Archive for October, 2019

After losing my mom to ovarian cancer, I had always assumed that I too would be diagnosed with ovarian cancer at some point in my lifeprobably at an early age. She passed away when I was six years old, so my memories of her are blurred with the stories that other people tell. I was just so young.

The thought of getting cancer constantly took up space in my mind, leaving me on edge. It wasnt a daily software that I ran, but it would creep up on me suddenly when I thought about my mom or saw a movie where a character had cancer.

Upon visiting the gynecologist, I would sometimes ask for medical advice on genetic testingbut I always got the same sort of response:

undefined

This response was a relief of sorts; it was a waytonot haveto deal with actually getting the testing done. I could put it on the back burner of my mind and life, right? Well, not so much.

Unsure of even how to pronounce this genetic test so unknown to me, I decided to do some basic internet research. BRCA tests for cancer risk caused by BRCA1 and BRCA mutations. These mutations can be inherited from either parent, and given my moms history of ovarian canceras well as my grandmothersit seemed like I would be a likely candidate.

Following a referral from my gynecologist, I found myself in the waiting room of a comprehensive cancer center one Tuesday morning. For some reason, I thought the room would be filled with other 20- and 30-somethings hoping to get genetic testing done.

I was wrong.

In the waiting room, I saw families, spouses, and cancer patients. Being there immediately brought back so many memories. Im not even sure if Id experienced them or just been told those storiesmemories of my moms illness, and what it must have been like for her to be sick.

When my name was called, I met my genetics counselor and we sat in a room that didnt feel medical at all. It honestly felt closer to a therapists office. Once I sat down with my counselor, I immediately felt at ease. During our two-hour meeting, she explained what the BRCA test was and the different types of genetic mutations that could occur. As we reviewed my family medical history, the counselor reminded me that though I might receive certain results, nothing was certain.

Halfway through the meeting, she asked how I felt about the testing itself, on a more personal level. I immediately burst into tears. I knew I needed to do get the test done, not only for my own peace of mind and health, but so other family members could know as well.

And I felt dumb for being scared when all I had to do wasspit into a cup. But the entire experience carried a ton of weight.

So many thoughts raced through my mind: What were the symptoms of ovarian cancer? Would having it impact the possibility of having kids? Did I want kids? And, of course, would it all even matter if I had minimal luck with dating?

While the counselor did her best to answer my questions, she wanted to make sure I was okay to go through with the test. Though it was a morning full of exhaustion and tears, I knew I was ready. She handed me a saliva sample kit, which was very similar to the experience of 23andMe. Twenty minutes later, I was doneand I would have to wait a month for the results.

In the days leading up to finding out my results, there was an aching fear in my body. Being in limbo is always scarybut then so is the unknown. My overactive imagination certainly didnt help.

Sitting between my genetics counselor and a close family friend, I was finally ready to hear the outcome of the test. I was convinced that Id be diagnosed with either a genetic mutation or would be told that I had ovarian cancer.

I cried in reliefand also out of shock. I had only expected a negative outcome, and honestly didnt know what to do with myself.

This doesnt mean that I will never get ovarian cancer, but it does mean that the risks are much lower than they would be if I tested positive for a genetic mutation. It put so much into perspective, while also relieving a huge amount of worry from my life. I feel incredibly lucky and happy with my choice to get this testing done. I miss my mom every day, and now I can let go of that specific anxiety and move forward, taking care of my body in a more intentional way.

Read more:
I stopped putting it off and finally got the BRCA gene test - Yahoo Lifestyle

The Black Cumin Seed Oil Market report facilitates decision making on the basis of historic and forecast data and the drivers and restraints on the market. The Black Cumin Seed Oil market report covers market characteristics, size and growth, segmentation, regional and country breakdowns, competitive landscape, market shares, trends and strategies for this market.

The following Top manufacturers are assessed in this report: Henry Lamotte OILS GmbH, FLAVEX Naturextrakte GmbH, Henry Lamotte Oils GmbH, Kerfoot Group, Earthoil Plantations, Life Extension, Nuverus, Omega Pharma, BioPraep

Download for Sample Copy of This Report @ https://reporthive.com/request_sample/2039723

Research Methodology: This market study is incorporated by extensive primary and secondary research conducted. Secondary research has been conducted to refine the available data to breakdown the market in various segments, derive total market size, market forecast, and growth rate. Different approaches have been worked on to derive the market value and market growth rate. The research team collects facts and data related to the market from different geographies to provide a better regional outlook. In the report, country level analysis is provided by analysing various regional players, regional tax laws and policies, consumer behaviour and macro-economic factors. The numbers extracted from Secondary research have been authenticated by conducting proper primary research. It includes tracking down key people from the industry and interviewing them to validate the data. This enables the analysts to derive the closest possible figures without any major deviations in the actual number. Our analysts try to contact as many executives, managers, key opinion leaders and industry experts to get first-hand information. Primary research brings authenticity to our reports.

Segment by Type: Food Grade, Cosmetic Grade

Segment by Application: Soap, Health Food, Personal Care Products (Massage Oils, Skin Care Products)

Regional Analysis For Black Cumin Seed Oil Market: United StatesEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaCentral & South America

You can Buy This Report from Here @ https://reporthive.com/checkout?currency=single-user-licence&reportid=2039723

Top key questions answered in this report: 1. What are the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks)?2. Which consumer segment accounted for the highest sales of Black Cumin Seed Oil in 2019?3. What are the business risks and factors concerning the market?4. What are some of the most promising, high-growth opportunities for Black Cumin Seed Oil market by applications, types and regions?5. Which region offers the most lucrative opportunities for the market in 2019?6. What Black Cumin Seed Oil product types will be the most in-demand in the current year?7. What sales channel will account for the largest sales?8. What are the major challenges facing the Black Cumin Seed Oil market?

Highlighted points of the global market research report: It includes global market driving and restraining factorsIt offers business profiles of various global investorsAnalysis of micro and macro-economic factors impacting on the global market

Read Full Report with TOC @ : https://reporthive.com/Report/2039723/Black Cumin Seed Oil Market

Table of ContentsPart 1 Market OverviewPart 2 Key CompaniesPart 3 Global Market Status and Future ForecastPart 4 Asia-Pacific Market Status and Future ForecastPart 5 Europe Market Status and Future ForecastPart 6 North America Market Status and Future ForecastPart 7 South America Market Status and Future ForecastPart 8 Middle East & Africa Market Status and Future ForecastPart 9 Market FeaturesPart 10 Investment OpportunityPart 11 Conclusion

If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as per your requirements.

Contact Us:Report Hive Research500, North Michigan Avenue,Suite 6014Chicago, IL 60611United StatesWebsite: http://www.reporthive.comEmail: [emailprotected]Phone: +1 312-604-7084

View post:
Black Cumin Seed Oil Market Benefits, Forthcoming Developments, Business Opportunities and Future Investments to 2026 | Henry Lamotte OILS GmbH,...

Keith Swayne has a magic touch when it comes to fundraising.

I guess I could go to anyone and get them to write some kind of check just so I would go away, he says, laughing. However, thats not what I want to accomplish. I want to connect people to causes and needs that they can relate to and then help them find a way to help out.

Swayne is so adroit at soliciting donations, in fact, that a campus project he undertook has left people shaking their heads in amazement: His efforts led to a $20 million windfall for investigators at the UCI Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders.

Keiths passionate commitment to supporting our research has been tireless and nothing short of transformative, says Joshua Grill, director of UCI MIND.

It all started with a $150,000 gift the Laguna Beach philanthropist made to the research facility in honor of his late wife, Judy, whom he lost to Alzheimers disease in 2014. He also issued a challenge to the community at the time that boosted the donation to $300,000.

The UCI MIND team then leveraged that seed money to secure a total of $20 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health.

Our research is blazing new trails into understanding the genetic, molecular and cellular underpinnings of disease and is poised to lead to identification of new treatment targets and candidates, Grill says. Keiths initial challenge-gift enabled an exponential impact in terms of research support.

Weian Zhao lab at Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell center at UCI. Lab personnel: Ling Shun, Meglu Han, Michael Toledano, Aude Segaliny, Jan Zimak, Leanne Hildebrand

His late wife would have liked that, Swayne says. The fact that some good came from this terrible disease Judy would certainly want that, he says. And I wanted that too.

The couple, married 50 years, were best friends and committed partners. Judy Swayne, like her husband, was intent on making a difference in her community. Among other contributions, in 1989, she founded the Orange County Community Foundation, which became a major philanthropic institution in the region. Keith Swayne has carried on her legacy as a member of its board, stepping down in September after a stint as chairman.

In addition, Judy Swayne served on numerous nonprofit boards, acted as a role model and mentor to many throughout the philanthropic community, and was the mother of two: a daughter, Anne Keir, who lives in Hawaii, and a son, Kirk Swayne, of Orange County.

The disease was hard on my kids, Keith Swayne says. Its a tough disease.

It was also hard on Swayne himself, Grill notes: Alzheimers is an insidious disorder that robs patients of their most human characteristics language, decision making and, of course, memory.

Ultimately, it also robs patients of their independence, putting a strain on family members.

Keith was a caregiver to his beloved Judy, a costly and taxing role, Grill says. He watched her progress until she succumbed to this unrelenting disease, helpless to do anything to slow or stop its course. He decided to do what he could to prevent others from suffering her fate.

Frank M. LaFerla, dean of the UCI School of Biological Sciences, also recalls Swaynes struggles.

Alzheimers disease really impacted his family, he says. Judy was a very special woman. He wanted to make sure future generations wouldnt experience the pain his wife did.

At the time, LaFerla was director of UCI MIND and talked with Swayne about ways he could make a difference in the search for a cure. One field of research involved stem cells, which experts believe may offer great promise for new medical treatments.

My lab had started getting involved with stem cells many years ago, and about this time a new technology was created using stem cells from your skin, not embryos, LaFerla says. You could take some of a patients skin cells by biopsy and reprogram them to become pluripotent meaning they have the ability to give rise to many different types of cells found in the body, such as brain cells or more skin cells or kidney cells.

Swayne likes innovation and taking chances, LaFerla says: I told him this opportunity was high-risk but had high potential.

That was when Swayne issued his challenge to the community and set about rounding up donors. He held salons at his hillside home, inviting LaFerla and other UCI staffers to speak to local residents. They explained how pluripotent stem cell technology could be used as a tool in Alzheimers research.

I went to people who knew my wife or to people I knew who also had a vested interest in Alzheimers research because they had the disease in their own families, Swayne says.

He found many community members who were willing to contribute.

The odds are that if you live to be 85, theres a 1-in-2 chance youre going to have Alzheimers. A lot of my friends are in my age bracket, says Swayne, 79. The message was compelling.

One thing he learned was that individuals were familiar with the Alzheimers Association but not UCI MIND.

In some respects, UCI MIND is one of the best-kept secrets in Orange County, Swayne says. Many people didnt know that its one of only 30 NIH-designated Alzheimers research centers in the country.

His fundraising zeal and efforts to involve the Orange County community in the effort eventually paid off. As LaFerla says, It worked better than we could ever have dreamed.

When the time came to renew funding for the stem cell research program from the National Institute on Aging, UCI MIND won a five-year commitment to continue its research. One reason behind the NIAs decision: local philanthropic contributions.

With charitable and federal funding in place, UCI established a bank of induced pluripotent stem cells, now a valuable resource for Alzheimers researchers globally. Today, hundreds of cell samples have been provided to investigators at UCI and 10 other research universities around the world, and UCI MIND scientists and their partners have received more than $20 million in grants.

And all of that stemmed, ultimately, from the initial gift we received from Keith, LaFerla says.

Adds Swayne: We grew $150,000 to $20 million. It blows me away.

Hes not resting on his laurels, though. Swayne continues to connect more donors to UCI MIND so that research can progress.

The UCI MIND team is devoted to this cause, he says. Its reassuring to know youve got people with this talent trying to find answers to this disease.

So Swayne writes letters to business and community leaders urging their backing, chairs a panel that seeks new opportunities for philanthropic gifts, speaks on behalf of the institute at public events, and co-leads a caregiver support group for men whose spouses have Alzheimers.

Keith gives a voice to the nearly 6 million Americans with Alzheimers and the more than 15 million caregivers like him, Grill wrote earlier this year in a letter nominating Swayne for the Outstanding Philanthropist Award, which will be conferred on Nov. 14 by the Association of Fundraising Professionals of Orange County in celebration of National Philanthropy Day. UCI MIND would not be the organization it is without the leadership of Keith Swayne.

The rest is here:
Stemming the Tide of Alzheimer's - UCI News

While its common knowledge that UV rays are bad for your skin, you should also be wary of pollution & blue light & we rounded up products that protect you from these environmental aggressors.

Whether you live in a big city or not, pollution is found in the air everywhere and it is seeping into your skin, which is super scary. Aside from pollution, another factor affecting your complexion is blue light, which is radiated from your phones and computer screens. So, to protect your skin from all of these environmental aggressors, we rounded up the best products that defend your skin and help block daily exposure so that you can maintain a clear and smoothe complexion.

One of our favorite products is the Kitao Matcha + Chia Cleansing Cream, which is formulated with matcha green tea, acai, chia seed, and quinoa, which all work together to remove makeup and oil while stopping environmental pollution from aging your skin. The Ao Skincare 6000X Elemental Screen SPF 30, is another great product as its a sheer lotion formulated with New Zealand Astaxanthin, a super-antioxidant 6,000 times stronger than Vitamin C, to protect your skin from all different types of environmental stress, while repairing it from the damage thats already been done.

Other products intended to help fight pollution include the Paulas Choice Skincare Triple Algae Pollution Shield, which contains a triple-algae complex that prevents polluted particles found in the air from sticking to your skin and getting in your pores. The Murad City Skin Overnight Detox Moisturizer is also another one of our favorites because its formulated with antioxidants from marrubium plant stem cells, which help detoxify your skin while reducing the appearance of lines and wrinkles caused by pollution.

If youre looking to specifically target blue light exposure, look no further than the Chantecaille Blue Light Hyaluronic Serum. Its perfect for all skin types and is a gentle pre-serum formulated with botanicals that shield the skin from blue light pollution. Aside from creams, the DIFF Eyewear Kira Gold + Amber Tortoise blue light glasses are a serious must. Not only are these glasses super cute, but they also contain blue light lens technology that blocks 30% of HEV light. Plus, for every pair of glasses sold, DIFF will help to provide the gift of sight to someone in need.

We have to mention the Clarisonic Mia Smart Anti-Aging and Cleansing Skincare Device because this is the ultimate cleaning tool. It does just about everything for your skin including exfoliate, minimize pores, firm skin, reduce puffy under-eyes, and blend foundation. Using this after a long day will make you feel and look 10x cleaner.

No matter what youre looking for, click through the gallery to see a mix of great products that will protect your skin. Plus, if youre looking for a mix of fun products and lifestyle items, you have to try our newestHollywoodLife Box, which has a value of over $260 and is on sale NOW for only $49.99! Buy the box right now atHollywoodLifeBox.com& even better, use the code HLBOX25 to get a 25% discount off your entire order!

Here is the original post:
Save Your Skin 20+ Products That Block Pollution & Blue Light From Your Phone - Hollywood Life

AN ordinary man with ordinary interests, Patrick Keane loves life, even though it has become more of a challenge than ever before.

