Archive for the ‘Cardiac Stem Cells’ Category

When it comes to finding cures for heart disease scientists are working to their own beat. That's because they may have finally developed a tissue model for the human heart that can bridge the gap between animal models and human patients. These models exist for other organs, but for the heart, this has been elusive. Specifically, the researchers generated the tissue from human embryonic stem cells with the resulting muscle having significant similarities to human heart muscle. This research was published in the February 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal.

"We hope that our human engineered cardiac tissues will serve as a platform for developing reliable models of the human heart for routine laboratory use," said Kevin D. Costa, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Cardiovascular Cell and Tissue Engineering Laboratory, Cardiovascular Research Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, in New York, NY. "This could help revolutionize cardiology research by improving the ability to efficiently discover, design, develop and deliver new therapies for the treatment of heart disease, and by providing more efficient screening tools to identify and prevent cardiac side effects, ultimately leading to safer and more effective treatments for patients suffering from heart disease."

To make this advance, Costa and colleagues cultured human engineered cardiac tissue, or hECTs, for 7-10 days and they self-assembled into a long thin heart muscle strip that pulled on the end-posts and caused them to bend with each heart beat, effectively exercising the tissue throughout the culture process. These hECTs displayed spontaneous contractile activity in a rhythmic pattern of 70 beats per minute on average, similar to the human heart. They also responded to electrical stimulation. During functional analysis, some of the responses known to occur in the natural adult human heart were also elicited in hECTs through electrical and pharmacological interventions, while some paradoxical responses of hECTs more closely mimicked the immature or newborn human heart. They also found that these human engineered heart tissues were able to incorporate new genetic information carried by adenovirus.

"We've come a long way in our understanding of the human heart," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, "but we still lack an adequate tissue model which can be used to test promising therapies and model deadly diseases. This advance, if it proves successful over time, will beat anything that's currently available."

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The above story is based on materials provided by Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Engineered cardiac tissue model developed to study human heart

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Jan-2014

Contact: Cody Mooneyhan cmooneyhan@faseb.org 301-634-7104 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

When it comes to finding cures for heart disease scientists are working to their own beat. That's because they may have finally developed a tissue model for the human heart that can bridge the gap between animal models and human patients. These models exist for other organs, but for the heart, this has been elusive. Specifically, the researchers generated the tissue from human embryonic stem cells with the resulting muscle having significant similarities to human heart muscle. This research was published in the February 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal.

"We hope that our human engineered cardiac tissues will serve as a platform for developing reliable models of the human heart for routine laboratory use," said Kevin D. Costa, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Cardiovascular Cell and Tissue Engineering Laboratory, Cardiovascular Research Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, in New York, NY. "This could help revolutionize cardiology research by improving the ability to efficiently discover, design, develop and deliver new therapies for the treatment of heart disease, and by providing more efficient screening tools to identify and prevent cardiac side effects, ultimately leading to safer and more effective treatments for patients suffering from heart disease."

To make this advance, Costa and colleagues cultured human engineered cardiac tissue, or hECTs, for 7-10 days and they self-assembled into a long thin heart muscle strip that pulled on the end-posts and caused them to bend with each heart beat, effectively exercising the tissue throughout the culture process. These hECTs displayed spontaneous contractile activity in a rhythmic pattern of 70 beats per minute on average, similar to the human heart. They also responded to electrical stimulation. During functional analysis, some of the responses known to occur in the natural adult human heart were also elicited in hECTs through electrical and pharmacological interventions, while some paradoxical responses of hECTs more closely mimicked the immature or newborn human heart. They also found that these human engineered heart tissues were able to incorporate new genetic information carried by adenovirus.

"We've come a long way in our understanding of the human heart," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, "but we still lack an adequate tissue model which can be used to test promising therapies and model deadly diseases. This advance, if it proves successful over time, will beat anything that's currently available."

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FASEB is composed of 26 societies with more than 115,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research associations in the United States. Our mission is to advance health and welfare by promoting progress and education in biological and biomedical sciences through service to our member societies and collaborative advocacy.

Original post:
Scientists develop an engineered cardiac tissue model to study the human heart

by Dan Browning

A decade-long Mayo Clinic research project on using stem cells to repair damaged heart tissue has won federal approval for human testing, a step that could have implications for millions of Americans with heart disease.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a multistate clinical trial of 240 patients with chronic advanced symptomatic heart failure to see if the new procedure produces a significant improvement in heart function, Mayo officials announced Friday.

Safety testing in humans, completed earlier in Europe, showed a preliminary 25 percent improvement in cardiac outflow, according to Dr. Andre Terzic, director of the Mayo Clinic's Center for Regenerative Medicine.

The procedure could be a "paradigm shift" in the treatment of heart disease, Terzic said.

Going forward, he said, treatments won't just focus on easing the symptoms of heart disease, but rather on curing it.

The process, developed in collaboration with Cardio3 BioSciences of Belgium, involves harvesting stem cells from a patient's bone marrow in the hip, directing the cells to become "cardiopoietic" repair cells, then injecting them back into the heart to do their work.

Mayo researcher Dr. Atta Behfar and other members of Terzic's team isolated hundreds of proteins involved in the "transcription" process that takes place when stem cells are converted to heart cells. They identified eight proteins that were crucial, and used them to convert stem cells into heart cells.

"This is unique in the world," Terzic said.

Dr. Ganesh Raveendran, a cardiologist and co-director of the University of Minnesota's cardiac cell therapy program, called the Mayo research encouraging, but advised caution. Raveendran said a variety of small stem cell studies have shown mixed results, but when the treatments were tested in larger studies, they showed no beneficial effects. "We need to wait and see," he said.

Link:
Mayo Clinic wins FDA approval to test stem-cell heart therapy

A research project undertaken by the Mayo Clinic for nearly a decade has finally won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to go ahead with testing on humans. The research project involves using stem cells to fix damaged heart tissue, and this step forward is a hopeful sign for millions of people who live with heart disease.

The clinical trial will be carried out across several states and will involve 240 patients with chronic advanced symptomatic heart failure. It will help researchers discern whether the stem cell technique will make a marked improvement in heart function, the Mayo Clinic announced last week. The trial will probably take until the end of the year. Previously, Mayo had completed some testing in humans in Europe, which showed promising results a 25 percent improvement in cardiac outflow, Dr. Andre Terzic, director of the Mayo Clinics Center for Regenerative Medicine, said. Terzic called the technique a potential paradigm shift.

