-
Stem cells recovered from cloned human embryos
NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have finally recovered stem cells from cloned human embryos, a longstanding goal that could lead to new treatments for such illnesses as Parkinson’s disease and diabetes. A prominent expert called the work a landmark, but noted that a different, simpler technique now under development may prove more useful. Stem cells can turn into any cell of the body, so scientists are interested in using them to create tissue for treating disease. Transplanting brain tissue might treat Parkinson’s disorder, for example, and pancreatic tissue might be used for diabetes. But transplants run the risk of rejection, so more than a decade ago, researchers proposed a way around that: Create tissue from…
-
Toddler Born Without a Windpipe Gets Artificial Trachea
In a groundbreaking feat of science and surgery, a Korean toddler born without a windpipe received an artificial trachea made from her own stem cells. Hannah Warren, 2½, was born with tracheal agenesis, a rare and usually fatal birth defect. She had spent her entire life in a neonatal intensive care unit in a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, unable to breathe, swallow, eat or drink on her own. But after a nine-hour marathon operation to implant a windpipe made of nanofiber mesh coated with her own bone marrow cells, the girl in pigtails finally had her first lollipop. “All we have ever wanted since Hannah was born was to be able to bring her…
-
Business As Usual at Texas Heart…
Texas Heart Institute not concerned about changes at St. Luke’s A spokesman for Texas Heart Institute said the center does not have any ongoing research that would be in direct conflict with the faith-based medical care of Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives. The St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System said April 19 it decided to sell to CHI, the nation’s second-largest faith-based health system. Shortly after, concerns arose about whether the Catholic provider would eliminate any procedures currently offered at St. Luke’s. The Texas Heart Institute is affiliated with but not owned or governed by St. Luke’s, though it is housed within St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in the Texas Medical Center. CHI issued a statement April 26…
-
Texas Meeting on Alzheimer’s, Brain Injury & Stroke
Latest advances in treatment for Alzheimer’s,traumatic brain injury and stroke to be presented at symposium AUSTIN, Texas – (April 24, 2012) Some of the country’s leading practitioners will discuss the cutting-edge treatments and imaging techniques being developed to treat Alzheimer’s, traumatic brain injury and stroke at a symposium on May 1 in Austin. “Collaborating for Cures: Research, Rehabilitation & Treatment for Alzheimer’s, Brain Injury & Stroke” will feature presentations on The Promise of Stem Cells; Current treatment of closed head injury, Disorders of consciousness, Imaging in dementia, Drug screening for degeneration, Pain syndrome after stoke, Emerging therapeutics in ischemic stroke and Neurorecovery vs neurorehabilitation as well as provide a forum for leading scientists in the…
-
Huge study: 5 mental disorders share genetic links
The largest genetic study of mental illnesses to date finds five major disorders may not look much alike but they share some gene-based risks. The surprising discovery comes in the quest to unravel what causes psychiatric disorders and how to better diagnose and treat them. The disorders — autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia — are considered distinct problems. But findings published online Wednesday suggest they’re related in some way. “These disorders that we thought of as quite different may not have such sharp boundaries,” said Dr. Jordan Smoller of Massachusetts General Hospital, one of the lead researchers for the international study appearing in The Lancet. That has…
Texas
Business As Usual at Texas Heart…
Texas Heart Institute not concerned about changes at St. Luke’s A spokesman for Texas Heart Institute said the center does not have any ongoing research that would be in direct conflict with the faith-based medical care of Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives. The St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System said April 19 it decided to sell to CHI, the nation’s second-largest faith-based health system. Shortly after, concerns arose about whether the Catholic provider would eliminate any procedures currently offered at St. Luke’s. The Texas Heart Institute is affiliated with but not owned or governed by St. Luke’s, though it is housed within St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in the Texas Medical Center. CHI issued a statement April 26…
Texas Meeting on Alzheimer’s, Brain Injury & Stroke
Latest advances in treatment for Alzheimer’s,traumatic brain injury and stroke to be presented at symposium AUSTIN, Texas – (April 24, 2012) Some of the country’s leading practitioners will discuss the cutting-edge treatments and imaging techniques being developed to treat Alzheimer’s, traumatic brain injury and stroke at a symposium on May 1 in Austin. “Collaborating for Cures: Research, Rehabilitation & Treatment for Alzheimer’s, Brain Injury & Stroke” will feature presentations on The Promise of Stem Cells; Current treatment of closed head injury, Disorders of consciousness, Imaging in dementia, Drug screening for degeneration, Pain syndrome after stoke, Emerging therapeutics in ischemic stroke and Neurorecovery vs neurorehabilitation as well as provide a forum for leading scientists in the…
