Archive for April, 2017

Middle-aged men jonesing for a boost in vitality are turning to steroids in increasing numbers, say researchers and health professionals. Men in their 40s, 50s even 60s and 70s are turning to hormones to fight the effects of aging, including weight gain and decreased libido, according to The Guardian.

Joseph Kean, a visiting research fellow at Liverpool John Moores University, said that usage has doubled in the number of men 50 and over in the past five years. He told The Guardian, Guys are saying they just want to stand a bit taller and feel they can stand alongside the younger generation who are much more aware of how they look."

But the vision of a buffer, more energized you comes with caveats including the potential for worsening sleep apnea, heart disease, blood clots, and prostate complications.

Testosterone levels decline early on, starting at around age 30. This drop can lead to any number of unwanted side effects and problems, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Institutes of Health. Low-T as it is often referred to, is responsible for much more than just weight gain and decreased sex drive. It is correlated with insulin resistance, low muscle strength and development even poor cognitive function. So it's a given that men would want to head off this decline and preserve their vigor for as long as possible.

We have come across a lot of older men using [steroids]. Its almost like hormone replacement therapy [for menopause relief] for females. Steroids can help you lose body fat as well, Julien Baker, an applied physiology professor at the University of the West of Scotland, told The Guardian. The evidence isnt there about what the long-term impact is yet. We are not sure what these drugs are doing to you at that age, but everyone perceives it as safe.

Magazines geared toward rejuvenation through hormone replacement have sprung up, as have clinics that promote testosterone replacement therapy in the United States and abroad.

The Juice Clinic in Sheffield, England, is one such service for people using steroids and image-enhancing drugs. Sid Wiffen, the clinic's team leader, told The Guardian he has noted an increase in older men asking for help. Steroid use for older men is often about the youthful effects, and about body image and energy levels. I hear talk of men feeling more pressure now to look good, so they are more likely to go to the gym and dress well," he said. It can be dangerous, and it does worry me. Lots of people we see are keen to make an informed decision about their steroid use, but some get information elsewhere and its not always good.

That elsewhere includes the internet of course, where misinformation on the topic flourishes. The healthier, safer route by far is to seek the advice of a physician and get a prescription.

Steroids, officially known as anabolic-androgenic steroids, were first developed for medical use in wasting conditions. Their possession or sale without a prescription is illegal in the United States, though some people are able to get them online or in gyms. Some countries permit legal possession, including the U.K., though it is illegal to supply them there. Steroids come in pill form, injectables (intramuscular), and topical gels.

Baker said while there could be some benefits for older men, the risks should be well understood. Introducing something your body stopped producing naturally may lead to repercussions or have health implications, he said. Theres not enough research out there to look at that. Someone taking steroids at 50 its not clear what might happen to them in the future.

Once users discontinue the use of steroids, many report withdrawal symptoms such as low mood and anxiety, something men should keep in mind as well.

2017 NewsmaxHealth. All rights reserved.

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Boost in Steroid Use Among Older Men - Newsmax

For decades, research singled out saturated fat and cholesterol as the prime dietary villains in heart disease. Following a report that the sugar industry quietly funded much of that research, sugar has found itself in the spotlight.

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Sugar has deleterious effects on the heart, and its important to be aware of them, notes Haitham Ahmed, MD. It has a negative impact on your lipids, your weight and your risk of diabetes. And it provides calories with no nutritional benefits.

Heres a breakdown of sugars impact on lipids, the substances in your blood that contribute to heart disease:

Sugars impact extends beyond the bloodstream. When you eat sugar, your blood glucose levels quickly rise. This causes an immediate spike in insulin, the fat storage hormone. The more sugar you eat, the more insulin you secrete, and the more fat you build up.

When you have more fat, you become more resistant to insulin. So you secrete more insulin, which leads to more fat storage, explains Dr. Ahmed. This vicious cycle results in prediabetes and diabetes, weight gain, and metabolic syndrome.

Over the past 20 years in developed and developing countries, weight has gone up, along with the incidence of obesity and diabetes.

In the 90s, the bottom layer of the food pyramid was all cereals, bread and pastas. Those were the foods we were supposed to eat more of and collectively, as a society, we gained a tremendous amount of weight, says Dr. Ahmed.

Because low-fat foods were supposed to be heart-healthier, manufacturers added sugars such as high-fructose corn syrup to make their products more appealing.

In 2015, recognizing that sugar has become a problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration revised its dietary guidelines. Now, it says added sugars should make up no more than 10 percent of our total calories. And at least half of our complex carbohydrates should come from whole grains.

The sugar in fresh fruit is packaged with beneficial fiber, vitamins and minerals. Many large studies, including a 2016 study of 500,000 Chinese adults, show that fresh fruit consumption lowers blood sugar, and the risk of death from heart disease and stroke.

A half-cup of orange juice and an orange may each have 20 grams of carbohydrate, says Dr. Ahmed. The juice is absorbed right away, spiking your blood sugar so that your pancreas wants to rapidly secrete insulin. But the fibers in the orange delay its absorption, so your blood sugar doesnt spike as much.

Foods with a low glycemic index like fresh fruits and veggies, and whole grains help to stabilize blood sugar. Foods with a high glycemic index like punch, pizza, potatoes and pancakes spike blood sugar, inviting insulin resistance and weight gain.

Dietary studies have produced conflicting data. But one diet has proven over and over again in large scale, high-quality, randomized, controlled trials to significantly lower the risk of heart disease and to help people live longer with less dementia.

Thats the Mediterranean diet.

Focusing on healthier fat sources like fish, nuts and olive oil, the diet is heavy on veggies, beans and legumes, favors white meat over red, and includes low-fat dairy. And, needless to say, sugary desserts are scarce.

Its not really a diet, its more a style of eating, says Dr. Ahmed. Its easy, anyone can do it, and youre not starving yourself or limiting calories. So its sustainable. And its filled with stuff we all love to eat.

All the data show that crash diets can be effective in the short term. But people quickly regain those lost pounds and, over time, put on even more weight, he says.

None of which is good for your heart.

If sugar can harm your heart, are artificial sweeteners the answer for a sweet tooth?

Im not a fan of artificial sweeteners. Lots of studies show that diet beverages dont help people lose weight, says Dr. Ahmed. And drinking more than two artificially sweetened beverages a day may increase your risk of heart disease.

Researchers have a few theories about this, he explains:

Neither artificial sweeteners nor sugar are a good idea for most people, says Dr. Ahmed. If you want to quench your thirst, its best to drink unsweetened seltzer or water. The only time an artificially sweetened beverage is better is when you have diabetes and have to prevent blood sugar spikes.

More here:
Why a Sweet Tooth Spells Trouble for Your Heart - Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic (blog)

It is not uncommon for pet owners to feel nervous about visits to the veterinary clinic if their pet has experienced fear during a previous visit.

It is important people remain compassionate toward fearful or fear-based aggressive animals so we can better enable them reduce their anxiety and learn that certain stimuli are not scary.

First, we must understand that fear behaviors have a stimulus, a physiological change within the pet and a behavioral change that is outwardly expressed.

Second, we need to imagine entering the veterinary clinic from the animals point of view.

While many pets enjoy car rides, not all do, so they may be feeling anxiety just from the car trip.

Once they enter the clinic there are many other sights, sounds, smells and memories that lead to fear. There may be a big dog sitting across from them, or a vocal cat or an unusual smell.

Once in the exam room, we must observe their nonverbal communication and adjust our approach accordingly.

Our ultimate goal is to reduce physiological changes to stressful stimuli so that the pets mental state is in a place where they can learn the situation is not scary.

Our pets have very subtle ways of communicating fear with us prior to cowering, growling, barking or biting. Signs of nervousness include lip licking, whale eye (when the pet looks to the side and the whites of the eye are visible), pacing, panting, scratching when there is no itch, and yawning.

These are called displacement behaviors, and are used to signal to the fear-inducing situation that the animal is nervous and wants to engage, but is not feeling confident in doing so.

Our goal in the exam room is to help your pet feel safe and secure so its brain can learn that the situation is not scary.

Ways to overcome this are with high-value treats, praise and rewarding confident behavior. We should never punish displacement behaviors growling, cowering, barking, or biting.

Punishment may teach the dog not to display these signals and could lead to bites without warning. We also need to make sure that we are not reinforcing fearful behavior. Our goals are to desensitize and counter-condition their responses to fearful stimuli.

Behavioral managements for pets with fear-based aggression will need to be further individualized because the bite risk is higher.

With patients with a known bite history, their safety as well as the safety of our staff are of utmost priority.

For animals with fear-based aggression, certain medications may be prescribed prior to visits to help the dog cope with stress.

It may take months or years to rehabilitate a fear-based aggressive dog. In some cases, it may be even be challenging to hospitalize or board these patients because of the stress it can cause them, which could in turn delay healing.

This type of stressful event may actually undo progress that has been made to help them feel less stressed in the exam room.

It is not uncommon for us to recommend delay-boarding them because of the risk of undoing progress in their rehabilitation.

There are also many ways we try to reduce stress in the exam room. One of the ways we attempt to help cats is by using a quieter, calm tone of voice; Feliway feline-appeasing hormone spray on towels; and restraint techniques that make them feel safe.

A stress response is very common for indoor-only cats because they are not exposed to new environments as frequently as outdoor or indoor/outdoor cats.

Often, just the carrier and car ride can make cats feel stressed! It is important to expose them to the carrier in nonstressful settings so they become more accustomed to it.

Even taking joy rides can help.

As most dog owners know, canines can be very sensitive to our feelings and stress levels. I recommend owners also take deep breaths and relax on the way to the clinic and in the exam room, because this helps reduce stress in their pets.

