SALT LAKE CITY & SAN CARLOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- ARUP Laboratories, a leading national clinical and anatomic pathology reference laboratory, and Natera, a leading innovator in reproductive and prenatal genetic testing, today announced that Nateras non-invasive prenatal screening test, Panorama, is available to ARUP clients nationwide. The test is available for the detection of trisomy 21 (Down syndrome), trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome), trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome) and select sex chromosome abnormalities, such as monosomy X (Turners syndrome). Demand for non-invasive prenatal testing continues to grow, especially following the recommendation by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of use of the tests in high-risk pregnancies, said Edward Ashwood, M.D., president and CEO of ARUP. We are very pleased to partner with Natera to offer non-invasive prenatal testing to physicians and patients. Added Matthew Rabinowitz, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Natera, Panorama has shown it has superior sensitivity and specificity compared to other non-invasive prenatal tests currently available, demonstrating that it is the best non-invasive prenatal testing choice for pregnant women today. We are pleased to partner with ARUP to enable Panorama to be offered to a broad network of hospitals, granting even more patients access to our best-in-class test. ARUP is … Continue reading →

WORCESTER, Mass. and MADISON, N.J., March 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --Athena Diagnostics, a leader in neurological diagnostics, today announced the clinical availability of new genetic tests to aid the detection of several rare neurological disorders, including hereditary neuropathy, neuromuscular disease, epilepsy and certain movement disorders. The lab-developed tests are available through Athena Diagnostics, a business of Quest Diagnostics (DGX), the world's leading provider of diagnostic information services. The testswill be unveiled during the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting in San Diego, March 16-23, 2013 (Booth 1413). The tests streamline the diagnostic process by using gene sequencing andbioinformatics to evaluate many clinically-relevant genes with a single blood draw. Test reports provide information to assist clinicians and genetic counselors in confirming a diagnosis, developing a targeted treatment plan and managing patient care. The new services include expanded testing for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT), a hereditary motor sensory neuropathy for which early accurate diagnosis is critical to ensure patients avoid contra-indicated medications which can worsen symptoms.They also include DNA sequencing tests for myofibrillar myopathy (MFM), a debilitating disease that can lead to cardiac and respiratory complications, but is often confused with CMT and other conditions.Athena provides a broad diagnostic menu for MFM that may … Continue reading →

Public release date: 18-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Shawna Williams shawna@jhmi.edu 410-955-8236 Johns Hopkins Medicine A new online database combining symptoms, family history and genetic sequencing information is speeding the search for diseases caused by a single rogue gene. As described in an article in the May issue of Human Mutation, the database, known as PhenoDB, enables any clinician to document cases of unusual genetic diseases for analysis by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine or the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. If a review committee agrees that the patient may indeed have a previously unknown genetic disease, the patient and some of his or her family members may be offered free comprehensive genetic testing in an effort to identify the disease culprit. "PhenoDB is much more useful than I even thought it would be," says Ada Hamosh, M.D., M.P.H., a professor in the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Bringing all of this information together is crucial to figuring out what our genetic variations mean." The database is designed to capture a bevy of standardized information about phenotype, which Hamosh defines as "any characteristic of … Continue reading →

Public release date: 19-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Robert Miranda cogcomm@aol.com Cell Transplantation Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair Putnam Valley, NY. (Mar. 19 2013) A team of researchers in Seoul, Korea have reported finding evidence that deer antlers - unique in that they regenerate annually - contain multipotent stem cells that could be useful for tissue regeneration in veterinary medicine. The study appears as an early e-publication for the journal Cell Transplantation, and is now freely available on-line at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/pre-prints/ct0897seo. "We successfully isolated and characterized antler tissue-derived multipotent stem cells and confirmed that the isolated cells are self-renewing and can differentiate into multiple lineages," said study co-author Dr. Kyung-Sun Kang of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Seoul National University. "Using optimized culture conditions, deer antler displayed vigorous cell proliferation." Deer antler has been an issue in the news recently when professional athletes allegedly therapeutically used deer antler sprays, said to contain the insulin-like growth factor, IGF-1, to recover from injuries. The Korean research team did not investigate the potential for deer antler to be used in human therapies, but suggested that it could be used in veterinary medicine due to the impact of … Continue reading →

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics said the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota has agreed to conduct a clinical trial of the company's adult stem cell treatment for ALS. The Mayo Clinic is the third leading U.S. clinical site to sign a letter of understanding, following the University of Massachusetts and Massachusetts General, BrainStorm said on Monday. Israel-based BrainStorm is developing NurOwn for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Initial results from Phase I studies suggest that patients with ALS experience a positive clinical outcome after treatment with NurOwn cells, the company said. Anthony Windebank, principal investigator at the Mayo Clinic, said the clinic started patient stem cell safety trials last year. "The next logical ... step is the type of modification that enables BrainStorm's NurOwn cells to deliver factors to the nervous system that are known to promote motor nerve cell survival," Windebank said. BrainStorm plans to enroll patients into clinical trials at the Mayo Clinic, the University of Massachusetts and Massachusetts General as early as the second half of 2013. "This is another step forward in finding … Continue reading →

SOURCE: International Stem Cell Corporation CARLSBAD, CA--(Marketwire - Mar 19, 2013) - International Stem Cell Corporation (OTCQB: ISCO) (www.internationalstemcell.com) a California-based biotechnology company focused on the therapeutic applications of human parthenogenetic stem cells announced today safety and encouraging efficacy of stem cell therapy in rodent and non-human primate models of Parkinson's disease. "This pilot study represents a first essential step in bringing cell-based therapies for Parkinson's disease to clinical trials," commented co-author of the study Evan Y. Snyder, MD, PhD, Director of Stem Cells and Regenerative Biology Program at Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute. These placebo-controlled studies were designed to demonstrate the viability, fate and functional efficacy of the stem cell derived neural cells after implantation to the brain.Highly pure populations of neuronal cells were differentiated from human parthenogenetic stem cells (hpSC) according to the protocol developed by International Stem Cell Corporation and recently published in the Nature Publishing Group's Scientific Reports. The studies employ MPTP-lesioned African Green monkeys and 6-OHDA-lesioned rats, the principle models used to study Parkinson's disease.The duration of the primate study was four months and the rodent study six months.In the non-human primate model, behavioral endpoints were assessed with parkinsonian scores. These scores, based on a … Continue reading →