Sickle cell anemia is a disease in which your body produces abnormally shaped red blood cells. The cells are shaped like a crescent or sickle. They don't last as long as normal, round red blood cells. This leads to anemia. The sickle cells also get stuck in blood vessels, blocking blood flow. This can cause pain and organ damage. A genetic problem causes sickle cell anemia. People with the disease are born with two sickle cell genes, one from each parent. If you only have one sickle cell gene, it's called sickle cell trait. About 1 in 12 African Americans has sickle cell trait. The most common symptoms are pain and problems from anemia. Anemia can make you feel tired or weak. In addition, you might have shortness of breath, dizziness, headaches, or coldness in the hands and feet. A blood test can show if you have the trait or anemia. Most states test newborn babies as part of their newborn screening programs. Sickle cell anemia has no widely available cure. Treatments can help relieve symptoms and lessen complications. Researchers are investigating new treatments such as blood and marrow stem cell transplants, gene therapy, and new medicines. NIH: National Heart, … Continue reading →

Personalized Regenerative Medicine Making sure the bases are covered. That is how Dr David Steenblock and Personalized Regenerative Medicine delivers on its mission is to provide advanced care for chronic and degenerative disease. Our first step is to do a complete physical evaluation, including all appropriate lab work to help us determine what are the issues that each View Article When a doctor sees a patient for the first time he will ask for copies of medical records as part of gathering information and data that, in combination with taking a medical history and doing relevant exams and tests, helps him arrive at a diagnosis (or confirm previously made ones) and formulate a medical care View Article Providing advanced care for chronic and degenerative disease often times requires augmenting natures own repair & restoration mechanism with stem cells. This is one way that Dr David Steenblock and Personalized Regenerative Medicine provide comprehensive care it our patients. When diseasesets in and begins to progress the sufferers bodytries to repair the damage by activating View Article In his decades of private practice, Dr David Steenblock and Personalized Regenerative Medicine has established himself as a pioneer in many fields of medicine. Dr David … Continue reading →

The University of Rochester Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Institute was founded in 2008 in recognition of the tremendous promise that the discipline of stem cell biology offers for our understanding of development, disease and discovery of new treatments for a wide range of afflictions. Much as the discoveries of antibiotics and vaccination revolutionized our abilities to treat disease and reduce suffering, the discoveries of stem cell biology are poised to provide similar benefits The University of Rochester is home to a rich and diverse stem cell faculty, with more than 40 faculty from 15 different departments, and more than 35 research track faculty and senior research fellows. These laboratories are collectively home to over 200 staff, including multiple Ph.D. students, postdoctoral fellows, M.D./Ph.D. students and technical fellows. Currently committed research awards, center grants, training grants and industry sponsored programs generated by this faculty represent over $60 million in direct cost commitments. Several of the programs at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) are among the top programs both nationally and internationally. For example, there is particular strength in the field of neuromedicine, particularly in the context of the stem and progenitor cells giving rise to the glial cells … Continue reading →

Research has shown that cancer cells are not all the same. Within a malignant tumor or among the circulating cancerous cells of a leukemia, there can be a variety of types of cells. The stem cell theory of cancer proposes that among all cancerous cells, a few act as stem cells that reproduce themselves and sustain the cancer, much like normal stem cells normally renew and sustain our organs and tissues. In this view, cancer cells that are not stem cells can cause problems, but they cannot sustain an attack on our bodies over the long term. The idea that cancer is primarily driven by a smaller population of stem cells has important implications. For instance, many new anti-cancer therapies are evaluated based on their ability to shrink tumors, but if the therapies are not killing the cancer stem cells, the tumor will soon grow back (often with a vexing resistance to the previously used therapy). An analogy would be a weeding technique that is evaluated based on how low it can chop the weed stalksbut no matter how low the weeks are cut, if the roots arent taken out, the weeds will just grow back. Another important implication is … Continue reading →

Researchers and physicians are studying how to regenerate beta cells in the lab and within the pancreas, which may lead to new treatments for type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Beta cell dysfunction is a characteristic of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, beta cells insulin-producing cells found in the pancreas are destroyed, while in type 2 diabetes, they may not produce enough insulin. Since it's not possible today to generate new, patient-specific, functional beta cells, people with type 1 diabetes need insulin therapy. People with type 2 diabetes often need medications, with certain cases requiring insulin therapy. Center for Regenerative Medicine researchers, led by Yasuhiro Ikeda, D.V.M., Ph.D., and Yogish C. Kudva, MBBS, both of Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., are taking two related approaches to beta cell regeneration that may lead to new treatments for diabetes. In the laboratory. In vitro beta cell regeneration uses induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, a type of bioengineered stem cell that acts like an embryonic stem cell. Using a person's own skin cells or blood cells as a starting point, Mayo researchers have successfully generated patient-specific iPS cells and subsequently converted them into glucose-responsive, insulin-producing cells in … Continue reading →