We recommend dogs come into the clinic on an empty stomach so we can feed them treats brought in by the owner or ones we keep in the exam room as counter-conditioning. We then tailor our restraint techniques based on the dogs body language, displacement behaviors and stress level. Some dogs are even scared of the white coat, so I sometimes choose not to wear one.

It is important to remember that stress and fear can be managed with compassion, diligence, counter-conditioning and, in some cases, medication. We do not want to ignore our loved ones communication with us.

Danielle Carey, DVM, is an associate veterinarian who practices mixed-animal veterinary medicine at the Animal Clinic of Walla Walla. Contact her at 509-525-6111.

Image: Priority Pet Clinic via Flickr; unedited

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VET VIEWS: Understanding your pets' fear in the veterinary clinic - Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

An LGBT lobby group in Sweden has been mocked for producing an unnecessarily explicit and overtly PC sexual rights pamphlet aimed at gay and transgender asylum seekers.

The graphic 32-page booklet published by the non-profit RFSL group, the Swedish Federation for LGBTQ Rights contains a series of cartoons depicting people of differing skin tones having solo sex, three-way sex, gay sex and one picture of a wheelchair-bound man having sex with a transexual man.

One of the men who crops up in several of the cartoons is particularly hairy, for some reason, while there are also various pictures of sex toys. The pamphlets language is blunt, using a variety of coarse slang terms for sex acts and organs which some may consider questionable.

Titled Sexual Health and Rights in Sweden and listed on the groups website since March 2, the pamphlets introduction reads: This brochure is a guide for you who are newly arrived in Sweden and identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or queer (lgbtq)In Sweden, anyone who is 15 years old or older can agree to have sex. This is called consenting to sexual acts. There is no law against same sex sexual practisesAs an asylum seeker or undocumented migrant, you can get emergency healthcare.

Among the bizarre sex cartoons it also offers this advice to trans asylum seekers:

If you are trans you can get medical help transitioning into a body that suits your gender identity. You can also change your legal gender. To get trans healthcare you often need to visit a healthcare centre and ask for a referral to a gender clinic. There are six clinics in Sweden. Stockholm and Lund have youth clinics that treat people above the age of 16. Some transgender persons want hormone treatment. Some also want chest surgery, genital surgery and hair removal. Most of these services, like surgery and hormone treatment, cost no more than any other doctors visit.

Many have been withering about the pamphlet. One observer, calling himself Sargon of Akkad, wrote simply: So tolerant, so diverse.

More:
Swedish LGBT Lobby Group Publishes Bizarre Sex Brochure for Trans Asylum Seekers - Heat Street

A stem cell treatment for heart failure patients is safe and shows early signs of effectiveness, according to a study published Wednesday.

The study was conducted by Japanese researchers in 27 patients, who received transplants of stem cells taken from their own thigh muscles. There were no major complications, and most patients showed considerable improvement in their symptoms.

The study was published in the open-access Journal of the American Heart Association. Dr Yoshiki Sawa of Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine was the senior author. It can be found at j.mp/stemheart.

However, two San Diego cardiologists who do stem cell research on heart disease cautioned that similar clinical trials have shown promise over the years, only to fail at the end for various reasons. There is no approved stem cell therapy for heart failure.

So while the trial itself appears to be well-conducted, the researchers are very far from actually proving their treatment is effective, said Dr. Richard Schatz of Scripps Health and Dr. Eric Adler of UC San Diego School of Medicine.

For one thing, the trial was small, they said, and larger trials are where the most rigorous scientific evaluations are made.

These early trials have looked beneficial in the past, Adler said. When we do the larger trials, the results are more equivocal.

Adler said the signs of efficacy in this trial are modest. For example, the change in ejection fraction, a measurement of efficiency in pumping blood, rose from 27 percent to 30 percent in 15 of the 27 patients. Their heart failure was associated with a lack of blood flow, or ischemia. The remaining non-ischemic patients actually had a slight decline.

The entire field of stem cell and regenerative therapy for heart disease has been a disappointment to date, Schatz said.

Weve been at it for 20 years now, and we dont have a product or a positive (late-stage) trial, so that tells you pretty much everything you need to know, he said. Its not for lack of trying or billions of dollars invested. Its just very, very difficult.

The cardiac field has had more success with other technologies, such as cardiac stents. Schatz is the co-inventor of the first stent.

In the study, the researchers acknowledge that previous attempts had only been modestly effective. They devised a method of producing sheets of muscle stem cells and attaching them to the inner layer of the sac that encloses the heart, a layer that rests directly on the heart surface.

The stem cell sheets stimulate healing by producing chemicals that stimulate cardiac regeneration, the study said. The cells themselves dont survive in the long term, but by the time they die they have served their purpose.

Loss of function

Heart failure is a progressive disease in which the heart gradually loses its ability to pump blood. This can be triggered by a heart attack or any other cause that damages the heart muscle.

When damaged heart muscle is replaced with scar tissue, as often happens, the heart loses pumping capacity. It becomes overstressed, and its output of blood declines. This limits the patients ability to engage in intensive physical activity. In advanced cases, patients may become bedridden.

Existing treatments include drugs and LVAD units, which take over some of the hearts function to relieve stress. Some drugs may help the heart work more efficiently, but none have been shown to improve heart failure by actually regenerating lost heart muscle.

Stem cell therapy is tested in patients who havent responded well to other treatments. Trials have been and are being conducted in San Diego area hospitals.

Scripps Health has been testing a cardiac stem cell therapy from Los Angeles-based Capricor. The cells, taken from donor hearts, are injected into the coronary artery, where they are expected to settle in the heart and encourage regrowth.

UC San Diego is testing a heart failure therapy from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. It consists of bone marrow derived mesenchymal precursor cells. These can give rise to several different cell types, including muscle cells.

And many other trials are going on throughout the country and internationally.

Adler and Schatz said theres reason for optimism in the long run, as technologies improve.

Just because the other trials have been negative doesnt mean this technique wont be beneficial, Adler said. Its just too early to tell.

That said, Schatz emphasized that the nature of the three-phase clinical trial process means that the show-stoppers for a treatment typically appear late.

Tighter standards needed

Clean trials trials where we all agree that this is the patient population we want to look at, are needed, he said.

For example, heart failure comes in two types, he said. Ischemic heart failure is caused by heart attacks and blocked arteries, which impede blood flow. Non-ischemic heart failure can be caused by damage from diseases, such as a virus.

Non-ischemics can be younger people, in their 20s and 30s, while the ischemic patients are older. Mixing those patient groups in a single trial is a mistake, he said.

Theyre different animals, Schatz said.

Another pitfall is failing to screen carefully enough to enroll only patients likely to benefit, Schatz said.

You can have a patient who has chest pain, and coronary disease just incidentally, he said.

His shoulder or chest pain is from a virus. So he goes into the trial and gets a placebo injection in his arm of cortisone, and his arm pain goes away. And because hes in that placebo group, hes counted as a success the pain went away. It has nothing to do with his heart. Thats an extreme example, but we actually saw that happen.

In a failed gene therapy trial for heart disease, some patients apparently had received the injection in the wrong location, missing the heart muscle, Schatz said.

You assume they got the gene, but they didnt, Schatz said. The study was negative, and thats why I think it was negative.

Such errors dont show up in Phase 1 trials, Adler and Schatz said, because theyre focused on evaluating safety. And these early trials dont have many patients, there arent enough to comfortably determine the therapy is really effective.

By the last stage of the trial, these sources of error have often been identified and trial standards have tightened up. And thats when the faulty assumptions made early appear as the trial ends in failure.

Despite those forbidding hurdles, Adler said research should continue.

This disease is killing a lot of people. Theres not going to be enough hearts to go around for transplant. Theres six million Americans with heart failure, and theres 2,000 heart transplants a year. So coming up with novel regenerative cell-based therapy is something were still excited about.

bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1020

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Study: heart failure stem cell therapy safe, shows early signs of effectiveness - The San Diego Union-Tribune

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Its tough being a kid, when No seems to be the primary component in an adults vocabulary. Dont jump on the bed, Dont touch the hot pan, and, my personal favorite as a parent, No, you may not color your sister with permanent markers.

Being a young, developmentally impressionable cell is also no picnic. How to choose what developmental path to follow? Should it become a nerve cell, a skin cell, a muscle cell? Now stem cell researcher Marius Wernig, MD, along with postdoctoral scholarMoritz Mall, PhD, and former postdoctoral scholar Michael Kareta, PhD,have shown that young would-be neural cells also live in a culture of no in the form of a powerful repressor protein called Myt1l that actively blocks all other cell fates including skin, heart, lung and liver.

They published their results yesterday in Nature.

As I explained in our release:

The study marks the first identification of a near-global repressor that works to block many cell fates but one. It also suggests the possibility of a network of as-yet-unidentified master regulators specific to each cell type in the body.

Myt1l works in conjunction with another protein that channels the developing cell into the neural cell fate by encouraging the expression of nerve-specific genes. Wernig explained:

Together, these proteins work as a perfect team to funnel a developing cell, or a cell that is being reprogrammed, into the desired cell fate Its a beautiful scenario that both blocks the fibroblast program and promotes the neuronal program. My gut feeling would be that there are many more master repressors like Myt1l to be found for specific cell types, each of which would block all but one cell fate.

Blocking Myt1l expression even in adult neural cells can cause them to lose their way, the researchers found. They begin to express non-neuronal genes and become less efficient at transmitting nerve signals.Because Myt1l has been found to be mutated in some cases of autism, schizophrenia and major depression, theresearch may one day offer new therapeutic avenues for affected people.

Wernig is a member of StanfordsInstitute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.