He cannot play a round of golf or go for a walk by the beach any more. But he doesnt want pity and exudes positivity. So he enjoys soaking in the sea air around Clonea or Garryvoe without stretching his legs.

But reality has a way of crashing through the faade at times, no matter how strong you are.

For Patrick, it can be when he wakes up and cannot feel his legs, or loses his train of thought, or misses his mouth when trying to eat because he cannot feel the spoon in his hand. Or if he gets out of bed and falls and screams at himself, Just get up will ya, ya fool!

But the man known as Pa to his friends, or Patch to his mother Margaret, brother Paul and sisters Yvonne and Elaine, dusts himself down, drags himself back to an upright position and goes about taking on the day in as fearless a fashion as possible, given what he must encounter now and the knowledge of what lies ahead.

Multiple sclerosis affects the central nervous system, the brain and the spine, and while the rate of degeneration differs for all, there is no escaping the degeneration. Ireland has 8,000 sufferers with apparently no cure.

Patrick, who was diagnosed in January, 2009, is not without hope however. A doctor, Denis Federenko, has been providing stem cell transplants to people from all over the world at the AA Maximov Hospital in Moscow, with some success, by wiping out the faulty immune system with drugs used to treat cancer and replacing it with stem cells taken from the patient.

Irish comedian, Stephen Garland is one who underwent treatment in November, 2016, having been told he was around six months away from being confined to a wheelchair.

He returned home just before Christmas that year and has thrived since, even writing a show about his journey to Russia and back.

Garland brought his creation, Post-Disposed, back to the world-renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August, confirming his continuing improved health.

The treatment costs between 50,000 and 60,000 including aftercare and other expenses. It can be hard to ask for help but so many people have extended a hand to Patrick, without ever being asked. People Patrick doesnt know from Adam or Eve have even contributed to his cause and it moves him to tears.

Time is against the Corkman however, because if his condition exceeds 6.5 on a scale of 0-8, he will not be taken on. At present, he is between 5.5 and 6, and has been accepted, but clearly the treatment must take place sooner rather than later.

To that end, a Breakfast With The Stars event is taking place at The Park Hotel, Dungarvan on Thursday, October 10. Tipperarys All-Ireland-winning manager, Liam Sheedy and multiple champion jockey Davy Russell will regale patrons with stories from their careers, prompted by MC Marty Morrissey.

All proceeds will go towards funding Patricks treatment and ancillary expenses. Ticket purchasing details are below.

Here is more about Patricks story...

************

LAYLA walks into the family home in Ballinroad, just outside Dungarvan. It was Patrick who named her, after the Eric Clapton song that he happened to be listening to when the family were discussing what to call the now 12-year-old dog.

Music is a boon, a real infusion of energy, pumping the blood, making him feel like he could jump out of his skin and dance like the old days. He cant but that burst of adrenaline is a godsend.

I have the car adapted with hand controls, Patrick explains. I dont use my feet for driving. Push and pull the lever in the car.

On a Sunday morning I love nothing better, especially when I am down at home. Head down the coast road to Tramore, listen to a bit of music.

I would listen to absolutely anything. I am influenced by dads taste in music. All the older stuff, 70s, 80s rock music kind of stuff. You could find me listening to dance music two minutes later. Once it has a beat I couldnt care less.

Patricks dad, Richie Keane, was a hard worker, who was brilliant with his hands and especially with cars. And all his life he had a smaller shadow. The son looked up to the father like he was Superman.

When he was sick and on his last legs, talking through the window from the house he taught me how to take the sump off my car because it was cracked and leaking oil. He was able to guide me through it without looking at it, word for word.

I restored a Jeep that he left when he passed away. It was a 1983, same age as myself, Mercedes jeep. Very rare, like hens teeth. Restored it to about 25,000 to 30,000 worth.

I had to sell it. I couldnt drive it anymore because the leg was so bad. That was hard. That was the last connection. It was something I had to remember him by. The day I saw that go out the drive was tough.

Richie died in November, 2008, around the time of Patricks 25th birthday. Richies mother passed away two weeks later. Patrick was diagnosed with MS in January, 2009. Already a celiac and diabetic, he was accustomed to restrictions and putting up with things. This was a different stratosphere though.

It began with losing his balance and the development of numbness down his right side.

I went to the doctor, and I think, by the look on his face, he knew there was something not right. He sent me to Ardkeen (Hospital) and I got checked out. They had me in isolation for about a week. Then I was told it was MS.

I didnt know what it was but it was something I heard from a conversation when I was younger, That poor fella has MS. I didnt know I would end up the way I am now.

I have friends since that have been diagnosed after me that I have gotten to know from reaching out. There are a couple of them in a wheelchair. As it progresses, that is where you are heading. But there is a gentleman up the road and he must have it for 20-something years. Unless someone told you, you wouldnt know he has MS.

Part of the difficulty of dealing with MS is that no two cases are alike. Keeping active, having physiotherapy regularly and working are advantages and Patrick has not declined as quickly as others because of that.

But he has hit the secondary stage, where there are cognitive problems and, in particular, his short-term memory is affected.

People say to me, do you get pain with it? I dont know what new pain or old pain is. I just get on with. I have my days where I whinge and moan and cry. God knows I have them. But there is people out there worse off. I have what I have.

It could get worse. Now that it is gone to progressive MS, it probably will. When or how long? Who knows?

It is a horrible disease, there is no two ways. But you get up, get on with it, and do what you can.

He went to Australia not long after the diagnosis. It was a real gesture of defiance, one that probably scared his mother but he knew too that it might well be a case of now or never.

A blocklayer by trade, Patrick eventually had to give that up as his coordination worsened and he nearly fell off a roof. He is on crutches now for three years and would not be able to catch a football if you threw it at him. He wears a leg cast too, to reduce the instances of tripping himself up, without eradicating them totally. He has a mobility scooter.

A 35-year-old man doesnt dream about a mobility scooter, he wants a flash sports car. But it allowed me to go down to the Greenway for the first time. That was nice, to be on the Greenway, to be out, and see the whole lot of it, it was lovely. But watching other people cycle off down killed me.

My two nephews were out the front playing soccer. I used to do the exact same thing. They were saying Patrick, are you coming out to play? I said I would love to but that gets you. Its the simple little things.

Katie, my partner, I dont know where I would be without her. My mam, the girls and my brother, they are fantastic. They have been with me since the start of it.

I decided I want to be independent. If I didnt have the car I dont know what I would be doing. That is my freedom. I can get into the car, go to the shop for coffee. I will get there. I will get the same place as anyone else will, but it will take me longer.

He lives in Cork with Katie and her son Aaron, and works for Voxpro, who have been tremendously supportive. If he were housebound, he would wither.

I am an outgoing guy. I would chat away, waffle on about anything for hours on end. But you take that away I dont know have I changed since the diagnosis.

I have tried to remain as positive as possible but sometimes its hard. Simple little things you take for granted. Just run out there to get the clothes off the line. Now I have had to get handrails put into the house so that I can get up when I trip and fall.

I would wake in the mornings and the legs are like jelly. They shake, you cant control it, you let them shake out and that could be for 20 or 30 seconds. Real spasticity and stiffness in the legs. With the heat during the summer, I sat in the car with the air con on. I would be good for doing weather forecasta. I know what its like when I wake up in the morning, ever before the curtains are pulled. I feel it in my body.

He has been trawling for potential treatments, along with his medical team. Dr Federenkos work stands up to inspection. Stopping the MS in its tracks without the need for further medication would be a tantalising prospect.

Reversing the effects is something he dare not even contemplate, though the treatment has had that effect in Garland and many others.

Being given the green light, after Dr Federenko reviewed his case and medical records, was like an infusion in itself. Patrick details every step of the treatment and though it sounds daunting, it isnt compared to the alternative.

He set up the GoFundMe page (https://www.gofundme.com/f/stop-ms-progression-with-stem-cells-transplant) and was staggered by the reaction. Meanwhile, the local community has rallied, as have his work colleagues and friends, organising fund-raiser after fund-raiser. People he didnt know had events. He finds it hard to process.

To ask for someones help, it is a sign that you are not able. I have talked about this treatment for so long and I got so bad in my legs and balance and everything, I finally gave in and set up the GoFundMe page. It killed me to have to do it.

There was a donation yesterday on GoFundMe from Jamaica. I dont know the person but they found it in their heart to say, There you go. People said to me, Sorry I cant give you too much, I want to give you more. If it is a euro or 20 cent, it could be that 20 cent or euro that gets me over the line.

Whatever happens, he will not give up because it is what he learned when he was Richies shadow: It is instilled in me from dad, I would always have looked up to him. Even now, since he has passed away, I would always say to myself, What would he do? Would he have approved of that? He would always say to stick at something until you get it. If you are going to start something, do it. Just dont walk away from it.

Breakfast With The Stars, featuring Tipperary manager Liam Sheedy, one of the all-time greats of National Hunt racing Davy Russell and RTs Marty Morrissey, takes place at The Park Hotel on Thursday, October 10. To book a table of 10 for 1000 contact Michael Ryan (087 2585299) or The Local Bar (058 41854).

Donations can also be made to Patrick Keanes GoFundMe pagehttps://www.gofundme.com/f/stop-ms-progression-with-stem-cells-transplant

Follow this link:
"I have talked about this treatment for so long... I finally gave in and set up the GoFundMe page. It killed me to have to do it." - Echo...

Weve been slathering moisturizer on our face for years, we exfoliate regularly and we even jumped in headfirst to trendy ten-step skin-care routines (sometimes even morning and night). But we recently realized something big: That we were stopping the skin-care love at our jaw. Think about it: Our neck and dcollet are prone to just as much sun damage, pollution and general aging concerns as our face, because all of these areas are typically left exposed (unless its mid-winter and were on the turtleneck train).

While its certainly possible to use face products on the neck, the skin on this part of the body is thinner and the concerns are a bit different. Thats where a specialized neck cream comes in. Specifically formulated to lift sagging skin and make horizontal lines disappear, these creams are the trick to achieving the youthful look we want. Here are 13 formulas that reign supreme.

RELATED: The Best Eye Cream for Wrinkles, from $13 to $315

Introducing: the end all be all of neck creams. This product not only gets rave reviews from shoppers for how well it works, but it has also won countless awards in the beauty spacefrom New Beauty to Shapemagazine to Harpers Bazaar. Why? Four main line-fighting ingredients: Niacinamide (to strengthen the skins barrier and supercharge the other ingredients), peptides (to plump skin and address fine lines and wrinkles), ceramides (which can help replenish and restore skin and improve its texture) and hyaluronic acid (aka the most powerful hydrating ingredient there is, which holds 1,000 times its weight in water). After just a few uses of this cream youll notice a visibly tighter, lifted and smoother appearance. Take that, tech neck.

Buy It ($139)

While it is a major concern, neck issues dont just stem from staring down at our phone all day long. Environmental aggressors from sun and pollution can also accelerate aging of the skin. This firming cream helps to reverse the damage on the neck and dcollet with amino acids that stimulate collagen production. How well does it work? One reviewer says, "I am on my second bottle, because the first worked so well. It is worth the price."

Buy It ($88)

If you have a nut allergy, finding natural beauty products can be a bit tricky since everything seems to be made from some form of coconut. But were happy to report that this organic neck cream is totally nut-free. Instead, youll find ingredients like hibiscus to increase elasticity, edelweiss to tighten the appearance of skin and botanical hyaluronic acid to deeply hydrate. It's "easily spreadable and light" as one reviewer stated, but it's powerful enough to really get the job done.

Buy It ($92)

We slather on collagen products to up elasticity on our face, but why dont we do the same to the rest of our skin? We no longer have an excuse with this collagen-packed tightening cream made to tauten and tone the thicker parts on our neck that are prone to premature sagging. And if you're wondering if the results are visible,ponder no more. A loyal user says, "I noticed a change after just using one jarI don't think that has ever happened."

Buy It ($135)

The product name says it all. This cream quite literally perfects the skin on the neck and dcollet by lifting and firming while fading dark spots and hyperpigmentation from one too many days in the sun. Its paraben-free and dermatologist approved, and one reviewer dubbed it her "daily need" so you know it lives up to the hype.

Buy It ($78)

While we can treat damage that has already been done, we love this neck cream for its ability to also protect against future damage. Retinol works the same as it does on our face to resurface skin, revealing newer, younger cells over time. But most impressively, after a 28-day consumer study, 100 percent of participants reported fewer fine lines and wrinkles, improvement of skin texture and firmer, younger looking skin. One person even had people ask whatshe was doing differently.

Buy It ($75)

Guys, Gwyneth Paltrow is this brands creative director of makeup, so you know its products pass the clean test. This product in particular is formulated with a blend of fruit stem cells and botanical extracts to fade fine lines and wrinkles by improving skins elasticity. Plus, the addition of peptides helps to reduce the depth of crease lines from staring at our phones all day. Oh, and 93% of users on Dermstore give it a five-star review.

Buy It ($60)

You dont need to get a pricey cosmetic procedure to restore your neck to its youthful best. Just slather on this cream for restored firmness and softer skin (one reviewer couldn't stop raving about how smooth it made her skin). Its advanced delivery system uses something called nano-platinum particles to target cell structures and lift sagging skinall without going under the knife.

Buy It ($67)

We cant get enough of BareMinerals all-natural makeup, and this neck cream has us stockpiling its skin care too. Its formulated with the same vegan, cruelty-free standards (aka no animal testing or byproducts ever) and provides results that you can actually see in as little as four weeks. How, you ask? Mineral gold with age-defying peptides, which helps to visibly reduce the appearance of wrinkles and horizontal neck lines by upping skins natural collagen production. Skin is left looking more firm and dewy but not greasy.

Buy It ($45)

It Cosmetics dubs this cream shapewear for your neck, and based on that statement alone, were sold. This product has been clinically tested to reduce the look of those deep-set horizontal neck lines we thought we had to live with until now. Just slather it on morning and night and the fast-absorbing formula will get to work improving firmness, smoothness and elasticity thanks to a tightening effect. Have sensitive skin? Youre free to use this gentle cream and reap all the benefits without irritation. Plus, as one reviewer states, you just might notice a difference in as little as one week.

Buy It ($52)

Sometimes all it takes to start a morning off on the right foot is a French skin cream so luxurious that we feel like were in Paris (just let us have this). Thats where Sisleys neck cream comes into play. Made specifically to treat the delicate skin below our jaw, it creates an immediate tightening effect by adhering an invisible elastic film onto the surface of the skin for a physical and noticeable lift.It'sinfused with soy fiber extract to fight the loss of firmness and improve skin tone, as well as a decadent amount of shea butter, which leaves skin super hydrated, nourished and softer than ever before. Now all we need is a warm buttered croissant waiting for us in the kitchen and our Parisian fantasy is complete.

Buy It ($180)

Tarte already makes our favorite concealer, so it's no surprise that we love its highly-rated neck cream, too. This naturalmulti-tasking treatment hydrates delicate skin with three ingredients: maracuja (aka passion fruit), sodium hyaluronate and algae extracts.The trio helps to target and improve the appearance of theneck and dcolletby promoting cell regeneration and skin elasticity. The results? Fewer fine lines and wrinkles and a lifted, less-crepey appearance.