The technique involves the harvesting of stem cells from a persons bone marrow in the hip, altering the cells to become cardiopoietic repair cells, and then injecting them into the heart to do their fixing work. The procedure was developed with help from Cardio3 BioSciences of Belgium, a biopharmaceutical company focusing on finding cures and therapies for heart disease. Dr. Christian Homsy, CEO of Cardio3 BioSciences, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that their collaboration with Mayo has been so productive that we have many, many opportunities that wed like to explore. Cardiovascular disease may be the beginning of a ... journey of addressing various diseases that humankind is confronting, especially with the aging of the population.

Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. About 600,000 people die of cardiovascular disease every year, which is about one in every four deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports. Every year, about 715,000 Americans have a heart attack, and coronary heart disease costs the U.S. about $108.9 billion every year.

The Cleveland Clinic describes typical stem cell treatment for cardiovascular disease on its website, noting that many trials havent been successful because once stem cells get to the heart and begin their work, they often stop before completion. [Stem cells] help heal damaged tissue by secreting local hormones to rescue damaged heart cells and occasionally turning into heart muscle cells themselves, the Cleveland Clinic states. Stem cells do a fairly good job. But they could do better for some reason, the heart stops signaling for heart cells after only a week or so after the damage has occurred, leaving the report job mostly undone.

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Other studies have looked into other routes for stem cell treatment, such as receiving more selective stem cells from a donor during the time of the heart attack, or providing the patients own cardiac stem cells after a heart attack. But the Cleveland Clinic notes that despite new research popping up, "stem cell therapy for damaged hearts has yet to be proven fully safe and beneficial."

Terzic described the Mayo Clinics procedure of converting stem cells to heart cells as unique, but other scientists are more cautious. Dr. Ganesh Raveendran, a cardiologist and co-director of the cardiac cell therapy program at the University of Minnesota, said the Mayo test was encouraging but that similar studies done previously did not show successful results when tested in larger human trials. We need to wait and see, Raveendran told TheStar Tribune.

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FDA Approves Stem Cell Treatment For Heart Disease: Mayo ...

11 hours ago

In the U.S., someone suffers a heart attack every 34 secondstheir heart is starved of oxygen and suffers irreparable damage. Engineering new heart tissue in the laboratory that could eventually be implanted into patients could help, and scientists are reporting a promising approach tested with rat cells. They published their results on growing cardiac muscle using a scaffold containing carbon nanofibers in the ACS journal Biomacromolecules.

Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, Rui L. Reis, Ana Martins and colleagues point out that when damaged, adult heart tissue can't heal itself very well. The only way to fix an injured heart is with a transplant. But within the past decade, interest in regenerating just the lost tissue has surged. The trick is to find materials that, among other things, are nontoxic, won't get attacked by the body's immune system and allow for muscle cells to pass the electrical signals necessary for the heart to beat. Previous research has found that chitosan, which is obtained from shrimp and other crustacean shells, nearly fits the bill. In lab tests, scientists have used it as a scaffold for growing heart cells. But it doesn't transmit electrical signals well. Vunjak-Novakovic's team decided to build on the chitosan development and coax it to function more like a real heart.

To the chitosan, they added carbon nanofibers, which can conduct electricity, and grew neonatal rat heart cells on the resulting scaffold. After two weeks, cells had filled all the pores and showed far better metabolic and electrical activity than with a chitosan scaffold alone. The cells on the chitosan/carbon scaffold also expressed cardiac genes at higher levels.

Explore further: Researchers develop spring-like fibers to help repair damaged heart tissue

More information: "Electrically Conductive Chitosan/Carbon Scaffolds for Cardiac Tissue Engineering" Biomacromolecules, Just Accepted Manuscript. DOI: 10.1021/bm401679q

Abstract In this work carbon nanofibers were used as doping material to develop a highly conductive chitosan-based composite material. Scaffolds based on chitosan only and chitosan/carbon composites were prepared by precipitation. Carbon nanofibers were homogeneously dispersed throughout the chitosan matrix, and the composite scaffold was highly porous with fully interconnected pores. Chitosan/carbon scaffolds had elastic modulus of 28.1 3.3 KPa, similar to that measured for rat myocardium, and excellent electrical properties, with conductivity of 0.25 0.09 S/m. The scaffolds were seeded with neonatal rat heart cells and cultured for up to 14 days, without electrical stimulation. After 14 days of culture, the scaffold pores throughout the construct volume were filled with cells. The metabolic activity of cells in chitosan/carbon constructs was significantly higher as compared to cells in chitosan scaffolds. The incorporation of carbon nanofibers also led to increased expression of cardiac-specific genes involved in muscle contraction and electrical coupling. This study demonstrates that the incorporation of carbon nanofibers into porous chitosan scaffolds improved the properties of cardiac tissue constructs, presumably through enhanced transmission of electrical signals between the cells.

The threat from a heart attack doesn't end with the event itself. Blockage of blood flow to the heart can cause irreversible cell death and scarring. With transplants scarce, half the people who live through a heart attack ...

(Medical Xpress) -- Researchers at Columbia Engineering have established a new method to patch a damaged heart using a tissue-engineering platform that enables heart tissue to repair itself. This breakthrough, ...

For the first time, a mouse heart was able to contract and beat again after its own cells were stripped and replaced with human heart precursor cells, said scientists from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. ...

Link:
Toward fixing damaged hearts through tissue engineering

TAMPA, Fla. (PRWEB) January 22, 2014

Societys continual, obsessive search for perpetual youth has lead many on a tumultuous path of medical mayhem from shots to creams and a variety of procedures in between.

A leader in modern medicine, Dr. Burton Feinerman has always been at the forefront of new and life changing procedures in the healthcare community. Feinerman's experience includes his time as a key research associate at the Papanicolau Cancer Research Institute in Miami.

His career took a glamorous turn when he became a concierge physician to the stars at his office in Maui, Hawaii. He has treated a variety of high-profile clientele including celebrities Eddie Murphy, Larry David, Pink, Brittney Spears, Nick Nolte, Christian Slater, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oprah, who once thanked him with an autographed magazine for the shot in the tush.

Staying true to his mission to find relief for those afflicted with incurable diseases, Feinerman soon focused his efforts on the innovative and unfamiliar world of cell regeneration and gene therapy. As one of the original physician scientists to create stem cell protocols for incurable diseases, Feinerman now runs his clinic in Tampa, Fla. where he treats patients with conditions such as Alzheimers, ALS, Autism, brain damage, Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Spinal Cord Injury, Parkinsonism, Heart Disease, COPD, diabetes, Chronic Kidney Disease, Pulmonary Fibrosis, Tay Sachs, Sandhoff Disease, Stargardt Disease, Huntington Disease, Scleroderma, Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Crohns Disease, cancer of all types, Macular Degeneration and Retinitis Pigmentosa.

The emerging developments in stem cell therapy, gene therapy, nanotechnology and tissue engineering offer new hope to millions of patients, said Feinerman.

