stem cell enhancement

zar

New member
Stem cell enhancement
"People are excited about the potential of stem cells, but most approaches are not leveraging them to their maximum potential," says Madhusudan Peshwa of MaxCyte in Gaithersburg, Maryland. "We're not getting into the driving seat and getting the cells to do what we want them to do."

Many teams have attempted to use adult stem cells in regenerative medicine - to repair damaged tissue after a heart attack, for example -but their efforts have been hampered by problems such as cells dying before reaching their target or not differentiating into the correct cell type.

Now researchers are waking up to the idea of genetically modifying stem cells to enhance their natural attributes and gain a new level of control over them. In the case of heart attacks, stem cells from both skeletal muscle and bone marrow have been shown to repair tissue damage to some degree, either through differentiating into heart muscle cells or releasing chemicals that stimulate existing cells to repair the damage. To make this process more effective, Marc Penn at the Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, genetically engineered bone marrow stem cells to produce triple the normal amount of a signalling factor called SDF-1. This is an "SOS signal" also released by damaged heart cells after an attack and is thought to recruit repair cells to the damaged area.

"The idea is to try and restart natural signals that initiate repair," says Penn. When the cells were injected into rats' hearts after a heart attack, the team saw a 70 per cent reduction in heart cell death, compared with rats given unmodified stem cells (The FASEB Journal, DOI: 10.1096/fj.06-6558com).

Meanwhile, Duncan Stewart at the University of Toronto, Canada, is focusing on a more differentiated group of cells called endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), to develop a therapy for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). This is a fatal condition in which tiny blood vessels carrying blood to the lungs are destroyed. Previous studies have shown that EPCs can protect blood vessels against future damage, but Stewart's team wanted EPCs to repair damage to blood vessels after it had occurred.

Endothelial cells usually produce an enzyme called eNOS, which is thought to promote blood vessel growth and protect against cell death. Stewart's team inserted a circular piece of DNA containing the gene for eNOS into EPCs, and then injected the cells into rats with damaged lung vessels. The rats showed a significant improvement in blood flow to the lungs and more survived compared with untreated rats.

"EPCs by themselves seem to have some effect, but you can get much better effects if you push the cells in the right direction," says Stewart, who presented his results at Bio2007 in Boston last month. He has now begun a safety study of eNOS-modified EPCs in 18 humans with PAH.

Linda Geddes
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19426085
 

Nan

New member
Stem cell enhancement

Hi Linda,
I would like to read the article and see what else is going on but the link to the site doesn't work for me? :confused:
Nan
 

barbara

Pioneer Founding member
Thank you Vic

You are a good guy Vic. I am a computer flunky and would never have discovered this. Thanks for the post from Zar also.
 

Jeannine

Pioneer Founding member
Barb

Vic is a good guy. He is one of the folks who defended us when I posted on a COPD Forum about our stem cell treatment for COPD.

I also remember Vic from the Cheshire-Med forum where he posts a photo of his dachsund. :)
 

Nan

New member
Stem cell enhancement

Thanks so very much Vic! A very good read. I see progress everywhere including those on this site who have ventured into the semi-unknown.

:)

Hugs to all,
Nan
 

barbara

Pioneer Founding member
Going to the dogs

I am glad to hear that Vic is posting pics of his dog. I am a dog lover too. I took two of my dogs with me to California when I got treatment, Yogi and Ruby. They are now honorary Pioneers and their pics will be in the book Jeannine and I wrote. I don't want any nasty comments either when you see the pic with the dogs and me. Do not ask which ones are Ruby and Yogi. I only looked real red and blotchy and awful immediately following the infusion of the stem cells. It only lasted about 15 minutes and then I was back to my lovely, gorgeous human looking self. No, it does not qualify anyone for a refund if they buy the book and find out that maybe I have exaggerated slightly. I was looking at some company info from the company where I had treatment. It said the treatment took close to an hour. I do not see where they come up with that. My actual IV took at the tops 20 minutes. I did have an initial bad reaction which caused me to need two shots of adrenaline. All the others in the group that day were back up in the waiting area in much less than an hour, so I was surprised to read that comment about the length of the treatment. Maybe, some of the other diseases require a longer time than COPD does.
 

Jane

New member
Clinical Trials

Osiris Technologies, Baltimore, MD is in clinical trials for stem cells for heart and others. They have found that the pulmonary function is significantly improved as well as the heart. See the site below and look at the March 25th Press Release for heart, page 2 addresses the Pulmonary piece.:)

I have Emailed them and they have been most responsive in answering my questions and referring me to their research. It is great to know this is being done for those of us on the East Coast. We all need to push them in the direction of COPD trials.

http://www.osiris.com/
 

barbara

Pioneer Founding member
That's great news Jane that they have been responsive to you. I would also love to see you post any info that you may receive from them that you feel like sharing. Some of it may belong in the cardiac section, so feel free to duplicate if you need to for those that only read one section. Thank you.
 

Jane

New member
CellCyte Therapeutics, WZ

This company has already given their future Lung trials a number.

Advanced Therapeutic Product Candidates
The Company is in late-stage preclinical development and in pre IND meetings with the FDA to enter Phase I human clinical trials in 2008 for its CCG-TH30, the world?s first non-invasive delivery of stem cells together with the first delivery of stem cells through the patient?s own circulatory/vascular system for repair of the heart.

The Company will follow these trials with its CCG-TL35 compound to deliver stem cells to repair the liver and it?s CCG-TL40 for deliver stem cells to repair the lungs.
In addition, the company has a new method for early adenocarcinoma tumor detection that can detect breast and ovarian tumors less than the size of a grain of rice(2mm), and that has already shown encouraging results in a Phase I clinical trial.

CellCyte Therapeutics, WA
http://www.cellcyte.com/Technology.html
 
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