the neverending story~♥

jtotheizzoe:

Stem cells transformed into brain cells to treat Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease is a debilitating condition where dopamine-producing cells (dopamine is a chemical messenger in the brain) in a region of the brain called the substantia nigra die off. This region of the midbrain is important to basic movments, and the symptoms include tremors and shaking (like Michael J. Fox).

Although we still don’t know why they die, it’s long been a goal to try and replace these damaged neurons with healthy ones. Stem cells, you say?

Oh yeah, we’re all over that, as reported in Nature this week:

In a series of experiments, the team gave animals six injections of more than a million cells each, to parts of the brain affected by Parkinson’s. The neurons survived, formed new connections and restored lost movement in mouse, rat and monkey models of the disease, with no sign of tumour development. The improvement in monkeys was crucial, as the rodent brains required fewer working neurons to overcome their symptoms.

On the prospect of future human trials, Dr Studer said: “We now have the right cells, but to put them into humans requires them to be produced in a specialised facility rather than a laboratory, for safety reasons. We have removed the main biological bottleneck and now it’s an engineering problem.”

(via guardian.co.uk, image of dopamine-producing neural stem cells from Sonja Kriks/Lorenz Studer)

ohyeahdevelopmentalbiology:

Cancer stem cells are slowly dividing tumourigenic cells that possess characteristics of normal stem cells. It has been proposed that these cells persist in treated tumours and are responsible for tumour re-growth and metastasis. As a consequence, more effective chemotherapy may be achieved by targeting these cells in addition to the rapidly proliferating tumour cells. So far, the difficulty has been the lack of understanding of cancer stem cells and how they might be selectively targeted over normal stem cells.

via drugdiscoveryopinion.com

ohyeahdevelopmentalbiology:

ucsdhealthsciences:

An idea from which hope stems

In a commentary to be published in today’s issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell, UC Davis researcher Paul S. Knoepfler and colleagues note the vast and still-expanding possibilities of creating stem cells from a patient’s own skin cells, then using them to treat a diverse range of conditions, from Parkinson’s disease to cancer.

Their enthusiasm is understandable and justified. In the five years since the first scientific paper appeared describing the development of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), significant progress has been made, much of it fueled by funding and support from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, itself only seven years old. 

UC San Diego and its stem cell scientists have been among the leaders in iPSC research. For example:

• David Traver and colleagues have identified the gene and key signaling pathways needed to make hematopoietic stem cells (the cells that create all blood cell types) using iPSCs.
• Kang Zhang’s lab has created stable, self-renewing neural stem cells
• Alysson Muotri and colleagues have created a model of an “autistic neuron” using iPSCs taken from patients with Rett syndrome.
• Muotri and international collaborators have also generated new insights into the causes of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) using iPSCs.

To be sure, many questions and obstacles remain. Kun Zhang and colleagues at several research institutions, for example, reported earlier this year finding troubling mutations in iPSCs, enough to suggest more rigorous screening procedures will be needed before the cells can be used clinically. Similar genetic abnormalities were reported in a January 2011 paper by a multinational team that included UC San Diego researchers.  And research by biology professor Yang Xu indicates therapies based upon iPSCs could provoke immune rejection problems.

Such discoveries do not undermine the promise and potential of iPSCs. Indeed, they are necessary to ensure that progress toward tangible stem cell-based treatments and achievements is real.