Custom byline text: Helen Puttick Health Correspondent It is hoped the discovery at Edinburgh University will help drive forward the bid to use stem cells to repair damaged tissue and reverse incurable conditions. Dr Sally Lowell, a research fellow based in the Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine where the work was carried out, said while experts can already manipulate stem cells to grow other cell types there were often problems with the results. She said: "By understanding how stem cells take the first step in the right direction we hope we can push them more uniformly in the direction we want them to go." The Edinburgh University team has spent more than three years trying to find out how the cells begin transforming themselves and has identified a protein which kick-starts the process. Now they have found the protein, researchers can watch how it affects stem cells in real time to gain a better understanding of how it works. Producing more stem cells of the desired type is helpful for testing drugs as well as creating new therapies for degenerative conditions such as Parkinson's disease, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis and liver disease. Contextual targeting label: Link: Breakthrough … Continue reading →

Feb. 7, 2013 A natural trigger that enables stem cells to become any cell-type in the body has been discovered by scientists. Researchers have identified a protein that kick-starts the process by which stem cells can develop to into different cells in the body, for instance liver or brain cells. Their discovery could help scientists improve techniques enabling them to turn stem cells into other cell types in the laboratory. These could then be used to test drugs or help create therapies for degenerative conditions such as Parkinson's disease, motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis and liver disease. Scientists from the Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, who studied embryonic stem cells in mice, also developed a technique enabling them to highlight the presence of the key protein -- Tcf15 -- in the cells. This means that researchers can identify which cells have the protein and watch how it affects stem cells in real time to gain a better understanding of how it works. The study, published in the journal Cell Reports, was funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Dr Sally Lowell, from the MRC Centre for Regenerative … Continue reading →

PITTSTON, ME--(Marketwire - Feb 8, 2013) - YaFarm Technologies, Inc. (OTC Pink: YFRM) (YaFarm, or the Company) announced today that the Integrative Stem Cell Institute (ISCI), a premier provider of point-of-care, stem cell- based therapies, is initiating design and development of a new, world-class cell processing and culture laboratory in Cancun, Mexico. The Institute has begun construction of a class 10,000, ISO 7 clean room for the processing of autologous, mesenchymal cells for point-of-care therapies. "This lab is critical for the Institute," says Juan Castillo-Plaza, MD, founder of the ISCI. "As part of our commitment to patient safety, and our on-going clinical studies and research, we will be able to draw, process and then inject the patient's cells within the same facility." The ISCI lab is part of a 2,000 sq ft facility that is housed in the Hospital Galenia in Cancun, Mexico. "This will be one of the most advanced laboratories in world," continues Castillo. The ISCI has brought in experts from around the world to both design the layout of the libratory space as well as develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) to assure the highest possible standards for quality assurance and quality control. An essential element of the … Continue reading →

Featured Article Academic Journal Main Category: Stem Cell Research Also Included In: Biology / Biochemistry Article Date: 07 Feb 2013 - 12:00 PST Current ratings for: Stem Cell Differentiation Is Triggered By A Key Protein 2.5 (2 votes) 1 (1 votes) The team, from the Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, describe their findinds in the 7 February issue of Cell Reports. Senior author Sally Lowell, who leads the Embryonic Stem Cell Differentiation group at the Centre, says in a statement that their finding "gives us better insight into the crucially important first step stem cells take to differentiate into other cell types." "Understanding how and when this happens could help to improve the way in which we are able to control this process," she adds. In degenerative conditions such as Parkinson's disease, liver disease, multiple sclerosis and motor neurone disease, specialized cells become useless or die off. Stem cells are cells that have not yet become specialized, they have the potential to become any cell of the body. One goal of stem cell research is to find ways of using stem cells to create new cells to replace those wasted … Continue reading →