Archive for the ‘Skin Stem Cells’ Category

Eggs capable of being fertilised and making babies can be created in the laboratory from skin cells, a study has shown.

Scientists successfully produced three fertile baby mice using the technique, which involves transforming ordinary skin cells into personalised stem cells.

The same Japanese team created viable mouse sperm from embryonic stem cells earlier this year.

Together both advances greatly increase the likelihood of radical and controversial future treatments for restoring fertility.

It could mean creating sperm for men whose fertility has been wiped out by cancer therapy, or reversing the menopause in women long after they have used up their natural supply of eggs.

However, many questions about safety and ethics will have to be answered first.

In August, scientists from Kyoto University in Japan announced that they had created sperm cells from mouse embryo stem cells.

Injected into mouse eggs, the sperm produced embryos which developed into healthy baby mice.

The same team, led by Dr Katsuhiko Hayashi, carried out the latest research which focused on eggs rather than sperm.

The scientists mirrored their earlier achievement by transforming stem cells from mouse embryos into eggs which could be fertilised to produce offspring.

See the original post here:
Japan: Scientists Create Eggs From Skin Cells

London, October 5 (ANI): Using stem cells made from skin, a Japanese team has created healthy eggs that, once fertilised, grow into normal baby mice.

These babies later had their own babies, the BBC reported.

The team at Kyoto University used stem cells from two sources: those collected from an embryo and skin-like cells, which were reprogrammed, into becoming stem cells.

The first step was to turn the stem cells into early versions of eggs.

A "reconstituted ovary" was then built by surrounding the early eggs with other types of supporting cells that are normally found in an ovary. This was transplanted into female mice. Surrounding the eggs in this environment helped them to mature.

IVF techniques were used to collect the eggs, fertilise them with sperm from a male mouse and implant the fertilised egg into a surrogate mother.

"They develop to be healthy and fertile offspring," Dr Katsuhiko Hayashi, from Kyoto University, told the BBC.

Those babies then had babies of their own, whose "grandmother" was a cell in a laboratory dish.

If the same methods could be used in people then, it could help infertile couples have children and even allow women to overcome the menopause.

But experts say many scientific and ethical hurdles must be overcome before the technique could be adapted for people.

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Life created for first time from eggs made from skin cells

4 October 2012 Last updated at 18:31 ET By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

Stem cells made from skin have become "grandparents" after generations of life were created in experiments by scientists in Japan.

The cells were used to create eggs, which were fertilised to produce baby mice. These later had their own babies.

If the technique could be adapted for people, it could help infertile couples have children and even allow women to overcome the menopause.

But experts say many scientific and ethical hurdles must be overcome.

Stem cells are able to become any other type of cell in the body from blood to bone, nerves to skin.

Last year the team at Kyoto University managed to make viable sperm from stem cells. Now they have performed a similar feat with eggs.

They used stem cells from two sources: those collected from an embryo and skin-like cells which were reprogrammed into becoming stem cells.

I just thought wow! The science is quite brilliant

The first step, reported in the journal Science, was to turn the stem cells into early versions of eggs.

Here is the original post:
Skin cells become 'grandparents'

Eggs capable of being fertilised and making babies can be created in the laboratory from skin cells, a study has shown.

Scientists successfully produced three fertile baby mice using the technique, which involves transforming ordinary skin cells into personalised stem cells.

The same Japanese team created viable mouse sperm from embryonic stem cells earlier this year.

Together both advances greatly increase the likelihood of radical and controversial future treatments for restoring fertility.

It could mean creating sperm for men whose fertility has been wiped out by cancer therapy, or reversing the menopause in women long after they have used up their natural supply of eggs.

However, many questions about safety and ethics will have to be answered first.

In August, scientists from Kyoto University in Japan announced that they had created sperm cells from mouse embryo stem cells.

Injected into mouse eggs, the sperm produced embryos which developed into healthy baby mice.

The same team, led by Dr Katsuhiko Hayashi, carried out the latest research which focused on eggs rather than sperm.

The scientists mirrored their earlier achievement by transforming stem cells from mouse embryos into eggs which could be fertilised to produce offspring.

Read the original post:
Japan: Scientists Create Eggs From Skin Cells

Professor Robert Norman, Professor of Reproductive Medicine at the University of Adelaide in Australia, said: "While this is a major contribution to knowledge, application to humans is still a long way off but for the first time the goal appears to be in sight.

In the new study, the scientists transformed skin cells into personalised stem cells, which were then fertilised via IVF and ultimately resulted in three fertile baby mice.

Safety concerns must be addressed, particularly into the long-term health of the resulting offspring, before researchers come any closer to determining whether the treatment could be viable in humans.

The researchers wrote in the latest online issue of the journal Science: "Our system serves as a robust foundation to investigate and further reconstitute female germ line development in vitro (in the laboratory), not only in mice, but also in other mammals, including humans."

Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in reproduction and developmental medicine at the University of Sheffield, said: "What is remarkable about this work is the fact that, although the process is still quite inefficient, the offspring appeared healthy and were themselves fertile as adults.

"This is a great step forward, but I would urge caution as this is a laboratory study and we are still quite a long way from clinical trials taking place in humans."

Read more from the original source:
Eggs created from stem cells in fertility breakthrough

Eggs capable of being fertilised and making babies can be created in the laboratory from skin cells, a study has shown.

Scientists successfully produced three fertile baby mice using the technique, which involves transforming ordinary skin cells into personalised stem cells.

The same Japanese team created viable mouse sperm from embryonic stem cells earlier this year.

Together, both advances greatly increase the likelihood of radical and controversial future treatments for restoring fertility. It could mean creating sperm for men whose fertility has been wiped out by cancer therapy or reversing the menopause in women long after they have used up their natural supply of eggs.

In August, scientists from Kyoto University in Japan announced that they had created sperm cells from mouse embryo stem cells. Injected into mouse eggs, the sperm produced embryos which developed into healthy baby mice.

The same team, led by Dr Katsuhiko Hayashi, carried out the latest research which focused on eggs rather than sperm. The scientists mirrored their earlier achievement by transforming stem cells from mouse embryos into eggs which could be fertilised to produce offspring. But they also took a further step by obtaining mouse pups from eggs derived from ordinary skin cells.

The researchers wrote in the latest online issue of the journal Science: "Our system serves as a robust foundation to investigate and further reconstitute female germline development in vitro (in the laboratory), not only in mice but also in other mammals, including humans."

The "germline" consists of genetic material carried in reproductive cells that can be passed onto future generations.

Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in reproduction and developmental medicine at the University of Sheffield, said: "This is a very technical piece of work which pushes much further the science of how eggs are generated and how we might one day be able to routinely stimulate the new production of eggs for women who are infertile.

"What is remarkable about this work is the fact that, although the process is still quite inefficient, the offspring appeared healthy and were themselves fertile as adults. This is a great step forward but I would urge caution as this is a laboratory study and we are still quite a long way from clinical trials taking place in humans."

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Eggs can be created from skin cells

Mouse pups from induced pluripotent stem cell-derived eggs; image courtesy of Katsuhiko Hayashi

Stem cells have been coaxed into creating everything from liver cells to beating heart tissue. Recently, these versatile cells were even used to make fertile mouse sperm, suggesting that stem cell technology might eventually be able to play a role in the treatment of human infertility.

Now two types of stem cells have been turned into viable mouse egg cells that were fertilized and eventually yielded healthy baby mice. Details of this achievement were published online October 4 in Science.

Mouse oocytes; image courtesy of Katsuhiko Hayashi

Katsuhiko Hayashi, of Kyoto Universitys School of Medicine, were able to create the eggs with embryonic stem cells as well as with induced pluripotent stem cells (formed from adult cells).

The team started with female embryonic stem cells and then coaxed them genetically to revert to an earlier developmental stage (primordial germ cell-like cells). These cells were blended with gonadal somatic cells, important in the development of sexual differentiation, to create reconstituted ovaries. The researchers then transplanted these cultured assemblages into female mice (in either the actual ovary or the kidney) for safekeeping and to allow the stem cells to mature into oocytes in a natural environment.

Healthy adult mice from litter produced from induced pluripotent stem cell-based oocytes; image courtesy of Katsuhiko Hayashi

To test the eggs fertility, the new oocytes were removed from the mice for an in vitro fertilization with mouse spermand then re-implanted into the female mice. The experimental females went on to bear normally developing and fertile offspring. The procedure was then also performed successfully with induced pluripotent stem cells from adult skin cells with similar results.

Our system serves as a robust foundation to investigate and further reconstitute female germline development in vitro, the researchers noted in their paper, not only in mice, but also in other mammals, including humans.

Read more from the original source:
Baby Mice Born from Eggs Made from Stem Cells

Are you stumped by the multitude of ingredients in skin care products? Are you baffled by even the basic lotions and potions available on the market?

If so, then here is our fool proof guide to getting the best out of your skin care purchases.

Here are the products to look out for in each stage of you skin's development.

From 18 years

What you are looking for depends on your skin. Usually young skin needs either hydration or sebum-regulation, or possibly both. For moisturisation, look for trehalose, amino acids, hyaluronic acid or urea. If you want to rid your skin of excess oils, go for azeliac acid, clay or black popular.

25-35 years

Women this age need to bring lipids to the skin. Omega 3 and 5 and ceramides are great, too. Look for vegetal stem cells to improve the energy of cells and the cell turnover and antioxidants such as lipoic acid, vitamin E and C to prevent ageing. Exfoliate with AHA or PHA.

35-45 years

Look for active anti-ageing ingredients that can boost your own elastin and hyaluronic acid. Peptides are great, as is stem-cells from apple or edelweiss as they have antioxidative properties and improve the synthesis of collagen and elastine.

45 years up

The rest is here:
Skin care simplified

April Flowers for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

Columbia University ophthalmologists and stem cell researchers have developed an experimental treatment for blindness using the patients skin cells, which has improved the vision of blind mice in testing.

The findings of this research, published online in the journal Molecular Medicine, suggest that induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) could soon be used to improve vision in people with macular degeneration and other eye retina diseases. iPS cells are derived from adult human skin cells but have embryonic qualities.

With eye diseases, I think were getting close to a scenario where a patients own skin cells are used to replace retina cells destroyed by disease or degeneration, says Stephen Tsang, MD, PhD, associate professor of ophthalmology and pathology & cell biology. Its often said that iPS transplantation will be important in the practice of medicine in some distant future, but our paper suggests the future is almost here.

Scientists were very excited by the advent of human iPS cells when they were discovered in 2007, as they provide a way to avoid the ethical complications of embryonic stem cells. Another advantage is that the iPS cells are created from the patients own skin, eliminating the need for anti-rejection medications. Like the ethically challenged embryonic cells, iPS cells can develop into any type of cell. To-date, no iPS cells have been implanted into people, but many ophthalmologists say that the eye would prove to be ideal testing ground for iPS therapies.

The eye is a transparent and accessible part of the central nervous system, and thats a big advantage. We can put cells into the eye and monitor them every day with routine non-invasive clinical exams, Tsang said. And in the event of serious complications, removing the eye is not a life-threatening event.

Professor Tsang is running a new preclinical iPS study using human iPS cells derived from the skin cells of a 53-year-old donor. The cells were first transformed with a cocktail of growth factors into cells in the retina that lie underneath the eyes light-sensing cells.

