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Tissue Collection Aids Search for Neurologic and Neuromuscular Disease Causes and Cures

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Newswise LOS ANGELES (July 24, 2014) Like other major research centers studying genetic causes of uncommon and poorly understood nervous system disorders, Cedars-Sinai maintains a growing collection of DNA and tissue samples donated by patients.

What sets Cedars-Sinais Repository of Neurologic and Neuromuscular Disorders apart is its special emphasis on tissue collection part of its focus on creating future individualized treatments for patients.

One of our major priorities is to advance the concept of personalized medicine. The idea is to take DNA from a patient, look at the cells derived from their tissue, and try to understand why this particular person got this disease. Then we can determine which therapy or therapies would work for each individual by first testing their cells. Many centers look at the genetics; ours is dedicated to looking at the genetics and the patients tissues, combining the two to understand how to treat the disease, said Robert H. Baloh, MD, PhD, director of neuromuscular medicine in the Department of Neurology and director of the ALS Program for research and treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrigs disease.

This individualized treatment approach depends on collaborative efforts among doctors and researchers who treat and study individual diseases and scientists at the Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute, one of a very few hospital-based centers devoted to stem cell research. The teams work together to discover disease-generating molecular and cellular defects, make disease-in-a-dish models and begin to fashion personalized stem cell-based research interventions.

We know that nearly every disease has some genetic component some more than others so we collect DNA for research to identify those genetic elements. But weve also expanded our focus to include the collection of skin and blood samples that can be turned into specialized stem cells. Patients are usually very willing to donate tissue to try and help us understand the causes of their neurologic or neuromuscular disease, said Baloh, a member of the Brain Program at the Regenerative Medicine Institute.

Baloh and colleagues recently showed this approach is feasible, using skin biopsies from patients with ALS. With induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs, they created ALS neurons in a lab dish. Then, inserting molecules made of small stretches of genetic material, they blocked the damaging effects of a defective gene. This provided proof of concept for a new therapeutic strategy an important step in moving research findings into clinical trials.

Baloh, the repositorys principal investigator, has a particular interest in ALS and other neuromuscular disorders, but DNA, tissue and data collection is conducted for Cedars-Sinai neuroscience researchers studying virtually any disease. And its holdings can have widespread influence: Repositories of genetic material enable scientists studying similar diseases at multiple research centers to access patient data in larger quantities than any single site could provide.

We work with many other research institutions across the country to share the samples themselves as well as de-identified information about the patients what disease they have, the severity of their disease, and similar disorder-related details. This improves our ability to find new gene abnormalities, because it cant always be done with just tens or even hundreds of patients. We may need thousands of patients, especially for very rare genetic forms of disease that have very subtle genetic effects. Therefore, we study our own patients in great detail, but we also share our resources more broadly, said Baloh, adding that genetic discoveries often have implications even for patients who dont have genetic forms of disease.

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Patients leading the direction of clinical research: an interview with Paul Wicks – Video


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California stem cell agency head takes stand on ‘personal ethics’

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has continued in damage-control mode since the state agencys former president, Alan Trounson, joined the board of directors at StemCells Inc. this month, just seven days after leaving the agency.

Newark-based StemCells has been awarded nearly $20 million in CIRM funding, as part of a long relationship that, in the wake of Trounson's departure, has raised concern about potential conflict of interest.

The agency's new president, C. Randal Mills, said he was taking a strong stand on personal ethics, signing an agreement not to accept a job with any company funded by CIRM for at least one year after leaving his position at the state agency.

"We take even the appearance of conflicts of interest very seriously," Mills said in a statement this month.

But a scientist whose grant proposal was turned down even though it received a higher rating than the StemCells proposal called the relationship between the state agency and the company interesting.

In my opinion, Mr. Trounson and the CIRM staff were clearly antagonistic to us and strongly supportive of StemCells, Lon S. Schneider, a scientist at USCs Keck School of Medicine, told the California Stem Cell Report ,a blog that follows news related to the stem cell agency.

And Times columnist Michael Hiltzik pointed out that the agency has hired its own law firm to conduct the investigation, rather than a completely independent party.

The unanswered question burning a hole through CIRM's credibility is whether StemCells Inc. got its money because its research was promising, or because it knew the right people, Hiltzik wrote.