Buy It ($44)

Fact: The neck and dcollet are some of the first stops to reveal our age. Thanks to thinner, more sensitive skin and the exposure to environmental aggressors, we start to noticesagging and creasing in these places before the same problems reveal themselves on our face. Not to worry though, because this rich cream is specifically formulated for those very concerns. It goes on smooth and absorbs quickly, leaving behind a hydrated and plumperappearance, effectively fading fine lines and wrinkles. But this cream does so much more than moisturizeit's packed with retinol and tripeptides to encourage cell turnover and collagen production, which help to reveal newer, more youthful skin beneath it. Plus, bearberry leaf extract acts as an eraser for dark spots by brightening and evening out pigmentation issues. Oh, and one reviewer mentions that i smells like vanilla. Um, why haven't we been using this our whole adult life?

Buy It ($104)

RELATED:8 Dark Spot Treatments That Help Battle Sun Damage

PureWow may receive a portion of sales from products purchased from this article, which was created independently from PureWow's editorial and sales departments.

Read this article:
The Absolute Best Neck Cream on the Web (and 12 More We Also Love) - Yahoo Lifestyle

Hair loss at any age can be distressing, and getting to the root of the cause can be easier said than done as there are a myriad of reasons why your tresses may not be as full as they once were.

In fact, recent research commissioned by leading hair supplement provider Viviscal revealed that there was confusion amongst those surveyed as to the real reason for behind their hair loss.

50 per cent of women over 25 revealed that hormones including pregnancy, menopause andpolycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) had contributed to their hair loss or thinning, while 27 per cent of women felt that diet was a key factor in their loss or thinning.

In response Dr Martin Wade, Consultant Dermatologist at The London Skin and Hair Clinic, has given his expert opinion on the top 5 leading causes of hair loss (in no particular order).

1. Seasonal shedding: As days get shorter its thought that the pineal gland which secretes melatonin and according to this research paper has long been known to modulate hair growth in the brain gets less light stimulation. This has a consequence as the process by which the pineal grand secretes melatonin is dictated by light.

2. Ageing: Androgenetic Alopecia is one of the most common forms of hair loss for both men and women, and is also referred to as female or male pattern hair loss. Each time the hair follicle goes through the hair cycle it reduces in size, resulting in a smaller hair shaft. Over time the hair shaft becomes so small that it no longer protrudes above the level of the skin in the scalp.

MORE:This hair loss shampoo and conditioner with over 400 5* reviews has just launched in Boots

3. MW: Post pregnancy: After a woman gives birth there is a massive dip in female hormones, and a much milder effect can occur when women stop taking the oral contraceptive pill. This sharp change in oestrogen and progesterone levels both of which play a vital role in promoting hair growth can lead to hair loss.

4. Menopause: As with the above when a woman goes through the menopause she will go through a gradual yet progressive decline in female hormones.

5. Diet: This is complex area but, essentially, if the body is not getting the key nutrients it needs for healthy hair growth including vitamin A, B and C and minerals such as calcium and magnesium, according to this study or if the body goes into shutdown mode from a lack of calories due to a restrictive diet or dramatic weight loss over a short period of time, this could upset the bodys internal metabolism. A recent UCLA study showed that hair follicle stem cells have their own unique metabolism.

Have you experienced any of the above?

Read more:
An expert reveals the top 5 leading causes of hair loss - woman&home

Stem cells are biological cells which have the ability to distinguish into specialized cells, which are capable of cell division through mitosis. Amniotic fluid stem cells are a collective mixture of stem cells obtained from amniotic tissues and fluid. Amniotic fluid is clear, slightly yellowish liquid which surrounds the fetus during pregnancy and is discarded as medical waste during caesarean section deliveries. Amniotic fluid is a source of valuable biological material which includes stem cells which can be potentially used in cell therapy and regenerative therapies. Amniotic fluid stem cells can be developed into a different type of tissues such as cartilage, skin, cardiac nerves, bone, and muscles. Amniotic fluid stem cells are able to find the damaged joint caused by rheumatoid arthritis and differentiate tissues which are damaged. Medical conditions where no drug is able to lessen the symptoms and begin the healing process are the major target for amniotic fluid stem cell therapy. Amniotic fluid stem cells therapy is a solution to those patients who do not want to undergo surgery. Amniotic fluid has a high concentration of stem cells, cytokines, proteins and other important components. Amniotic fluid stem cell therapy is safe and effective treatment which contain growth factor helps to stimulate tissue growth, naturally reduce inflammation. Amniotic fluid also contains hyaluronic acid which acts as a lubricant and promotes cartilage growth.

With increasing technological advancement in the healthcare, amniotic fluid stem cell therapy has more advantage over the other therapy. Amniotic fluid stem cell therapy eliminates the chances of surgery and organs are regenerated, without causing any damage. These are some of the factors driving the growth of amniotic fluid stem cell therapy market over the forecast period. Increasing prevalence of chronic diseases which can be treated with the amniotic fluid stem cell therapy propel the market growth for amniotic fluid stem cell therapy, globally. Increasing funding by the government in research and development of stem cell therapy may drive the amniotic fluid stem cell therapy market growth. But, high procedure cost, difficulties in collecting the amniotic fluid and lack of reimbursement policies hinder the growth of amniotic fluid stem cell therapy market.

The global amniotic fluid stem cell therapy market is segmented on basis of treatment, application, end user and geography:

Rapid technological advancement in healthcare, and favorable results of the amniotic fluid stem cells therapy will increase the market for amniotic fluid stem cell therapy over the forecast period. Increasing public-private investment for stem cells in managing disease and improving healthcare infrastructure are expected to propel the growth of the amniotic fluid stem cell therapy market.

However, on the basis of geography, global Amniotic Fluid Stem Cell Therapy Market is segmented into six key regionsviz. North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding China, China and Middle East & Africa. North America captured the largest shares in global Amniotic Fluid Stem Cell Therapy Market and is projected to continue over the forecast period owing to technological advancement in the healthcare and growing awareness among the population towards the new research and development in the stem cell therapy. Europe is expected to account for the second largest revenue share in the amniotic fluid stem cell therapy market. The Asia Pacific is anticipated to have rapid growth in near future owing to increasing healthcare set up and improving healthcare expenditure. Latin America and the Middle East and Africa account for slow growth in the market of amniotic fluid stem cell therapy due to lack of medical facilities and technical knowledge.

Some of the key players operating in global amniotic fluid stem cell therapy market are Stem Shot, Provia Laboratories LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Mesoblast Ltd., Roslin Cells, Regeneus Ltd. etc. among others.

The report covers exhaustive analysis on:

Regional analysis includes

Report Highlights:

NOTE All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in reports are those of the respective analysts. They do not necessarily reflect formal positions or views of Persistence Market Research.

Continue reading here:
Amniotic Fluid Stem Cell Therapy Market Growth to Be Fuelled by Advancements in Technology - Zebvo

Cutting-edge science and the development of groundbreaking and lifesaving drugs get a lot of attention, but the everyday practice of medicine is often more mundane: It doesnt involve being CRISPRd or having gene therapy delivered into your cells. The truth is that most people who are very sick and visit their doctor get treated with very ordinary and sometimes very old drugs.

But in recent years supplies of some of these critical standby medicines have become disrupted. The shortages have forced doctors to make hard treatment decisions. Drugs have to be rationed or, in the worst cases, patients who need care can be turned away.

Dr. Ben Davies is a professor of urology at the University of Pittsburgh and a BioTwitter influencer (I dont think anyone has ever called me a BioTwitter influencer before, he says.). Davies recently chatted with STAT about the recurring problem of drug shortages.

advertisement

Youve had experience with shortages of a medicine called BCG. Whats the history of BCG and why is it so important for bladder cancer patients?

BCG is a very special and powerful antineoplastic drug. Its been around since the 1980s and Im sure you remember it being used for tuberculosis vaccination.

Its basically an attenuated microbacterium and it does three very powerful things. If you get bladder cancer thats non-muscle-invasive, it can prevent recurrences and it can stop progression of disease. That would be extremely helpful because bladder cancer can progress into your muscle, which requires a different form of treatment, like radical surgery. And it also can actually treat residual tumors that your doctor may not have seen on your initial look in your bladder. So its a very important drug. It has a great response rate of about 68%. Its very well-tolerated most of the time. I mean, its our first line of defense in treating non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer.

Why is BCG so vulnerable to shortages?

Because they make it in massive batches and if the batch goes bad, youre just basically done. And depending on how big the batches are, you could go for months making a big supply of it and then youre done if it gets contaminated. So its unlike making a pill where if you just notice a few bad pills you can throw them away and restart. This thing really makes you start again, like a few months later, and youre behind the eight ball.

Merck is the only company that makes BCG today. At one time Sanofi (SNY) was a supplier but it abandoned the drug in 2016. Are you surprised that a drug thats so widely used has only a single manufacturer?

Well, I would be surprised if I didnt know the economics behind it. The problem is that the barrier to entry is quite high and extremely expensive. You know, the Mylans of the world youd think would just jump into this market. But theres a huge barrier to get in there $100 million or more. That and the drug is relatively cheap. So youre not going to make much money if you jump in. Im not surprised there arent so many suppliers now. We need to change those things to make it a more sought-after and more manufactured drug.

Were saying: We dont have the drug thats going to help you and that its going to cost you more.

Dr. Ben Davies, University of Pittsburgh

I mean, I am surprised that Merck has done such a Im gonna use a urologic term piss-poor job of making it since 2016. So weve had a good almost three years of years of problems getting the drug just their problem basically of getting it to patients and I dont know why they havent done a more robust response to the need. I mean, its not like the actual amount of bladder cancer patients changes over time. Its pretty stable. They know how much they need. They just havent been able to do it.

As a physician, when you have a patient before you with bladder cancer, what do you do when BCG is in short supply or not in supply at all?

When its not in supply at all, we go to alternative drugs like mitomycin, which is much more expensive. I wrote a small paper in the New England Journal about how as soon as BCG is unavailable, the price of mitomycin spiked by four times. But we go to other drugs. If we dont have enough, we stop something called maintenance therapy in a lot of patients. Thats a time when you get the drug continually only to help stop recurrences and wed lower the doses. So therere a few things we can do, which seems to be OK. But its certainly not as efficacious as getting the whole drug.

If you had power or influence over the supply of BCG, what would you do to try to make the drug more plentiful?

Oh, God, I think the number one thing, and Ive said this publicly and Ive written about it, you have to think, unfortunately, even though Im a card-carrying liberal, you have to raise the price of the drug. If manufacturers arent going to make any money on the drug, theyre simply not going to be that interested in making it. And thats just the system we live in. So if we dont do that, then we can think about federal mandates, but that has not worked well in the history of drug problems and shortages. So in my view, you have to increase the price and find a willing manufacturer, unlike Merck, that is willing to make the drug correctly and in appropriate amounts.

BCG is not the only drug thats often in short supply. At any given time there can be dozens, sometimes hundreds, of older medicines that appear on the FDAs drug shortage list. Do you think this problem is getting enough attention?

I dont think its really in peoples wheelhouse because they dont see it. I mean, I see it every day.

Its really a horrific situation. When I sit down with the patient, I tell him I cant give you the drug. It has such a great response rate. Instead Im going to give you an inferior drug that has a poor response rate. And by the way, its four times as much money, which is an important consideration in many of the medical plans that have people pay considerable amounts of money out of pocket for their drugs. And thats basically what were saying: We dont have the drug thats going to help you and that its going to cost you more. So its a major problem.

Much of this issue is tied up in the economics of how drugs are bought and paid for in this country. Recently Jeremy Corbyn in the U.K. proposed starting a government-run generics manufacturing establishment over there and there was a similar plan that Elizabeth Warren had described in terms of getting the government involved. What do you think of that as an idea for an issue like BCG?

I think it would work for BCG. I mean, I kind of mentioned my political stripes so I dont mind government intervention when its necessary. We already have this program, by the way. The governments heavily involved right now in getting appropriate vaccinations to people and supports it with its own money. It doesnt have the manufacturing capabilities. I think we need some sort of federal mandate where that means they have the private sector contracted or something like that. And I think that I would be completely in support of that for issues like this.

Theres another company proposing to do this a little bit. Nothings actually happened, but a conglomerate of universities were all going to come together and make, like, saline and epinephrine and all these bizarre drugs that we dont have available. Civica Rx. It sounds like a great scheme, but nothings ever actually happened. Its been mostly talking.

I was talking to my good friend Amitabh Chandra from Harvard who is a health economist about this. He says that a lot of this, he thinks, could be solved by better distribution. In other words, right now if I have enough BCG in my hospital but the hospital across the street does not have any, theres no real easy mechanism for me to give them that BCG, even though I could. There is a massive sort of inter-hospital or between-physician lack of communication and resources to exchange drugs or therapies with ease. You can imagine theres a good reason for that, for regulatory reasons.

But there is an opportunity, I think, to increase abilities to hand off drugs to other people easier and that would obviously alleviate some of the problems.

A good example of that is we can commonly have doctors in the community who dont have any BCG at all for whatever reason and so then those patients will come to see me, often many hundreds of miles to get BCG because their doctor cant get any. Well, thats silly. Why cant I ship that BCG to that doctor? So I mean theres things like that which can be done which would ameliorate the situation. But the bottom line is that we have a failure of manufacture. We have a failure, really, of imagination on how to fix this problem. This has been going on since at least 2012. Just nothing has ever happened to fix it.

Let us know when you start the BCG socialist collective.

Want me to start one?

This is a lightly edited transcript from a recent episode of STATs biotech podcast, The Readout LOUD. Like it? Consider subscribing to hear every episode.

See the article here:
What one doctor thinks about drug shortages and how to solve them - STAT

Mathew Knowles, music executive and father of Beyonc, has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Knowles, 67, told Good Morning America Wednesday that he had a mastectomy to remove the cancer and is planning a preventive one in the other breast because testing found he has a genetic mutation for the disease. The mutation, BRCA2, means his children including Beyonce and Solange have a 50 percent chance of carrying the gene too.

The BRCA2 gene sharply increases the risk of breast and ovarian cancer in women. In men, it increases the risk of prostate, skin and pancreatic cancer in addition to breast cancer.

Knowles said he wanted to share his story to draw attention to the fact men can get breast cancer too. About 2,500 men are diagnosed with the disease annually, about 1 percent of all breast cancers.

Treatment for male breast cancer is similar to treatment for female breast cancer surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and targeted therapy. Most male patients undergo a full mastectomy instead of a lumpectomy, the removal of just the tumor and small amount of surrounding tissue. Survival for male breast cancer is slightly lower than female breast cancer, mostly because it tends not to be diagnosed until men are older and the disease is more advanced.

Knowles medical journey began when he began noticing red dots on his undershirt and bed sheets. He squeezed his right nipple and blood came out.

The next day, Knowles saw his doctor, who sent a sample for further testing and then ordered up a mammogram. The mammogram found a Stage 1 tumor, among the earliest and easiest to treat. Follow-up testing revealed Knowles has BRCA2, prompting his plans to have a second mastectomy in January.

Besides bleeding, other signs of possible male breast cancer are a lump under the nipple or arm. Medical experts advise men who notice such symptoms to see a doctor for further evaluation.

Knowles is best known for managing Destinys Child. He also managed the careers of Beyonc and Solange.

