Contact Information Available for logged-in reporters only Newswise NIBIB-funded researchers report in a recent study that they were able to use human stem cells to grow brand new nerves in a rat model of spinal cord injury. The neurons grew tens of thousands of axons that extended the entire length of the spinal cord, out from the area of injury. The procedure employs induced pluripotent stem cells or iPSCs, which are stem cells that can be driven to become a specific cell type -- in this case nerve cells-- to repair an experimentally damaged spinal cord. The iPSCs were made using the skin cells of an 86 year old male, demonstrating that even in an individual of advanced age, the ability of the cells to be turned into a different cell type (pluripotency) remained. Lead author Paul Lu, Ph.D., and senior author Mark Tuszynski, MD, PhD, and their team at the University of California - San Diego Center for Neural Repair, performed the experiment building on earlier work using human embryonic stem cells in a similar rat spinal cord injury model.1 The current work, described in the August 20 edition of Neuron, was performed to determine whether iPSCs could be … Continue reading →

And researchers were amazed to find that the cells even existed in the eyes of a 97-year-old, opening up the possibility that the treatment could work for the elderly. These cells are readily accessible, and they have surprising plasticity, which makes them an attractive cell resource for future therapies, said Professor Andrew Lotery, of the University of Southampton and a Consultant Ophthalmologist at Southampton General Hospital led the study. This would help avoid complications with rejection or contamination because the cells taken from the eye would be returned to the same patient. More research is now needed to develop this approach before these cells are used in patients. The loss of photoreceptors cells causes irreversible blindness. Age related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness in the developed world which affects around one in three people in the UK by age 75. Around 513,000 people are in the late stage of AMD and that figure is set to rise by one-third over the next decade, totalling nearly 700,000 cases by 2020. Almost two million people in the UK are living with sight loss, approximately one person in 30. It is predicted that by 2020 the number of people with … Continue reading →

Stem cells are getting serious. Two decades after they were discovered, human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are being tested as a treatment for two major diseases: heart failure and type 1 diabetes. Treatments based on hESCs have been slow coming because of controversy over their source and fears that they could turn into tumours once implanted. They have enormous potential because hESCs can be grown into any of the body's 200 tissue types, unlike the stems cells isolated from adult tissues that have mostly been used in treatments until now. In the most rigorous test of embryonic stems cells' potential yet, six people with heart failure will be treated in France with a patch of immature heart cells made from hESCs, and 40 people with diabetes in the US will receive pouches containing immature pancreatic cells made from hESCs. The hope is that the heart patch will help to regenerate heart muscle destroyed by heart attacks. Trials in monkeys showed that the patch could regenerate up to 20 per cent of the lost muscle within two months. The pancreatic cells are supposed to mature into beta cells, which produce the hormone insulin. These would act as a substitute for the … Continue reading →