|
|
|
The Digest of Anti-Aging and Stem Cell Research
November 2010 |
|
|
|
|
|
Last month I had the pleasure of attending a stem cell conference hosted by the group Texans for Stem Cell Research, which is located in Austin. The annual symposium focused on ongoing research and on the need to create a world-class stem cell research facility in Texas. I was also able to talk briefly with board chair, David Bales, and I will be working with him to host a joint event here in Dallas.
Meanwhile, scientists all over the world are creatively working with adult stem cells to treat diseases and injuries and to combat the effects of aging. We predict that these technologies will make the 2010s the decade of miraculous breakthroughs in the use of stem cells to treat diseases and injuries. Sincerely, Susan Schmidt
Editor
Medicine for a New Era
A division of the Global Peace Project
Follow
Link to us through these popular social media sites: |
|
 |
The goal of Texans for Stem Cell Research is "to promote the building of a first-class stem cell research facility in Texas" by 2014. The nonprofit organization hosts a variety of educational events and fundraisers as well as monitors state and federal legislation that affects medical research in this area. Its special interest is also the economic benefits to Texas of promoting cutting-edge medical research. Visit www.txstemcell.org for more information. |
San Francisco Company Uses Stem Cells for Breasts
 | | Image copyright Wired magazine |
Reconstructing breasts after a mastectomy is difficult, so only one quarter of women who lose a breast to cancer receive reconstructive surgery. Now one company has discovered a method to use fat-derived stem cells to create amazing results. Cytori Therapeutics developed a process to engineer tissue using adult stem cells from a person's own stores of fat (called adipose tissue). Fat cells are suctioned from a woman's abdomen or upper arms, processed, and then injected into the affected breast. The fat itself fills in the space. But the injected stem cells do not create new breast tissue; rather, they encourage blood cells to form, which helps the new (fat) tissue survive. The results are permanent and natural. Read the Wired magazine story here.
|
Colorado Researchers Reverse Muscle Aging 
Scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder transplanted specific types of adult stem cells into the injured leg muscles of mice to determine whether the stem cells would repair the injury. As sicentists predicted, the stem cells repaired the injuries successfully.
But the researchers were very surprised--and delighted--to learn that this treatment also prevented the loss of muscle function and mass that normally occurs with aging. The experiments showed that when young host mice with limb muscle injuries were injected with muscle stem cells from young donor mice, the cells not only repaired the injury within days, they also reduced the aging of the muscle. The cells underwent a 50 percent increase in mass and a 170 percent increase in size and remained elevated through the lifetime of the mice over two years.
|
Using Stem Cells in Autism Research
A project of the Salk Institute, in conjunction with the University of California San Diego, has used stem cells to learn more about the causes and potential treatments for autism.
The study used stem cells from autism clients who had Rett syndrome, one of the most physically disabling of the autism spectrum of disorders. Researchers successfully generated nerve cells using skin cells from four individuals with Rett syndrome. Then they reprogrammed the skin cells back to a stem-cell-like state--into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS)--and developed them into nerve cells. The nerve cells displayed the characteristic hallmark of nerve cells with Rett syndrome, and a genetic mutation that scientists believe causes the syndrome.
Using patients' skin cells to produce nerve cells gives scientists an unprecedented view of autism and access to trying potential experimental treatments in the laboratory.
Visit the Salk Institute here. Watch an interesting explanation of the research on YouTube here. |
Canada: Scientists Create Blood from Skin
 | | Click above to access a video with lead scientist Dr. Bhatia |
In an important breakthrough, scientists at McMaster University have discovered how to make human blood from adult human skin. Making blood from skin does not require the middle step of changing a skin stem cell into a pluripotent stem cell that could make many other types of human cells, then turning it into a blood stem cell. The discovery, published in the prestigious science journal Nature on Nov. 7, could mean that in the foreseeable future people needing blood for surgery, cancer treatment, or treatment of other blood conditions like anemia will be able to have blood created very quickly from a patch of their own skin to provide transfusions. The team of researchers has also shown that the conversion is direct. |
|
Netherlands: Heart Attack Treatment
Researchers from the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, have used fat cells liposuctioned from patients to treat their heart attacks. In a new study, which used double-blind controls and placebos--neither patients nor doctors knew who had received the stem cell treatment--heart muscle damage in stem cell-treated patients decreased more than half after six months; placebo-treated patients showed no change. The treatment reduced the amount of damaged heart tissue, increased blood flow in the heart and improved the heart's pumping ability. These changes were not statistically significant, probably because of the very small number of people in the experiment, but the fat-derived stem cells worked as expected. As important, no patient suffered dangerous side effects from the treatment.
