Categoría: News
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Transient Inhibition of Transforming Growth Factor-{beta}1 in Human Diabetic CD 34+ Cells Enhances Vascular Reparative Functions
CD34 cells are primarily known for their hematopoietic activity, which means, that they are capable of making blood cells. More recently, studies have demonstrated that a subset of CD34 cells are capable of creating new blood vessel cells called endothelial cells. The ability to made new endothelial cells is important because old/dysfunctional blood vessel cells…
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Natural Compound in Broccoli Slows Breast Cancer Stem Cells
The area of cancer stem cells is very hot. To give an example, the pharmaceutical company GSK recently purchased the cancer stem cell company Oncomed for more than a billion dollars, at a time when Oncomed’s cancer stem cell-targeting drugs were not even tested in humans. This area is of great interest because it suggests…
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Biomedical Ethics in a Brave, New World
Dennis Trammell Pastor of the First Baptist Church at Possum Kingdom Lake, near Graford was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999 when his vision decreased in one eye, a symptom of multiple sclerosis called optic neuritis. Over the years he has been receiving numerous conventional medications that dealt with the symptoms of multiple sclerosis. However…
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Muscular Dystrophy Sufferers Hope New Treatment Can Answer Prayers
Adult stem cell therapy has been used for many diseases including heart failure, liver failure, stroke, multiple sclerosis, and even drug resistant tuberculosis. The biological basis for how stem cell therapy works seems to be two-fold. On the one hand, the stem cells appear to have the ability to become new tissues, on the other…
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Stem cells approved to treat ‘orphan’ disease
Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy is the most common form of genetic juvenile macular degeneration. Manifestation of the condition begins in late childhood, leading to legal blindness. It is symptomatically similar to age-related macular degeneration, and it affects approximately one in 10,000 children. Olympic and Paralympic skier Brian McKeever is the best-known victim of the disease, which…
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Stem Cells Don’t have to be Alive to Be Beneficial
The use of stem cells in patients who have poor circulation is well-known. In fact, the first use of stem cells for conditions other than blood disorders was in patients who were undergoing bypass surgery. Usually patients undergo bypass because of advanced atherosclerosis that is inhibiting the flow of blood to the heart muscle. Despite…
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Saginaw stem-cell therapy study breaking new ground
Use of stem cells for treatment of degenerative diseases offers great hope. Unfortunately, this hope is tempered by practical considerations. For example, in patients with heart attacks it is known that readministration of their own stem cells into the infarct related area results in profound improvement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flv0RmzPyLU. The problem with this is that stem cells…
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Magnetic Attraction of Stem Cells to Injured Heart Creates Potent Treatment
The intracoronary administration of bone marrow stem cells in patients who have suffered a heart attack has been demonstrated to cause beneficial effects in double blind studies, as discussed in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flv0RmzPyLU. Intracoronary administration has potential side effects since a balloon needs to be expanded in the area where the heart attack occurred, which…
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Using Stem Cells to Study Alcohol Dependence
One of the major advancements in the area of stem cell research has been the establishment of techniques for "retro-differentiating" of old cells into younger cells. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is the discovery by the Japanese group of Yamanaka the skin cells can be coaxed to take the resemblance of embryonic…
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Stem-cell therapy feels Food and Drug Administration’s pinch
62-year-old Hal Kaye had an injection of his own stem cells into his injured ankle, the results were so astonishing that he no longer needed surgery. The treatment, developed by a Broomfield doctor, has been applied to over 500 patients in the United States, primarily for orthopedic conditions, and involves extraction of bone marrow stem…