Stem Cell Research

Rudolf Jaenisch Awarded McEwen Prize for Innovation In Stem Cell Research

The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) has announced the winner of the 2012 McEwen Award for Innovation, a coveted prize in the field of stem cell research and regenerative medicine. 

The 2012 recipient is Rudolf Jaenisch, MD, Founding Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in recognition of his pioneering discoveries in the areas of genetic and epigenetic control of development in mice that directly impact the future potential of embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells for therapeutic utility.

The McEwen Award for Innovation is supported by the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The $100,000 award honors original thinking and groundbreaking research pertaining to stem cells or regenerative medicine that opens new avenues of exploration towards the understanding or treatment of human disease or affliction.

“Rudolf Jaenisch has consistently contributed new and groundbreaking discoveries to stem cell biology and regenerative medicines that have changed the way stem cell research is conducted, said Fred H. Gage, PhD, ISSCR President. “Importantly, Rudolf not only has an uncanny sense of the next big question, but also conducts his experiments with such thoughtful and critical experimental design that his results have an immediate impact. This critical attention to detail and experimental design has greatly benefited the many gifted students that have passed through his lab and now populate many of the major stem cell centers throughout the world. Rudolf is very deserving of this award.”

Winner of the inaugural McEwen Award for Innovation in 2011, Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, ISSCR President-Elect agrees.  “Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch has always been on the cutting-edge of our field and his research has been a source of inspiration not only for myself, but has influenced the careers of some of our most esteemed colleagues.”

Dr. Jaenisch will be presented with the award at the ISSCR 10th Annual Meeting, in Yokohama, Japan, on Wednesday, June 13, 2012.

Adapted from the ISSCR announcement.

Sigma Life Science Gains Rights to Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Technology Developed By Kyoto University

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (iPSC) technology can create pluripotent stem cells from the normal adult cells of a patient. Pluripotent stem cells are capable of differentiating into many specialized primary cell types needed for research, such as cardiomyocytes, hepatocytes, neurons, and muscle cells.

With access to differentiated cells from patients with the condition of interest, or healthy human cells engineered to contain disease-specific genetics, researchers may obtain greater predictive accuracy than is possible with the in vitro models used currently in pharmaceutical research and preclinical studies.

Sigma says the licensed technology will enable it to develop new tools for drug discovery and preclinical research, including iPSCs, iPSC-derived primary cells, assays, custom cell lines, and ADME/Tox services.

Establishing Stem Cell Lines May Be Easier As Critical Stage Of Embryonic Development Is Now Observable

Using the mouse embryo as a model researchers have developed a method to overcome the barrier of implantation into the womb by culturing and imaging embryos outside the body of the mother for the first 8 days of their development. 

Movies of this critical developmental stage are revealing secrets about the origins of clusters of extra-embryonic cells that signal where to make the head of the embryo. Researchers have now used a gene expressed only in this "head" signalling region, marked by a protein that glows, to track these cells in mouse embryos living in culture.

"Not only is this approach uncovering events previously hidden from view, but it has other important potential applications," said Professor Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, University of Cambridge. "This is the period of development during which the natural population of stem cells undergoes expansion to form the foundation upon which the body can be built." 

First-of-its-Kind Stem Cell Treatment Re-grows Healthy Heart Muscle in Heart Attack Patients

In what could be a major step forward for stem cell therapies, clinical trial patients who underwent a stem cell procedure demonstrated a significant reduction in the size of the scar left on the heart muscle by a heart attack. Patients also experienced a sizable increase in healthy heart muscle following the experimental stem cell treatments.

One year after receiving the stem cell treatment, scar size was reduced from 24 percent to 12 percent of the heart in patients treated with their own heart-derived cells (an average drop of about 50 percent). Patients in the control group, who did not receive stem cells, did not experience a reduction in their heart attack scars. 

"While the primary goal of our study was to verify safety, we also looked for evidence that the treatment might dissolve scar and regrow lost heart muscle," said Eduardo Marbán, MD, PhD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute. 

Researchers Discover How Infection Triggers Blood Stem Cell Growth

New findings show blood stem and progenitor cells can directly react to inflammatory stress by proliferating and differentiating into the required mature blood cells.

The discovery opens up a field of study into stem cells and how the blood system is “fine-tuned” in response to stressors. This new understanding of exactly how microbes signal to the stem cells has important implications for the treatment of infections and many diseases that have an inflammatory component, including cancer.

New Method Of Directing Stem Cells To Increase Bone Formation And Strength Developed

Directing stem cells to travel and adhere to the surface of bone for bone formation has been among the elusive goals in regenerative medicine. 

This new method enhances bone growth by using a unique hybrid molecule, LLP2A-alendronate. When injected into the bloodstream LLP2A-alendronate directs the body's stem cells to travel to the surface of bones. Once there the stem cells differentiate into bone-forming cells and synthesize proteins to enhance bone growth.

"There are many stem cells, even in elderly people, but they do not readily migrate to bone," said Wei Yao M.D., Assistant Professor, Center for Aging, UC Davis. "Finding a molecule that attaches to stem cells and guides them to the targets we need is a real breakthrough."

From Stem Cell Research To Genetics, Oxford And Harvard Lead In Data-Sharing Effort

In a move sorely needed in the new and fast growing field of stem cell research and regenerative medicine, more than 50 collaborators at over 30 scientific organizations around the globe have agreed on a common standard that will make possible the consistent description of enormous and very different databases compiled in fields ranging from genetics to stem cell research and therapies.

The new standard provides a way for scientists in widely disparate fields to co-ordinate each other's findings by allowing behind-the-scenes combination of the mountains of data produced by modern, technology driven science.

Skin Cells Turned Into Neural Precusors, Bypassing Stem Cell Stage

New research has converted mouse skin cells directly into cells that become the three main parts of the nervous system. The finding is an extension of a previous study (post)  by the same group showing that mouse and human skin cells can be directly converted into functional neurons.

Importantly, the multiple successes of the direct conversion method could refute the idea that pluripotency is necessary for a cell to transform from one cell type to another. Together, the results raise the possibility that embryonic stem cell research and another technique called “induced pluripotency” could be supplanted by a more direct way of generating specific types of cells for therapy or research.

This new research is a substantial advance over the previous work in that it transforms the skin cells into neural precursor cells as opposed to neurons. While neural precursor cells can differentiate into neurons they can also become the two other main cell types in the nervous system: astrocytes and oligodendrocytes.

Therapeutically Useful Stem Cell Derivatives Need Stability

New research suggests that neural derivatives of human pluripotent stem cells frequently acquire extra material from chromosome 1q, a chromosomal defect that has been associated with some blood cell cancers and pediatric brain tumors with poor clinical outcomes. 

The good news is that the same researchers found that the abnormal neural cells detected were unable to form tumors in mice.  The new cautionary data however does suggests the necessity of additional quality controls to ensure that neural derivatives of human pluripotent stem cells are not genomically unstable, a common characteristic of cancer cells.  The research was accomplished by Natalie Lefort and colleagues, at the Institute for Stem Cell Therapy and Exploration of Monogenic Diseases, France.

In commentary concerning the research, Neil Harrison, at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, noted that while the data raise safety issues relevant for the therapeutic use of these cells, the fact that the same chromosome was affected in all cases suggests that it should be possible to design screening strategies to detect and remove these cells.

Adapted from the Institute for Stem Cell therapy and Exploration of Monogenic Diseases announcement.

 

Researchers Find First Step In Strategy For Parkinson's Disease Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Replacement Therapy

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) are a promising avenue for cell replacement therapy in neurologic diseases. For example, mouse and human iPSCs have been used to generate dopaminergic (DA) neurons that improve symptoms in rat Parkinson's disease models.

Now researchers have evaluated the growth, differentiation, and function of human-derived iPSC-derived neural progenitor cells (NPCs) in a primate model, and have elucidated their therapeutic potential.

"We developed a series of methods to induce human iPSCs to become NPCs, using a feeder-free culture method, and grafted NPCs at different stages of differentiation into the brain of a monkey PD* model," said Jun Takahashi, MD, PhD, of Kyoto University. "We developed a method to evaluate the growth and DA activity of the grafts using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), immunocytochemistry, and behavioral analyses, all of which will be useful in preclinical research."

Video: Irving Weisman On The Importance Of The Distinction Between Embryonic And Adult Stem Cells

The ethical argument concerning the use of embryonic stem cells continues to rage and may well be an issue in the upcoming 2012 election. The use of embryonic stem cells in research is continually questioned in some quarters on the premise that the growing success of adult stem cell research makes embryonic stem cell research unnecessary. In this four minute video Dr. Weissman explains what it's like to work with one type of cell versus the other and why the research distinction is important.

Irving Weissman is one of the older generation of stem cell pioneers.  He is a professor of pathology and developmental biology and the director of Stanford University School of Medicine's Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.

 

In 1988, Dr. Weissman became the first to isolate in pure form any stem cell in any species when he isolated the hematopoietic or blood-forming stem cell in mice. He subsequently isolated the human hematopoietic stem cell, the human neuronal stem cell, and the human leukemia stem cell. 
Dr. Weissman's research encompasses the phylogeny and developmental biology of the cells that make up the blood-forming and immune systems.

Stem Cells Show Promise In Delivering Gene Therapy For Hunington's Disease

In a promising approach that might block the disease from advancing, researchers have developed a technique for using stem cells to deliver therapy that specifically targets the genetic abnormality found in Huntington's disease. Huntington's disease can be managed with medications, but currently there are no treatments for the physical, mental and behavioral decline of its victims.

"We have been able to successfully deliver inhibitory RNA sequences from stem cells directly into neurons, significantly decreasing the synthesis of the abnormal huntingtin protein," said Jan A. Nolta, Director of the UC Davis stem cell program and the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures.