Bubba sings with Max Renshaw at Lew Reed Spinal Cord Injury Fund Benefit 6-28-14
Thanks to all of Bubba #39;s friends, Sunny Jo Loudin, Rich Edwards Puyallup Eagles volunteers who helped raise funds for victims of spinal cord injuries.

By: Marty Solis

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Bubba sings with Max Renshaw at Lew Reed Spinal Cord Injury Fund Benefit 6-28-14 - Video

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The STAP stem cell saga has reached its bitter conclusion for now.

The authors of two papers published by the journal Nature, which claimed to have produced embryonic-like stem cells from adult cells, have retracted them.

The papers said that almost any adult cell could be coaxed into becoming a stem cell just by dipping them in a bath of acid for 30 minutes. The method held great promise for regenerative medicine because it could be used to create any cell without needing to reprogram genes, or destroy an embryo. The team, led by researchers at the Riken Institute in Kobe, Japan, called this technique stimulustriggered acquisition of pluripotency, or STAP.

But in the months after publication, no independent team was able to replicate the experiments. Instead, the researchers around the world scrutinising the papers exposed many flaws in the papers including manipulated pictures of protein gel panels and mislabelled images. A public flogging of many high profile researchers ensued (see ""How the STAP cell story unfolded", below) and Nature's review process was thrust into the spotlight.

The journal published two statements today from the authors saying they were retracting both papers. The statements include an apology from the authors, in which they admit that multiple errors impair the credibility of the study. They concede that they are unable to say without doubt whether the STAP cell phenomenon is real.

An accompanying Nature editorial says that in practice, it may be impossible for journals to police gel panels routinely "without disproportionate editorial effort". The journal says it is now reviewing its screening practices to increase such checks.

The editorial goes on to say that Nature believes that its editors and referees could not have detected the fatal faults in this work. However, it emerged during the investigation that the papers were first submitted for publication in Science. According to a Nature News blog, Science rejected them after spotting the manipulated images and warning the lead author of the papers, Haruko Obokata, that such composite images need to be marked. Soon after the papers were published, independent bloggers started finding discrepancies in the work.

The Nature editorial states that the episode has highlighted flaws in Nature's procedures. The journal says that it needs to put quality assurance even higher on its agenda to make sure that people's trust in science is not betrayed.

Charles Vacanti at Harvard Medical School, one of the authors on the papers, has said that he is deeply saddened by the whole episode, although he continues to believe that none of the issues cast doubt on the existence of STAP cells themselves. He says he is encouraged that Riken president Ryoji Noyori and other independent labs will now allow sufficient time to try to replicate the experiments.

29 January Two high profile papers are published in Nature claiming that adult cells could be coaxed into becoming stem cells by dipping them in a bath of acid for 30 minutes. The team call these new cells stimulustriggered acquisition of stem cells, or STAP cells.

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Acid-bath stem cell papers are finally retracted

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Stem cell scientists had what first appeared to be an easy win for regenerative medicine when they discovered mesenchymal stem cells several decades ago. These cells, found in the bone marrow, can give rise to bone, fat, and muscle tissue, and have been used in hundreds of clinical trials for tissue repair. Unfortunately, the results of these trials have been underwhelming. One problem is that these stem cells don't stick around in the body long enough to benefit the patient.

But Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) scientists at Boston Children's Hospital aren't ready to give up. A research team led by Juan Melero-Martin, PhD, recently found that transplanting mesenchymal stem cells along with blood vessel-forming cells naturally found in circulation improves results. This co-transplantation keeps the mesenchymal stem cells alive longer in mice after engraftment, up to a few weeks compared to hours without co-transplantation. This improved survival gives the mesenchymal stem cells sufficient time to display their full regenerative potential, generating new bone or fat tissue in the recipient mouse body. The finding was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

"We are losing mesenchymal stem cells very rapidly when we transplant them into the body, in part, because we are not giving them what they need," said Melero-Martin, an HSCI affiliated faculty member and an assistant professor of surgery at Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

"In the body, these cells sit very close to the capillaries, constantly receiving signals from them, and even though this communication is broken when we isolate mesenchymal stem cells in a laboratory dish, they seem to be ok because we have learned how to feed them," he said. "But when you put the mesenchymal stem cells back into the body, there is a period of time when they will not have this proximity to capillary cells and they start to die; so including these blood vessel-forming cells from the very beginning of a transplantation made a major difference."

Melero-Martin's research has immediate translational implications, as current mesenchymal clinical trials don't follow a co-transplantation procedure. He is already collaborating with surgical colleagues at Boston Children's Hospital to see if his discovery can help improve fat and bone grafts. However, giving patients two different types of cells, as opposed to just one, would require more time and experiments to determine safety and efficacy. Melero-Martin is seeking to identify the specific signals mesenchymal stem cells receive from the blood vessel-forming cells in order to be able to mimic the signals without the cells themselves.

"Even though mesenchymal stem cells have been around for a while, I think there is still a lack of fundamental knowledge about communication between them and other cells in the body," he said. "My lab is interested in going even beyond what we found to try to understand whether these cell-cell signals are different in each tissue of the body, and to learn how to educate both blood vessel-forming and mesenchymal stem cells to co-ordinate tissue specific regenerative responses."

Other Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers are studying mesenchymal stem cells as bioengineering tools to deliver therapeutics, which is possible because of the cell type's unique ability to not trigger an immune response. Jeffrey Karp, PhD, at Brigham and Women's Hospital has developed several methods to turn these cells into drug-delivery vehicles, so that after transplantation they can, for example, hone in on swollen tissue and secrete anti-inflammatory compounds. And Khalid Shah, PhD, at Massachusetts General Hospital has designed a gel that holds mesenchymal stem cells in place so that they can expose brain tumors to cancer-killing herpes viruses.