Stem Cells and Sex Wars By: Dr. Burton Feinerman ISBN: 978-1481774789 Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Authorhouse online bookstores.

About the authors A graduate of New York Medical College, Dr. Burton Feinerman also received extensive postgraduate training from Long Island College Hospital and the Mayo Clinic. He served as chief medicine for the U.S. Army, as part of the 98th General Hospital in Germany as well as chairman of medicine at Miami General Hospital, Opa-Locka Hospital, N. Miami General Hospital and chairman of cancer technologies Kids Medical Centers of America. Active in many industry organizations, Feinerman is a member of the Society of Apheresis, the Society of Bone Marrow Blood Transplantation, the International Society for Cellular Therapy, the Society for Cranial Transplantation and Brain Repair, and the Society for Cardiac Translational Therapy. With over 55 years of experience in medical practice, he is currently the president and CEO of Stem Cell Regen Med.

Continued here:
Dr. Burton Feinerman Shares Experiences from Celebrity Care to Modern Medicine

Scientists at the University of Illinois have created a minuscule swimming machine, just under eight-one-hundredth of an inch (1.95 mm), thats powered by beating heart muscle cells. Details of their invention, which might someday have medical applications for precision-targeting medication and micro-surgery inside the body, was published in the January 17, 2014 issue of the journal Nature Communications.

Professor Taher Saif, of the University of Illinois, leads the team that created what they call a tiny bio-hybrid machine or bio-bot. He said, in a press release:

Micro-organisms have a whole world that we only glimpse through the microscope. This is the first time that an engineered system has reached this underworld.

The bio-bot has a flagella-shaped body, that is, a cell with a long tail, like a sperm cell. The machine body is made from a flexible polymer thats coated with a substance called fibronectin, which provides an attachment surface for cardiac cells cultured on the bots head and tail. In a yet-to-be understood phenomenon, the heart cells communicate, align with each other, and synchronize their contraction-relaxation beat to move the machines tail. This motion creates waves in the fluid that propels the bot forward.

The scientists also created a faster-swimming bio-bot model with two tails. They think that a bio-bot with several tails could even be used to steer towards specific locations. This could give rise to tiny machine deployed to work on a microscopic scale. Saif commented:

The long-term vision is simple. Could we make elementary structures and seed them with stem cells that would differentiate into smart structures to deliver drugs, perform minimally invasive surgery or target cancer?

Bottom-line: University of Illinois scientists have created a microscopic swimming bio-bot thats powered by beating cardiac muscle cells. The tiny machine, measuring just under eight-one-hundredth of an inch (1.95 mm), may someday be adapted for medical applications inside the body. The journal Nature Communications published details of this research on January 17, 2014.

View post:
Tiny machines that swim using heart muscle cells

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester announced Friday that a decade-long research project on using stem cells to repair damaged heart tissue has won federal approval for human testing, a step that could have implications for millions of Americans with heart disease.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a multistate clinical trial of 240 patients with chronic advanced symptomatic heart failure to determine if the procedure produces a significant improvement in heart function.

Safety testing in humans, completed earlier in Europe, showed a preliminary 25 percent improvement in cardiac outflow, according to Dr. Andre Terzic, director of the Mayo Clinic's Center for Regenerative Medicine.

The procedure could be a "paradigm shift" in the treatment of heart disease, Terzic said.

Treatments going forward won't just focus on easing the symptoms of the disease, Terzic said, but rather, on curing it.

The process, developed in collaborations with Cardio3 BioSciences of Belgium, involves harvesting stem cells from a heart patient's bone marrow in the hip, directing the cells to become "cardiopoietic" repair cells, then injecting them back into the heart to do their work.

Mayo researcher Dr. Atta Behfar and other members of Terzic's team isolated hundreds of proteins involved in the transcription process that takes place when stem cells are converted to heart cells. They identified eight proteins that were crucial in the development of heart cells and used them to convert stem cells into heart cells.

"This is unique in the world," Terzic said.

Forty hospitals in Europe and Israel are enrolling heart patients in human trials to test Mayo's new treatment regimen for heart failure. Enrollments are expected to be completed by the end of the year, and early results should be available in 2015, according to Dr. Christian Homsy, CEO of Cardio3 BioSciences.

If things go well, patients could start being treated with the new technology by the end of 2016 in Europe, and perhaps a year later in the United States.

Read more:
Mayo wins FDA approval to test stem-cell technique for heart patients

Welcome to this week's Biotech Stock Mailbag. Before I kick off, a few housekeeping items to note:

I launched a new blog on TheStreet this week. It's called Adam's Biotech Beat. I know, not the most original name but straightforward. I'll have more to say about the blog later, but please bookmark the page and check it often. You'll see me posting a lot of intraday news and analysis, plus it's a great way to keep track of all my tweets.

The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference starts Monday in San Francisco. I'm flying out there Sunday and will be providing live coverage from the presentations and breakout rooms.

Chelsea Therapeutics (CHTP) and its hypotension drug Northera will be the star of an FDA advisory panel on Tuesday. I have invited healthcare investor and TheStreet contributing writer Aafia Chaudhry to live-blog the Chelsea panel, so please tune into that.

Read this article:
Biotech Stock Mailbag: NeoStem, MannKind, Inovio

Monday, October 11, 2010 - Noon

Stephen Ellis, MD Section Head of Invasive/Interventional Cardiology, Robert and Suzanne Tomsich Department of Cardiovascular Medicine

Stem cells are natures own transformers. When the body is injured, stem cells travel to the scene of the accident and help heal damaged tissue. The cells do this by transforming into whatever type of cell has been injured- bone, skin and even heart tissue. Researchers at Cleveland Clinic believe that the efficiency of stem cells for treating heart tissue can be boosted and help the body recover faster and better from heart attacks. Join us in a free online chat with cardiologist Stephen Ellis, MD. Dr. Ellis is leading one of the clinical trials and will be answering your questions about stem cell therapy for heart disease.

Cleveland_Clinic_Host: Welcome to our "Stem Cell Therapy for Heart Disease" online health chat with Stephen Ellis, MD. Dr. Ellis is leading one of the research studies for stem cell therapy and heart disease so he will be answering a variety of questions on the topic. We are very excited to have him here today!

Thank for joining us Dr. Ellis, let's begin with the questions.

Dr__Ellis: Thank you for having me today.

Robert_B: I have a question on Stem Cell and stabilizing a two chamber heart condition.. Could donor adult stem cells help stabilize the heart and repair some of the damage? Patient also suffers from cardiac sclerosis of the liver.

