Stem Cell Therapy May Fix Defects From Injuries To Head And Mouth

Editor's Choice Main Category: Stem Cell Research Article Date: 03 Aug 2012 - 14:00 PDT

Current ratings for: Stem Cell Therapy May Fix Defects From Injuries To Head And Mouth

The clinical trial was a collaboration of researchers from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and the Michigan Center for Oral Health Research together with Ann Arbor-based Aastrom Biosciences Inc. involving 24 patients who required jawbone reconstruction after tooth removal. The researchers divided the patients into two groups, with one group receiving experimental tissue repair cells (ixmyelocel-T) and the other group receiving traditional guided bone regeneration therapy. The tissue repair cells ixmyelocel-T are currently being development at Aastrom.

Leading investigator Darnell Kaigler, who is assistant professor at the U-M School of Dentistry said:

Kaigler stated that the treatment is best suited for large defects, like those resulting from trauma, diseases or birth defects, since these are very challenging to treat due to their complex nature of requiring various different tissue types, including bone, skin and gum tissue.

He continued saying that the key advantage of using stem cell therapy is that the patient's own cells are used to regenerate tissue instead of using man-made, foreign materials.

The study achieved promising results. Study participants in the cell therapy group received dental implants at 6 and 12 weeks after their experimental cell therapy and were noted to have a greater bone density and quicker bone repair compared with those who underwent traditional guided bone regeneration therapy. They also needed less secondary bone grafting when receiving their implants compared with the traditional bone regeneration group.

The team used cells extracted from the patient's hip bone marrow, which was subsequently processed using Aastrom's proprietary system. This allows the growths of many different cells, including stem cells, which were then relocated into different areas in the patient's mouth and jaw.

Kaigler concluded saying that stem cell therapies are still probably 5-10 years away from becoming a standard treatment for oral and facial injuries and defects and that more clinical trials need to be conducted, which include a larger number of patients with larger craniofacial defects.

Written by Petra Rattue Copyright: Medical News Today Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

Go here to read the rest:
Stem Cell Therapy May Fix Defects From Injuries To Head And Mouth

Stem Cell Therapy Space Worth Review for Investors

By Tedra DeSue - August 3, 2012 | Tickers: BAX, OSIR | 0 Comments

Tedra is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network -- entries represent the personal opinions of our bloggers and are not formally edited.

Advances continue to be made in the field of regenerative medicine, with many products and procedures being made possible from stem cell therapy. While large companies are making headway in this area, many small companies are just as active, raising much-needed funds through the capital markets.

The main challenge all of these companies face is convincing naysayers that their research and subsequent results are ethical. There has been much ado about regenerative medicine efforts that involve stem cells. This has especially been the case for research and therapy involving human embryonic stem cells. For this reason, investors who may be bullish about the industry may avoid these stocks.

The stem cell market is expected to grow to be a $5.1 billion industry by 2014. One of the reasons stem cell research is important to these companies is that it can help them grow their pipelines, according to a research report on the industry Stem Cells in Regenerative Medicine: Benchmarking Analysis of Big Companies Entering the Market.Researchers also see stem cell research as a way to find out the effectiveness of therapies without having to use animals for testing.

Lets take a look at a few of the public companies that have made strides in the stem cell therapy space.

One of the largest pharmaceutical companies active in the stem cell therapy space is Baxter Healthcare (NYSE: BAX). It is in the process of developing stem cell therapy for people who suffer from chronic myocardial ischemia or CMI. The condition stems from coronary artery disease. The company is in the midst of clinical trials to prove that its therapy can repair damaged heart muscles. Its referred to as stem cell therapy CD34+.

Also noteworthy for Baxter is a purchase it made last year. It bought Synovis Life Technologies, which made a name for its self because of the mechanical and biological products it made to repair soft tissue. The acquisition is expected to help Baxter further expand its offerings in the biosurgery and regenerative treatment.

Osiris Therapeutics (NASDAQ: OSIR) accomplished an important feat in the stem cell space by becoming the first company in the world to be able to market its stem cell therapy called Prochymal. On that news in May, its stock traded 20% higher, indicating that investors have more confidence in stocks in this space when they have some kind of meaningful approval by regulators. This product was approved by Health Canada.

