Prof Frank Barry, scientific director of the Regenerative Medicine Institute at NUI Galway, with PhD student Babu Rajendra Prasad. Photograph: Joe OShaughnessy By using tiny cartridges dispensing one stem cell at a time, Galway-based researchers may soon be able to literally print the scaffold of a healthy human tissue, and let it grow to become a therapeutic transplant. When the Regenerative Medicine Institute at NUI Galway and Irish start-up company Poly-Pico Ltd recently joined forces for a trial proof-of-concept experiment, the results were spectacular. They were able to dispense tiny drops from a cartridge filled with a stem cell mixture, each drop containing no more than a single stem cell. Now imagine that we have five dispensing cartridges, each containing a different type of programmed stem cell, said Frank Barry, professor of cellular therapy and scientific director of the institute. In principle we could essentially print them on to a surface and, by repeating the process a few thousands of times, obtain a mixture of growing cells and eventually a healthy pancreatic islet. The islets produced by the printing process would then be transplanted into the pancreas of a Type 1 diabetic patient. The hope is that they will develop … Continue reading →

27.08.2014 - (idw) Max-Delbrck-Centrum fr Molekulare Medizin (MDC) Berlin-Buch Stem cells are essential for the repair of muscle damage, but all attempts to manipulate human muscle stem cells for therapy have thus far failed. Now Dr. Andreas Marg and Prof. Simone Spuler of the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC), a joint cooperation between the Max Delbrck Center (MDC) and the Charit, have shown how this might work. They developed a method in which they did not isolate the muscle stem cells, but rather cultivated, proliferated and transplanted them along with their muscle fibers. Using this method in mice, they were able to successfully regenerate muscle tissue. Thus they have opened the door for the use of muscle stem cells to treat muscle diseases.* "Muscle stem cells, which we also refer to as satellite cells, can awaken in their stem cell niche after decades of quiescence and can then repair damaged muscle tissue," Professor Spuler explained. At the ECRC in Berlin-Buch, the neurologist heads the University Outpatient Clinic for Muscle Disorders and the Department of Muscle Sciences. She and her team are exploring the causes of muscle diseases. Evidence shows that satellite cells are active in people with severe muscle … Continue reading →