Archive for April, 2017

TWIN FALLS Two therapists with Primary Therapy Source have recently pursued continuing education opportunities.

Physical Therapist Assistant David Fowers attended a continuing education class in Boise in March.

Functional Strength: An Updated Approach to Exercising Our Patients provided him the ability to advance his understanding of therapeutic exercise and create basic to advanced functional exercise programs. These can be customized for patients.

Teresa Prine, who has a masters degree in physical therapy, attended the Big Sky Athletic Training and Sport Medicine Conference.

The topics discussed included sudden cardiac death in athletes, the importance of eye movements in evaluation of brain injury, fracture healing, focused nutrition, stem cell procedure benefits, exertional heat illness, overuse injuries and cardiac issues in athletes.

Prine also attended the Big Sky Concussion Conference to learn about current research for targeted treatment, oculomotor measures, concussion clinical profiles, gender considerations and concussion in youth contact sports. She can be reached at Primary Therapy Source at 208-734-7333.

Read more:
Therapists receive continuing education - Twin Falls Times-News

Researchers looking for ways to regenerate nerves can have a hard time obtaining key tools of their trade.

Schwann cells are an example. They form sheaths around axons, the tail-like parts of nerve cells that carry electrical impulses. They promote regeneration of those axons. And they secrete substances that promote the health of nerve cells.

In other words, they're very useful to researchers hoping to regenerate nerve cells, specifically peripheral nerve cells, those cells outside the brain and spinal cord.

But Schwann cells are hard to come by in useful numbers.

So researchers have been taking readily available and noncontroversial mesenchymal stem cells (also called bone marrow stromal stem cells that can form bone, cartilage and fat cells) and using a chemical process to turn them, or as researchers say, differentiate them into Schwann cells. But it's an arduous, step-by-step and expensive process.

Researchers at Iowa State University are exploring what they hope will be a better way to transform those stem cells into Schwann-like cells. They've developed a nanotechnology that uses inkjet printers to print multi-layer graphene circuits and also uses lasers to treat and improve the surface structure and conductivity of those circuits.

It turns out mesenchymal stem cells adhere and grow well on the treated circuit's raised, rough and 3-D nanostructures. Add small doses of electricity -- 100 millivolts for 10 minutes per day over 15 days -- and the stem cells become Schwann-like cells.

The researchers' findings are featured on the front cover of the scientific journal Advanced Healthcare Materials. Jonathan Claussen, an Iowa State assistant professor of mechanical engineering and an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, is lead author. Suprem Das, a postdoctoral research associate in mechanical engineering and an associate of the Ames Laboratory; and Metin Uz, a postdoctoral research associate in chemical and biological engineering, are first authors.

The project is supported by funds from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, Iowa State's College of Engineering, the department of mechanical engineering and the Carol Vohs Johnson Chair in Chemical and Biological Engineering held by Surya Mallapragada, an Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering, an associate of the Ames Laboratory and a paper co-author.

"This technology could lead to a better way to differentiate stem cells," Uz said. "There is huge potential here."

The electrical stimulation is very effective, differentiating 85 percent of the stem cells into Schwann-like cells compared to 75 percent by the standard chemical process, according to the research paper. The electrically differentiated cells also produced 80 nanograms per milliliter of nerve growth factor compared to 55 nanograms per milliliter for the chemically treated cells.

The researchers report the results could lead to changes in how nerve injuries are treated inside the body.

"These results help pave the way for in vivo peripheral nerve regeneration where the flexible graphene electrodes could conform to the injury site and provide intimate electrical stimulation for nerve cell regrowth," the researchers wrote in a summary of their findings.

The paper reports several advantages to using electrical stimulation to differentiate stem cells into Schwann-like cells:

A key to making it all work is a graphene inkjet printing process developed in Claussen's research lab. The process takes advantages of graphene's wonder-material properties -- it's a great conductor of electricity and heat, it's strong, stable and biocompatible -- to produce low-cost, flexible and even wearable electronics.

But there was a problem: once graphene electronic circuits were printed, they had to be treated to improve electrical conductivity. That usually meant high temperatures or chemicals. Either could damage flexible printing surfaces including plastic films or paper.

Claussen and his research group solved the problem by developing computer-controlled laser technology that selectively irradiates inkjet-printed graphene oxide. The treatment removes ink binders and reduces graphene oxide to graphene -- physically stitching together millions of tiny graphene flakes. The process makes electrical conductivity more than a thousand times better.

The collaboration of Claussen's group of nanoengineers developing printed graphene technologies and Mallapragada's group of chemical engineers working on nerve regeneration began with some informal conversations on campus.

That led to experimental attempts to grow stem cells on printed graphene and then to electrical stimulation experiments.

"We knew this would be a really good platform for electrical stimulation," Das said. "But we didn't know it would differentiate these cells."

But now that it has, the researchers say there are new possibilities to think about. The technology, for example, could one day be used to create dissolvable or absorbable nerve regeneration materials that could be surgically placed in a person's body and wouldn't require a second surgery to remove.

Read more:
Graphene, electricity used to change stem cells for nerve regrowth - Science Daily

by Stuart Tomlinson, KATU News

Steven Donovan suffered a stroke on Father's Day, 2014. (KATU)

Steven Donovan just knew something wasnt right.

It was the morning of Fathers Day, 2014. Donovan's daughter made him strawberry shortcake and as he rose from his easy chair that morning, his field of vision changed he likened it to having the multi-faceted vision of a fly.

There was a sound like a jet engine in his head, and the images began spinning.

I remember asking, calling out to my wife for help saying, Help me, I think I'm having a stroke, Donovan said.

He was rushed to a Bay Area hospital where he was assigned a doctor from OHSU, who interviewed him via a remote hookup.

Doctors in the Bay Area administered clot-busting drugs, which Donovan said was (a) critical first step toward treating the stroke.

Donovan was airlifted to Portland and admitted to OHSU, and in less than 24 hours became part of a clinical trial at OHSU, where doctors were testing the efficacy of stem cell treatments for strokes.

They go to the brain and they make the brain act more like it's a very young brain, said Dr. Wayne Clark, a professor of neurology in the OHSU School of Medicine and director of the Oregon Stroke Center at OHSU. We know that when children have strokes, they can have a full recovery, even with a major stroke. People in their 90s who have a stroke show very little recovery.

Donovan became part of a global study involving 129 patients. Sixty-five of them were given stem cells grown in bone marrow; 61 patients received a placebo.

The study, recently published in The Lancet medical journal, found that not only was the treatment safe with no side effects, after one year stroke victims showed improvement over those who received the placebo.

Dr. Clark says once approved by the FDA, stem cell treatment could make a big difference in recovery from strokes.

If these results are confirmed, this would really open up the number of patients who would be able to receive treatment for their strokes, Clark told OHSU news.

Two years after his stroke, as part of his recovery, Donovan enrolled in a 10-day mountaineering class on Mount Baker and plans to climb Mount Hood as soon as possible.

"This is truly amazing,'' he said of his recovery. "I was paralyzed and couldn't even move, and even though the mountaineering training was hard, I was able to do it."

Dr. Clark says OHSU will be a part of a second round of trials this summer.

Read more:
OHSU stem cell study shows promise in treating strokes - KATU

(NAPSI)You may be surprised to learn that multiple myeloma is the second most common cancer of the blood, after leukemia. It starts in plasma cells, a type of white blood cell. In time, myeloma cells collect in the bone marrow and may damage the solid part of the bone and eventually harm other tissues and organs, such as the skeleton and the kidneys.

In fact, there are approximately 114,000 new cases diagnosed every year. If you or a loved one is among the 230,000 people living with multiple myeloma worldwide there are a few facts you should know.

What Can Be Done

For many people with the disease, an autologous stem cell transplant may be an answer for eligible patients. This involves collecting the patient's own blood-forming stem cells and storing them. He or she is then treated with high doses of chemotherapy or a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. This kills cancer cells but also eliminates the remaining blood-producing stem cells in the bone marrow. Afterward, the collected stem cells are transplanted back into the patient, so the bone marrow can produce new blood cells.

To help people learn more about the disease and its treatments, the Multiple Myeloma Journey Partners Program was created.

This peer-to-peer education program for patients, caregivers and health care providers leverages storytelling as a tool to improve the patient experience. Journey Partners are multiple myeloma patients who have experienced similar emotions, faced the same challenges and asked the same questions about living with the disease. A Multiple Myeloma Journey Partner will come to any community in which 10 or more people would like to attend the free one-hour educational seminar. The main benefit is that multiple myeloma patients know they're not alone, and the program provides educational resources and services that help patients and families navigate their journey to achieve the best possible outcomes.

As John Killip, a Multiple Myeloma Journey Partner, puts it, "It was conversations with my support group, family and health care providers that influenced my decision to have a stem cell transplant in 2008, when I was first diagnosed with multiple myeloma, at the age of 65. Mentoring other multiple myeloma patients is one of the highlights of my life. I became a Journey Partner to share my story and help others with the disease make sense of the diagnosis and overcome the fear of the unknown."

Learn More

For more information or to request a program, you can visit http://www.mmjourneypartners.com. Anyone interested in becoming a Multiple Myeloma Journey Partner can contact the program coordinator listed on the website. The program is sponsored by Sanofi Genzyme, the specialty care global business unit of Sanofi focused on rare diseases, multiple sclerosis, immunology, and oncology.