"A lot of these applications have no real direct link with mesenchymal stem cells' supposed progenitor cell function," Melero-Martin said. "In our study, we went back to the collective ambition to use these cells as a way to regenerate tissues and we are not in a position to say how that affects other uses that people are proposing."

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The above story is based on materials provided by Harvard University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Research team pursues techniques to improve elusive stem cell therapy

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Contact: Krysten Carrera krysten.carrera@nih.gov 301-435-8112 The JAMA Network Journals

Use of a lower intensity bone marrow transplantation method showed promising results among 30 patients (16-65 years of age) with severe sickle cell disease, according to a study in the July 2 issue of JAMA.

Myeloablative (use of high-dose chemotherapy or radiation) allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT; receipt of hematopoietic stem cells "bone marrow" from another individual) is curative for children with severe sickle cell disease, but associated toxicity has made the procedure prohibitive for adults. The development of nonmyeloablative conditioning regimens (use of lower doses of chemotherapy or radiation to prepare the bone marrow to receive new cells) may facilitate safer application of allogeneic HSCT to eligible adults, according to background information in the article.

Matthew M. Hsieh, M.D., of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, Md., and colleagues explored a nonmyeloablative approach in a pilot group of 10 adults with severe sickle cell disease, using a simplified HSCT regimen (with stem cell donation from a immunologically matched sibling), that had few toxic effects, yet all patients continued taking immunosuppression medication. The researchers have since revised the protocol to include an option to stop immunosuppression after 1 year in selected patients (those with donor CD3 engraftment of greater than 50 percent and normalization of hemoglobin). In this report, the authors describe the outcomes for 20 additional patients with severe sickle cell disease, along with updated results from the first 10 patients. All 30 patients (ages 16-65 years) were enrolled in the study from July 2004 to October 2013.

As of October 25, 2013, 29 patients were alive with a median follow-up of 3.4 years, and 26 patients (87 percent) had long-term stable donor engraftment without acute or chronic graft-vs-host disease. Hemoglobin levels improved after HSCT; at 1 year, 25 patients (83 percent) had full donor-type hemoglobin. Fifteen engrafted patients discontinued immunosuppression medication and had no graft-vs-host disease.

The average annual hospitalization rate was 3.2 the year before HSCT, 0.63 the first year after, 0.19 the second year after, and 0.11 the third year after transplant. Eleven patients were taking narcotics long-term at the time of transplant. During the week they were hospitalized and received their HSCT, the average narcotics use per week was 639 mg of intravenous morphine-equivalent dose. The dosage decreased to 140 mg 6 months after the transplant.

There were 38 serious adverse events including pain, infections, abdominal events, and toxic effects from the medication sirolimus.

"In this article, we extend our previous results and show that this HSCT procedure can be applied to older adults, even those with severe comorbid conditions " the authors write. "These data reinforce the low toxicity of this regimen, especially among patients with significant end-organ dysfunction."

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Bone marrow transplantation shows potential for treating adults with sickle cell disease

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UVA joins National Marrow Donor Program giving greater access to cancer treatments by Ishaan Sachdeva | Jun 25 2014 | 06/25/14 10:11pm | Updated 06/30/14 9:56pm

The Emily Couric Cancer Center of the University of Virginia Health System has expanded its access to bone marrow and hematopoietic stem cell transplant donors. Now designated as a National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), the Health System will have access to the Be The Match Registry, the worlds largest and most diverse bone marrow registry. Implications of this change are significant for patients afflicted with blood cancers like leukemia who obtain treatment through the Health System.

Bone marrow, the soft, spongy tissue within bones like the sternum or the ilium of the pelvis, forms hematopoietic or blood-forming stem cells. These cells, unlike embryonic stem cells, differentiate only into types of blood cells- red blood cells, white blood cells or clotting platelets. Leukemia causes bone marrow to produce abnormal, leukemic white blood cells that divide uncontrollably, forming tumors that deprive cells of oxygen and reduce infection defense. One treatment method is autologous bone marrow transplant, in which patients receive stem cells from their healthy, non cancerous bone marrow.

The idea [of autologous transplants] is that you extract healthier bone marrow from the patient to have a source of stored, non-cancerous bone marrow. You can then treat the patient with higher doses of treatment than you can normally give because the most common limitation to treatment is that treatment will kill off healthy bone marrow you might have, said Thomas P. Loughran Jr., MD, the Universitys Cancer Center director.

Essentially, a patients healthy bone marrow is safeguarded outside their body while aggressive treatment is administered to kill cancerous marrow. Another form of treatment is allogeneic treatment, in which bone marrow is transplanted from a sibling or an unrelated donor.

In an allogeneic transplant, you are also transplanting in a new immune system. The new immune system comes in and recognizes the body as a foreign tissue and starts attacking that tissue. This causes a beneficial graft vs. leukemia effect where this new immune system attacks any residual leukemia, but may also cause a harmful graft versus host disease where normal tissue is also attacked, Loughran said.

The donor and recipient tissue interaction underscores the genetic component of bone marrow transplants from external donors. Despite the curative potential of a bone marrow transplant, a strong genetic match between donor and recipient is crucial to the utility of a transplant.

The ability of any donor to be successful is based on genetics. Its called HLA [human leukocyte antigen] typing. The HLA system has four genes called A, B, C and D, and it turns out that A, B and D are influential. We have half of our genes each from both parents, so we have six of these: 2 A, 2 B and 2 D. The best case is a six out of six match from a brother or sister, but the chances are only 1 in 4, said Loughran. The consequence of low genetic probabilities is a large pool of unrelated donors, like the Be The Match Registry. Through such services, patients have a greater chance of finding an unrelated donor who may provide a successful genetic match.

