Neurosurgeon Daniel Lim's injection system can bend sideways, delivering therapeutic stem cells to the brain through fewer holes in the skull. J. Bardi/UCSF As the surgical team prepared its instruments, a severed human head lay on the plastic tray, its face covered by a blue cloth. It had thawed over the past 24 hours, and a pinky-sized burr hole had been cut near the top of its skull. Scalp covered with salt-and-pepper stubble wrinkled above and below a pink strip of smooth bone. Over the next two hours, the head would be scanned in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine as the researchers, led by Daniel Lim, a neurosurgeon and stem-cell scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, tested a flexible needle for delivering cells to the brain. Several laboratories are investigating ways to treat neurological diseases by injecting cells into patients brains, and clinical trials are being conducted for Parkinsons disease, stroke and other neurodegenerative diseases. These studies follow experiments showing dramatic improvements in rats and mice. But as work on potentially therapeutic cells has surged ahead, necessary surgical techniques have lagged behind, says Lim. In 2008 researchers led by Steven Goldman at the University of Rochester in … Continue reading →

Public release date: 5-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Karin Eskenazi ket2116@columbia.edu 212-342-0508 Columbia University Medical Center NEW YORK, NY (March 5, 2013) Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), with collaborators at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, have discovered how the most common genetic mutations in familial Parkinson's disease damage brain cells. The mutations block an intracellular system that normally prevents a protein called alpha-synuclein from reaching toxic levels in dopamine-producing neurons. The findings suggest that interventions aimed at enhancing this digestive system, or preventing its disruption, may prove valuable in the prevention or treatment of Parkinson's. The study was published March 3 in the online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience. Parkinson's disease is characterized by the formation of Lewy bodies (which are largely composed of alpha-synuclein) in dopamine neurons. In 1997, scientists discovered that a mutation in alpha-synuclein can lead to Lewy body formation. "But alpha-synuclein mutations occur in only a tiny percentage of Parkinson's patients," said co-lead author David L. Sulzer, PhD, professor of neurology, pharmacology, and psychiatry at CUMC. "This meant that there must be something else that interfered with alpha-synuclein in people with Parkinson's." Dr. Sulzer and his … Continue reading →

WEST HAVEN, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- NanoViricides, Inc. (OTC BB: NNVC) (the "Company") announced today that its President, Dr. Anil Diwan, will lead the Section 1, Designing Nanomedicines, with Dr. Mostafa Analoui of the Livingston Group. In addition, Dr. Randall Barton, the Companys Chief Scientific Officer, will lead Section 2, Preclinical Pharmacology, with Dr. Benjamin Yerxa of Liquidia Technologies. These sections are part of the Symposium on Nanomedicines: Charting a Roadmap to Commercialization, which is divided into five sections. The Symposium is being held at the Hilton Hotel in Rockville, MD, on the 6th and 7th of March. Section 1 is scheduled for tomorrow, March 6th, at 10:0 am, and Section 2 follows the same day at 11:30am. The section 1 on Designing Nanomedicines is organized to provide a sampling of the multi-faceted nanomedicine technologies and their current and future applications. Panel presenters include: Professor Philip S. Low, Purdue University, Professor Edith Mathiowitz, Brown University, Professor Justin Hanes, Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Uma Prabhakar, Office of Cancer Nanotechnology Research at NCI-NIH, and Dr. Frank Bedu-Addo, PDS Biotechnologies, in addition to Dr. Diwan and Dr. Analoui. The panelists will briefly present design aspects of their respective work in nanomedicines and then discuss several … Continue reading →

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Mar 4, 2013) - VistaGen Therapeutics, Inc. ( OTCQB : VSTA ), a biotechnology company applying stem cell technology for drug rescue, predictive toxicology and drug metabolism assays, and Celsis In Vitro Technologies ("Celsis"), the premier global provider of specialized in vitro products for drug metabolism, drug-drug interaction and toxicity screening, have entered into a new strategic collaboration agreement. The comprehensive goal of the agreement is to characterize and functionally benchmark VistaGen's human liver cell platform, LiverSafe 3D, for studying and predicting human liver drug metabolism. VistaGen will utilize Celsis' experience and expertise in in vitro drug metabolism to help validate VistaGen's human liver cell platform.In this strategic collaboration Celsis will not only validate VistaGen's stem cell-derived liver cells in traditional pharmaceutical metabolism assays, but will also determine genetic variations in VistaGen's pluripotent stem cell lines that are important to drug development.In addition, VistaGen will utilize Celsis' human cadaver-derived liver cells, currently used throughout the pharmaceutical industry for traditional drug metabolism assays, as reference controls with which to monitor and benchmark the functional properties of VistaGen's human liver cell platform. With the assistance of Celsis scientists, VistaGen aims to achieve four key objectives: "As an … Continue reading →