OTTAWA, ONTARIO and TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Oct 21, 2013) - Stem cell and regenerative medicine experts from around the world will physically and virtually come together in Banff, Alberta, when Canada's premier stem cell research event - the Till & McCulloch Meetings (T&MM) - takes place October 23-25, 2013. "Canada and Europe chose the same dates to host their most significant regenerative medicine events and we're utilizing technology to bring the two conferences together," explains Drew Lyall, Executive Director of the Stem Cell Network. "While our European colleagues won't get to enjoy the beauty of Alberta, they will benefit from hearing some thrilling science, produced in Canada." A novel technology discovered in Dr. Peter Zandstra's lab, which has the potential to improve the viability and success of cord blood stem cell transplantation, will be featured during a live broadcast to the World Conference on Regenerative Medicine in Leipzig, Germany, on October 24 at 8:45 a.m. Dr. Zandstra (University of Toronto and CSO with the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine) has received the 2013 Till & McCulloch Award for having published the year's most influential peer-reviewed article by a stem cell researcher in Canada. Other highlights include the following: October … Continue reading →

Dublin, Oct. 21, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/wz4xds/autologous_stem) has announced the addition of the "Autologous Stem Cell and Non-Stem Cell Based Therapies Market (2012-2017) (Neurodegenerative, cardiovascular, cancer & autoimmune, skin and infectious diseases)" report to their offering. This research report titled Autologous Cell Therapy (2012-2017) provides details about various ACT based treatments and their application areas. Every health regulatory bodies will be expecting companies and universities to develop therapy treatments, which are safer, affordable, robust, rapid, easy to use, effective and deliverable to the end user. ACT treatments for particular application areas it is safe, experiencing robust growth, minimal steps of procedure to follow and rapid in deriving the results. As for now the treatments prices are not affordable, but by the intrusion of government bodies, it will definitely experience a immense market growth. The report gives a detailed analysis about state of the art of autologous cell therapies. It includes the current advances and applications of the technology and trends in terms of market size and growth of autologous cellular therapies in medical treatments globally. It also consists of funding details of the innovative therapy and recent activities in terms of mergers & acquisitions of the … Continue reading →

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered a way to effectively deliver staurosporine (STS), a powerful anti-cancer compound that has vexed researchers for more than 30 years due to its instability in the blood and toxic nature in both healthy and cancerous cells. For the first time, the new method safely delivered STS to mouse tumors, suppressing them with no apparent side effects. The results were published online, Oct. 20, in the International Journal of Nanomedicine. "By itself, staurosporine shows potent activity against a number of cancer cell lines, including chemotherapy-resistant tumors. However, it also harms normal tissue," said senior author Dr. Santosh Kesari, director of neuro-oncology at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. "With this study, we have been able to overcome the pharmacokinetic barriers to delivering staurosporine to tumors with the use of liposomes." STS was originally isolated from the bacterium Streptomyces staurosporeus in 1977. The compound prompts a wide variety of cancer cell types to self-destruct, a process called apoptosis or programmed cell death. In its free form, STS is quickly metabolized and harmful to healthy cells. By trapping STS in tiny spheres called liposomes, Moores Cancer Center researchers have been … Continue reading →

When a 24-year-old graduate student was arrested for stabbing to death a Georgetown law student last week, it shocked one of the University's smallest programs. Rahul Gupta, who has been accused of second-degree murder, was also a top student. He won one of GWs most prestigious research prizes as an undergraduate and worked in a bioengineering lab for nanomedicine and tissue engineering. He began pursuing his master's in biomedical engineering this fall, after earning his bachelor's degree in engineering from GW in 2012. Gupta was arrested Sunday, Oct. 13 for allegedly killing Georgetown law student Mark Waugh his high school friend because he thought his girlfriend and Waugh were involved romantically behind his back. The group had gone out in D.C. to celebrate Gupta's 24th birthday Saturday night. Murray Loew, director of the biomedical engineering program, said he has felt a reaction of "sadness and shock" among faculty, but has heard little from students. The program has four full-time faculty members and about 50 masters and Ph.D. students. Gupta's girlfriend who was present at the time of the stabbing, according to police documents was also enrolled in the undergraduate program, which had 165 students the year they both graduated. One … Continue reading →

Oct. 21, 2013 Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered a way to effectively deliver staurosporine (STS), a powerful anti-cancer compound that has vexed researchers for more than 30 years due to its instability in the blood and toxic nature in both healthy and cancerous cells. For the first time, the new method safely delivered STS to mouse tumors, suppressing them with no apparent side effects. The results were published online, October 20, in the International Journal of Nanomedicine. "By itself, staurosporine shows potent activity against a number of cancer cell lines, including chemotherapy-resistant tumors. However, it also harms normal tissue," said senior author Santosh Kesari, MD, PhD, director of neuro-oncology at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. "With this study, we have been able to overcome the pharmacokinetic barriers to delivering staurosporine to tumors with the use of liposomes." STS was originally isolated from the bacterium Streptomyces staurosporeus in 1977. The compound prompts a wide variety of cancer cell types to self-destruct, a process called apoptosis or programmed cell death. In its free form, STS is quickly metabolized and harmful to healthy cells. By trapping STS in tiny spheres called liposomes, Moores Cancer … Continue reading →

First Presentation of First-in-Human Trial of Anti-Notch1 (OMP-52M51) Suggests This Antibody Can be Given Safely With Early Suggestion of Efficacy in Patients With Certain Advanced Solid Tumors Demcizumab (Anti-DLL4) Can be Safely Combined With Gemcitabine Chemotherapy for Pancreatic Cancer With Encouraging Early Efficacy Data First Presentation of First-in-Human Trial of Frizzled8 Fusion Protein (OMP-54F28) Suggests the Drug Candidate Can be Safely Given With Evidence of Wnt-Pathway Targeting and Early Suggestion of Efficacy in Patients With Certain Advanced Solid Tumors Clinical Pharmacodynamic Data for First-in-Class Anti-Frizzled Antibody Vantictumab Demonstrate Modulation of the Wnt Pathway in Tumors and Surrogate Tissues REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Oct. 21, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OMED), a clinical-stage company developing novel therapeutics that target cancer stem cells (CSCs), or tumor-initiating cells, today reported data for four of its five clinical-stage programs at poster sessions at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, October 19-23, 2013, at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA. Anti-Notch1 Poster Dr. Lindsey Davis, from the University of Colorado-Denver, Aurora, CO, presented the first public unveiling of the first-in-human Phase 1a data for OMP-52M51, a first-in-class anti-Notch1 antibody [Poster B48, 'A first-in-human Phase 1 study of the novel … Continue reading →

Oct. 20, 2013 In a biological quirk that promises to provide researchers with a new approach for studying and potentially treating Fragile X syndrome, scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) have shown that knocking out a gene important for messenger RNA (mRNA) translation in neurons restores memory deficits and reduces behavioral symptoms in a mouse model of a prevalent human neurological disease. These results, published today in Nature Medicine, suggest that the prime cause of the Fragile X syndrome may be a translational imbalance that results in elevated protein production in the brain. Restoration of this balance may be necessary for normal neurological function. "Biology works in strange ways," said Joel Richter, PhD, professor of molecular medicine at UMMS and senior author on the study. "We corrected one genetic mutation with another, which in effect showed that two wrongs make a right. Mutations in each gene result in impaired brain function, but in our studies, we found that mutations in both genes result in normal brain function. This sounds counter-intuitive, but in this case that seems to be what has happened." Fragile X syndrome, the most common form of inherited mental retardation and the most frequent single-gene … Continue reading →