The coordinating center would identify the place where the donor is living and tell them they are potentially able to donate. In the past, the donor would have bone marrow directly extracted. Now it is almost always from the PBSCT [peripheral blood stem cell transplantation] procedure. The donor takes a growth factor that stimulates growth of the needed hematopoietic stem cells within their peripheral blood circulation. A catheter collects this blood and the stem cells are separated from the blood by a machine, and the blood is returned back to the donor. The collected stem cells are sent to the lab where they are purified and frozen, Loughran said.

Meanwhile, the patient in preparation for the transplant is given the highest dose of chemotherapy that can be tolerated. The donated stem cells are administered to the patient in a way similar to IV fluid.

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Bone marrow transplants can reverse severe sickle cell disease in adults, a small study by government scientists found, echoing results from a similar technique used in children.

The researchers and others say the findings show that age need not be a barrier and that the technique could change practice for some adult patients when standard treatment fails.

The transplant worked in 26 of 30 adults, and 15 of them were able to stop taking drugs that prevent rejection one year later.

"We're very pleased," said Dr. John Tisdale, the study's senior author and a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health. "This is what we hoped for."

Sickle cell disease is a genetic condition that damages oxygen-carrying hemoglobin in red blood cells that then form sickle shapes that can block blood flow through veins. It can cause anemia, pain and organ damage. The disease affects about 100,000 Americans and millions worldwide.

The treatment is a modified version of bone marrow transplants that have worked in kids. Donors are a brother or sister whose stem cell-rich bone marrow is a good match for the patient.

Tisdale said doctors have avoided trying standard transplants in adults with severe sickle cell disease because the treatment is so toxic. Children can often tolerate it because the disease typically hasn't taken as big a toll on their bodies, he said.

The disease is debilitating and often life-shortening. Patients die on average in their 40s, Tisdale said. That's one reason why the researchers decided to try the transplants in adults, hoping the technique could extend their lives.

The treatment involves using chemotherapy and radiation to destroy bone marrow before replacing it with healthy donor marrow cells. In children, bone marrow is completely wiped out. In the adult study, the researchers only partially destroyed the bone marrow, requiring less donor marrow. That marrow's healthy blood cells outlast sickle cells and eventually replace them.

Results from the adult study, involving patients aged 29 on average, were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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Study finds new treatment for adult sickle cell disease

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The treatment could edge out joint replacement procedures to a large extent.

Hyderabad, June 30:

A team of doctors from a city hospital have harvested stem cells of a person using bone marrow from the pelvis area to replace some dead tissues in the hip. By doing this, they saved the patient from undergoing a hip replacement.

The Apollo Health City team, headed by orthopaedic specialist Paripati Sharat Kumar, diagnosed a 39-year-old women suffering from Avascular Necrosis. Her condition would require undergoing a replacement of hips.

After assessing her condition, the team has decided to go for the autologous stem cell procedure (where donor and the receiver is the same person) to save both the hip joints.

The minimally invasive procedure involved taking bone marrow aspirate from the patients pelvis. Stem cells were harvested from the aspirate through a process that takes about 15 minutes. Stems cells were planted in the area of damage under fluoroscopy control following core decompression, Kumar said in a statement on Monday.

He feels that the autologous stem cell treatment could edge out joint replacement procedures to a large extent in the days to come. The scope of this procedure in orthopaedics and sports medicine is enormous. This could be extended to indications including osteoarthritis of knee, shoulder, hip, elbows, ankle and spine, he said.

(This article was published on June 30, 2014)

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Autologous stem cell treatment could be the road ahead

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About seven days after conception, something remarkable occurs in the clump of cells that will eventually become a new human being. They start to specialize. They take on characteristics that begin to hint at their ultimate fate as part of the skin, brain, muscle or any of the roughly 200 cell types that exist in people, and they start to form distinct layers.

Although scientists have studied this process in animals, and have tried to coax human embryonic stem cells into taking shape by flooding them with chemical signals, until now the process has not been successfully replicated in the lab. But researchers led by Ali Brivanlou, Robert and Harriet Heilbrunn Professor and head of the Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology and Molecular Embryology at The Rockefeller University, have done it, and it turns out that the missing ingredient is geometrical, not chemical.

Understanding what happens in this moment, when individual members of this mass of embryonic stem cells begin to specialize for the very first time and organize themselves into layers, will be a key to harnessing the promise of regenerative medicine, Brivanlou says. It brings us closer to the possibility of replacement organs grown in petri dishes and wounds that can be swiftly healed.

In the uterus, human embryonic stem cells receive chemical cues from the surrounding tissue that signal them to begin forming layers a process called gastrulation. Cells in the center begin to form ectoderm, the brain and skin of the embryo, while those migrating to the outside become mesoderm and endoderm, destined to become muscle and blood and many of the major organs, respectively.

Brivanlou and his colleagues, including postdocs Aryeh Warmflash and Benoit Sorre as well as Eric Siggia, Viola Ward Brinning and Elbert Calhoun Brinning Professor and head of the Laboratory of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics, confined human embryonic stem cells originally derived at Rockefeller to tiny circular patterns on glass plates that had been chemically treated to form micropatterns that prevent the colonies from expanding outside a specific radius. When the researchers introduced chemical signals spurring the cells to begin gastrulation, they found the colonies that were geometrically confined in this way proceeded to form endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm and began to organize themselves just as they would have under natural conditions. Cells that were not confined did not.

By monitoring specific molecular pathways the human cells use to communicate with one another to form patterns during gastrulation something that was not previously possible because of the lack of a suitable laboratory model the researchers also learned how specific inhibitory signals generated in response to the initial chemical cues function to prevent the cells within a colony from all following the same developmental path.

The research was published June 29 in Nature Methods.

At the fundamental level, what we have developed is a new model to explore how human embryonic stem cells first differentiate into separate populations with a very reproducible spatial order just as in an embryo, says Warmflash. We can now follow individual cells in real time in order to find out what makes them specialize, and we can begin to ask questions about the underlying genetics of this process.

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Using Geometry, Researchers Coax Human Embryonic Stem Cells to Organize Themselves

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The Cell Therapy Catapult Official Opening Event
The Cell Therapy Catapult official opening event was a great succes with many colleagues from industry, government and universities attending including RT Hon Dr. Vince Cable MP, Secretary...

By: Cell Therapy Catapult

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How to Grow Your Hair Faster and Longer: Ovation Cell Therapy
Here is a review/how to on how i #39;ve been growing my hair with ovation cell hair therapy. I cut 6.5 inches in december which was A LOT! So now I #39;m on the trac...

By: Vanessa Watson

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How to Grow Your Hair Faster and Longer: Ovation Cell Therapy - Video

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A new approach demonstrated that the recognition of unique cancer mutations appeared to be responsible for complete cancer regressions in two metastatic melanoma patients treated with a type of immunotherapy called adoptive T-cell therapy. This new approach may help develop more effective cancer immunotherapies, according to a study published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

"This study provides the technical solution to identify mutated tumor targets that can stimulate immune responses, which is one of the major bottlenecks in developing a new generation of adoptive T-cell therapy," said Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, chief of surgery at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, Maryland. "The two targets identified in this study play important roles in cancer cell proliferation.

"Immunotherapy has the potential to successfully treat cancer by targeting tumor mutations. We've moved one step closer because of this study," Rosenberg added.

Adoptive T-cell therapy is a type of immunotherapy in which the immune cells infiltrating a patient's tumor, so called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs, which are T cells), are harvested, activated and expanded in the laboratory, and transferred back to the patient. Such activated cells are capable of efficiently attacking tumor cells.

"In a clinical trial, up to 72 percent of the patients with metastatic melanoma experienced tumor regression after adoptive T-cell transfer. However, not all patients benefited. This is because the specificity of the TILs remains largely unclear. Our goal was to establish an efficient method to identify the specificity of these cells," explained Rosenberg.

The researchers took tumor samples from two patients who had benefited from the therapy and pursued two screening approaches to identify the tumor targets recognized by the clinically effective T cells. First, they used a conventional screening method called cDNA library screening to identify nonmutated targets. Second, they used a novel method called tandem minigene library screening to identify mutated targets that cannot be found by the conventional method of screening.

For the second approach, the researchers used next-generation DNA sequencing to sequence the coding regions of the DNA from the two patients' tumors, and identified mutations. Next, they generated a library of these mutations. Instead of synthesizing the entire mutated gene, they synthesized only a small region surrounding the mutation (hence the name "minigene" library). They then screened the minigene library to identify those targets in the patients' tumors that were recognized by their TILs.

Using cDNA library screening, the researchers identified three novel nonmutated tumor targets, and four previously known non-mutated tumor targets.

Using tandem minigene library screening, they identified two novel mutated tumor targets, KIF2C and POLA2, which play important roles in cell proliferation.

With the minigene library approach, Rosenberg and colleagues recently reported another novel tumor target recognized by the activated T cells of a patient with bile duct cancer, who responded to adoptive T-cell transfer.

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Cancer mutations identified as targets of effective melanoma immunotherapy

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

1-Jul-2014

Contact: Jeremy Moore jeremy.moore@aacr.org 215-446-7109 American Association for Cancer Research

PHILADELPHIA A new approach demonstrated that the recognition of unique cancer mutations appeared to be responsible for complete cancer regressions in two metastatic melanoma patients treated with a type of immunotherapy called adoptive T-cell therapy. This new approach may help develop more effective cancer immunotherapies, according to a study published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

"This study provides the technical solution to identify mutated tumor targets that can stimulate immune responses, which is one of the major bottlenecks in developing a new generation of adoptive T-cell therapy," said Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, chief of surgery at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, Maryland. "The two targets identified in this study play important roles in cancer cell proliferation.

"Immunotherapy has the potential to successfully treat cancer by targeting tumor mutations. We've moved one step closer because of this study," Rosenberg added.

Adoptive T-cell therapy is a type of immunotherapy in which the immune cells infiltrating a patient's tumor, so called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs, which are T cells), are harvested, activated and expanded in the laboratory, and transferred back to the patient. Such activated cells are capable of efficiently attacking tumor cells.

"In a clinical trial, up to 72 percent of the patients with metastatic melanoma experienced tumor regression after adoptive T-cell transfer. However, not all patients benefited. This is because the specificity of the TILs remains largely unclear. Our goal was to establish an efficient method to identify the specificity of these cells," explained Rosenberg.

The researchers took tumor samples from two patients who had benefited from the therapy and pursued two screening approaches to identify the tumor targets recognized by the clinically effective T cells. First, they used a conventional screening method called cDNA library screening to identify nonmutated targets. Second, they used a novel method called tandem minigene library screening to identify mutated targets that cannot be found by the conventional method of screening.