Dr__Ellis: Stem cells are currently being evaluated to see if they may or may not strengthen hearts previously damaged by heart attacks or other conditions. They are considered experimental for this purpose. There are several ongoing clinical trials available in the U.S.

cabbagepatch: I have been going through other tests for heart transplant consideration, & with everything I have been going through would I be a candidate for heart stem cell repair? How would I find out? My cardiologist is Dr. Hsich in Cleveland.

Dr__Ellis: You may be a candidate for the NIH FOCUS trial at the Cleveland Clinic. Please ask Dr. Hsich - she would be able to help you.

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Stem Cell Therapy for Heart Disease Webchat - Dr. Ellis

Keeping in tradition with the Us commitment to advance the fields of medicine and surgery, our physicians are focusing on regenerative medicine as the next frontier in treating cardiovascular disease. Researchers within the Cardiovascular Center estimate cell therapy will be FDA-approved within three years. The goal of this therapy is to give cells back to the heart in order for it to grow stronger, work harder, and function more like a younger heart. Currently, studies include the potentiality of injecting cardiac repair cells into patients hearts to improve function.

This is the first trial of its kind in the United States, providing heart patients who have limited or no other options with a viable treatment. Using some of the best imaging technology, researchers have been able to see improvements in patients within six months after injecting their own cells directly into the left ventricle of the heart during minimally invasive surgery.

To contact us, please use the contact number provided.

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Heart Stem Cell Therapy - - - University of Utah Health Care ...

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

23-Dec-2013

Contact: Robert Miranda cogcomm@aol.com Cell Transplantation Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair

Putnam Valley, NY. (Dec. 23, 2013) Cell-based therapies have been shown to enhance cardiac regeneration, but autologous (patient self-donated) cells have produced only "modest results." In an effort to improve myocardial regeneration through cell transplantation, a research team from Germany has taken epithelial cells from placenta (amniotic epithelial cells, or AECs) and converted them into mesenchymal cells. After transplanting the transitioned cells into mice modelling a myocardial infarction, the researchers found that the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) was beneficial to cardiac regeneration by lowering infarct size. They concluded that EMT enhanced the cardioprotective effects of human AECs.

The study will be published in a future issue of Cell Transplantation but is currently freely available on-line as an unedited early e-pub at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/pre-prints/content-ct1046Roy.

The authors noted that AECs have been shown to share characteristics of pluripotent cells that are able to transform into all other kinds of cells, and that their isolation and clinical-grade expansion of AECs is "relatively straightforward."

"Our hypothesis was that EMT would improve cardiac regeneration capacity of amniotic epithelial cells by increasing their mobility and extracellular matrix modulating capacity," said study corresponding author Dr. Christof Stamm of the Berlin Brandenburg Center for Regenerative Therapies, Berlin, Germany. "Indeed, four weeks after the mice were modeled with myocardial infarction the mice subsequently treated with EMT-AECs were associated with markedly reduced infarct size."

According to the researchers, as a result of the EMT process the AECs lost their "cobblestone" structure and acquired a fibroblastoid shape which was associated with a number of biological alterations that ultimately aided their mobility and altered their secretions.

One direct result of the EMT-AEC treatment was that EMT-AEC-treated hearts displayed "better global systolic function and improved longitudinal strain rate in the area of interest."

The researchers added that while AECs may be useful in the context of cardiovascular regeneration, it is unclear whether the usefulness requires "actual stemness" or "pluripotency-unrelated secretory mechanisms."

Read more from the original source:
Transitioning epithelial cells to mesenchymal cells enhances cardiac protectivity

Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute is First in West & Central Florida to Perform a Groundbreaking Stem Cell Clinical Trial for Heart Failure Patients

The first patient has been treated as part of The ATHENA Trial, which derives stem cells from the patientsown adipose (fat) tissue and injects extracted cells into damaged parts of the heart.

TAMPA, Florida (December 20, 2013) Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute and Dr. Kiran C. Patel Research Institute announced the first patient, a 59 year old Clearwater man, has been treated as part of the ATHENA clinical trial. The trial, sponsored by San Diego-based Cytori Therapeutics, derives stem cells from the patients own fat tissue and injects extracted cells into damaged parts of the heart. The ATHENA trial is a treatment for chronic heart failure due to coronary heart disease. Dr. Charles Lambert, Medical Director of Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute, is leading the way for the first U.S. FDA approved clinical trial using adipose-derived regenerative cells, known as ADRCs, in chronic heart failure patients. I am pleased to report that all procedures went well. The patient is doing well, he was released and is recovering at home. We look forward to following his progress over the coming months, said Dr. Charles Lambert. Heart failure (HF) can occur when the muscles of the heart become weakened and cannot pump blood sufficiently throughout the body. The injury is most often caused by inadequate blood flow to the heart resulting from chronic or acute cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks. The ATHENA clinical trial procedure is a three step process. First, the trial involves the collection of fat from the patients body by liposuction. Then the fat sample is filtered through a machine that extracts out the stem cells. Finally, the stem cells are injected into the damaged part of the patients heart. During this first case at Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute, Dr. Paul Smith performed the liposuction to obtain the fat sample, a team at the Dr. Kiran C. Patel Research Institute isolated stem cells from the fat sample and then Dr. Charles Lambert performed the cell therapy by direct injection into the patients heart. Pepin Heart and Dr. Kiran C. Patel Research Institute is exploring and conducting leading-edge research to develop break-through treatments long before they are even available in other facilities. Stem cells have the unique ability to develop into many different cell types, and in many tissues serve as an internal repair system, dividing essentially without limit to replenish other cells, said Dr. Lambert.

The Pepin Heart Institute has a history of cardiovascular stem cell research as part of the NIH sponsored Cardiac Cell Therapy Research Network (CCTRN) as well as other active cell therapy trials. The trial is a double blind, randomized, placebo controlled study designed to study the use of a patients own Adipose-Derived Regenerative Cells (ADRCs) to treat chronic heart failure from coronary heart disease in patients who are on maximal therapy and still have heart failure symptoms. All trial participants undergo a minor liposuction procedure to remove fat (adipose) tissue. Following the liposuction, trial participants may have their tissue processed with Cytoris proprietary Celution System to separate and concentrate cells, and prepare them for therapeutic use. Trial participants will then have either their own cells or a placebo injected back into their damaged heart tissue. To test whether ADRCs will improve heart function, several measurements will be made, including peak oxygen consumption (VO2max), which measures how much physical exercise (gentle walking on a treadmill) a patient can perform, blood flow to the heart (perfusion), the amount of blood in the left ventricle at the end of contraction and relaxation (end-systolic and end-diastolic volumes), and the fraction of blood that is pumped during each contraction (ejection fraction). After the injection procedure, patients are seen in the clinic for follow-up visits over the first 12 months; they are then contacted by phone once a year for up to five years after the procedure.

There are approximately 5.1 million Americans currently living with heart failure, according to the American Heart Association. Chronic heart failure due to coronary heart disease is a severe, debilitating condition caused by restriction of blood flow to the heart muscle, reducing the hearts oxygen supply and limiting its pumping function. Individuals interested in participating in the ATHENA clinical research trial or learning more can visit http://www.theathenatrial.com or call Brian Nordgren, Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute Physician Assistant & Stem Cell Program Lead at (813) 615-7527.

About Florida Hospital Tampa Florida Hospital Tampa is a not-for-profit 475-bed tertiary hospital specializing in cardiovascular medicine, neuroscience, orthopaedics, womens services, pediatrics, oncology, endocrinology, bariatrics, wound healing, sleep medicine and general surgery including minimally invasive and robotic-assisted procedures. Also located at Florida Hospital Tampa is the renowned Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute, a recognized leader in cardiovascular disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment and leading-edge research. Part of the Adventist Health System, Florida Hospital is a leading health network comprised of 22 hospitals throughout the state. For more information, visit http://www.FHTampa.org.

About Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute and Dr. Kiran C. Patel Research Institute Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute is a free-standing cardiovascular institute providing comprehensive cardiovascular care with over 76,000 angioplasty procedures and 11,000 open-heart surgeries in the Tampa Bay region. Leading the way with the first accredited chest pain emergency room in Tampa Bay, the institute is among an elite few in the state of Florida chosen to perform the ground breaking Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) procedure. It is also a HeartCaring designated provider and a Larry King Cardiac Foundation Hospital. Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute and the Dr. Kiran C. Patel Research Institute, affiliated with the University of South Florida (USF), are exploring and conducting leading-edge research to develop break-through treatments long before they are available in most other hospitals. To learn more, visit http://www.FHPepin.org.

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Groundbreaking Stem Cell Clinical Trial

(PRWEB) December 20, 2013

Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute and Dr. Kiran C. Patel Research Institute announced the first patient, a 59 year old Clearwater man, has been treated as part of the ATHENA clinical trial. The trial, sponsored by San Diego-based Cytori Therapeutics, derives stem cells from the patients own fat tissue and injects extracted cells into damaged parts of the heart. The ATHENA trial is a treatment for chronic heart failure due to coronary heart disease. Dr. Charles Lambert, Medical Director of Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute, is leading the way for the first U.S. FDA approved clinical trial using adipose-derived regenerative cells, known as ADRCs, in chronic heart failure patients. I am pleased to report that all procedures went well. The patient is doing well, he was released and is recovering at home. We look forward to following his progress over the coming months, said Dr. Charles Lambert.

Heart failure (HF) can occur when the muscles of the heart become weakened and cannot pump blood sufficiently throughout the body. The injury is most often caused by inadequate blood flow to the heart resulting from chronic or acute cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks. The ATHENA clinical trial procedure is a three step process. First, the trial involves the collection of fat from the patients body by liposuction. Then the fat sample is filtered through a machine that extracts out the stem cells. Finally, the stem cells are injected into the damaged part of the patients heart. During this first case at Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute, Dr. Paul Smith performed the liposuction to obtain the fat sample, a team at the Dr. Kiran C. Patel Research Institute isolated stem cells from the fat sample and then Dr. Charles Lambert performed the cell therapy by direct injection into the patients heart. Pepin Heart and Dr. Kiran C. Patel Research Institute is exploring and conducting leading-edge research to develop break-through treatments long before they are even available in other facilities. Stem cells have the unique ability to develop into many different cell types, and in many tissues serve as an internal repair system, dividing essentially without limit to replenish other cells, said Dr. Lambert. The Pepin Heart Institute has a history of cardiovascular stem cell research as part of the NIH sponsored Cardiac Cell Therapy Research Network (CCTRN) as well as other active cell therapy trials. The trial is a double blind, randomized, placebo controlled study designed to study the use of a patients own Adipose-Derived Regenerative Cells (ADRCs) to treat chronic heart failure from coronary heart disease in patients who are on maximal therapy and still have heart failure symptoms. All trial participants undergo a minor liposuction procedure to remove fat (adipose) tissue. Following the liposuction, trial participants may have their tissue processed with Cytoris proprietary Celution System to separate and concentrate cells, and prepare them for therapeutic use. Trial participants will then have either their own cells or a placebo injected back into their damaged heart tissue. To test whether ADRCs will improve heart function, several measurements will be made, including peak oxygen consumption (VO2max), which measures how much physical exercise (gentle walking on a treadmill) a patient can perform, blood flow to the heart (perfusion), the amount of blood in the left ventricle at the end of contraction and relaxation (end-systolic and end-diastolic volumes), and the fraction of blood that is pumped during each contraction (ejection fraction). After the injection procedure, patients are seen in the clinic for follow-up visits over the first 12 months; they are then contacted by phone once a year for up to five years after the procedure. There are approximately 5.1 million Americans currently living with heart failure, according to the American Heart Association. Chronic heart failure due to coronary heart disease is a severe, debilitating condition caused by restriction of blood flow to the heart muscle, reducing the hearts oxygen supply and limiting its pumping function. Individuals interested in participating in the ATHENA clinical research trial or learning more can visit http://www.theathenatrial.com or call Brian Nordgren, Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute Physician Assistant & Stem Cell Program Lead at (813) 615-7527.

About Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute and Dr. Kiran C. Patel Research Institute Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute, located at Florida Hospital Tampa, is a free-standing cardiovascular institute providing comprehensive cardiovascular care with over 76,000 angioplasty procedures and 11,000 open-heart surgeries in the Tampa Bay region. Leading the way with the first accredited chest pain emergency room in Tampa Bay, the institute is among an elite few in the state of Florida chosen to perform the ground breaking Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) procedure. It is also a HeartCaring designated provider and a Larry King Cardiac Foundation Hospital. Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute and the Dr. Kiran C. Patel Research Institute, affiliated with the University of South Florida (USF), are exploring and conducting leading-edge research to develop break-through treatments long before they are available in most other hospitals. To learn more, visit http://www.FHPepin.org

About Cytori Therapeutics Cytori Therapeutics, Inc. is developing cell therapies based on autologous adipose-derived regenerative cells (ADRCs) to treat cardiovascular disease and repair soft tissue defects. Our scientific data suggest ADRCs improve blood flow, moderate the immune response and keep tissue at risk of dying alive. As a result, we believe these cells can be applied across multiple "ischemic" conditions. These therapies are made available to the physician and patient at the point-of-care by Cytori's proprietary technologies and products, including the Celution system product family. http://www.cytori.com

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Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute is First in West & Central Florida to Perform a Groundbreaking Stem Cell ...

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16-Dec-2013

Contact: Jennifer Schutz newsbureau@mayo.edu 507-284-5005 Mayo Clinic

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers and colleagues in Belgium have developed a specialized catheter for transplanting stem cells into the beating heart. The novel device includes a curved needle and graded openings along the needle shaft, allowing for increased distribution of cells. The result is maximized retention of stem cells to repair the heart. The findings appear in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions.

"Although biotherapies are increasingly more sophisticated, the tools for delivering regenerative therapies demonstrate a limited capacity in achieving high cell retention in the heart," says Atta Behfar, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic cardiology specialist and lead author of the study. "Retention of cells is, of course, crucial to an effective, practical therapy."

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine in Rochester and Cardio3 Biosciences in Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium, collaborated to develop the device, beginning with computer modeling in Belgium. Once refined, the computer-based models were tested in North America for safety and retention efficiency.

What's the significance?

This new catheter is being used in the European CHART-1 clinical trials, now underway. This is the first Phase III trial to regenerate hearts of patients who have suffered heart attack damage. The studies are the outcome of years of basic science research at Mayo Clinic and earlier clinical studies with Cardio3 BioSciences and Cardiovascular Centre in Aalst, Belgium, conducted between 2009 and 2010.

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The development of the catheter and subsequent studies were supported by Cardio3 BioSciences; Walloon Region General Directorate for Economy, Employment & Research; Meijer Lavino Foundation for Cardiac Research Aalst (Belgium); the National Institutes of Health; Grainger Foundation; Florida Heart Research Institute; Marriott Heart Disease Research Program; and the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine.

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Regenerative medicine: Mayo Clinic and collaborators develop new tool for transplanting stem cells

A new study says heart damage may be reversible with stem cell therapy without dangerous side effects.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- On a June day in 2009, a 39-year-old man named Ken Milles lay on an exam table at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. A month earlier, he'd suffered a massive heart attack that destroyed nearly a third of his heart.

"The most difficult part was the uncertainty," he recalls. "Your heart is 30% damaged, and they tell you this could affect you the rest of your life." He was about to receive an infusion of stem cells, grown from cells taken from his own heart a few weeks earlier. No one had ever tried this before.

About three weeks later, in Kentucky, a patient named Mike Jones underwent a similar procedure at the University of Louisville's Jewish Hospital. Jones suffered from advanced heart failure, the result of a heart attack years earlier. Like Milles, he received an infusion of stem cells, grown from his own heart tissue.

"Once you reach this stage of heart disease, you don't get better," says Dr. Robert Bolli, who oversaw Jones' procedure, explaining what doctors have always believed and taught. "You can go down slowly, or go down quickly, but you're going to go down."

Conventional wisdom took a hit Monday, as Bolli's group and a team from Cedars-Sinai each reported that stem cell therapies were able to reverse heart damage, without dangerous side effects, at least in a small group of patients.

In Bolli's study, published in The Lancet, 16 patients with severe heart failure received a purified batch of cardiac stem cells. Within a year, their heart function markedly improved. The heart's pumping ability can be quantified through the "Left Ventricle Ejection Fraction," a measure of how much blood the heart pumps with each contraction. A patient with an LVEF of less than 40% is considered to suffer severe heart failure. When the study began, Bolli's patients had an average LVEF of 30.3%. Four months after receiving stem cells, it was 38.5%. Among seven patients who were followed for a full year, it improved to an astounding 42.5%. A control group of seven patients, given nothing but standard maintenance medications, showed no improvement at all.

"We were surprised by the magnitude of improvement," says Bolli, who says traditional therapies, such as placing a stent to physically widen the patient's artery, typically make a smaller difference. Prior to treatment, Mike Jones couldn't walk to the restroom without stopping for breath, says Bolli. "Now he can drive a tractor on his farm, even play basketball with his grandchildren. His life was transformed."

At Cedars-Sinai, 17 patients, including Milles, were given stem cells approximately six weeks after suffering a moderate to major heart attack. All had lost enough tissue to put them "at big risk" of future heart failure, according to Dr. Eduardo Marban, the director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, who developed the stem cell procedure used there.

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Studies: Stem cells reverse heart damage - CNN.com

Washington, Dec 7 : NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) are enabling research aboard the International Space Station that could lead to new stem cell-based therapies for medical conditions faced on Earth and in space.

Scientists will take advantage of the space station's microgravity environment to study the properties of non-embryonic stem cells.

NASA is interested in space-based cell research because it is seeking ways to combat the negative health effects astronauts face in microgravity, including bone loss and muscle atrophy.

Mitigation techniques are necessary to allow humans to push the boundaries of space exploration far into the solar system. This knowledge could help people on Earth, particularly the elderly, who are afflicted with similar conditions.

Two stem cell investigations scheduled to fly to the space station next year were highlighted Friday, Dec. 6, at the World Stem Cell Summit in San Diego.

Lee Hood, a member of the CASIS Board of Directors, moderated a panel session in which scientists Mary Kearns-Jonker of Loma Linda University in California and Roland Kaunas of Texas A&M University discussed their planned research, which will gauge the impact of microgravity on fundamental stem cell properties.

Kearns-Jonker's research will study the aging of neonatal and adult cardiac stem cells in microgravity with the ultimate goal of improving cardiac cell therapy.

Kaunas is a part of a team of researchers developing a system for co-culturing and analyzing stem cells mixed with bone tumor cells in microgravity.

This system will allow researchers to identify potential molecular targets for drugs specific to certain types of cancer.

Stem cells are cells that have not yet become specialized in their functions. They display a remarkable ability to give rise to a spectrum of cell types and ensure life-long tissue rejuvenation and regeneration.

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Space Station made accessible for stem cell research

Durham, NC (PRWEB) December 09, 2013

Generating new cardiac muscle from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and/or induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) could fulfill the demand for therapeutic applications and drug testing. The production of a similar population of these cells remains a major limitation, but in a study just published in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine, researchers now believe they have found a way to do this.

By combining small molecules and growth factors, the international research team led by investigators at the Cardiovascular Research Center at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai developed a two-step system that caused stem cells to differentiate into ventricular heart muscle cells from hESCs and iPSCs. The process resulted in high efficiency and reproducibility, in a manner that mimicked the developmental steps of normal cardiovascular development.

These chemically induced, ventricular-like cardiomyocytes (termed ciVCMs) exhibited the expected cardiac electrophysiological and calcium handling properties as well as the appropriate heart rate responses, said lead investigator Ioannis Karakikes, Ph.D., of the Stanford University School Of Medicine, Cardiovascular Institute. Other members of the team included scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and the Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine Consortium at the University of Hong Kong.

In addition, using an integrated approach involving computational and experimental systems, the researchers demonstrated that using molecules to modulate the Wnt pathway, which passes signals from cell to cell, plays a key role in whether a cell evolves into an atrial or ventricular muscle cell.