On the Net:North American Precis Syndicate, Inc.(NAPSI)

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Understanding Multiple Myeloma - Caswell Messenger

Renal and Urology News

Stem Cell-Sheet Transplantation Possible for Heart Failure Renal and Urology News In the new study, researchers used stem cells from the patient's own thigh muscle to create a patch they placed on the heart. That's in contrast to many past studies, where researchers have injected stem cells often from a patient's bone marrow ... Regenerative Medicine: What Is PRP Therapy?CBS Detroit all 13 news articles »

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Stem Cell-Sheet Transplantation Possible for Heart Failure - Renal and Urology News

As a kid, I was always intrigued with potions and products. My father worked as a scientist, whose specialty was chemistry as well as business. For many years he worked as the Director of Research and Development for the Mennen Company. Perhaps this is where my love of products and researching products began.

Like many women, my skin can be difficult at times. I have eczema which makes it intermittently sensitive, so I have to be careful of the products I use. While researching these products, I also looked into the science supporting them.

As fate would have it while exploring some interesting articles on my Twitter feed recently, I came across an intriguing tweet I just couldnt ignore. It was a tweet by a glamorous NYC dermatologist who was talking about how excited she was to receive her Lifeline Skin Care products in the mail. Her excitement was so infectious; I decided to look into these products for myself; and looking into them, ultimately led to me buy them.

While researching Lifeline Skin Cares products, I also looked into the science supporting them. Lifeline Skin Care products use something I had never heard of before; they use human, non-embryonic stem cells as one of the main ingredients to help tone and reduce the signs of aging.

Science

As a therapist, I not only look for products that work well and that I believe in, but also look at the philosophy of the company. Lifeline Skin Care was a socially conscious company and fit that standard.

Clinical Trials

The original goal for these researchers was to find a cure for diabetes and Parkinsons disease. These scientists created the first non-embryonic human stem cells. This discovery made finding cures for Parkinsons disease and corneal disease more promising. Currently, some of ISCOs most promising research is in the field of Parkinsons disease.

Parkinsons disease (PD) is a long-term degenerative disease of the central nervous system. It mainly affects the motor system and its symptoms usually have a slow-onset. In early stages, the disease is characterized by shaking, slow movement, difficulty in walking, and rigidity. In time, thinking and behavioral problems may occur. Advanced stages of the disease bring dementia.

istock jm1366

International Stem Cell Corporation (ISCO), is the parent company of Lifeline Skin Care and has devoted many years of research to improve this terrible disease. The company has developed a unique method of creating human neural stem cells which when introduced into the brain, promote the recovery of dopaminergic neurons, the brain cells that are originally affected and cause the disease symptoms. ISCOs preclinical studies showed that the administration of these neural stem cells were safe and improved motor symptoms. To date, 3 of the planned total of 12 patients, have entered the clinical trial and have received neural stem cells. At this point in time, all patients have been discharged from their hospital settings and are observed to be meeting clinical expectations.

Lifeline Skin care (LSC) - a subsidiary of ISCO - uses the extracts from human stem cells, (produced by ISCO), and developed for the skin in order to improve the signs of ageing. The latest technology being used to advance a cure for PD is now available for the skin in a line of products produced by LSC. The profits from the sale of these skin care products go directly to ISCO in order to fund the development of a therapy for PD.

From a skincare perspective, not only did Lifeline Skin Cares products feel good on my face, but I started to notice that my skin appeared brighter and less wrinkles, especially around my eyes (love that!).

From a psychological perspective, the younger we look and feel, the more optimistic and hopeful we tend to be about life and future options. I like the idea of feeling young, looking forever fabulous and most of all, being healthy.

Fortunately, Lifeline Skin Care found a way to help women and men look and feel their very best while scientists from their parent company work toward eradicating illness by using their special non-embryonic stem cell technology. Beauty is more than skin-deep; beauty can be on a mission, too.

More:
The International Stem Cell Corporation, a Company Dedicated to Curing Parkinson's Disease - Huffington Post

Mouse heart section showing human progenitor cells that formed functional human blood vessels. Purple color signifies human blood vessels, red staining signifies the blood vessels of the mouse that received the human cell implants. Credit: UIC

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago have identified a molecular switch that converts skin cells into cells that make up blood vessels, which could ultimately be used to repair damaged vessels in patients with heart disease or to engineer new vasculature in the lab. The technique, which boosts levels of an enzyme that keeps cells young, may also circumvent the usual aging that cells undergo during the culturing process. Their findings are reported in the journal Circulation.

Scientists have many ways to convert one type of cell into another. One technique involves turning a mature cell into a pluripotent stem cell one that has the ability to become any type of cell and then using chemical cocktails to coax it into maturing into the desired cell type. Other methods reprogram a cell so that it directly assumes a new identity, bypassing the stem-cell state.

In the last few years, scientists have begun to explore another method, a middle way, that can turn back the clock on skin cells so that they lose some of their mature cell identity and become more stem-like.

They dont revert all the way back to a pluripotent stem cell, but instead turn into intermediate progenitor cells, says Dr. Jalees Rehman, associate professor of medicine and pharmacology at UIC, who led the team of researchers. Progenitor cells can be grown in large quantities sufficient for regenerative therapies. And unlike pluripotent stem cells, progenitor cells can only differentiate into a few different cell types. Rehman calls this method to produce new cells partial de-differentiation.

Other groups have used this technique to produce progenitor cells that become blood vessel cells. But until now, researchers had not fully understood how the method worked, Rehman said.

Without understanding the molecular processes, it is difficult for us to control or enhance the process in order to efficiently build new blood vessels, he said.

His group discovered that the progenitors could be converted into blood vessel cells or into red blood cells, depending on the level of a gene transcription factor called SOX17.

The researchers measured the levels of several genes important for blood vessel formation. They saw that as progenitor cells were differentiating into blood vessel cells, levels of the transcription factor SOX17 became elevated.

When they increased levels of SOX17 even more in the progenitor cells, they saw that differentiation into blood vessel cells was enhanced about five-fold. When they suppressed SOX17, the progenitor cells produced fewer endothelial cells and instead generated red blood cells.

It makes a lot of sense that SOX17 is involved because it is abundant in developing embryos when blood vessels are forming, Rehman said.

When the researchers embedded the human progenitor cells into a gel and implanted the gels in mice, the cells organized into functional human blood vessels. Skin cells that had not undergone a conversion did not form blood vessels when similarly implanted.

When they implanted the progenitor cells into mice that had sustained heart damage from a heart attack, the implanted cells formed functional human blood vessels in the mouse hearts and even connected with existing mouse blood vessels to significantly improve heart function.

The human adult skin cells used by Rehmans team can easily be obtained by a simple skin biopsy.

This means that one could generate patient-specific blood vessels or red blood cells for any individual person, Rehman said. Using such personalized cells reduces the risk of rejection, he said, because the implanted blood vessels would have the same genetic makeup as the recipient.

Rehman and his colleagues noticed something else about the progenitor cells they had elevated levels of telomerase the anti-aging enzyme that adds a cap, or telomere, to the ends of chromosomes. As the caps wear away a little bit each time a cell divides, they are believed to contribute to aging in cells, whether in the body or growing in culture in the laboratory.

The increase in telomerase we see in the progenitor cells could be an added benefit of using this partial de-differentiation technique for the production of new blood vessels for patients with cardiac disease, especially for older patients, Rehman said. Their cells may already have shortened telomeres due to their advanced age. The process of converting and expanding these cells in the lab could make them age even further and impair their long-term function. But if the cells have elevated levels of telomerase, the cells are at lower risk of premature aging.

While telomerase has benefits, the enzyme is also found in extremely high levels in cancer cells, where it keeps cell division in overdrive.

We were concerned about the risk of tumor formation, Rehman said, but the researchers didnt observe any in these experiments. But to truly determine the efficacy and safety of these cells for humans, one needs to study them over even longer time periods in larger animals.

Reference:

Zhang, L., Jambusaria, A., Hong, Z., Marsboom, G., Toth, P. T., Herbert, B., . . . Rehman, J. (2017). SOX17 Regulates Conversion of Human Fibroblasts into Endothelial Cells and Erythroblasts via De-Differentiation into CD34 Progenitor Cells. Circulation. doi:10.1161/circulationaha.116.025722

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

See the article here:
Partial De-differentiation Converts Skin Cells into Blood Vessel Cells - Technology Networks

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago have identified a molecular switch that converts skin cells into cells that make up blood vessels, which could ultimately be used to repair damaged vessels in patients with heart disease or to engineer new vasculature in the lab. The technique, which boosts levels of an enzyme that keeps cells young, may also circumvent the usual aging that cells undergo during the culturing process. Their findings are reported in the journal Circulation.

Scientists have many ways to convert one type of cell into another. One technique involves turning a mature cell into a "pluripotent" stem cell -- one that has the ability to become any type of cell -- and then using chemical cocktails to coax it into maturing into the desired cell type. Other methods reprogram a cell so that it directly assumes a new identity, bypassing the stem-cell state.

In the last few years, scientists have begun to explore another method, a middle way, that can turn back the clock on skin cells so that they lose some of their mature cell identity and become more stem-like.

"They don't revert all the way back to a pluripotent stem cell, but instead turn into intermediate progenitor cells," says Dr. Jalees Rehman, associate professor of medicine and pharmacology at UIC, who led the team of researchers. Progenitor cells can be grown in large quantities sufficient for regenerative therapies. And unlike pluripotent stem cells, progenitor cells can only differentiate into a few different cell types. Rehman calls this method to produce new cells "partial de-differentiation."

Other groups have used this technique to produce progenitor cells that become blood vessel cells. But until now, researchers had not fully understood how the method worked, Rehman said.

"Without understanding the molecular processes, it is difficult for us to control or enhance the process in order to efficiently build new blood vessels," he said.