Read more:
Beyoncs father diagnosed with breast cancer - Houston Chronicle

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have developed a new and improved viral vector--a virus-based vehicle that delivers therapeutic genes--for use in gene therapy for sickle cell disease. In advanced lab tests using animal models, the new vector was up to 10 times more efficient at incorporating corrective genes into bone marrow stem cells than the conventional vectors currently used, and it had a carrying capacity of up to six times higher, the researchers report.

The development of the vector could make gene therapy for sickle cell disease much more effective and pave the way for wider use of it as a curative approach for the painful, life-threatening blood disorder. Sickle cell disease affects about 100,000 people in the United States and millions worldwide.

"Our new vector is an important breakthrough in the field of gene therapy for sickle cell disease," said study senior author John Tisdale, M.D., chief of the Cellular and Molecular Therapeutic Branch at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). "It's the new kid on the block and represents a substantial improvement in our ability to produce high capacity, high efficiency vectors for treating this devastating disorder."

Researchers have used virus-based vehicles for years in gene therapy experiments, where they have been very effective at delivering therapeutic genes to bone marrow stem cells in the lab before returning them to the body. But there's always room for improvement in their design in order to optimize effectiveness, Tisdale noted. He compared the new virus-based vehicle to a new and improved car that is also far easier and cheaper for the factory to produce.

The study was supported by the NHLBI and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), both part of the NIH. It was published online today in Nature Communications.

Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder caused by a mutation, or misspelling, in the beta-globin gene (or -globin gene). This mutation causes hemoglobin, the main ingredient of blood cells, to produce sickle-shaped cells that can stick to the walls of blood vessels, causing blockage, pain, anemia, organ damage, and early death. With gene therapy, doctors modify the patient's bone marrow hematopoietic (blood-producing) stem cells in the lab by adding a normal copy of the beta-globin gene through the use of a viral vector. They then reinfuse the modified stem cells into the patient to produce normal, disc-shaped red blood cells.

For the past 30 years, researchers have been designing these beta-globin vectors in a reverse structural orientation, meaning the therapeutic genes incorporated into the virus are translated, or "read," from right to left by the viral vector-making machinery--much like reading an English sentence backwards. The reason for the reverse orientation is the sensitive expression of a key molecular component of the vector called intron 2. This segment is required for high-level beta-globin gene expression but gets clipped out during the normal vector preparation process if it is left in the natural, forward direction. Gene therapy trials using reverse-oriented vectors for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia have largely been encouraging, the researchers said, but this complicated gene translation process has made vector preparation and gene-transfer efficiency more difficult.

About 10 years ago, Tisdale and Naoya Uchida, M.D., Ph.D., a staff scientist in his lab, searched for an improved delivery vehicle--like designing a better car--and decided to undertake a radical redesign of the beta-globin vector. They came up with a unique work-around design that left intron 2 intact and created the new forward-oriented beta-globin vector. In contrast to the old vector, the gene sequence, or "message," of the new beta-globin vector is read from left to right--like reading a normal sentence--making the gene translation approach less complicated, Tisdale explained.

The researchers tested the new vectors in mice and monkeys and compared the results to reverse-oriented vectors. They found that the new vectors could transfer a much higher viral load--up to six times more therapeutic beta-globin genes than the conventional vectors--and had four to 10 times higher transduction efficiency, a measure of the ability to incorporate corrective genes into repopulating bone marrow cells. The new vectors also showed a capacity for longevity, remaining in place four years after transplantation. Researchers also found that they could be produced in much higher amounts than the conventional vectors, potentially saving time and lowering costs associated with large-scale vector production.

"Our lab has been working on improving beta-globin vectors for almost a decade...and finally decided to try something radically different--and it worked," Tisdale said. "These findings bring us closer to a curative gene therapy approach for hemoglobin disorders."

Reference: Uchida et al. 2019.Development of a forward-oriented therapeutic lentiviral vector for hemoglobin disorders. Nature Communications. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12456-3.

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

Read the rest here:
Improved Gene Therapy in Sickle Cell Disease - Technology Networks

Since the gene-editing potential of CRISPR systems was realized in 2013, they have been utilized in laboratories across the world for a wide variety of applications. When this gene-editing power is harnessed with the proliferative potential of stem cells, scientists level up their understanding of cell biology, human genetics and the future potential of medicine.

Thus far, the feasibility to edit stem cells using CRISPR technology has been demonstrated in two key areas: modeling and investigating human cell states and human diseases, and regenerative medicine.1 However, this has not been without challenges.

In this article, we explore some of the latest research in these spaces and the approaches that scientists are adopting to overcome these challenges. Deciphering cell-specific gene expression using CRISPRi in iPSC-derived neurons

Deploying CRISPR technology in iPSCs has been notoriously challenging, as Martin Kampmann, of the Kampmann lab at the University of California San Francisco, says: "CRISPR introduces DNA breaks, which can be toxic for iPSCs, since these cells have a highly active DNA damage response." To overcome the issue of toxicity, as a postdoc in the lab of Professor Jonathan Weissman, Kampmann co-invented a tool known as CRISPR interference (CRISPRi), where the DNA cutting ability of CRISPR/Cas9 is disabled.2 The "dead" Cas9 (or, dCas9) is still recruited to DNA as directed by a single guide RNA. It can therefore operate as a recruitment platform to target protein domains of interest to specific places in the genome.

CRISPRi permits gene repression at the transcription level, as opposed to RNAi which controls genes at the mRNA level. This allows researchers to repress certain genes within stem cells and decipher their function. Kampmann explains: "For CRISPRi, we target a transcriptional repressor domain (the KRAB domain) to the transcription start site of genes to repress their expression. This knockdown approach is highly effective and lacks the notorious off-target effects of RNAi-based gene knockdown."In a study published just last month, Kampmann's laboratory adopted a CRISPRi-based platform to conduct genetic screens in human neurons derived from iPSCs: "CRISPR-based genetic screens can reveal mechanisms by which these mutations cause cellular defects, and uncover cellular pathways we can target to correct those defects. Such pathways are potential therapeutic targets."3"We expressed the CRISPRi machinery (dCas9-KRAB) from a safe-harbor locus in the genome, where it is not silenced during neuronal differentiation. We also developed a CRISPRi construct with degrons, stability of which is controlled by small molecules. This way, we can induce CRISPRi knockdown of genes of interest at different times during neuronal differentiation."

Image: iPSC-derived neurons. Credit: Kampmann Lab, UCSF.Previous CRISPR-based screens have focused on cancer cell lines or stem cells rather than healthy human cells, thus limiting potential insights into the cell-type-specific roles of human genes. The researchers opted to screen in iPSC-derived neurons as genomic screens have revealed mechanisms of selective vulnerability in neurodegenerative diseases, and convergent mechanisms in neuropsychiatric disorders.

The large-scale CRISPRi screen uncovered genes that were essential for both neurons and iPSCs yet caused different transcriptomic phenotypes when knocked down. "For me, one of the most exciting findings was the broadly expressed genes that we think of as housekeeping genes had different functions in iPSCs versus neurons. This may explain why mutations in housekeeping genes can affect different cell types and tissues in the body in very different ways," says Kampmann. For example, knockdown of the E1 ubiquitin activating enzyme, UBA1, resulted in neuron-specific induction of a large number of genes, including endoplasmic reticulum chaperone HSPA5 and HSP90B1.

These results suggest that comprised UBA1 triggers a proteotoxic stress response in neurons but not iPSCs aligning with the suggested role of UBA1 in several neurodegenerative diseases. The authors note: "Parallel genetic screens across the full gamut of human cell types may systematically uncover context-specific roles of human genes, leading to a deeper mechanistic understanding of how they control human biology and disease."

Video credit: UCSF.

Developing and testing cell-based therapies for human disease using CRISPR

Several laboratories across the globe are in an apparent race to develop the first clinically relevant, efficacious and safe cell-based therapy utilizing CRISPR gene-editing technology.

Whilst a plethora of literature demonstrates the efficacy of CRISPR in editing the genome of mammalian cells in vitro, for in vivo application, particularly in humans, rigorous long-term testing of safety outcomes is required. This month, researchers from the laboratory of Hongkui Deng, a Professor at Peking University in Beijing, published a paper in The New England Journal of Medicine.4 The paper outlined their world-first study in which they transplanted allogenic CRISPR-edited stem cells into a human patient with HIV.

The rationale for the study stems back to the "Berlin patient", referring to Timothy Ray Brown who is one of very few individuals in the world that has been cured of HIV. Brown received a bone marrow transplant from an individual that carries a mutant form of the CCR5 gene. Under normal conditions, the CCR5 gene encodes a receptor on the surface of white blood cells. This receptor effectively provides a passageway for the HIV to enter cells. In individuals with two copies of the CCR5 mutation, the receptor is distorted and restricts strains of HIV from entering cells.

Deng and colleagues used CRISPR to genetically edit donor hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) to carry either a CCR5 insertion or deletion. They were able to achieve this with an efficiency of 17.8%, indicated by genetic sequencing. The CRISPR-edited HSPCs were then transplanted into an HIV patient who also had leukaemia and required a bone-marrow transplant, with the goal being to eradicate HIV.

"The study was designed to assess the safety and feasibility of the transplantation of CRISPRCas9modified HSPCs into HIV-1positive patients with hematologic cancer," Deng says. He continues: "The success of genome editing in human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells was evaluated in three aspects including editing persistence, specificity and efficiency in long-term engrafting HSPCs." Long-term monitoring of the HIV patient found that, 19 months after transplantation, the CRISPR-edited stem cells were alive however, they only comprised five to eight percent of total stem cells. Thus, the patient is still infected with HIV.

Despite the seemingly low efficiency in long-term survival, the researchers were encouraged by the results from the safety assessment aspect of the study: "Previously reported hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells-based gene therapies were less effective because of random integration of exogenous DNA into the genome, which sometimes induced acute immune responses or neoplasia," Deng says. "The apparent absence of clinical adverse events from gene editing and off-target effects in this study provides preliminary support for the safety of this gene-editing approach."

"To further clarify the anti-HIV effect of CCR5-ablated HSPCs, it will be essential to increase the gene-editing efficiency of our CRISPRCas9 system and improve the transplantation protocol," says Deng.

The marrying of CRISPR gene-editing and stem cell research isn't just bolstering therapeutic developments in HIV. An ongoing clinical trial is evaluating the safety and efficacy of autologous CRISPR-Cas9 modified CD34+ HSPCs for the treatment of transfusion-dependent -thalassemia, a genetic blood disorder that causes hemoglobin deficiency.

The therapeutic approach known as CTX001 involves extracting a patients HSPCs and using CRISPR-Cas9 to modify the cells at the erythroid lineage-specific enhancer of the BCL11A gene. The genetically modified cells are then infused back into the patient's body, where they produce large numbers of red blood cells that contain fetal hemoglobin. Currently no results are available, but reports confirm that participants have been recruited on to the trial.

A bright future

Our understanding of cell biology and diseased states has been majorly enhanced by the combined use of CRISPR technology and stem cells. Whilst this article has focused on current study examples, Zhang et al.'s recent review provides a comprehensive view of the field and insights provided by earlier studies.5

In such review, the authors comment "Undoubtedly, the CRISPR/Cas9 genome-editing system has revolutionarily changed the fundamental and translational stem cell research." Solutions are still required to resolve the notorious off-target effects of CRISPR technology, to improve the editing efficiency as outlined by Deng and to exploit novel delivery strategies that are safe for clinical stem cell studies. Nonetheless, the future looks bright for CRISPR and stemcell-based research. In their review published this month, Bukhari and Mller say, "We expect CRISPR technology to be increasingly used in iPSC-derived organoids: protein function(subcellular localization, cell type specific expression, cleavage, and degradation) can be studied in developing as well as adult organoids under their native conditions."

References:

1. Jehuda, Shemer and Binah. 2018. Genome Editing in Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells using CRISPR/Cas9. Stem Cell Reviews and Reports. DOI: 10.1007/s12015-018-9811-3.

2. Qi et al. 2013. Repurposing CRISPR as an RNA-Guided Platform for Sequence-Specific Control of Gene Expression. Cell. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.02.022

3. Tian et al. 2019. CRISPR Interference-Based Platform for Multimodal Genetic Screens in Human iPSC-Derived Neurons. Neuron. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2019.07.014.

4. Xu et al. 2019. CRISPR-Edited Stem Cells in a Patient with HIV and Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. The New England Journal of Medicine. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1817426.

5. Zhang et al. 2019. CRISPR/Cas9 Genome-Editing System in Human Stem Cells: Current Status and Future Prospects. Molecular Therapy Nucleic Acids. DOI: 10.1016/j.omtn.

Read more from the original source:
Exploring the Latest in CRISPR and Stem Cell Research - Technology Networks

Updated October 04, 2019 14:43:48

The hardest thing Daniel Roberts has ever had to do was watch his young niece Remy battle aplastic anaemia.

Remy was just a toddler when diagnosed with the condition, in which the body stops producing enough new blood cells.

The once-energetic and vivacious girl became lethargic, covered in deep bruises.

Her only hope was a bone marrow transfusion, but finding a match was easier said than done.

"I wanted to be able to save my brother's little girl, but no-one in the family was a match, which was quite unbelievable," Mr Roberts said.

Remy's condition deteriorated she required blood transfusions every seven to 10 days but thankfully an unrelated donor was found.

Now six, she is back at school and getting stronger every day.

"Remy, she was right on the cusp of not being here with us, so to see her with us today is absolutely amazing," he said

Despite not being able to help his niece, Mr Roberts stayed on the bone marrow donor list only one in 1,500 donors are asked to donate in any given year.

Just two years after a random donor saved his niece's life, Mr Roberts got the call.

"I'm six-foot-three and pretty bulletproof. I'm tough as nails and never get a tear in my eye or anything like that, but I couldn't stop actually crying," he said.

"I just couldn't believe I got to pay it back so quickly."

His donation helped save a five-year-old boy who was also fighting aplastic anaemia.

"The amount of tests and all that you go through is nothing compared to what that little fella was probably going through," Mr Roberts said.

"But that said, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

"My niece was dying. She got a random match from somebody, and now she's fantastic. I just can't believe you can pay someone back so quickly."

Every 40 minutes, someone in Australia is diagnosed with a blood cancer.

And for most, a blood stem cell or bone marrow transplant from a stranger is their only hope.

But if you are Indigenous or ethnically diverse, the chances of finding a match are much harder, because donors need to have the same genetic background as the recipient.

Less than 1 per cent of people on the bone marrow donor registry are from Aboriginal or Middle Eastern background, less than 3 per cent are Asian, and less than 5 per cent are Pacific islander.

The head of the registry, Lisa Smith, said despite Australia's multicultural make-up, eight of every 10 people on the registry were of north Caucasian background.

"The registry itself is largely unknown and really lacking diversity that reflects Australia's multiculturalism," she said.

"It genuinely is one-in-a-million odds to get a match, so when we ring a donor, they could very well be the only person on the planet that's able to help that patient."

The Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry is trying to find 5,000 new donors this year.

"We need donors that are young and ethnically diverse, because our current donor pool, if characterised as a person, is a middle-aged white female," Ms Smith said.

"From a transplant clinician's perspective, they're looking for donors that are young between 18 and 30, are male and are reflecting the ethnicity of their patient."

Pamela Bou Sejean knows the importance of a strong donor list better than most.

She was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 2010, and after chemotherapy and radiation failed, she was told her "last chance" was a stem cell transplant.

Stem cells from the umbilical cord blood of a Spanish donor gave Ms Bou Sejean a second chance at life.