The further clarification of the molecular mechanism(s) that underlie this kind of subtype specification is essential to improving our understanding of cardiovascular development. We may be able to regulate the commitment, proliferation and differentiation of pluripotent stem cells into heart muscle cells and then harness them for therapeutic purposes, Dr. Karakikes said.

"Most cases of heart failure are related to a deficiency of heart muscle cells in the lower chambers of the heart, said said Anthony Atala, MD, editor of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. An efficient, cost-effective and reproducible system for generating ventricular cardiomyocytes would be a valuable resource for cell therapies as well as drug screening.

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The full article, Small Molecule-Mediated Directed Differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells Toward Ventricular Cardiomyocytes, can be accessed at http://www.stemcellstm.com.

About STEM CELLS Translational Medicine: STEM CELLS TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE (SCTM), published by AlphaMed Press, is a monthly peer-reviewed publication dedicated to significantly advancing the clinical utilization of stem cell molecular and cellular biology. By bridging stem cell research and clinical trials, SCTM will help move applications of these critical investigations closer to accepted best practices.

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More Efficient Way to Grow Heart Muscle from Stem Cells Could Yield New Regenerative Therapies

NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) are enabling research aboard the International Space Station that could lead to new stem cell-based therapies for medical conditions faced on Earth and in space.

Scientists will take advantage of the space station's microgravity environment to study the properties of non-embryonic stem cells.

NASA is interested in space-based cell research because it is seeking ways to combat the negative health effects astronauts face in microgravity, including bone loss and muscle atrophy. Mitigation techniques are necessary to allow humans to push the boundaries of space exploration far into the solar system. This knowledge could help people on Earth, particularly the elderly, who are afflicted with similar conditions.

Two stem cell investigations scheduled to fly to the space station next year were highlighted Friday, Dec. 6, at the World Stem Cell Summit in San Diego. Lee Hood, a member of the CASIS Board of Directors, moderated a panel session in which scientists Mary Kearns-Jonker of Loma Linda University in California and Roland Kaunas of Texas A&M University discussed their planned research, which will gauge the impact of microgravity on fundamental stem cell properties.

Kearns-Jonker's research will study the aging of neonatal and adult cardiac stem cells in microgravity with the ultimate goal of improving cardiac cell therapy. Kaunas is a part of a team of researchers developing a system for co-culturing and analyzing stem cells mixed with bone tumor cells in microgravity. This system will allow researchers to identify potential molecular targets for drugs specific to certain types of cancer.

Stem cells are cells that have not yet become specialized in their functions. They display a remarkable ability to give rise to a spectrum of cell types and ensure life-long tissue rejuvenation and regeneration. Experiments on Earth and in space have shown that microgravity induces changes in the way stem cells grow, divide and specialize. Stem cell biology in microgravity could inform fields ranging from discovery science to tissue engineering to regenerative medicine.

NASA selected CASIS to maximize use of the International Space Station's U.S. National Laboratory through 2020. CASIS is dedicated to supporting and accelerating innovations and new discoveries that will enhance the health and wellbeing of people and our planet.

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

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NASA, CASIS Make Space Station Accessible for Stem Cell Research

An interview with Roberto Bolli, MD.

University of Louisville cardiologist Roberto Bolli, MD, led the stem cell study that tested using patients' own heart stem cells to help their hearts recover from heart failure. Though that trial was preliminary, the results look promising -- and may one day lead to a cure for heart failure.

Here, Bolli talks about what this work means and when it might become an option for patients.

2012 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.

"Realistically, this will not come... for another three or four years, at least," Bolli says. "It may be longer, depending on the results of the next trial, of course."

Larger studies are needed to confirm the procedure's safety and effectiveness. If those succeed, it could be "the biggest advance in cardiovascular medicine in my lifetime," Bolli says.

A total of 20 patients took part in the initial study.

All of them experienced significant improvement in their heart failure and now function better in daily life, according to Bolli. "The patients can do more, there's more ability to exercise, and the quality of life improves markedly," Bolli says.

Bolli's team published its findings on how the patients were doing one year after stem cell treatment in November 2011 in the Lancet, a British medical journal.

Each patient was infused with about 1 million of his or her own cardiac stem cells, which could eventually produce an estimated 4 trillion new cardiac cells, Bolli says. His team plans to follow each patient for two years after their stem cell procedure.

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Heart Stem Cell Trial: Interview With Researcher Roberto Bolli, MD

In a small study involving 25 volunteers, stem cell recipients had their heart attack scars reduced most dramatically -- on average almost 50 percent -- damaged muscle replaced by new healthy heart tissue. CBS News

In a small study involving 25 volunteers, stem cell recipients had their heart attack scars reduced most dramatically - on average, 50 percent - and damaged muscle replaced by new healthy heart tissue.

CBS News

(CBS) A new study offers an effective way to mend a broken heart: Stem cells.

PICTURES: 7 heart-healthy foods

The study looked at patients with damaged hearts from myocardial infarctions, or heart attacks, and found stem cells reduced the amount of scarring and helped hearts regrow healthy muscle.

"This discovery challenges the conventional wisdom that, once established, scar is permanent and that, once lost, healthy heart muscle cannot be restored," study co-author Dr. Eduardo Marban, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and inventor of the techniques used in the procedure, said in a hospital written statement.

For the study, researchers tested 25 patients, an average of 53 years old, who had experienced heart attacks that had left them with damaged heart muscle. Eight patients served as controls and were treated with conventional treatments including medication, and diet and exercise recommendations. The other 17 patients received stem cells, which researchers derived from raisin-sized pieces of patients' own heart tissue.

The researchers found that patients treated with stem cells experienced almost a 50 percent reduction of heart attack scars within 12 months of treatment, while the eight patients who received conventional treatment saw no reductions in damage.

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Stem cells heal heart attack scars, regrow healthy muscle ...

The hearts own stem cells play their part in regeneration

Sca1 stem cells replace steadily ageing heart muscle cells

November 28, 2013

Up until a few years ago, the common school of thought held that the mammalian heart had very little regenerative capacity. However, scientists now know that heart muscle cells constantly regenerate, albeit at a very low rate. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim, have identified a stem cell population responsible for this regeneration. Hopes are growing that it will be possible in future to stimulate the self-healing powers of patients with diseases and disorders of the heart muscle, and thus develop new potential treatments.

Stem cells play a part in heart regeneration. This image of the fluorescence microscope depicts a section of the heart tissue of a mouse. The green colouring of the cells in the middle shows that the cell originated from a so-called Sca1 stem cell.