His group discovered that the progenitors could be converted into blood vessel cells or into red blood cells, depending on the level of a gene transcription factor called SOX17.

The researchers measured the levels of several genes important for blood vessel formation. They saw that as progenitor cells were differentiating into blood vessel cells, levels of the transcription factor SOX17 became elevated.

When they increased levels of SOX17 even more in the progenitor cells, they saw that differentiation into blood vessel cells was enhanced about five-fold. When they suppressed SOX17, the progenitor cells produced fewer endothelial cells and instead generated red blood cells.

"It makes a lot of sense that SOX17 is involved because it is abundant in developing embryos when blood vessels are forming," Rehman said.

When the researchers embedded the human progenitor cells into a gel and implanted the gels in mice, the cells organized into functional human blood vessels. Skin cells that had not undergone a conversion did not form blood vessels when similarly implanted.

When they implanted the progenitor cells into mice that had sustained heart damage from a heart attack, the implanted cells formed functional human blood vessels in the mouse hearts -- and even connected with existing mouse blood vessels to significantly improve heart function.

The human adult skin cells used by Rehman's team can easily be obtained by a simple skin biopsy.

"This means that one could generate patient-specific blood vessels or red blood cells for any individual person," Rehman said. Using such personalized cells reduces the risk of rejection, he said, because the implanted blood vessels would have the same genetic makeup as the recipient.

Rehman and his colleagues noticed something else about the progenitor cells -- they had elevated levels of telomerase -- the "anti-aging" enzyme that adds a cap, or telomere, to the ends of chromosomes. As the caps wear away a little bit each time a cell divides, they are believed to contribute to aging in cells, whether in the body or growing in culture in the laboratory.

"The increase in telomerase we see in the progenitor cells could be an added benefit of using this partial de-differentiation technique for the production of new blood vessels for patients with cardiac disease, especially for older patients," Rehman said. "Their cells may already have shortened telomeres due to their advanced age. The process of converting and expanding these cells in the lab could make them age even further and impair their long-term function. But if the cells have elevated levels of telomerase, the cells are at lower risk of premature aging."

While telomerase has benefits, the enzyme is also found in extremely high levels in cancer cells, where it keeps cell division in overdrive.

"We were concerned about the risk of tumor formation," Rehman said, but the researchers didn't observe any in these experiments. "But to truly determine the efficacy and safety of these cells for humans, one needs to study them over even longer time periods in larger animals."

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Turning skin cells into blood vessel cells while keeping them young - Science Daily

M

ice that walk straight and fluidly dont usually make scientists exult, but these did: The lab rodents all had a mouse version of Parkinsons disease and only weeks before had barely been able to lurch and shuffle around their cages.

Using a trick from stem-cell science, researchers managed to restore the kind of brain cells whose death causes Parkinsons. And the mice walked almost normally.The same technique turned human brain cells, growing in a lab dish, into the dopamine-producing neurons that are AWOL in Parkinsons, scientists at Swedens Karolinska Institute reportedon Monday in Nature Biotechnology.

Success in lab mice and human cells is many difficult steps away from success in patients. The study nevertheless injected new life into a promising approach to Parkinsons that has suffered setback after setback replacing the dopamine neurons that are lost in the disease, crippling movement and eventually impairing mental function.

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This is not going to happen in five years or possibly even 10, but Im excited about the potential of this kind of cell replacement therapy, said James Beck, chief scientific officer of the Parkinsons Foundation, which was not involved in the study. It could really give life back to someone with Parkinsons disease.

There is no cure for Parkinsons, a neurodegenerative disease that affects an estimated 10 million people worldwide, most prominently actor Michael J. Fox. Drugs that enable the brain to make dopamine help only somewhat, often causing movement abnormalities called dyskinesia as well as bizarre side effects such as a compulsion to gamble; they do nothing to stop the neurodegeneration.

As Parkinsons patients wait, Fox Foundation and scientist feud over drug trial

Rather than replacing the missing dopamine, scientists led by Karolinskas Ernest Arenas tried to replace dopamine neurons but not in the way that researchers have been trying since the late 1980s. In that approach, scientists obtained tissue containing dopamine neurons from first-trimester aborted fetuses and implanted it intopatients brains.Although a 2001clinical trialfound that the transplants partly alleviated the rigidity and tremors of Parkinsons, the procedure caused serious dyskinesia in about 20 percent of patients, Beck said. More problematic is that fetal issue raises ethical concerns and is in short supply.

It was clear that usable fragments of brain tissue were extremely difficult to recover, said Dr. Curt Freed, of the University of Colorado, who pioneered that work.

Instead, several labs have therefore used stem cells to produce dopamine neurons in dishes. Transplanted into the brains of lab rats with Parkinsons, the neurons reduced rigidity, tremor, and other symptoms. Human studies are expected to begin in the US and Japan this year or next, Beck said.

In the Karolinska approach, there is no need to search for donor cells and no cell transplantation or [need for] immunosuppression to prevent rejection, Arenas told STAT. Instead, he and his team exploited one of the most startling recent discoveries in cell biology: that certain molecules can cause one kind of specialized cell, such as a skin cell, to pull a Benjamin Button, aging in reverse until they become like the embryonic cells called stem cells. Those can be induced to morph into any kind of cell heart, skin, muscle, and more in the body.

Muhammad Ali and Parkinsons disease: Was boxing to blame?

Arenas and his team filled harmless lentiviruses with a cocktail of four such molecules. Injected into the brains of mice with Parkinsons-like damage, the viruses infected plentifulbrain cells called astrocytes. (The brains support cells, astrocytes perform jobs like controlling blood flow.)The viruses also infected other kinds of cells, but their payload was designed to work only in astrocytes, and apparently caused no harm to the other cells.

The molecules, called transcription factors, reprogrammed some of the astrocytes to become dopamine neurons, which were first detected three weeks later in the mouse brains. The dopamine neurons were abundant 15 weeks later, an indication that after changing into dopamine neurons the astrocytes stayed changed.

Five weeks after receiving the injections, the mice, which used to have Parkinsons-like gait abnormalities, walked as well as healthy mice. That suggests that direct reprogramming [of brain cells] has the potential to become a novel therapeutic approach for Parkinsons, Arenas told STAT.

That could have value for preserving the brain circuitry destroyed by Parkinsons, said Colorados Freed.

A lot of hurdles need to be overcome before this becomes a Parkinsons treatment. The Trojan horse system for delivering the reprogramming molecules inside viruseswould need to turn more astrocytes into dopamine neurons and leave other kinds of cells alone: Although viruses getting into mouse brain cells apparently caused no harm, that might not be so in people. We will need to use virus with selective [attraction] for astrocytes, Arenas said.

The morphed cells would presumably be ravaged by whatever produced Parkinsons in the first place. But in other cell transplants, Arenas said, the disease catches up with transplanted cells in 15 to 20 years, buying patients a good period of time. He thinks it might be possible to give patients a single injection but hold off some of the reprogramming with a drug, turning it on when the brain again runs short of dopamine neurons.

The basic technology to develop such strategies currently exists, he said.

The Karolinska lab is working to make the techniquesafer and more effective, including by using viruses that would deliver reprogramming molecules only to astrocytes. We are open to collaborations aimed at human studies, Arenas said.

Would patients be willing to undergo brain injections? People with Parkinsons disease, Beck said, are willing to go through a lot for any hope of improvement.

Sharon Begley can be reached at sharon.begley@statnews.com Follow Sharon on Twitter @sxbegle

Continued here:
Mighty morphed brain cells cure Parkinson's in mice, but human trials still far off - STAT

In a pioneering study, European scientists have reprogrammed brain cells in mice to correct some of the movement disorders of Parkinsons disease.

The scientists also demonstrated the reprogramming in human brain cells grown in cultures.

In both mice and human cell cultures, the procedure converted brain cells called astrocytes into cells that produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter necessary for movement. Dopamine-making neurons are destroyed in Parkinsons disease; so replacing them should alleviate symptoms.

Like all biomedical research, this approach will require more development and testing before it can be considered for treating actual patients.

The study was published Monday in Nature Biotechnology. Pia Rivetti di Val Cervo was first author, and Ernest Arenas was senior author. Both are of Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

The study can be found online at j.mp/astropark.

Researchers worked on mice that had had their dopamine-making neurons destroyed. They used a viral delivery system to transmit three genes to the astrocytes that reprogrammed some of them into dopamine-making cells.

The next steps to be taken toward achieving this goal include improving reprogramming efficiency, demonstrating the approach on human adult striatal astrocytes, developing systems to selectively target human striatal astrocytes in vivo, and ensuring safety and efficacy in humans, the study concluded.

The study is a more sophisticated version of gene therapy approaches that have previously been investigated for Parkinsons, and is worth pursuing, said Parkinsons disease researcher Andres Bratt-Leal. However, much more work needs to be done before it can be considered for patients, he said. Meanwhile, other therapeutic projects are much closer to clinical testing.

Bratt-Leal is involved in one of those projects, a San Diego-based initiative to reprogram skin cells from Parkinsons patients into embryonic-like cells called induced pluripotent stem cells, and then mature them into the dopamine producing neurons. These neurons will then be implanted into the brains of the patients, if work by the Summit for Stem Cell Foundation succeeds.

Implanting new neurons has shown tremendous promise in animal models and clinical trials using dopamine-producing neurons derived from embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells are going to start in the next 1 to 2 years, said Bratt-Leal, the foundations director of research. Gene therapy is promising, but there remain a lot of questions before it is ready for clinical trial.

