STEM CELL
RESEARCH IN PROGRESS TO EXPLORE MORE AND TO CONQUER
DISEASE
New
STEM Cell Technique for Leukemia Treatment:
British scientists have developed a new stem cell technique that could help
patients with advanced leukemia or lymphoma.
They genetically tinkered with donor stem
cells -- master cells that can
develop into virtually any cell type -- so that they can survive highly toxic
chemotherapy.
Trial of
High-Risk
therapy for Severe MS Planned
LONDON (Reuters Health) - Scientists announced plans on Monday for a major
trial of a controversial stem cell therapy in people with severe multiple
sclerosis (MS) who do not respond to conventional treatment.
The therapy involves removing and storing the patients'''' own stem cells from
bone marrow, then using drugs to knock out the immune system in order to
stabilize the course of MS.
The stem cells are transplanted back into the body to reconstitute the lost
blood cells. Patients have very few infection-fighting white blood cells for
the first 10 days and have to stay in an extremely clean environment until the
stem cell therapy takes a hold.
Stem Cells Used to Treat
Brain Cancer in Mice :
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Injecting neural stem cells engineered to produce a
cancer-killing protein into mice with brain cancer extends the animals''''
survival and even immunizes a third of them against the cancer, researchers
said on Monday.
"Malignant brain tumors are highly invasive. The main tumor mass often
spawns outgrowth...this is a way to target cancer cells that migrate away from
the primary brain tumor," said Dr. Moneeb Ehtesham, an author of the study
conducted at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Stem Cell
Science Offers New Hope to Diabetics:
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Type 1 diabetes patients may be able to avoid the need
for daily insulin shots through transplants of insulin-producing stem cells,
but the procedure faces some hurdles including finding the cells and dealing
with immune-system rejection, researchers said. Researchers have sought for decades
to prove that islet cell transplantation could be a cure for Type 1 diabetes,
said Taylor Mayo, a spokesman for the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, California, one of 10 research centers
chosen by the US National Institutes of Health (news - web sites) to conduct
studies aimed at duplicating on a larger scale the islet cell transplantation
done in Canada.
Hopes
Raised of Using Stem Cells For Treating Muscular Dystrophy
A rare natural experiment has given researchers hope of using stem cells to
treat muscular dystrophy, a group of genetic diseases that cause progressive
wasting of the muscles.
Umbilical
Stem Cells Show Promise :
SEATTLE Scientists said Tuesday they can increase the number of stem cells
derived from umbilical cord blood significantly by exposing the blood to a
particular molecule. The finding could have important implications for stem
cell research.
Dr. Irwin Bernstein, a pediatric oncologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the University of Washington, in Seattle, led a research team to determine
how best to use stem cells that can be derived from umbilical cord blood.
Stem Cells Offer Hope to Heart Attack Victims
LONDON (Reuters) - Stem cells may help patients recover from heart attacks by
triggering new cell growth in damaged tissue, scientists said on Friday.
Stem cells are so-called master cells that can develop into various tissues in
the body and using them to repair damaged hearts is a hot area of medical
research.
Two teams of doctors from Germany and Hong Kong reported promising results after
transplanting stem cells extracted from bone marrow into heart muscle, although
they said more research was needed on the procedure.
The aim of the procedure is to stimulate blood vessel growth in areas without
sufficient blood supply, a process known as angiogenesis. It could eve
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