MPI for Heart and Lung Research

MPI for Heart and Lung Research

Some vertebrates seem to have found the fountain of youth, the source of eternal youth, at least when it comes to their heart. In many amphibians and fish, for example, this important organ has a marked capacity for regeneration and self-healing. Some species in the two animal groups have even perfected this capability and can completely repair damage caused to heart tissue, thus maintaining the organs full functionality.

The situation is different for mammals, whose hearts have a very low regenerative capacity. According to the common school of thought that has prevailed until recently, the reason for this deficit is that the heart muscle cells in mammals cease dividing shortly after birth. It was also assumed that the mammalian heart did not have any stem cells that could be used to form new heart muscle cells. On the contrary: new studies show that aged muscle cells are also replaced in mammalian hearts. Experts estimate, however, that between just one and four percent of heart muscle cells are replaced every year.

Scientists in Thomas Brauns Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research have succeeded in identifying a stem cell population in mice that plays a key role in this regeneration of heart muscle cells. Experiments conducted by the researchers in Bad Nauheim on genetically modified mice show that the Sca1 stem cells in a healthy heart are involved in the ongoing replacement of heart muscle cells. The Sca-1 cells increase their activity if the heart is damaged, with the result that significantly more new heart muscle cells are formed.

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Research | Research news | 2013 | The heart’s own stem cells ...

By the time Bill Beatty made it to the Emergency Department in Howard County, he was already several hours into a major heart attack. His physicians performed a series of emergency treatments that included an intra-aortic balloon pump, but the 57-year-old engineers blood pressure remained dangerously low. The cardiologist called for a helicopter to transfer him to Johns Hopkins.

It was fortuitous timing: Beatty was an ideal candidate for a clinical trial and soon received an infusion of stem cells derived from his own heart tissue, making him the second patient in the world to undergo the procedure.

Of all the attempts to harness the promise of stem cell therapy, few have garnered more hope than the bid to repair damaged hearts. Previous trials with other stem cells have shown conflicting results. But this new trial, conducted jointly with cardiologist Eduardo Marbn at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, is the first time stem cells come from the patients own heart.

Cardiologist Jeffrey Brinker, M.D., a member of the Hopkins team, thinks the new protocol could be a game-changer. That's based partly on recent animal studies in which scientists at both institutions isolated stem cells from the injured animals hearts and infused them back into the hearts of those same animals. The stem cells formed new heart muscle and blood vessel cells. In fact, says Brinker, the new cells have a pre-determined cardiac fate. Even in the culture dish, he says, theyre a beating mass of cells.

Whats more, according to Gary Gerstenblith, M.D., J.D., the animals in these studies showed a significant decrease in relative infarct size, shrinking by about 25 percent. Based on those and earlier findings, investigators were cleared by the FDA and Hopkins Institutional Review Board to move forward with a human trial.

In Beattys case, Hopkins heart failure chief Stuart Russell, M.D., extracted a small sample of heart tissue and shipped it to Cedars Sinai, where stem cells were isolated, cultured and expanded to large numbers. Hopkins cardiologist Peter Johnston, M.D., says cardiac tissue is robust in its ability to generate stem cells, typically yielding several million transplantable cells within two months.

When ready, the cells were returned to Baltimore and infused back into Beatty through a balloon catheter placed in his damaged artery, ensuring target-specific delivery. Then the watching and waiting began. For the Hopkins team, Beattys infarct size will be tracked by imaging chief Joao Lima, M.D., M.B.A.,and his associates using MRI scans.

Now back home and still struggling with episodes of compromised stamina and shortness of breath, Beatty says his Hopkins cardiologists were fairly cautious in their prognosis, but hell be happy for any improvement.

Nurse coordinator Elayne Breton says Beatty is scheduled for follow-up visits at six months and 12 months, when they hope to find an improvement in his hearts function. But at least one member of the Hopkins team was willing acknowledge a certain optimism. The excitement here, says Brinker, is huge.

The trial is expected to be completed within one to two years.

Follow this link:
Stem Cell Research at Johns Hopkins Medicine: Repairing Heart ...

Finished heart switches stem cells off

Transcription factor Ajuba regulates stem cell activity in the heart during embryonic development

July 12, 2012

It is not unusual for babies to be born with congenital heart defects. This is because the development of the heart in the embryo is a process which is not only extremely complex, but also error-prone. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have now identified a key molecule that plays a central role in regulating the function of stem cells in the heart. As a result, not only could congenital heart defects be avoided in future, but new ways of stimulating the regeneration of damaged hearts in adults may be opened up.

Cardiac development out of control: Absence of the transcription factor Ajuba during cardiac development, as is the case in the right-hand photo due to genetic intervention, disrupts development of the heart in the fish embryo. In addition to an increased number of cardiac muscle cells (green with red-stained nuclei), the heart is additionally deformed during development.

Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research

Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research

It's a long road from a cluster of cells to a finished heart. Cell division transforms what starts out as a collection of only a few cardiac stem cells into an ever-larger structure from which the various parts of the heart, such as ventricles, atria, valves and coronary vessels, develop. This involves the stem and precursor cells undergoing a complex process which, in addition to tightly regulated cell division, also includes cell migration, differentiation and specialisation. Once the heart is complete, the stem cells are finally switched off.

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have now discovered how major parts of this development process are regulated. Their search initially focused on finding binding partners for transcription factor Isl1. Isl1 is characteristic of a specific group of cardiac stem cells which are consequently also known as Isl1+ cells. During their search, the researchers came across Ajuba, a transcription factor from the group of LIM proteins. "We then took a closer a look at the interaction between these two molecules and came to the conclusion that Ajuba must be an important switch", says Gergana Dobreva, head of the "Origin of Cardiac Cell Lineages" Research Group at the Bad Nauheim-based Max Planck Institute.

Using an animal model, the scientists then investigated the effects of a defective switch on cardiac development. Embryonic development can be investigated particularly effectively in the zebrafish. The Bad Nauheim-based researchers therefore produced a genetically modified fish that lacked a functioning Ajuba protein. Cardiac development in these fishes was in fact severely disrupted. In addition to deformation of the heart, caused by twisting of the cardiac axis, what particularly struck the researchers was a difference in size in comparison with control animals. "In almost all the investigated fish we observed a dramatic enlargement of the heart. If Ajuba is absent, there is clearly no other switch that finally silences the Isl1-controlled part of cardiac development", says Dobreva.

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Research | Research news | 2012 | Finished heart switches stem ...

[International version] Linda van Laake: "We want to work together to improve stem cell treatment"
Dr Linda van Laake is assistant professor and specialist registrar in Cardiology at the University Medical Center Utrecht and Hubrecht Institute. She carries...

By: UniversiteitUtrecht

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[International version] Linda van Laake: "We want to work together to improve stem cell treatment" - Video