Category Archives: Cell Therapy

AUSTIN, Texas -- The legal battle to get patients access to stem cell therapy in Texas is closer to reality. Gov. Greg Abbott signed such legislation into law this week, and itmeans some patients will be heading into uncharted medical territory. Come Sept. 1, patients with terminal illnesses or severe chronic diseases will be allowed to access experimental stem cell treatments in Texas. MORE |Governor Signs Law to Allow Chronic, Terminally Ill in Texas to Get Stem Cell Treatments Currently, mostpatients who want stem cell therapy have to travel outside the United States to do it, and stem cell re-injections are only allowed here within a 24-hour window. "This is going to protect patient health, and provide for the treatments to be done here locally at home," saidMike Byrom, the Chief Science Officer at Austin stem cell bankBioEden. Byrom said the new lawwill keep patients in the country, and will provide renewed hope for those with serious ailments. This hope resulted in anemotional fight this session. Texas State Rep. Drew Springer, R-Gainesville, gave an impassioned speech for the legislation as the deadline to read new bills approached, urging lawmakers to keep it from dying. "I'll be damned if we don't … Continue reading →

Sessions/Tracks Track 1: Cell Therapy Cell therapy or cytotherapy is the transfer of cells into a patient with a goal of improving the disease. From beginning blood transfusions were considered to be the first type of cell therapy to be practised as routine. Later, Bone marrow transplantation has also become a well established concept which involves treatment of many kind of blood disorders including anemia, leukemia, lymphyoma and rare immunodeficiency diseases. Alternative medical practitioners perform cell therapy in the form of several different names including xenotransplant therapy, glandular therapy, and fresh cell therapy. It has been claimed by the proponents of cell therapy that it has been used successfully to repair spinal cord injuries, strengthen weaken immune system, treats autoimmune diseases like AIDS, help patients with neurological disorders like Alzheimers disease, parkinsons disease and epilepsy. Related Conferences 3rd International Conference & Exhibition on Tissue Preservation and Biobanking, Aug 23-24 2017, San Francisco, USA; Annual Summit onCell Signalingand Cancer Therapy, Sep 27-28, 2017, Chicago, USA; 8th World Congress and Expo on Cell & Stem Cell Research, March 20-22, 2017 in Orlando, Florida, USA; Annual Summit on Cell Therapyand Molecular Medicine, Sep 27-28, 2017, Chicago, USA; 2nd World Biotechnology Congress, Dec 4-5 … Continue reading →

The year-old Novartis-Penn Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics in Philadelphia supplies cancer fighting T cells to multiple hospitals, visible out the window. CANNONDESIGN By Jennifer Couzin-FrankelJun. 13, 2017 , 3:15 PM A transformative cancer therapy based on modified immune cells has lured doctors, companies, and patients alike, but many are hitting a frustrating roadblock: generating enough of these chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells to meet surging demand. The situation is fluid, with shortages cropping up in some places and easing in others. Doctors, meanwhile, are grappling with how best to distribute the experimental therapy among very sick patients in clinical trials. How do I allocate the resource in a way thats fairest to everybody and that treats the most patients and potentially saves the most lives? asks Stephan Grupp, a pediatric oncologist at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in Pennsylvania. Grupp has offered CAR-T therapy to more than 150 children with late-stage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)and worries that because of supply limitations, he cant help more. CAR-T cell therapy took the cancer world by storm in the summer of 2010. It involves removing a patients immune cells, genetically modifying them to fight their particular cancer, then transfusing them back. … Continue reading →

In the last weeks of the legislative session, Texas lawmakers passed a historic bill that legalizes investigative stem cell treatments for chronically ill patients. Despite the prevalence of unregulated stem cell clinics in the United States, this could be the first time a state has authorized the treatment for chronic illnesses, if the states governor approves the legislation. Youre watching an episode of In Session, a weekly series exploring interesting policy changes on the state level. PHOEBE GAVIN, ThinkProgress: Youll never guess which state is on track to become the first to recognize stem cell therapy as a treatment for chronic illnesses. Ill give you a hint: its former governor and our former president once banned federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells You guessed it: Its The Lone Star State! In the last week of its legislative session, Texas lawmakers approved a bill that legalizes Investigational Stem Cell Treatment, which basically means treatments that have been evaluated by an institutional review board but have not yet been approved by the FDA. Keep in mind, though: this isnt about embryonic stem cells. The cells will come from banked umbilical cords and the patients themselves, who will be allowed to … Continue reading →

Sessions/Tracks Track 1:Molecular Biology Molecular biologyis the study of molecular underpinnings of the processes ofreplication,transcription,translation, and cell function. Molecular biology concerns themolecularbasis ofbiologicalactivity between thebiomoleculesin various systems of acell,gene sequencingand this includes the interactions between theDNA,RNAand proteinsand theirbiosynthesis. Inmolecular biologythe researchers use specific techniques native to molecular biology, increasingly combine these techniques and ideas from thegeneticsandbiochemistry. RelatedMolecular Biology Conferences| Genetics Conferences|Gene Therapy Conferences|Biotechnology Conferences| Immune Cell Therapy Conferences 2nd World Congress onHuman Genetics&Genetic Disorders, November 02-03, 2017 Toronto, Canada; 9th International Conference onGenomicsandPharmacogenomics, June 15-16, 2017 London, Uk; 6th International Conference and Exhibition onCellandGene Therapy, Mar 27-28, 2017 Madrid, Spain; Gordon Research Conference,Viruses&Cells, 14 - 19 May 2017, Lucca, Italy;Human Genome Meeting(HGM 2017), February 5-7 2017, Barcelona, Spain; Embl Conference:Mammalian GeneticsAndGenomics:From Molecular Mechanisms To Translational Applications, Heidelberg, Germany, October 24, 2017;GeneticandPhysiological Impacts of Transposable Elements, October 10, 2017, Heidelberg, Germany. American Society for Cell Biology;The Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution;American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology;The Nigerian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology;Molecular Biology Association Search Form - CGAP. Track 2:Gene Therapy and Genetic Engineering Thegenetic engineeringis also called asgenetic modification. It is the direct manipulation of an organism'sofgenomeby usingbiotechnology. It is a set of technologies used to change … Continue reading →

