Geneticists soon will be able to identify an unborn childs risk of developing chronic diseases later in life and possibly shed light on other traits, such as athletic ability and intelligence, medical experts say. The source of such information probably will be the expectant mothers blood sample. For the first time, researchers recently extracted fetal DNA from a pregnant womans blood and examined the unborn babys genome. The procedure prenatal whole genome sequencing is not yet available in the clinical setting. But some health professionals expect that pediatricians and family doctors soon will be sifting through sequencing results of infants and older children. Key goals of the procedure are improving detection of serious genetic disorders before a child is born and helping create preventive care plans for conditions that young patients are at risk of developing as they age. My instinct is this will be available certainly in the next decade, and probably sooner, said Benjamin E. Berkman, MPH, deputy director of the Bioethics Core at the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Md. But the medical community is not prepared to address the clinical challenges and ethical issues that probably will accompany the procedure, say some bioethicists and … Continue reading →

Calcutta News.Net Monday 27th August, 2012 LONDON - The Medical Research Council (MRC) will be providing Edinburgh University with 60 million pounds of funding over the next five years to enable scientists carry out genetic research with the aim of learning more about conditions like schizophrenia, cystic fibrosis and genetic eye disorders. The funding is being provided to the MRC Human Genetics Unit and the MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine (IGMM) at the University of Edinburgh. It is hoped the research will also help doctors at the IGMM, one of the largest centres of its kind in Europe, develop new tests and therapies for patients with cancer and osteoarthritis. Director Professor Nick Hastie said, "The challenge we face is to work out how human genes work together to build a human. We also want to find out how subtle DNA differences help shape human diversity and influence susceptibility to a wide range of common diseases." The IGMM is a partnership between the MRC, University of Edinburgh's Centre for Molecular Medicine and Cancer Research UK. The funding will help IGMM "to turn the potential of the genetic revolution into reality", stated Hastie. The funding, to be made over the … Continue reading →

News Article date: August 27, 2012 For some children with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) who dont improve after initial induction chemotherapy, getting more chemotherapy may be a better option than having a stem cell transplant, according to an international study. ALL (also known as acute lymphoblastic leukemia) is a kind of cancer of the blood and bone marrow. It is the most common type of leukemia in children and teens. Initial treatment is induction chemotherapy, an intensive combination of drugs typically given for about a month after a child is diagnosed. Induction chemotherapy is able to bring about a remission in more than 95% of patients, and most of these children will go on to be cured. However, a very small portion of children about 2% to 3%, according to the researchers still have signs of leukemia in their blood or bone marrow after induction. Long-term survival for these children is only about 32% overall, according to the researchers. The researchers looked back at more than a thousand of these children for their study. Because these children are considered to be at high risk, after induction chemotherapy they are often given high-dose chemotherapy followed by a stem cell transplant (also … Continue reading →

ROCKVILLE, Md., Aug. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Neuralstem, Inc. (NYSE MKT: CUR) announced the completion of the Phase I trial of its NSI-566 spinal cord neural stem cells for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), with the eighteenth patient treated. This patient, the third to return to the trial for an additional set of injections, is also the last in the Phase I portion of the trial as it is currently designed, which is scheduled to conclude six months after this final surgery. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20061221/DCTH007LOGO ) "We are delighted to have completed Phase I in this groundbreaking trial, the first approved by the FDA to test neural stem cells in patients with ALS," said Karl Johe, PhD, Chairman of Neuralstem's Board of Directors and Chief Scientific Officer. "There have been many firsts in this trial, including the first lumbar intraspinal injections, the first cervical region intraspinal injections, and the first cohort of patients to receive both," said Jonathan D. Glass, MD, Director of the Emory ALS Center. "This has required incredible effort from the Emory medical and support team and I wish to express my thanks to all of them, as well as to acknowledge … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (Aug. 27, 2012) Some of the body's own genetic material, known as small interfering RNA (siRNA), can be packaged then unleashed as a precise and persistent technology to guide cell behavior, researchers at Case Western Reserve University report in the current issue of the journal, Acta Biomaterialia. The research group, led by Eben Alsberg, associate professor in the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Orthopedic Surgery, have been pursuing experiments that seek to catalyze stem cells to grow into, for example, bone and cartilage cells, instead of fat, smooth muscle and other cell types. Beyond tissue engineering, the scientists believe that their technology could be used to starve a tumor by blocking growth of blood vessels that carry nutrition to a malignancy. Or the siRNA could bring on cancer cell death by interfering with other cellular processes. siRNA is a short section of double-stranded RNA that inhibits gene expression. The molecule can jam up the machinery that produces specific proteins important to cell processes. A current challenge to using siRNA to block growth of cancerous tumors or guide cell behavior in tissue engineering, is that the tiny material rapidly disperses when injected in the bloodstream or directly into target tissues. … Continue reading →

SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- America Stem Cell, Inc. announced today the initiation of a single-center study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center evaluating ASC-101 in dual-umbilical cord transplantation in patients with hematologic malignancies. There is a significant unmet medical need to improve stem cell engraftment into bone marrow for patients undergoing umbilical cord transplantation, and America Stem Cell is committed to filling that need, said Dr. Linda Paradiso, Chief Development Officer at America Stem Cell. ASC-101 is a novel enzyme treatment that will potentially transform hematopoietic stem cell transplantation by accelerating patient immune system and platelet recovery, reducing opportunistic infections and other co-morbidities, and improving patient survival. Enhancing umbilical cord stem cell engraftment into bone marrow in the dual cord transplant setting will improve clinical outcomes for patients with serious, life-threatening cancers and other disorders for which hematopoietic stem cell transplant is prescribed, said, Dr. Elizabeth Shpall, MD, Medical Director, Cell Therapy Laboratory and Director, Cord Blood Bank at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Principal Investigator on the ASC-101 Phase I/II clinical trial. The MD Anderson study has enrolled and dosed its first patient in this Phase I/II study designed to study the safety of ASC-101 in the … Continue reading →