Participants Learn Their Risk for Complex Diseases Doni Bloomfield To Know or Not To Know: Dr Kroenthal holds a vial of DNA An email popped up in Hershel Richmans inbox. Your new personalized risk report is now available through the CPMC web portal! the email cheerfully informed him. Its contents were tactfully vague: some talk of genetic counselors and a medicine collaborative. But this wasnt some credit report spam, or a Nigerian phishing scam. No, Richman, a retired environmental lawyer and former president of Jewish Learning Venture, a not-for-profit based in Pennsylvania, was about to find out his relative likelihood of developing macular degeneration, one of the leading causes of blindness in the United States. Richman had given the New Jerseybased Coriell Institute his family history, his medical history, his diet and exercise routines and his DNA as one of 7,500 volunteers seeking to help advance mankinds understanding of the genetic basis for disease. The genetics lab had scanned his genes, crunched the numbers, weighed his odds and were ready to tell him how likely he was to go blind. Im the type of guy who wants to go to the bottom line, says Richman, and so he breezed past … Continue reading →

Public release date: 12-Aug-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Jennifer Sereno jsereno@morgridgeinstitute.org 608-770-8084 University of Wisconsin-Madison MADISON, Wis. Using human pluripotent stem cells and DNA-cutting protein from meningitis bacteria, researchers from the Morgridge Institute for Research and Northwestern University have created an efficient way to target and repair defective genes. Writing today (Monday, Aug. 12, 2013) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team reports that the novel technique is much simpler than previous methods and establishes the groundwork for major advances in regenerative medicine, drug screening and biomedical research. Zhonggang Hou of the Morgridge Institute's regenerative biology team and Yan Zhang of Northwestern University served as first authors on the study; Dr. James Thomson, director of regenerative biology at the Morgridge Institute, and Erik Sontheimer, professor of molecular biosciences at Northwestern University, served as principal investigators. "With this system, there is the potential to repair any genetic defect, including those responsible for some forms of breast cancer, Parkinson's and other diseases," Hou said. "The fact that it can be applied to human pluripotent stem cells opens the door for meaningful therapeutic applications." Zhang said the Northwestern University team focused on Neisseria meningitidis bacteria because … Continue reading →

Q. Can you tell us what stem cells are? Can they really be the panacea we are looking for? - reilly_od@yahoo.com A. As we all know, humans arise from just a single cell, the fertilized ovum, which is the result of the union of the father's sperm cell and the mother's egg cell. Soon after it has formed, the fertilized ovum multiplies many times over to produce cells called stem cells. The stem cells that are produced during the first few days of embryonic development are totipotential; they are very versatile cells that can transform to any specialized cell and have unlimited capability to divide and produce exact copies of themselves. But soon after they have been produced, these cells begin to specialize or differentiate, which means they commit themselves to producing only certain cell types, something they need to do to form the various tissues and organs. As the fetus matures in the womb, its stem cells become more and more specialized such that at birth, their capabilities have markedly reduced. They can no longer produce new organs, but they can still replace those cells in the tissues and organs that die due to physiologic reasons or injury. Stems … Continue reading →

(PRWEB) August 12, 2013 Stem Cell Orthopedic, the world renowned institute for both regenerative and molecular orthopedics, today highlighted the increasing publicity surrounding the use of stem cells to treat orthopedic conditions such as arthritis. Fifty million Americans suffer from arthritis and the pain can be so insufferable that many opt for expensive and life changing procedures like hip, shoulder, and knee replacements. Increasingly, however, more people are turning to a new form of stem cell therapy to relieve the pain as highlighted in this recent news piece from California. At the forefront of this stem cell technology is Dr. Joseph Purita and his Stem Cell Orthopedic clinic. Unlike many of stem cell facilities, we ensure that we are staffed by experienced doctors that are specifically board certified in orthopedic surgery, said a representative for Stem Cell Orthopedic. We distinguish ourselves with this expertise and our integration of stem cell therapy and platelet rich plasma therapy. Sometimes these are alternatives to surgery and other times they must be used in combination but by having expertise in all these treatments, we can offer our patients the best care. With over 4000 cases treated, we have nearly 85% reporting significant improvement. When … Continue reading →