Retina cells nourish the light-sensing cells and protect the fragile cells from excess light, heat and cellular debris. In macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, retina cells die, which allows the photoreceptor cells to degenerate causing the patient to lose their vision. It is estimated that 30 percent of people will have some form of macular degeneration by the time they are 75 years old, as it is the leading cause of vision loss in the elderly. Currently, it affects 7 million Americans and that is expected to double by 2020.

The Columbia research team injected the iPS-derived retina cells into the right eyes of 34 mice that had a genetic mutation that caused their retina cells to degenerate. In many of the mice, the iPS cells assimilated into the retina without disruption and functioned as normal retina cells well into the animals old age. Mice in the control group, who received injections of saline or inactive cells, showed no improvement in retina tests.

Our findings provide the first evidence of life-long neuronal recovery in a preclinical model of retinal degeneration, using stem cell transplant, with vision improvement persisting through the lifespan, Tsang says. And importantly, we saw no tumors in any of the mice, which should allay one of the biggest fears people have about stem cell transplants: that they will generate tumors.

Continued here:
Blind Mice Get Experimental Stem Cell Treatment For Blindness

Washington, October 2 (ANI): A new study has suggested that induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells - which are derived from adult human skin cells but have embryonic properties - could soon be used to restore vision in people with macular degeneration and other diseases that affect the eye's retina.

In the study conducted by Columbia ophthalmologists and stem cell researchers, adult stem cells developed from a patient's skin cells improved the vision of blind mice.

"With eye diseases, I think we're getting close to a scenario where a patient's own skin cells are used to replace retina cells destroyed by disease or degeneration," said the study's principal investigator, Stephen Tsang, MD, PhD, associate professor of ophthalmology and pathology and cell biology.

"It's often said that iPS transplantation will be important in the practice of medicine in some distant future, but our paper suggests the future is almost here," he stated.

The advent of human iPS cells in 2007 was greeted with excitement from scientists who hailed the development as a way to avoid the ethical complications of embryonic stem cells and create patient-specific stem cells.

Like embryonic stem cells, iPS cells can develop into any type of cell. Thousands of different iPS cell lines from patients and healthy donors have been created in the last few years, but they are almost always used in research or drug screening.

In Tsang's new preclinical iPS study, human iPS cells - derived from the skin cells of a 53-year-old donor - were first transformed with a cocktail of growth factors into cells in the retina that lie underneath the eye's light-sensing cells.

The primary job of the retina cells is to nourish the light-sensing cells and protect the fragile cells from excess light, heat, and cellular debris. If the retina cells die - which happens in macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa - the photoreceptor cells degenerate and the patient loses vision.

Macular degeneration is a leading cause of vision loss in the elderly, and it is estimated that 30 percent of people will have some form of macular degeneration by age 75.

In their study, the researchers injected the iPS-derived retina cells into the right eyes of 34 mice that had a genetic mutation that caused their retina cells to degenerate.

See the original post here:
Patients' own skin cells could restore vision in elderly with macular degeneration

Washington, October 2 (ANI): A new study has suggested that induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells - which are derived from adult human skin cells but have embryonic properties - could soon be used to restore vision in people with macular degeneration and other diseases that affect the eye's retina.

In the study conducted by Columbia ophthalmologists and stem cell researchers, adult stem cells developed from a patient's skin cells improved the vision of blind mice.

"With eye diseases, I think we're getting close to a scenario where a patient's own skin cells are used to replace retina cells destroyed by disease or degeneration," said the study's principal investigator, Stephen Tsang, MD, PhD, associate professor of ophthalmology and pathology and cell biology.

"It's often said that iPS transplantation will be important in the practice of medicine in some distant future, but our paper suggests the future is almost here," he stated.

The advent of human iPS cells in 2007 was greeted with excitement from scientists who hailed the development as a way to avoid the ethical complications of embryonic stem cells and create patient-specific stem cells.

Like embryonic stem cells, iPS cells can develop into any type of cell. Thousands of different iPS cell lines from patients and healthy donors have been created in the last few years, but they are almost always used in research or drug screening.

In Tsang's new preclinical iPS study, human iPS cells - derived from the skin cells of a 53-year-old donor - were first transformed with a cocktail of growth factors into cells in the retina that lie underneath the eye's light-sensing cells.

The primary job of the retina cells is to nourish the light-sensing cells and protect the fragile cells from excess light, heat, and cellular debris. If the retina cells die - which happens in macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa - the photoreceptor cells degenerate and the patient loses vision.

Macular degeneration is a leading cause of vision loss in the elderly, and it is estimated that 30 percent of people will have some form of macular degeneration by age 75.

In their study, the researchers injected the iPS-derived retina cells into the right eyes of 34 mice that had a genetic mutation that caused their retina cells to degenerate.

Continued here:
Patients' own skin cells could restore vision in elderly with macular degeneration

Public release date: 1-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Elizabeth Streich estreich@columbia.edu 212-305-3689 Columbia University Medical Center

An experimental treatment for blindness, developed from a patient's skin cells, improved the vision of blind mice in a study conducted by Columbia ophthalmologists and stem cell researchers.

The findings suggest that induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells which are derived from adult human skin cells but have embryonic properties could soon be used to restore vision in people with macular degeneration and other diseases that affect the eye's retina.

"With eye diseases, I think we're getting close to a scenario where a patient's own skin cells are used to replace retina cells destroyed by disease or degeneration," says the study's principal investigator, Stephen Tsang, MD, PhD, associate professor of ophthalmology and pathology & cell biology. "It's often said that iPS transplantation will be important in the practice of medicine in some distant future, but our paper suggests the future is almost here."

The advent of human iPS cells in 2007 was greeted with excitement from scientists who hailed the development as a way to avoid the ethical complications of embryonic stem cells and create patient-specific stem cells. Like embryonic stem cells, iPS cells can develop into any type of cell. Thousands of different iPS cell lines from patients and healthy donors have been created in the last few years, but they are almost always used in research or drug screening.

No iPS cells have been transplanted into people, but many ophthalmologists say the eye is the ideal testing ground for iPS therapies.

"The eye is a transparent and accessible part of the central nervous system, and that's a big advantage. We can put cells into the eye and monitor them every day with routine non-invasive clinical exams," Tsang says. "And in the event of serious complications, removing the eye is not a life-threatening event."

In Tsang's new preclinical iPS study, human iPS cells derived from the skin cells of a 53-year-old donor were first transformed with a cocktail of growth factors into cells in the retina that lie underneath the eye's light-sensing cells.

The primary job of the retina cells is to nourish the light-sensing cells and protect the fragile cells from excess light, heat, and cellular debris. If the retina cells die which happens in macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa the photoreceptor cells degenerate and the patient loses vision. Macular degeneration is a leading cause of vision loss in the elderly, and it is estimated that 30 percent of people will have some form of macular degeneration by age 75. Macular degeneration currently affects 7 million Americans and its incidence is expected to double by 2020.

Read the rest here:
Stem cells improve visual function in blind mice

GRAND FORKS The goal of a Grand Forks start-up is to get customers to prepare for a future in which todays medical breakthroughs based on stem cells are commonplace.

You would ordinarily think this is science fiction, said Vin Singh, founder of Next Healthcare, based at UNDs Center for Innovation.

Singh is referring to developments in regenerative medicine in which researchers have used stem cells to re-grow lung, cornea and trachea cells and create other types of human tissue. These advances point to a future when replacing organs will become a common medical procedure.

And he wants people to act now.

Singhs business, which he has been building since 2009 and launched this past spring, is a cell bank, storing samples of clients skin, blood and bone marrow cells for future use when regenerative treatments are improved and widespread.

We know some of them are going to work, and were betting that youre going to be able to use some of your cells, Singh said. If and when those therapies come on line, you will have that healthy seed.

Betting on future

Singhs resume lists a number of companies in the biomedical field. But the basis of his new business is essentially storage, freezing samples of clients tissue that could be used by doctors to treat future health problems.

Clients doctors collect their tissue samples and send them to Next Healthcare in Grand Forks, where they are stored frozen. The company is based in UNDs REAC building, which provides biocontainment facilities. Next Healthcare also has a second storage facility in North Dakota at an undisclosed location, Singh said.

The key to therapies that Singhs company is betting on and wants prospective customers to bet on are advances within the past decade that have manipulated non-stem cells from skin or blood to mimic stem cells ability to grow into different types of tissues.

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Grand Forks firm stores human cells for future treatments

Public release date: 28-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Charles Casey charles.casey@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu 916-734-9048 University of California - Davis Health System

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) UC Davis investigators have found new evidence that a promising type of stem cell now being considered for a variety of disease therapies is very similar to the type of cells that give rise to cancer. The findings suggest that although the cells -- known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) -- show substantial promise as a source of replacement cells and tissues to treat injuries, disease and chronic conditions, scientists and physicians must move cautiously with any clinical use because iPSCs could also cause malignant cancer.

The article, "Induced pluripotency and oncogenic transformation are related processes," is now online in the journal, Stem Cells and Development.

"This is the first study that describes the specific molecular pathways that iPSCs and cancer cells share from a direct comparison" said Paul Knoepfler, associate professor of cell biology and human anatomy, and principal investigator of the study. "It means that much more study is required before iPSCs can be used clinically. However, our study adds to a growing knowledge base that not only will help make stem cell therapies safer, but also provide us with new understandings about the cancer-causing process and more effective ways to fight the disease."

Since 2007, cell biologists have been able to induce specialized, differentiated cells (such as those obtained from the skin or muscle of a human adult) to become iPSCs. Like embryonic stem cells, iPSCs are a type of stem cell that is able to become any cell type. This "pluripotent" capability means that iPSCs have the potential of being used in treatments for a variety of human diseases, a fundamentally new type of clinical care known as regenerative medicine.

iPSCs are considered particularly important because their production avoids the controversy that surrounds embryonic stem cells. In addition, iPSCs can be taken from a patient's own skin and induced to produce other needed tissues, thereby evading the possibility of immunologic rejection that arises when transplanting cells from a donor to a recipient. In contrast to therapies based on ES cells, iPSCs would eliminate the need for patients to take immunosuppressive drugs.

Earlier research indicated that both ES cells and iPSCs pose some health risks. Increasing evidence suggests that pluripotency may be related to rapid cellular growth, a characteristic of cancer. iPSCs, as well as embryonic stem cells, are well known by scientists to have the propensity to cause teratomas, an unusual type of benign tumor that consists of many different cell types. The new UC Davis study demonstrates for the first time that iPSCs -- as well as ES cells -- share significant similarities to malignant cancer cells.

The investigators compared iPSCs to a form of malignant cancer known as oncogenic foci that are also produced in laboratories; these cell types are used by medical researchers to create models of cancer, particularly sarcoma. Specifically, the scientists contrasted the different cells' transcriptomes, comprised of the RNA molecules or "transcripts." Unlike DNA analysis, which reflects a cell's entire genetic code whether or not the genes are active, transcriptomes reflect only the genes that are actively expressed at a given time and therefore provide a picture of actual cellular activity.

From this transcriptome analysis, the investigators found that the iPSCs and malignant sarcoma cancer cells are unexpectedly similar in several respects. Genes that were not expressed in iPSCs were also not expressed in the cancer-generating cells, including many that have properties that guide a cell to normally differentiate in certain directions. Both cell types also exhibited evidence of similar metabolic activities, another indication that they are related cell types.