The stem cell agency has also voted to cut $5 million from a $70-million effort to create a series of statewide stem cell clinics, according to the California Stem Cell Report. And even though the board has 29 members, only eight could vote because of conflicts of interest among the others, according to the report.

Following a thorough review it is my opinion that the $70-million price tag is not clearly justified in terms of the benefits it will deliver to the people of California, Mills wrote in a memo to the agency's board.

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Good Odds for Those Who Need Bone Marrow Donor, Study Finds

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, July 23, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Most blood cancer patients in the United States who need a bone marrow transplant can find an acceptable match through the National Marrow Donor Program, a new study has determined.

Depending on a patient's race or ethnic background, the study found that 66 percent to 97 percent of patients will have a suitably matched and available live donor on the registry.

Even hard-to-match ethnic groups can find a suitable donation thanks to banked stem cells drawn from umbilical cord-blood donations, said senior author Martin Maiers, director of bioinformatics research at the National Marrow Donor Program.

All told, for patients who are candidates for either bone marrow or cord-blood transplants, the likelihood of having a suitable match is as high as 91 to 99 percent, the study found.

"For almost all patients, there is some sort of product available for them," Maiers said.

The findings, said to represent the first attempt to accurately determine the successful-match rate of the bone marrow registry, are published July 24 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Patients suffering from blood-related cancers such as leukemia or lymphoma need a stem cell transplant to help them survive their cancer treatment. The transplant is done after chemotherapy and radiation is complete.

Donation from a relative is the best option, but only about 30 percent of patients have such a donor available, researchers said in background notes. The majority must rely on the National Marrow Donor Program to match them with a live bone marrow donor or banked stem cells gathered from donated umbilical cord blood.

The National Marrow Donor Program has on hand 11 million potential bone marrow donors and 193,000 banked cord-blood donations. The number of transplants facilitated by the program has quadrupled, with nearly 6,000 transplants in 2012 compared with 1,500 a decade earlier.

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Joslin Scientists Create the First IPS Cells to Offer Human Model of Insulin Resistance

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Newswise BOSTON July 24, 2014 Japanese biologist Shinya Yamanaka won a Nobel Prize in 2012 for discovering how to create induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), cells derived from normal adult cells that have the ability to differentiate into almost any other kind of cells. Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center now have created the first iPSCs that offer a human model of insulin resistance, a key driver of type 2 diabetes.

This is one of the very first studies of human iPSC models for type 2 diabetes, and it points out the power of this technology to look at the nature of diabetes, which is complex and may be different in different individuals, says C. Ronald Kahn, MD, Joslins Chief Academic Officer and the Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Until now, scientists examining the causes and effects of insulin resistance have struggled with a general lack of human cell lines from tissues such as muscle, fat and liver that respond significantly to insulin, Kahn says. Studying insulin resistance as it progresses through pre-clinical stages of type 2 diabetes has been particularly challenging.

There have been no good human cell models to study insulin resistance, but such cells can now be made with iPSCs, says Kahn, co-senior author on a paper about the study published in the journal Diabetes.

Generation of iPSCs typically starts with fibroblasts (connective tissue cells) from skin samples. Kahn and his colleagues used fibroblasts from three patients with severe insulin resistance brought on by mutations in the gene for the insulin receptor (IR)a molecule that crosses the cell membrane and plays a key role in insulin signaling and glucose metabolism.

The Joslin researchers reprogrammed the fibroblasts into iPSCs by using viral procedures that activated four genes that together maintain cells in the iPSC state. The scientists then looked at gene activation in insulin signaling pathways for iPSCs and fibroblasts with IR mutations, and for corresponding cells derived from people without those mutations.

Among the study findings, IR mutations alter expression of many genes both in fibroblasts and iPSCs compared to normal cells, but the impact is very much dependent on the cell type, says Kahn. You see one type of expression pattern in the fibroblasts and a different type of pattern in the iPSCs.

Insulin is a key ingredient for the growth and proliferation of normal stem cells, and the study demonstrated that insulin resistance also reduces the ability of the iPSCs to grow and proliferate. That defect may represent a previously unrecognized mechanism that aids in developing diabetes, Kahn says, as well as helping to explain the problems in wound healing, tissue repair and even beta-cell growth that are common among people with diabetes.