"To know someone's out there that's actually saved my life, 'thank you' doesn't seem enough," she said.

She went into remission in 2012 and founded the charity Ur The Cure, which aims to demystify stem-cell donations and promote greater diversity on the donor list.

"Often it's people's last chance for a cure, and you need a stem cell match with someone who shares an ethnical or cultural heritage."

There is a 30 per cent chance that a match can generally be found within a person's immediate family. After that, it gets harder.

"It's kind of like winning TattsLotto, but it's not winning money it's winning the chance to live."

For Warrnambool mother Julia Thompson, storing her umbilical cord for stem cells was a no-brainer.

Following her own cancer battle, Ms Thompson gave birth to her son Hugh in 2017.

She is now in remission, having used her stem cells as part of her treatment.

It was that treatment that inspired her to store Hugh's umbilical cord and associated stem cells for future use.

"It's difficult that it's only available in selected hospitals in Australia, but it's really an amazing insurance policy for him," she said.

"We knew that because of my history with cancer, the likelihood of Hugh having siblings was very slim.

"Given my history and the fact that stem cell blood saved my life, I knew how important that was. It's really something to consider for the future of your child and family."

Topics:leukaemia,bones-and-muscles,people,medical-research,health,science-and-technology,human-interest,warrnambool-3280,geelong-3220,melbourne-3000

First posted October 02, 2019 06:54:09

Read more:
Bone marrow donor registry pleas for more diversity to help save people with cancer - ABC News

PHOENIX, Oct. 1, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --R3 Stem Cell, a national leader in stem cell therapy marketing and education, today announced that they are launching a new Master Class centered around the topic of stem cells and regenerative procedures. To commemorate their launch, they will be giving away one out of the eight episodes of their Master Class series for free and the rest will be available for only $49. Purchase the R3 Stem Cell Master Class series and receive Stem Cell Therapy with an R3 Center for $500 off. Register for the Master Class at https://stemcellmasterclass.org/.

The Master Class offers those considering regenerative procedures with stem cells vital information such as discovering how the process works, understanding the options that are given to them, learning the research behind it and gaining realistic expectations.

"Experiencing chronic pain is tiring and can lead to anxiety, depression, obesity, and addiction of medication," said David Greene, MD, MBA, Founder and CEO of R3 Stem Cell. "For those who are considering a stem cell procedure, our Master Class will provide them with the knowledge needed in order to make the decision. Questions regarding common misconceptions in the ever-growing field will be uncovered, giving the patient a realistic understanding of what a stem cell is, where they come from and what they can do."

The Master Class series explains what to expect with a regenerative procedure investment, what the different ways are to optimize stem cell therapy outcomes, what to look for in a stem cell clinic, and a patient's real-life experience with a stem cell procedure. The series is divided into eight different episodes, offering the patient a four-hour long learning opportunity with information on discovering a procedure that is right for them.

"It is important for patients to fully understand what type of stem cell therapies are being offered to them and know the full effect it can have on their everyday lives," continues Dr. Greene. "Regenerative therapies may give patients the opportunity to return to pain-free personal everyday activities. Our purpose is to make people educated consumers in a time when so much misinformation is being disseminated."

About R3 Stem Cell

R3 Stem Cell offers regenerative stem cell therapies to those who suffer from chronic pain. Their sole purpose is to repair, regenerate, and restore damaged tissue from the body. Giving hope and options for patients of relieving chronic pain and avoiding surgery. Stem cell procedures are done using bone marrow, adipose, amniotic, PRP or umbilical cord tissue containing platelets, cytokines, growth factors and exosomes that work to start a healing process within the body and repair damaged tissue. R3 Stem Cell has over 35 nationwide Centers and there is most likely a clinic near you. To learn more about R3 Stem Cell, visit their website at http://www.r3stemcell.comor call (844) GET-STEM.

Media Contact

Jennifer RodriguezFirecracker PR(888)317-4687 ext. 703223962@email4pr.com

SOURCE R3 Stem Cell

Homepage 2018

More:
R3 Stem Cell Launches Master Class Series on Stem Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine - PRNewswire

Anthony DeAngelis reads the birthday card his daughter Alyssa gave him after she donated two-thirds of her liver so he could undergo a transplant. Jerry Carino, @njhoopshaven

Such encounters are rare, especially across an ocean. 'She's like my daughter,' Lael McGrath said.

After four months of battling acute myeloid leukemia, Lael McGraths lifeline arrived in a cooler, the kind youd take to a football tailgate or picnic in the park.

Only it didnt contain ham-and-cheese subs from the local deli. These were stem cells from Germany, a lifesaving gift from an anonymous donor.

Last week McGrath, a grandmother of six who lives in Toms River, got to thank that donor face to face. Wiebke Rudolph visited New Jersey and the two celebrated their connection at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.

For me its very emotional, McGrath said. Shes like my daughter. Thats how I feel. Its a life relationship that will always be there.

Paying it forward:Neptune family holds blood drive in honor of 2-year-old with cancer

Neptune: Daughter donates two-thirds of her liver, giving dad 2nd chance after alcoholism

WATCH: In the video atop this story, Neptune's Anthony DeAngelis reads a birthday card from his daughter, who donated two-thirds of her liver to him.

Bone marrow donor Wiebke Rudolph from Germany (left) hugs transplant recipient Lael McGrath of Toms River (right) at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital New Brunswick.(Photo: Daniel DellaPiazza)

Fitness always has been a priority for McGrath, who turned 68 on Monday. In August of 2016 she didnt think much of it when her breathing became a bit labored. The flu, she figured.

Because I was such a fit person, my body didnt have any sickly warnings, she said.

The diagnosis was acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which occurs mostly in older adults the average age at diagnosis is 68. According to the American Cancer Society, there are about 21,000 new cases and 11,000 deaths from AML each year in the U.S. For treatment, McGrath was referred to the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital New Brunswick. She would need a stem cell transplant.

Every four minutes a new person in the U.S. is being diagnosed with blood cancer and will need to find a donor, said Dr. Vimal Patel, McGraths hematologist/oncologist at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and assistant professor of medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.It can be hard (to find a match). We first look at siblings; each sibling has a 1-in-4 chance of being a match.

Do you enjoy tales of remarkable people in Monmouth and Ocean counties? Maybe you'd like to read about the Miss NJ USA contestant who learned to dealwith the suicide of her mother and grandmother and help others too. Or how a woman with Lyme disease wouldn't give up her dream of becoming a doctor. You can read more of them by becoming a digital subscriber to APP.com and downloading our app today.

(from left) Bone marrow transplant coordinator Mary Kate McGrath, transplant recipient Leal McGrath, hematologist/oncologist Dr. Vimal Patel, and bone marrow donor Wiebke Rudolph at a special celebration with members of the Blood and Marrow Transplant team at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick.(Photo: Daniel DellaPiazza)

None of McGraths siblings came up as a match. So McGraths care team turned to Be The Match, the worlds largest bone-marrow donor registry. They hit the jackpot with Rudolph, although her identity remainedanonymous in keeping with widely accepted transplant protocol.

I just did it, and I didnt think much about it, Rudolph said of her decision to enroll in the registry. I didnt think I would ever know the name (of the recipient) or meet them. I just thought, You get some real-life karma if you do that.

The transplant went well. McGrath returned home two weeks later, on Jan. 1,2017. Then came three months of recovery at home. Now, two-and-a-half years later, McGrath says she is in remission, running a couple of days per week and doing power yoga.

Shes amazing, said daughter Torrey DiMeo, who also lives in Toms River. There are 20-year-olds in her (yoga) class and she flies past them. She is still standing on her head at 67.

Bone marrow donor Wiebke Rudolph from Germany (right) stands with transplant recipient Lael McGrath of Toms River (left) at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.(Photo: Daniel DellaPiazza)

Upon learning each others identity, McGrath and Rudolph began a long-distance correspondence that blossomed into a friendship. Last week they met for the first time and visited Robert Wood Johnson together. It was a big moment for all involved.

Its pretty rare in terms of having an unrelated donor meet up with the actual patient themselves, Patel said. To see it happen is remarkable truly heartwarming.

DiMeo was similarly moved.

The emotions were just a whirlwind, she said. Words cant thank someone enough. I really didnt know what to say besides thank you.

McGrath already had begun paying it forward. In 2017 she threw a block party where representatives from Be The Matchregistered dozens of people. One of them could end up rescuing someone halfway around the world, just like Rudolph did.

This is the reason why I do what I do, Patel said. Its amazing to see the pieces of the puzzle that needed to come together, amazing to see the donor and her generosity the gift she gave, the gift of life.

For more information on Be The Match, visit http://www.bethematch.org.

Autoplay

Show Thumbnails

Show Captions

Jerry Carino is news columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the Jersey Shores interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues. Contact him atjcarino@gannettnj.com.

Become an Asbury Park Press subscriber today and get unlimited digital access and support stories like this one.

JOIN TODAY

Read or Share this story: https://www.app.com/story/news/health/2019/10/01/acute-myeloid-leukemia-bone-marrow-donor/3791062002/

The rest is here:
Toms River grandmother with leukemia meets the stem-cell donor who saved her life - Asbury Park Press

A gene therapy approach using a so-called antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) conditioning regimen led to safe and sustained production of factor VIII (FVIII) in platelets, and prevented joint bleeding in a mouse model of hemophilia A, according to new research.

The study, Nongenotoxic antibody-drug conjugate conditioning enables safe and effective platelet gene therapy of hemophilia A mice, appeared in the journal Blood Advances.

Prior work in mice showed that stem cell-based gene therapy specifically targeting platelets leads to the production of FVIII the clotting protein missing or defective in people with hemophilia A and induces immune tolerance (no development of exacerbated immune response).

However, the procedure required a conditioning regimen with chemotherapy or total body irradiation (TBI) that may be toxic to genetic material (or genotoxic), so patients may not be agreeable to using the protocol.

Safer approaches may come from ADCs, which use antibodies against cell surface proteins for more specific targeting of cell populations.

A team of researchers from the Blood Research Institute, in Milwaukee, tested ADC-based conditioning with stem cell-based F8 gene therapy that targets platelets in a mouse model of hemophilia A. This ADC consists of saporin a plant-derived toxin that halts protein production bound to antibodies specific for the CD45.2 and CD117 cell surface proteins.

The scientists found that, three weeks after hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT), peripheral blood counts were higher with ADC conditioning than with TBI. This suggested a lower risk of cytopenia (reduced number of mature blood cells), the investigators said.

Then they observed that the new conditioning regimen led to effective engraftment, the process through which transplanted stem cells establish themselves in the bone marrow and start producing new blood cells. At 20 weeks after transplant, all mice receiving the ADC regimen had more than 15% of donor-derived white blood cells.

Sixteen weeks after HSCT, the number of copies of therapeutic genes was similar in the mice receiving ADC and the controls on TBI. Two-thirds of the mice receiving the viral-delivered gene therapy under ADC conditioning showed sustained increases in FVIII levels in platelets.

The ADC regimen also led to increasing reconstitution of platelets and white blood cells, meaning a higher percentage of cells derived from donors.

Subsequent experiments showed that ADC also targeting the CD8 protein led to significantly higher white blood cell reconstitution, frequency of regulatory T-cells (which dampen excessive immune responses), and FVIII levels in platelets than the regimen specific for CD117 and CD45.2 only.

These effects were sustained long-term, as found when transplanting bone marrow cells from animals that had undergone HSCT to new mice under the same conditioning regimen.

Blood clotting was normalized with this gene therapy approach, and hemoglobin levels were higher than in mice with no FVIII. Joint bleeding and limping were effectively prevented in a knee joint injury model. Also, no animal with sustained FVIII expression in platelets developed anti-FVIII inhibitors.

The central finding of this report is that platelet-directed HSC-based FVIII gene therapy is safe and effective for eliminating [hemophilia A] using nongenotoxic hematopoietic-targeted ADC conditioning, the researchers wrote.

This safe and effective treatment strategy could be especially meaningful for [hemophilia A] patients who are especially wary of standard preconditioning, they added.

Jos is a science news writer with a PhD in Neuroscience from Universidade of Porto, in Portugal. He has also studied Biochemistry at Universidade do Porto and was a postdoctoral associate at Weill Cornell Medicine, in New York, and at The University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. His work has ranged from the association of central cardiovascular and pain control to the neurobiological basis of hypertension, and the molecular pathways driving Alzheimers disease.

Total Posts: 121

Margarida graduated with a BS in Health Sciences from the University of Lisbon and a MSc in Biotechnology from Instituto Superior Tcnico (IST-UL). She worked as a molecular biologist research associate at a Cambridge UK-based biotech company that discovers and develops therapeutic, fully human monoclonal antibodies.

Read more from the original source:
Hemophilia A Study Finds Benefits With New Gene Therapy Approach - Hemophilia News Today

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Results from a study sponsored by Stemedica Cell Technologies, Inc., a global biotechnology company that uses allogeneic stem cells for ischemic conditions, form the basis for a peer-reviewed paper published inStrokeentitled "Phase I/II Study of Safety and Preliminary Efficacy of Intravenous Allogeneic Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Chronic Stroke." Co-authors include Michael L. Levy, MD, PhD, John R. Crawford, MD, Nabil Dib, MD, Lev Verkh, PhD, Nikolai Tankovich, MD, PhD and Steven C. Cramer, MD.

As indicated in theStrokepublication, "Stroke is perennially among the leading causes of human disability and the leading neurological cause of lost disability-adjusted life years. The mean survival after stroke is 6-7 years, with more than 85% of patients living past the first-year post-stroke, many with years of enduring disability. Many restorative therapies are under study to improve outcomes after stroke." However, restorative therapies often have a short time window for improvement usually measured in days-months.

"Based on Stemedica's preclinical data that supported the safety and efficacy of its MSCs as a restorative therapy to improve outcomes after stroke, the company was granted approval by the FDA to conduct a Phase I/IIa dose escalation trial that examined the effects of a single IV infusion of Stemedica's cGMP manufactured allogeneic ischemia-tolerant MSCs," said Dr. Lev Verkh, Chief Regulatory and Clinical Development Officer of Stemedica.

Study:The target population included patients with chronic ischemic stroke and substantial functional deficits; a group for whom treatment options remained limited. The primary outcome of the study was safety, based on serial measures of behavior, CT scans, and laboratory testing. Four secondary endpoints were scored serially to derive estimates of behavioral changes relatively to the baseline over a period of 12 months: NIH Stroke Scale (NIHSS) for neurological assessment, Barthel Index (BI) for ability to perform daily tasks, Mini-Mental Status Exam (MMSE) for mental status, and Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) for degree of depression. The study was conducted at three centers: University of California, San Diego (UCSD); Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, Gilbert, Arizona; and University of California, Irvine (UCI).

Entry criteria included ischemic stroke >6 months prior to administration, substantial functional deficits (subject confined to a wheelchair, had home-nursingcare, orneeded assistance withactivities ofdailyliving), no substantial improvement in neurologic orfunctional deficits for the2 months prior to enrollment in thestudypermedical history, and NIHSS score=6-20.

Enrollees received a single intravenous dose of allogeneic mesenchymal bone marrow cells. Phase I used a dose escalation design (3 tiers, n=5 each). Phase IIa (n=21) was an expanded safety cohort. The primary endpoint was safety over 1-year. Secondary endpoints examined behavior, with a pre-specified focus at 6-months.

