Stem Cells and Anti-aging – New Possibilities Exposed
Eternal-youth seekers have great reason to cheer with the revelations of science about stems cells and anti-aging. Evidence is increasingly coming to the forefront that regenerative properties of stem cells can cure many age-related complications and delay aging.

Stem cells found in our body are non-specific cells without having any tissue-specific structure. They can easily replicate themselves to form specific cells like heart muscle cells, blood cells, sperm cells, nerve cells etc. and perform specific functions. This regeneration property makes stem cells ideal for anti-aging therapy.

With aging, the cells of the body begin to decay. They lose their ability to regenerate and repair tissue. Changes begin to show on the skin; the internal organs such as the heart, the sex glands, the immune system etc. begin to lose their functional efficiency. At this point, you begin to look and feel aged.

Aging also sets in a number of diseases like arthritis, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, heart complications, and even cancer. Most of them can be traced to deficiencies in the cellular level. For example, the beta cells in the pancreas become less effective and secrete less insulin, a condition that triggers diabetes. Again, the nerve cells become weak and harbor Parkinson’s disease.

Research is now showing that stem cells can stall the progress of some of these diseases by replicating into specific cells and replacing the damaged cells in the body and restoring the vitality and functionality of the organs. In fact, stem cells can also be developed outside the body under laboratory conditions and later transplanted in the defective area of the organ to give back the organ its functional efficiency. Because of this stem cells anti-aging property, cosmetic formulations based on stem cell regenerative therapy are increasingly coming to the market to halt the mark of aging on the skin and restore its youthful glow.

source: The World Wide Web

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Cloning: The word sounds like science fiction. But cloning is now science fact for many species, and it could hold the answer for the majority of problems of

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Article Content:

Conquering Aging with Cloning
Life Extension Interviews Michael West on new breakthroughs in anti-aging cloning research

Cloning: The word sounds like science fiction. But cloning is now science fact for many species, and it could hold the answer for the majority of problems of aging humans. Recent advances in cloning have come with remarkable speed, but doubts about their applicability to aging have remained. Now, in a major new paper published in the April 28, 2000 issue of the journal Science, a group led by Dr. Michael West has reported what may be the most revolutionary advance in cloning research so far. They have found that cloning can totally reverse cellular aging. To give you the inside story of this breakthrough, and on how it fits in with prospects for using cloning to intervene in aging, Gregory Fahy, Ph.D. and Saul Kent, President and founder of the Life Extension Foundation, interviewed Dr. West by telephone on March 18th, 2000. Dr. West is the founder of Geron. He is currently President and CEO of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts, where the research reported in Science was conducted.

Life Extension (LEF): Let’s start at the beginning. Given that you left Geron to pursue cloning opportunities with Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), cloning obviously must be pretty important. But what is cloning?
Mike West: Cloning, as it is used in popular language, means the process we call nuclear transfer, which is an asexual way of reproducing an animal. Rather than using a sperm and an egg cell and getting a genetic mix between two animals, making a unique offspring, cloning uses an egg cell which is stripped of its DNA and a cell from the body of an existing animal. That body (somatic) cell is then placed into the egg cell.

LEF: The whole cell is placed in the egg cell?
West: Yes. This is the step we call nuclear transfer.

LEF: Even though it’s more than the nucleus.
West: Yes. What we typically do is take the whole somatic cell and transfer it into an egg cell whose DNA has been removed. The result is a cell that has all of the DNA from an existing animal, so the resulting embryo and then, eventually, the animal is genetically identical to the original animal from which the cell was taken, unlike normal sexual reproduction, which leads to a unique new animal. In a sense it is being born again. It’s a rebirth of a genetically identical copy of the original animal.

LEF: Are there different ways of doing cloning? Does it matter what the source of the cells is for example?
West: The technology has really only been used in a somewhat widespread manner over the last five years or so. So there hasn’t been, to my knowledge, a complete survey of all of the different kinds of cells in the body from which we could clone an animal. But we do know that it is possible to clone an animal from cells that are usually easily accessible, such as skin cells or mucosal epithelial cells from the inside of the cheek.

LEF: How could cloning impact the field of anti-aging medicine?
West: Well, in the course of human aging, we have damage to the tissues and the cells in our body, not completely unlike the damage you see to your automobile over time. So, just like your carburetor needs to be replaced at some point, or your spark plugs need to be replaced, just through wear and tear you have organs that need to be replaced. I guess a striking example would be something like the loss of a tooth because of falling off a bicycle in a cross country race. Or a skin burn or other trauma. Also, of course, you can have an infectious disease, like a kidney infection which can damage the kidneys. Since the kidneys will not regenerate, they need to be replaced. So over the course of aging, we may need to have cells and/or tissues and organs replaced.