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MS stem cell therapy treatment hope for mum

July 24, 2014, 10:29 p.m.

A 60 MINUTES report on new multiple sclerosis stem cell therapy has thrown Wendouree mum Kathryn Johnston a potential lifeline.

A 60 MINUTES report on new multiple sclerosis stem cell therapy has thrown Wendouree mum Kathryn Johnston a potential lifeline.

Hopeful: Wendouree mum Kathryn Johnston is hoping new stem cell therapy treatment will help her be a more active mother to her daughter Dellah, 7. PICTURE: KATE HEALY

Ms Johnston, who has had MS for 15 years, is hoping the treatment will help her be a more active mother to daughter Dellah, 7.

I cant do a great deal with my daughter now but its also the unknown not knowing if Ill wake up one day and not be able to walk, Ms Johnston said.

The 35-year-old emergency nurse hopes to travel to Russia in August next year for the treatment, which involves extracting her stem cells, freezing them while she undergoes a strong course of chemotherapy and then replacing them.

It gets rid of any underlying MS and rebuilds the immune system from scratch. As a general rule, its been about 80 per cent effective.

Ms Johnston first noticed her MS symptoms as an active Ararat 20-year-old doing her nursing degree and about to marry her childhood sweetheart Andrew.

I developed numbness in both hands but thought Id just slept on them until my tummy went numb too.

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NYSCF scientists one step closer to cell therapy for multiple sclerosis patients

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

24-Jul-2014

Contact: David McKeon dmckeon@nyscf.org 212-365-7440 New York Stem Cell Foundation

NEW YORK, NY (July 24, 2014) Scientists at The New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) Research Institute are one step closer to creating a viable cell replacement therapy for multiple sclerosis from a patient's own cells.

For the first time, NYSCF scientists generated induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells lines from skin samples of patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis and further, they developed an accelerated protocol to induce these stem cells into becoming oligodendrocytes, the myelin-forming cells of the central nervous system implicated in multiple sclerosis and many other diseases.

Existing protocols for producing oligodendrocytes had taken almost half a year to produce, limiting the ability of researchers to conduct their research. This study has cut that time approximately in half, making the ability to utilize these cells in research much more feasible.

Stem cell lines and oligodendrocytes allow researchers to "turn back the clock" and observe how multiple sclerosis develops and progresses, potentially revealing the onset of the disease at a cellular level long before any symptoms are displayed. The improved protocol for deriving oligodendrocyte cells will also provide a platform for disease modeling, drug screening, and for replacing the damaged cells in the brain with healthy cells generated using this method.

"We are so close to finding new treatments and even cures for MS. The enhanced ability to derive the cells implicated in the disease will undoubtedly accelerate research for MS and many other diseases," said Susan L. Solomon, NYSCF Chief Executive Officer.

"We believe that this protocol will help the MS field and the larger scientific community to better understand human oligodendrocyte biology and the process of myelination. This is the first step towards very exciting studies: the ability to generate human oligodendrocytes in large amounts will serve as an unprecedented tool for developing remyelinating strategies and the study of patient-specific cells may shed light on intrinsic pathogenic mechanisms that lead to progressive MS". said Dr. Valentina Fossati, NYSCF Helmsley Investigator and senior author on the paper.

In multiple sclerosis, the protective covering of axons, called myelin, becomes damaged and lost. In this study, the scientists not only improved the protocol for making the myelin-forming cells but they showed that the oligodendrocytes derived from the skin of primary progressive patients are functional, and therefore able to form their own myelin when put into a mouse model. This is an initial step towards developing future autologous cell transplantation therapies in multiple sclerosis patients

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StemGenex Gives Hope to Parkinsons Patients through New Stem Cell Clinical Study

La Jolla, CA (PRWEB) July 23, 2014

StemGenex, the leading resource for adult adipose stem cell therapy in the US aimed at improving the lives of patients dealing with degenerative diseases today announced their newest clinical study for Parkinsons disease. StemGenex believes that a commitment to the safety and efficacy of stem cell therapy are paramount when providing care to patients with degenerative diseases.

