science officer, has been awarded a $240,000 grant from the Alzheimer's Association. The grant was awarded to Sugaya through the University of Illinois at Chicago and will be used to further study the role of a protein in the migration and differentiation of stem cells in the brain.

Sugaya, who is also an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, conducted preliminary studies which demonstrated that beta-amyloid precursor protein (APP) affects the migration and differentiation pattern of stem cells in the brain. This protein, which produces amyloid plaques in the brain of Alzheimer's patients, may play a key role in the degenerative disease, through its controlling effect on the brain's stem cells. Sugaya hopes these studies, which are the basis for one of his patent applications, will ultimately lead to the development of a novel therapeutic approach for battling Alzheimer's disease.

"The objective of our research is to clearly understand the functions of APP in neuro-stem cell biology," said Sugaya. "We believe that the metabolism of this protein may play an important role in Alzheimer's disease. If we can identify and isolate the specific role this protein plays in differentiating neuro-stem cells, we can then incorporate these findings in our strategy for neural replacement therapy, the foundation of our product pipeline."

Sugaya will collaborate with the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the University of Heidelberg in Germany for his work in this field.

Earlier this year, Sugaya received a $1.4 million grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH) for his work on neural replacement strategies using stem cells produced from adult human bone marrow. Sugaya has successfully demonstrated in vitro and in multiple animal transplantation studies that cells produced from human bone marrow using his technology can differentiate into neurons.

Edited to add in quote tags.

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Edited by CarboniX, 31 December 2003 - 08:05 PM.

[Cyto]

And we have...

NIH Chief Zerhouni's comments on adequacy of available lines questioned (original assertion: Restrictions not slowing stem cell research, NIH says)

Argument 1
Zerhouni's comments came in response to a recent study by a panel of medical ethicists, which suggested the 78 approved lines, a dozen of which are now available for use, will never be used in human clinical trials. The main concern expressed by the panel, which was organized by Johns Hopkins University and included scientists, philosophers, and lawyers, was that human embryonic cells that have been amplified with murine feeder layers might contain unrecognized contaminants.

Argument 2
Zerhouni said those concerns were overblown since no research has yet shown stem cells will be medically useful. Moreover, the Food and Drug Administration has said it has adequate guidelines for human safety in clinical trials that can be applied to those lines, he said.

“The feeling in the [stem cell research] community is that both those arguments are weak,” John Gearhart, a professor of medicine at the Institute for Cell Engineering at Johns Hopkins Medical School and developer of one of the world's first human embryonic stem cell lines, told The Scientist. “It's clear no one will use those lines in humans.”

The Singapore conference where Melton unveiled his new cell lines was called to highlight that island's growing investment in stem cell research as a way of boosting its biotechnology industry. One of the conference's other major surprises was a decision by the New York–based Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to invest $3 million in the Singapore program.( [:o] )

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ViaCell to start enrollment in stem cell trial

“With selective amplification, we hope to address the challenge of the need for increased numbers of therapeutic stem and progenitor cells for successful transplantation into adult patients undergoing cancer treatment, and for the manufacture of cellular therapies that could be used to treat a wide range of diseases,” said Marc Beer, CEO of ViaCell, in a statement. “Selective amplification is a breakthrough technology that has the potential to make cord blood the preferred source of transplantable cells for all patients in need.”

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Appropriations bill may ban patents on human organisms

"The effect on scientific research is very difficult to assess. This is a very complex issue because it is very tricky to define humanism," Charo said. "What if a gene present in humans was inserted into a pig embryo. Could this be called a human embryo now?"

If Congress approves the bill, it should go to the president ( [huh] ) this week. If approved, the bill will last only one year unless it is renewed.

[Cyto]

Well, it could of been worse... They could of whined and brought the whole UN back again to vote. So we can see what happens in a year, could be good right?)

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A deeply divided U.N. General Assembly agreed Tuesday to delay for one year any discussion of a global treaty banning human cloning - overturning a vote by its legal committee calling for a two-year delay.

Source here )

[Cyto]

YAY! They are still working on this!

Nov 25th post:
What I want to know...and Im searching around for, is what happened to Neurons being able to track down brain cancers and destroy them - possibly repair them too. Or even the cool Neurospheres.

I'll see what I can find.

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"We will need to optimize the genes that are delivered, but the most important discovery here is that these cells are capable of migrating from the bone marrow or blood circulation into tumors, and suggests this can be developed into a potent therapy," says Andreeff.

They have also shown that when injected into mice with human brain cancer, the modified stem cells seek tumor sites but do not affect normal brain tissue.

Plenty more cool stuff in the news article!

Genetically engineered stem cells have been used to locate and kill tumors in mice

Another article about the same thing (added 12-12)

Edited by CarboniX, 12 December 2003 - 06:30 PM.