Eideard

Dr. Roberto Bolli

Stem cells from heart-attack patients helped improve blood-pumping ability and restore vitality in cardiac muscle, according to a small trial published on Monday.

It is the first time patients have been given an infusion of their own cardiac stem cells in the aim of solving the impact of heart failure rather than simply treating the symptoms of it. The findings are so promising that the study’s chief investigator said a potential “revolution” was in the offing if larger trials succeeded…

The new study, published online in The Lancet, tested cardiac stem cells on 16 patients who had been left gravely ill as a result of an acute myocardial infarction…

Within four months of treatment, the [capacity of the left ventricle to expel blood in the space of a heartbeat] LVFV rose by 8.5 percent and after a year by 12 percent — four times what the researchers had expected.

Scans of the patients’ hearts also showed a reduction in the area of tissue that had been scarred by the infarction, a discovery that challenges conventional belief that once scarring occurs, heart tissue is permanently dead.

The volunteers also reported a substantial improvement in quality of life, and there were no significant side effects…

“The results are striking,” said lead investigator Roberto Bolli of the University of Louisville, Kentucky.

“While we do not know why the improvement occurs, we have no doubt now that [LVFV] increased and scarring decreased.

“If these results hold up in future studies, I believe this could be the biggest revolution in cardiovascular medicine in my lifetime.”

Bravo!

The singularity approaches. While know-nothings prepare for a rapturous return to lifespans and quality of life considered normal in the Dark Ages. I’ll take science over superstition any day.

Sanger Institute

British scientists have developed a new stem cell technique for growing working liver cells which could eventually avoid the need for costly and risky liver transplants.

A team of researchers led by the Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge used cutting-edge methods to correct a genetic mutation in stem cells derived from a patient’s skin biopsy, and then grew them into fresh liver cells. By putting the new liver cells into mice, they showed they were fully functioning…

At a briefing about the work, Allan Bradley, director of the Sanger Institute, said the technique — the first success of its kind — leaves behind no trace of the genetic manipulation, except for the gene correction…

In Wednesday’s study, published in the journal Nature, the British team took skin cells from a patient with a mutation in a gene called alpha1-antitrypsin, which is responsible for making a protein that protects against inflammation.

People with mutant alpha1-antitrypsin are not able to release the protein properly from the liver, so it becomes trapped there and eventually leads to liver cirrhosis and lung emphysema. This is one of the most common inherited liver and lung disorders and affects about one in 2,000 people of North European origin…

Having harvested the skin cells, the scientists reprogrammed them back into stem cells and then used a type of “molecular scissor” technique…to snip the cells’ genome at precisely the right place and insert a correct version of the gene…

The leftover…sequences were then removed from the cells, cleaning them up and allowing them to be converted into liver cells without any trace of residual DNA damage at the site of the genetic correction.

“We then turned those cells into human liver cells and put them in a mouse and showed that they were viable,” David Lomas, a Cambridge professor of respiratory biology who also worked on the team…

The researchers said it could be another five to 10 years before full clinical trials of the technique could be run using patients with liver disease. But if they succeed, liver transplants — costly and complicated procedures where patients need a lifetime of drugs to ensure the new organ is not rejected — could become a thing of the past.

Bravo.

I imagine you can guess which nations fill the latter definition.

Fertility researchers created sperm-producing germ cells in a lab and transferred them into infertile mice, which after the treatment were able to produce healthy offspring.

The development, which was described by experts as “hugely exciting”, could help thousands of infertile men become fathers if the method proves similarly effective in humans.

Japanese scientists at Kyoto University used stem cells from mouse embryos to create primordial germ cells, which drive the production of sperm in men.

When transplanted into the testicles of infertile mice, the cells produced normal-looking sperm.

Researchers led by Dr Katsuhiko Hayashi injected the sperm into mouse eggs and implanted them into female mice, which give birth to healthy pups.

The babies, when they grew up, were capable of reproducing naturally, according to a study in the Cell journal…

The technique may not fall foul of British laws which ban the use of lab-made mature sperm in fertility treatments because the scientists only created germ cells which produced sperm naturally.

Dr Pacey said: “The philosophy of the law is to stop that kind of thing happening.”

After all, the philosophy of most Anglophone lawmakers either side of the pond is to either halt sex from occurring or at a minimum make it as uneventful and not-enjoyable as possible.

As the law applies to everyone else, of course.

Scientists hope to show that stem cell replacement can slow, stop, or even reverse damage caused by the disease of the central nervous system.

