Stem Cells

Type 1 Diabetes Stem Cell Treatment Takes Teens Off Of Insulin

June 25, 2012

In an early study, an experimental stem cell procedure helped fifteen teens with type 1 diabetes stay off of insulin injections for about 1.5 years, on average.  Fifteen of twenty eight teens with type 1 diabetes who got an experimental treatment using their own stem cells went into remission and did not need insulin injections [...]

Read the full article →

Mesenchymal stem cell based treatment gets clinical approval

May 23, 2012

Health Canada has approved Osiris’ Prochymal, a mesenchymal stem cell treatment, for severe cases of pediatric Graft versus Host Disease (GvHD). Prochymal is a preparation of mesenchymal stem cells, which are obtained from the bone marrow of healthy young adult donors. The stem cells are separated out from the marrow and expanded in culture, so that one donation [...]

Read the full article →

What are Progenitor Cells

April 18, 2012

A progenitor cell is similar to a stem cell in that it has the ability to differentiate into a specific type of cell.   The progenitor cell is already more specific than a stem cell and is pushed to differentiate into its “target” cell. The most important difference between stem cells and progenitor cells is that stem cells [...]

Read the full article →

Increased Likelihood Predicted of Stem Cell Treatments in Ones Lifetime

April 3, 2012

While earlier studies demonstrated that the likelihood of using stem cells for treatment are 1 in 217 during a patient’s lifetime, more recent studies are predicting that as many as 1 in 100 Americans will be treated with stem cells before the age of 70 reports Dr Rhonda Verzai in the Daytona Beach News-Journal. Dr. [...]

Read the full article →

Clues in how Stem Cells work in Regenerative Medicine

March 27, 2012

(WSJ Blog)  Stem cells have building-block properties that make them the foundation to create specialized cells that grow into the body’s various tissues and structures. Researchers have long believed that stem cells transplanted into heart tissue, for instance, would be a primary component of whatever new tissue that grew as a result. “A lot of [...]

Read the full article →

Doctors Grow Blood Vessel in Girls Body

March 22, 2012

(WSJ March 21, 2012) Doctors at Yale University have successfully implanted a biodegradable scaffold seeded with a four-year-old girl’s own bone-marrow cells to help treat a serious heart defect.  Four-year-old Angela Irizarry was born with a single pumping chamber in her heart, a potentially lethal defect. To fix the problem, Angela is growing a new blood vessel in [...]

Read the full article →

Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation Milestones Reached

March 7, 2012

  Since the first human cord blood transplant, performed in 1988, cord blood banks have been established worldwide for collection and cryopreservation of cord blood for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Umbilical cord blood (UCB) has now become one of the most commonly used source of hematopoietic stem cells for transplantation for one’s personal use (autologous) and matched unrelated recipients (allogeneic). [...]

Read the full article →

Umbilical Cord Blood MSC Cells Shown to Inhibit Breast Cancer Growth, What Else?

February 7, 2012

Umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been shown to inhibit breast cancer cell growth but it is not known whether this effect is specific to only breast cancer cells. Investigators compared the effects of human Wharton’s jelly stem cell (hWJSC) extracts [conditioned medium (hWJSC-CM) and cell lysate (hWJSC-CL)] on breast adenocarcinoma, ovarian carcinoma and [...]

Read the full article →

Why consider Family Cord Blood Banking?

January 31, 2012

Families ask us why use family cord blood banking (also known as private cord blood banking)? Those who store their stem cells at a family cord blood bank realize the advantage of having stem cells saved for their child (autologous transplants) as well as having a much higher chance of having a stem cell match [...]

Read the full article →

Early Results in Treating Macular Degeneration

January 25, 2012

LOS ANGELES — A treatment for eye diseases that is derived from human embryonic stem cells might have improved the vision of two patients researchers reported.  Dr. Steven D. Schwartz, a retina specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, treated the two patients in the phase 1 clinical trial.  The study reports how two [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries