Stem Cells Help Match Patients To Medication

May 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

One of the greatest roadblocks to the development of a new drug is the cost of proving the treatment. Experts estimate that it takes anywhere from $100 million to $1.2 billion to get each new drug on the market. A huge portion of the funding is used to determine that the new medication is both effective and safe. However, a new initiative that combines research breakthroughs, non-profit commitment and private sector support for regenerative medicine is dedicated to the improvement of the process.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine, Dr. Michael May founded the center in 2011 with the help of the Network of Centers Excellence program. Working alongside the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer Canada, the Center for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine developed a new fund that was created specifically for the research and innovation in the use of regenerative medicine to come up with new forms of treatment using stem cells.

Stem CellsAccording to Dr. May, “One of the most promising areas for regenerative medicine is in drug testing, and we now have the ability to augment animal testing, and sometimes replace it, with testing on real human tissue. We’ll be able to test heart related drugs on human heart tissue, and that will allow safer and more reliable testing.”

The implications go much farther than the improved development of medications in the future. For example, drugs that fail to qualify in previous trials can be evaluated again by using synthesized tissue to find out if they present more promise when tested on human tissue than the testing on animals indicates.

Even medication that displays serious complications in the majority of the population may have potential value to some patients. Using stem cells to test these drugs on human tissue provides a way to identify the individuals or groups that may benefit from drugs that are currently not being prescribed because of the safety concerns for most patients. For example, the heart problems associated with the medication Vioxx may have been detected much earlier, resulting in it only being given to patients in cases where the benefits are greater than the risks.

Even though the use of stem cells has been quite controversial in the past, especially in the United States, currently researchers are using adult stem cells from donors for individualized treatment and general investigations. The result is the possibility of testing treatments on stem cells from tissue that is developed from patients, which will make it possible for researchers to identify the stem cell therapy that is best for each individual candidate.

Dr. May said, “Scientists can derive stem cells from blood, and then turn those stem cells into heart tissue, brain tissue, or anything else required. This ability to manipulate tissue offers incredible opportunities for curing and treating any number of diseases.”

Filed Under: Adult Stem Cells, stem cell research, Stem Cells Tagged With: , ,

Increasing Investment in Stem Cell Research

May 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Increasing Investment In Stem Cell ResearchAccording to a report on the stem cell research markets that was recently released by GIA, the global adult stem cell market is expected to reach more than $3 billion within the next five years. The predominant factors that are driving such market growth include:

  • An increase in the number of research groups that participate in stem cell research
  • An increase in worldwide government investments
  • Breakthrough technological advances

The search continues for innovative and more effective stem cell therapies for life threatening and debilitating disease in an environment of increasing and prevailing disease. The healthcare expenditure continues to rise and the needs of the medical industry continue to go unmet. All of this is fueling the growth of stem cell research all around the world.

Stem cell research is a rather promising part of biotechnology with incredible potential to render new approaches to the treatment of a number of different degenerative diseases. The research focuses on using regenerative stem cells to replenish the damaged cells in tissues or organs with new, healthy cells.

All of this has led to the creation of a new specialty in the medical field known as regenerative medicine. There is great potential for stem cell treatments being used to provide help for patients suffering from:

  • Parkinson’s disease
  • Stroke
  • Spinal cord injuries
  • Heart disease
  • Diabetes
  • Burns
  • Osteoarthritis
  • Rheumatoid arthritis

In addition to the numerous therapeutic applications, stem cells are also being used in drug development. Furthermore, stem cell research can aid in the reduction of rising health costs that are related to the conventional treatment methods.

Stem cell technology currently remains in a budding stage. Substantial data is still needed in the market to establish the safety and long-term efficiency of stem cell treatments. Some issues have also raised concern pertaining to the administration of such therapies.

Ethical and regulatory barriers remain all around the world, especially in the Western countries, which pose major challenges for the advancement of stem cell research. However, these barriers focus mainly on embryonic stem cell research, which unlike adult stem cell research involves the destruction of human life in its earliest stages. Less opposition on the study of stem cells is faced in countries such as India.

A lack of funding is also a major problem that researcher are facing. For example, countries, such as Malaysia, China, Thailand, Singapore and India engage in clinical, commercial and scientific advancements in stem cell research, but they are doing it without the proper funding.

In recent years, several breakthroughs in the stem cell market have been witnessed, boding great potential in the reshaping of the medical industry. Potential application of stem cell treatments exist for several areas of deadly and debilitating disease, including AIDS and cancer.

Filed Under: Adult Stem Cells, stem cell research, Stem Cells Tagged With: , , ,

The Pros of Adult Stem Cells for Therapies

May 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

You are most likely aware that the human body is made up of several different types of cells, such as skin cells, blood cells, cervical cells, etc. However, many people tend to forget about the fact that all of these cells originated from a single cell. Developmental biologists are scientists that study the events occurring between the time an egg is fertilized and when a new human being is formed.

Growing Stem CellsIn the earliest stages of cell division, one cell becomes two; two cells become four and so on. Each of these individual cells are undifferentiated and do not have a specific function in the body. The cells are totipotent, which means that they can contribute to all of the organs in the body.

The cells in the stages of early development are known as embryonic stem cells. These stem cells have the ability to renew themselves and maintain a continuous supply of stem cells that can differentiate into specialized stem cells, such as brain cells or liver cells.

Stem cells are also present in existing tissue, which are known as adult stem cells. Adult stem cells make it possible to regenerate specific tissues all throughout a person’s life. In addition, adult stem cells are capable of multi-lineage differentiation and self-renewal. As a matter of fact, the list of pros of adult stem cells is rather long and getting longer every day.

 

Sources of Adult Stem Cells

The primary clinical application of adult stem cells is donor cells that are used to replace damaged cells via stem cell therapy. Adult stem cells can be obtained from a number of different sources, such as:

  • Umbilical cords or cord blood
  • Adult organs or tissue, which is obtained from living adults through surgery
  • Post-mortem human tissue from cadavers up to twenty hours following death

The use of embryonic stem cell research is the subject of much ethical debate. However, the use of adult stem cells poses less of a dilemma. In fact, the use of adult stem cells has proven to produce more amazing medical breakthroughs, while the same cannot be said about embryonic stem cells.

 

The Advantages of Adult Stem Cell Therapy

There are a number of pros of adult stem cells for therapy, including:

  • The cells are already specialized somewhat
  • Therapies using adult stem cells are less likely to lead to rejection by the patient’s immune system
  • Adult stem cells are flexible and can be used to create other types of tissue
  • Most adult stem cells are easy to harvest and pose little risk to the donor

Adult stem cells were once thought to be restricted to the production of differentiated cells that were specific to the organ or tissue from which they came. However, recent studies have reported that under certain conditions, adult stem cells may be induced to develop other types of cells.

Filed Under: Adult Stem Cells, stem cell research, Stem Cell Treatments and Uses, Stem Cells Tagged With: , , , , ,

How to Harvest Adult Stem Cells to Produce the Highest Yield

May 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

With so many cures for injury and disease being discovered through the use of adult stem cell therapies, scientists are studying not only how to harvest adult stem cells, but also how to harvest adult stem cells to produce the highest number of usable cells.

The researchers in the United States have discovered a way to increase the number of stem cells harvested from adult tissue significantly. This is most definitely a step in the right direction for techniques to produce high numbers of stem cells without the use of human embryos or destroying human life in any way.

Using a small number of drug-like chemicals, the research team developed a procedure that is two hundred times more effective and twice as fast as usual methods used to harvest adult stem cells, according to a report by Nature Methods. Researchers have hopes that one day adult stem cells will be widely utilized in order to treat the damaged tissue that results due to various injuries and diseases.