This clinical study makes stem cell therapy accessible to the millions of individuals currently living with Parkinsons disease. The protocol used in these stem cell treatments is unique to StemGenex, having the possibility of being more effective than other stem cell treatments currently available. StemGenex has developed a multiple administration protocol for patients suffering from Parkinsons disease which includes targeted methods of stem cell delivery. Among these methods is a novel approach for delivering stem cells past the blood brain barrier an issue most stem cell treatments have been challenged by.

Principal Investigator Dr. Jeremiah McDole, Ph.D. stated, As is the case with most neurodegenerative conditions, there are few available drugs to treat Parkinsons disease. The handful of drugs that are available can only ameliorate symptoms and unfortunately, prolonged usage can create terrible side-effects. Further, these drugs do not halt disease progression or aid in the repair of established damage. Our goal is to provide regenerative medicine applications that address these critical issues. The study we are conducting is designed to provide us with a large amount of rigorously collected data so that we can better understand the clinical benefit of Parkinsons patients treated with stem cells.

This study is registered through The National Institutes of Health which can be found at http://www.clinicaltrials.gov and is being conducted under IRB approval. According to StemGenex Director of Patient Advocacy, Joe Perricone, It is important patients have access to top-tier stem cell therapy. By providing access to registered clinical studies through The National Institutes of Health, we are providing patients with the ability to choose a stem cell treatment center with the highest standard of care.

Rita Alexander, founder and president of StemGenex stated, Parkinson's disease affects a very small part of the brain but anyone suffering with this disease understands the negative impact on his or her life is very big, actually, enormous. Over the last several years we have observed significant improvement in the symptoms of Parkinsons patients through stem cell treatment. We are determined to be part of the solution and are eager to document and publish our findings in the next few years.

Stem cell treatment studies are currently being offered by StemGenex to patients diagnosed with Parkinsons disease and other degenerative neurological diseases. StemGenex takes a unique approach of compassion and empowerment while providing access to the latest stem cell therapies for degenerative neurological diseases including Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimers disease, stroke recovery and others.

To find out more about stem cell therapy, contact StemGenex either by phone at (800) 609-7795 or email Contact(at)stemgenex(dot)com.

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Could age of first period influence development of diseases in older women?

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

24-Jul-2014

Contact: Jennifer Davis jdavis@hsl.harvard.edu 617-363-8282 Hebrew SeniorLife Institute for Aging Research

BOSTONA novel study shows that the age girls reach puberty is influenced by 'imprinted genes'a subset of genes whose activity differs depending on which parent contributes the gene. This is the first evidence that imprinted genes can control the rate of development after birth and details of this study were published today in the journal Nature.

Age of the first period, known as menarche, is a marker for the timing of puberty in females. Medical evidence shows that the onset of menses varies between girls, is an inherited trait, and is linked to breast cancer, diabetes and heart disease risks. "This research is the first step in understanding the genetics involved with the onset of puberty in girls," says Douglas P. Kiel, M.D., M.P.H., Director of the Musculoskeletal Research Center at Harvard Medical Schoolaffiliated Hebrew SeniorLife Institute for Aging Research (IFAR) in Boston, Mass. "By uncovering which genes influence menarche, we can then focus on its link to increased disease risks, such as osteoporosis or diabetes, in later life."

The findings come from an international study of more than 180,000 women involving scientists from 166 institutions around the globe. The researchers identified 123 genetic variations that were associated with the timing of when girls experienced their first menstrual cycle by analyzing the DNA of 182,416 women of European descent from 57 studies. Six of these variants were found to be clustered within imprinted regions of the genome.

The activity of imprinted genes differs depending on which parent the gene is inherited from some genes are only active when inherited from the mother, others are only active when inherited from the father. Both types of imprinted genes were identified as determining puberty timing in girls, indicating a possible biological conflict between the parents over their child's rate of development. Further evidence for the parental imbalance in inheritance patterns was obtained by analyzing the association between these imprinted genes and timing of puberty in a study of over 35,000 women in Iceland, for whom detailed information on their family trees were available.

David Karasik, Ph.D., an associate scientist with Hebrew SeniorLife IFAR who also was involved with the study adds, "The genetics involved in female reproductive maturation is complex. Our findings extend knowledge of genetic influences that could contribute to the development of age-related conditions including menopause and osteoporosis.

###

About the Institute for Aging Research

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Humans Caused 322 Animal Extinctions in Past 500 Years

Our species caused 322 animal extinctions over the past 500 years, with two-thirds of those occurring in the last two centuries, according to a paper published in a special issue of the journal Science this week.

Many animals are threatened with human-caused extinction now, with researchers expressing particular concern over amphibian and invertebrate (creatures without a backbone) losses. Numbers of the latter group have nearly halved as our population doubled in size over the past 35 years.

Ecologists, zoologists and other scientists believe that, without urgent steps to stem the losses, we are facing global scale tipping points from which we may never look back or recover.

"Indeed, if current rates (of human population growth) were to continue unchecked, population size would be, by 2100, about 27 billion persons -- clearly an unthinkable and unsustainable option," co-author Rodolfo Dirzo, professor of environmental sciences at Stanford University, told Discovery News.

Dirzo and his colleagues call for "decreasing the per capita human footprint," by developing and implementing carbon-neutral technologies, producing food and goods more efficiently, consuming less and wasting less.

They also say it is essential that we ensure lower human population growth projections are the "ones that prevail."

Haldre Rogers and Josh Tewksbury, authors of another paper in the same issue, believe that, "animals do matter to people, but on balance, they matter less than food, jobs, energy, money, and development."

They continued, "As long as we continue to view animals in ecosystems as irrelevant to these basic demands, animals will lose."

Keeping animals alive and ecosystems healthy translate to big bucks on a global scale. Tewksbury, director of the Luc Hoffmann Institute of the World Wide Fund for Nature, pointed out that Southeast Asia's Mekong River Basin, through its fisheries, supports 60 million people. Rogers, a researcher in Rice University's Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, added that 73 percent of visitors to Namibia are nature-based tourists, with their money accounting for 14.2 percent of that nation's economic growth.

"Whale watching in Latin America alone generates over 275 million dollars a year," Tewksbury said. "Multiple studies have demonstrated how turtles are worth more alive than dead."

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Genetics company trades off profit for R&D investment

Latest NBR Member Subscriber winner John Monaghan from Eketahuna is NBR's latest winner of New Zealand's richest subscription prize, the all-new BMW 320i xDrive Touring valued at $83,800 Read More

Past Winner Stephen Tubbs is NBR's latest winner of New Zealand's richest subscription prize, a fabulous trip for two flying Business Class with Singapore Airlines and SilkAir to Cambodias newest ultimate "all-inclusive" luxury eco-resort Song Saa Private Island, valued at $59,000 Read More

Past Winner Matthew Horton (right) catching the keys to his new Peugeot 508 from NBR publisher Todd Scott (centre), with Sime Darby Automobiles divisional manager Simon Rose (left) Horton Media Chief Executive Matthew Horton is the lucky winner of NBRs latest subscription prize. Mr Horton won a Peugeot 508 worth $54,990, which brings the publications prize pool total to almost $500,000 since 1999.

Past Winner FMA chairman Simon Allen was the winner of NBR' s latest subscriber prize of a Luxury European Escape courtesy of Air NZ, flying Business Premier to London, with stopovers each way in either Hong Kong or Los Angeles, plus four weeks' accommodation staying at the Small Luxury Hotels of the World properties of his choice. So what did he do with this wonderful prize?

Past Winner Long-time NBR subscriber Peter Merton won a Mini Countryman Cooper S valued at $63,000 in NBR's latest subscriber competition, drawn on February 24, 2012.

Past Winner Congratulations to Justin and Janine Smith (owner-operators of the Oamaru New World) They won seven nights for two on board Seabourn Odyssey valued at $30,000 - Athens to Istanbul.

Past Winner Max and Christine Tarr of Max Tarr Electrical in Palmerston North, winners of the Ultimate NZ Experience valued at $40,000 Three nights for four people staying at each of these luxury NZ Lodges, Kauri Cliffs, The Farm at Cape Kidnappers and Matakauri Lodge in Queenstown. Max has been an NBR subscriber since Sept 1991

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Stem cell agency tightens ethics rules

Stem cell agency President C. Randal Mills (left) and Chairman of the Board Jonathan Thomas.

Responding to his predecessor's ethically controversial departure, the president and chief executive of California's stem cell agency said Thursday he is taking legal steps to minimize conflicts of interests with those who have business before the agency.