Now the company is embroiled in a battle over Prochymal with a French pharmaceutical company that it partnered with to test the therapy. News that the sides have been unable to resolve their differences sent Osiriss stock lower this week. At the time of writing, it had lost 5.32% of its value and was trading around $9.

View original post here:
Stem Cell Therapy Space Worth Review for Investors

Is it drug manufacturing or the practice of medicine? Stem cell therapy debate just getting started

The latest round of a stem cell debate may have concluded, but as far as the lawyers representing an orthopedics company that has offered stem cell treatments are concerned, its a long way from over.

The lawyers representing Colorado-based Regenerative Science said they were filing a notice of appeal this week after a U.S. District Court judges ruling in favor of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that its stem cell therapy is a drug. The case is being closely watched by everyone with a stake or an interest in the use of stem cells in medicine and could have significant ramifications for stem cell entrepreneurs who dont believe their procedures amount to a drug or biologic.

Regenerative Science

Colorado-based Regnerative Sciences Regenexx procedure is presented as an alternative to traditional surgery that can treat fractures that have failed to heal, joint cartilage problems, partial tears of tendons, muscles, or ligaments, among other problems. It works like this: A physician takes a small bone marrow sample from the back of the patients hip through a needle. Blood samples are taken from a vein in the patients arm. The samples are sent to the Regenerative laboratory where the mesenchymal stem cells are isolated from the bone marrow and grown to greater numbers using growth factors in the patients blood. The stem cells are injected back into the relevant area in the patient.

The FDA initially sent a warning letter to Regenerative in 2008 after seeing its website. The company turned around and sued the FDA, and two years ago the FDA sought an injunction to shut it down.

The companies that occupy the stem cell treatment landscape are as diverse a group as you could hope to find in medicine. Some offer age-defying beauty solutions, others provide life-saving technology, others have quality-of-life-improving treatments for joints and muscles. There are entrepreneurs leading startups and Big Pharma companies too.

In 2010, the stem cell therapy market was $139.6 million and it was projected to grow to $1 billion by 2015, according to data compiled by Robin Young, the publisher of Orthopedics Week and the CEO of medical data mining company PearlDiver Technologies.

This is on the very cutting edge of medicine and the FDA needs to move forward with it by making sure they have the best information on this science available to inform their decision-making,said Michelle Hart Yeary, counsel with Decherts life science practice.

Minimally manipulated

More here:
Is it drug manufacturing or the practice of medicine? Stem cell therapy debate just getting started

ACT Announces First Dry AMD Patient Treated with Higher Dosage of Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived RPE Cells

MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (ACT; OTCBB: ACTC), a leader in the field of regenerative medicine, today announced treatment of the fourth patient, the first in the second patient cohort, in the companys Phase I/II clinical trial for dry age-related macular degeneration (dry AMD) using retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). The surgery was performed on Wednesday, Aug. 1 atWills Eye Institutein Philadelphia, by a surgical team lead by Carl D. Regillo, M.D., Chief of the Wills Eye Institute Retina Service, and professor of ophthalmology at Thomas Jefferson University. The patient was injected with 100,000 hESC-derived RPE cells and is recovering uneventfully.

We are very pleased to have the second dose cohort in both of our U.S. clinical trials underway, commented Gary Rabin, chairman and CEO of ACT. We are encouraged by our ongoing progress in all three of our clinical trials using our hESC-derived RPE cells to treat forms of macular degeneration. We have not observed any complications or side effects from the stem cell-derived RPE cells, and we will continue to monitor the patients for safety, tolerability and efficacy of this therapy.

The dry AMD trial is one of three clinical trials being carried out by the company in the U.S. and in Europe. Each trial will enroll 12 patients, with cohorts of three patients in an ascending dosage format. These trials are prospective, open-label studies, designed to determine the safety and tolerability of hESC-derived RPE cells following sub-retinal transplantation into patients with dry AMD or Stargardt's macular dystrophy (SMD) at 12 months, the studys primary endpoint. Preliminary results from the two U.S. trials were reported in The Lancet earlier this year.