Roadblocks & patient-specific iPSCs for clinical applications
Reprogramming Adult Cells to Stem Cells Works Better with One Gene Turned Off The removal of a genetic roadblock could improve the efficiency of converting adult cells into stem cells by 10 to 30 times, report scientists from The Methodist Hospital Research Institute and two other institutions in the latest issue of Cell. “The discovery six years ago that scientists can convert adult cells into inducible pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs, bolstered the dream that a patient’s own cells might be reprogrammed to make patient-specific iPSCs for regenerative medicine, modeling human diseases in petri dishes, and drug screening,” said Rongfu Wang, Ph.D., Principal Investigator and Director of the Center for Inflammation and Epigenetics. “But reprogramming…
Texas biotech to develop platform to grow stem cells faster
A University of Texas spinoff company has pulled in $2 million to test a new technique for culturing non-embryonic stem cells. According to a regulatory filing, StemBioSys raised at least $2 million of a $3.5 million equity offering. A company representative was not available to elaborate, but CEO Dr. Steven Davis told the San Antonio Business Journal last year when the company began raising the round that it would fund research projects to validate the quality of the stem cells generated by the company’s technology. StemBioSys is developing XC-marrow ECM, a propriety three-dimensional culture for growing mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow, adipose tissue and umbilical cord blood. These immature cells have multiple potential uses…
Stem cells in Texas: Cowboy culture
By offering unproven therapies, a Texas biotechnology firm has sparked a bitter debate about how stem cells should be regulated. David Cyranoski 13 February 2013 Ann McFarlane is losing faith. In the first half of 2012, the Houston resident received four infusions of adult stem cells grown from her own fat. McFarlane has multiple sclerosis (MS), and had heard that others with the inflammatory disease had experienced improvements in mobility and balance after treatment. The infusions — which have cost her about US$32,000 so far — didn’t help, but she knew that there were no guarantees. It is McFarlane’s experience with Celltex Therapeutics, the company that administered the cells, that bothers her. She was told…
Saving lives with help from pigs and cells
Doris Taylor and her team are building new organs, hoping to reverse disease, maybe even the aging process By Maggie Galehouse | January 23, 2013 It sounds like science fiction, but it is isn’t. On the ninth floor of the Texas Heart Institute’s Denton Cooley building, Doris Taylor and her team are building human hearts, with help from pigs and stem cells. “We think a pig heart is a perfect scaffold for a human heart, based on its structure and size,” says Taylor, a passionate scientist with a Ph.D. in pharmacology. One recent morning, a pig heart hung suspended in a clear homemade tank in the lab built for Taylor and her team. Filled with…
Texas Heart Selected to Store Cells Used in Nationwide Research
After a nationwide competition, Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital has been chosen as the Biorepository Core Lab for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s network of cardiac stem cell research centers. The seven centers, collectively known as the Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Research Network, are home to a network of physicians, scientists and support staff who work together to study stem-cell therapy for treating heart disease. The goals of the network are to complete research studies that will potentially lead to more effective treatments for patients with cardiovascular disease, and to share knowledge quickly with the health care community. Read Full Story Recommend on FacebookTell a friend
Scar Tissue In Damaged Hearts Reprogrammed
Scar Tissue In Damaged Hearts Reprogrammed By Gene Therapy Into Healthy Heart Muscle A cocktail of three specific genes can reprogram cells in the scars caused by heart attacks into functioning muscle cells, and the addition of a gene that stimulates the growth of blood vessels enhances that effect, said researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College, Baylor College of Medicine and Stony Brook University Medical Center in a report that appears online in the Journal of the American Heart Association. “The idea of reprogramming scar tissue in the heart into functioning heart muscle was exciting,” said Dr. Todd K. Rosengart, chair of the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at BCM and the report’s corresponding…
Biotech Showcase 2013