LEF: What is therapeutic human cloning?
West: Therapeutic human cloning is cloning for the possibility of recreating young cells and tissues (potentially of any kind) genetically identical to the person who needs them in order to replace worn out cells and tissues.

LEF: I think we need to clarify that when you are talking about therapeutic human cloning, we are now changing the definition of cloning that you gave us earlier. We are not talking about growing say a 12-year-old child and then taking the organs out of that child in order to replace old tissues in an adult, right?
West: Right. What we are proposing as an ethical and moral use of cloning technology in the arena of human medicine is the creation of microscopic balls of cells, called blastocysts. These are aggregates of about 100 cells that exist up to about 14 days of development. At 14 days, small aggregations of cells begin to individualize. By that, we mean the cells begin to become the various cells and tissues of the body, or that they’ve committed themselves to become an individual human being. Prior to day 14, the small ball of cells can still become two individual human beings. They can become identical twins, and indeed that is how identical twins form: the small ball of cells divides into two. So prior to day 14, this small ball of cells has not individualized, it has not decided to become one individual or two individuals.

LEF: Or even any particular part of any individual.
West: Yes. There is no skin, there is no blood, there is no bone, there is no tissue of any kind. So, because they have not individualized, they have not committed to becoming a person. And because there is no person there, and there are no differentiated cells of any kind, the blastocyst is often called a pre-embryo to distinguish it from an embryo which is committed to becoming a given individual. And because of that primitive state of the cells, the majority of ethicists have agreed that the creation of such an aggregate of cells to benefit people who are sick and in need of therapy would be a good and moral use of technology.
So what we envision is that the cloning step, the nuclear transfer step, is a bit like a time machine. We believe we can take a cell from a patient, even from a very old patient, and put it back into an egg cell, and that egg cell would be like a time machine, taking what was once a skin cell back in time, making it young again and erasing its memory of what it was, taking it back to the state of complete power, or as we say, “totipotency,” such that the cell can then become any cell in the body. So once we’ve taken the cell back in time, and we have this small little ball of cells that can form anything, we can go in two directions. First, we could implant this small ball of cells into a uterus, and it could become a human being, or two human beings, forming identical twins. That would be reproductive cloning of a human being. The second path, which is the path that we are advocating, would be to use the cells to create specific cell types that a particular patient needs. So if the patient has Parkinson’s Disease, rather than creating a human being, we would create just the dopaminergic neurons that they have lost, the loss of which is causing their Parkinsonian symptoms.

LEF: But the pre-embryo, in and of itself, doesn’t spontaneously form wanted tissues. You would have to coax the pre-embryo cells to turn into the types of cells you want to form. Could you do that in tissue culture?
West: Yes. We believe that all of this could be done in tissue culture, growing individual cells, without creating a cloned human being.

LEF: What are embryonic stem cells?
West: Technically, an embryonic stem cell is a cultured inner cell mass. So the blastocyst is a little ball of cells, and inside it is a cluster of cells called the inner cell mass, and surrounding them is a shell of cells called the trophectoderm. The trophectoderm will become the placenta, and the inner cell mass will become the entire animal or, in the case of humans, the entire human being. The inner cell mass cells are totipotent. They have complete power. And because they have not yet committed to either becoming the germ line or the body (soma), they have not yet committed to the mortality of the soma, so they still have the immortality of the germ line. As you know, germ line cells have the ability of proliferating indefinitely, and that is why the species is immortal. We keep making babies generation after generation, so these cells are in this immortal germ line in a state of total power. When they are grown in the dish, they are called embryonic stem cells.

LEF: Has anyone taken these embryonic stem cells and turned them into specialized cells in tissue culture?
West: Yes.

LEF: Has this been published?
West: The first demonstration that human embryonic stem cells could be grown was published in the collaboration that I set up while I was at Geron with James Thomson at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and then also in a collaboration with John Gearhart at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. That was in the Fall of 1998.

LEF: And what was done in this study, exactly?
West: It was the first time human embryonic stem cells were ever grown in vitro (”in the dish”). Also in this publication was evidence that they could be shown to differentiate into skin, neurons, heart muscle cells, blood cells, and all of the many different kinds of cells in the body.

LEF: But in that case, was the differentiation random, or was it directed in some way?
West: The initial work, of course, was random. The cells were either just allowed to haphazardly differentiate in the dish, or they were injected into mice which had an impaired immune system. Since the mice could not reject the human tissue inside them, the human cells grew into what is called a teratoma, which is a conglomeration of different kinds of cells and tissues.