In a dish, only a fraction of the cells are successfully made into cells which resemble dopamine-producing neurons, Bratt-Leal said. I'd like to know what happens to all the other cells which don't complete that transformation. Are the cells made with gene therapy as good as the neurons we can make from stem cells?

With cell therapy clinical trials around the corner and improvements in gene therapy technology, patients with Parkinson's disease have reasons to stay active and optimistic about the future.

bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1020

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Brain cells reprogrammed to make dopamine, with goal of Parkinson's therapy - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Member-tethered, receptor-blocking antibodies protect cells from rhinovirus.

A new approach to treating AIDS was discovered by scientists at the Scripps Research Institute (TSRI).

Scientists have found a way to stick HIV-fighting antibodies to immune cells, which may foster a cell population resistant to the virus.

The experiments under lab conditions show resistant cells can quickly replace diseased cells under lab conditions, which shows the potential to cure a person with HIV, according to TSRI.

"This protection would be long term," said Jia Xie, senior staff scientist at TSRI and the first author of the study. It was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Richard Lerner, M.D., Lita Annenberg Hazen Professor of Immunochemistry at TSRI, led the study. The researchers will work with investigators at City of Hope's Center for Gene Therapy to investigate this new therapy as a potential treatment for HIV.

They will evaluate the treatment with safety tests as required by federal regulations.

"City of Hope currently has active clinical trials of gene therapy for AIDS using blood stem cell transplantation, and this experience will be applied to the task of bringing this discovery to the clinic," said John A. Zaia, M.D., director of the Center for Gene Therapy, in a statement.

"The ultimate goal will be the control of HIV in patients with AIDS without the need for other medications," said Zaia.

A significant new advantage with this treatment is that antibodies hang onto a cell's surface, blocking HIV from accessing a crucial cell receptor and spreading infection, according toTSRI.

This is really a form of cellular vaccination, said Lerner.

Antibodies recognize the CDR4 binding site, which allows them to block HIV from attacking a critical receptor in the cell. Scientists say this technique can produce an HIV-resistant population of cells.

Published at 7:14 PM PDT on Apr 10, 2017 | Updated at 7:15 PM PDT on Apr 10, 2017

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Scientists Find New Way to Fight HIV at Scripps Research Institute - NBC Southern California

A research report by published in the Journal of medical informatics on the topic of Research Progress on Treatment of Cancer with Compatibility of Traditional Chinese Medicine establishes that the targeted gene therapy is more effective than Surgery, Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy.

Cancer is one of the major life-threatening diseases that people often worry about. People suffering from cancer often undergo traditional treatments, such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. However, such treatments could have harmful side effects. A research was recently conducted aimed at studying traditional Chinese medicine compatibility with respect to treating prostatic cancer. The study reveals that the targeted gene therapy is more advantageous to traditional cancer treatments of Surgery, Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy.

The study also points out the targeted gene therapy can be combined with other therapies for a more effective result. However, this therapy is also not mature enough to address all health issues related to the prostatic cancer. In such a scenario, Dr. Songs 3D Prostate Targeted Treatment emerges as a safe and reliable treatment for prostate cancer. The research revealed that the therapy can be combined with local targeted injections. The technique makes the therapy more effective and increases its killing effect on cancer cells.

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/embed/xIFCz5p8PDo

Dr. Songs treatment is based on the direct injection technique of the traditional Chinese medicine system. Dr. Xinping Song acknowledges the findings of the research and also the anti-cancer extract compatibility of the traditional Chinese medicine.In this prostate cancer treatment, patients are given small targeted injections in the affected areas of the prostate to help eliminate causative pathogens and clear the blockage. The injections carry herbal extracts only, which are safe and have no side effects at all. This is the reason this treatment is harmless and more effective than surgery or chemotherapy.

Dr. Song believes that the traditional Chinese anticancer medicine can better interpose with the symptoms of cancer patients. Dr. Songs prostate cancer treatment that follows the principles of traditional Chinese medicine is a clinical breakthrough. This innovative treatment brings more advantages in patients and their familys lives.

At Dr. Song 3D Urology and Prostate Clinic, patients can undergo all types of prostate care and treatment, including the treatment for the prostate cancer. This natural treatment method saves the cost and also meets the patients requirements in an effective manner. With a non-surgical and quality treatment, patients gradually improve their health and get rid of their pain and sufferings.

To know more about Dr Songs 3D prostate treatment, one can visit the website https://www.prostatecancer.vip/

About 3D Urology and Prostate Clinic

The 3D Urology and Prostate Clinic is a premier prostate treatment clinic. The clinic specializes in treating various types of prostate diseases and complications, such as prostatitis, enlarged prostate, benign prostatic hyperlasia (BPH), prostate cancer, seminal vesiculitis, epididymitis,cystitis, prostate blockage and calcification, and chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CPPS), etc. The clinic is a medical clinic, licensed and approved by the Ministry of Health of the Peoples Republic of China.

Media Contact Company Name: Dr. Song's 3D Prostate and 3D Prostatitis Clinic Contact Person: Miss Alisa Wang, English Assistant to Dr. Song Email: prostatecure3d@gmail.com Phone: 86-186-7321-6429 Address:The Xiangtan 3D Prostatitis and Prostate Clinic Address - Jin Xiangtan Square Office Building, Suite 801, Shao Shan Middle Rd City: Xiangtan State: Hunan Country: China Website: https://www.prostatecancer.vip/

Excerpt from:
Research Reveals Targeted Gene Therapy Is More Advantageous ... - Digital Journal

OK, everyone. Its time to talk about birth control. Everyone remembers the stories of condoms made out of sheeps skin, but after rubber condoms were patented in 1844, there were little advances in birth control until the 1900s.

Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in 1916, and after being prosecuted for being a public nuisance, she went to jail for 30 years. When she was released, she reopened the clinic that later became known as Planned Parenthood. Through more arrests and prosecutions, her clinic stayed open. In 1950, when Sanger was in her 80s, she underwrote the research to create the first birth control pill.

In 1965, the Supreme Court ruled that married couples have the right to use birth control, but millions of unmarried women in more than 26 states were still denied birth control, and it was not until 1972 that the Supreme Court ruled that everyone now had the right to birth control.

Since then, women have had to fight tooth and nail to make sure that this right is reserved for all women, even those who dont want it, and that those who do are able to access contraceptives without judgment.

The importance of this cause making sure that every woman has the right to control her body cannot be overstated. It is a right that deserves to be protected with everything weve got.

But what about the horrible side effects that are associated with hormonal birth control? It has been proven that taking hormonal birth control pills can lead to increased risk of depression, and many women have come forward about how they believe their birth control has led to increased anxiety, and even panic attacks.

Its not an uncommon occurrence. Over 30 percent of women have quit taking birth control pills due to these side effects.

But what is the alternative? Condoms are not completely reliable, intrauterine devices (IUDs) still contain hormones and can get embedded in the walls of your uterus, which can cause severe infections or can even cause uterine rupture. Depo-Provera (a hormone shot received from your doctor every three months) has led to severe weight gain in one out of four women.

And yet it is still up to women to suffer through these horrible side effects and keep up a strict birth control regime in order to maintain the life they want for as long as they choose.

But has anyone ever thought about why this job has even been put on women? Why are we trying to disarm a bullet after being shot, rather than just shoot a blank to begin with? Why are we fighting to maintain this form of birth control?

Women deserve better. They deserve more than going through pill after pill hopelessly searching for the one that causes the least amount of panic attacks or makes them feel less depressed. They deserve more than the horrible pain that comes with an IUD that has been embedded in their uterus. They deserve more than giving up their body in exchange for one 60 pounds heavier. They deserve more than broken condoms and morning after pills.

These forms of birth control that we have relied on for so long are simply not good enough but if a woman chooses not to subject her body to these side effects, she is deemed irresponsible or just asking to get pregnant."

So, the question remains are women even really in control of their bodies? Or are they just at the mercy of their birth control?

See more here:
Negative side effects of contraception must be addressed - Virginia Tech Collegiate Times

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is considered the main cause of hypopituitarism in adults and growth hormone (GH) deficiency is the most common pituitary deficit associated with TBI.

According to Cedars-Sinai, even after we stop growing, adults need growth hormone. Growth hormone plays a role in healthy muscle, how our bodies collect fat (especially around the stomach area), the ratio of high density to low density lipoproteins in cholesterol levels, and bone density. In addition, growth hormone is needed for normal brain function.

A recent study aimed to assess pituitary function and GH deficiency in adult patients at different time durations following complicated mild TBI, according to the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). The study also aimed to evaluate whether mild TBI patients with GH deficiency had developed alterations in the glycolipid profile.

Forty-eight patients (34 men and 14 women) with complicated mild TBI were included in the study. Twenty-three patients were evaluated at 1 year (Group A), and 25 patients at 5 years or longer after the injury (Group B). All patients underwent basal hormonal evaluation for pituitary function. GH deficiency was investigated by the combined test (GH releasing hormone + arginine). The glycolipid profile was also evaluated.

Researchers report that GH deficiency occurred in 8/23 patients (34.7 percent) of Group A and in 12/25 patients (48 percent) of Group B. In addition, two patients, one in each group, showed evidence of central hypothyroidism. Patients examined one-year or several years after complicated mild TBI had a similarly high occurrence of isolated GH deficiency, which was associated with visceral adiposity and metabolic alterations.

These findings suggest that patients with complicated mild TBI should be evaluated for GH deficiency even if several years have passed since the underlying trauma.

Link:
Growth Hormone Deficiency Following Complicated Mild Traumatic Brain Injury - Lexology (registration)

A team of scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles has been able to synthesize an artificial thymus, a human organ that is important to the bodys immune system. An artificial thymus, they say, could produce necessary cancer-fighting T-cells for the body.

On demand.

T-cells, of course, are white blood cells which naturally fight diseases that develop in or infect the body. These T-cells are artificial, though, so they would have to be engineered to target specific forms of cancer, in order to be effective. Still, if this is manageable, then it could provide scientists and health practitioners with additional natural defensesalbeit, bionicfor attacking disease.

The thymus rests in front of the heart. It uses stem cells from the blood to make immune-boosting T-cells, which literally circulate throughout the body to specifically target things that dont belong. In this case, the thymus would create T-cells that could seek out specific cancerous growths without jeopardizing the health of existing tissue.

For the study, the Japanese researchers looked at 27 patients who had received transplants form stem cells that had been taken from their own thigh muscles. These patients showed no sign of any major complications; most patients also showed significant improvement with their symptoms.

Research team member Gay Crooks comments, We know that the key to creating a consistent and safe supply of cancer-fighting T-cells would be to control the process in a way that deactivates all T-cell receptors in the transplanted cells, except for the cancer-fighting receptors. It is important, of course, to take stem cells from the patient who needs them because the body is likely to reject any foreign stem cells (and their byproducts). Apparently, they have been at this study for more than two decades but, unfortunately, the researchers acknowledge that past attempts only showed modest results. From these results, though, they were able to devise a method for producing sheets of muscle stem cells which could then be attached to the inner layer of the sac (which encloses the heart). These stem cells will stimulate healing through the production of chemicals which encourage cardiac regeneration, though the stem cells, themselves, do not survive in the long term.

The results of this study have been published in the scientific journal Nature Methods.

Original post:
Can An Artificial Thymus, Made from Stem Cells, Pump Out Enough T-Cells To Fight Cancer? - Dispatch Tribunal

When Kyle Tanner learned he had Fanconi anemia at age 16, he didnt understand the toll the bone marrow disease would take on him.

It made definitely me anxious and it made me more inclined to do things that I wouldnt have otherwise did if I didnt know I had a life-threatening disease, Tanner said.

He lived his life as though nothing was wrong, but did his research. Tanner learned everything he could about Fanconi anemia information about serious health risks such as bone marrow failure, physical abnormalities and the risk of of getting cancer.

It kind of made me stop caring about what people thought about me, Tanner said. It made more empathetic.

Doctors informed Tanner that by 19 he would likely need a bone marrow transplant. Time passed. He hoped the procedure wouldn't be necessary. Then November 2016, the 22-year-old Hudson senior was informed by his doctor that he would have to undergo a bone marrow transplant to save his life.

As Tanners final exams approached, he decided to go through with the operation.

Anxious and uncertain, the Central Michigan University student missed the entire spring 2017 semester and traveled to Minnesota for his first transplant. He second transplant would come a week later.

It has been two months since Tanner received the transplants. Its an experience that has tested his strength, he said, and changed his outlook on life.

Now that I went through a transplant, (Im) feeling the very physical aspects of it with the mental aspects (of the disease), he said.

Due to regulations in the donor program, Tanner cannot know the name of his donor who helped rebuild his life. All he knows is that a 20-year-old from Germany saved his life. He plans to send the man a letter that explains the magnitude of what he did for him.

Im extremely grateful, Tanner said. Im sure I will be for the rest of my life. That was an essential part of the process. If he wouldnt have been able to donate, I would have had to get another donor. Im extremely grateful for that person. I hope to one day tell them how important that was for me.

Tanner has symptoms like fevers and rapid hair loss that ends in rapid hair growth on his face while he recovers. In an effort to reduce exposure to bacteria and virus, Tanner must wear a mask.

It hasnt been an easy journey.

Kyle Tanner walks around his room on March 5 after being attached to an IV pole for approximately 33 days on the fourth floor of the University of Minnesota Masonic Childrens Hospital. He inspects his central line, the former bridge between him and the IV.

Receiving the transplants

After two weeks of tests, Tanner was admitted Jan. 31 to the University of Minnesota Masonic Childrens Hospital.

Before being admitted into the hospital, Tanner met a six-year-old boy who went through a transplant. The child told him, Get ready for a lot of pain and suffering, with a smile on his face.

Tanner laughed it off.

Is this really what he means, or is he saying it because its funny? Tanner thought. I came to learn he definitely wasnt saying it to be funny.

After radiation and chemotherapy, Tanner received his first bone marrow transplant on Feb. 7. His new marrow came imported from Germany via a donor paired with Tanner through the Be the Match bone marrow donor registry.

(The operation) was actually pretty uneventful, Tanner said. Its like a glorified blood transfusion. You dont even feel it.

However, the company sent too few cells to be effective, and Tanner needed a second transplant. After a period of anxiousness and waiting, Tanner learned his donor would be able to give a second set of cells. His second transplant was on Feb. 17. This time he received a stem-cell transplant, and doctors took blood from his donors vein and converted it to bone marrow.

Tanner said he felt relief. He felt the stress that was lifted off his shoulders.

Its insane that you can save someones life by giving them your bone marrow, Tanner said.

Mary Tanner,left,and Hartland junior Santino Mattioli,right, help Kyle Tanner pack to move on March 5 from the University of Minnesota Masonic Childrens Hospital into the Ronald McDonald House. I feel like Im just going to enjoy very small things that before I would want to rush through, that Im going to slow down while Im doing, and not be in such a rush to get somewhere else, Tanner said.

Support from family and friends

What he appreciates the most is walking. Hell get up when he can, shuffling up and down the hospital halls. Bundled up and donning a face mask, Tanner said he finds strength in the stories of other young patients dealing with the same disease. The beacons of optimism are children often ages 2 to 8 years old.

Their positive spirit helps maintain Tanners optimism.

Even though theyre going through really tough times, they have a big smile on their face, Tanner said. That definitely makes me happy that they are able to embrace the situation. They may not know the situation theyre going through, but its nice to see someone smile and theyre going through the same thing Im going through.

When he isnt walking, he is laying in his hospital bed with his mother on a couch by his side.

Mary Tanner has been with her son every step of the way.

He appreciates everything more and just simple things in life, Mary Tanner said. Hes got to think twice before he does anything to know if its going to endanger his life.

Tanner left his life at CMU behind, but that didnt stop his closest CMU friends from traveling more than 675 miles to see him.

Hartland junior Santino Mattioli was Tanners roommate in 2014-15 in Herrig Hall Room 010. The two formed an instant friendship by playing games like Mario Kart.

During spring break, Mattioli and some friends traveled to Minnesota to visit Tanner in the hospital. Mattioli and Tanner played video games again and hung out once again, just like when they first met.

Mattioli said although Tanner looked tired, his spirit never diminished.

You learn so much in the hard parts of your life, Mattioli said. For him to go through something like that, you learn a lot about yourself, you grow personally and (grow) stronger when you make it through it. Hes not a different person now, but you can tell hes got a different perspective.

Kyle Tanner lays in his bed on March 4 at the University of Minnesotas Masonic Childrens Hospital. Its definitely a roller coaster where the highs are at ground level, Tanner said. The good days are the days where, you know, nothing really big is happening, nothing bad is happening. You dont feel great, but the thing is you dont feel terrible.

Come home soon

Tanner will remain at a Ronald McDonald House in the Minneapolis area for a full 100 days so doctors can monitor his condition. During his stay, he has returned to the hospital with a fever, due to complications.

You cant be happy here all the time its impossible, he said. But being able to accept what youre going through, and realize what really happens is not in your hands what really happens, I think thats really important.

Despite some setbacks, the Hudson native continues to receive letters and cards from friends and family back home. He is looking forward to returning to the state he holds dear in his heart.

I like Michigan, but what really makes Michigan for me is the people that I have there that I look forward to seeing again, he said.

Tanner said he hopes for the day where he can go out to eat and not shower with a cord connected to monitors and equipment. He said he didnt go to the movies that often before his transplant now he cant wait to go to the theaters.

Doing nothing is something that I miss, Tanner said. Im doing nothing now, but theres really nobody around except my mom and I dont always feel great. Ill feel better and more comfortable in a home setting.

Tanner hopes to leave Minnesota in May and return to CMU this fall. His goal is to earn his bachelors degree in Broadcast and Cinematic Arts in May 2018.

Im going to be grateful for the time I spend with my family and being able to enjoy the little things, Tanner said. It brings out things in you that you didnt really know you enjoyed.

There are days where Tanner feels down, but he has a different outlook on life. He said he is a better person for having gone through this.

This whole experience isnt going to leave me, he said. Even right now, I dont completely realize how its changed me.

View original post here:
Finding the right match - Central Michigan Life

By Suzanne Laurentnews@seacoastonline.com

NEWMARKET Karen Olivier is excitedly looking forward to what she calls her stem cell birthday.

Olivier, 40, is traveling April 23 to Monterrey, Mexico, to undergo a procedure that will reset her immune system and stop the inflammation in her body, caused by her relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

Diagnosed with MS at the age of 24, Olivier learned about a treatment called hematopoietic stem cell therapy, or HSCT, from a Facebook page. It gave her hope that if she had this treatment, it would stop the progression of the disease.

She began blogging about her journey leading up to her trip to Mexico.

I want others to know this is an option, she said.

According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, HSCT attempts to reboot the immune system, which is responsible for damaging the brain and spinal cord in MS. In HSCT, hematopoietic (blood cell-producing) stem cells are derived from the persons own bone marrow or blood, are collected and stored, and the rest of the individuals immune cells are depleted by chemotherapy.

