Stem Cell News ...
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Vital Stem Cell News
Superior Stem Cells Shunned By Media CBSNews.com Feb. 8, 2007 (Weekly Standard) This column was written by Michael Fumento.
While the Democratic-controlled House voted 253-174 to expand federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, it fell far short of the 290 votes needed to override a virtually guaranteed presidential veto. A tragedy for victims of everything from Alzheimer's to warts? Not at all. Each year there are stunning breakthroughs with adult stem cells, and 2007 has already brought Major Adult Stem cell news.
Adult stem cell news about cures and treatments for more than 70 diseases that are involved in almost 1,300 human clinical trials is being broadcast around the world. Scientists also keep discovering that adult stem cells are capable of creating a wider variety of mature cells. Perhaps the most promising Stem Cell News was announced in the January issue of Nature Biotechnology.
Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, reported that stem cells in the amniotic fluid that fills the sac surrounding the fetus may be just as versatile as embryonic stem cells. At the same time they maintain all the advantages that have made adult stem cells such a success.
This has caused great consternation on the part of those seeking increased taxpayer embryonic stem cell funds. The reason is that there are currently no practical applications for this type of cell. There hasn't even been a single clinical trial involving them. Researchers admit we won't have approved embryonic stem cell treatments for at least 10 years.One advantage of embryonic stem cells has been that most types of adult stem cells cannot be multiplied outside of the body for very long, while embryonic ones may replicate in the lab indefinitely. But Atala's new amniotic stem cells grow as fast outside the body as embryonic stem cells (doubling every 36 hours), and he's now been growing the same cell line for two years, with no indication of slowing.
That leaves embryonic stem cells with only one possible advantage — potential. Embryonic stem cells can be "differentiated" into all three "germ layers," or subtypes of cell. That means they should be able to be made into all of the 220 types of cells in humans. For a long while, adult stem cells were believed to be only capable of differentiation to a limited number of mature cells, depending on the type of adult stem cell with which you start. For example, a marrow cell could become any number of types of marrow or blood cells, but it couldn't become a muscle cell. That's a different germ layer.Yet it's been virtually a state secret that for over five years researchers, beginning with a team headed by physician Catherine Verfaillie of the University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute, have been reporting numerous types of adult stem cells (she used those from marrow) that in the lab could form mature cells from three germ layers. Experiments around the world have clearly shown that this adult stem cell news is Life-changing. One germ layer can be converted into those of another in a living human, such as those that turned marrow cells into heart muscle and blood vessels in live humans.
That said, amniotic stem cells may be the most easily differentiated of all — as well as among the easiest to extract in large amounts. Indeed, they are routinely recovered with a hypodermic needle during amniocentesis. While it's widely believed that this procedure slightly increases the chance of miscarriage, a sizable study last November of 35,000 women who underwent mid-trimester testing found "no significant difference in loss rates between those undergoing amniocentesis and those not undergoing amniocentesis."
More Stem Cell News
There are over 4 million births each year in the United States, yet Atala calculates that merely 100,000 amniotic stem cell specimens could supply 99 percent of the U.S. population's needs for perfect matches for transplants. (That assumes a perfect match is even needed.) About 700,000 amniocentesis procedures are performed in the United States and Western Europe each year. Some embryonic stem cell researchers have downplayed the Atala findings. The work will "still require a lot of replication from other groups before they can be conclusive," Stephen Minger, an embryonic stem cell scientist identified only as a "lecturer in stem-cell biology" told a British newspaper about this Stem cell news. "They have only shown that these particular stem cells can turn into a couple of different types of other stem cells. I would say that a hell of a lot more work is required." Other media outlets would say the same. Newsweek International claimed, "Many scientists are quick to emphasize that comprehensive human trials are still many years away."
The New York Times refused even to allow people to read between the lines — they simply never reported the Stem Cell News about Atala's work. When a reader complained to the "Public Editor," an online ombudsman, about the omission, the Times responded that its genetics reporter, Nicholas Wade, "looked at the Atala paper last week and deemed it a minor development." Wade said of the paper, "It reports finding 'multipotent' stem cells in amniotic fluid. Multipotent means they can't do as much as bona fide embryonic stem cells (which are called 'pluripotent')." Neither Minger nor Newsweek nor Wade could be more wrong. As Atala told PBS' Online NewsHour about his take on the Stem cell news... , "We have been able to drive the cell to what we call all three germ layers, which basically means all three major classes of tissues available in the body, from which all cells come from." I pointed out in a response to The New York Times posting that merely reading the online abstract of the Atala paper indicated the same. Of course, this is the same paper that told readers in 2004 that there were no cures or treatments with adult stem cells. Not 70 cures or treatments, some dating back half a century — none. It is neither paranoia nor exaggeration to say that The New York Times is engaged in a stem-cell cover-up.
What makes all of this worse is that Atala's work actually is a replication of numerous studies. He's just taken the research further and pulled his cells from amniotic fluid, whereas others have pulled the identical cells from the placenta. Amniotic and placenta stem cells are the same, as Atala himself noted. And as to human trials being "many years away," Newsweek is correct only if "years away" means "years ago." The New England Journal of Medicine carried one paper on a placenta stem cell trial back in 1996 and another paper two years later. There's been one ongoing clinical trial since 2001 to treat sickle cell anemia. The Washington Post's Rick Weiss, who has been accused of boosterism for embryonic stem cell research, tried to find a middle ground, saying that "The new [sic] cells are adding credence to an emerging consensus among experts that the popular distinction between embryonic and 'adult' stem cells — those isolated from adult bone marrow and other organs — is artificial."
Actually, what's "artificial" is the term "adult stem cell," which worked fine not so long ago when all adult stem cells were all pulled from bone marrow, but is confusing now that they're being extracted from placentas, amniotic fluid, and umbilical cords, which aren't exactly "adult" sources. But for discussions both scientific and moral, stem cells can still be broken down between the embryonic and the non-embryonic.
More Stem cell news reports that scientifically, all embryonic stem cells tend to become cancerous; they require permanent, dangerous, immunosuppressive drugs because the body rejects them as foreign; and they are difficult to differentiate into the needed type of mature cells. Non-embryonic stem cells, however, do not become cancerous; they are far less likely to cause rejection (especially the youngest, including umbilical cord and amniotic/placenta); and they have been used therapeutically since the late 1950s (originally for leukemia) because they have the amazing ability to form the right type of mature cell merely upon being injected into a body that needs that type of cell.
It is these biological differences that have held embryonic stem cell research back, not a lack of federal funds. As stem-cell researcher Malcolm Alison of the University of London told the Daily Mail, the amniotic cells "appear to be at least as malleable as embryonic stem cells but without all the ethical baggage."
For all the talk over the morality of using human embryos in medicine .. the vital stem cell news is that another moral issue at play: Nonembryonic stem cell researchers are already performing miracles, such as growing new heart and liver tissue and treating multiple sclerosis — all in living humans. Yet they struggle to get federal funds for their research. Given the growing number of state initiatives that fund embryonic stem cell, but not non-embryonic stem cell, research and given that overall National Institutes of Health funding increases are unlikely anytime soon, is it truly moral to take away funds from a technology that's been saving lives for half a century in favor of another technology that promises nothing but "promise"?
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Subscribe in a readerSTEM CELL NEWS .... Professional Athletes Heal FAST!
STEM CELL NEWS
By BILL PENNINGTON Published: March 29, 2007
The latest curative leap to heal professional athletes and weekend warriors alike may sound like science fiction, but it could transform sports medicine. Some doctors and researchers say that in a few years the use of primitive stem cells from infants’ umbilical cord blood could grow new knee ligaments or elbow tendons creating a therapy that becomes the vanguard of sports injury repair.
Already, some sports agents are preparing to advise clients about banking stem cells from their offspring or from tissue taken from their own bodies as an insurance policy against a career-ending infirmity. Stem cell blood banks are promoting the benefits of stem cell therapies for the practical healing and rehabilitation of tendons, ligaments, muscle and cartilage. There are skeptics in the medical community who wonder how soon the technology will be viable, but enthusiastic advocates of the therapies say the time is near.
“It’s not a pie in the sky notion,” said Dr. Scott Rodeo, an orthopedist and award-winning research scientist at Manhattan’s Hospital for Special Surgery. “Maybe it’s not going to happen next year, but a three-to-five-year horizon is not unreasonable.”
Dr. Rodeo has already practiced these technologies in laboratory surgeries on rats, methods that will be especially useful when reconstructing the knee’s anterior cruciate ligament and the shoulder’s rotator cuff. Both are common sports maladies that can be particularly daunting to surgeons because the body generally does not mend or restore the damaged tissue after these injuries.