For the second approach, the researchers used next-generation DNA sequencing to sequence the coding regions of the DNA from the two patients' tumors, and identified mutations. Next, they generated a library of these mutations. Instead of synthesizing the entire mutated gene, they synthesized only a small region surrounding the mutation (hence the name "minigene" library). They then screened the minigene library to identify those targets in the patients' tumors that were recognized by their TILs.

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New approach identifies cancer mutations as targets of effective melanoma immunotherapy

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DALLAS, July 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

The report "Cell Culture Marketby Equipment (Bioreactor, Incubator, Centrifuge), by Reagent (Media, Sera, Growth Factors, Serum Free Media), by Application (Cancer Research, Gene Therapy, Drug Development, Vaccine Production, Toxicity Testing) - Global Forecast to 2018" published by MarketsandMarkets, provides a detailed overview of the major drivers, restraints, challenges, opportunities, current market trends, and strategies impacting the global Cell Culture Market along with the estimates and forecasts of the revenue and market share analysis.

Browse 91 market data tables and 13 figures spread through 210 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Cell Culture Market"

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/cell-culture-market-me ...

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The global Cell Culture Market was valued at an estimated $14,772 million in 2013. This market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.71% between 2013 and 2018, to reach $24,574 million in 2018.

The Cell Culture Market is segmented on the basis of cell culture equipment and cell culture media, sera, and reagents. Each of these two market segments is further divided into multiple product segments and subsegments. The cell culture equipment market consists of five segments, namely, bio-safety cabinets, consumables, lab equipment, sterilization equipment, and storage equipment. Of these, the lab equipment product segment had the largest share of the cell culture equipment market in 2013, whereas the consumables product segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR between 2013 and 2018. The subsegments of the lab equipment segment are cell counters, centrifuges fermentors & bioreactors, and incubators. The subsegments of the storage equipment segments are cryogenic storage and refrigerators and freezers.

The cell culture media, sera, and reagents market consists of six segments, namely, contamination detection kits, cryoprotective agents, lab reagents, media, serum, and other reagents. Of these, the serum product segment had the largest share of the cell culture media, sera, and reagents market in 2013, whereas the media product segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR between 2013 and 2018. The subsegments of the lab reagents segment are balanced salt solutions, buffers and chemicals, cell dissociation reagents, and supplements and growth factors. The subsegments of the media segment are basal media, reduced serum media, and serum-free media.

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The application segments included in this report are biopharmaceutical production, cancer research, drug screening and development, gene therapy, tissue culture and engineering, toxicity testing, vaccine production, and other applications. The biopharmaceutical production application segment had the largest share of the cell culture equipment market in 2013, whereas the vaccine production application segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR between 2013 and 2018. The geographic segments included in this report are North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World.

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Cell Culture Market worth $24,574 Million by 2018

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Contact: Jean Horrigan neinews@nei.nih.gov 301-496-5248 NIH/National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders

Researchers at the National Eye Institute (NEI) have described the functions of a gene responsible for anchoring cilia sensory hair-like extensions present on almost every cell of the body. They show in a mouse model that without the gene Cc2d2a, cilia throughout the body failed to grow, and the mice died during the embryonic stage. The finding adds to an expanding body of knowledge about ciliopathies, a class of genetic disorders that result from defects in the structure or function of cilia. NEI is part of the National Institutes of Health.

The findings are published in the online journal Nature Communications. Senior author Anand Swaroop, Ph.D., is chief of the NEI laboratory of Neurobiology-Neurodegeneration and Repair. Lead author Shobi Veleri, Ph.D., is a research fellow in the laboratory.

Cilia are responsible for cell communication and play a key role in the receptor cells of sensory systems. For example, they are essential for odor detection in the nose and light reception in the eye. Because cilia are such a key element of cells, defects in genes that are involved in cilia development or function can cause complicated syndromes involving multiple organs and tissues

Bardet-Biedl and Joubert syndromes are examples of ciliopathies with symptoms that include deafness, kidney disease, and degeneration of the retina. Meckel syndrome is a ciliopathy so dangerous babies with the genetic defect rarely make it to term.

On individual cells, cilia grow from the basal body, a circular dent on the outer membrane acting as a platform. Supporting structures called distal and subdistal appendages, which are like the flying buttresses supporting Notre Dame Cathedral, anchor the platform in the basal body, priming it for the growth of cilia. Once anchored, the structures that form the cilium begin to extend from the site. Inside are a variety of proteins essential to maintain the cilium. Cc2d2a is believed to make a structural protein needed for cilia growth, but its precise functions have been unclear.

Researchers developed a mouse lacking Cc2d2a to investigate the gene.

When they looked at the tissues of the mutant mice in very early stages of development, researchers found very few to no cilia, suggesting the gene plays a critical role at an early time. Looking closely at where the cilia should exist, the researchers saw that the supporting structures needed for cilia to grow were either completely missing or abnormal. In other experiments, the researchers found that the absence of Cc2d2a affected the activity of other genes and proteins involved in mouse nervous system development, including the key signaling protein, sonic hedgehog.

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NIH study reveals gene critical to the early development of cilia

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Published: Wednesday, July 2, 2014 at 6:01 a.m. Last Modified: Tuesday, July 1, 2014 at 4:29 p.m.

Genetic engineering is such a polarizing topic that it is hard to have an even-handed debate of the issue.

Some opponents of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, spread false claims about safety while ignoring the vast amount of research to the contrary.

That frustrates University of Florida researchers who have made advances in genetic engineering that might provide benefits in fighting crop diseases and reducing the need for pesticides if they could get beyond public misconceptions.

As The Sun reported this week, UF researchers have taken a gene found in bell peppers and transferred it to tomatoes. The process has made tomatoes that are resistant to a particularly troublesome crop disease and have a higher yield.