The stored hematopoietic stem cells are then reintroduced to the body. The new stem cells migrate to the bone marrow and, over time, produce new white blood cells. Eventually they repopulate the body with immune cells, building a new immune system that doesnt know what MS is.

In early clinical trials, 78 percent of participants experienced no new disease activity after the procedure and did not need disease-modifying therapies to control their disease.

Olivier had been taking disease modifying drugs, or DMDs, for 15 years, starting with Avonex, a once weekly intramuscular injection. She then took Rebif, a subcutaneous injection three times a week. After she took a daily injection of Copaxone. In 2009, she started on Tysabri, receiving an infusion every 28 days.

I did well on the Tysabri, but in the past couple of years, my symptoms progressed and my most recent MRI showed new disease activity on my thoracic spine, Olivier said. At the rate my MS was progressing, I would probably be in a wheelchair in two years.

Since 1993, the Federal Drug Administration has approved DMDs to treat relapsing-remitting MS. All are designed to suppress the immune system to one degree or another. These drugs cost about $5,000 per month and they must be taken indefinitely, since relapses will occur if the drugs are stopped.

Oliviers insurance covered the cost of the drugs, but her copays and coinsurance amounts were still very high, she said. One month of a DMD infusion can cost between $7,000 and $9,000.

Olivier researched a clinical trial of HSCT in Chicago, a program begun in 1996 by Dr. Richard Burt, now chief of the division of medicine-immunology and autoimmune diseases at Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine.

Trial criteria included relapsing-remitting MS, and failure on at least two DMDs and two flare-ups in the past 12 months, requiring treatment from steroids, she said.

In the United States, HSCT can cost between $150,000 and $200,000.

Insurance may have covered it out-of-network, but my plan has a substantial out-of-pocket maximum, Olivier said. It would have require multiple trips to Chicago for several years, and I could have ended up in the control group.

Olivier began to explore receiving HSCT in other countries and decided to apply for the treatment at Clinica Ruiz in Mexico last October when she was recovering from a flare-up. Clinica Ruiz is based in Pueblo, Mexico, but has expanded to a second clinic in Monterrey.

She and her husband, Jason, agreed spend the $54,500 out-of-pocket cost for the outpatient treatment that also includes transportation to and from a two-bedroom apartment where she will stay for 28 days. Her mother is traveling with her, as the treatment protocol requires the patient to have a caregiver present.

I was accepted based on my MS history and my expanded disability status scale (EDSS) score that basically measures how mobile you are, Olivier said.

Olivier will undergo two days of chemotherapy to wipe out her immune system. She will then have seven days of injections to promote stem cell growth, after which stem cells will be harvested from her blood.

Ill then have two more days of chemotherapy, she said. Im excited. No chemo, no cure.

May 7 will be what Olivier calls her stem cell birthday when she receives her stem cells back to reboot her immune system. She will then be in isolation in the apartment for about a week. Her mother will have to wear special precaution gear during that time.

Some people see improvements in the first three months, with full recovery in two years, Olivier said. Some might say Im not sick enough for this treatment, but the earlier someone gets it, the better, before the MS causes major damage.

She added that some people believe this is a risky procedure and it has not been FDA-approved yet in the United States.

But many people have died on Tysabri and the drug approved by the FDA last week, Ocrevus, has an increased risk of cancer after two to three years. I am hoping the HSCT will stop the progression of my MS, and hope that I never have to go on another DMD in my life.

To read Oliviers blog, visit knockoutmsblog.wordpress.com.

Original post:
Local woman heads to Mexico - Seacoastonline.com

Submit the press release

Bone marrow transplantation, also referred as hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is the process of replacing diseased or damaged bone marrow or bone marrow stem cells with healthy tissue. Bone marrow is a soft vascular tissue present in the interior of long bones, which is primarily responsible for hematopoiesis (formation of blood cells), production of lymphocytes, and storage of a fat. Bone marrow transplantation procedure is recommended to treat severe stages of leukemia, Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphomas, multiple myeloma, aplastic and sickle cell anemia, thalassemia etc. In 2015, more than 75,000 bone marrow transplants were performed globally and the count is expected to increase by approximately 25% by the end of 2020. Depending on the source of bone marrow or stem cells, bone marrow transplant procedures are classified as peripheral stem cell transplant (PSCT) or conventional bone marrow transplant. The high potential of the bone marrow transplants and the ongoing researches in the field to reduce the risks and side effects of the procedure will take the market to a new high and provide better healthcare to millions of people in the world.

Request Report Sample@http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1354

Bone Marrow Transplant Market: Drivers and Restraints

Increasing worldwide prevalence of cancers and anemia is the major driver for the growth of global bone marrow transplant market. Moreover, advances in technology, improving healthcare infrastructure, emerging indications of bone marrow transplant for heart and neuronal disorders, growing investment in logistic services, increasing per capita healthcare expenditure are some other factors expected to flourish the global bone marrow transplantation market. However, tremendous cost of the treatment, scarcity of bone marrow donors and uncertainty of reimbursement in several countries are some major restraints for the growth of global bone marrow transplantation market,

Bone Marrow Transplant Market: Overview

Autologous bone marrow transplant segment of transplant type is expected to hold the major share in the global bone marrow transplant market owing to low treatment cost and high success rate. Leukemia being the most potential disease eligible for bone marrow transplant, is anticipated to contribute highest share in the global bone marrow transplant market. Hospital end user segment contributes major market share in global bone marrow transplant market owing to the requirement for advanced healthcare infrastructure for the procedure. Commercialization of stem cell therapies and expansion of them for clinical use is anticipated to cause surge in global bone marrow transplant market over the forecast period of 2016-2026.

Request For TOC@http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-1354

Bone Marrow Transplant Market: Region wise Overview

Geographically, global bone marrow transplant market is classified into regions namely, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Middle East and Africa.Europe will continue to lead the global bone marrow transplant market due to high density of bone marrow transplant centers and expanding bone marrow registries. Latin America is anticipated to witness rapid increase in volume of bone marrow transplant market owing to high number of potential candidates for the procedure. Increasing number of bone marrow transplant teams in North America is foreseen to boost the bone marrow transplant market in the region.

Bone Marrow Transplant Market: Key Players

Some of the key players in global bone marrow transplant market are Lonza Group Ltd., Merck Millipore Corporation, Sanofi-Aventis LLC., AllCells LLC., STEMCELL Technologies, ATCC Inc., Hemacare Corporation, Cellular Dynamics International, ReachBio LLC., Conversant Bio, abm Inc., PromoCell GmbH, Cruline Human biospecime PRO, Lifeline Cell Technology, Mesoblast Ltd. and others.

Read more:
Bone Marrow Transplant Market Size, Analysis, and Forecast Report ... - satPRnews (press release)

Science Daily

Stem cell drug screen yields potential alternative to statins Science Daily Next, they generated induced pluripotent stem cells from these skin cells. Stem cells continually double their numbers while in culture. This meant that a sample of converted skin cells from a single patient with FH provided a renewable source of liver ...

Read the original:
Stem cell drug screen yields potential alternative to statins - Science Daily

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

Go here to see the original:
Brains on ice: The Aussie man planning to live forever - Northern Star

By Suzanne Laurentnews@seacoastonline.com

NEWMARKET Karen Olivier is excitedly looking forward to what she calls her stem cell birthday.

Olivier, 40, is traveling April 23 to Monterrey, Mexico, to undergo a procedure that will reset her immune system and stop the inflammation in her body, caused by her relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

Diagnosed with MS at the age of 24, Olivier learned about a treatment called hematopoietic stem cell therapy, or HSCT, from a Facebook page. It gave her hope that if she had this treatment, it would stop the progression of the disease.

She began blogging about her journey leading up to her trip to Mexico.

I want others to know this is an option, she said.

According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, HSCT attempts to reboot the immune system, which is responsible for damaging the brain and spinal cord in MS. In HSCT, hematopoietic (blood cell-producing) stem cells are derived from the persons own bone marrow or blood, are collected and stored, and the rest of the individuals immune cells are depleted by chemotherapy.

The stored hematopoietic stem cells are then reintroduced to the body. The new stem cells migrate to the bone marrow and, over time, produce new white blood cells. Eventually they repopulate the body with immune cells, building a new immune system that doesnt know what MS is.

In early clinical trials, 78 percent of participants experienced no new disease activity after the procedure and did not need disease-modifying therapies to control their disease.

Olivier had been taking disease modifying drugs, or DMDs, for 15 years, starting with Avonex, a once weekly intramuscular injection. She then took Rebif, a subcutaneous injection three times a week. After she took a daily injection of Copaxone. In 2009, she started on Tysabri, receiving an infusion every 28 days.

I did well on the Tysabri, but in the past couple of years, my symptoms progressed and my most recent MRI showed new disease activity on my thoracic spine, Olivier said. At the rate my MS was progressing, I would probably be in a wheelchair in two years.

Since 1993, the Federal Drug Administration has approved DMDs to treat relapsing-remitting MS. All are designed to suppress the immune system to one degree or another. These drugs cost about $5,000 per month and they must be taken indefinitely, since relapses will occur if the drugs are stopped.

Oliviers insurance covered the cost of the drugs, but her copays and coinsurance amounts were still very high, she said. One month of a DMD infusion can cost between $7,000 and $9,000.

Olivier researched a clinical trial of HSCT in Chicago, a program begun in 1996 by Dr. Richard Burt, now chief of the division of medicine-immunology and autoimmune diseases at Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine.