Doubling the cell dosage in both our U.S. trials is an important step forward in our clinical programs, said Robert Lanza, M.D., ACTs chief scientific officer. We anticipate continued progress and safety findings in both our U.S. trials as well as our concurrent European trial.

Dry AMD is the most common cause of vision loss in patients over 50 years and affects around 30 million people worldwide, said Dr. Regillo. Dry AMD is a form of macular degeneration with no approved drug treatment available to date. ACTs hESC-derived RPE cells could address the unmet medical need of combating dry AMD and other macular degenerations such as Stargardts disease. We are looking forward to analyzing the safety and efficacy data.

Further information about patient eligibility for ACTs dry AMD study and the concurrent studies in the U.S. and the E.U. for SMD is available atwww.clinicaltrials.gov,with the following Identifiers: NCT01344993 (dry AMD), NCT01345006 (U.S. SMD), and NCT01469832 (E.U. SMD).

About dry AMD

Degenerative diseases of the retina are among the most common causes of untreatable blindness in the world. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in people over age 60 in the United States, and the vast majority of cases of AMD are of the dry form, which is currently untreatable.

About Advanced Cell Technology, Inc.

Excerpt from:
ACT Announces First Dry AMD Patient Treated with Higher Dosage of Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived RPE Cells

Cancer Stem Cell Discovery Could Hold Key To First Real Cure For The Disease

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

In some cancers, doctors find that tumors shrink with treatment, yet only briefly, and then come back with a vengeance. Now, recent studies on three different types of tumors suggest that cancer stem cells are resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy and may explain why cancer becomes resistant to treatment.

A team of independent researchers came to the realization while studying tumors of the brain, intestines and skin in mice. Properties of so-called cancer stem cells that the researchers found could be further investigated and hopefully lead to new strategies in killing them off, said Luis F. Parada, a molecular geneticist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and senior author of the brain cancer study published on Wednesday.

If these cells are indeed the cells that fuel tumor growth then maybe you can target these cells, Professor Cedric Blanpain of the Free University of Brussels, who led the skin cancer study, told Pallab Ghosh at BBC News.

In the three separate cancer studies, the researchers have shown the growth and life of a tumor to be dependent on one small group of stem cells, they call mother cells. These cells are thought to fuel the diseases spread around the body the most common reason patients die from cancer.

Scientists had long believed certain cells were responsible for cancers coming back after treatment. But until now, nobody had proved them to exist in tumors.

The breakthrough, reported in the journals Nature and Science, brings researchers hope that they can finally find a cure for a disease that kills more than 150,000 people each year in the UK alone.

Scientists liken killing cancer stem cells to killing dandelions by pulling them out by the roots, rather than just removing the head. By combining a drug that attacks the stem cells with current treatments for cancer, they say a cure could likely occur.

But that could be easier said than done. Since the newly-discovered stem cells are very similar to healthy stem cells responsible for growing and renewing tissue in the body, any therapy targeting cancer stem cells could also destroy healthy cells. Researchers would need to deeply examine both types of cells to tease apart an differences that could be targeted in one cell and not the other.

Despite the roadblocks ahead, the confirmation that these cells even exist is important and groundbreaking for future cancer research, said Professor Hugo Snippert of the University Medical Centre in Utrecht, who led the study into intestinal tumors.

Read this article:
Cancer Stem Cell Discovery Could Hold Key To First Real Cure For The Disease

Stem cells in tumors may fuel cancer regrowth, new studies suggest

(AP) Why does cancer come back after a tumor has been seemingly eradicated? Three new studies from American, Belgian, British and Dutch researchers may have an answer.

Study: Stem cells boost brain tumor treatments

The studies bolster a long-debated idea that tumors contain their own pool of stem cells that can multiply and keep fueling the cancer, seeding regrowth. If that's true, scientists will need to find a way to kill those cells, apart from how they target and attack the rest of the tumor.

Stem cells in healthy tissues are known for their ability to produce any kind of cell. The new research deals with a different kind, cancer stem cells. Some researchers, but not all, believe they lurk as a persisting feature in tumors.