Previously: Bridging the stem-cell gap: Stanford researchers identify unique transition state,Its not just science fiction anymore: Childx speakers talk stem cell and gene therapyandCongratulations to Marius Wernig, named Outstanding Young Investigator by stem cell society Image by Gemma Evans

Go here to read the rest:
No means no in stem cell fates, say Stanford researchers - Scope (blog)

Using 3D tissues generated from stem cells, scientists in Germany were able to gain insights into a hereditary disorder which affects parts of brain.

Scientists have grown 3D mini-brains from stem cells and used them to better understand how a rare congenital brain defect develops.

A new method could push research into developmental brain disorders an important step forward, researchers said. Scientists at the University of Bonn in Germany converted skin cells from patients into induced pluripotent stem cells.

From these jack-of-all-trades cells, they generated brain organoids small 3D tissues which resemble the structure and organisation of the developing human brain.

Investigations into human brain development using human cells in the culture dish have so far been very limited: the cells in the dish grow flat, so they do not display any three-dimensional structure.

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Model organisms are available as an alternative, such as mice. The human brain has, however, a much more complex structure. Developmental disorders of the human brain can thus only be resembled to a limited degree in the animal model.

Scientists at the University of Bonn applied a recent development in stem cell research to tackle this limitation: they grew 3D organoids in the cell culture dish, the structure of which is incredibly similar to that of the human brain.

These mini brains offer insight into the processes with which individual nerve cells organise themselves into our highly complex tissues. In their work, the scientists investigated the Miller-Dieker syndrome a hereditary disorder is attributed to a chromosome defect. As a consequence, patients present malformations of important parts of their brain.

In patients, the surface of the brain is hardly grooved but instead more or less smooth, said Vira Iefremova, from University of Bonn. The researchers produced induced pluripotent stem cells from skin cells of Miller-Dieker patients, from which they then grew brain organoids.

In organoids, the brain cells organise themselves very similar to the process in the brain of an embryo: the stem cells divide; a proportion of the daughter cells develops into nerve cells; these move to wherever they are needed.

In organoids, the brain cells organise themselves very similar to the process in the brain of an embryo. (Shutterstock)

These processes resemble a complicated orchestral piece in which the genetic material waves the baton. In Miller-Dieker patients, this process is fundamentally disrupted.

We were able to show that the stem cells divide differently in these patients, said Philipp Koch, associate professor from the University of Bonn. In healthy people, the stem cells initially extensively multiply and form organised, densely packed layers. Only a small proportion of them becomes differentiated and develops into nerve cells, said Koch, who led the study.

Certain proteins are responsible for the dense and even packing of the stem cells. The formation of these molecules is disrupted in Miller-Dieker patients.

The stem cells are thus not so tightly packed and, at the same time, do not have such a regular arrangement. This poor organisation leads, among other things, to the stem cells becoming differentiated at an earlier stage.

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3D 'mini-brains' help understand rare developmental disorders - Hindustan Times

Distinct growth factors promote the survival of specific types of motor neurons in the spinal cord, according to a study led by Georg Haase, of Aix-Marseille University in Marseille, France. The results suggest that these factors may work together to provide trophic support to motor neurons in the CNS and therefore, a combination of them may be needed to protect motor neurons damaged by disease.

Growth factors have always been tantalizingly attractive in ALS, said Nicholas Boulis of Emory University Medical School, who was not involved in the study. But the problem is, there has been a failure of growth factors to perform [in the clinic]. This study provides tangible evidence that you may be able to get a bigger effect by combining growth factors.

The study appeared on March 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Neurotrophic Factors in ALS: The power of two+

Sorting out ALS. George Haases team at Aix-Marseille University in France used a FACS-based method to identify NTFs needed to protect distinct classes of motor neurons in the developing lumbar spinal cord. Now, the researchers are adapting this method to determine which of these substances may be needed to protect adult motor neurons, including those affected by ALS. The results may help clinicians develop neuroprotective treatment strategies tailored for the disease. [Courtesy of Schaller et al., 2017, PNAS]

Researchers first turned to neurotrophic factors (NTFs) in the early 1990s as a potential therapy for ALS in hopes to promote the survival of motor neurons damaged by the disease. But initial therapies proved ineffective in part due to delivery challenges (see Rogers, 2014).

In more recent years, neuroscientists discovered that many of these growth factors may work together to provide trophic support for motor neurons and promote their survival at least in the developing spinal cord (see Gould and Enomoto, 2009). But how these substances orchestrate this process remains an open question.

A growing number of researchers suspect that there may be distinct classes of motor neurons that are protected by distinct NTFs during development. To test this hypothesis, Haases team at Aix-Marseille University in France isolated motor neurons from the developing lumbar spinal cord in the mouse and determined which growth factors supported them.

To carry out this analysis, first author Sbastien Schaller and colleagues dissected out lumbar spinal cords at day E12 and suspended the tissue. Then, they used fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) to isolate the motor neurons, cultured them and exposed them to combinations of neurotrophic substances.

The technique enabled motor neurons to be specifically captured from embryos by using Hb9:GFP mice, originally developed by Columbia Universitys Thomas Jessell in New York, which express GFP in motor neurons in the developing central nervous system.

100% of the cells expressed the motor neuronal markers ChAT and SMI 32, and none expressed interneuronal markers, indicating the exquisite purity of the isolated cells, said Haase. That, combined with the methods speed and degree of automation, make FACS-derived motor neurons a promising platform for future studies, he said, including screening for potential ALS therapies.

A combinatorial approach? Beginning in the early 1990s, researchers developed potential neuroprotective therapies for ALS that delivered single neurotrophic substances. But according to a new study, multiple NTFs may be needed to promote the survival of motor neurons affected by the disease. [Courtesy of Schaller et al., 2017, PNAS]

Next, the team exposed motor neurons to 12 different neurotrophic factors (BDNF, NT3, GDNF, neurturin, artemin, persephin, CNTF, CT1, LIF, HGF, IGF1, and VEGF), alone or in combination. Individually, all NTFs promoted neuronal survival after 3 days in culture, with GDNF being the most effective (43%). HGF, however, protected only about 20% of motor neurons in culture. But when HGF, CNTF and artemin were combined, motor neuron survival reached nearly 50%.

The effects were additive, explained Haase. That suggested to us that each [of these growth factors] were supporting a subset of motor neurons.

To test that hypothesis, the researchers used subtype cell surface-specific antibodies to label three major subsets of motor neurons from the lumbar spinal cordthe medial motor column, which innervate axial muscles, the lateral motor column, which innervate limb muscles, and preganglionic, which synapse with downstream neurons of the autonomic motor system. They then used FACS to separate each subtype, and exposed them to HGF, CNTF or artemin.

They found that each of these NTFs promoted the survival of distinct classes of motor neurons in the lumbar spinal cord. For example, HGF preferentially supported survival of motor neurons in the lateral motor column neurons, key motor neurons affected by ALS.

The effects were mediated by distinct neurotrophic factor receptors decorating the surface of each type of motor neuron, explained Haase. When we blocked the HGF receptor, we completely blocked the survival effect of HGF. That means these motor neurons depend on this particular factor for their survival.

Additional analysis indicated that CNTF and artemin protected other types of motor neurons located elsewhere in the spinal cord.

Lateral thinking. HGF promotes the survival of motor neurons that innervate the limbs through a c-Met-mediated mechanism at least in the developing spinal cord (Schaller et al., 2017). The neurotrophic substance is the basis of Viromeds VM202, a gene therapy-based strategy now being evaluated at the phase 1/2 stage (Sufit et al., 2017). [Image: Emw, Wikimedia Commons.]

Together, the findings suggest that these substances provide trophic support and promote the survival of specific types of motor neurons in the developing spinal cord.

This is a very high-quality paper that helps clarify the field, said Clive Svendsen of Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, California. Until now, it was not clear that distinct subsets of motor neurons may respond to their own subsets of growth factors.

Motor neurons that could potentially include those that descend from the brainstem, and those involved in breathing, also affected by the disease.

The results suggest that combining growth factors may offer more therapeutic benefit than single factors in ALS according to Nicholas Boulis.

Svendsen agreed. This is suggesting that for therapies, if you want to protect motor neurons, you may have to expand to include multiple growth factors, Svendsen said. However, he noted, and as confirmed in this study, GDNF by itself is still perhaps the most powerful all-around survival factor for motor neurons.

Svendsen is now developing a potential therapy for ALS that uses genetically engineered neural stem cells to deliver GDNF to the spinal cord. The Phase 1 clinical trial is soon to be launched (see October 2016 news).

Neuroprotective therapies: the next generation?

The next big question, which this paper leaves open, according to Svendsen is whether the growth factors identified in this study protect motor neurons in the adult nervous system.

Haase agreed. This is a critical question, and we are adapting our method to look at this now.

A stem cell-based approach? Haases team previously developed a FACS-based technique to isolate reprogrammed motor neurons generated from human iPS cells (Toli et al., 2015). The approach could be used to identify key neurotrophic substances that promote the survival of patient-derived motor neurons. [Image: Reprogrammed sALS motor neuron, Alves et al., 2015. CC BY 4.0].

Some neural circuits change drastically during adulthood, while others stay pretty much the same, so weve got to do the experiments to find out, explained Svendsen. But I will probably be trying HGF soon in my own experiments.

In the meantime, said Haase, it is important to keep in mind that the growth factors found to be less effective in this study should not be ruled out as potential therapies. They may act sequentially during development, or may require co-factors to exert their effect which were not present in our growth medium, he said.

It is also important to keep in mind that this study did not evaluate the ability of any of these substances to regenerate axons, a key goal in terms of developing therapies for ALS and other motor neuron diseases including SMA.

