Adult stem cells can be extracted from human fat. Patrick T. Fallon /The Washington Post/Getty Images hide caption Adult stem cells can be extracted from human fat. The Food and Drug Administration is cracking down on "unscrupulous" clinics selling unproven and potentially dangerous treatments involving stem cells. Hundreds of clinics around the country have started selling stem cell therapies that supposedly use stem cells but have not been approved as safe and effective by the FDA, according to the agency. "There are a small number of unscrupulous actors who have seized on the clinical promise of regenerative medicine, while exploiting the uncertainty, in order to make deceptive, and sometimes corrupt assurances to patients based on unproven and, in some cases, dangerously dubious products," FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement Monday. The FDA has taken action against clinics in California and Florida. The agency sent a warning letter to the US Stem Cell Clinic of Sunrise, Fla., and its chief scientific officer, Kristin Comella, for "marketing stem cell products without FDA approval and significant deviations from current good manufacturing practice requirements." The clinic is one of many around the country that claim to use stem cells derived from a … Continue reading →

Representative imageBy Priyanka V Gupta New Delhi: Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will soon release the final document on guidelines for stem cell research, the draft of which was available on the ICMR and the DBT (Department of Biotechnology) websites for public reviews till July 31 this year. The guidelines are expected to help in curbing the unethical practices in regenerative medicine. The information was shared by Dr Geeta Jotwani, deputy director general, ICMR, at a recent event where MoU was signed between ABLE (Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprise) and FIRM (Forum for Innovative Regenerative Medicine) for industry research collaborations. Dr Jotwani said, On the directives of DCGI (Drug Controller General of India), ICMR has been framing the guidelines for stem cell research and therapy since 2001. Unfortunately, there is no therapy available other than bone marrow transplantation, for which also no standard of care has been laid out. In that direction, we have been making periodic efforts by releasing the guideline documents in 2002, 2007, 2013 and now the updated documentation for 2017 is under finalization. ICMR has been proactively working towards educating the stakeholders about the ethical practices in stem cell research and therapy, for which a … Continue reading →

Bone marrow contains hematopoetic stem cells, the precursors to every blood cell type. These cells spring into action following bone marrow transplants, bone marrow injury and during systemic infection, creating new blood cells, including immune cells, in a process known as hematopoiesis. A new study led by University of Pennsylvania and Technical University of Dresden scientists has identified an important regulator of this process, a protein called Del-1. Targeting it, the researchers noted, could be an effective way to improve stem cell transplants for both donors and recipients. There may also be ways to modulate levels of Del-1 in patients with certain blood cancers to enhance immune cell production. The findings are reported this week in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. Because the hematopoetic stem cell niche is so important for the creation of bone marrow and blood cells and because Del-1 is a soluble protein and is easily manipulated, one can see that it could be a target in many potential applications, said George Hajishengallis, the Thomas W. Evans Centennial Professor in the Department of Microbiology in Penns School of Dental Medicine and a senior author on the work. I think that Del-1 represents a major regulator of the … Continue reading →