Trial criteria included relapsing-remitting MS, and failure on at least two DMDs and two flare-ups in the past 12 months, requiring treatment from steroids, she said.

In the United States, HSCT can cost between $150,000 and $200,000.

Insurance may have covered it out-of-network, but my plan has a substantial out-of-pocket maximum, Olivier said. It would have require multiple trips to Chicago for several years, and I could have ended up in the control group.

Olivier began to explore receiving HSCT in other countries and decided to apply for the treatment at Clinica Ruiz in Mexico last October when she was recovering from a flare-up. Clinica Ruiz is based in Pueblo, Mexico, but has expanded to a second clinic in Monterrey.

She and her husband, Jason, agreed spend the $54,500 out-of-pocket cost for the outpatient treatment that also includes transportation to and from a two-bedroom apartment where she will stay for 28 days. Her mother is traveling with her, as the treatment protocol requires the patient to have a caregiver present.

I was accepted based on my MS history and my expanded disability status scale (EDSS) score that basically measures how mobile you are, Olivier said.

Olivier will undergo two days of chemotherapy to wipe out her immune system. She will then have seven days of injections to promote stem cell growth, after which stem cells will be harvested from her blood.

Ill then have two more days of chemotherapy, she said. Im excited. No chemo, no cure.

May 7 will be what Olivier calls her stem cell birthday when she receives her stem cells back to reboot her immune system. She will then be in isolation in the apartment for about a week. Her mother will have to wear special precaution gear during that time.

Some people see improvements in the first three months, with full recovery in two years, Olivier said. Some might say Im not sick enough for this treatment, but the earlier someone gets it, the better, before the MS causes major damage.

She added that some people believe this is a risky procedure and it has not been FDA-approved yet in the United States.

But many people have died on Tysabri and the drug approved by the FDA last week, Ocrevus, has an increased risk of cancer after two to three years. I am hoping the HSCT will stop the progression of my MS, and hope that I never have to go on another DMD in my life.

To read Oliviers blog, visit knockoutmsblog.wordpress.com.

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Local woman heads to Mexico - Foster's Daily Democrat

KEWANEE -- Miss You Can Do It believes she can do it again.

Abbey Curran, diagnosed with cerebral palsy at birth, founded the annual Miss You Can Do It pageant in 2004 for girls and young women with special needs.

She now facesa different type of challenge; searching for a bone-marrow match for her dad, Mike Curran, of Kewanee. Mr. Currant was diagnosed with leukemia and is receiving inpatient chemotherapy at the OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria.

Ms. Currant is working with the Be the Match Registry seeking a bone-marrow match for her father. She also is planning two "drives" to find a match -- the first, 4-8 p.m. April 9 at Raelyns Pub & Eatery, 217 N. State St., Geneseo, and a secondm 2-7 p.m. April 15 at Cernos Bar & Grill, 213 W. 3rd St., Kewanee. Both will offer free refreshments.

Ms. Curran said the "Be the Match Registry is run by the National Marrow Donor Program to help facilitate bone marrow and blood stem cell transplants. The group coordinates national and international medical facilities in marrow transplantation.

Joining me in this effort -- by coming to the drive, helping to save lives -- is easy to do, Ms. Curran said. It will not cost participants a single penny. But all participants will get free food, cake and beer. All that is required for this first step in the process involves a cheek swab and filling out a bit of paperwork.

Participants must be 18 to 60 years old, in good health and willing to donate to any person, Ms. Curran said.The actual marrow donation usually happens through an automated process; in some cases it involves minor surgery under anesthesia at no cost to the donor.

Out of six siblings and myself, my father hasnt found a bone-marrow match, she said. I look at this as another challenge -- another impossible that I need to make possible.

When Ms. Curran learned neither she nor any of her fathers relatives were a bone marrow transplant match, she decided to not only help her father but others desperate to find bone-marrow matches. Determination is a natural trait for Ms. Curran.

My life has been full of challenges and I have taken pride in making the impossible possible, the unrealistic realistic, and I plan to do the same in finding a bone-marrow match for my Dad, she said. "I will find a match and I hope I get hundreds of people to attend these upcoming 'Be the Match events. I am preparing for them.

"I grew up the 'hog farmers daughter from Henry County, she said. I was also born with cerebral palsy. I have always had big dreams and set out to make the impossible possible.

"When I was told I couldnt and shouldnt be the Henry County Fair Queen, I made history by being the first and only woman with a disability to ever make it to Miss USA, as I won Miss Iowa USA in 2008.

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Daughter seeks bone marrow match for her dad - Quad-Cities Online

MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) - 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 Marquette - UpperMichigansSource.com

April 6, 2017 A mouse heart section showing human progenitor cells that formed functional human blood vessels. Purple color signifies human blood vessels, red staining signifies the blood vessels of the mouse that received the human cell implants. Credit: Jalees Rehman.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago have identified a molecular switch that converts skin cells into cells that make up blood vessels, which could ultimately be used to repair damaged vessels in patients with heart disease or to engineer new vasculature in the lab. The technique, which boosts levels of an enzyme that keeps cells young, may also circumvent the usual aging that cells undergo during the culturing process. Their findings are reported in the journal Circulation.

Scientists have many ways to convert one type of cell into another. One technique involves turning a mature cell into a "pluripotent" stem cellone that has the ability to become any type of celland then using chemical cocktails to coax it into maturing into the desired cell type. Other methods reprogram a cell so that it directly assumes a new identity, bypassing the stem-cell state.

In the last few years, scientists have begun to explore another method, a middle way, that can turn back the clock on skin cells so that they lose some of their mature cell identity and become more stem-like.

"They don't revert all the way back to a pluripotent stem cell, but instead turn into intermediate progenitor cells," says Dr. Jalees Rehman, associate professor of medicine and pharmacology at UIC, who led the team of researchers. Progenitor cells can be grown in large quantities sufficient for regenerative therapies. And unlike pluripotent stem cells, progenitor cells can only differentiate into a few different cell types. Rehman calls this method to produce new cells "partial de-differentiation."

Other groups have used this technique to produce progenitor cells that become blood vessel cells. But until now, researchers had not fully understood how the method worked, Rehman said.

"Without understanding the molecular processes, it is difficult for us to control or enhance the process in order to efficiently build new blood vessels," he said.

His group discovered that the progenitors could be converted into blood vessel cells or into red blood cells, depending on the level of a gene transcription factor called SOX17.

The researchers measured the levels of several genes important for blood vessel formation. They saw that as progenitor cells were differentiating into blood vessel cells, levels of the transcription factor SOX17 became elevated.

When they increased levels of SOX17 even more in the progenitor cells, they saw that differentiation into blood vessel cells was enhanced about five-fold. When they suppressed SOX17, the progenitor cells produced fewer endothelial cells and instead generated red blood cells.

"It makes a lot of sense that SOX17 is involved because it is abundant in developing embryos when blood vessels are forming," Rehman said.

When the researchers embedded the human progenitor cells into a gel and implanted the gels in mice, the cells organized into functional human blood vessels. Skin cells that had not undergone a conversion did not form blood vessels when similarly implanted.

When they implanted the progenitor cells into mice that had sustained heart damage from a heart attack, the implanted cells formed functional human blood vessels in the mouse heartsand even connected with existing mouse blood vessels to significantly improve heart function.

The human adult skin cells used by Rehman's team can easily be obtained by a simple skin biopsy.

"This means that one could generate patient-specific blood vessels or red blood cells for any individual person," Rehman said. Using such personalized cells reduces the risk of rejection, he said, because the implanted blood vessels would have the same genetic makeup as the recipient.

Rehman and his colleagues noticed something else about the progenitor cells - they had elevated levels of telomerase - the "anti-aging" enzyme that adds a cap, or telomere, to the ends of chromosomes. As the caps wear away a little bit each time a cell divides, they are believed to contribute to aging in cells, whether in the body or growing in culture in the laboratory.

"The increase in telomerase we see in the progenitor cells could be an added benefit of using this partial de-differentiation technique for the production of new blood vessels for patients with cardiac disease, especially for older patients," Rehman said. "Their cells may already have shortened telomeres due to their advanced age. The process of converting and expanding these cells in the lab could make them age even further and impair their long-term function. But if the cells have elevated levels of telomerase, the cells are at lower risk of premature aging."

While telomerase has benefits, the enzyme is also found in extremely high levels in cancer cells, where it keeps cell division in overdrive.

"We were concerned about the risk of tumor formation," Rehman said, but the researchers didn't observe any in these experiments. "But to truly determine the efficacy and safety of these cells for humans, one needs to study them over even longer time periods in larger animals."

Explore further: Adult stem cells help build human blood vessels in engineered tissues

More information: Lianghui Zhang et al, SOX17 Regulates Conversion of Human Fibroblasts into Endothelial Cells and Erythroblasts via De-Differentiation into CD34Progenitor Cells, Circulation (2017). DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.116.025722

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Turning skin cells into blood vessel cells while keeping them young - Medical Xpress

Dead of the world, unite! Appearing in a manifesto published in Petrograd in 1920, this arresting slogan encapsulated the philosophy of cosmism, which promoted interplanetary exploration as a path to immortality. Mixing scientific futurism with ideas derived from the 19th-century Russian Orthodox mystic Nikolai Fedorov, cosmism was summed up by the rocket engineer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) as the perfection of man and the liquidation of all imperfect forms of life. Liberated from the Earth, human beings would become pure ether, bodiless and undying. The belief that death could be conquered by science was embraced by a renegade section of the Bolshevik intelligentsia, including Maxim Gorky, and informed the decision to immortalise Lenins cadaver first by refrigeration, in an early experiment in what would later be called cryonic suspension, and then by embalming when freezing failed. Cosmist thinking went on to find a home in the Soviet space programme and continues to influence Russian science to this day.