The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM), the international organization representing the interests of the regenerative medicine community, today announced that 18 ARM members will be presenting at the Biotech Showcase 2013 meeting in San Francisco next week. Featuring company presentations by leading organizations in the industry, Biotech Showcase, produced by EBD Group and Demy-Colton Life Science Advisors, has emerged as a high profile forum for mid-, small- and micro-cap and private companies seeking access to the investor community and potential collaborators. Collectively, the ARM members presenting will showcase the wide scope of progress that is taking place in the regenerative medicine and cell therapy field. (Press Release) Recommend on FacebookTell a friend
World News
Stem cells recovered from cloned human embryos
NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have finally recovered stem cells from cloned human embryos, a longstanding goal that could lead to new treatments for such illnesses as Parkinson’s disease and diabetes. A prominent expert called the work a landmark, but noted that a different, simpler technique now under development may prove more useful. Stem cells can turn into any cell of the body, so scientists are interested in using them to create tissue for treating disease. Transplanting brain tissue might treat Parkinson’s disorder, for example, and pancreatic tissue might be used for diabetes. But transplants run the risk of rejection, so more than a decade ago, researchers proposed a way around that: Create tissue from…
Toddler Born Without a Windpipe Gets Artificial Trachea
In a groundbreaking feat of science and surgery, a Korean toddler born without a windpipe received an artificial trachea made from her own stem cells. Hannah Warren, 2½, was born with tracheal agenesis, a rare and usually fatal birth defect. She had spent her entire life in a neonatal intensive care unit in a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, unable to breathe, swallow, eat or drink on her own. But after a nine-hour marathon operation to implant a windpipe made of nanofiber mesh coated with her own bone marrow cells, the girl in pigtails finally had her first lollipop. “All we have ever wanted since Hannah was born was to be able to bring her…
Business As Usual at Texas Heart…
Texas Heart Institute not concerned about changes at St. Luke’s A spokesman for Texas Heart Institute said the center does not have any ongoing research that would be in direct conflict with the faith-based medical care of Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives. The St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System said April 19 it decided to sell to CHI, the nation’s second-largest faith-based health system. Shortly after, concerns arose about whether the Catholic provider would eliminate any procedures currently offered at St. Luke’s. The Texas Heart Institute is affiliated with but not owned or governed by St. Luke’s, though it is housed within St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in the Texas Medical Center. CHI issued a statement April 26…
Stem cells in Texas: Cowboy culture
By offering unproven therapies, a Texas biotechnology firm has sparked a bitter debate about how stem cells should be regulated. David Cyranoski 13 February 2013 Ann McFarlane is losing faith. In the first half of 2012, the Houston resident received four infusions of adult stem cells grown from her own fat. McFarlane has multiple sclerosis (MS), and had heard that others with the inflammatory disease had experienced improvements in mobility and balance after treatment. The infusions — which have cost her about US$32,000 so far — didn’t help, but she knew that there were no guarantees. It is McFarlane’s experience with Celltex Therapeutics, the company that administered the cells, that bothers her. She was told…
Why We’re So Excited About Stem Cells
By Dr. Francis Collins, on January 9th, 2013 | Certainly – as you can see here – stem cells are spectacularly beautiful. But they also hold spectacular promise for medicine. That’s why I immediately expressed my enthusiasm for Monday’s Supreme Court ruling that effectively enables NIH to continue conducting and funding responsible, scientifically worthy stem cell research. (Read More on NIH Directors Blog) Related Reading: Statement by NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.,on Supreme Court’s decision regarding stem cell case Patient-derived stem cells could improve drug research for Parkinson’s NIH-funded study shows cells from different patients have unique drug responses Recommend on FacebookTell a friend
Headlines
Stem cells recovered from cloned human embryos
NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have finally recovered stem cells from cloned human embryos, a longstanding goal that could lead to new treatments for such illnesses as Parkinson’s disease and diabetes. A prominent expert called the work a landmark, but noted that a different, simpler technique now under development may prove more useful. Stem cells can turn into any cell of the body, so scientists are interested in using them to create tissue for treating disease. Transplanting brain tissue might treat Parkinson’s disorder, for example, and pancreatic tissue might be used for diabetes. But transplants run the risk of rejection, so more than a decade ago, researchers proposed a way around that: Create tissue from…
Toddler Born Without a Windpipe Gets Artificial Trachea