Some 100,000 people in Britain suffer from MS, with symptoms that can include dizziness and lack of balance, muscle spasms and blurred vision. It tends to get worse over time and there is no cure. However, later this year an international £10 million trial of up to 200 volunteers will begin looking at the effects of stem cell transplantation.

The participants, including 13 in Britain, will have stem cells harvested from their own bone marrow and grown in a laboratory before being re-injected into the bloodstream.

MS is caused by the immune system attacking a protective substance around nerve fibres called myelin. Where this happens scars, called lesions, are left behind. The hypothesis is that the stem cells will target these lesions and repair the damage…

Paolo Muraro, lead researcher on the study, based at Imperial College, London, said: “This is the first time that researchers from around the world have come together to test stem cell therapies in MS in such a large-scale clinical trial…

Just another positive avenue of experimentation now that most of the superstitious interruptions to such research have been set aside. The Brits have had less interference than physicians in the United States and we can only hope American voters won’t return us to the darkness of faith-based “science” again in the next few years.

For the first time ever, scientists from the University of Montreal and Mount Sinai Hospital have generated pluripotent stem cells from horses. Pluripotency refers to a cell’s ability to become any of the various other types of cells found within the body, and the ability to be able to grow such cells in a laboratory setting has great implications for the field of regenerative medicine. Not only does this latest accomplishment potentially mean big things for sick or injured horses, but it could also pave the way for lab-based human stem cell treatments.

“Equine iPS cells bring new therapeutic potential to the veterinary field, and open up the opportunity to validate stem-cell based therapies before clinical studies in humans,” said study co-leader Dr. Andras Nagy…”As well, stem-cell based studies using the horse as a model more closely replicate human illnesses, when compared with studies in mice.”

“The horse is an excellent model for a range of human degenerative diseases, especially those involving joints, bones, tendons and ligaments, such as arthritis,” added Dr. Sheila Laverty, a professor in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at U Montreal. “Bone fracture, as well as damaged cartilage, tendons and ligaments heal poorly in horses. Therefore, the use of iPS cells in these animals may help enhance long-term tissue repair.”

The University of Montreal’s Dr. Lawrence Smith was the other leader of the study.

The research was published today in the journal Stem Cell Reviews and Reports.

As you can see by the photo, first use of this research is to aid in the rehabilitation of politicians. One of the better examples of a degenerate.

Cardiac stem cells — even in elderly and sick patients — could generate new heart muscle and vessel tissue and be used to treat heart failure, according to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2010.

Scientists surgically removed tissue from the muscular wall of the heart’s chambers in 21 patients. They then isolated and multiplied the cardiac stem cells (CSCs) found there. Most of the patients had ischemic cardiomyopathy (enlarged and weakened muscle due to coronary artery disease). Eleven also had diabetes. The average age of patients was about 65.

“Regardless of the gender or age of the patient, or of diabetes, we were able to isolate in all of them a pool of functional cardiac stem cells that we can potentially use to rescue the decompensated human heart,” said Domenico D’Amario, M.D., Ph.D., author of the study…

The researchers also examined stem cells’ biological properties that would influence their therapeutic value. They found that cells had long telomeres, or “caps,” on their chromosomal ends indicating that expanded CSCs retained a significant growth reserve, although less so in older or diabetic patients…

“Now you have a resident cardiac stem cell that is already programmed to form cardiac muscle, so this cell is already superior to any other cell you can take from other tissues,” said Piero Anversa, M.D., senior author of the study and director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine.

The scientists are encouraged enough to seek larger studies. Just one more direction where the compass of genetics serves as foundation for creative solutions to problems in an aging population.

StemCells Inc has filed for Swiss regulatory approval for the first clinical trial of its nerve stem cells in patients with spinal cord injuries as much as a year old, the company said…

“To date, the focus has been on the acute spinal cord injury phase,” StemCells CEO Martin McGlynn said in a telephone interview. “That’s an important area to address, but the largest unmet need is those who have passed that immediate acute phase of injury…”

StemCells Inc, based in Palo Alto, California, said the relevant ethics committees have approved the trial, which it plans to conduct in Switzerland due to the expertise of the investigator and the institution it selected as well as the strong network in Europe for spinal cord patients and referrals.

A study published earlier this year showed that mice treated with StemCells’ nerve stem cells — which are extracted from aborted fetuses — were able to walk better than those treated with ordinary human skin cells or a placebo, even when the treatment came weeks after their injury.

The cells are a form of stem cell, the master cells of the body. These are technically adult stem cells, taken from the partly developed brains of fetuses and tested for qualities showing they are destined to form particular types of nerve cells…

Patients in the StemCells trial will receive a single infusion of cells into the spinal cord. Results are expected within months of the treatment.

Politicians and the religious nutballs they fear the most will waste a certain amount of time standing in the way. The pols will step aside – because they know the average American wants this research to continue. The nutballs will be swept aside by history.

U.S. doctors have begun treating the first patient to receive human embryonic stem cells, but details of the patient enrolled in the landmark clinical trial are being kept confidential.

Geron Corp…has the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration license to use the controversial cells to treat people, in this case patients with new spinal cord injuries. It is the first publicly known use of human embryonic stem cells in people…

Geron’s stem cells come from human embryos left over from fertility treatments. They have been manipulated so that they have become precursors to certain types of nerve cells.

The hope is that they will travel to the site of a recent spinal cord injury and release compounds that will help the damaged nerves in the cord regenerate.

The Phase I trial will not be aiming to cure patients but to establish that the cells are safe to use. Under the guidelines of the trial, the patients must have very recent injuries…

“When we started working with human embryonic stem cells in 1999, many predicted that it would be a number of decades before a cell therapy would be approved for human clinical trials,” Geron President and CEO Dr. Thomas Okarma said in a statement.

Bravo!

UPDATE: Here’s more information on the study in progress in Atlanta.

Holy Roddy McDowall. Christine O’Donnell doesn’t understand why monkeys can’t turn into people right before her eyes.

Bill Maher continued his video torment of O’Donnell by releasing another old clip of her on his HBO show on Friday night, this time showing one in which she argued that “Evolution is a myth.”

Maher shot back, “Have you ever looked at a monkey?” To which O’Donnell rebutted, “Why aren’t monkeys still evolving into humans?”

The comedian has a soft spot for the sweet-faced Republican Senate candidate from Delaware, but as he told me on Friday, it’s “powerful stupid to think primate evolution could happen fast enough to observe it. That’s bacteria…

In the Republican primary, O’Donnell beat Congressman Mike Castle, who had the temerity to support stem-cell research and acknowledge global warming. O’Donnell’s numbers are dropping, while Castle is still beating the Democratic candidate, Chris Coons, by almost 20 points in a theoretical matchup.

In 2007, O’Donnell frantically warned Bill O’Reilly, “American scientific companies are crossbreeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains…”

Dr. Irving Weissman, director of Stanford’s Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, did the first experiments injecting human brain-forming stem cells into the brains of immune-deficient mice 10 years ago…

Dr. Weissman is sensitive to ethical questions and has tried to ensure that “the nightmare scenario” won’t happen: putting embryonic stem cells into mice at the earliest stages, which could give rise to every tissue in the body including human sperm and eggs, which could lead to two mice mating and the early formation of human fetuses in the body of a mouse.

He is working toward breakthroughs on multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, spinal cord injuries, strokes, breast cancer and a host of other diseases, and is worried by the retrogressive attitude about science and medicine among the new crop of Tea Partiers…

Dr. Weissman said, “The question they should be asked is, if it were their child or wife or selves or parents and there was this whole list of diseases treated by stem cells, would they deny these therapies?”

RTFA. Lots of details about individual Congressional races, individuals so concerned with ideology they refuse to face their world-class ignorance. Though, as usual, we have to face the concern that our whole electorate is focused wholly on the very slowly-growing economic rebound. Even that reflects our nation’s collective ignorance of history, previous battles through recession and rightwingers who could care less.

Powerful stem cells made by reprogramming adult tissue could reduce the need for animal testing of new drugs, according to a scientific pioneer of the technology.

Jamie Thomson, of the University of Wisconsin, told The Times that “in-vitro trials” based on so-called induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells would refine pharmaceutical development so that fewer animal experiments would be required.

The cells were already being used as a source of human tissue for testing candidate drugs for safety and effectiveness, he said. As a result, fewer unworkable drugs would advance to animal studies, and some animal tests may become unnecessary.

“If what we are doing is successful it will dramatically reduce animal testing, and maybe towards the end of our lifespan actually eliminate it for some things,” Professor Thomson said. “I think we will have much better models for these things…”

Human tissue grown from IPS cells may even provide a better laboratory model than animals, Professor Thomson said. “I trained as a veterinary pathologist, and the correlation [between results in animal and humans on trials] is not that great at the end of the day,” he said.

One more step forward. Nice knowing we need not spend all of our political efforts defending against a government marching in lockstep with superstition and ignorance.