The End of STAP Stem Cells

A revolutionary way of making stem cells claimed last year by Japanese and US researchers never existed in the first place. That is the conclusion of two papers^{1, 2} published on 23 September inNature — the same journal that published the original, ill-fated papers early last year. Multiple labs conclude that the seemingly miraculous results originated from contamination with ordinary stem cells.

For the full article: “Failed replications put STAP stem-cell claims to rest”

Additional reading:

“Failure to replicate the STAP cell phenomenon”

“STAP cells are derived from ES cells”

 

Image source: http://www.nature.com/news/stap-1.15332

 

 

 

The promise of Stem Cells!

Anish Sen Majumdar is a veteran stem cell scientist, he has trained hundreds of scientists and has been a member of various international societies that are involved in globalizing scientific & clinical research using stem cells and formulating international policies for regulating the use of stem cells in human disease conditions. His talk centers on curing diabetes and critical limb ischemia, two diseases prevalent in India.

He earned his PhD in biochemistry, moved to USA to complete his postdoctoral studies and joined Stanford University School of’medicine to pursue research on types of progenitor and mature immune cells in the context of health and disease states of the body. During his career, he has trained hundreds of scientists and has been a member of various international societies that are involved in globalizing scientific and clinical research using stem cells and formulating international policies for regulating the use of stem cells in human disease conditions.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

New Regulations for Stem Cells in China

Clinics around China have been ignoring government regulations and warnings from the scientific community for years. They offered desperate patients costly and, according to experts, probably ineffective treatments. These were often labelled as clinical trials as a cover to charge patients. Other countries have experienced similar problems. Now, new regulations in China will hopefully end this unethical behaviour.

Read more: China announces stem-cell rules

Wnt signaling, Lgr5 stem cells, organoids and cancer by Hans Clevers

The research of Dr. Clevers is focused on healthy and diseased intestines. He has discovered and delineated some of the most fundamental molecular signaling processes that drive normal development of the gut and linked these to diseases such as cancer. In recent years he was the first, and foremost, discoverer of the stem cell of the intestine. He succeeded in growing “mini intestines” in cell culture dishes. Professor Clevers’ scientific contributions can be counted among the most important in biomedicine of his generation and have a fundamental impact on both regenerative medicine and cancer treatment. In this talk, Prof. Clevers describes his research goals and some of his results.

ISSCR 2015: StemCells, Inc. Clinical Programs Overview

In this talk, Stephen Huhn, the Vice President for Clinical Research and Chief Medical Officer of StemCells Inc. provides a brief update on the clinical programs of the company.

 

Webinar: Stem Cell and Reprogramming Research Methods

The potential clinical applications of embryonic and adult stem cells are limitless, but major barriers in developing new therapies involving stem cells are obtaining and manipulating well-characterized cells in culture. In this webinar, Dr. Kevin Eggan (HHMI, Harvard Stem Cell Institute) will discuss some of the state-of-the-art methods for working with stem cells, along with the scientific challenges encountered with these methods. He will also present examples of the use of these techniques from his own work involving both human embryonic stem cells and iPS cells in the study of nervous system disorders, such as ALS, and for the development of new treatments.

Free Review: Cell Therapies for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Abstract: Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a genetically determined X-linked disease and the most common, progressive pediatric muscle disorder. For decades, research has been conducted to find an effective therapy. This review presents current therapeutic methods for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, based on scientific articles in English published mainly in the period 2000 to 2014. We used the PubMed database to identify and review the most important studies. An analysis of contemporary studies of stem cell therapy and the use of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) in muscular dystrophy was performed.

Paper: “Duchenne muscular dystrophy: current cell therapies”

 

Biomaterials in Regenerative Medicine Therapies for Spinal Cord Injury (SCI)

Abstract: Spinal cord injury results in the permanent loss of function, causing enormous personal, social and economic problems. Even though neural regeneration has been proven to be a natural mechanism, central nervous system repair mechanisms are ineffective due to the imbalance of the inhibitory and excitatory factors implicated in neuroregeneration. Therefore, there is growing research interest on discovering a novel therapeutic strategy for effective spinal cord injury repair. To this direction, cell-based delivery strategies, biomolecule delivery strategies as well as scaffold-based therapeutic strategies have been developed with a tendency to seek for the answer to a combinatorial approach of all the above. Here we review the recent advances on regenerative/neural engineering therapies for spinal cord injury, aiming at providing an insight to the most promising repair strategies, in order to facilitate future research conduction.

Paper: “Advances in regenerative therapies for spinal cord injury: a biomaterials approach”

A New Day for Drug Development in Neuroscience

In this lecture Ricardo Dolmetsch, Ph.D. from the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research talks about the new advancements in drug development for neurological disorders. His lab studies the neurobiology underlying autism and other orphan developmental brain diseases.

Ocata Therapeutics Announces Positive Results of Stem Cell Treatment for dry Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy (SMD)

Ocata Therapeutics, Inc., a leader in the field of Regenerative Ophthalmology™, announced that data will be presented in a Late Breaking Abstract at the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) 13th Annual Meeting being held in Stockholm, Sweden, June 24-27.
The presentation will provide a follow-up of four prospective safety trials carried out in the United States and also in South Korea. The results of these trials in 31 patients with dry Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy (SMD) provide additional evidence supporting the safety and tolerability of hESC-derived retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Some patients were followed for up to 4 years and none of the patients showed evidence of hyperproliferation, rejection or serious adverse ocular or systemic safety issues related to the transplanted tissue.
The abstract reported that all of the patients, 26 from the US studies and 5 from the South Korean study, experienced improved or stable, best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA). These studies suggest that hESC-derived cells could provide a potentially safe new source of cells for regenerative medicine.
“This late breaking abstract presented at the leading stem cell meeting is indicative of the significance and importance of our new potential breakthrough treatments for these disabling diseases where there is no cure available today,” said Paul K. Wotton, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer. “We now look forward to the planned initiation of our Phase 2 safety study in dry AMD and our pivotal study in SMD.”

Source: Ocata Therapeutics Announces Positive Results Reported in a Late Breaking Abstract at the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research