In a groundbreaking feat of science and surgery, a Korean toddler born without a windpipe received an artificial trachea made from her own stem cells. Hannah Warren, 2½, was born with tracheal agenesis, a rare and usually fatal birth defect. She had spent her entire life in a neonatal intensive care unit in a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, unable to breathe, swallow, eat or drink on her own. But after a nine-hour marathon operation to implant a windpipe made of nanofiber mesh coated with her own bone marrow cells, the girl in pigtails finally had her first lollipop. “All we have ever wanted since Hannah was born was to be able to bring her…
Business As Usual at Texas Heart…
Texas Heart Institute not concerned about changes at St. Luke’s A spokesman for Texas Heart Institute said the center does not have any ongoing research that would be in direct conflict with the faith-based medical care of Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives. The St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System said April 19 it decided to sell to CHI, the nation’s second-largest faith-based health system. Shortly after, concerns arose about whether the Catholic provider would eliminate any procedures currently offered at St. Luke’s. The Texas Heart Institute is affiliated with but not owned or governed by St. Luke’s, though it is housed within St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in the Texas Medical Center. CHI issued a statement April 26…
Texas Meeting on Alzheimer’s, Brain Injury & Stroke
Latest advances in treatment for Alzheimer’s,traumatic brain injury and stroke to be presented at symposium AUSTIN, Texas – (April 24, 2012) Some of the country’s leading practitioners will discuss the cutting-edge treatments and imaging techniques being developed to treat Alzheimer’s, traumatic brain injury and stroke at a symposium on May 1 in Austin. “Collaborating for Cures: Research, Rehabilitation & Treatment for Alzheimer’s, Brain Injury & Stroke” will feature presentations on The Promise of Stem Cells; Current treatment of closed head injury, Disorders of consciousness, Imaging in dementia, Drug screening for degeneration, Pain syndrome after stoke, Emerging therapeutics in ischemic stroke and Neurorecovery vs neurorehabilitation as well as provide a forum for leading scientists in the…
Roadblocks & patient-specific iPSCs for clinical applications
Reprogramming Adult Cells to Stem Cells Works Better with One Gene Turned Off The removal of a genetic roadblock could improve the efficiency of converting adult cells into stem cells by 10 to 30 times, report scientists from The Methodist Hospital Research Institute and two other institutions in the latest issue of Cell. “The discovery six years ago that scientists can convert adult cells into inducible pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs, bolstered the dream that a patient’s own cells might be reprogrammed to make patient-specific iPSCs for regenerative medicine, modeling human diseases in petri dishes, and drug screening,” said Rongfu Wang, Ph.D., Principal Investigator and Director of the Center for Inflammation and Epigenetics. “But reprogramming…
Tremendous progress with various forms of cell therapy
“The field of regenerative medicine is giving birth to a whole interrelated group of companies and industries that are leveraging their respective strengths, expertise and capabilities to move the field forward.” When the effort was first initiated more than a decade ago, we recognized that concerted cooperation and joint effort was needed to address some of the bottlenecks that impede translational activity. You can imagine that the field of cell therapy and regenerative medicine had some unique complexities associated with it, including conducting preclinical studies where investigators used human cells and evaluated their safety and efficacy in animal models, as well as actual clinical application of various types of therapies in human patient populations. It…
Texas biotech to develop platform to grow stem cells faster
A University of Texas spinoff company has pulled in $2 million to test a new technique for culturing non-embryonic stem cells. According to a regulatory filing, StemBioSys raised at least $2 million of a $3.5 million equity offering. A company representative was not available to elaborate, but CEO Dr. Steven Davis told the San Antonio Business Journal last year when the company began raising the round that it would fund research projects to validate the quality of the stem cells generated by the company’s technology. StemBioSys is developing XC-marrow ECM, a propriety three-dimensional culture for growing mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow, adipose tissue and umbilical cord blood. These immature cells have multiple potential uses…
Stem cells in Texas: Cowboy culture
By offering unproven therapies, a Texas biotechnology firm has sparked a bitter debate about how stem cells should be regulated. David Cyranoski 13 February 2013 Ann McFarlane is losing faith. In the first half of 2012, the Houston resident received four infusions of adult stem cells grown from her own fat. McFarlane has multiple sclerosis (MS), and had heard that others with the inflammatory disease had experienced improvements in mobility and balance after treatment. The infusions — which have cost her about US$32,000 so far — didn’t help, but she knew that there were no guarantees. It is McFarlane’s experience with Celltex Therapeutics, the company that administered the cells, that bothers her. She was told…