Nearly a century after the cosmist manifesto, a group of transhumanists gathered outside Googles corporate headquarters in Mountain View, California, carrying placards reading Immortality now! and Google, please, solve death. Death could be solved, the group believed, by the development of cyber-consciousness a task requiring new technologies for uploading the contents of the human brain into cyberspace, which the group called on the tech company to fund. Google was already investing substantial resources in life-extension techniques and, in 2012, the companyhired Ray Kurzweil, long associated with programmes aiming to achieve immortality through cryonic suspension, artificial intelligence and mind uploading, as its director of engineering.

History continues by being forgotten. Mark OConnell, in recalling the February 2014 demonstration outside Google HQ, reported as the first ever transhumanist street action in the US, says little about the longer antecedents of contemporary transhumanism in his engaging and at times very funny book. This is an exploration of our time, conducted by an observer who is very much of our time. OConnell presents the reader with a gallery of diverting characters, including an Oxford-educated extropian philosopher who goes by the name of Max More, who aims to achieve more life, more intelligence, more freedom by replacing the human body with a robot controlled by an uploaded mind, and Zoltan Istvan, the transhumanist candidate for the US presidency in 2016, who conducted his campaign from an immortality bus decked out as a coffin.

The weird mixture of science and religion that typifies much of contemporary culture is illustrated in questing, faintly sad figures who blend transhumanist anti-deathism with Buddhism, Mormonism, Wicca or the UFO cult Ralism, whose members believe the human species was created by aliens. We learn of the LSD guru Timothy Learys late-life engagement with transhumanism, which included membership of the cryonic suspension organisation Alcor, and that when the time came for him to have his body frozen, he opted instead to have his cremated ashes shot into space from a cannon. OConnell reports that Learys last act is still a sore point within the cryonics community, which views his capitulation to deathism as a significant tragedy.

OConnells impressions of the lost souls who have drifted into transhumanism arevivid and memorable. Yet he sees them from a distance that is never explained. Like many of the people he interviews, he seems to think that a report of his feelings is all that is needed to validate his beliefs and hisdoubts. He cites transhumanists expressing disgust with the process of ageing, in themselves and in others, and he tells usthat he is not a transhumanist. But he never gives any reasons why he rejects their attitudes, nor does he offer an alternative view of his own.

The book is a succession of vignettes in which fundamental questions about the transhumanist enterprise are not explored. If the bodies of the followers of the cult are retrieved from their icy tombs, will the dead be reborn, or will what emerges be clones of human beings who had died for ever? Is information uploaded from the brain into cyberspace the essence of the human mind, or only a dim ghost of a mind that no longer exists? Is being embodied an accidental feature of the mind, or an integral part of what it means to be human?

Discussing A Letter to Mother Nature, a transhumanist manifesto in which Max More sets out his proposals for amending the human species, OConnell summarises the authors proposals:

We would no longer consent to live under the tyranny of ageing and death, but would use the tools of biotechnology to endow ourselves with enduring vitality and remove our expiration date. We would augment our powers of perception and cognition through technological enhancements of our sense organs and our neural capacities. We would no longer submit to being the products of blind evolution . . . And we would no longer be content to limit our physical, intellectual and emotional capacities by remaining confined to carbon-based biological forms.

OConnell writes that the letter captured something crucial about what made the movement so strange and compelling to me it was direct, and audacious, and it pushed the project of Enlightenment humanism to such radical extremes . . . There was, I felt, a whiff of madness about the whole enterprise, but it was a madness that revealed something fundamental about what we thought of as reason.

As a description of the simple-minded devotion of transhumanists to an unexamined idea of reason, this is well observed. But what is the something fundamental that the author has learned? He considers the possibility that transhumanism is a displaced passion for miracle and mystery, citing D H Lawrence: Today man gets his sense of the miraculous from science and machinery, radio, airplanes, vast ships, zeppelins, poison gas, artificial silk: these things nourish mans sense of the miraculous as magic did in the past. But if Lawrences observation is well founded (as I think), what follows for the idea that human beings are or could ever be rational animals? These are questions that OConnell does not ask, or leaves hanging in the air.

Read as a kind of travelogue, To Be a Machine contains much that is interesting and entertaining. OConnell perceptively observes how transhumanism fits with Silicon Valleys world-view. He describes a conference at Google HQ, attended by the billionaire entrepreneurs Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, which brought together those who want to liberate themselves from death and exponents of effective altruism, who aim to improve the world by using reason. There are some intriguing crossovers between the two movements.

Philosophically speaking, effective altruism is not much more than a reheated version of Jeremy Benthams utilitarianism. The early-19th-century thinker wanted to supplant ethical reasoning as it had been practised in the past with what he called moral arithmetic a type of calculation aiming at maximising pleasure, happiness or want-satisfaction (there are many variations). Implying that every moral quandary has a rational solution, this is a project that fits well with the transhumanist belief thatthe evils of human life are, in essence, technical difficulties.

The idea that moral reasoning should be a type of calculation seems to have influenced Thiel and Musk when they donated to research on the risks of artificial intelligence. Some of those who attended the conference (including the Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, a former transhumanist who has become critical of the movement) believed that AI could even pose a risk to human survival. A super-intelligent machine could be programmed to serve human beings. But, as Bostrom, Stephen Hawking and others have pointed out, such a machine might slip free from its programming and begin topursue ends of its own that have nothing to do with human well-being.

Such an artificial super-intelligence need not be hostile to humans; it could simply be indifferent to whether humankind survives or not. Investing large sums into research that might prevent the disappearance of humankind might seem the most rational way of allocating resources more so than spending money helping people deal with disability, for instance. But why is reducing a hypothetical risk to the species more rational than increasing the happiness of living human beings? Utilitarian moral arithmetic prompts this question along with many others in ethics.

Both transhumanism and effective altruism claim to be rationalist philosophies and the two movements have offices in the same building in Oxford. But, like effective altruism, transhumanism is not as rational as it seems. Transhumanists believe that we are in essence sparks of consciousness which can escape mortality by detaching themselves from the decaying flesh in which they happen to be embodied. Deriving from mystical philosophies such as Platonism and gnosticism, it is an idea at odds with scientific materialism.

For a genuine materialist say, the ancient Roman poet-philosopher Lucretius there can be no question of the human mind severing its linkage with the material world. The mind is material and dies when the body dies. Transhumanists will reply that technologies not available in Lucretiuss time will allow the mind to be uploaded into cyberspace. Yet it is unclear whether what will be uploaded will be a conscious mind, or just a spectral app spun off from the contents of the brain.

Even if consciousness can be detached from the human body, the mind will still require a substratum of matter. The rejuvenated cadavers that emerge from cryonic suspension will be physical things, as will the cyborgs to which some transhumanists imagine their minds being transferred. Minds floating in cyberspace would not escape this dependency. Cyberspace is an artefact of physical objects computers and the networked facilities they need not an ontologically separate reality. If the material basis of cyberspace were destroyed or severely disrupted, any minds that had been uploaded would be snuffed out.

Every technology requires a physical infrastructure in order to operate. But this infrastructure depends on social institutions, which are frequently subject to breakdown. I made this point when I bumped into some ardent advocates of cryonic suspension in California in the 1980s. How long would it take to develop the technologies that were needed to resurrect frozen cadavers as living organisms, I wondered. Not much more than a century, I was told. I asked these techno-futurists to consider the events of the past hundred years or so a devastating civil war and two world wars, a ruinous stock-market crash and the Great Depression, for example. Given this history, how could they be confident that their refrigerated cadavers would remain intact for anothercentury? The companies that stored them would surely go bust, wars and civil disturbances would lead to power failures, and the legal system that protected the cadavers could disappear. The United States might no longer exist in a recognisable form.The cryonicists looked at me blankly. These were scenarios that they hadnot considered and could not process. Such upheavals might have happened in the past,but the future was going to be quite different. For these believers in technological resurrection, American society was already immortal.

At bottom, the transhumanist movement is a modern variant of the mystical dream of transcending contingency the vulnerability that comes with being subject to accident and the power of events that possessed many in ancient times. These mystics wanted to be absorbed in a timeless, impersonal absolute, a refuge from the ugly conflicts of the human world. They understood that this refuge could only be entered if they shed their individuality and practised asceticism and contemplation in an effort to erase their personal identity and desires. Less intelligent than their ancient precursors, contemporary transhumanists imagine that they can become immortal on terms of their own choosing.

Pondering a conversation he had with one of the techno-mystics, OConnell worries that only the extremely wealthy could afford to be uploaded to a virtual world. The rest of us would have to struggle on, bombarded by messages from cyberspace trying to sell us some product for which we have become targets through our use of the internet. But, to my mind, the super-wealthy few would not be much better off.

The greatest problem with everlasting lifein cyberspace is the prospect that it would have to be spent in the company of other cyber-immortals. As Max More and some of his fellow transhumanists have envisioned, each of these disembodied minds might design its virtual body and environments as it pleased. But might not these virtual environments somehow overlap or collide? Cyberspace is a projection of the human world, not a way out of it. What if the few who had escaped their ageing flesh found themselves side by side with an immortalised Donald Trump, his orange hair undyingly abundant, presiding over a never-ending Mar-a-Lago? It is not for nothing that the gods in some Greek myths regarded immortality as a curse.

Mark OConnell appears at the Cambridge Literary Festival on 23 April, 7pm (see left)

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John Gray: Dear Google, please solve death - New Statesman