The US Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee will review the Biologics To continue reading this article and to access exclusive features, interviews, round-ups and commentary from the sharpest minds in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology space you need to be logged into the site and have an active subscription or trial subscription. Please loginorsubscribe in order to continue reading. Claim a week's trial subscriptionby signing up for free today and receive our daily pharma and biotech news bulletin free of charge, forever. BiotechnologyCTL019Focus OnImmuno-oncologyNovartisOncologyOxford BioMedicaRegulationUS FDAUSA Access The Pharma Letter's latest news free for 7 days PLUS... you can receive the Pharma Letter headlines and news roundup email free forever Click here to take a free trial Unlimited access to The Pharma Letter site for a whole year Only 77 per month or 820 per year Click here to subscribe Read the original here: July hearing for pioneering CAR-T cell therapy - The Pharma Letter - The Pharma Letter (registration) … Continue reading →

Please enable Javascript to watch this video SAN DIEGO Abused orphan pup "Dwyane," who has severe disfigurements, is on the road to recovery after stem cell therapy by a Poway-based company. The one-year-old puppy was reportedly kicked, beaten and forced to wear a wire muzzle before he was rescued in Tijuana. Last month, he was taken to Helen Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Sante Fe. Since then, the dog has undergone several procedures, including a hip surgery Tuesday. Animal hospital officials said Dwaynes work isnt over yet, as he still needs major reconstruction to his elbow and additional facial surgeries to help him breathe easier. There is no risk involved because we use the dog's own tissue to isolate the stem cell, said Dr. Jeffrey Schaffer with VetStem of Poway. Today, we gave the injection of the stem cells in the hip and then a slow one through the vein," said Dr. Patricia Carter, chief veterinarian at Helen Woodward Animal Center. "Then we gave him something that made him unsleepy, but hes still recovering from the surgery two days ago. Dwayne is a warrior and shows his love to those who have love to give. He is adorable, sweet and … Continue reading →

Kathlyn Stone is an associate editor at HealthNewsReview.org. She tweets as @KatKStone. An experimental immunotherapy treatment for multiple myeloma from a biotech company in China captured wide attention at the just-concluded American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting. Weve been following news reports from the meeting closely since it kicked off last Friday: ASCOs news release on the new treatment, a form of CAR T-cell therapy, noted that the phase 1 results are preliminary and that the small trial was short-term. But then it blew past those cautions by speculating that the treatment could send multiple myeloma into long-term remission and might represent a cure for this incurable disease. The treatment costs werent included, either. Andrae Vandross, MD, a hematology/oncology fellow at UCLA and a contributor to HealthNewsReview.org, said the news release had some important details, such as a discussion of adverse events, particularlycytokine release syndrome (CRS), which affected many patients. But overall, I wish more attention was paid to the fact that this small trial was to examine safety and efficacy and that much more needs to be done to make statements regarding clinically meaningful impact on disease, Vandross said. The shortcomings of the news release can be found … Continue reading →

By Deena Beasley | CHICAGO CHICAGO A small trial conducted in China found that an experimental therapy using altered cells to recruit the body's immune system to attack cancer can induce remission in most patients with advanced multiple myeloma, a blood plasma cancer. The study of 35 patients tested a chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy developed by China's Nanjing Legend Biotech Co. The drug candidate, known as LCAR-B38M, targets a protein called BCMA found on cancerous blood plasma cells - the same target being pursued by Bluebird Bio Inc and Celgene Corp with their CAR-T called bb2121. CAR-T therapies require a complicated process of extracting immune system T cells from an individual patient, altering their DNA to sharpen their ability to spot and kill cancer cells, and infusing them back into the same patient. The American Society of Clinical Oncology, which featured the data here at its annual meeting, said that out of 19 trial patients followed for more than four months, 14 reached complete remission. One patient had a partial response and four patients reached "very good partial remission," but the cancer did get worse in one of those patients. Multiple myeloma "is a disease you can treat … Continue reading →

Wanhong Zhao, MD, PhD, presenting results of the study; photo by ASCO/Scott Morgan 2017 A new type of immunotherapychimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy targeting B-cell maturation protein (BCMA)may be a new effective type of treatment for patients with multiple myeloma, according to the results of a single-arm study (abstract LBA3001) presented at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, held June 26. Our results show clinical and reproducible therapeutic efficacy in refractory or relapsed multiple myeloma disease, said Wanhong Zhao, MD, PhD, an associate director of hematology at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xian Jiaotong University in China, who presented the results. With longer than 1 year of follow-up, early patients enrolled on the study are showing durable and stringent complete remissions, according to Zhao. In recent years, CAR T-cell therapy targeting CD19 has been shown to be very effective in trials of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. However, there had been little success with CAR T-cell therapy targeting other biomarkers in other types of cancer. Zhao and colleagues conducted a single-arm trial to assess the safety and efficacy of this treatment approach in patients with multiple myeloma. The presentation included data from the first 35 patients enrolled … Continue reading →