LEF: We recently met a scientist who said he was able to transform skin cells into neurons. Our impression was that they weren’t embryonic skin cells.
West: They were probably adult stem cells such as mesenchymal stem cells.

LEF: So to summarize what you’ve said, basically you can take a totipotent cell and instead of letting it commit itself to form of an individual, you can take that cell and, at least in principle, direct it to become any type of cell. As you said, you can make brain cells to treat Parkinson’s disease or perhaps skin cells to treat facial aging, that sort of thing.
West: I think that is an accurate statement. A good example was reported just in the last couple of weeks or so. There was a paper where mouse embryonic stem cells were differentiated into beta islet cells. That is one of the more difficult examples. In normal embryological development, you are pretty far along before you get the gut, and then the gut evaginates into a pancreas, and then out of that pancreatic tissue a beta cell finally forms.

LEF: Yes, that is impressive.
West: It would be much easier to get, you know, a cardiac myocyte, which differentiates very early in embryogenesis, or neurons, or skin cells, but nevertheless they were able to develop embryonic stem cells into beta cells, isolate the beta cells in relatively pure form, and put them into a mouse and cure diabetes.

LEF: That’s fabulous!
West: Yes, and I think the demonstration that you could go and do such a difficult project is good evidence that there are going to be many, many applications of this technology.

LEF: Are you doing any work in the area of directing the differentiation of cells in your company?
West: Yes, though the majority of the work at Advanced Cell Technology has been focused on taking the cells back in time. It is relatively easy to take a cell at the beginning of life, one of these totipotent stem cells, and steer its development through the differentiated lineages, like the branches of the tree, because that’s the normal path of development. What’s almost miraculous is that you can take a differentiated cell and take it back to a totipotent state, because that’s taking differentiation in reverse. It’s a bit like if I were to tell you that I had taken a baseball bat and hit a ceramic vase and broken it into a million pieces on the floor, and then that I could, through a magic wand, have that go in reverse and have all of the pieces of the vase fly together and fuse back into a vase and then go back up on the table top, like reversing a video tape. That would be near miraculous. And to have development go in reverse, which it never does in nature, through cloning is pretty amazing, and that’s why the scientific community was so amazed that you could actually clone an animal from a body cell. But what I think is the second level of amazement is the fact that not only does the development go in reverse, but the animal is actually made young again in the process, and I think that’s what impressed us even more.

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Regenerative medicine, regardless of the utilized platform, aims to restore normal structure and function following tissue injury. Stem cells and their natural or engineered products—collectively recognized as biologics—provide the functional components of a regenerative therapeutic regimen. Autologous or allogeneic, resident or ectopic, the stem cells maintain an autonomous self-renewal potential and respond to guiding signals to differentiate into replacement tissues. By healing an injury, stem cells have the capacity to cure the underlying tissue damage through de novo formation of proper structure and function. Restoration of diseased tissues offers a sustained therapeutic advantage in conditions ranging from congenital disease to acquired, age-related pathologies. The outcome depends on the aptitude of the stem cell population to secure maximal, tissue-specific repair and the production of a nurturing niche environment in diseased tissue that enables the execution of repair.
Beyond restoration of structure and function, regenerative medicine paves a pathway for prevention and delay in disease progression through prophylactic repair. Stem cells provide a unique platform to select, guide, and engineer cellular characteristics required for enhanced tolerance while effectively treating and/or preventing disease manifestation. By anticipating the needs of disease-susceptible tissues, the goal of regenerative medicine becomes the repair of threatened tissues with stress-tolerant cells to prevent irreversible damage. Pre-emptive regenerative therapy requires the ability to predict disease susceptibility based on molecular profiling at the earliest stages in order to guide appropriate and timely stem cell-based interventions.
Author: dragon web profit

Anti-Aging Skin Care Web Site: http://www.antiagingskincarebeauty.com

Emai: dragonwebprofit@antiagingskincarebeauty.com

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Regenerative medicine, propelled by the recent progress made in transplant medicine, stem cell biology, and related biomedical fields, is primed to expand the therapeutic armamentarium available in the clinical setting, and thereby, ameliorate disease outcome while reducing the burden of chronic therapy. This progress offers a transformative paradigm with curative objectives and goals to address disease management demands unmet by traditional (pharmaco)therapy. In particular, stem cell-based regenerative medicine is poised to drive the evolution of medical sciences from traditional palliation, which mitigates symptoms, to curative therapy aimed at treating the disease cause.
Stem cells have a unique aptitude to differentiate into specialized cell types and form new tissue, thus providing the active ingredient of regenerative therapy. Guided by the increasingly understood principles of molecular embryology, stem cell biology has transformed the understanding of tissue and organ formation and has contributed to the decoding of mechanisms underlying tissue homeostasis and repair. Strategies to promote, augment, and re-establish developmental processes utilized in natural embryogenesis are at the core of translating the science of stem cell biology into the practice of regenerative medicine.
Specialized application of therapeutic repair starts with the use of standardized stem cell-based platforms such as the increasingly established embryonic, perinatal, and adult stem cell sources and their cell progeny derivatives. Embryonic stem cells have the advantage of an unequaled pluripotent differentiation plasticity associated with a robust repair capacity, yet access for clinical applications remains a significant limitation, along with a risk of uncontrolled growth and immunological intolerance. While methods for lineage restriction are increasingly developed and validated, the adult stem cells—hematopoietic or mesenchymal in origin—have the benefit of autologous immunologic status and are readily available for clinical applications, although the induction of reliable tissue-specific differentiation remains a possible limitation. Perinatal stem cells incorporate advantageous characteristics from both embryonic and adult stem cells, including potential autologous status and broader differentiation capacity than adult stem cells, and provide the most available stem cell source when harvested at birth.
Alternatively, bioengineered platforms, including therapeutic cloning and nuclear reprogramming, further offer generation of hybrid cells and tissues. In this context, enabling biotechnology platforms have most recently emerged to create hybridized stem cell types designed to systematically address cell characteristics that currently limit the clinical translation of more standard cell-based therapeutics. Exploiting genetic and epigenetic factors to regulate phenotypic outcomes, the biotechnology platforms achieve guided genetic reprogramming of adult cells back to an embryonic-like state (induced pluripotent stem cell). These platforms bypass the need for embryo extraction to generate categorical pluripotent stem cell phenotypes and recycle somatic nuclei to form autologous, immunotolerant cell-based products. Reprogramming of the adult stem cells to generate customized embryonic-like stem cells offers, thereby, an attractive tool to engineer patient-specific regenerative therapies.
Author: dragon web profit

Anti-Aging Skin Care Web Site: http://www.antiagingskincarebeauty.com

Emai: dragonwebprofit@antiagingskincarebeauty.com

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Description of tissue regeneration may date back to the Greek mythology, where Prometheus is punished by Zeus for stealing from Mount Olympus the sacred fire for humankind. The myth describes a vulture that feasts from an open wound in the liver, yet the liver renews daily, demonstrating a unique capacity to regenerate. The concept of regeneration is commonly observed, but often unappreciated in daily medical practice. The rapid healing of skin cuts and abrasions exemplifies natural repair processes in which new tissue formation is derived from multiple stem cell populations, including epidermal, mesenchymal, neural crest-derived, and circulating stem cells. The capacity for regeneration is particularly evident in the young, in comparison to those with degenerative diseases or the elderly who typically are stress intolerant. Repair mechanisms remain, however, active even in advanced senescence as elderly patients can heal well after major surgical injuries. This active, self-reparative process of regeneration throughout the lifespan establishes the essential elements for the maintenance of tissue homeostasis and serves as the basis for the emerging field of therapeutic repair and stem cell-based regenerative medicine.
The evolution of pharmacotherapy toward reparative paradigms exploits the growing understanding of disease pathways and natural repair mechanisms to discover, validate, and ultimately, apply stem cell therapeutics targeted to the cause of disease. The multidisciplinary and complementary sciences of molecular medicine, bioengineering, and network biology have catalyzed the growth of stem cell applications. Tailored to the genetic and molecular profile of the individual patient, regenerative medicine integrates stem cell biology with personalized therapeutic, diagnostic, prognostic, and preventive solutions across human diseases, providing a cornerstone of modern individualized medicine practice
Author: dragon web profit

