Stem Cell Updates

Stem cell therapy is the next wave of advancement in medicine, no longer just a dream for the future but directly ahead of us, as advances in adult stem cell research occur on a daily basis. Click on the orange RSS button in the upper left corner for an easy way to keep up with the most significant findings that have the potential to impact YOUR health.

Aug 13, 2008, Gladstone scientists identify single microRNA that controls blood vessel development

Scientists from the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) and UCSF have identified a small or micro-RNA molecule that regulates blood vessel formation. This finding is important for stem cell regeneration, in that any tissue which regrows will need to have a proper vascular supply.

Aug 4, 2008, Stem Cell Technology: First Neurons Created From ALS Patient's Skin Cells

Using the recipe published last fall showing the four genes that can turn a differentiated adult cell into an embryonic-like stem cell (iPS or induced pluripotent stem cell), researchers at Columbia University and Harvard have taken a new step in stem cell therapy. Rather than stopping at turning a normal skin cell into a stem cell, they have now taken skin cells from patients with ALS and turned them into iPS cells in vitro. But the most exciting part is that they have turned these iPS cells now into motor neurons, the cells which are defective in ALS. This provides a theoretically unlimited source of abnormal neurons that can be grown in vitro and used for testing various therapies on a cellular level.

Jul 27, 2008, Spinal Cord Stem Cells May Act as Nerve Repair System

Published this month in PLoS Medicine is a study by researchers at MIT and the Karolinska Institute showing that neural stem cells in the central nervous system proliferate upon spinal cord injury. By taking these cells and growing them in vitro (in cell culture) in the lab and returning them to the site of injury, recovery of physical function has been demonstrated in several animal models. Having personally treated a number of individuals with spinal cord injury, I find this report especially encouraging.

Jul 11, 2008, StemEnhance Questions? Ask the Doctor!

This collection of StemEnhance questions from real patients is answered by a doctor who knows about StemEnhance, adult stem cell research, and human physiology

Jul 11, 2008, Stem Cell Resources -- More Information on Stem Cell Science and Your Health

Consult these stem cell resources to find out more about adult stem cell research, stimulating your own adult stem cells and StemEnhance

Jul 11, 2008, Parkinson's disease and Adult Stem Cell Research

Adult stem cells use many mechanisms to improve brain function in Parkinson's disease

Jul 11, 2008, Blue-Green Algae: The Potential Health Benefits May Surprise You

Extracts of blue-green algae are packed with nutrients and may increase circulating stem cells

Jul 11, 2008, Your Own Adult Stem Cells Have the Potential to Repair and Regenerate

The best kept secret of the new millenium is that your body has adult stem cells that can help repair and regenerate injured tissue

Jul 11, 2008, Amazing Adult Stem Cell Advances: GCSF, AMD3100, & StemEnhance

Learn more about how basic science is uncovering molecular insights leading to adult stem cell advances

Jul 11, 2008, Best Way to Order StemEnhance -- $41.95 per bottle

Information on how to order StemEnhance retail, wholesale, autoship

Jul 11, 2008, Researchers Map Cells' Inner Landscapes

Researchers at the Broad Institute in Boston (Harvard and MIT) have begun an important effort to describe the changes in a stem cell's DNA that occur as the cell changes from an undifferentiated stem cell into another cell type. Methylation is a process by which DNA--which is passed nearly unchanged from generation to generation--can be modified to increase or decrease expression of the genes encoded by the DNA. Methylation is an important epigenetic, or beyond genetics, change that controls gene expression. These studies are the first to catalog global or comprehensive changes in a cell's DNA methylation pattern and have implications beyond stem cell differentiation.

Jul 11, 2008, Repairing muscle from the cell up

Researchers at Harvard University have shown the potential for muscle-derived adult stem cells to repair damaged muscle tissue in mice. This work provides proof of principle for the same cells in humans to eventually be used to treat muscle degenerative conditions like muscular dystrophy.

Jun 25, 2008, Stem Cell Researchers Give Old Muscle New Pep

One of the typical features of aging is loss of muscle mass. Being able to prevent or slow this process could reduce the weakness and other associated problems that typically accompany this muscle loss. Researchers at UC Berkeley have now identified two interacting molecular pathways, Notch and TGF-beta, which interact in the replacement of muscle cells. Over time, the levels of the Notch pathway decrease whereas those of the TGF-beta pathway increase. In mice having reduced TGF-beta pathway function (by RNA interference with pSmad3), muscle recovery after injury was much better than in control animals and levels of muscle stem cells were 3-4x higher than in control animals of the same age.

These same researchers, Carlson and Conboy, have also shown that human embryonic stem cells can neutralize the effects of aging. We hope to hear more about this research in the future.

Apr 28, 2008, Canadian-led research team grows early-stage heart cells from stem cells

Researchers in Toronto have discovered the recipe for turning human embryonic stem cells into heart cells in vitro (in a dish). This accomplishment is a necessary intermediate step on the way to generating a new or repaired functional heart.

Mar 16, 2008, Injection Of Human Umbilical Cord Blood Helps The Aging Brain, Study Shows

Investigators at the University of South Florida have discovered that injecting adult stem cells from human umbilical cord blood into the brains of aging rats results in greater proliferation of neural stem cells in the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory consolidation. The mechanism behind this positive effect likely involves decreased inflammation, which inhibits the proliferation of stem cells.

Mar 16, 2008, Niches, the Future of Regenerative Medicine

One of the key factors in adult stem cell function is where the stem cell resides, or its niche. These niches occur in various tissues; for example, in the bone marrow, hair follicle, intestinal crypts, and hippocampal region of the brain. This review article explains what we know about how niches regulate stem cell behavior.

Mar 16, 2008, Stem Cell Transplant May Improve Survival Among Elderly with Relapsed Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

Elderly patients with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma treated with autologous (self-derived) adult stem cell transplants have improved outcomes, according to research done at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Mar 16, 2008, Micro-RNAs Help Regulate Adult Stem Cell Differentiation

One of the major secrets behind stem cell differentiation is understanding how these uniform, immature cells become specific cell types in specific tissues. Now the discovery by scientists at the University of California-San Francisco that small, microRNAs act as rheostats to control the level of various proteins in stem cells, has introduced a new concept of 'dimmer switch' regulation of stem cell differentiation. Specific microRNAs, or mi-RNAs, in various tissues control the levels of proteins necessary to produce a particular cell type.

Feb 11, 2008, Hunt for pluripotent stem cell – Regenerative medicine search for almighty cell

This review article discusses and summarizes current work on finding and using stem cells for regenerative medicine. Only the Abstract is available on this page; for a copy of the entire article, email the corresponding author and request a pdf version of th manuscript.

Feb 11, 2008, Transparent Adult Zebra Fish Will Make Human Biology Even Clearer

Using a clever genetic trick and taking advantage of the various pigment genes in vertebrates, Richard White at Boston Children's Hospital has generated zebrafish that lack brown or black pigment, making them virtually transparent and thus more accessible to observing disease processes. This animal model, in combination with using injections of fluorescently-labeled stem or other cells, will enable researchers to observe biological processes in the living animal more clearly.

Feb 8, 2008, Haematopoietic stem cell release is regulated by circadian oscillations

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York have discovered an important clue about how adult stem cells from the bone marrow might work. Unexpectedly, stem cells are released according to the circadian rhythm, and the signals to release stem cells are delivered to adult stem cells by adrenergic nerves that innervate the bone marrow. These findings could have implications for timing of supplements, such as StemEnhance, that release stem cells from the bone marrow.

Feb 6, 2008, Heparan Sulfate Regulates Self-renewal and Pluripotency of Embryonic Stem Cells

The ability of stem cells to self-renew is dependent on molecules both inside the cell (intrinsic) and on those outside the cell (extrinsic). In this article, researchers from Japan show that chains of a proteoglycan molecule on the cell surface of embryonic stem cells called heparan sulfate plays an important role in this process. Heparan sulfate mediates or transduces the extrinsic signals into the interior of the cell. Cells lacking or having reduced heparan sulfate were unable to self renew and instead differentiated into embryonic endoderm (one of the three primitive cell layers).

Jan 27, 2008, Systemic Delivery of Adult Stem cells Improves Cardiac Function in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

In a rat model of spontaneous hypertension with a high incidence of myocardial infarction (heart attack), researchers in Brazil have found that injection of bone marrow stem cells prevented mortality. Bone marrow-derived stem cells were more effective than mesenchymal stem cells, which were more effective than no treatment at all. These results have clear implications for humans with cardiac disease; they also agree with previous results showing that higher levels of circulating stem cells are an indication of better cardiovascular health.

Jan 25, 2008, β Cells Can Be Generated from Endogenous Progenitors in Injured Adult Mouse Pancreas

Secret, silent pancreatic stem cells have been discovered and coaxed out of hiding by researchers in Belgium and France. Even more exciting, these researchers have been able to induce these cells to divide and produce functional beta cells. The significance of these results are clear for developing future treatments for diabetes.

Jan 25, 2008, Multipotent adult progenitor cells sustain function of ischemic limbs in mice

In a mouse model of the human vascular condition known as intermittent claudication, researchers in Spain have discovered that bone marrow-derived adult stem cells are able to regenerate blood vessels and muscle tissue.

Jan 22, 2008, Stem cell research aims to tackle Parkinson's disease

Ernest Arenas of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm presented results from his laboratory, describing their approach using neural stem cells to generate dopaminergic neurons. These neurons eventually could be transplanted into patients with Parkinson's disease to replace the dopaminergic neurons that are lost in that condition. Their approach involves expression of two genes in neural stem cells, Wnt-5a and noggin, which are involved in development of the central nervous system.

Jan 21, 2008, Lhx2 Selector Activity Specifies Cortical Identity and Suppresses Hippocampal Organizer Fate

The cerebral cortex is the organ most responsible for giving humans our unique intellectual capacity. Researchers at the University of California-Irvine have discovered that a gene called Lhx2 controls the fate of early progenitor cells in the developing central nervous system. The implications of this work are for helping people with neurological conditions such as stroke or neurodegeneration by programming neural stem cells to become cerebral cortex.

Jan 20, 2008, Cyclic dermal BMP signalling regulates stem cell activation during hair regeneration

Stem cell activation in hair follicles is regulated not only at the level of the individual hair follicle but also throughout the entire layer of skin. This implies that stem cell repair or activation acts on the entire organ rather than only on individual cells.

Jan 17, 2008, Adult Stem Cell Benefits

Research shows that a number of mechanisms are responsible for adult stem cell benefits

Jan 17, 2008, Adult Stem Cell Research -- A Brief Guide

This brief guide on adult stem cell research will show you why these cells are so important to our health.

Jan 17, 2008, Adult Stem Cell Success: the Potential is in Your Hands Now

Based on the work of many scientific teams around the world, adult stem cell success is now available for everyone in the form of StemEnhance

Jan 17, 2008, Human ES cell-derived neural rosettes reveal a functionally distinct early neural stem cell stage

Although adult stem cells have shown more promise than embryonic stem cells in treating human conditions, concern exists about the ability of adult stem cells to produce the full array of cell types in a given organ. This is especially true in the central nervous system where different stem cell niches may dictate the potential of neural stem cells that reside there. For this reason, new work from Lorenz Studer's lab at Sloan-Kettering identifying a new type of neural stem cell, the rosette-NSC, is very exciting. The R-NSC cells can differentiate into more cell types than other neural stem cells previously identified, and express specific sets of markers that can be used to study them in more detail.

Jan 14, 2008, Nature Medicine epub 13 January 2008

Amazingly, it is possible to depopulate the cells of a heart and regrow a beating organ by repopulating the connective tissue scaffolding with adult stem cells, Doris Taylor's lab at the University of Minnesota has discovered. This is one of those advances in science that makes so much sense that you wonder why someone didn't think of it earlier. Stimulating a person's own stem cells to initiate repair and regeneration is likely to be the most important medical advancement of at least the past century.

Jan 11, 2008, Adult spinal cord progenitor cells are repelled by netrin-1 in the embryonic and injured adult spinal cord

Guidance cues in the developing nervous system lead, by attraction or repulsion, migrating neurons and axons to their final destination. For many years, it was thought that the central nervous system did not support regeneration. Inhibitory molecules have been identified in the past years that began to reveal why the CNS is not conducive to neuron regrowth after injury. Now, Kennedy, Horner, and colleagues at several institutes have found, similar to the developing spinal cord, netrin-1 serves as the primary repellent to adult spinal cord progenitor cells, driving these cells away from an area of spinal cord injury. Said Tim Kennedy, “This is a critical first step towards understanding the molecular events needed to repair the injured spinal cord and provides us with new targets for potential therapies.”

Jan 11, 2008, Adult Neurogenesis Requires Smad4-Mediated Bone Morphogenic Protein Signaling in Stem Cells

Neural stem cells can become either neurons or glial cells. One type of glia is the oligodendroglial cell. Magdalena Goetz and colleagues in Germany have found that BMP-mediated signaling (see also Cancer Cell article from 8 January 2008) is required to initiate neurogenesis from adult neural stem cells and suppress the alternative fate of oligodendrogliogenesis.

Jan 10, 2008, Interleukin-6 Is an Essential Regulator of Satellite Cell-Mediated Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy

Cytokines released from injured or damaged tissue are known to attract circulating stem cells. Now researchers in Barcelona, Spain, have discovered that active, growing muscle also secretes a cytokine called IL-6 that stimulates muscle stem cell (satellite cell) proliferation and thereby contributes to growth of muscle tissue.

Jan 8, 2008, Cancer Cell, Vol 13, 8 January 2008

Howard Fine's lab at the National Cancer Institute has discovered an important clue about the behavior of tumor-initiating cells with stem like properties (TICs) in the brain. These TICs are similar to neural stem cells (NSC) but, due to abnormal regulation of gene expression, they are blocked at an early stage of development and thus turn into glioblastoma cells. The investigators have determined a specific molecule, BMPR1B--a receptor for secreted molecules called BMPs--whose function is lost in these TICs. When they restored function of BMPR1B, the TICs regained their normal ability to differentiate normally.

Jan 3, 2008, Nucleic Acids Research

DNA repair is an essential function to prevent many disease processes. This review article explores the evidence for DNA repair in relation to adult stem cell function. It suggests that finding ways to prevent a decline in DNA repair with time may improve long term stem cell function and prevent diseases associated with lack of DNA repair.

Dec 23, 2007, Stem Cells epub December 20, 2007

Stem cell research has been slowed down by the inability to clearly detect specific stem cell populations. Now Lisa Flanagan and colleagues at the Univ of California-Irvine have developed a new technique using the tool of dielectrophoresis to enable cell sorting of various stem cell populations. The new method, using the dielectric properties of the cells rather than the cell surface markers used in other sorting methods, has several advantages. For one thing, it is more precise and can can identify subpopulations of neural stem cells prior to the time that they begin to express specific cell surface markers. This new technique should make it easier for researchers to sort and study various types of adult stem cells.

Dec 23, 2007, Nature Cell Biology, epub December 9, 2007

Investigators in Michael Rudnicki's lab at the University of Toronto have discovered the sequence of gene activation that turns satellite cells (adult stem cells) in muscle tissue into myoblasts or muscle cell progenitors. In undamaged muscle tissue, satellite cells are quiescent, expressing markers such as Pax7. When muscle tissue is injured or damaged, it begins to express other markers such as MyoD and Myf5. This paper describes the molecular basis behind Pax7 activation of Myf5 to initiate the process of muscle repair and regrowth by turning satellite cells into committed myogenic progenitor cells.

Dec 19, 2007, Journal of Clinical Investigation, epub Dec 3, 2007

Ernest Arenas and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm have developed a new procedure for generating large numbers of dopamine-expressing neurons. They obtained neural progenitor/stem cells from the ventral midbrain, then treated the cells in vitro with several factors that made these stem cells turn into dopamine-producing neurons with properties of the cells lost in Parkinson's disease. They then transplanted these cells into the brains of a mouse model of Parkinson's disease and observed improvement at both the cellular and functional levels.

The theoretical concern with this approach is that Wnt5a, one of the molecules that they used to treat the neural stem cells, was transfected into the cells rather than being used to treat them from the outside. Wnt5a is in the beta-catenin pathway, which is implicated in some forms of cancer. However, the investigators did not observe tumor formation in the mice.