Here is the original post:
Researchers find multiple similarities between cancer cells and induced pluripotent stem cells

ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2012) UC Davis investigators have found new evidence that a promising type of stem cell now being considered for a variety of disease therapies is very similar to the type of cells that give rise to cancer. The findings suggest that although the cells -- known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) -- show substantial promise as a source of replacement cells and tissues to treat injuries, disease and chronic conditions, scientists and physicians must move cautiously with any clinical use because iPSCs could also cause malignant cancer.

The article, "Induced pluripotency and oncogenic transformation are related processes," is now online in the journal, Stem Cells and Development.

"This is the first study that describes the specific molecular pathways that iPSCs and cancer cells share from a direct comparison" said Paul Knoepfler, associate professor of cell biology and human anatomy, and principal investigator of the study. "It means that much more study is required before iPSCs can be used clinically. However, our study adds to a growing knowledge base that not only will help make stem cell therapies safer, but also provide us with new understandings about the cancer-causing process and more effective ways to fight the disease."

Since 2007, cell biologists have been able to induce specialized, differentiated cells (such as those obtained from the skin or muscle of a human adult) to become iPSCs. Like embryonic stem cells, iPSCs are a type of stem cell that is able to become any cell type. This "pluripotent" capability means that iPSCs have the potential of being used in treatments for a variety of human diseases, a fundamentally new type of clinical care known as regenerative medicine.

iPSCs are considered particularly important because their production avoids the controversy that surrounds embryonic stem cells. In addition, iPSCs can be taken from a patient's own skin and induced to produce other needed tissues, thereby evading the possibility of immunologic rejection that arises when transplanting cells from a donor to a recipient. In contrast to therapies based on ES cells, iPSCs would eliminate the need for patients to take immunosuppressive drugs.

Earlier research indicated that both ES cells and iPSCs pose some health risks. Increasing evidence suggests that pluripotency may be related to rapid cellular growth, a characteristic of cancer. iPSCs, as well as embryonic stem cells, are well known by scientists to have the propensity to cause teratomas, an unusual type of benign tumor that consists of many different cell types. The new UC Davis study demonstrates for the first time that iPSCs -- as well as ES cells -- share significant similarities to malignant cancer cells.

The investigators compared iPSCs to a form of malignant cancer known as oncogenic foci that are also produced in laboratories; these cell types are used by medical researchers to create models of cancer, particularly sarcoma. Specifically, the scientists contrasted the different cells' transcriptomes, composed of the RNA molecules or "transcripts." Unlike DNA analysis, which reflects a cell's entire genetic code whether or not the genes are active, transcriptomes reflect only the genes that are actively expressed at a given time and therefore provide a picture of actual cellular activity.

From this transcriptome analysis, the investigators found that the iPSCs and malignant sarcoma cancer cells are unexpectedly similar in several respects. Genes that were not expressed in iPSCs were also not expressed in the cancer-generating cells, including many that have properties that guide a cell to normally differentiate in certain directions. Both cell types also exhibited evidence of similar metabolic activities, another indication that they are related cell types.

"We were surprised how similar iPSCS were to cancer-generating cells," said Knoepfler. "Our findings indicate that the search for therapeutic applications of iPSCs must proceed with considerable caution if we are to do our best to promote patient safety."

Knoepfler noted, for example, that future experimental therapies using iPSCs for human transplants would most often not involve implanting iPSCs directly into a patient. Instead, iPSCs would be used to create differentiated cells -- or tissues -- in the laboratory, which could then be transplanted into a patient. This approach avoids implanting the actual undifferentiated iPSCS, and reduces the risk of tumor development as a side effect. However, Knoepfler noted that even trace amounts of residual iPSCs could cause cancer in patients, a possibility supported by his team's latest research.

Excerpt from:
Multiple similarities discovered between cancer cells and induced pluripotent stem cells

September 30, 2012

April Flowers for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

A research team from the University of California, Davis, has found evidence that a promising type of stem cell being considered for a variety of disease therapies is very similar to the type of cells that cause cancer. The cells, known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) show promise as a source of replacement cells and tissues to treat injuries, diseases and chronic conditions. Although the iPSCs have the potential for such good, scientists have to move cautiously because they could also cause malignant cancer, according to the teams study published online in the journal Stem Cells and Development.

This is the first study that describes the specific molecular pathways that iPSCs and cancer cells share from a direct comparison said Paul Knoepfler, associate professor of cell biology and human anatomy. It means that much more study is required before iPSCs can be used clinically. However, our study adds to a growing knowledge base that not only will help make stem cell therapies safer, but also provide us with new understandings about the cancer-causing process and more effective ways to fight the disease.

Cell biologists have been able to induce specialized, differentiated cells such as those obtained from the skin or muscle of adult humans to become iPSCs since 2007. Like embryonic stem cells, iPSCs are pluripotent, meaning they can become any type of cell and have the potential for being used in treatments for a variety of human diseases. This is a fundamentally new type of clinical care known as regenerative medicine.

The production of iPSCs avoids the controversy that surrounds embryonic stem cells (ES), making them particularly important. They can also be taken from a patients own skin and induced to produce other needed tissues, making the chances of immunologic rejection extremely low, eliminating the need to take immunosuppressive drugs.

Earlier studies indicate that both ES and iPSCs pose some health risks. There is an increasing amount of evidence that suggests pluripotency may be related to rapid cellular growth, which is a characteristic of cancer. Both types of stem cells are well known by scientists to have the propensity to cause teratomas, a benign tumor that consists of many different cell types. This new study from UC Davis demonstrates that iPSCs as well as ES cells share significant similarities to malignant cancer cells.