Over the past decade, studies have found evidence for them in tumors like breast and colon cancers. But this research has largely depended on transplanting human cancer cells into mice that don't have immune systems, an artificial environment that raises questions about the relevance of the results.

Now, three studies reported online Wednesday in the journals Nature and Science present evidence for cancer stem cells within the original tumors. Again, the research relies on mice. That and other factors mean the new findings still won't convince everyone that cancer stem cells are key to finding more powerful treatments.

But researcher Luis Parada, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, believes his team is onto something. He says that for the type of brain tumor his team studied, "we've identified the true enemy."

If his finding applies to other cancers, he said, then even if chemotherapy drastically shrinks a tumor but doesn't affect its supply of cancer stem cells, "very little progress has actually been made."

The three studies used labeling techniques to trace the ancestry of cells within mouse tumors.

Collectively, they give "very strong support" to the cancer stem cell theory, said Jeffrey M. Rosen, a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He did not participate in the work but supports the theory, which he said is widely accepted.

Link:
Stem cells in tumors may fuel cancer regrowth, new studies suggest

8. Hui Linn back in Seoul for stem cell treatment

GEORGE TOWN: Acid attack survivor Tan Hui Linn has undergone stem cell injection on parts of her face in the second stage of a corrective surgery in Seoul.

The procedure went smoothly for the 20-year-old at JK Plastic Surgery Centre where doctors first conducted CO2 laser operation on her before the injection.

Her attending physician Dr Bae Joon-sung conducted the procedure in a two-hour operation that started at about 12.30pm Malaysian time yesterday, said Jelutong MP Jeff Ooi who coordinated Hui Linn's trip.

Other than her face, doctors will also carry out stem cell treatment on other affected parts on her chest, neck and thigh area.

It is claimed that stem cells can help rejuvenate and speed up the recovery of her transplanted skin.

Hui Linn, who arrived in Seoul on June 30, had undergone procedures to extract bone marrow on July 5 to cultivate stem cells, a process which will take 28 days.

The stem cell treatment was a result of a collaboration between JK Plastic Surgery and stem cell company Pharmicell.

Dr Bae said each treatment period was two weeks and her next injection had been scheduled on Aug 17; while she would undergo another laser treatment on Merdeka Day (Aug 31) along with the stem cell treatment. The fourth stem cell treatment is scheduled on Sept 14.

Doctors will evaluate her progress on Sept 25 before deciding on her next stage of treatment.

Each injection is estimated to cost about RM32,000 and are sponsored by the centre.

Original post:
8. Hui Linn back in Seoul for stem cell treatment

Hui Linn back in Seoul for stem cell treatment

GEORGE TOWN: Acid attack survivor Tan Hui Linn has undergone stem cell injection on parts of her face in the second stage of a corrective surgery in Seoul.

The procedure went smoothly for the 20-year-old at JK Plastic Surgery Centre where doctors first conducted CO2 laser operation on her before the injection.

Her attending physician Dr Bae Joon-sung conducted the procedure in a two-hour operation that started at about 12.30pm Malaysian time yesterday, said Jelutong MP Jeff Ooi who coordinated Hui Linn's trip.

Other than her face, doctors will also carry out stem cell treatment on other affected parts on her chest, neck and thigh area.

It is claimed that stem cells can help rejuvenate and speed up the recovery of her transplanted skin.

Hui Linn, who arrived in Seoul on June 30, had undergone procedures to extract bone marrow on July 5 to cultivate stem cells, a process which will take 28 days.

The stem cell treatment was a result of a collaboration between JK Plastic Surgery and stem cell company Pharmicell.

Dr Bae said each treatment period was two weeks and her next injection had been scheduled on Aug 17; while she would undergo another laser treatment on Merdeka Day (Aug 31) along with the stem cell treatment. The fourth stem cell treatment is scheduled on Sept 14.

Doctors will evaluate her progress on Sept 25 before deciding on her next stage of treatment.

Each injection is estimated to cost about RM32,000 and are sponsored by the centre.

Read the original post:
Hui Linn back in Seoul for stem cell treatment