The challenges of delivery, which have stymied the field to date, remain paramount, Haase also noted. Gene delivery approaches with adeno-associated vectors have been studied for single growth factors, but if several are needed, a larger-capacity vector, such as lentivirus, may be required, according to Boulis. Multiple rounds of ex vivo gene therapy to equip stem cells with multiple growth factor genes, would be another option, followed by surgical implantation of the modified cells.

Further exploration in in vivo models and patient-derived iPS cells are an important next step to determine which combination of these substances could be of the most benefit, added Boulis.

But despite these challenges, Boulis agrees this approach is worth considering. As a surgeon who does translational work on the application of growth factors to ALS, this may be an Aha! moment, said Boulis.

Reference

Schaller S, Buttigieg D, Alory A, Jacquier A, Barad M, Merchant M, Gentien D, de la Grange P, Haase G. Novel combinatorial screening identifies neurotrophic factors for selective classes of motor neurons. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Mar 21;114(12):E2486-E2493. [PubMed].

Toli D, Buttigieg D, Blanchard S, Lemonnier T, Lamotte dIncamps B, Bellouze S, Baillat G, Bohl D, Haase G.Modeling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in pure human iPSc-derived motor neurons isolated by a novel FACS double selection technique. Neurobiol Dis. 2015 Oct;82:269-80. [PubMed].

Further Reading

Rogers, ML. Neurotrophic Therapy for ALS/MND. New York: Springer New York; c2014. p. 1755-85. (Kostrzewa RM, editor. Handbook of Neurotoxicity.)

Gould TW, Enomoto H. Neurotrophic modulation of motor neuron development. Neuroscientist. 2009 Feb;15(1):105-16. [PubMed].

disease-als gdnf HGF neuroprotection neurotrophic factor topic-clinical topic-randd VEGF

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Neurotrophic factors in ALS: a winning combination? - ALS Research Forum

When Philip Rhoades' parents died he put their brains on ice. Journalist SHERELE MOODY finds out what he plans to do with his own body after death.

IN an ideal world, Philip Rhoades will die peacefully and pain-free, his body will be put on ice and he will be brought back to life in a time when illness does not exist and people live forever.

And when he does come back, the cryonics expert will have his deceased mum and dad for company.

After Gerald and Dorothy Rhoades died in May of 2016, Philip placed their brains in a commercial cryogenic facility - the kind that stores animal semen for artificial insemination and human eggs for IVF.

Philip froze his parents' brains because it only costs about $35,000 to keep each organ for perpetuity compared to $200,000 each to have their bodies frozen, transported and stored in cryonics facilities overseas.

"The key thing is being able to download the information in the brain," Philip said of keeping his mum and dad's neurological remains on ice.

"In the case of a neural archive, we're not concerned about reviving the body's cells, we're concerned with the neural architecture that has the information in it.

"It's likely that we will be able to in the next 10 or 20 years be able to extract that information with high-resolution brain scans.

"We'd then dump the information into a super computer."

When a cryonics candidate dies, a team of medical experts prepares them for transport to a storage facility by stabilising their body, packing it with ice, lacing the blood with an anti-coagulant and feeding oxygen to the brain.

When the body arrives at its final destination the blood is drained and the water in the cells is replaced by a liquid "anti-freeze" that ensures the organs and tissues do not shatter when ice crystals form during the freezing process.

The body is then cooled by dry ice to minus 130 degrees before being placed in a protective body bag and lowered, head first, into a metal tank filled with liquid nitrogen that is kept at minus 196 degrees.

Bodies are stored upside down to ensure the brains are the last thing to thaw if the tank leaks.

While Philip could only afford to freeze his parents' brains, he hopes to have his entire body put on ice for re-animation "as soon as possible" but he acknowledged he could be waiting around for quite a while.

"Trying to revive a whole human being is a difficult operation," he said of the process that some scientists say won't work because of the damage extreme temperatures cause to human cells.

"If you're getting a cryonic suspension then the intention is that modern scientific technology will allow the body to be thawed out, completely revived and rejuvenated so you look like you're 25 and you feel like you're 25 again.

"Life is too short - it shouldn't be three score and 10 years, it should be thousands of years."

Philip hopes he does not get Alzheimer's disease like his father had in the years before he died.

If he does end up with the same illness, Philip is considering what he calls "pre-mortal suspension" before the dementia renders him unable to make his own decisions.

His plan is to end his own life while connected to machinery that will prepare his body for the cryonics process.

Philip is currently working on a way to remove the need for human intervention when he dies and the process of initiating the cryonic state because of the potential legal implications for anyone seen to be assisting in his death.

"It will involve technology that will drain my blood, undertake the automatic perfusion and all of that," Philip said.

- ARM NEWSDESK

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Brains on ice: The Aussie man planning to live forever - Warwick Daily News

New York Times

Why Are We So Obsessed With the End of the World? New York Times Last year, Don DeLillo published an exemplary preapocalyptic novel, Zero K, narrated by the son of a billionaire who's sunk his hopes, his fortune, his wife and himself into cryonic storage beneath the Central Asian steppes. Cryonics has for decades ...

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Why Are We So Obsessed With the End of the World? - New York Times

PUBLISHED: 08:45 06 April 2017

Angela Singer

Maddi Thurgood pictured on the farm at Saffron Walden County High

Archant

Scientists are now being recruited for research posts to work on a gene therapy strategy for Maddi Thurgood, the teenager whose rare, so far incurable, wasting condition they hope to treat. If it works, it will be a world first.

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Having travelled to America and Canada to see top specialists, help is now being offered by Sheffield University of Neurosciences (SITRAN) but it will cost 224,000.

With the community rallying in both Saffron Walden and Dunmow, over half that sum has been raised. Maddie is a pupil at the Joyce Frankland Academy in Newport and was previously at Helena Romanes in Dunmow.

After this latest medical trial was reported in The Saffron Walden Reporter and The Dunmow Broadcast, with a picture of Maddie receiving 700 presented by The Ohio Country Music Club in Newport, another benefactor has given 10,000.

Melissa Jones, captain of Saffron Walden Golf Club, is a trustee of The Donald Forrester Trust, set up by her late uncle.

She said: I was aware of the campaign and the collection jars in the shops round the town and when I saw the picture of the donation, I thought our trust was set up for this purpose.

Maddi was diagnosed in April 2016, just after her 15th birthday, with spastic paraplegia gene 15. Its a motor neurone so rare, no one else is known to have it in the UK and fewer than 20 people worldwide. However the Sheffield research project, to develop a gene therapy just for Maddi, could also help a three-year-old girl called Robbie in Boston, America.

Maddis mum, Carina spends her days researching across the globe in a race against time for something to stop her daughter deteriorating.

The youngster, once a keen ice-skater and still an enthusiastic pupil on the animal welfare course at Saffron Walden County High, now walks with a stick. She goes to school on her good days and is always seen with a smile.

Carina, said: We are in touch with Robbies parents constantly. We didnt choose to be in this situation but we are trying to do the best for our children.

The condition eventually affects all four limbs, the brain, vision and hearing. A website: saveourmaddi.co.uk has been set up to appeal for fundraisers. To help Maddi, email: info@saveourmaddi.co.uk or see: http://www.facebook.com/SaveOurMaddiAppeal or http://www.treeofhope.org.uk/maddis-story-save-our-maddi

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Gene research for Essex teenager with rare wasting disease could be a world first - Dunmow Broadcast

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By Malak Abason April 5, 2017

Lungs are a crucial organ in many animals, including humans. While their function has always seemed pretty straightforward to take in oxygen, transfer it into blood, and exhale carbon dioxide scientists have found a previously unrecognized function of the lungs of mice: blood production.

The study, which was published in Nature by researchers at the University of California San Francisco, was performed by inserting fluorescent protein into the mouses genome.

The protein caused the platelets (small blood cells that bind together to help create blood clots when a blood vessel is damaged), in the mouse to glow, allowing scientists to trace the platalets paths. What they found was a massive number of megakaryocytes, a stem cell that produces in the lungs.

When researched further, scientists found that the lung was producing over 10 million blood-producing platelets per hour, and the platelets produced by the lung accounted for the majority of platelets in the mouses circulatory system. Researchers are theorizing that the megakaryocytes are created in the bone marrow, but then travel to the lung to produce platelets.

While it is known that human lungs produce platelets and produce blood, as small amounts of megakaryocytes have been found in lungs before, if these findings are reproduced in humans, it will prove that the sheer amount that lungs produce has been greatly underestimated.

The study also found a reservoir of stem cells with the ability to become blood cells in the lungs. Researchers implanted lungs with the fluorescent megakaryocyte cells into mice that had been engineered to have no blood stem cells in their bone marrow, and found that the fluorescent cells travelled from the lungs to the marrow, and helped to produce platelets and other ingredients in blood, including neutrophils. In cases where the bone marrow is dealing with platelet or stem cell deficiency, these stem cells were able to leave the lung and contribute to the refilling of platelets in the marrow.

If further research indicates that these findings also apply to humans which they very well may, considering the genetic and biological similarities between mice and humans it will not only disprove the current theory that states the bone marrow accounts for most of the human bodys platelet production, but it will also affect how scientists approach treating blood diseases in humans, particularly ones that result in a platelet deficiency, such as thrombocytopenia.

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Lungs of mice found to produce blood - The Manitoban

For about half a decade, its been something of an open secret in baseball that playerspitchers especiallyregularly undergo stem-cell therapy to stave off surgeries and lost playing time. Its a cutting-edge medical procedure, done by everyone from high-school standouts to major-league all-stars. Its rarely discussed by players, or by their coaches, parents, doctors, or employers.