The research team compares iPSCs to a form of malignant cancer known as oncogenic foci that are also produced in laboratories. These are used by scientists to create models of cancer, particularly sarcoma. The scientists contrasted the different cells transcriptomes, comprised of the RNA molecules or transcripts. Transcriptomes reflect only the genes that are actively expressed at a given time and therefore provide a picture of actual cellular activity, unlike DNA analysis, which reflects a cells entire genetic code whether or not the genes are active.

By analyzing the transcriptomes, the team found that the iPSCs and malignant sarcoma cancer cells are unexpectedly similar. Genes not expressed in iPSCs are also not expressed in the cancer-generating cells, including many that have properties that guide a cell to normally differentiate in certain directions. Both cell types also exhibited similar metabolic activities. This is another indication that they are related cell types.

We were surprised how similar iPSCS were to cancer-generating cells, said Knoepfler. Our findings indicate that the search for therapeutic applications of iPSCs must proceed with considerable caution if we are to do our best to promote patient safety.

See the rest here:
Researchers Find Similarities Between Cancer Cells And Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Public release date: 25-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Heather Buschman hbuschman@sanfordburnham.org 858-795-5343 Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute

LA JOLLA, Calif., September 25, 2012 The process researchers use to generate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)a special type of stem cell that can be made in the lab from any type of adult cellis time consuming and inefficient. To speed things up, researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) turned to kinase inhibitors. These chemical compounds block the activity of kinases, enzymes responsible for many aspects of cellular communication, survival, and growth. As they outline in a paper published September 25 in Nature Communications, the team found several kinase inhibitors that, when added to starter cells, help generate many more iPSCs than the standard method. This new capability will likely speed up research in many fields, better enabling scientists around the world to study human disease and develop new treatments.

"Generating iPSCs depends on the regulation of communication networks within cells," explained Tariq Rana, Ph.D., program director in Sanford-Burnham's Sanford Children's Health Research Center and senior author of the study. "So, when you start manipulating which genes are turned on or off in cells to create pluripotent stem cells, you are probably activating a large number of kinases. Since many of these active kinases are likely inhibiting the conversion to iPSCs, it made sense to us that adding inhibitors might lower the barrier."

According to Tony Hunter, Ph.D., professor in the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and director of the Salk Institute Cancer Center, "The identification of small molecules that improve the efficiency of generating iPSCs is an important step forward in being able to use these cells therapeutically. Tariq Rana's exciting new work has uncovered a class of protein kinase inhibitors that override the normal barriers to efficient iPSC formation, and these inhibitors should prove useful in generating iPSCs from new sources for experimental and ultimately therapeutic purposes." Hunter, a kinase expert, was not involved in this study.

The promise of iPSCs

At the moment, the only treatment option available to many heart failure patients is a heart transplant. Looking for a better alternative, many researchers are coaxing stem cells into new heart muscle. In Alzheimer's disease, researchers are also interested in stem cells, using them to reproduce a person's own malfunctioning brain cells in a dish, where they can be used to test therapeutic drugs. But where do these stem cells come from? Since the advent of iPSC technology, the answer in many cases is the lab. Like their embryonic cousins, iPSCs can be used to generate just about any cell typeheart, brain, or muscle, to name a fewthat can be used to test new therapies or potentially to replace diseased or damaged tissue.

It sounds simple enough: you start with any type of differentiated cell, such as skin cells, add four molecules that reprogram the cells' genomes, and then try to catch those that successfully revert to unspecialized iPSCs. But the process takes a long time and isn't very efficientyou can start with thousands of skin cells and end up with just a few iPSCs.

Inhibiting kinases to make more iPSCs

Zhonghan Li, a graduate student in Rana's laboratory, took on the task of finding kinase inhibitors that might speed up the iPSC-generating process. Scientists in the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics, Sanford-Burnham's drug discovery facility, provided Li with a collection of more than 240 chemical compounds that inhibit kinases. Li painstakingly added them one-by-one to his cells and waited to see what happened. Several kinase inhibitors produced many more iPSCs than the untreated cellsin some cases too many iPSCs for the tiny dish housing them. The most potent inhibitors targeted three kinases in particular: AurkA, P38, and IP3K.

Read more from the original source:
Making it easier to make stem cells

ScienceDaily (Sep. 25, 2012) The process researchers use to generate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) -- a special type of stem cell that can be made in the lab from any type of adult cell -- is time consuming and inefficient. To speed things up, researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) turned to kinase inhibitors. These chemical compounds block the activity of kinases, enzymes responsible for many aspects of cellular communication, survival, and growth.

As they outline in a paper published September 25 in Nature Communications, the team found several kinase inhibitors that, when added to starter cells, help generate many more iPSCs than the standard method. This new capability will likely speed up research in many fields, better enabling scientists around the world to study human disease and develop new treatments.

"Generating iPSCs depends on the regulation of communication networks within cells," explained Tariq Rana, Ph.D., program director in Sanford-Burnham's Sanford Children's Health Research Center and senior author of the study. "So, when you start manipulating which genes are turned on or off in cells to create pluripotent stem cells, you are probably activating a large number of kinases. Since many of these active kinases are likely inhibiting the conversion to iPSCs, it made sense to us that adding inhibitors might lower the barrier."

According to Tony Hunter, Ph.D., professor in the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and director of the Salk Institute Cancer Center, "The identification of small molecules that improve the efficiency of generating iPSCs is an important step forward in being able to use these cells therapeutically. Tariq Rana's exciting new work has uncovered a class of protein kinase inhibitors that override the normal barriers to efficient iPSC formation, and these inhibitors should prove useful in generating iPSCs from new sources for experimental and ultimately therapeutic purposes." Hunter, a kinase expert, was not involved in this study.