Contrary to scare stories about Frankenfoods, these methods represent a more technologically advanced way of doing the kind of crop breeding that has happen for millennia.

But Florida tomato growers worry they wouldn't be able to sell a GMO product, hampering the ability of researchers to attract investors.

"People are afraid, they don't understand why, they are just told they should be," Sam Hutton, a UF plant scientist involved in the research, told The Sun. "The anti-GMO crowd screams really loud, and there is a lot of fearmongering. It sounds bad to people who don't understand the science."

Other GMOs being developed at UF include a strawberry that can be grown without fungicides. A researcher involved in that effort told The Sun that the crop likely won't go beyond the lab without a change in public attitudes.

"You have solutions that can help the environment, help farmers and help people in the developing world, and you can't use it," said Ken Folta, professor and chairman of UF's Horticultural Sciences Department.

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Editorial: Fanning GMO fears

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1-Jul-2014

Contact: Kathryn Ruehle kruehle@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, July 1, 2014Christof von Kalle, MD, PhD (National Center for Cancer Research, Heidelberg, Germany) began his medical and research career with a focus on oncology and virology. He subsequently devoted much of his efforts to studying the use of viral vectors to deliver therapeutic genes into host cells and understanding the mechanisms of insertional mutagenesis. In recognition of his leadership and accomplishments, Dr. von Kalle has received a Pioneer Award from Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. Human Gene Therapy is commemorating its 25th anniversary by bestowing this honor on the leading 12 Pioneers in the field of cell and gene therapy selected by a blue ribbon panel* and publishing a Pioneer Perspective by each of the award recipients. The Perspective by Dr. von Kalle is available on the Human Gene Therapy website.

In "Vector Integration and Tumorigenesis," Dr. von Kalle recalls his early experiences working with retroviral vectors and the growing body of knowledge that was developing about their ability to cause mutations at the sites where they integrated into the host cell genome. He discusses the teamwork, intensive research, and technology advances that led to a growing understanding of the link between vector insertion, mutation, and malignant transformation of cells. Tracing the progress of the field forward to the present and looking to the future, Dr. von Kalle comments on the revolutionary impact that next generation sequencing technologies, molecular tools and techniques, and omics studies are having on gene therapy.

"The level of sophistication that Dr. von Kalle has brought to the analysis of vector integration is truly remarkable," says James M. Wilson, MD, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Human Gene Therapy, and Director of the Gene Therapy Program, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia. "This has established a solid scientific foundation to a critically important performance feature of retro- and lenti-based vectors."

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*The blue ribbon panel of leaders in cell and gene therapy, led by Chair Mary Collins, PhD, MRC Centre for Medical Molecular Virology, University College London selected the Pioneer Award recipients. The Award Selection Committee selected scientists that had devoted much of their careers to cell and gene therapy research and had made a seminal contribution to the field--defined as a basic science or clinical advance that greatly influenced progress in translational research.

About the Journal

Human Gene Therapy, the Official Journal of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy, French Society of Cell and Gene Therapy, German Society of Gene Therapy, and five other gene therapy societies, is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published monthly in print and online. Human Gene Therapy presents reports on the transfer and expression of genes in mammals, including humans. Related topics include improvements in vector development, delivery systems, and animal models, particularly in the areas of cancer, heart disease, viral disease, genetic disease, and neurological disease, as well as ethical, legal, and regulatory issues related to the gene transfer in humans. Its sister journals, Human Gene Therapy Methods, published bimonthly, focuses on the application of gene therapy to product testing and development, and Human Gene Therapy Clinical Development, published quarterly, features data relevant to the regulatory review and commercial development of cell and gene therapy products. Tables of content for all three publications and a free sample issue may be viewed on the Human Gene Therapy website.

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Christof von Kalle, M.D., Ph.D. receives Pioneer Award

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Jun-2014

Contact: Kathryn Ruehle kruehle@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, June 30, 2014Zebrafish, a model organism that plays an important role in biological research and the discovery and development of new drugs and cell-based therapies, can form embryonic stem cells (ESCs). For the first time, researchers report the ability to maintain zebrafish-derived ESCs for more than 2 years without the need to grow them on a feeder cell layer, in a study published in Zebrafish, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Zebrafish website.

Ho Sing Yee and coauthors from the Malaysian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Pulau Pinang), Universiti Sains Malaysia (Penang), and National University of Singapore describe the approach they used to be able to maintain zebrafish stem cells in culture and in an undifferentiated state for long periods of time. The ability to establish and grow the zebrafish ESCs without having a feeder layer of cells to support them simplifies their use and could expand their utility. In the article "Derivation and Long-Term Culture of an Embryonic Stem Cell-Like Line from Zebrafish Blastomeres Under Feeder-Free Condition", the authors show that the ESCs retain the morphology, properties, and ability to differentiate into a variety of cell types that is characteristic of ESCs, and were used to generate offspring after transmission through the germline.

"By addressing a major technical bottleneck in the field, this new culture system enables an array of exciting cellular and molecular genetic manipulations for the zebrafish," says Stephen Ekker, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Zebrafish and Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN.

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About the Journal

Zebrafish is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published bimonthly in print and online. It is the only peer-reviewed journal to focus on the zebrafish and other aquarium fish species as models for the study of vertebrate development, evolution, toxicology, and human disease. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Zebrafish website.