“In each case, stem cells clearly have some beneficial role in inducing tissue regeneration,” said Dr. Rodeo, who is also a team physician with the Giants and a former United States Olympic team doctor.
Some scientists say now is the time to safeguard athletic prodigies, even kindergartners.
“If you have a child who has exceptional athletic talent at the age of 5 or 6, you might want to get a muscle or fat biopsy to draw and freeze some young stem cells,” said Dr. Johnny Huard, the director of the Stem Cell Research Center of the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and a leading gene therapy researcher. “To have a pool of stem cells already removed would be enormously valuable. The practical use might be years away, but that’s the future of sports medicine.”
The kinds of stem cell therapies being researched for the most part do not involve the politically sensitive use of embryonic stem cells. But they could involve using harvested adult stem cells, stem cells saved from a child at birth or cells from what may someday be a national bank of donated stem cells derived from umbilical cord or placental stem cells.
While the stem cell therapies have gone beyond the theoretical stage, not everyone in orthopedics is convinced they will be useful in treating top athletes or anyone else.
Dr. Regis O’Keefe, spokesman for and Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery, said attempts to use regenerated cartilage in knees has so far been “not highly effective.” He noted that there have been no peer-reviewed studies for many of the proposed therapies and limited experimentation in humans.
“There is a potential benefit but it’s going to take years of clinical trials to acquire the scientific knowledge to know this is better than the current alternatives,” said Dr. O’Keefe, who directs musculoskeletal research at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “And without those trials we also cannot properly evaluate the risks.”
Dr. Freddie Fu, a pioneering orthopedic surgeon with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, agreed.
“You have to answer safety questions and look for side effects,” he said. “It will also be quite expensive. Then again, knowing professional athletes, none of that will stop them. They will always be willing to try anything to help them play.”
With stem cell technology advancing, some are acting now to prepare for the wealth of restorative possibilities. Five professional soccer players had their children’s stem cells frozen at birth and stored in a Liverpool stem cell bank, according to a story last year in The Sunday Times of London. One of the players called the stem cells a potential repair kit for a career-threatening injury.
Stem cell therapies could do more than refurbish joints, they could help build muscle in elite athletes and increase other physical capacities at a pace and proficiency not conventionally attainable.
“There is a performance-enhancing possibility to all this,” said Dr. Huard, who added that he has met with doping officials who are trying to prepare for the new technology. “It might not be detectable because nothing is unnatural — they are your own cells. I don’t think you could turn a bad athlete into a super athlete but could you provide the edge that turns an Olympic silver medal winner into an Olympic gold medal winner? I think you could.
“At the same time, will this kind of engineering of the body hold up under the strain of competition at that level? How will it work in an intense, high impact situation like a pro football game?”
Arthur Caplan, director of the Center of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, believes prosperous professional athletes will view the emerging stem cell technology as a fountain of youth.
“It all sounds good to them,” Caplan said. “They’ll charge in head first. But there’s danger in that.”
Leigh Steinberg, a veteran sports agent, conceded that the nation’s top sports stars would zealously pursue each orthopedic breakthrough.
“For good or ill, athletes have always been in the forefront of every new medical technique,” Steinberg said. “Whether it’s the use of human growth hormone or arthroscopic surgery, they are the workers in society whose livelihood most depends on their physical condition. If the medicine is proven out and it’s the difference between being able to play four more years at $8 million a year, every athlete will consider it a godsend.”
Steinberg said he expected to soon begin advising clients to bank their offspring’s umbilical cord stem cells, something Steinberg did when his own children were born.
In future years, if the use of the stem cell technology in sports becomes more widespread, it leaves open the possibility of professional athletes considering a pregnancy — or artificially creating one — solely to aid their ability to sign another $40 million contract.
“Something like that does make me nervous,” said Dr. G. Lynn Lashbrook, an Oregon-based agent, teacher and director of the Sports Management Worldwide Agency. “The athletic world is renown for not controlling its ethical compass.”
At the facilities storing stem cells, where samplings from the best American athletes or their offspring may already be frozen, confidentially agreements prevent officials from revealing the names of clients.