The promise of iPSCs

At the moment, the only treatment option available to many heart failure patients is a heart transplant. Looking for a better alternative, many researchers are coaxing stem cells into new heart muscle. In Alzheimer's disease, researchers are also interested in stem cells, using them to reproduce a person's own malfunctioning brain cells in a dish, where they can be used to test therapeutic drugs. But where do these stem cells come from? Since the advent of iPSC technology, the answer in many cases is the lab. Like their embryonic cousins, iPSCs can be used to generate just about any cell type -- heart, brain, or muscle, to name a few -- that can be used to test new therapies or potentially to replace diseased or damaged tissue.

It sounds simple enough: you start with any type of differentiated cell, such as skin cells, add four molecules that reprogram the cells' genomes, and then try to catch those that successfully revert to unspecialized iPSCs. But the process takes a long time and isn't very efficient -- you can start with thousands of skin cells and end up with just a few iPSCs.

Inhibiting kinases to make more iPSCs

Zhonghan Li, a graduate student in Rana's laboratory, took on the task of finding kinase inhibitors that might speed up the iPSC-generating process. Scientists in the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics, Sanford-Burnham's drug discovery facility, provided Li with a collection of more than 240 chemical compounds that inhibit kinases. Li painstakingly added them one-by-one to his cells and waited to see what happened. Several kinase inhibitors produced many more iPSCs than the untreated cells -- in some cases too many iPSCs for the tiny dish housing them. The most potent inhibitors targeted three kinases in particular: AurkA, P38, and IP3K.

Working with the staff in Sanford-Burnham's genomics, bioinformatics, animal modeling, and histology core facilities -- valuable resources and expertise available to all Sanford-Burnham scientists and the scientific community at large -- Rana and Li further confirmed the specificity of their findings and even nailed down the mechanism behind one inhibitor's beneficial actions.

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Making it easier to make stem cells: Kinase inhibitors lower barrier to producing stem cells in lab

SHANGHAI doctors announced the success of a novel technology that uses people's own skin via stem cells to grow a new face for seriously disfigured patients.

It's an alternative to the surgery used in the West in which doctors transplant the face from a dead body to a patient.

Facial tissue developed with the new technology is more readily accepted physically and psychologically by patients and has no ethical issues, doctors from Shanghai No. 9 People's Hospital said yesterday.

Since adopting the new technology, doctors have used it on more than 60 patients, including seven who needed their whole face replaced or major facial changes.

Of the seven, six were a success, while one case failed as skin on part of the face died, doctors said.

Patients include women disfigured by having sulfuric acid splashed in their faces, people who lost their nose during a fight and a person whose face was seriously burned in a fire.

Under the technology, doctors remove certain blood vessels from the patient's leg to build a small vessel net and transplant it into a place on the body to grow the new face, usually on the a patient's upper chest.

Then doctors use a skin dilator to expand the skin like a bulging ball. Later they inject the patient's own stem cells to help the skin grow stronger and stimulate the growth of blood vessels.

Soft bones which are shaped into facial features like a nose and upper jaw bone in line with the patient's own facial skeleton are then transplanted under the new facial skin.

Finally, the new face is transplanted onto the disfigured face. The new face, which is thin and comprised of a whole piece of living skin, will join with the facial muscles, thus giving a patient natural facial expressions and function to the greatest extent possible.

Read more here:
Eastday-Shanghai doctors reveal face-change leap

SHANGHAI doctors announced the success of a novel technology that uses people's own skin via stem cells to grow a new face for seriously disfigured patients.

It's an alternative to the surgery used in the West in which doctors transplant the face from a dead body to a patient.

Facial tissue developed with the new technology is more readily accepted physically and psychologically by patients and has no ethical issues, doctors from Shanghai No. 9 People's Hospital said yesterday.

Since adopting the new technology, doctors have used it on more than 60 patients, including seven who needed their whole face replaced or major facial changes.

Of the seven, six were a success, while one case failed as skin on part of the face died, doctors said.

Patients include women disfigured by having sulfuric acid splashed in their faces, people who lost their nose during a fight and a person whose face was seriously burned in a fire.

Under the technology, doctors remove certain blood vessels from the patient's leg to build a small vessel net and transplant it into a place on the body to grow the new face, usually on the a patient's upper chest.

Then doctors use a skin dilator to expand the skin like a bulging ball. Later they inject the patient's own stem cells to help the skin grow stronger and stimulate the growth of blood vessels.

Soft bones which are shaped into facial features like a nose and upper jaw bone in line with the patient's own facial skeleton are then transplanted under the new facial skin.

Finally, the new face is transplanted onto the disfigured face. The new face, which is thin and comprised of a whole piece of living skin, will join with the facial muscles, thus giving a patient natural facial expressions and function to the greatest extent possible.

Read more:
Eastday-Shanghai doctors reveal face-change leap

London, Sep 10:

Ladies, you may not have to depend upon painful Botox injections and expensive cosmetic surgery for long to look young.

A British firm is trialling a new natural method which involves injecting the patients own stem cells to restore skins youthful elasticity.

Researchers believe they will spur the growth of new skin cells, called fibroblasts, which make the elastic ingredient collagen which is produced in large quantities when we are young, but declines as we age, the Daily Mail reported.

The company Pharmacells, based in Glasgow, plans to begin clinical trials in 12 months, using stem cells harvested from a blood sample from the patients.

They believe the procedure could be commercially available in just three years, potentially revolutionising the market for anti-ageing treatments.

By using the bodys own cells, it is billed as a more natural approach to reducing the signs of ageing than Botox, a chemical which freezes the facial muscles to smooth wrinkles.

The company has licensed the technology to harvest a new type of stem cell called a blastomere-like stem cell (CORR) which is found circulating in the blood.

Like other types of stem cells, it is unspecialised and can develop into many other types of cell in the human body such as a liver, brain or skin cell.

The advantage of this particular one it is available in very large doses from one blood sample.