Anti-Aging Skin Care Web Site: http://www.antiagingskincarebeauty.com

Emai: dragonwebprofit@antiagingskincarebeauty.com

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Stem cell treatments have the potential to change the face of human disease and alleviate suffering. The ability of stem cells to self-renew and give rise to subsequent generations that can differentiate offers a large potential to culture tissues that can replace diseased and damaged tissues in the body, without the risk of rejection and side effects.
A number of stem cell treatments exist, although most are still experimental and/or costly, with the notable exception of bone marrow transplantation. Medical researchers anticipate one day being able to use technologies derived from adult and embryonic stem cell research to treat cancer, Type 1 diabetes mellitus, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease,Celiac Disease, cardiac failure, muscle damage and neurological disorders, along with many others.
1. Brain damage
Stroke and traumatic brain injury lead to cell death, characterized by a loss of neurons and oligodendrocytes within the brain. Healthy adult brains contain neural stem cells which divide and to maintain general stem cell numbers, or become progenitor cells. In the case of brain injury, although the reparative process appears to initiate, substantial recovery is rarely observed in adults, suggesting a lack of robustness.
Stem cells may also be used to treat brain degeneration, such as in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
2. Cancer
Research injecting neural (adult) stem cells into the brains of dogs has shown to be very successful in treating cancerous tumors. With traditional techniques brain cancer is almost impossible to treat because it spreads so rapidly. Researchers at the Harvard Medical School induced intracranial tumours in rodents. Then, they injected human neural stem cells. Within days the cells had migrated into the cancerous area and produced cytosine deaminase, an enzyme that converts a non-toxic pro-drug into a chemotheraputic agent. As a result, the injected substance was able to reduce tumor mass by 81 percent. The stem cells neither differentiated nor turned tumorigenic. Some researchers believe that the key to finding a cure for cancer is to inhibit cancer stem cells, where the cancer tumor originates. Currently, cancer treatments are designed to kill all cancer cells, but through this method, researchers would be able to develop drugs to specifically target these stem cells.
3. Spinal cord injury
A team of Korean researchers reported on November 25, 2003, that they had transplanted multipotent adult stem cells from umbilical cord blood to a patient suffering from a spinal cord injury and that she can now walk on her own, without difficulty. The patient had not been able to stand up for roughly 19 years. For the unprecedented clinical test, the scientists isolated adult stem cells from umbilical cord blood and then injected them into the damaged part of the spinal cord.
According to the October 7, 2005 issue of The Week, University of California researchers injected human embryonic stem cells into paralyzed mice, which resulted in the mice regaining the ability to move and walk four months later. The researchers discovered upon dissecting the mice that the stem cells regenerated not only the neurons, but also the cells of the myelin sheath, a layer of cells which insulates neural impulses and speeds them up, facilitating communication with the brain (damage to which is often the cause of neurological injury in humans).
In January 2005, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison differentiated human blastocyst stem cells into neural stem cells, then into the beginnings of motor neurons, and finally into spinal motor neuron cells, the cell type that, in the human body, transmits messages from the brain to the spinal cord. The newly generated motor neurons exhibited electrical activity, the signature action of neurons. Transforming blastocyst stem cells into motor neurons had eluded researchers for decades. The next step will be to test if the newly generated neurons can communicate with other cells when transplanted into a living animal. Su-Chun said their trial-and-error study helped them learn how motor neuron cells, which are key to the nervous system, develop in the first place. The new cells could be used to treat diseases like Lou Gehrig’s disease, muscular dystrophy, and spinal cord injuries.
4. Heart damage
Several clinical trials targeting heart disease have shown that adult stem cell therapy is safe and effective, and is equally efficient in old as well as recent infarcts. Adult stem cell therapy for heart disease was commercially available on at least five continents at the last count (2007).
Possible mechanisms are:
Generation of heart muscle cells Stimulation of growth of new blood vessels that repopulate the heart tissue Secretion of growth factors, rather than actually incorporating into the heart Assistance via some other mechanism
It may be possible to have adult bone marrow cells differentiate into heart muscle cells.
5. Baldness
Hair follicles also contain stem cells, and some researchers predict research on these follicle stem cells may lead to successes in treating baldness through "hair multiplication", also known as "hair cloning". This treatment is expected to work through taking stem cells from existing follicles, multiplying them in cultures, and implanting the new follicles into the scalp. Later treatments may be able to simply signal follicle stem cells to give off chemical signals to nearby follicle cells which have shrunk during the aging process, which in turn respond to these signals by regenerating and once again making healthy hair.
6. Missing teeth
In 2004, scientists at King’s College London discovered a way to cultivate a complete tooth in mice and were able to grow them stand-alone in the laboratory. Researchers are confident that this technology can be used to grow live teeth in human patients.
In theory, stem cells taken from the patient could be coaxed in the lab into turning into a tooth bud which, when implanted in the gums, will give rise to a new tooth, which would be expected to take two months to grow. It will fuse with the jawbone and release chemicals that encourage nerves and blood vessels to connect with it. The process is similar to what happens when humans grow their original adult teeth.
Many challenges remain, however, before stem cells could be a choice for the replacement of missing teeth in the future.
7. Deafness
There has been success in re-growing cochlea hair cells with the use of stem cells.
8. Blindness and vision impairment