Subject status at enrollment prior to treatment:At baseline, subjects (n=36) averaged 4.24.6 years post-stroke, age 61.110.8 years, NIHSS score 8 [6.5-10], and Barthel Index 6529.

Safety:Study testing disclosed no safety concerns. No subject showed a positive reaction to intradermal testing. In Phase I, each dose (0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 million cells/kg body weight) was found safe, as a result Phase IIa subjects received 1.5 million cells/kg. Two subjects were lost to follow-up, one was withdrawn, and two died (unrelated to study treatment). There were 15 serious adverse events, none possibly or probably related to study treatment. Two mild adverse events were possibly related to study treatment, a urinary tract infection and IV site irritation. Treatment was determined to be safe based on serial exams, EKGs, laboratory tests, and pan-CT scans.

Behavioral Effects:Improvements across all subjects post-transfusion and for all four secondary endpoints were achieved. Improvements in each index were: Barthel Index (6.811.4 points, p=0.002); in NIHSS (-1.251.7 points, p<0.001); Mini Mental Status Exam (1.82.8 points, p<0.001); and Geriatric Depression Scale (-1.63.8 points, p=0.015). At baseline 11.4% (4/35 subjects) had Barthel Index=95-100 (favorable outcome); at 6-months, 27.3% (9/33); by 12-months, 35.5% (11/31).

Conclusions:The current study is the largest trial of intravenous MSCs in patients with chronic stroke and the first to evaluate allogeneic MSC therapy in this population. It is also the first study to evaluate MSCs grown under hypoxic conditions favorable to cell proliferation, gene expression, cytokine production and migration. While patients with stroke in the chronic stage generally show significant functional decline, enrollees in the current study showed 12 months of continued functional improvements across all secondary endpoints.

Intravenous transfusion of allogeneic ischemia tolerant MSCs in patients with chronic stroke and substantial functional deficits was safe and suggested behavioral gains. These data support proceeding to a randomized, placebo-controlled study of this therapy in this population.

Dr. Nikolai Tankovich, President and Chief Medical Officer added, "Stemedica is encouraged by the results of the study which demonstrated safety and preliminary efficacy of its cell therapy product for the treatment of chronic ischemic stroke patients. It is a significant milestone for Stemedica to bring this new cellular medication to patients with debilitating conditions caused by a stroke. Stemedica plans to move forward to a Phase-IIb discussion with the FDA."

Michael Levy, MD, PhD, FACS, FAANS, Professor of Neurosurgery at UCSD and the Principal Investigator of this study commented: "Based on my clinical trial work in Stemedica's Ischemic Stroke trial, my experience to date with Stemedica's allogeneic ischemic tolerant mesenchymal stem cell product suggests that the product is first and foremost safe and secondarilyhas the potential to produce unparalleled medical benefits."

About Stemedica Cell Technologies, Inc.Stemedica Cell Technologies, Inc. is a global biopharmaceutical company that manufactures best-in-class allogeneic adult stem cells. The company is a government licensed manufacturer of cGMP, clinical-grade stem cells currently used in US-based clinical trials for ischemic stroke, and Alzheimer's Disease. Stemedica's cell are also used on a worldwide basis by research institutions and hospitals for pre-clinical and clinical (human) trials. Stemedica is currently developing additional clinical trials for other medical indications using adult, allogeneic stems cell under the auspices of the FDA and other international regulatory institutions. The company is headquartered in San Diego, California and can be found online atwww.stemedica.com.

Forward Looking StatementsThis press release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, these forward-looking statements do not constitute guarantees of future performance and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. These statements reflect the views of Stemedica as of the date of this press release with respect to future events and, except as required by law, it undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise after the date of this press release.

Media ContactStemedica Cell Technologies, Inc.Dave McGuiganEVP, Marketing & Business Developmentdmcguigan@stemedica.com+1 858-658-0910 x7203

SOURCE Stemedica Cell Technologies, Inc.

Visit link:
Positive Study Results of Phase IIa Clinical Trial Using Intravenous Administration of Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Ischemic Stroke Published in...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ElevateBio, a Cambridge-based biotechnology holding company, today announced it has established and launched HighPassBio, a company dedicated to advancing novel targeted T cell immunotherapies. The companys lead product is an engineered T cell receptor (TCR) T cell therapy for HA-1 expressing tumors, which is designed to treat and potentially prevent relapse of leukemia following hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). The product and approach were developed by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

At ElevateBio we are committed to building therapeutics companies with the worlds leading innovators in cell and gene therapy to advance novel treatments that have strong potential to dramatically improve patient lives, said David Hallal, Chairman and CEO of ElevateBio. We look forward to leveraging our centralized industry-leading cell and gene therapy process development and manufacturing capabilities while working closely with Dr. Marie Bleakley and her team, to accelerate their impressive work through clinical development with the goal of serving patients who have no other treatment options. Additionally, we will explore this approach as a potential treatment for other diseases that are treated by stem cell transplants.

HighPassBios scientific founder is Marie Bleakley, M.D., Ph.D., M.ClinEpi, pediatric oncologist and stem cell transplant physician at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and chair of the scientific advisory board (SAB) of HighPassBio. As the chair of HighPassBios SAB, Dr. Bleakley will continue working with ElevateBio to advance and accelerate this innovative program through clinical development toward patients.

A Phase 1 clinical trial has treated initial patients and is recruiting adult and pediatric patients who have relapsed with leukemia or related conditions following blood and marrow transplantation (also known as stem cell transplantation). More details on http://www.clinicaltrials.gov under the study ID number NCT03326921.

About TCR-Engineered T Cell Therapy

A key role of the immune system is to detect tumor antigens, engage T cells and eradicate the tumor. However, the immune response to tumor antigens varies and is often insufficient to prevent tumor growth and relapse. An approach known as adoptive T cell therapy, using T cell receptors, or TCRs, can overcome some of the obstacles to establishing an effective immune response to fight off the target tumor. TCRs are molecules found on surface of T cells that can recognize tumor antigens that are degraded to small protein fragments inside tumor cells. Unlike CAR T cells that recognize only surface antigens, TCRs can recognize small protein fragments derived from intracellular and surface antigens offering a more diverse way to attack tumors. These small protein fragments show up on the tumor cell surface with another protein called major histocompatibility complex (MHC), get recognized by the TCRs and consequently signal the bodys immune system to respond to fight off and kill the tumor cells.

Tumor-specific TCRs can be identified and then engineered into T cells that recognize and attack various types of cancers, representing a novel approach to treating and potentially preventing disease.

Adoptive T cell therapy can be applied to tackling relapse of leukemia post hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) by targeting the antigens expressed only by the patient and not by the stem cell transplant donor, known as minor histocompatibility antigens, or HA1. HA1 is expressed predominantly or exclusively on hematopoietic cells and leukemic cells. There is evidence that T cells specific for HA1 can induce a potent and selective antileukemic effect. HA1 TCR T cell therapy is a new investigational immunotherapy for the management of post transplantation leukemia relapse.

About Leukemia post HSCT Treatment and the Risk of Relapse

Leukemia, a cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal proliferation of blood cells, is the tenth most common type of cancer in the U.S. with an estimated 60,140 new cases and 24,400 deaths in 2016. Leukemia arises from uncontrolled proliferation of a specific type of hematopoietic (blood) cell that is critical for a functional immune system. As a result, when patients are given very high doses of chemotherapy to eradicate leukemic cells most normal cells are killed as well, necessitating a transplant of hematopoietic stem cells from a donor to reconstitute the patients bone marrow and circulating hematopoietic cells. In some cases, the transplanted T cells from the donor can also recognize and eliminate the hematopoietic cells, including leukemia, from the recipient, thus preventing relapse.

While the majority of HSCT recipients are cured, 25-50 percent of HSCT recipients relapse, leukemia relapse remains the major cause of allogeneic HSCT failure, and the prognosis for patients with post-HCT relapse is poor. Relapse occurs following allogeneic HSCT in approximately one-third of patients with acute leukemia who undergo the procedure, and most patients subsequently die of their disease.

About HighPassBio

HighPassBio, an ElevateBio portfolio company, is working to advance a novel approach to treating hematological malignancies by leveraging T cell receptor (TCR)-engineered T cells, known as TCR T cells. The companys lead program is designed to treat or potentially prevent relapse of leukemia in patients who have undergone hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). The technology was born out of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center by world renowned expert, Dr. Marie Bleakley.

About ElevateBio

ElevateBio, LLC, is a Cambridge-based cell and gene therapy holding company, established to create and operate a broad portfolio of cell and gene therapy companies with leading academic researchers, medical centers and entrepreneurs. ElevateBio builds single- and multi-product companies by providing scientific founders with fully integrated bench-to-bedside capabilities including world-class scientists, manufacturing facilities, drug developers and commercial expertise. ElevateBio BaseCamp, a company-owned Cell and Gene Therapy Center of Innovation, will serve as the R&D, process development and manufacturing hub across the entire ElevateBio portfolio while also supporting selected strategic partners.

ElevateBios lead investors are the UBS Oncology Impact Fund (OIF) managed by MPM Capital, as well as F2 Ventures. Investors also include EcoR1 Capital, Redmile Group, and Samsara BioCapital.

Follow this link:
ElevateBio Launches HighPassBio to Advance Novel Targeted T Cell Immunotherapies with Technology from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center -...

Press release

Gosselies, Belgium, 2 October 2019, 7am CEST BONE THERAPEUTICS (Euronext Brussels and Paris: BOTHE), the leading biotech company focused on the development of innovative cell and biological therapies to address high unmet medical needs in orthopaedics and bone diseases, announces that the Company will today present at the 27th Annual Meeting of the European Orthopaedic Research Society (EORS), in Maastricht, The Netherlands.

The Annual EORS Meeting is Europe's Summit for orthopaedic research and is attended by scientists, clinicians and entrepreneurs in the field. In the oral presentation, Bone Therapeutics will highlight additional preclinical in vitro and in vivo results demonstrating the potent osteogenic properties of its allogeneic bone-forming cell therapy platform, ALLOB, to promote bone-formation and improve fracture healing in relevant models.

ALLOB is the Companys allogeneic product that consists of human bone-forming cells derived from cultured bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells of healthy adult donors, and is manufactured through a proprietary, scalable production process. ALLOB successfully completed two Phase II studies in two indications and the Company is on track to submit a Clinical Trial Application with the regulatory authorities before the end of the year to allow the start of the next clinical development phase in patients with delayed-union fractures.

Presentation Details:

Title: Injectable cryopreserved allogenic bone-forming cells derived from bone marrow MSC (ALLOB) display potent osteogenic and bone repair propertiesAuthors: Sylvain Normand, Delphine De Troy, Coline Muller, Pierre-Yves Laruelle, Anna Tury, Sandra PietriSession: Cellular Regenerative Medicine (FP16)Date: Wednesday, 2 October 2019Time: 5:30pm CESTLocation: Room 08, Maastricht Exhibition & Congress Centre (MECC), Maastricht, The Netherlands

About Bone Therapeutics

Bone Therapeutics is a leading biotech company focused on the development of innovative products to address high unmet needs in orthopaedics and bone diseases. Based in Gosselies, Belgium, the Company has a broad, diversified portfolio of bone cell therapy and an innovative biological product in later-stage clinical development across a number of disease areas, which target markets with large unmet medical needs and limited innovation.

Bone Therapeutics core technology is based on its allogeneic cell therapy platform (ALLOB) which uses a unique, proprietary approach to bone regeneration, which turns undifferentiated stem cells from healthy donors into bone-forming cells. These cells can be administered via a minimally invasive procedure, avoiding the need for invasive surgery, and are produced via a proprietary, cutting-edge manufacturing process.

The Companys ALLOB product pipeline includes a cell therapy product candidate that is expected to enter PhaseII/III clinical development for the treatment of delayed-union fractures and a PhaseII asset in patients undergoing a spinal fusion procedure. In addition, the Company is also developing an off-the-shelf protein solution, JTA-004, which is expected to enter PhaseIII development for the treatment of pain in knee osteoarthritis.

Bone Therapeutics cell therapy products are manufactured to the highest GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) standards and are protected by a broad IP (Intellectual Property) portfolio covering ten patent families as well as knowhow. Further information is available at http://www.bonetherapeutics.com.

Contacts

Bone Therapeutics SAThomas Lienard, Chief Executive OfficerJean-Luc Vandebroek, Chief Financial OfficerTel: +32 (0) 71 12 10 00investorrelations@bonetherapeutics.com

International Media Enquiries:Consilium Strategic CommunicationsMarieke VermeerschTel: +44 (0) 20 3709 5701bonetherapeutics@consilium-comms.com

For French Media and Investor Enquiries:NewCap Investor Relations & Financial CommunicationsPierre Laurent, Louis-Victor Delouvrier and Arthur RouillTel: + 33 (0)1 44 71 94 94bone@newcap.eu

Certain statements, beliefs and opinions in this press release are forward-looking, which reflect the Company or, as appropriate, the Company directors` current expectations and projections about future events. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and assumptions could adversely affect the outcome and financial effects of the plans and events described herein. A multitude of factors including, but not limited to, changes in demand, competition and technology, can cause actual events, performance or results to differ significantly from any anticipated development. Forward looking statements contained in this press release regarding past trends or activities should not be taken as a representation that such trends or activities will continue in the future. As a result, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release any update or revisions to any forward-looking statements in this press release as a result of any change in expectations or any change in events, conditions, assumptions or circumstances on which these forward-looking statements are based. Neither the Company nor its advisers or representatives nor any of its subsidiary undertakings or any such person`s officers or employees guarantees that the assumptions underlying such forward-looking statements are free from errors nor does either accept any responsibility for the future accuracy of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or the actual occurrence of the forecasted developments. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release.

Story continues

Read the original:
Bone Therapeutics to present preclinical data on the osteogenic properties of ALLOB in bone repair at 27th Annual Meeting of the European Orthopaedic...

Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market

was valued US$ 12 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach US$ 35 billion by 2026, at CAGR of 12.14 %during forecast period.

The objective of the report is to present comprehensive assessment projections with a suitable set of assumptions and methodology. The report helps in understanding Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market dynamics, structure by identifying and analyzing the market segments and projecting the global market size. Further, the report also focuses on the competitive analysis of key players by product, price, financial position, growth strategies, and regional presence. To understand the market dynamics and by region, the report has covered the PEST analysis by region and key economies across the globe, which are supposed to have an impact on market in forecast period. PORTERs analysis, and SVOR analysis of the market as well as detailed SWOT analysis of key players has been done to analyze their strategies. The report will to address all questions of shareholders to prioritize the efforts and investment in the near future to the emerging segment in the Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market.

Request For Free Sample Report : https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/market-report/global-cell-therapy-technologies-market/31531/#requestforsample

Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market: OverviewCell therapy is a transplantation of live human cells to replace or repair damaged tissue and/or cells. With the help of new technologies, limitless imagination, and innovative products, many different types of cells may be used as part of a therapy or treatment for different types of diseases and conditions. Celltherapy technologies plays key role in the practice of medicine such as old fashioned bone marrow transplants is replaced by Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, capacity of cells in drug discovery. Cell therapy overlap with different therapies like, gene therapy, tissue engineering, cancer vaccines, regenerative medicine, and drug delivery. Establishment of cell banking facilities and production, storage, and characterization of cells are increasing volumetric capabilities of the cell therapy market globally. Initiation of constructive guidelines for cell therapy manufacturing and proven effectiveness of products, these are primary growth stimulants of the market.

Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe growth of cell therapy technologies market is highly driven by, increasing demand for clinical trials on oncology-oriented cell-based therapy, demand for advanced cell therapy instruments is increasing, owing to its affordability and sustainability, government and private organization , investing more funds in cell-based research therapy for life-style diseases such as diabetes, decrease in prices of stem cell therapies are leading to increased tendency of buyers towards cell therapy, existing companies are collaborating with research institute in order to best fit into regulatory model for cell therapies.Moreover, Healthcare practitioners uses stem cells obtained from bone marrow or blood for treatment of patients with cancer, blood disorders, and immune-related disorders and Development in cell banking facilities and resultant expansion of production, storage, and characterization of cells, these factors will drive the market of cell therapy technologies during forecast period.

On the other hand, the high cost of cell-based research and some ethical issue & legally controversial, are expected to hamper market growth of Cell Therapy Technologies during the forecast period

Do Inquiry Before Purchasing Report Here: https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/market-report/global-cell-therapy-technologies-market/31531/#inquiry

AJune 2016, there were around 351 companies across the U.S. that were engaged in advertising unauthorized stem cell treatments at their clinics. Such clinics boosted the revenue in this market.in August 2017, the U.S. FDA announced increased enforcement of regulations and oversight of clinics involved in practicing unapproved stem cell therapies. This might hamper the revenue generation during the forecast period; nevertheless, it will allow safe and effective use of stem cell therapies.

Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market: Segmentation AnalysisOn the basis of product, the consumables segment had largest market share in 2018 and is expected to drive the cell therapy instruments market during forecast period at XX % CAGR owing to the huge demand for consumables in cell-based experiments and cancer research and increasing number of new product launches and consumables are essential for every step of cell processing. This is further expected to drive their adoption in the market. These factors will boost the market of Cell Therapy Technologies Market in upcoming years.

On the basis of process, the cell processing had largest market share in 2018 and is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period owing to in cell processing stage,a use of cell therapy instruments and media at highest rate, mainly in culture media processing. This is a major factor will drive the market share during forecast period.

Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market: Regional AnalysisNorth America to held largest market share of the cell therapy technologies in 2018 and expected to grow at highest CAGR during forecast period owing to increasing R&D programs in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. North America followed by Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the world (Row).

Browse Full Report with Facts and Figures of Cell Therapy Technologies Market Report at: https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/market-report/global-cell-therapy-technologies-market/31531/

Scope of Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market

Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market, by Product

Consumables Equipment Systems & SoftwareGlobal Cell Therapy Technologies Market, by Cell Type

Human Cells Animal CellsGlobal Cell Therapy Technologies Market, by Process Stages

Cell Processing Cell Preservation, Distribution, and Handling Process Monitoring and Quality ControlGlobal Cell Therapy Technologies Market, by End Users

Life Science Research Companies Research InstitutesGlobal Cell Therapy Technologies Market, by Region

North America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa South AmericaKey players operating in the Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market

Beckman Coulter, Inc. Becton Dickinson and Company

MAJOR TOC OF THE REPORT

Chapter One: Cell Therapy Technologies Market Overview

Chapter Two: Manufacturers Profiles

Chapter Three: Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market Competition, by Players

Chapter Four: Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market Size by Regions

Chapter Five: North America Cell Therapy Technologies Revenue by Countries

Chapter Six: Europe Cell Therapy Technologies Revenue by Countries

Chapter Seven: Asia-Pacific Cell Therapy Technologies Revenue by Countries

Chapter Eight: South America Cell Therapy Technologies Revenue by Countries

Chapter Nine: Middle East and Africa Revenue Cell Therapy Technologies by Countries

Chapter Ten: Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market Segment by Type

Chapter Eleven: Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market Segment by Application

Chapter Twelve: Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market Size Forecast (2019-2026)

About Us:

Maximize Market Research provides B2B and B2C market research on 20,000 high growth emerging technologies & opportunities in Chemical, Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals, Electronics & Communications, Internet of Things, Food and Beverages, Aerospace and Defense and other manufacturing sectors.

Contact info:

Name: Lumawant Godage

Organization: MAXIMIZE MARKET RESEARCH PVT. LTD.

Email: sales@maximizemarketresearch.com

Contact:+ 919607065656/ +919607195908

Website: http://www.maximizemarketresearch.com

See the original post:
Global Cell Therapy Technologies Market Industry Analysis and Forecast (2018-2026) - Markets Gazette

By: Portia Wofford

September is National Sickle Cell Awareness Month. Sickle Cell hits close to home for me. My nephew has the trait. My goddaughter has the disease and is frequently in crisis. Several other family members and friends are also fighting this illness.

One of the most common issues they all deal with is treatment by healthcare professionals particularly nurses when they seek treatment for this disease. Its shameful, but often their symptoms often cause them to be mistaken for:

These are all terms thrown at people with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD). The treatment or mistreatment of Sickle Cell patients contradicts our title as the most trusted profession.

So, nurses, what can we do? How do we advocate, treat, and care for this population of patients?

SCD is a group of red blood cell disorders. Unlike healthy red blood cells (RBC) which are round, patients with SCD have RBC that take on a C or sickle shape. Sickle cells die early which causes a constant shortage of red blood cells.

SDC commonly affects those whose ancestors came from:

The only cure for SCD is bone marrow or stem cell transplant.

When sickle cells travel through small blood vessels, they get stuck and clog the blood flow causing excruciating pain and other serious problems including:

SCD warriors and their caregivers report being stigmatized when they seek care. With patients showing signs as early as birth, nurses attitudes can contribute to negative stigmatization and may affect patients' response to sickle cell cues, potentially causing patients not to seek care and negatively impacting patient outcomes.

Cleverly Changing founder Elle Cole's daughter has SCD. She gives a brief description of an ER visit after a physicians assistant at their primary care office suggested her daughter go to the nearest hospital via ambulance.

Elle recalls, In the ER, the nurse was upset and asked why we were there and which clinic sent us. She stated my daughter didnt need any oxygen, the hematologist was busy (but would come in about an hour), and she needed to get a mucus sample. My daughter was scared and started to cry. Then, the nurse told four nurses to join her, and they proceeded to hold my daughter down and extract the mucus from her nostrils. I was completely terrified! My husband was at work. I felt alone and scared with my daughter.

One mom, Shaynise Robinson, drives three to four hours to seek care for her daughter, because of the lack of understanding from nurses and other healthcare professionals at their local hospital.

In an article posted on Pubmed, researchers found that sickle cell patients in one hospital waited for 60% longer to get pain medication although other patients reported less severe pain. They were also triaged into a less serious category. 63% of nurses surveyed said many patients with sickle cell are addicted to opioids, according to another study. But according to Dr. Alexis Thompson, president of the American Society of Hematology, rates of addiction among SCD patients are no higher than the general populations.

Elle Cole, who has a blog that brings awareness to SCD, wants nurses to be patient. Asking questions that indicate that you are genuinely concerned about your patients wellbeing can help open communication with your patient.

Shauna Chin, RN, says, In my experience, in addition to the pain, many patients with SCD exhibit symptoms of depression. The nurse needs to distinguish between solemness due to pain and solemness due to despondence. Many symptoms of depression go undiagnosed and can be remedied by encouraging health providers to engage in dialogue with the patient. She expresses that nurses can advocate best for patients with SCD by identifying early non-verbal signs and symptoms of pain and anticipate their patient's needs.

Ayana Spearman, RN, BSN, believes more education is needed during nursing school. Noting in the last five years, few co-workers were adequately informed about the disease. SCD was just 'glanced over' and not taught about in-depth, in nursing school, she says. Spearman believes that SCD patients need to have a holistic care approach.

Shaynise Robinson encourages nurses to go through diversity training. Give patients the benefit of the doubt. Understand that they are looking for pain relief and equal treatment, she says. Proper bedside manner is a concern for her as well.

Sickle Cell Disease doesn't just affect the body, but the holistic health of those with the disease. Education and awareness are critical for nurses to provide proper care. Shaynise Robinson leaves us with this: The same compassion thats shown to cancer patients should be shown to sickle cell patients.

To learn more about sickle cell visit:

Sickle Cell Disease Association of America

American Sickle Cell Anemia Association

Sickle Cell Society

Portia Wofford is a staff development and quality improvement nurse, content strategist, healthcare writer, entrepreneur, and nano-influencer. Chosen as a brand ambassador or collaborative partner for various organizations, Wofford strives to empower nurses by offering nurses resources for developmentwhile helping healthcare organizations and entrepreneurs create engaging content. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter for her latest.

See more here:
The Shocking Culture of Nurses and the Treatment of Patients with Sickle Cell - Nurse.org

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vor Biopharma, an oncology company pioneering engineered hematopoietic stem cells (eHSCs) for the treatment of cancer, today announced senior appointments to its leadership team. Sadik Kassim, PhD, a cell and gene therapy bioprocessing and translational research expert, joins Vor from Kite Pharma as Chief Technology Officer. Tirtha Chakraborty, PhD, a hematological and gene engineering research specialist with experience at Sana Biotechnology and CRISPR Therapeutics, joins as Vice President of Research. These new positions follow Vors recent move into an integrated headquarters in Cambridge, Mass., the appointment of Robert Ang, MBBS, MBA, as President and Chief Executive Officer and a $42 million Series A financing directed at developing Vors platform technology and advancing its pipeline of eHSC-based candidates.

Vor is bringing a fundamentally novel approach to hematopoietic stem cells to empower targeted cancer therapies, and we are rapidly building an industry-leading team to realize the value in this scientific foundation, said Dr. Ang. Dr. Kassim brings his substantial experience with the complex methods and processes that are required for manufacturing genetically-manipulated cell therapies, and Dr. Chakraborty provides deep expertise in hematology and genetic engineering. Their complementary knowledge will aid Vors expansion, platform development and the move towards our first Investigational New Drug filing for VOR33.

I am impressed that compelling in vivo data already supports the potential of Vors cellular engineering platform to protect healthy cells from antigen-directed therapies via antigen removal, said Dr. Kassim. This is especially noteworthy when therapeutic effectiveness is so often highly limited by co-location of target antigens on healthy immune cells, creating a huge opportunity for Vor to significantly broaden the applicability of these and future therapies.

Its exciting to join the Vor team during this period of accelerated expansion, said Dr. Chakraborty. As a geneticist and cell biologist, I look forward to developing this new approach to treat a range of devastating cancers, beginning with VOR33 in acute myeloid leukemia.

Dr. Kassim is a former Executive Director at Kite Pharma where he led the development of manufacturing processes for autologous CAR- and TCR-based gene-modified cell therapies. Prior to Kite, he served as Chief Scientific Officer at Mustang Bio, where he was the first employee and oversaw the foundational build-out of the companys preclinical and manufacturing activities. Prior to Mustang, Dr. Kassim was Head of Early Analytical Development for Novartis Cell and Gene Therapies Unit, where he contributed to the BLA and MAA filings for Kymriah. Earlier in his career, Dr. Kassim was a research biologist at the National Cancer Institute, where he was involved in early research and CMC work that led to the development of several first-in-human TCR and CAR-T products, including Kites Yescarta. Dr. Kassim has also conducted preclinical immunology research at Janssen and was a research fellow in the University of Pennsylvania Gene Therapy Program, where he led the initial discovery and preclinical studies for an AAV8 gene therapy for familial hypercholesterolemia, a program that is now in the clinic. Dr. Kassim earned his BS in Cell and Molecular Biology from Tulane University and received his PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Louisiana State University.

Dr. Chakraborty joins Vor from Sana Biotechnology, where he served as the Vice President of Cell Therapy Research. Prior to Sana, Dr. Chakraborty was the Head of Hematology at CRISPR Therapeutics, where his teams work on hemoglobin disorders paved the way for the first clinical trial for the CRISPR industry. Before that, at Moderna Therapeutics, Dr. Chakraborty led synthetic mRNA platform technology research. He was trained as an RNA biologist and an immunologist during his postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Chakraborty received his PhD from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India.

About VOR33Vors lead engineered hematopoietic stem cell (eHSC) product candidate, VOR33, is in development for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). VOR33 is designed to produce healthy cells that lack the receptor CD33, thus enabling the targeting of AML cells through the CD33 antigen, while avoiding toxicity to the bone marrow. Currently, targeted therapies for AML and other liquid tumors can be limited by on-target toxicity. By rendering healthy cells invisible to CD33-targeted therapies, VOR33 aims to significantly improve the therapeutic window, utility and effectiveness of these AML therapies, with the potential to broaden clinical benefit to different patient populations.

About Vor BiopharmaVor Biopharma aims to transform the lives of cancer patients by pioneering engineered hematopoietic stem cell (eHSC) therapies. Vors eHSCs are designed to generate healthy, fully functional cells with specific advantageous modifications, protecting healthy cells from the toxic effects of antigen-targeted therapies, while leaving tumor cells vulnerable.

Vors platform could potentially be used to change the treatment paradigm of both hematopoietic stem cell transplants and antigen-targeted therapies, such as antibody drug conjugates, bispecific antibodies and CAR-T cell treatments. A proof-of-concept study for Vors lead program has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Vor is based in Cambridge, Mass. and has a broad intellectual property base, including in-licenses from Columbia University, where foundational work was conducted by inventor and Vor Scientific Board Chair Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD, DPhil. Vor was founded by Dr. Mukherjee and PureTech Health and is supported by leading investors including 5AM Ventures and RA Capital Management, Johnson & Johnson Innovation JJDC, Inc. (JJDC), Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research and Osage University Partners.

Read the rest here:
Vor Biopharma Hires Senior Cell and Gene Therapy Leaders as Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Research - Business Wire

Shauna Stewart Douglas was struggling with infertility. It caught her and husband, John, by surprise.

I assumed that if you can get pregnant once, then you can get pregnant again, Douglas told Fox News.

She had become pregnant almost two years earlier with her daughter, but this time around even in vitro fertilization (IVF) wasnt working.

At age 35, Douglas found herself struggling with secondary infertility.

People always say to imagine what you want your kitchen table to look like in the future when youre thinking about how many kids to have, Douglas said.

And in my mind it has been my husband and all of our kids and that was all fading away. It was all going away.

Reports estimate that over 3 million couples in the United States face secondary infertility, which is the inability to become pregnant or to carry a baby to term after previously giving birth.

Dr. Kecia Gaither, an OB-GYN and director of perinatal services at NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln, says several conditions can cause secondary infertility like obesity, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the use of some medications, prior surgery, endometriosis, issues with cervical mucus and the age of both partners.

Many health conditions can be present without symptoms, until such a time as the couple wishes to become pregnant, Gaither told Fox News.

If there is an issue within a year of trying in couples less than 35 years of age or after six months in couples older than 35, its time to see your physician.

Douglas, founder of Permission to Profit, said they tried two rounds of IVF with the second time ending in miscarriage before they decided that they couldnt do it anymore.

Maybe it would have happened if we had kept on going and trying again and again, but I couldnt do it, I just I couldnt do the rollercoaster anymore.

Douglas said a medical condition, which she preferred not to disclose, and her age of almost 36 when they started trying for their second child, most likely led to her secondary infertility.