Dec 18, 2007, Polysialic Acid in Development and Disease Processes

Polysialic acid is an essential carbohydrate component of cell membranes during brain development and also in cancer formation

Dec 13, 2007, Cell Stem Cell, Vol 1, 646-657, 13 December 2007

The laboratory of Yvan Torrente at the University of Milan, Italy, has succeeded in developing stem cell and gene targeting therapy in a mouse model of Duchenne Muscular Dsytrophy (DMD). DMD is characterized by loss of muscle tissue due to a defective dystrophin gene. The investigators used scid/mdx mice, in which the immune system is rendered incapable of responding to immune challenges (scid), and the dystrophin gene is mutated (mdx). In these mice, they were able to demonstrate recovery of muscle by injecting into the bloodstream and into the muscles, CD133+ blood and muscle-derived stem cells from DMD patients that had the defective dystophin gene replaced by a normal copy. This study provides a clear demonstration of possible combined gene and stem cell treatment for a degenerative hereditary condition.

Dec 9, 2007, Science, epub online Dec 6, 2007

The laboratories of Rudy Jaenisch at the Whitehead Institute at MIT and Tim Townes at University of Alabama have succeeded in treating a mouse model of sickle cell anemia using inducible pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). Sickle cell anemia is a disorder of hemoglobin synthesis that results in abnormally shaped red blood cells that clump in the blood vessels and fail to carry oxygen properly. By using advanced molecular biology techniques, these groups were able to reprogram defective skin cells from these mice into iPS cells, and transplant hematopoietic progenitor cells back into the mice to rescue the sickle cell defect. Although many hurdles remain before this approach can be used to treat human diseases, it provides first proof of the ability to treat a disease using a combination of gene targeting and stem cell therapy.

Nov 29, 2007, PLoS Biology, 5(11):e300, Nov 13, 2007

Carlos Lois and colleagues at MIT have used transplants of neural progenitor cells in rat brains to show that neural precursor cells are pre-committed as to their final identity, rather than being influenced by their eventual surroundings. The term used to describe this property of a cell as being hard-wired is 'cell autonomous'.

Interestingly, this work is similar to that conducted over the last decade by Susan McConnell's laboratory at Stanford and many other scientific groups around the world. Previously, these cells were generally not called 'stem cells', but now that this term is in vogue, it seems to crop up more frequently.

A very interesting question that remains is whether non-neural stem/progenitor cells, such as bone marrow-derived hematopoietic stem cells, would be restricted by the same pre-determined fate, or would be freer to become a wider variety of neuronal subtypes. We do know that bone marrow stem cells can become neurons, at least in vitro.

Nov 26, 2007, Science, Vol 318, Issue 5854, pp. 1296 - 1299, Nov, 2007

Irving Weissman and colleagues at Stanford University have found a way to get rid of hematopoietic stem cells by using an antibody to c-kit, a molecule expressed on the surface of these stem cells. This finding opens the door to mild but effective ways of purging the body of defective stem cells--meaning that patients might not have to suffer through toxic chemotherapy to get rid of bone marrow stem cells before transplantation.

Nov 26, 2007, Open Joint-Stock Company, with Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Medicine, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences

Researchers in Russia (St. Petersburg) have successfully treated cerebral stroke in rats by injecting adult (mesenchymal) stem cells from the bone marrow. Although the exact mechanism of the benefit has not yet been demonstrated, the results are encouraging. This suggests the real possibility that stroke in humans can be treated with adult stem cells.

Nov 21, 2007, Cell, Vol 131 Issue 4: November, 2007

Yamanaka and colleagues at Kyoto University in Japan have succeeded in advancing their stem cell results by generating embryonic stem cells from human skin cells (fibroblasts) by changing the expression of four genes using a virus. These results have implications for using patient-specific cells for treating a variety of conditions. However, the issue of removing the virus still remains.

Nov 21, 2007, Science, Vol 318, Issue 5853, Nov, 2007

James Thompson, of embryonic stem cell research fame, and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have discovered a molecular technique that allows them to reprogram skin cells into embryonic stem cells. Along with work by a group in Japan, this work clearly demonstrates that our previous thinking--that cells can only differentiate, not DE-differentiate--is outdated.

Nov 21, 2007, A NEW Scientific Journal -- Cell Stem Cell

Cell Press, publisher of the top scientific journal Cell and related periodicals, has launched the publication of yet another journal, entitled Cell Stem Cell. Aside from the awkward title (Stem Cell is already taken), we can look forward to more cutting edge research from the researchers around the world.