Since 2003, researchers have successfully transplanted corneal stem cells into damaged eyes to restore vision. Using embryonic stem cells, scientists are able to grow a thin sheet of totipotent stem cells in the laboratory. When these sheets are transplanted over the damaged cornea, the stem cells stimulate renewed repair, eventually restoring vision. The latest such development was in June 2005, when researchers at the Queen Victoria Hospital of Sussex, England were able to restore the sight of forty patients using the same technique. The group, led by Dr. Sheraz Daya, was able to successfully use adult stem cells obtained from the patient, a relative, or even a cadaver. Further rounds of trials are ongoing.
In April 2005, doctors in the UK transplanted corneal stem cells from an organ donor to the cornea of Deborah Catlyn, a woman who was blinded in one eye when an acid was thrown in her eye at a nightclub. The cornea, which is the transparent window of the eye, is a particularly suitable site for transplants. In fact, the first successful human transplant was a cornea transplant. The cornea has the remarkable property that it does not contain any blood vessels, making it relatively easy to transplant. The majority of corneal transplants carried out today are due to a degenerative disease called keratoconus.
The University Hospital of New Jersey claims a success rate growing the new cells from transplanted stem cells varies from 25 percent to 70 percent.
In 2009, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical center demonstrated that stem cells collected from human corneas can restore transparency without provoking a rejection response in mice with corneal damage.
In May of 2010, researchers at UC Irvine were able to successfully a grow a retina from stem cells.
9. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Stem cells have cured rats with an Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-like disease. The rats were injected with a virus to kill the spinal cord motor nerves related to leg movement, succeeded by injections of stem cells into their spinal cords. These migrated (passed through many layers of tissues) to the sites of injury where they were able to regenerate the dead nerve cells restoring the rats which were once again able to walk.
10. Graft vs. host disease and Crohn’s disease
Phase III clinical trials expected to end in second-quarter 2008 were conducted by Osiris Therapeutics using their in-development product Prochymal, derived from adult bone marrow. The target disorders of this therapeutic are graft-versus-host disease and Crohn’s disease.
11. Neural and behavioral birth defects
A team of researchers led by Prof. Joseph Yanai were able to reverse learning deficits in the offspring of pregnant mice who were exposed to heroin and the pesticide organophosphate. This was done by direct neural stem cell transplantation into the brains of the offspring. The recovery was almost 100 percent, as proved in behavioral tests in which the treated animals improved to normal behavior and learning scores after the transplantation. On the molecular level, brain chemistry of the treated animals was also restored to normal. Through the work, which was supported by the US National Institutes of Health, the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation and the Israel anti-drug authorities, the researchers discovered that the stem cells worked even in cases where most of the cells died out in the host brain.
The scientists found that before they die the neural stem cells succeed in inducing the host brain to produce large numbers of stem cells which repair the damage. These findings, which answered a major question in the stem cell research community, were published earlier this year in the leading journal, Molecular Psychiatry. Scientists are now developing procedures to administer the neural stem cells in the least invasive way possible – probably via blood vessels, making therapy practical and clinically feasible. Researchers also plan to work on developing methods to take cells from the patient’s own body, turn them into stem cells, and then transplant them back into the patient’s blood via the blood stream. Aside from decreasing the chances of immunological rejection, the approach will also eliminate the controversial ethical issues involved in the use of stem cells from human embryos.
12. Diabetes
Diabetes patients lose the function of their insulin-producing beta cells of their pancreas. Human embryonic stem cells may be grown in cell culture and stimulated to form insulin-producing cells that can be transplanted into the patient.
However, success depends on developing procedures in all required steps:[3]
    * Have the cells proliferate and generate sufficient amount of tissue     * Differentiation into the right cell type     * Survival of the cells in the recipient (prevention of transplant rejection)     * Integration with the surrounding tissue in the body     * Function appropriately in long-term
13. Orthopaedics
Clinical case reports in the treatment of orthopaedic conditions have been reported. To date, the focus in the literature for musculoskeletal care appears to be on mesenchymal stem cells. Centeno et al. have published MRI evidence of increased cartilage and meniscus volume in individual human subjects. The results of trials including more patients are yet to be published making it hard to extrapolate the generalizability of these case reports. A newly published safety study published by the same group shows good safety and less complications than surgical care in a large study group of 227 patients over a 3-4 year period.
Wakitani has also published a small case series of nine defects in five knees involving surgical transplantation of mesenchymal stem cells with coverage of the treated chondral defects
14. Wound healing
In one experimental method in regenerative medicine, stem cells are used to stimulate the growth of human tissues. In an adult, wounded tissue is most often replaced by scar tissue, which is characterized in the skin by disorganized collagen structure, loss of hair follicles and irregular vascular structure. In the case of wounded fetal tissue, however, wounded tissue is replaced with normal tissue through the activity of stem cells. A possible method for tissue regeneration in adults is to place adult stem cell "seeds" inside a tissue bed "soil" in a wound bed and allow the stem cells to stimulate differentiation in the tissue bed cells. This method elicits a regenerative response more similar to fetal wound-healing than adult scar tissue formation. Researchers are still investigating different aspects of the "soil" tissue that are conducive to regeneration.
15. Infertility
Culture of human embryonic stem cells in mitotically inactivated porcine ovarian fibroblasts (POF) causes differentiation into germ cells (precursor cells of oocytes and spermatozoa), as evidenced by gene expression analysis.
Human embryonic stem cells have been stimulated to form Spermatozoon-like cells, yet still slightly damaged or malformed. It could potentially treat azoospermia.
Author: dragon web profit

Anti-Aging Skin Care Web Site: http://www.antiagingskincarebeauty.com

Emai: dragonwebprofit@antiagingskincarebeauty.com

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Tissue engineering involves the in vitro or in vivo generation of organoids such as cartilage, skin or nerves. More ambitious projects seek to ameliorate the quality of life of diseased or injured patients and reduce the economic burden of treatment. Bioartificial organs involve an in vitro prepared tissue-material interface fabricated into a durable device. A typical example is the bioartificial pancreas. The extra-corporeal bioartificial liver and more recently the bioartificial kidney are examples of the transient replacement of organ functions, the former intended as a bridge to stabilize comatose patients until a whole organ can be procured.
Bioartificial organs require the combination of several research areas. The understanding of cellular differentiation and growth and how extracellular matrix components affect cell function comes under the umbrella of cell biology. Immunology and molecular genetics will also be needed to contribute to the design of cells or cell transplant systems that are not rejected by the immune system. Cell source and cell preservation are other important issues. The transplanted cells may come from cell lines or primary tissues—from the patients themselves, other human donors, animal sources or fetal tissue. In choosing the cell source, a balance must be struck between ethical issues, safety issues and efficacy. The sterilization and depyrogenation of the polymers involved in transplants is also critical. The materials used in tissue engineering and polymer processing are other key issues. The development of controlled release systems, which deliver molecules over long time periods, will be important in administering numerous tissue controlling factors, growth factors and angiogenesis stimulators. Finally, it will be useful to develop methods of surface analysis for studying interfaces between cell and materials and mathematical models and in vitro systems that can predict in vivo cellular events.
Author: dragon web profit

Anti-Aging Skin Care Web Site: http://www.antiagingskincarebeauty.com

Emai: dragonwebprofit@antiagingskincarebeauty.com

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Organ transplant is fast becoming a demand in the field of medicine and health. Some fifty years ago, the first ever kidney transplant was successfully performed, paving the way for the development and further research of the transplantation of other organs other than kidneys. Nowadays, hospital administrations can only tell you that awaiting organs for possible replacement can take years. The demand for organs in fast surpassing the supply, so researchers are trying to determine if it is possible to create new organs in the laboratory.
Only in this day and age can producing human organs from scratch can be done, with the advent and improvement of technology such as the tissue culture microscope and stem cell research. However, the day a physician can “order” an organ may still be years and years away, but this does not stop scientists from trying. Who knows, their research can be the foundation to spark a breakthrough in medical science as we know it today.
Anthony Atala from the Children’s Hospital in Boston has done some impressive experiments regarding this topic. With the use of biodegradable matter and a patient’s cells, he and his colleagues managed to produce functioning organs. Some of these have even been tested with actual patients.
These creations are aptly called bioartificial organs and the US Food and Drug Administration is already looking into approving one of their productions, the urethra, as a transplantable organ. With this kind of support, Atala is motivated to move his research further. He spoke at the Annual Conference on Regenerative Medicine in Washington, D.C., and explained that he and his colleagues are preparing to test a bioartificial bladder in humans. At the moment, they are testing organs like the kidney and uterus in animals. When you decipher his concept, it appears to be quite straightforward. An artificial structure, molded through a tissue culture microscope and made with biodegradable matter, is seeded with the patient’s own set of cells and then transferred into the patient.
The crucial part that will deem the transplant a relative success is that the blood supply is sufficient to allow the cells to thrive, making the organ viable as it grows into the mold. In time, since the mold is biodegradable, this ultimately degrades and hopefully a functioning organ will remain. The most challenging part for Atala was trying to determine how to culture the cells and stimulate them to grow. He states he can now take a piece of tissue the size of a square centimeter, and under the magnification of a tissue culture microscope, place them in culture mediums that can spawn enough cells to encompass an entire football field in eight weeks. Atala has made a name for himself as a pioneer and a theorist in creating bioartificial organs for transplantation.
Atala also says that they are not hurrying with the experiments in order to satisfy the need. The step-by-step measures he and his colleagues are taking allow this medical wonder to proceed in a safe and thorough manner. It is only essential that they take their time, determining long term complications or side effects bioartificial transplantations may cause.
Author: dragon web profit