The biggest culprit typically in secondary infertility is the ovarian reserve, Dr. Brooke Hodes Wertz, a reproductive endocrinologist at NYU Langone Fertility Center told Fox News.

The ovary loses eggs in number and quality over time. So it gets harder to get pregnant over time.

Treatment for secondary infertility is the same as it is for primary infertility. Doctors should first start with an evaluation of both partners, Wertz said.

Youre going to do a semen analysis for the male partners, Wertz explained.

The females typically undergo blood testing that can look at how their ovaries are doing as well as testing to look at the inside of their cavity, whether its a hysterosalpingogram or an ultrasound, to look at the cavity and make sure the tubes are open.

The most common blood tests for women are called FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone), which give a reflection of the egg quality and AMH (anti-mullerian hormone) which show the number of eggs the patient has.

If there appears to be an issue, a doctor may recommend certain treatments at a fertility clinic.

We have simple treatments which involve oral medicine and often taking the sperm and releasing it very close to where the egg gets released, Wertz said.

And then we have more aggressive treatments like in vitro fertilization (IVF).

IVF typically uses fertility drugs to induce ovulation and then extracts the eggs and fertilizes them with sperm in a lab. Once the embryo forms, doctors then transfer the embryo into the uterus.

Wertz also recommended egg freezing as a way to possibly avoid secondary infertility.

We have the ability to freeze eggs and embryos when the ovaries are younger and put them back in at an older age when it would have been harder to get pregnant, Wertz said. A lot of women dont realize a couple of years makes a difference.

While there have been success stories among women who have frozen their eggs when they are over 40 years old, Wertz said it is preferable to freeze your eggs earlier in life, ideally before the age of 35.

Even though Douglas, now 41, didnt think that more rounds of IVF would give her family a second child and her daughter a sibling, there was another option for her adoption.

Families are made up in all kinds of different ways and, for us, we have a biological child and we have an adoptive child, Douglas said.

Going down that path was an incredibly beautiful thing because now we have my son, which is amazing and Im really grateful for that.

Excerpt from:
Secondary infertility: Why it happens to couples who have already had successful pregnancies - New York Post

Isabelle is a Newcomb College Institute Reproductive Rights & Reproductive Health intern and a Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast intern.

As abortion restrictions sweep across Louisiana, many are growing fearful that those seeking an abortion may now take matters into their own hands. These restrictions greatly decrease accessibility to medically safe abortions, putting individuals at risk of disability and death when making a choice about their own bodily autonomy.

With the passage of a series of abortion bans in Louisiana this summer, care options are scarce for reproductive health organizations like Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, which provided for 13,185 patients statewide from 2017-18 in family planning. In particular, the passage of the heartbeat bill this summer prohibits abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which often is as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

The Louisiana House of Representatives has also passed an amendment stating that no provision in the constitution can be used to protect the right to abortion or require the funding of abortion. Several more passages add further limitations to the mix, making it more difficult for physicians to transparently provide care for current and potential patients.

These restrictions will make self-managed abortion more common. Self-managed abortion is defined as an individual managing their own abortion without the guidance of a licensed medical professional. One is more likely to choose self-managed abortion should clinical care be unavailable, inaccessible or undesirable all aspects that are shaped by multiple socioeconomic, cultural and political factors.

When abortions were illegal in the 1950s, self-managed abortions were estimated at 200,000 to 1.2 million per year. These abortions were often carried out in back alleys where the individual often endured danger and abuse.

Other at-home treatments included ingesting malaria medicines, smearing potassium permanganate in the vagina and inserting foreign objects such as coat hangers. These caused chemical burns, shock and infection, and remain some of the lasting scars of a time before Roe v. Wade.

Today, the use of medication abortions is becoming increasingly common. While it has a higher success rate, many side effects some of which are fatal occur. In clinics, mifepristone and misoprostol are used together to manage abortions and have earned the moniker the abortion pill. Mifepristone blocks progesterone, the hormone required to preserve the uterine lining, while misoprostol aids in shedding to end the pregnancy. It is effective 96% of the time.

Yet, for self-managed abortions mifepristone is much more heavily regulated and often times only misoprostol is accessible, with a lower success rate of 85%. Misoprostol itself is typically prescribed for stomach ulcers and miscarriages.

Despite its status as an essential medicine by the World Health Organization, misoprostol is illegal to use without a prescription in the United States. It is still considered an over-the-counter drug in Mexico, however, under the name of Cyrux. Its $30 price tag makes it a much more affordable option than the abortion pill, which can fall around $500.

Information about this drug is circulated throughout the internet. The WHO provides a general protocol to follow on its website, for pregnancies up to 12 weeks.

Those with later-term pregnancies use forums as medical information to estimate proper dosages. These dosages depend on the stage of pregnancy, which often can be difficult information to obtain without medical guidance.

It is in these cases when exact details are scarce that misoprostol can be extremely harmful. The side effects include abdominal aches, intense pain, excessive bleeding and tearing of the uterus, with symptoms lasting longer the further along the pregnancy is. In cases of complications, it may be necessary to see a physician.

Since these symptoms mirror miscarriage symptoms and there are no tests that can detect misoprostol in the system, it is in the best legal interest of the patient to withhold this information from the doctor.

At least 20 arrests of women who have ended their pregnancies without clinical supervision have occurred. Now, many of the recent bills are taking a step further by criminalizing medical practitioners who assist women in clinical abortions, creating fear for all involved.

Self-managed abortions are often a last-ditch effort or the only affordable option for many individuals. Their symptoms are painful and long-lasting, without a guarantee of success.

Yet, with aggressive and harmful legislation closing in on reproductive health options and threatening medical practitioners in Louisiana, this will ultimately begin to limit the availability of clinical abortions and force individuals to make more risky choices.

A version of this article originally appeared in Newcomb College Institutes newsletter, ReproNews.

Read more from the original source:
Louisiana laws will lead to life-threatening self-managed abortions - Tulane Hullabaloo

Life for many transgender individuals involvesa constant struggle of being misgendered or referred to by the wrong pronoun or name. In many aspects of their lives, this ranges from annoying to personally invalidating. But when it comes to healthcare, it can be dangerous or even deadly.

Whats happening is that with a lot of transgender patients, the provider isnt being notified that the patients due for a procedure because these systems are not accurately pulling in the correct information, Chris Grasso, associate vice president for informatics and data services at the Fenway Institute, one of the worlds largest LGBTQ-focused health centers, told Healthcare IT News. Whats happening is when you see higher rates of cancer, lower rates of screening, a lot of it is because these systems arent actually incorporating things like anatomical inventory. So [for] someone whose sex is listed as female but they actually dont have a cervix, were sending them a letter that they really shouldnt be receiving that says Youre due for your pap smear.

Missed cancer screenings are just one example of a ways that mishandling data for transgender people puts them at risk. For instance, things like reference ranges for lab tests can also cause harm if the system pulls them for the wrong sex.

Having accurate information is also increasingly important as the EHR moves from a billing tool to a resourcefor population health.

The EHR was created for a documentation tool, but now we want it to be a lot smarter. We want it to provide us with more statistics, and more data, and how do we best care for these patients, said JoAnne Dombrowskas, MSHI, RN, manager of MGH's eCare clinical informatics team.

And, perhaps more important than any of that, when every staff person at a hospital greets a transgender person with the right name and uses the right pronouns, theyre more likely to stick around, come backand get the care that they need.

One special thing about this community ispeople talk to each other, Mitch Kellaway, a training specialist in MGH's Patient Access Services department, said. Whos safe? Who knew the word genderqueer when I said it and didnt bat an eye? And people, trans folks, nonbinary folks, genderqueer folks really notice those things. And it cant just be the clinicians. We [front desk and registration staff] get to them first, and they could walk out the door before they see a physician. So I tell the staff you really have a part in helping these folks get better care.

Grasso says that Fenway has been including SOGI information (sexual orientation and gender identity) in its own EHR since 1997, and started documenting it systematically about 10 years ago.

But a couple moves on the federal level have hastened a national adoption of SOGI fields in the EHR: In 2016, the US Bureau of Primary Healthcare at HRSA began requiring that all federally-qualified health centers collect and report that data. And in January 2018, thanks in part to the work of Grasso and her colleagues, having fields for SOGI data became a requirement for Meaningful Use.

Several years ago, the Healthy People 2020 initiative and the Institute of Medicine convened national experts, reviewed the existing literature and concluded that there really are unique health disparities experienced by gender and sexual minority people that are best addressed by making gender and sexual minority patients visible within healthcare, so we know what everyones SOGI is and can provide tailored patient-centered care based on that information, so that gender and sexual minority people can enjoy the same standard of health as the general population, saidAlex Keuroghlian, MD, who serves as director of the National LGBT Health Education Center at Fenway as well as the MGH Psychiatry Gender Identity Program.

Keuroghlian and Grasso agree that movement on the federal level has represented praiseworthy progress and have even conducted research thats starting to show that when the question is asked, LGBTQ+ individuals self-report at expected rates. But theres a lot of work still to do.

The first step is to have distinct fields in both the clinical and registration record for sex assigned at birth, legal sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation, as well as fields fornames used and pronouns. Legal names and sexes still need to live in the system because those are generally the names and sexes found on a patients insurance.

But Keuroghlian and Grasso believe the next step is anatomical inventoriesthat will put an end to assumptions about what organs someone has based on their sex.

A key part of this is to build in anatomical inventories that track body modifications people have had, so you could do preventative cancer screening based on the retained organs in someones body and not just on their chart sex, Keuroghlian said. Thats the future. Thats really where things need to go.

In addition to inventories, Grasso cited a need to make sure that interoperability initiatives like FHIR keep up with these new fields. The sensitivity of SOGI information, for patients who might not be out, adds another layer of complexity.

So if someones going to see a specialist outside your organization, they may feel like its helpful to share that information ahead of time or there may be times when they dont want to, she said. So we should be able to add those controls within the system.

Massachusetts General has been incorporating SOGI information into the clinical side of its EHR for a few years, but the push to get that information entered at registration is only about a year old. As of now, patients can even update some fields gender identity, name used and sex assigned at birth through the patient gateway.

The data infrastructure and training initiative runs parallel to the hospitals transgender health program, a special clinic offering primary care, hormone therapy treatmentsand mental healthcare to trans patients. This month, the clinic opens up pediatric as well as adult care options.

Primary care is really important, Robbie Goldstein, MD, the medical director of the Transgender Health Program, said. I dont think this works with just prescribing hormones and just having a space for people to come in and get testosterone, estrogen, whatever it may be. The reality is that there are a lot of things that come up related to gender. And to have a primary care doctor and a primary care practice who can manage those issues is incredibly helpful.

I also think theres a component of not making people tell their stories a million times, added Ariel Frey Vogel, MD, an internist and pediatrician who recently joined the program. Feeling known and heard. So when Robbie meets with a new patient, its with the social workers. Dallas [Ducar, who offers mental health care] is there if needed. Its all very integrated and embedded. In any medical care model theres a lot of things feeling very disjointed, so what were trying to do is make a model where it doesnt feel disjointed, where youre not repeating yourself over and over again, and where things feel really integrated.

Ducar, a psychiatric nurse practitioner who also joined the clinic recently, noted that the clinic has done a good job of creating a welcoming environment.

Something that Ive seen in my recent time here is, patients come in and visit even if they dont have an appointment with a provider, which is pretty spectacular, she said. They just want to spend their time here. With LGBTQ health and mental health theres not always been the best history. So being able to reduce that stigma and integrate with primary care allows for much easier conversations about mental health and for the conversation not just to be about whats going wrong with you, but whats going right with you.

Extending that welcome throughout the whole hospital is an ongoing project atMGH. That includes training both physicians and staff to not only use the systems, but to ask the right questions and project a safe and welcoming environment.

If were not asking these questions in a fully inclusive and affirming healthcare environment, it all falls flat, Keuroghlian said. You cant just do one thing and not the other. People need to feel safe [during phone intake] before they walk in the door, after they walk in the door, [with] what kind of materials, postersor pamphlets are in the waiting room. [They want to be asked] what is your sexual orientation, your gender identity, your sex assigned at birth. We also have to ask about name and pronouns and then transmit that information so that other staff can communicate correctly.

Preliminary research suggests that discomfort with SOGI questions tends to be more imagined than actual, Keuroghlian said.

There was a large study that found that 78 percent of staff were convinced patients would refuse to provide their sexual orientation, but the same study asked patients and only 10 percent of patients refused to provide their sexual orientation, he said. Another study had two demographic forms, one with SOGI information, one without. It found that there was no difference in people being offended by the form with SOGI questions than the one without, and the percentage offended at all was only 3 percent.

In Kellaways firsthand experience, when it comes to patients, the ones who need the new fields tend to be appreciative and the ones who dont will just brush the question off. And staff tends to be most concerned about learning the right terminology to ask the questions without offending anyone.

And when it comes to staff, their concerns tend to be more about "getting it right,"and evaporate once theyve been trained.

I think a lot of folks sit on this ability to add SOGI to the registration record even if they could because theyre make assumptions about discomfort, Kellaway said. Discomfort on the side of the patients being asked, and discomfort on the part of the staff that have to do the asking. From my experience, you would be surprised and you have to have faith in your staff. As people who care about patients, they feel the need to be educated in order to get it right, the terminology, the scripting. But they chose to get into healthcare for a reason.

Another assumption that isnt borne out by the data is about which sorts of hospitals are willing to adopt SOGI data nationwide.

When we looked at the data we actually looked at it by rural versus urban areas, Grasso said. And the rural areas actually did a better job of collecting and reporting data. And this is where the data becomes so critical, because I think it really can dispel some of those fallacies that gay people dont live everywhere or transgender people dont live everywhere, or people arent getting care at small places or dont want to provide that information in a small health center, because in fact they do, and theyre actually doing a better job of collecting it.

Massachusetts General is far from the only hospital in the country working on improving care for transgender and nonbinary patients. But the staff there is making a dedicated and visible effort and they hope other hospitals will follow suit.

If anyone is ever reading this article and feel like theyre waiting for that culture change, and dont know when its going to start, one thing that we really know is with the large rate of suicide in the trans community, one thing that brings that down to average levels across the nation is support, Ducar said. Its a team effort. Everyone has a part to play, and surely, no matter where you are in your journey everyone can offer support.

Goldstein added that the demographic trends will favor hospitals that go out of their way to serve this community

This is the right thing to do but its also the smart thing to do, because this is a growing population, he said. Right now about 0.5 percent of the adult population identifies as trans or nonbinary. Recent research has shown that about 2 percent of people under the age of 18 in the US identify as trans or nonbinary. This is a growing population that is going to come into the healthcare system and wed better get it right, because otherwise theyre going to go someplace else.

Ultimately, though, it isnt the business savvy that drives Goldstein, Frey-Vogel, Keuroghlian, Grasso, Ducar, Dombrowskasand Kellaway.

We have a mission to take care of everyone whos around us, and that includes the trans and nonbinary communities, it includes anyone who walks in that door, said Goldstein. So every time I meet with hospital leadership about trans health and why its so important, I always say This is part of our fundamental mission. We are doing this because trans folks are walking through the door every single day. They need to have a bathroom they feel comfortable going to, they need to have an EHR that understands who they are, and they need to have a doctor or nurse taking care of them whos capable of understanding who they are and what is their gender identity.

Continue reading here:
More inclusive EHRs can help extend welcome, save transgender lives - Healthcare IT News