Visit the American Heart Association website for the full story. |
|
Differences Between Stem Cells
Last month we asked for your questions about stem cells. Here is a question that we received:
I keep hearing about court cases in the news that involve stem cell research. What is the difference between embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells?
The differences between these two types have to do with their origins, their functions, and sometimes their use. Here is a quick comparison of the two:
| |
Adult Stem Cells |
Embryonic Stem Cells |
|---|
|
Where they are found |
Cells are found in bone marrow, skin, blood, fat tissue, umbilical cords, and many other organs and tissue. |
Cells are cultivated from embryos that come from in vitro fertilization clinics that donate them with the consent of the egg donors. |
|---|
|
How they are gathered |
Stem cells are extracted from the tissue or blood surrounding them by means of a centrifuge or chemical agent. |
Cells from the embryo are transferred to a culture dish that contains a "broth" of nutrients. The dish also contains a "feeder layer" of skin stem cells from mice. |
|---|
|
How they are or can be used in treatements | Cells have been used successfully in treating humans around the world directly. Advances in the treatment of aging tissue and muscle, heart disease, MS, ALS, and other diseases have been extremely promising. | Very limited studies usually focus on mice (see our Feature Story below). Controversy surrounding the use of these cells has made it difficult for researchers to use them in human clinical trials until very recently. |
|---|
|
What risks they have | Risks include the standard risks of infection from any injection or minor surgery. | Because of the way these cells are currently grown using mouse stem cells as feeders, they run the risk of carrying viruses or other molecules that might interfere with the human cells. |
|---|
|
What advantages they have | The risk of rejection or reaction is completely overcome because the stem cells used are most oten from the patient him- or herself. | Scientists believe embryonic stem cells have the ability to develop into any kind of cell if they are not allowed to differentiate upon harvesting. |
|---|
|
What legislation says | No legislation has affected the development of treatments and therapies using adult stem cells. Traditional scientific controls on the use of human subjects in research apply. | Embryonic stem cell use is controversial in many areas. In the U.S., President Obama signed Executive Order 13505, which removed many of the limitations on embryonic stem cell research placed by his predecessor. |
|---|
|
Stem Cells Used to Fight Brain Tumor 
Editor's note: At MFNE, we focus on the use of adult stem cells in treating diseases and disorders. Although we realize embryonic stem cell research and use can cause controversy, we believed that this story was important to share.
Doctors in California this month injected embryonic stem cells directly into a woman's brain in the hope that it would cure her brain cancer.
Jenn Vonckx of Seattle, Washington, was given only a few months to live by her doctors. Her brain tumor, called a glioblastoma, is one of the worst kinds that people can get. It grows so quickly that doctors cannot get the large amount of chemotherapy needed to the patient's brain.
In this case, stem cells are being used not to repair the brain but to deliver chemicals that will help shrink the tumor. Millions of neural stem cells with a special enzyme were injected into Vonckx's brain, and the stem cells will seek out and attach themselves to the tumors. Vonckx then will take a pill containing a nontoxic drug [called 5-FC] that enters the brain. When the drug interacts with the enzyme in the stem cells, it instantaneously creates an active chemotherapy drug [called 5-FU]. 5-FU can kill cancer cells when used in chemotherapy, but it is rarely used for brain tumors because not much of it gets into the brain from the bloodstream. 5-FC is a drug used to treat fungal infections. It does not have any anti-cancer activity, but it can cross from the bloodstream into the brain more easily than 5-FU can. In this way, the resulting anti-cancer drug, 5-FU, is activated directly at the site of the tumor cells.
This technique has been used successfully with mice in experimental conditions. Dr. Karen Aboody created the treatment and estimates that she has cured several hundred mice using this technique--and none of the mice has redeveloped cancer as a result. With a grant earlier this year from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Dr. Aboody, who works for City of Hope, an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, was able to begin this clinical trial with humans. Vonckx is the first person to receive this treatment.
Visit CBS News to see a video about this amazing breakthrough. City of Hope has worked with stem cell therapies for three decades. View a video about its research on YouTube. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