Originally posted here:
Soon a stem cell jabs to end wrinkles

British firm is trialling new method by injecting patient's own stem cells to restore skin's youthful elasticity

By Tamara Cohen

PUBLISHED: 10:40 EST, 9 September 2012 | UPDATED: 02:12 EST, 10 September 2012

Scientists will begin clinical trials in 12 months, using stem cells harvested from a blood sample from the patients

Scientists are working on a new weapon in the war against wrinkles.

There are not many things women have not tried in the quest for a youthful complexion from lotions and potions to Botox and cosmetic surgery.

But a British firm is trialling a new method which involves injecting the patients own stem cells to restore skins youthful elasticity.

Researchers believe they will spur the growth of new skin cells, called fibroblasts, which make the elastic ingredient collagen which is produced in large quantities when we are young, but declines as we age.

The company Pharmacells, based in Glasgow, plan to begin clinical trials in 12 months, using stem cells harvested from a blood sample from the patients.

They believe the procedure could be commercially available in just three years, potentially revolutionising the market for anti-ageing treatments.

Read the original post:
Could this stem cell cure for wrinkles end the endless hunt for the perfect skin cream?

TORONTO, Sept. 10, 2012 /CNW/ - Sigmacon Skin Sciences announced it is the exclusive Canadian distributor of Stemulation, a luxury skin care line that uses the healing power of human stem cells to combat wrinkles and other signs of aging.

Stemulation is based on the science that stem cells can be effectively used for skin rejuvenation, tissue repair and wound healing. A research team of specialists spent two years capturing growth factors from adult human skin cells, which they turned into an active ingredient and the basis for Stemulation products. These growth factors stimulate collagen and the reproduction of new skin cells to reduce wrinkles, eliminate sun spots and smooth scars and fine lines. It truly is a groundbreaking (and technology-backed) new way to achieve younger-looking skin!

The Stemulation line includes a serum, cleanser, exfoliant and face and body creams. The line will be sold through select doctors, estheticians and medical spas.

ABOUT Sigmacon Skin Sciences is the national distributor of a comprehensive set of performance skin care products with dedicated product specialists and trainings all across Canada. Our product lines include professional treatments, sun protection products and results-oriented home care. Sigmacon is also the distributor of advanced medical and aesthetic devices. Visit http://www.skinsciences.ca to learn more.

Image with caption: "The Future of Skin Care: Stemulation Facial Serum and Boost Crme used over 1 year. (CNW Group/Sigmacon Skin Sciences)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20120910_C3135_PHOTO_EN_17420.jpg

Link:
Introducing Canadians to a whole new way to treat aging skin: Stemulation

Parkinson's is a horrible degenerative disorder of the central nervous system which is sadly incurable. But now a team of scientists from Johns Hopkins has been able to grow the brain cells which are usually destroyed by the disease from skin stem cellsand they're confident it will help them develop new treatments.

In fact, their experiments have already been using the lab-grown brain cells to test the effectiveness of drugs currently in development to treat Parkinson's. More exciting, they explain in their report, published in Science Translational Medicine, that the ability to test in the lab should massively speed up the search for new drugs to treat the condition. Ted M. Dawson explains another possibility of the development:

"Our study suggests that some failed drugs should actually work if they were used earlier, and especially if we could diagnose Parkinson's before tremors and other symptoms first appear."

While scientists have in the past been able to halt the disease in mice, none of the compounds used to do so have translated effectively to humans. That suggests that the disease works differently in humans to animals, and makes the new finding all the more useful.

The current thinking is that Parkinson's damages the mitochondria of dopamine neurons in the brain, in effect cutting off their energy supply. The next step for the Johns Hopkins researchers, then, is to investigate how they can slow that damage in the lab-grown cells. [Science Translational Medicine via John Hopkins]

Image by Lasse Kristensen/Shutterstock

Go here to read the rest:
Scientists Use Skin To Replace Brain Cells Destroyed By Parkinson's [Science]

Scientists have for the first time watched and manipulated stem cells as they regenerate tissue in an uninjured mammal, Yale researchers report July 1 online in the journal Nature.

Using a sophisticated imaging technique, the researchers also demonstrated that mice lacking a certain type of cell do not regrow hair. The same technique could shed light on how stem cells interact with other cells and trigger repairs in a variety of other organs, including lung and heart tissue.

This tells us a lot about how the tissue regeneration process works, said Valentina Greco, assistant professor of genetics and of dermatology at the Yale Stem Cell Center, researcher for the Yale Cancer Center and senior author of the study.

Greco and her team focused on stem cell behavior in the hair follicle of the mouse. The accessibility of the hair follicle allowed real-time and non-invasive imaging through a technology called 2-photon intravital microscopy.

Using this method, Panteleimon Rompolas, a post-doctoral fellow in Grecos lab and lead author of this paper, was able to study the interaction between stem cells and their progeny, which produce all the different types of cells in the tissue. The interaction of these cells with the immediate environment determines how cells divide, where they migrate and which specialized cells they become.

The technology allowed the team to discover that hair growth in mice cannot take place in the absence of connective tissue called mesenchyme, which appears early in embryonic development.

Stem cells not only spur growth of hair in mammals including humans, but also can serve to regenerate many other types of tissues.

Understanding how stem cell behavior is regulated by the microenvironment can advance our use of stem cells for therapeutic purposes and uncover mechanisms that go wrong in cancer and other diseases, Greco said.

The study was funded by an Alexander Brown Coxe postdoctoral fellowship. This work was supported in part by the American Skin Association and the American Cancer Society and the Yale Rheumatologic Disease Research Core Center and the National Institutes of Health.

Other Yale authors include Elizabeth Deschene, Giovanni Zito, David G. Gonzalez, Ichiko Saotome and Ann M. Haberman.

Continued here:
In real time, Yale scientists watch stem cells at work regenerating tissue