Anti-Aging Skin Care Web Site: http://www.antiagingskincarebeauty.com

Emai: dragonwebprofit@antiagingskincarebeauty.com

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Progress in stem cell biology has been accelerated through the integration of the fundamental fields of molecular embryology and immunology with the emerging multidisciplinary fields of systems biology, bioengineering, and disease networks. The translation into the clinical applications of regenerative medicine is guided by the opportunities of individualized disease management exploiting personalized prediction, diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, and ultimately, therapy tailored to the specific needs of each patient.


Author: dragon web profit

Anti-Aging Skin Care Web Site: http://www.antiagingskincarebeauty.com

Emai: dragonwebprofit@antiagingskincarebeauty.com

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The scope of stem cell-based regenerative medicine is defined by the convergent repair triad of replacement, regeneration, and rejuvenation. The “R3” paradigm of therapeutic repair highlights that these strategies overlap in practice while inherent distinctions conceptualize the scope of regenerative medicine, ranging from transplantation of used parts (“replacement”) to development of new parts (“regeneration”) to induction of self-renewed parts (“rejuvenation”).



The scope of regenerative medicine

Replacement
Replacement strategy refers to transplantation of a cell-based product that re-establishes homeostasis for the recipient through continuation of the tissue function from the donor. The field of surgery pioneered the concept of replacement with the advent of solid organ transplantation. If the heart was damaged beyond the ability to palliate the condition, then replacing the diseased tissue with a functioning donor heart became the only option. In addition to solid organ transplantation, cell-based replacement is routinely used in the form of red blood cell transfusions to replace the circulating blood in order to increase the oxygen-carrying capacity and treat life-threatening blood loss or anemia. This strategy “recycles” used parts of cells, tissues, or organs to “restore” physiologic function. A significant limitation of the replacement strategy remains the shortage of appropriate donors and the difficulty to match the immunological criteria for a safe and effective transplantation.
Regeneration
Regenerative strategy refers to engraftment of progenitor cells that require in vivo growth and differentiation to establish recipient homeostasis through de novo function of the stem cell-based transplant. Advances in hematology gave rise to the concept of regeneration with the identification of bone marrow-derived stem cells that once harvested could be transplanted in small quantities into the peripheral blood to engraft and reconstitute the functioning bone marrow through continuous production of the entire hematopoietic system. Success was facilitated by the presence of host bone marrow that provided a protective environment to nurture the long-term survival of self-renewing stem cell progenitors. This strategy “restores” function by “renewing” the pool of functional progenitor cells to allow differentiation as needed from exogenous stem cells. An intense search is ongoing for tissue-specific, nonhematopoietic stem cells that have the capacity to re-establish lost function when ectopically transplanted into a wide range of diseased tissues, as evident in diabetes, ischemic heart disease, and degenerative neurological diseases.
Rejuvenation
Rejuvenation strategy refers to self-renewal of tissues from endogenous, resident stem cells to maintain tissue homeostasis and promote tissue healing. This natural process of tissue recycling enables cells as they senesce to be replaced with younger cells that are inherently more resilient and equipped to provide adequate stress tolerance for tissue survival. Daughter cells can also be derived from reactivation of the cell cycle within mature cell types in response to (physio)pathological stress. This strategy “renews” tissue structure by “recycling” endogenous stem cells for proactive self-renewal. Rejuvenation ensures continuous production of renewable tissue required for long-term stress tolerance; however, most tissues are able to only partially self-renew. In the context of a massive acute injury, such as myocardial infarction, an inherent repair strategy may be inadequate. A boost in these natural processes, through biologic or pharmacologic treatment, is likely required to stimulate adaptive response and promote adequate biogenesis of functional tissue in the setting of acute or progressive disease.
Author: dragon web profit

Anti-Aging Skin Care Web Site: http://www.antiagingskincarebeauty.com

Emai: dragonwebprofit@antiagingskincarebeauty.com

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