“Our bank does include people with strong athletic backgrounds,” said Dr. Robert Hariri, founder and chief executive of LifebankUSA, one of about 25 private cord blood banks in the United States. Prices for collecting and storing blood vary widely. Dr. Hariri’s facility, in Cedar Knolls, N.J., has about 35,000 units of stem cells; donors can have umbilical cord blood stored for about $1,900, plus $125 a year.
The primary uses to date for cord blood have been in the treatment of leukemia and other life-threatening diseases.
“The focus so far has been on more important things than fixing an athlete’s joints,” Dr. Hariri said. “But we’re well aware of the possibilities and the revolution that is coming.”
In the front lines of the revolution will likely be the best-paid athletes of the world.
“Take David Beckham as an example,” Dr. Lashbrook said, referring to the English soccer star who recently signed a $250 million contract to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy. “If in a few years he had a knee injury, given the money at stake, what would be more paramount than getting him back on the field? His lifeblood and the franchise lifeblood would be dependant on the knee getting better as quickly as possible.
“So it is not a stretch to say that they would turn to the most advanced science available. Wherever it’s available, I might add. History proves that.” An introduction to Adult Stem Cells June 5th, 2007 No Comments »By Matt Canham
I’m sure you’ve already heard about Stem Cells. Maybe you saw a news story or a read a news article or saw the Presidential address. They are the most widely publicized scientific discovery today and with good reason. How about Embryonic Stem Cells? They have created a great deal of controversy and with good reason. The lure of what Embryonic Stem Cells can do for our health has led to ethical issues surrounding such things as embryo harvesting. One thing remains, Stem Cells represent the future of Health and Wellness as we know it. And they are here to stay.
So what are they?
Stem Cells are master cells, meaning that they can generate many, if not all, of the different tissues of the body. They are with us our entire lives and are released naturally from the bone marrow, but like everything else, the process behind their release slows down with age. When there aren’t as many stem cells in the blood stream, the body can’t repair and renew itself as it once did. These master cells are still contained in the bone marrow in the millions, just not being released as they should.
As this natural release occurs we need to concern ourselves with finding ways to reverse it. The good news is there are 4 things we can do.
Exercise - as we already know, regular exercise is vital to good health Proper breathing - deep breathing oxygenates the blood and tissues Good Nutrition - we need nutrients to nourish and water to flush toxins from our cells Stem cell enhancers - a new product category set to become what antioxidants are today
Stem Cells are the only known source for rebuilding the body and renewing health by restoring lost or degraded cells. They have already been used to help treat things such as Leukemia, AIDS, Alzheimer’s Disease and multiple sclerosis.
They have been used to form new cartilage, grow new corneas to restore sight to the blind, as treatments for stroke victims, and several groups are using adult stem cells with patients to repair damage after heart attacks.
Early clinical trials have also shown initial success in patient treatments for Parkinson’s disease and spinal cord injury. And, the first FDA-approved trial to treat juvenile diabetes in human patients is ready to begin at Harvard Medical School, using adult stem cells.
In short, they are the building blocks of life itself.
Adult versus Embryonic Stem Cells.
Adult Stem Cells is the term given to stem cells after birth which means babies have adult stem cells in their bodies. Embryonic stem cells are simply those from embryos — undifferentiated, or not developed into a specific cell types. Research has shown that embryonic stem cells can develop genetic abnormalities. This is not the case with our own adult stem cells.
For this reason, researchers such as Kursad Turksen in his book ‘Adult Stem Cells’ offer the following wisdom: “Adult stem cell biology is at the forefront of the emerging field of regenerative medicine, offering a source of cells to generate tissues that lack some of the ethical and political impediments inherent in embryonic, fetal, and cloned cells.”
The biggest advantage of using adult stem cells is that the body’s own stem cells can be used, effectively removing the problems of immune rejection or abnormalities.
Adult stem cell science is real.
Adult stem cell research offers the best and clinically proven treatments for a whole host of human diseases and conditions and is helping people overcome these health challenges as you read this article. There are currently over 700 FDA approved clinical trials going on in the United States using adult stem cells but none for embryonic stem cells which is why the future of regenerative health and wellness looks great with Adult stem cells.
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Matt Canham runs http://www.adult-stem-cells.info, a site dedicated to informing people about how increasing the number of adult stem cells circulating in the blood stream can help maintain optimal health.
Athletes ..Here's 3 MILLION New STEM CELLS To Rebuild You!
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