NFL Players Association Grants $100 million to Harvard
NFL Players Association Awards $100 Million to Harvard Medical School for Health Risk Initiative Harvard Medical School has announced a $100 million grant from the National Football League Players Association to create a ten-year initiative that marshals the university’s intellectual, scientific, and medical expertise to improve the health of NFL players. The Harvard Integrated Program to Protect and Improve the Health of NFLPA Members will explore new ways to diagnose, treat, and prevent injuries and illnesses among active and retired football players, who often develop severe disabilities related to head trauma, heart problems, diabetes, joint and other skeletal injuries, and psychological stress. Experts from a range of fields — including epidemiology, genetics, metabolomics, lipidomics, cell…
Saving lives with help from pigs and cells
Doris Taylor and her team are building new organs, hoping to reverse disease, maybe even the aging process By Maggie Galehouse | January 23, 2013 It sounds like science fiction, but it is isn’t. On the ninth floor of the Texas Heart Institute’s Denton Cooley building, Doris Taylor and her team are building human hearts, with help from pigs and stem cells. “We think a pig heart is a perfect scaffold for a human heart, based on its structure and size,” says Taylor, a passionate scientist with a Ph.D. in pharmacology. One recent morning, a pig heart hung suspended in a clear homemade tank in the lab built for Taylor and her team. Filled with…
Texas Heart Selected to Store Cells Used in Nationwide Research
After a nationwide competition, Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital has been chosen as the Biorepository Core Lab for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s network of cardiac stem cell research centers. The seven centers, collectively known as the Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Research Network, are home to a network of physicians, scientists and support staff who work together to study stem-cell therapy for treating heart disease. The goals of the network are to complete research studies that will potentially lead to more effective treatments for patients with cardiovascular disease, and to share knowledge quickly with the health care community. Read Full Story Recommend on FacebookTell a friend
Why We’re So Excited About Stem Cells
By Dr. Francis Collins, on January 9th, 2013 | Certainly – as you can see here – stem cells are spectacularly beautiful. But they also hold spectacular promise for medicine. That’s why I immediately expressed my enthusiasm for Monday’s Supreme Court ruling that effectively enables NIH to continue conducting and funding responsible, scientifically worthy stem cell research. (Read More on NIH Directors Blog) Related Reading: Statement by NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.,on Supreme Court’s decision regarding stem cell case Patient-derived stem cells could improve drug research for Parkinson’s NIH-funded study shows cells from different patients have unique drug responses Recommend on FacebookTell a friend
Scar Tissue In Damaged Hearts Reprogrammed
Scar Tissue In Damaged Hearts Reprogrammed By Gene Therapy Into Healthy Heart Muscle A cocktail of three specific genes can reprogram cells in the scars caused by heart attacks into functioning muscle cells, and the addition of a gene that stimulates the growth of blood vessels enhances that effect, said researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College, Baylor College of Medicine and Stony Brook University Medical Center in a report that appears online in the Journal of the American Heart Association. “The idea of reprogramming scar tissue in the heart into functioning heart muscle was exciting,” said Dr. Todd K. Rosengart, chair of the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at BCM and the report’s corresponding…
Biotech Showcase 2013
The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM), the international organization representing the interests of the regenerative medicine community, today announced that 18 ARM members will be presenting at the Biotech Showcase 2013 meeting in San Francisco next week. Featuring company presentations by leading organizations in the industry, Biotech Showcase, produced by EBD Group and Demy-Colton Life Science Advisors, has emerged as a high profile forum for mid-, small- and micro-cap and private companies seeking access to the investor community and potential collaborators. Collectively, the ARM members presenting will showcase the wide scope of progress that is taking place in the regenerative medicine and cell therapy field. (Press Release) Recommend on FacebookTell a friend
Houston at the Heart of a Major Revolution
Houston, TX – Houston is at the heart of a major revolution. Can you imagine being able to pull an artificial heart off the shelf and plug it into someone? Doctors with the Texas Heart Institute are working to make that a reality for patients. Dr. Emerson Perin shares what’s on the horizon for the Texas Heart Institute in 2013. (Watch Interview on KHOU Site) Recommend on FacebookTell a friend
