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NEW! Embryonic-Like Stem Cells Have Yet To Cure Any Patients

Adult Stem Cell Studies in Mice Combat Aging Effects

Adult Stem Cells Use Special Pathways To Repair Damaged Muscle

COURT CASE

Legal Battle Over Obama’s Embryonic Stem Cell Research Funding Moves Ahead...

Embryonic-Like Stem Cells Have Yet To Cure Any Patients

Yesterday it was reported that a human embryonic stem cell derived treatment has improved the vision in two women...

The women are not reporting any adverse side effects and I do hope, for their health, that this remains the case.  But researchers are cautious.  Delving deeper, there are concerns that this improvement in their vision may be a placebo effect or that it will be temporary:

    Lanza cautioned that the findings are preliminary, the improvements could disappear and complications could emerge. Nevertheless, he thinks the two cases will provide useful lessons for the field….

This is a two-person, uncontrolled, non-blinded study, so preliminary reports of vision improvements are just that, preliminary.

A reader asked about the fact that it was reported that ACT extracted the embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryo. They perform what is called an embryo biopsy, removing a single cell from the early embryo and using that to create an embryonic stem cell line instead of ripping open and destroying the embryo all together.  This same procedure is also performed in preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) where embryos are screened for certain genetic traits like tissue compatibility, genetic disease and gender.

I have heard it argued many times that because ACT can create embryonic stem cell lines this way, that it solves every problem any pro-lifers could ever have against embryonic stem cell research.  

It doesn’t.  

Just because an embryonic stem cell line can be derived with an embryo biopsy does not mean that every embryo survives the process.  
(Actually, as reported by The Post, the embryo used for this stem cell line was later destroyed.)

In fact, researchers have discovered that mice that were subjected to embryo biopsy as embryos were at high risk for neurological disorders as adults.  These scientists called for more rigorous research on the long term effects of embryo biopsy.  Let us keep this in perspective, life in a dish is already a precarious proposition.  Extracting cells at such an early stage makes it even more so.
[Rebecca Taylor | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 1/24/12; For entire article, visit -- http://www.lifenews.com/2012/01/24/embryonic-like-stem-cells-havent-cured-any-patients-yet/]

Adult Stem Cell Studies in Mice Combat Aging Effects

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have shown that adult stem cells from muscle of young mice can improve the health and extend the life of aged mice. http://www.lifenews.com/2012/01/04/adult-stem-cell-studies-in-mice-combat-aging-effects/

Adult Stem Cells Use Special Pathways To Repair Damaged Muscle

When a muscle is damaged, dormant adult stem cells called satellite cells are signaled to “wake up” and contribute to repairing the muscle.

University of Missouri researchers recently found how even distant satellite cells could help with the repair, and are now learning how the stem cells travel within the tissue.

This knowledge could ultimately help doctors more effectively treat muscle disorders such as muscular dystrophy, in which the muscle is easily damaged and the patient’s satellite cells have lost the ability to repair.

“When your muscles are injured, they send out a ‘mayday’ for satellite cells to come and fix them, and those cells know where to go to make more muscle cells, and eventually new muscle tissue,” said D Cornelison, an associate professor of biological sciences in the College of Arts and Science and a researcher in the Bond Life Sciences Center.

“There is currently no effective satellite cell-based therapy for muscular dystrophy in humans. One problem with current treatments is that it requires 100 stem cell injections per square centimeter, and up to 4,000 injections in a single muscle for the patient, because the stem cells don’t seem to be able to spread out very far. If we can learn how normal, healthy satellite cells are able to travel around in the muscles, clinical researchers might use that information to change how injected cells act and improve the efficiency of the treatment.”

In a new study, researchers in Cornelison’s lab used time-lapse microscopy to follow the movement of the satellite cells over narrow “stripes” of different proteins painted onto the glass slide. The researchers found that several versions of a protein called ephrin had the same effect on satellite cells: the cells that touch stripes made of ephrin immediately turn around and travel in a new direction.

“The stem cell movement is similar to the way a person would act if asked to walk blindfolded down a hallway. They would feel for the walls,” Cornelison said. “Because the long, parallel muscle fibers carry these ephrin proteins on their surface, ephrin might be helping satellite cells move in a straighter line towards a distant ‘mayday’ signal.”

If researchers gave the satellite cells the signals to differentiate and form muscle fibers in culture, the group also found that they could use stripes of ephrins to get them to arrange themselves in parallel, the way muscle fibers always do in living beings, but have never been persuaded to do in a culture dish. This leads researchers to think that ephrins might actually be regulating several of the different steps that are needed to get from a population of stem cells spread out all over the muscle, to an organized and patterned new muscle fiber.

“We are really excited about the potential of these findings to explain a lot of things that were puzzling about the way satellite cells behave in healthy muscle, compared to a muscular dystrophy patient’s own cells, or cells that have been injected therapeutically,” Cornelison said. “[We hope] we could find something that could make a difference in these kids’ lives, and that’s what we want the most.”

The paper, titled “Eph/ephrin interactions modulate muscle satellite cell motility and patterning,” was published in the December edition of the journal Development.

Co-authors include Danny Stark, Rowan Karvas and Ashley Siegel, all students from the University of Missouri Division of Biological Sciences. The National Institutes for Health (NIH) funded the study.

[Source: University of Missouri; Featured In: Academia News; 2 Dec 2011, http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/News/2011/12/Adult-Stem-Cells-Use-Special-Pathways-To-Repair-Damaged-Muscle/; LifeSiteNews.com, 27 Dec 2011]



COURT CASE

Battle Over Obama’s Embryonic Research Funding Moves Ahead

In case you missed it, the appeal that was filed in the federal embryonic stem cell lawsuit regarding taxpayer funding, Sherley and Deisher et al. v. Sebelius et al., is moving forward.

A law suit threatening to block government-funded research on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) is moving forward in a federal appeals court. And the makeup of the three-judge panel assigned to the case suggests that a win by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is less certain than some observers had hoped.

Sherley v. Sebelius was filed in 2009 by two researchers who claim that NIH guidelines easing restrictions on hESC research are illegal. In August 2010, a district court judge agreed and briefly blocked NIH funding for hESC research.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit later overturned that preliminary injunction, and the district court dismissed the case in July. The plaintiffs are now appealing.

For remainder of article, visit -- http://www.lifenews.com/2011/12/22/battle-over-obamas-embryonic-research-funding-moves-ahead/