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New method to grow zebrafish embryonic stem cells can regenerate whole fish

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Newswise The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA is one of six institutions nationwide chosen by the National Institutes of Health to join their effort in tackling the most difficult-to-solve medical cases and develop ways to diagnose rare genetic disorders. Part of a $120 million initiative called the Undiagnosed Diseases Network, the four-year $7.2 million UCLA grant will enable comprehensive bedside to bench clinical research to support physicians efforts to give long-sought answers to patients who have been living with mystery diseases.

Undiagnosed diseases take a huge toll on patients, their families and the health care system, said Dr. Katrina Dipple, a co-principal investigator of the grant with Drs. Stanley Nelson, Christina Palmer and Eric Vilain. This funding will accelerate and expand our clinical genomics program, enabling us to quickly give patients a firm diagnosis and clarify the best way to treat them.

Despite extensive clinical testing by skilled physicians, some diseases remain unrecognized because they are extremely rare, underreported or atypical forms of more common diseases. An interdisciplinary team of geneticists at each of the network sites will examine and study patients with prolonged undiagnosed diseases.

A vast number of children and adults suffer from severe, often fatal undiagnosed disorders, explained Vilain. This program will enable us to discover new genes causing ultra-rare medical conditions and to identify environmental factors that lead to disease or interact with genes to cause disease.

Patients will undergo an intensive week-long clinical assessment that includes a clinical evaluation, consultations with specialists and medical tests, including genome sequencing to identify genetic mutations. The team will also evaluate the impact of genetic counseling and genomic test results on patients and families to develop best practices for conveying this information.

The Undiagnosed Diseases Network capitalizes upon the strengths of UCLAs genetic medicine program, particularly its Clinical Genomics Center, which utilizes powerful sequencing technology to diagnose rare genetic disorders. Using a simple blood sample from a patient and both parents, the test simultaneously searches 37 million base pairs in 20,000 genes to pinpoint the single DNA change responsible for causing a patients disease. To date, a specific genetic explanation has been identified in a quarter of the cases evaluated with this test, as well as a number of novel disease-causing genes.

UCLA is the only facility in the western U.S. and one of only three nationwide that has a laboratory that can perform genomic sequence directly usable for patient care. The UCLA Medical Genetics Clinic cares for more than 750 new patients per year, and offers comprehensive pre- and post-test genetic counseling.

All patient studies will take place on the university campus at the Clinical Translational Research Center of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Network investigators will share genomic and clinical data gleaned from patients with their research colleagues nationwide to enhance understanding of rare and unknown diseases.

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UCLA Awarded $7 Million to Unravel Mystery Genetic Diseases

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

1-Jul-2014

Contact: Maya Sandler medicinepress@plos.org PLOS

Some of the increase in asthma risk toward the end of the 20th century could be attributed to the increase in body mass index (BMI) in mid-childhood, according to new research published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The study, led by Raquel Granell from the University of Bristol, UK, and colleagues, provides genetic evidence that higher fat mass and lean mass increase the risk of asthma in mid-childhood.

The incidence of asthma, a chronic condition caused by inflammation of the airways, has been rising steadily over the past few decades, and it is estimated that 200 million adults and children worldwide are affected by asthma. The underlying causes of asthma are not known; however, some experts think obesity may be one of the causes. Obesity, like asthma, is increasingly common, and observational studies in children have reported that body mass index is positively associated with asthma. However, observational studies cannot prove that obesity causes asthma, so in this study the researchers applied a method called Mendelian randomization, which uses both genetic information and observational data,in order to assess whether BMI has a causal effect on asthma.

In a Mendelian randomization study, causality can be inferred from associations between genetic variants that are known to affect a modifiable risk factor (in this case, body mass) and the outcome of interest (childhood asthma). The researchers investigated causal effects of BMI, fat mass, and lean mass on current asthma at age 7.5 years in 4,835 children enrolled in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC, a long-term health project that started in 1991). A weighted genetic score based on 32 independent BMI-related DNA sequence variations was calculated, and associations with BMI, fat mass, lean mass, and asthma were estimated. The authors found that the genetic score was strongly associated with BMI, fat mass, and lean mass, and with childhood asthma, and that the relative risk of asthma increased by 55% for every extra unit of BMI.

These findings suggest that a higher BMI increases the risk of asthma in mid-childhood, and that public health interventions designed to reduce obesity may also help to limit the global rise in asthma.

The authors note some limitations to their study, in that it is possible that the observed association between BMI and asthma reported in this study is affected by genetic pleiotropy, in which some of the genetic variants included in the BMI genetic score could also independently increase the risk of asthma. There is also some evidence that body composition (lean body mass) influences asthma through pathways not related to obesity-induced inflammation, and future studies will need to address this relationship.

The authors conclude, "environmental influences on the development of asthma in childhood have been extensively investigated in epidemiological studies, but few of these provide strong evidence for causality [higher BMI in mid-childhood] could help explain some of the increase in asthma risk toward the end of the 20th century, although the continued rise in obesity but with a slowing in the rise in asthma prevalence in some countries implies that other non-BMI-related factors are also likely to be important."

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Genetic evidence that body mass increases the risk of asthma in mid-childhood

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4thWorld congress on Cell Science Stem Cell Research
The OMICS Group Conferences #39; 4thWorld congress on Cell Science Stem Cell Research deliberates on the broader areas of Evolution of cancer, Tumorogenesis, Recombinant DNA technology, Cancer...

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4thWorld congress on Cell Science & Stem Cell Research - Video

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A stem-cell transplant reversed sickle cell disease in adults, according to a study that offers a potential cure for the debilitating condition.

Half of those who had the transplant, which involved the patient and a sibling, also were able to stop taking immunosuppressant drugs without experiencing rejection or having the donor cells attack their body, research released today in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed. People undergoing stem-cell transplants usually must take immunosuppressants for the rest of their lives.

More than 90,000 people in the U.S. have sickle cell disease, a genetic disorder found mostly in people of African descent, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The condition can cause severe pain, organ damage and stroke. Study author Matthew Hsieh said its too soon to say the researchers have found a cure as patients have been followed only for an average of 3 1/2 years, but he is optimistic.

Theyre sickle-cell free for now, Hsieh, a staff clinician at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, said today in a telephone interview. We are cautiously optimistic they are cured.

Children with sickle cell can receive a transplant that combines chemotherapy with stem cells, he said. Adults though are usually considered too sick for that treatment.

For a lot of adults, the only option for them is a partial transplant like ours, he said.

The study included 30 patients ages 16 to 65 years who received a transplant that combined their own stem cells and those of a sibling. All the patients had a sibling who was a full match at the white blood cell level, something that occurs about 20 percent of the time, Hsieh said.

Sickle cell disease was reversed in 26 patients, or 87 percent. Fifteen patients discontinued immunosuppressants one year after their transplant and didnt experience rejection or have the donor cells attack their body, the study showed. Patients were enrolled from July 2004 to October 2013.

The research also found that following transplant, the patients use of narcotics for pain declined as did the rate of hospitalization. Lung function also improved, Hsieh said.

Allison King, who wrote an accompanying editorial, said future studies will need to examine if stem cells from partially matched siblings can be just as beneficial.

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Stem Cell Transplant Stops Sickle Cell in Potential Cure

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Miami (PRWEB) July 01, 2014

Global Stem Cells Group announced the grand opening of Regenestem Asia in Manila, Philippines, adding a new state-of-the-art clinic to the international stem cell medicine company's growing worldwide presence. With clinics in Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Dubai, Regenestem Asia now offers the same comprehensive stem cell treatments and experienced medical staff that have fueled the company's worldwide growth.

The launch of Regenestem Asia is a collaborative effort between Global Stem Cells Group and Eric Yalung, M.D. of the Cosmetic Surgery Institute-Manila, Inc., a prominent plastic surgeon committed to taking stem cell medicine, research and practice in the Philippines to a world-class level. The first Regenestem brand clinic in the Philippines, Regenestem Asia is a 22,000 square foot facility with a focus on offering the most advanced protocols in cosmetic cellular medicine to patients from around the world.

Under Yalung's leadership as Regenestem Medical Director, patients will receive the latest and least-invasive techniques in Stem Cell medicine available. Yalung is joined by a team of talented stem cell specialists to provide world-class patient treatment and follow-up care under the Regenestem brand.

In addition to cosmetic treatments, Regenestem offers stem cell treatments for arthritis, autism, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes and multiple sclerosis among many other medical conditions at various facilities worldwide.

As part of its commitment to maintaining the highest standards in service and technology, Regenestem Asia provides an international staff experienced in administering the leading cellular therapies available.

Like all Regenestem facilities, Regenestem Asia is certified for the medical tourism market, and staff physicians are board-certified or board-eligible. Regenestem clinics provide services in more than 10 specialties, attracting patients from the United States and around the world.

For more information, visit the Regenestem website, email bnovas(at)regenestem(dot)com or call 305-224-1858.

About Regenestem:

Regenestem is a division of the Global Stem Cells Group, Inc., is an international medical practice association committed to researching and producing comprehensive stem cell treatments for patients worldwide. Having assembled a highly qualified staff of medical specialists-professionals trained in the latest cutting-edge techniques in cellular medicine-Regenestem continues to be a leader in delivering the latest protocols in the adult stem cell arena.

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Global Stem Cells Group Subsidiary Regenestem Announces Grand Opening of State-of-the-Art Regenestem Asia Stem Cell ...

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The Daytripper Photo Show #90 - Event Photography
Since the Daytripper Photo community began, we have volunteered our services to shoot all kinds of events. Some of the event #39;s we cover are the Run, Walk, and Roll charity for spinal cord...

By: Bryan Weiss

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The Daytripper Photo Show #90 - Event Photography - Video

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Spinal Cord Injury Success Stories - The Association of People with Disabilities
APD takes you through the lives of a few individuals who suffered from spinal cord injuries, with little or no hope of recovering. Through intensive and supportive care, these individuals were...

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Spinal Cord Injury Success Stories - The Association of People with Disabilities - Video

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Apollo Health City team did autologous stem cell procedure to save both the hip joints

Hyderabad, June 30:

A team of doctors from a city hospital have harvested stem cells of a person using bone morrow from the pelvis area to replace some dead tissues in the hip. In this process, they saved the patient from undergoing a hip replacement.

The Apollo Health City team, headed by orthopaedic specialist Paripati Sharat Kumar, diagnosed a 39-year-old woman to be suffering from Avascular Necrosis, making her writhe with pain in her two hip joints. Her condition would require undergoing a replacement of hips.

After assessing her condition, the team has decided to go for autologous stem cell procedure (where donor and the receiver is the same person) to save both the hip joints.

The minimally invasive procedure involved taking bone marrow aspirate from the patients pelvis. Stem cells were harvested from the aspirate, through a process that takes about 15 minutes. Stems cells were planted in the area of damage under fluoroscopy control following core decompression, Sharat Kumar said here in a statementon Monday.

He felt that autologous stem cell treatments could edge out joint replacement procedures to a large extent in days to come. The scope of this procedure in orthopaedics and sports medicine is enormous. This could be extended to indications include osteoarthritis of knee, shoulder, hip, elbows, ankle and spine, he said.

(This article was published on June 30, 2014)

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Her own stem cells saved her from hip replacement

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