Washington, August 12 (ANI): A nanoscale drug carrying many weapons to sneak into cancer cells for breaking them from the inside has added a new component: a protein, which stimulates the immune system to attack HER2-positive breast cancer cells. The research team led by scientists at the Nanomedicine Research Center, part of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute in the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, conducted the study in laboratory mice with implanted human breast cancer cells. Mice receiving the drug lived significantly longer than untreated counterparts and those receiving only certain components of the drug. Unlike other drugs that target cancer cells from the outside, often injuring normal cells as a side effect, this therapy consists of multiple drugs chemically bonded to a 'nanoplatform' that functions as a transport vehicle. HER2-positive cancers - making up 25 to 30 percent of breast and ovarian cancers - tend to be more aggressive and less responsive to treatment than others because the overactive HER2 gene makes excessive amounts of a protein that promotes cancer growth. But Herceptin is an antibody to the HER2 gene - it naturally seeks out this protein - so the research team used key parts of Herceptin … Continue reading →

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BIND Therapeutics, a clinical-stage nanomedicine platform company developing targeted and programmable therapeutics called AccurinsTM, announced today that it has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to a proposed initial public offering of shares of its common stock. All shares of the common stock to be sold in the offering will be offered by BIND. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined. Credit Suisse (USA) LLC and Cowen and Company, LLC are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. Stifel Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated and JMP Securities LLC are acting as co-managers. The offering will be made only by means of a prospectus. When available, copies of the preliminary prospectus relating to and describing the terms of the offering can be obtained by eligible investors from their Credit Suisse or Cowen and Company sales representative, or from the Credit Suisse Prospectus Department, One Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10010, Telephone: 800-221-1037, Email: newyork.prospectus@credit-suisse.com and from Cowen and Company, LLC c/o Broadridge Financial Services, Attention: Prospectus Department, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, Telephone: 631-274-2806, … Continue reading →

Stem cells to mass-produce cancer-killing treatment Monday, August 12, 2013 Stem cell technology can be used to mass-produce cancer-killing immune cells designed to target different kinds of tumour, scientists have shown. By John von Radowitz But in practice, T-cells that target and kill cancer cells while ignoring healthy cells are very rare, and progress towards immune-based cancer treatments has been limited. The new approach provides a way to reprogramme T-cells and create large numbers of them off the shelf primed to attack specific cancers. A small number of healthy human T-cells were first reprogrammed into malleable stem cells with embryonic properties, US scientists reported in the journal Nature Biotechnology. These induced pluripotent stem cells were then engineered to produce a tumour-specific receptor molecule on their surfaces. Finally, the stem cells were coaxed to reacquire their original T-cell properties while expanding to large numbers. Each of the T-cells now had the all-important receptor that allowed it to target a particular cancer antigen or protein, in this case lymphoma. Read more: Stem cells to mass-produce cancer-killing treatment … Continue reading →

London, Aug 12 : Researchers have revealed that stem cell technology could lead to a faster treatment for cancer patients and reduce reliance on chemotherapy. Dr Emma Smith, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said that the new discovery would also be more effective at stopping the disease from returning back by reprogramming cancer-fighting cells, the Daily Express reported. Smith said that the technology effectively uses the body's own immune system and harnesses its power to attack the cancer cells. The researcher said that it specifically targets the tumour cells and leaves the healthy ones alone, which means that it comes without any of the side effects with treatments like chemotherapy, which can be harsh for patients. It takes white blood cells and transforms them into stem cells before being reprogrammed to fight the patient's cancer. According to study's lead researcher Dr Michel Sadelain, of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the technique is very specific to the cancer cells themselves, which means fewer side effects. Sadelain added that because they stay in the body, they are 'living drugs' and once present move around and stop recurrences. The three-year research has been tested on mice. Originally … Continue reading →

Newswise A large-scale international study on the genes involved in epilepsy has uncovered 25 new mutations on nine key genes behind a devastating form of the disorder during childhood. Among those were two genes never before associated with this form of epilepsy, one of which previously had been linked to autism and a rare neurological disorder, for which an effective therapy already has been developed. The findings suggest a new direction for developing genome-wide diagnostic screens for newborns to identify who is at risk for epilepsy and, potentially, to develop precise therapies for the condition. The findings appear in the August 11, 2013 online issue of the journal Nature. The results are the first to emerge from a set of epilepsy-genetics projects known as EPGP and Epi4K, which were launched by the National Institutes of Health in 2007 and 2012, respectively, and involve more than 40 institutions on three continents. While UC San Francisco and Duke University serve as the administrative hubs, the projects involve a team of nearly 150 scientists across 25 specialties, in the hopes of generating this type of advance on the intractable disease. The limitations of what we currently can do for epilepsy patients are completely … Continue reading →