C. Randal Mills said he will not take a job with any company funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine for one year after he departs the agency. In addition, he also will not accept gifts or travel payments from any company, institution or person who gets agency funding.

Mills' action, announced at the agency's meeting in Millbrae, will be enforced with a legal agreement he will sign. His action comes less than a month after he replaced Alan Trounson as the agency chief. One week after his departure, CIRM-funded StemCells Inc. announced it had appointed Trounson to its board. StemCells Inc. had received an award of nearly $20 million from the agency to develop a therapy for Alzheimers disease.

While Trounson's appointment wasn't illegal, critics said it was unseemly for him to join a company that had received agency funding so soon after he left CIRM. An ethical controversy could harm the agency's chances of getting more funding from California voters, who gave the agency $3 billion with the passage of Proposition 71 in 2004.

Mills said the new rules apply only to himself, because of his central role at CIRM.

"This specifically addresses an issue where an individual in an organization has a disproportionate amount of power, and I want to make sure it's known that power will not be abused," Mills said.

Mills made the right decision, said Jeanne Loring, a CIRM-funded stem cell researcher at The Scripps Research Institute.

"There's a difference between what is legal and what is ethical," said Loring, who attended the meeting. "And he's going to be pushing the needle a lot more toward the ethical side without worrying whether he can get away with stuff."

John Simpson of Santa Monica-based Consumer Watchdog, who has often criticized CIRM for conflicts of interest, also praised the decision.

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A US Leader in Stem Cell Therapy – StemGenex – Video


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Experiments prove ‘stemness’ of individual immune memory cells

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

24-Jul-2014

Contact: Vera Siegler vera.siegler@tum.de 49-892-892-2731 Technische Universitaet Muenchen

This news release is available in German.

The immune system has evolved to recognize and respond to threats to health, and to provide life-long memory that prevents recurrent disease. A detailed understanding of the mechanism underlying immunologic memory, however, has remained elusive. Since 2001, various lines of research have converged to support the hypothesis that the persistence of immune memory arises from a reservoir of immune cells with stem-cell-like potential. Until now, there was no conclusive evidence, largely because experiments could only be carried out on populations of cells. This first strict test of the stem cell hypothesis of immune memory was based on mapping the fates of individual T cells and their descendants over several generations.

That experimental capability was developed through a long-term collaboration, focused on clinical cell processing and purification, between researchers based in Munich and Seattle. Since 2009, the groups of Prof. Dirk Busch at the Technische Universitt Mnchen (TUM) and Prof. Stanley Riddell at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have combined their technological and clinical expertise under the auspices of the TUM Institute for Advanced Study. The University of Heidelberg, the University of Dsseldorf, the Helmholtz Center Munich, the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), and the National Center for Infection Research (DZIF) also contributed to the present study.

Homing In On The "Stemness" of T Cells

After generating an immune response in laboratory animals, TUM researchers Patricia Graef and Veit Buchholz separated complex "killer" T cell populations enlisted to fight the immediate or recurring infection. Within these cell populations, they then identified subgroups and proceeded with a series of single-cell adoptive transfer experiments, in which the aftermath of immune responses could be analyzed in detail. Here the ability to identify and characterize the descendants of individual T cells through several generations was crucial.

The researchers first established that a high potential for expansion and differentiation in a defined subpopulation, called "central memory T cells," does not depend exclusively on any special source such as bone marrow, lymph nodes, or spleen. This supported but did not yet prove the idea that certain central memory T cells are, effectively, adult stem cells. Further experiments, using and comparing both memory T cells and so-called naive T cells that is, mature immune cells that have not yet encountered their antigen enabled the scientists to home in on stem-cell-like characteristics and eliminate other possible explanations.

Step by step, the results strengthened the case that the persistence of immune memory depends on the "stemness" of the subpopulation of T cells termed central memory T cells: Individual central memory T cells proved to be "multipotent," meaning that they can generate diverse types of offspring to fight an infection and to remember the antagonist. Further, these individual T cells self-renew into secondary memory T cells that are, again, multipotent at the single-cell level. And finally, individual descendants of secondary memory T cells are capable of fully restoring the capacity for a normal immune response.

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Experiments prove 'stemness' of individual immune memory cells

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Scientists 1 step closer to cell therapy for multiple …

Scientists at The New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) Research Institute are one step closer to creating a viable cell replacement therapy for multiple sclerosis from a patient's own cells.

For the first time, NYSCF scientists generated induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells lines from skin samples of patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis and further, they developed an accelerated protocol to induce these stem cells into becoming oligodendrocytes, the myelin-forming cells of the central nervous system implicated in multiple sclerosis and many other diseases.

Existing protocols for producing oligodendrocytes had taken almost half a year to produce, limiting the ability of researchers to conduct their research. This study has cut that time approximately in half, making the ability to utilize these cells in research much more feasible.

Stem cell lines and oligodendrocytes allow researchers to "turn back the clock" and observe how multiple sclerosis develops and progresses, potentially revealing the onset of the disease at a cellular level long before any symptoms are displayed. The improved protocol for deriving oligodendrocyte cells will also provide a platform for disease modeling, drug screening, and for replacing the damaged cells in the brain with healthy cells generated using this method.

"We are so close to finding new treatments and even cures for MS. The enhanced ability to derive the cells implicated in the disease will undoubtedly accelerate research for MS and many other diseases," said Susan L. Solomon, NYSCF Chief Executive Officer.

"We hope that this protocol will be helpful to the MS field and the larger scientific community to better understand human oligodendrocyte biology and the process of myelination. This is the first step towards very exciting studies: the ability to generate human oligodendrocytes in large amounts will serve as an unprecedented tool for developing remyelinating strategies and the study of patient-specific cells may shed light on intrinsic pathogenic mechanisms that lead to progressive MS". said Dr. Valentina Fossati, NYSCF Helmsley Investigator and senior author on the paper.

In multiple sclerosis, the protective covering of axons, called myelin, becomes damaged and lost. In this study, the scientists not only improved the protocol for making the myelin-forming cells but they showed that the oligodendrocytes derived from the skin of primary progressive patients are functional, and therefore able to form their own myelin when put into a mouse model. This is an initial step towards developing future autologous cell transplantation therapies in multiple sclerosis patients

This important advance opens up critical new avenues of research to study multiple sclerosis and other diseases. Oligodendrocytes are implicated in many different disorders, therefore this research not only moves multiple sclerosis research forward, it allows NYSCF and other scientists the ability to study all demyelinating and central nervous system disorders.

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, inflammatory, demyelinating disease of the central nervous system, distinguished by recurrent episodes of demyelination and the consequent neurological symptoms. Primary progressive multiple sclerosis is the most severe form of multiple sclerosis, characterized by a steady neurological decline from the onset of the disease. Currently, there are no effective treatments or cures for primary progressive multiple sclerosis and treatments relies merely on symptom management.

Explore further: 'Master switch' for myelination in human brain stem cells is identified

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11-year-olds critical need for a stem cell transplant

WATCH:An 11-year-old girl with a rare blood disease is in need of a stem cell transplant ideally from a match within the South Asian Community. Angie Seth reports.

Stem cell and bone marrow donations are critical for hundreds of people in Canada suffering from certain types of cancers or blood diseases.

Right now there are approximately 800 people on the transplant list. Among them is 11-year-old Cierra Singh.

Cierra has a rare blood disease calledMyelodysplastic Syndrome.

Mybone marrow and my bones are not producing enough healthy cells. So there are platelets and the white blood cells and the red blood cells. My mom tells me they are not working as well as they should work, Cierra tells Global News.

We had the opportunity to meet this incredible little girl who strives to give back to others in every which way.

Everyone says its a big deal, but I dont see it as a big deal. I just try to stay positive all the time, she says.

Cierra was diagnosed with the rare blood disease in April. A trip to Sick Kids hospital because of a swollen leg led doctors to discover Cierras immune system was not functioning properly.

Her Mothers fears paint a bleak picture.

If she were to get a fever of 38.5 and up we need to rush her into emergency within the hour . The risk of infectious diseases is very high so they need to pump her body with antibiotics because she wont be able to fight it. The only cure for Myelodysplastic Syndrome is a stem cell transplant, there is no other option, KiranBenet, Cierras Mom says.

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11-year-olds critical need for a stem cell transplant

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