So when the Los Angeles Angels went public in 2016 with the news that first Andrew Heaney and then Garrett Richards were undergoing stem-cell therapy for torn ulnar collateral ligaments (UCLs), it was both anticlimactic and a revelation. For the first time, baseball pitchers and their employers were openly admitting trying this novel procedure that, while fairly well-proven anecdotally, has yet to be validated by any well-designed scientific study.

By now, that so-called Tommy John surgery for a torn or damaged UCL has become a rite of passage for the top-flight professional baseball pitcher is a cliche of sports punditry. Every young arm that can fold and then unfold itself into tortuous patterns that facilitate throwing baseballs at 95 miles per hour or faster is bound for the knife, once those upper body contortions inevitably tear the tissue on the inside of their elbows connecting their upper and lower arms, the UCL.

The first Tommy John surgery (or more properly, UCL reconstruction) was performed in 1974 by the orthopedic surgeon Frank Jobe, then the team physician for the Los Angeles Dodgers, on the eponymous pitcher. It was a great success; Tommy John came back to pitch 14 more years in the pros, racking up 164 wins with four different teams.

TJ surgery is fairly straightforward: the connective tissue that makes up the UCL is either replaced with a tendon taken from elsewhere in the patients own body or from the donated tissue of a cadaver.

Nevertheless through the mid-1970s and into the 80s, TJ was something of a rarity; just a handful of baseball players underwent that particular knife. In the 1990s the numbers started to tick up, and then in the 2000s, they exploded. From 1995 to 2005, there was an average of 28 TJ surgeries per year across all levels of pro baseball; from 2005 to 2015, there was an average of 84 TJ surgeries per year.

Then something strange happened. In 2016, the total number of TJ surgeries performed dropped to 90, from 127 the year before, a 30% decline. Only one other year in Tommy John history, 2008, saw such a precipitous drop from the previous year. By 2009, TJ numbers were back to 2007 levels; obviously it remains to be seen whether 2017 will look more like 2015 or more like last year. But the data suggest that if TJ surgery numbers are in fact starting to trend downward, it might have something to do with the rise of stem-cell therapy.

What makes stem cells unique is that they are whats called undifferentiated; they can become other specialized cells depending on the bodys need at the time. There are two types of human stem cells, embryonic and adult. Embryonic stem cells come from a very early-stage embryo; these are what you likely think of when you hear the term stem cellstheyre at the center of one of most exciting fields of medical science research today. Embryonic stem cells are now used or are being studied for a shockingly wide range of applications, from Alzheimers and autism to vision impairment and infertility. However, thanks to the religious right-driven opposition to the harvesting, study, and use of embryonic stem cells, theyve been mired in controversy in the US.

On the other hand, the use of adult stem cellswhich can be harvested from bone marrow, fat, or blood of any person of any age (the name is a bit misleading)is widely accepted by both the medical community and politicians. They have less range, so to speak, than embryonic stem cells; they are primarily to repair and replace damaged tissue in the area they are found. That makes them just about perfect for repairing a torn UCL.

The first pro baseball player known to have undergone stem-cell therapy for a UCL weakness was Bartolo Colonand he was basically forced into talking about it. Following a long run of success culminating with a Cy Young Award season in 2005, Colon had four frustrating years racked with injury and ended up unsigned after 2009. He took a year off to recuperate and in spring of 2011, he was back, signed with the New York Yankees and feeling good. Serge Kovaleski, an investigative reporter with the New York Times, started digging into how Colon had made his comeback, and uncovered the name of Joseph Purita, an orthopedic surgeon and stem-cell therapy pioneer.

As Purita tells it, there was nothing illegal or nefarious about the work hed done on Colon; there was just never a plan to broadcast it, either. Then, he recalls, the Times called me up and said were going to write a story whether or not. So, Purita offered details. In April 2010, he told the paper, a team of Dominican doctors used stem-cell therapy to help repair Colons ligament damage and torn rotator cuff.

Colons recovery was a resounding success. Hes been an all-star twice, is the current active leader in major league wins, and, at age 44, is signed to a $12.5 million contract to be the Atlanta Braves number two starter for the 2017 season.

I cant give names but there are some professionalsBut instead of thrusting stem-cell therapy into the mainstream, the Colon incident forced it to stay underground. The treatment was not well understood at that point, and the circumstancesthat it was done offshore, that it was unearthed by investigative reporting, and that, in 2012, Colon was suspended for 50 games for testing positive for testosterone useclouded public opinion on it. Many were convinced Colon had gotten performance-enhancing drugs in the Dominican Republic. Purita denies this vociferously, and MLB inquiries back him up.

The upshot is that every doctor I spoke to who studies and performs stem-cell therapy for torn-ligament repair says some version of the same thing: I cant give names but there are some professionals who have come in for treatment, says Joshua Dines, an orthopedic surgeon at New Yorks Hospital for Special Surgery, and an assistant team physician for the New York Mets.

Purita says that since Colon, hes worked with some players that had team approvaland some just come on their own, but none wanted to go public about the procedure.

If use of your arm is mostly limited to spreadsheet jockeying and lifting forkfuls of pasta or salad from plate to maw, TJ is no big dealin that case, youre ready to go back to work in six weeks. But if you throw a ball at top speed past another pro athlete for a living, youre going to be out of commission for 18 months or more as you regain strength in your money arm.

And money is the (post) operative word. In 2016 alone, MLB teams lost nearly $60 million in player value because they had to fulfill dozens of contracts of players recovering from Tommy John. Thats nearly enough to field an entire pro teamdefinitely enough to roster a top-of-league pitching staff. And that $60 million doesnt come close to accounting for the losses suffered by players who had to undergo the knife during the last year of a contract, and found themselves released by their previous teams with no new offers on the table while they recovered.

There was never going to be a way to prevent the need for Tommy John surgeries. Baseball players throw far too hard, with far more breaking pitches, starting at far too young an age, to realistically stop UCLs from tearing (though all sports medicine experts do now warn coaches and parents to keep kids and teens at low pitch counts). The alternative was always going to be something that could cure ligament tearsbut better than TJ surgery, with a faster recovery time.

Everything weve seen in the past decade or so suggests stem-cell therapy is exactly that. At this point, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections are common first-line defenses against UCL injuries. The procedure entails harvesting PRP from the player and injecting it into the injured part of the body. PRP is dense with proteins specialized for injury repair.

You can think of these injections as a precursor to stem-cell therapy; both are considered biologic treatments and entail wielding the bodys own weapons against injury. Many of the doctors now doing stem-cell therapy started off with PRP procedures. When baseball players have a torn ligament, they typically try PRP first. If that fails, its Tommy John time.

Everyone in the field says that at this point PRP is last decades technologyExcept, everyone in the field says that at this point PRP is last decades technology, more than ready to be replaced by stem-cell therapy, which does much the same thing but better. Adult stem cells essentially are there for the very purpose of tissue repair. Why not take them from a part of the body thats all good, and send them to a region where reinforcements are desperately needed?

Dines says that in his own practice, hes been able to cut down the need for Tommy John surgery by about a third, thanks to his reliance on stem-cell therapy. He doesnt believe that the procedure will lower the number of players that have to have TJ, but it will limit the number of overall TJ surgeriesbecause at this point, many pitchers have to get the surgery twice in their career. Dines says stem-cell therapy can get 15- or 16-year-old pitchers through their first partial tear. They may still need to get a full TJ surgery by age 24, but avoiding that first one is still a huge victory. (A growing number of middle-age first-time TJ patients could also explain the overall drop in Tommy John surgeries.)

Purita is even more optimistic. While most orthopedic surgeons say that, right now, stem-cell therapy is effective on partial, but not full, ligament tears, Purita is confident his version can handle any UCL. He sent Quartz a photo showing a patientan MLB pitcher who wishes to remain anonymous, Purita sayswho had a full UCL tear in November 2011 and, after receiving stem-cell therapy at Puritas clinic, made a full recovery by February 2013.

You never say something replaces something else entirely, Purita says. Stem-cell therapy is not going to replace every case [of Tommy John], but it could probably replace the majority of cases.

Talk to anyone who knows the field and theyll rattle off the same reasons why stem-cell therapy for UCL tears isnt already the standard of care: One reason is that, relative to the population, the number of UCL tear patients is extremely small, which means theres only a tiny pool from which to draw potential study participants. Two, a trial for a new medical treatment is typically only considered well-designed if the subjects are blindthat is, they dont know if they are getting the real treatment or a placebo. But what kind of team or player is going to risk a million-dollar arm on a properly designed study where theres a 50% chance that the injury gets a placebo?

Thats not to say that this is some sort of back-alley procedure. Its performed by some of the most prestigious orthopedic surgeons and medical research centers in the US, and the US Food and Drug Administration approves its use: US doctors are allowed to harvest a persons stem cells and use those cells to treat that same person, as long as you dont manipulate (e.g. genetically modify) the cells.

Someone making $20 million a year is not going to do something he hasnt checked out wellThe lack of literature on the procedure hasnt exactly inspired the confidence of players and teams to go public with their decision to pursue it; nor does the fact that the procedure for years had, as Dines puts it, a bad rap[it] would get lumped in with things that were illegal. There was this specter of cheating. But Dines, and others, say thats changing.

The needle is moving towards this being a valid way of treating things, says Purita. People are starting to recognize that someone making [or risking] $20 million a year is not going to do something he hasnt checked out well.

Amadeus Mason, a sports medicine and biologics expert at Emory University, compares stem-cell therapy today to Tommy John in the 1980s. It was, Okay, were going to try this and see, says Mason, who trained with orthopedic surgeon James Andrews. (Andrews is the Michael Jordan of ligament repairhes saved the arms and careers of some of the greatest pitchers in major league baseball history.) There wasnt a big fanfare going in when players started with Tommy John surgeries, Mason says, but when players came back to pitch [there] was. Same thing here.