A large amount of the work that conducted in the field of stem cell research in the past focused on stem cells that were harvested from embryos that were left over from in vitro fertilization cases. The reason for this is that embryonic stem cells have an unlimited capacity to transform into any of the two hundred twenty different types of cells that exist within the human body. However, the use of embryonic stem cells is incredibly controversial and a number of campaigners object to the use of such stem cells on the basis that it is not ethical to destroy human embryos in the name of research science.

In 2007, researchers in Japan and the United States began to study the creation of stem cells from adult skin tissue. This research paved the way for many new stem cell sources. The researchers discovered how to harvest adult stem cells by using viruses for the insertion of four genes into cells, prompting other genes to switch on and off to cause the cells to degenerate to stem cells.

However, this process took a number of weeks and the success rate was as low as one in ten thousand cells. It became crucial to find a way to harvest adult stem cells that was both better and faster.

Study Leader Sheng DingResearch that is more recent builds on the process, but includes the addition of specific chemicals as a way to improve the overall process. A team as the Scripps Research Institute increased the number of cells created with tow compounds that initiated the naturally occurring process to move the cell closer to the stem cell state. However, it has now been discovered that with the addition of thiazovivin, which is a small molecule related to the survival of cells, the number of transformed cells has doubled to two hundred times the original number.

The new process takes only a couple of weeks in comparison to the month that was necessary using the original method. According to the leader of the study Professor Sheng Ding, the team had found a way to manipulate the “fundamental” process within the cells. He said, “Both in terms of speed and efficiency, we achieved major improvements over conventional conditions.”

 

Filed Under: Adult Stem Cells, stem cell research Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Process of Harvesting Adult Stem Cells for Bone Marrow Transplants

May 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Bone Marrow TransplantThe process of harvesting adult stem cells from bone marrow is used to obtain cells for bone marrow stem cell transplants, which will provide a new and healthy source for fresh blood cells. These new blood cells will make it possible for patients to receive chemotherapy in higher doses in order to treat certain cancer types like leukemia.

Ultimately, this stem cell treatment will increase the patient’s chance of surviving the disease. The stem cells in the bone marrow may be allogeneic and may be donated by a member of the patient’s family or even by a total stranger. The stem cells can also be autologous, which means that the process of harvesting adult stem cells from the patient’s own body is used.

Stem cells are the parent cells of the new blood cells that are formed in the soft tissue in the center of bone, which is known as bone marrow. These stem cells are responsible for the creation of three different types of blood cells, including red blood cells to transport oxygen, white blood cells to fight disease and platelets to aid in the clotting process following an injury.

These stem cells are located in the bone marrow as well as in the blood. Once the stem cells multiply, they create immature blood cells. These blood cells are subjected to a number of changes that make it possible for them to turn into mature blood cells. Once the blood cells are mature, they move from the bone marrow and into the blood stream to perform critical functions that keep the body healthy.

Since chemotherapy destroys the rapidly growing cancer cells, high levels are used to produce a more effective treatment. However, bone marrow cells are also fast growing cells and thus are incredibly sensitive to the treatment. Eventually, the chemotherapy destroys the bone marrow, preventing the development of new blood cells.

For an autologous bone marrow transplant, the stem cells are harvested from the patient’s body. However, there are usually a large number of cancer cells present, which makes isolation practically impossible until remission takes place. Therefore, some chemotherapy is usually administered before the collection of stem cells. Then the harvested cells are treated to eliminate any remaining cancer cells. Following higher doses of chemotherapy, the stem cells are put back into the patient’s body through rapid injection. Eventually, they migrate to the marrow, latch onto other cells and develop new blood cells.

If the process of harvesting adult stem cells is used to get stem cells from a suitable donor, the patient is given high doses of chemotherapy and sometimes radiation therapy. The therapy destroys the patient’s immune system and bone marrow so it will not attack the transplanted cells. Over the course of several hours, the stem cells are infused into the patient intravenously. The cells move to the bone marrow and begin producing the necessary blood cells. Patients are generally also given drug therapy to reduce the chances of rejection.

Filed Under: Adult Stem Cells, Stem Cell Treatments and Uses Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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