Mason thinks stem-cell therapy hasnt quite reached the inflection point, but it is near. Here, too, he sees a comparison with Tommy John: It took a while for them to perfect the procedure so that more and more doctors could do the surgery and reproduce the results well.

Right now, Mason says, there is a relatively small handful of doctors who can do stem-cell therapy for UCL tears, but that list is growing rapidly. For example, the annual conference of the Orthobiologic Institutea professional organization for regenerative medicine researchers and practitionersstarted in 2009 with 20 or so doctors; last years event had nearly 1,000.

Some players can throw faster after they have the surgeryThe Angels didnt want to talk to me about why they decided to go public with Heaney and Richards stem-cell therapies. Perhaps thats because Heaneys, on May 2, 2016, was unsuccessful. The 25-year-old former first-round draft pick underwent Tommy John surgery in July of that year after failing to regain strength in his left arm. Hell miss the entire 2017 season, setting back a promising young career.

Richards had his stem-cell procedure just 14 days after Heaney. So far, it seems to have worked. He didnt return to pitch in 2016, but in spring training this year, he was throwing nearly 100 miles per hour. Probably the Angels best starting pitcher, Richards will take the mound on April 5, and all eyes will be on his right throwing armand on his face, to see if it is registering any pain.

If Richards stays healthy this yearand next year, and the year after thathe could become something like the 21st-century Tommy John. Every team will have a stem-cell therapy expert on its medical staff, or at least one on speed dial. Careers will be saved, and so will millions of dollars.

But wider use of stem-cell therapy also will force the MLB to confront an interesting potential side effect of the procedure. Some players can throw faster after they have the surgery, says Purita. By definition, its making the performance better. Right now, major league baseball does not include stem-cell therapy in its list of banned performance enhancers (pdf). But what happens when a baseball player, perhaps a fringe pitching prospect in the low minors, feels some elbow pain one day and gets an MRI, and is diagnosed with nothingbut decides to get stem-cell therapy anyway, since it could give him an extra four miles per hour on his fastball?

The MLB will have a decision to make: To accept potential competitive imbalances to save young arms, or to seek to preserve a level playing field (or even just the fiction of one) at the cost of some of the games best players. The question is all but inevitable.

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Stem-cell therapy is poised to disrupt the Tommy John epidemic in baseball - Quartz

A small, but promising study suggests that stem cells from a childs own cord blood may offer an effective treatment for autism symptoms.

Most children on the spectrum who received an infusion from their own umbilical cord blood showed improvements in behavior, communication and socialization, among other measures, while experiencing no significant downsides from the treatment.

The findings come from a study of 25 kids with autism ages 2 to 5 published Wednesday in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine.

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All of the children who participated in the research had their cord blood banked at birth. For the trial, the kids were given a series of behavioral and functional assessments before receiving a one-time cord blood infusion. Follow-up assessments were conducted at six and 12 months after the infusion.

Not only did the researchers find that the treatment was safe, but parent reports as well as clinical assessments indicated that more than two-thirds of the children saw improvements in autism symptoms.

Most of the behavioral gains were seen in the first six months after the infusion, the study found, but they were sustained over the following six months.

We are pleased that this study demonstrated the safety of treating children with ASD with their own cord blood, said Joanne Kurtzberg, a pediatric bone marrow transplant specialist at Duke Health who worked on the study. Were also encouraged that, while small and non-randomized, there were observed improvements in a majority of the children reported by clinicians and parents.

While the findings are encouraging, researchers said that further study involving more participants is needed before any firm conclusions can be reached about the effectiveness of cord blood infusions.

We are now hoping to replicate these preliminary results in a Phase II randomized clinical trial for which enrollment is nearly complete, Kurtzberg said.

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Stem Cells Show Promise For Treating Autism - Disability Scoop

No two stem cells are identical, even if they are genetic clones. This stunning diversity is revealed today in an enormous publicly available online catalogue of 3D stem cell images. The visuals were produced using deep learning analyses and cell lines altered with the gene-editing tool CRISPR. And soon the portal will allow researchers to predict variations in cell layouts that may foreshadow cancer and other diseases.

The Allen Cell Explorer, produced by the Allen Institute for Cell Science in Seattle, Washington, includes a growing library of more than 6,000 pictures of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) key components of which glow thanks to fluorescent markers that highlight specific genes.

The Cell Explorer complements ongoing projects by several groups that chart the uniqueness of single cells at the level of DNA, RNA and proteins. Rick Horwitz, director of the Allen Institute for Cell Science, says that the institutes images may hasten progress in stem cell research, cancer research and drug development by revealing unexpected aspects of cellular structure. You cant predict the outcome of a football game if you know stats on all the players but have never watched a game.

The project began about a year ago with adult skin cells that had been reprogrammed into an embryonic-like, undifferentiated state. Horwitz and his team then used CRISPRCas9 to insert tags in genes to make structures within the cells glow. The genes included those that code for proteins that highlight actin filaments, which help cells to move and maintain their shape. It quickly became clear that the cells, which were all genetic clones from the same parent cell, varied in the placement, shape and number of their components, such as mitochondria and actin fibres.

Computer scientists analysed thousands of the images using deep learning programs and found relationships between the locations of cellular structures. They then used that information to predict where the structures might be when the program was given just a couple of clues, such as the position of the nucleus. The program learned by comparing its predictions to actual cells.

The deep learning algorithms are similar to those that companies use to predict peoples preferences, Horwitz says. If you buy a chainsaw at Amazon, it might then show you chain oil and plaid shirts.

The 3D interactive tool based on this deep learning capability should go live later this year. At the moment, the site shows a preview of how it will work using side-by-side comparisons of predicted and actual images.

Benjamin Freedman, a cell biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, looks forward to playing with the Cell Explorers predictive function once the Allen Institute team has taught their algorithm to recognize more iPS cells that have been changed genetically or chemically. For example, Freedman says he could delete a gene related to kidney disease in one of the fluorescently tagged stem cells from the Allen Institute and see how the mutation affects the glowing structure. Then he could use the sites modelling tool to determine how other cellular components might be altered. Ultimately, Freedman says, we want to understand processes at the cellular level that cause disease in the kidney as a whole.

In the coming months, Allen Institute researchers will update the site with images of stem cells at different stages of cell division, and as they transform into distinct cell types, such as heart and kidney cells. Catching cells at different time points can be crucial to identifying fundamental processes, says Horwitz.

Allen Institute for Cell Science

Structural differences in the DNA (purple) and cellular membrane (blue) of genetically identical stem cells.

The Allen Institutes visual emphasis on stem cells dovetails with a number of efforts to catalogue other aspects of cells. For example, the London-based charity Cancer Research UK is creating interactive virtual-reality models of breast cancer cells in tumours. And an international effort called the Human Cell Atlas seeks to define all human cell types in terms of their molecular profiles, including DNA sequences, RNA transcripts and proteins.

Aviv Regev, a computational biologist at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who is working on the Human Cell Atlas, says that the Allen Cell Explorer complements her project by focusing on the look of cellular features as opposed to how genes, RNA and proteins interact within the cell. The community is accepting that there are a lot of differences between cells that we thought were the same until recently, she says, so now were taking an unbiased approach to learn about pieces in the puzzle we didnt know existed before.

Read more:
Machine learning predicts the look of stem cells - Nature.com

Ive always had dry skin, but for several years now, that annoying parchedness has given way to flaky, pink patches on both of my cheeks that a dermatologist dubbed mild rosacea. Im half Irish, and so developing the skin condition sometimes referred to as the curse of the Celts isnt all that surprising. But damn, is it annoying. Most mornings, it looks like I used a Brillo pad for a pillow.

Like anyone with fussy skin, I tried a long list of creams and gels to calm down those angry pink spots, including Mirvaso (which fixed the discoloration temporarily but did nothing to heal the dryness), and a sulfur treatment that caused my entire face to break out in tiny bumps. (Turns out, Im allergic. Fun!) Id finally resigned myself to Aveenos Ultracalming Moisturizer which worked okay, but didnt give me the smoothness Id hoped for when Corey at a Sephora on the Upper West Side changed my face life.

I explained to Corey, who had the kind of dreamy skin and eyelashes a girl can only dream of, that I needed a creamy foundation that would cover any red spots on my wedding day. He shook his head. You need something that is going to sooth your skin, and then we can talk foundation. He left me by a row of lipsticks and returned with a jar of Peter Thomas Roths Stem Cell Bio-Repair Gel Mask. I use this all the time, he told me. Put it on for ten minutes after you take a shower, wash it off, and then slather your face with moisturizer.

I was in no position to argue with this perfect-skinned man. I bought the gel, and a jar of Drunk Elephants Lala Whipped Cream moisturizer, and went home expecting well, not much. But then, as instructed, I cleansed my face with semi-cold water, dried it off, and applied a thin layer of the pink gel mask which is cool to the touch and has the slightest rose scent. And holy hell. After one application, my skin already felt smoother.

Ive been using the gel several times a week for a month now, and my skin is no longer flaking. Theres some pinkness, but less and my face is visibly less dry. I cant say I buy into the fact that plant stem cells are working magic on me (doubts have been raised about such claims), but the gel does live up to its promise of hydrating skin and combating dullness which could be thanks to a combination of natural oils and the fact that the mask itself feels as cool and redness-taming as an aloe gel. Sure, Im not quite Corey level yet, but my face has a noticeable glow to it that it hasnt had in years. Whats more, the mask is free of parabens, sulfates, and phthalates, and it doesnt irritate my sensitive skin.

If you really want the ultimate cooling effect, you can stick the jar of gel in the fridge and leave it on overnight. (The gel dries in less than a minute, so you wont be sleeping in goo.) Im not that hard core, and grabbing it right out of my medicine cabinet after showering has been working fine for me. On my wedding day, the makeup artist even commented on how soft my skin was, and my foundation laid on just right. I told her about the gel and what my face was like before. Sounds like a miracle worker, she said. Amen.

Peter Thomas Roth Rose Stem Cell Bio-Repair Gel Mask $52, Sephora

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This Pink Gel Mask Saved My Dry, Flaky Skin - New York Magazine

Associate professor Dr. Philipp Koch, Dr. Julia Ladewig and Vira Iefremova. Credit: Barbara Frommann/Uni Bonn

A new method could push research into developmental brain disorders an important step forward. This is shown by a recent study at the University of Bonn in which the researchers investigated the development of a rare congenital brain defect. To do so, they converted skin cells from patients into so called induced pluripotent stem cells. From these jack-of-all-trades cells, they generated brain organoids small three-dimensional tissues which resemble the structure and organization of the developing human brain.

Investigations into human brain development using human cells in the culture dish have so far been very limited: the cells in the dish grow flat, so they do not display any three-dimensional structure. Model organisms are available as an alternative, such as mice. The human brain has, however, a much more complex structure. Developmental disorders of the human brain can thus only be resembled to a limited degree in the animal model.

Scientists at the Institute of Reconstructive Neurobiology at the University of Bonn applied a recent development in stem cell research to tackle this limitation: they grew three-dimensional organoids in the cell culture dish, the structure of which is incredibly similar to that of the human brain. These mini brains offer insight into the processes with which individual nerve cells organize themselves into our highly complex tissues. The method thus opens up completely new opportunities for investigating disorders in the architecture of the developing human brain, explains Dr. Julia Ladewig, who leads a working group on brain development.

Rare brain deformity investigated

In their work, the scientists investigated the Miller-Dieker syndrome. This hereditary disorder is attributed to a chromosome defect. As a consequence, patients present malformations of important parts of their brain. In patients, the surface of the brain is hardly grooved but instead more or less smooth, explains Vira Iefremova, PhD student and lead author of the study. What causes these changes has so far only been known in part.

The researchers produced induced pluripotent stem cells from skin cells from Miller-Dieker patients, from which they then grew brain organoids. In organoids, the brain cells organize themselves very similar to the process in the brain of an embryo: the stem cells divide; a proportion of the daughter cells develops into nerve cells; these move to wherever they are needed. These processes resemble a complicated orchestral piece in which the genetic material waves the baton.

In Miller-Dieker patients, this process is fundamentally disrupted. We were able to show that the stem cells divide differently in these patients, explains associate professor Dr. Philipp Koch, who led the study together with Dr. Julia Ladewig. In healthy people, the stem cells initially extensively multiply and form organized, densely packed layers. Only a small proportion of them becomes differentiated and develops into nerve cells.

Certain proteins are responsible for the dense and even packing of the stem cells. The formation of these molecules is disrupted in Miller-Dieker patients. The stem cells are thus not so tightly packed and, at the same time, do not have such a regular arrangement. This poor organization leads, among other things, to the stem cells becoming differentiated at an earlier stage. The change in the three-dimensional tissue structure thus causes altered division behavior, says Ladewig. This connection cannot be identified in animals or in two-dimensional cell culture models.

The scientist emphasizes that no new treatment options are in sight as a result of this. We are undertaking fundamental research here. Nevertheless, our results show that organoids have what it takes to herald a new era in brain research. And if we better understand the development of our brain, new treatment options for disorders of the brain can presumably arise from this over the long term.

Reference:

Iefremova, V., Manikakis, G., Krefft, O., Jabali, A., Weynans, K., Wilkens, R., . . . Ladewig, J. (2017). An Organoid-Based Model of Cortical Development Identifies Non-Cell-Autonomous Defects in Wnt Signaling Contributing to Miller-Dieker Syndrome. Cell Reports, 19(1), 50-59. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2017.03.047

This article has been republished frommaterialsprovided by the University of Bonn. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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'Mini Brains' Developed to Study Miller-Dieker Syndrome ... - Technology Networks

Who would have ever thought that some forms of blindness could be repaired? Ian MacDonald is a pioneer in gene therapy as a treatment of genetic eye diseases. The ophthalmologist will be one of two external speakers at the Alberta Childrens Hospital Research Institute (ACHRI) symposium Wednesday, April 19 at the Foothills Campus. MacDonald, a professor in the Department of Opthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Alberta, will speak on Novel Therapeutic Approaches to Human Disease The Example of Ocular Gene Therapy. We spoke to him briefly about his research.

Q: Why are ocular diseases at the forefront of precision medicine?

A: The eye is an attractive target for precision medicine and gene therapy as it offers a readily accessiblesite for surgical intervention and injection, is relatively immune-privileged, andtreatment of only one eye allows the non-treated eye to serve as a control for the experimental therapy.

Q:Is this the right time to pursue research in precision medicine?

A: Now is definitely the right time to pursue research in precision medicine. Phenotyping in human ocular heritable disease is advanced and we can now make clinical decisions backed up by molecular genetic confirmation. With new tools ofnext generation sequencing, we have a lot to offer in terms of precision medicine to our patients and families.

Q:How important is basic research to your accomplishments?

A:The first ocular gene therapy trial for choroideremia was based on the products of 30 years of scientific research (somein Canada, including mapping the gene in 1987). It simply could not have occurred without solid pre-clinical research, a team of informed and talented researchers, and significant infrastructure and research support from national (CFI, CIHR, FFB Canada, Choroideremia Research Foundation, Canada Inc.) and provincial (AIHS) funding agencies.

Fruit flies model how human traits are passed on

Trudy Mackay is a distinguished scientist specializing in quantitative genetics. Her research relies on the fruit fly an insect that has provided scientists the means for biomedical research and discovery for over 100 years. Mackays work has allowed researchers across the world to understand the genetic traits crucial to plant, animal and human health. A fellow of the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences, Mackay was awarded the 2016 Wolf Prize Laureate for Agriculture, widely considered one of the most prestigious prizes in science. She is now at North Carolina State University. Mackay will speak on The Genetic Architecture of Complex Traits: Lessons From Drosophila. We also spoke to her briefly about her research.

Q:Is fruit fly DNA much different from ours?

A:The fruit fly genome is about 10 times smaller than the human genome. However, and perhaps surprisingly, about two-thirds of fly genes have a human counterpart, and 70 per cent of human disease genes have a fruit fly counterpart. Thus, flies are a good genetic model for quantitative traits, including diseases, in humans.

Q:The first human genome was sequenced in 2003. How much more complex are human genes than originally thought?

A:The first human genome sequence was surprising in that many fewer genes were present than experts had predicted. We now know that regulatory component of the human genome is at least as important as the protein coding genes, and deciphering the regulatory code is an active area of research.

Q:How important is precision medicine to our future and health care of children?

A:Precision medicine is "an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person." Precision medicine has the promise to revolutionize future heath care by using genetic and genomic data to optimize individual disease risk assessment and therapy.

UCalgary and ACHRI researchers to present at symposium

The symposium will also hear from University of Calgary and ACHRI researchers:

Information on registration to attend the Alberta Childrens Hospital Research Institute Symposium on Precision Medicine in Child Health and details on the program agenda are available on the ACHRI website.

The Alberta Childrens Hospital Research Institute (ACHRI) symposium is an annual event supported by generous community donations through the Alberta Childrens Hospital Foundation. The research day highlights leading child health research from pre-conception to early adulthood. The day consists of presentations from external and internal speakers and a poster competition, TED Talks and presentations from ACHRI trainees. The symposium concludes with presentation and poster awards from ACHRI Director Dr. Brent Scott.

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World-renowned scientists to speak at Precision Medicine in Child Health research day - UCalgary News

Early efforts to harness the potential of stem cells for treating disease were largely focused on regeneration and the ability to repair tissues in the body through cell therapies. However, as technologies have advanced, the focus is shifting to using stem cells in drug discovery applications, such as compound screening, toxicity testing, target identification, and disease modelling. Professor Christine Mummery, from the University of Leiden tells us more and explains why stem cells are particularly suited to these applications.

Why use stem cells?

What is it that makes stem cells such an attractive option for drug discovery studies? One of the main reasons is that they make a much better model of human disease and drug reactions than animal models. As Professor Christine Mummery explains, many commonly used animal models such as mice do not accurately reflect some of the workings of cells and processes in the human body, having different immune systems and characteristics, such as heart rate, for example. This can result in problems with drugs falling down in clinical trials after showing promising results in earlier animal studies.

Using more relevant models provides not only financial savings by highlighting issues earlier in the drug discovery pipeline, but also helps efforts to reduce the number of animals used in research.

Stem cells in toxicity testing

A vital part of determining a drugs safety is assessing its cardiac toxicity. This refers to the side effects a drug can have on the functioning of the heart, such as causing arrhythmias and sudden death. As well as ensuring the safety of a drug, however, there is also a need to not unduly constrain drug development. Improvements in assay design and the implementation of the Comprehensive in Vitro Proarrhythmia Assays (CiPA) are helping to find a balance in this area.

Professor Christine Mummery tells us more about the problem of cardiotoxicity and how stem cell models and CiPA can help.

Stem cells can also play a role in testing the systemic toxicity of drugs. As Dr Glyn Stacey from NIBSC explains, pluripotent stem cell lines are increasingly being used to develop new assays that enable earlier identification of drugs that can have chronic effects on the body.

Endogenous activation of stem cells A novel and promising area of currently developing research is the ability to drive regeneration endogenously using small molecules. As Professor Angela Russell from the University of Oxford describes in the following video, we might not need to rely on using stem cells themselves, but rather small molecule therapeutics that can promote repair in damaged tissues. Circumventing the need for cells could have huge benefits for both the patient and drug developers.

What are some of the hurdles?

Stem cells certainly provide numerous opportunities to accelerate the drug discovery field, but challenges do remain.

A fundamental issue faced by all researchers in this field is ensuring the quality of the cells used. As Dr Glyn Stacey explains, a good level of quality control needs to be maintained throughout, to ensure that cells have not been contaminated or mixed up with another cell line.

Understanding signalling pathways and knowing which growth factors to add to push cells to develop into progenitor cells can also present challenges to researchers developing stem cell based screening assays. Producing sufficient numbers of relevant cell types to conduct a screen is another problem commonly faced.

The final hurdle is translation to the clinic, which relies on proving the safety of a treatment, and ensuring that it does not give rise to secondary conditions. In the case of Professor Angela Russells work, this involves taking careful steps to select compounds that act through correct pathways that wont increase the risk of cancer developing.

What does the future hold?

The roles that stem cells play in the drug discovery process are likely to continue to increase, as developments in technology enable the creation of a wider range of cells and assays. A move towards using cells with greater maturity and models that incorporate a combination of different cell types, enabling the study of interactions between cells is on the horizon. These combinations of cells will teach us a lot about drug discovery and disease, says Professor Christine Mummery.

All interviews from Stem Cells in Drug Discovery 2017 can be found here.

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Stem Cells in Drug Discovery | Technology Networks - Technology Networks

Eddie Marks is the pioneer in the University of Delaware Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences. Hes the first Ph.D. graduate in program history.

Having completed a professional masters degree in business/biotechnology at UD, Marks jumped at the opportunity of a fledging Ph.D. in the medical sciences program. Of course, Marks was interested in the programs core courses like statistics, immunology and physiology, but the department also granted the aspiring researcher a great deal of independence.

There is a lot of freedom to be able to choose, which is what I really liked coming in, explained Marks, who researches how adult bone narrow stem cells can treat heart attacks. I took a biology ethics course and a materials science course, which, by learning some of the engineering, really helped to further my research.

With a microbiology background, Marks was used to growing cells and working under a microscope, which eased his translation into the field. He was motivated by his adviser Arun Kumar, who also took an interdisciplinary route. Kumar took an organic chemistry background and applied it to nanomedicine. As a masters students, Marks was tapped to work on a stem cell project with Kumar. He took the preliminary data and worked on turning the stem cells into tissue types.

But research is far from Marks only talent. Elsevier Health reached out to Kumar about a book on thymosins, a protein class with diverse biological activities. Kumar and Marks had used one of these thymosin proteins specific to the heart thymosin beta-4 to turn stem cells into heart tissue. So the pair drafted a book chapter on how this protein helps heal our most vital internal organ.

We looked at [the proteins] role in development as the heart is growing, its natural effects after a heart attack, how the protein gets released and how we and other researchers use it to attempt to heal the heart after certain cardiac events, said Marks.

Earlier this month, Marks successfully defended his dissertation Adult Human Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Celled Primed for the Repair of Damaged Cardiac Tissue after Myocardial Infarction. Half of the numbered chapters of the dissertation were published or are currently under review in scientific journals. Each of the six chapters of the dissertation is a paper to be published.

With his Ph.D. in hand, Marks is headed to private industry, which could mean consulting or science writing.

I want to be client-facing and help an array of companies.

Combining the time spent on the masters and Ph.D. program, Marks completed the two degrees in only five and a half years. Around the country, the typical student finishes similar programs between six and eight years time. He credits the department for the unique program design and streamlined process.

The department is very connected to the hospital [Christiana Care] and has a good reputation at the University, said Marks. The faculty knows every group from biology to engineering to the Life Science Research Facility and down to STAR Campus. There are connections everywhere. My dissertation committee had incredibly varied areas of expertise and that would not happen without Medical Laboratory Sciences.

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First Ph.D. recipient - UDaily

Around 6,000 hematopoietic stem cell transplantations are carried out annually in Iran using the patients own cells, and a far higher number are performed using cells from donors who are often close relatives of the patient, according to the Hematology-Oncology Research Center and Stem Cell Transplantation (HORCSCT) affiliated to the Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Ardeshir Qavamzadeh, head of the center, said the number of stem cell transplants is on par with developed countries. The success rate in the treatment of diseases requiring transplant is 67% at HORCSCT, ISNA quoted him as saying. Referring to the fast and progressive development of stem cell discipline in Iran, he said since 1983, when the adult leukemia specialty was initiated in the country, nearly 300 specialists have been trained in the field and there is at least one specialist in each province now. Today, one cannot find a treatment method of stem cell transplant in the worlds advanced research centers that is not available or practiced in Iran. We have reached a level where we can compete with the developed nations. HSCT Hubs There are 10 hubs for hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) in the country. Each includes medical universities from the provinces with one as the focal point. Medical universities of Zanjan, Qazvin, Alborz and Qom comprise one of the hubs with Zanjan as the center, said Mehdi Eskandari, education deputy at Zanjan University of Medical Sciences. HSCT is the transplantation of multi-potent hematopoietic stem cells, usually derived from bone marrow, peripheral blood, or umbilical cord blood. It may be autologous (when the patients own stem cells are used) or allogeneic (stem cells from a donor). It is a medical procedure in the field of hematology, most often performed for patients with certain cancers of the blood or bone marrow, such as multiple myeloma or leukemia. Since HSCT is a relatively risky procedure with many possible complications, it is reserved for patients with life-threatening diseases. However, as the survival rate following the procedure has increased, its use has expanded beyond cancer, including in autoimmune diseases, blood diseases like thalassaemia major, metabolic disorders, alcoholic liver, and even rheumatism.

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Stem Cell Transplant Making Rapid Progress - Financial Tribune

Three Bangladeshis suffering from a highly debilitating muscular dystrophy, who arrived in Mumbai on Sunday have begun their treatment at a Navi Mumbai spine clinic.

Abdus, Rahinul and Shorab aged 24, 14 and 8 respectively were diagnosed with this crippling disease at the time of their birth.

They arrived on Sunday evening and we started the treatment on Monday, said Avantika Patil, spokesperson NeuroGen Brain and Spine Institute in Seawoods, Navi Mumbai, who is treating them for free.

They are undergoing an autologous bone marrow derived stem cell treatment. Stem cells are taken from the bone marrow in their hip bone, treated in our lab and then injected into to the patients again. We will provide a combination of stem cell therapy and neuro-rehabilitation which will also includes yoga and speech therapy sessions, Patil explained.

While the hospital is not willing to say what kind of progress can be expected in these particular cases, they revealed that in one case, a bed-ridden patient was able to walk slowly after six years of treatment.

In January, fruit seller Tofazzal Hossain sparked a rare debate about euthanasia in conservative Bangladesh in January when he pleaded with the authorities to allow his grandson and two sons to die.

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Stem cell treatment begins for dystrophy patients from Bangladesh - Daily News & Analysis

Image courtesy UP Health System - Marquette.

Image courtesy UP Health System - Marquette.

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April 4, 2017 - MARQUETTE - UP Health System Marquette will host a bone marrow registry drive on April 12th, 2017 on the 3rd floor of the North Entrance to the hospital.

Every four minutes, someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer in the US. For thousands of patients with leukemia or other blood diseases like sickle cell anemia, a marrow transplant is their only hope.

Joining the bone marrow registry takes roughly 10 minutes of paperwork and a cheek swab. Only 1 in 430 registry members go on to donate.

If you match with a patient in need, you will receive a phone call asking to donate. Donation is always voluntary. Surgery is not always required for bone marrow donation; almost 80% of donors donate their blood stem cells in a non-surgical procedure that is very similar to donating plasma.

Please note that UP Health System - Marquette is not affiliated with the National Marrow Donor Program or the Be The Match organization. Our presence here will be to help facilitate and educate those interested in joining the Be The Match registry.

Be The Match is operated by the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) which manages the largest and most diverse marrow registry in the world, working to save lives through transplant.

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Bone Marrow Registration Drive to be held at UP Health System - UPMatters.com

LORENA, Texas (KWTX) Lorena residents and others from around Central Texas turned out Monday to register as bone marrow donors in support of a first grade teacher with a rare medical condition, the only cure for which is a bone marrow transplant.

Melinda Colyer, who teaches at Lorena Primary School, was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome with myelofibrosis about two weeks ago.

"It's actually a disease that causes the destruction of your stem cells in your bone marrow. They do consider it a form of cancer. The only cure that will be provided is through a bone marrow transplant, Colyer said.

She said receiving the news was tough, but she says shes a fighter.

I decided to pick myself up and was able to go forward and that's what I'm doing at this point, said Colyer.

Lorena Primary School Principal Liza Cunningham said Colyer shines with positivity despite the diagnosis.

"Ms. Colyer is one of the most upbeat people you will ever meet in your entire life. She always has a positive attitude, she has a love for kids. It's very apparent in everything she does, said Cunningham.

More than 100 prospective donors responded to the drive Monday at Midway High Schools Distance Learning Center.

The process takes less than five minutes, and involves a mouth swab to collect DNA samples.

Prospective donors must be in good health and between the ages of 18 to 44.

Anyone interested in becoming a bone marrow donor can sign up with Scott & Whites Marrow Donor Program.

"She wants everybody to go out and be tested because even if we are not a match for her, we would be a match for somebody else. And that's really what she's been telling us about this whole event and that's very selfless of her, Cunningham said.

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Lorena: Residents support teacher who needs bone marrow transplant - KWTX