Research continues in an effort to determine if these neural cells can be transplanted to treat stroke, brain tumors and neurodegenerative disorders LOS ANGELES – Researchers at Cedars-Sinai's Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute have for the first time demonstrated that stem cells from whole adult bone marrow can be differentiated into several types of cells of the central nervous system. A long-term objective of this research is to determine if these neural stem cells can be transplanted to treat stroke, brain tumors and neurodegenerative disorders. This capability would give physicians a renewable source of neural progenitor cells, available from a patient's bone marrow instead of the brain, and without the ethical and tissue-rejection issues associated with the use of fetal stem cells. Results of the study appear as the cover article of the December issue of the journal Experimental Neurology. While this study was conducted in rats, similar optimistic results have been seen in human tissue, according to senior author John S. Yu, M.D., Co-director of the Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program at the Neurosurgical Institute.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
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Link ID: 3202 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have identified a critical, new stem cell protein – a marked advance in the elucidation of the molecular blueprint of stem cells. Drs. Robert Tsai and Ronald McKay at the NIH have discovered a novel gene, called nucleostemin, whose encoded protein is necessary for maintaining the proliferative capacity of embryonic and adult stem cells, and possibly some types of cancer cells. Their report is published in the December 1 issue of the scientific journal Genes & Development. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent progenitor cells that can differentiate into all of the cell types of the body. Adult stem cells, in contrast, have a less versatile potential: Their differentiation is generally restricted to the cell types of a specific tissue (although recent work has expanded the previously known range of adult stem cell differentiation potential).

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Link ID: 3091 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Stem cell research is vital to finding cures for blinding diseases
BOSTON - Stem cell research, which holds promise for treatments of a wide variety of diseases, is just as promising for curing some forms of blindness, vision scientists say. In diseases of both the retina – the back of the eye – and the cornea – the front of the eye – stem cells derived from adult or postnatal animals show remarkable ability to replace damaged cells that may be the cause of visual impairment.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 10: Vision: From Eye to Brain
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Link ID: 435 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New studies in mice have shown that immature stem cells that proliferate to form brain tissues can function for at least a year — most of the life span of a mouse — and give rise to multiple types of neural cells, not just neurons. The discovery may bode well for the use of these neural stem cells to regenerate brain tissue lost to injury or disease. Alexandra L. Joyner, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at New York University School of Medicine, and her former postdoctoral fellow, Sohyun Ahn, who is now at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, published their findings in the October 6, 2005, issue of the journal Nature. They said the technique they used to trace the fate of stem cells could also be used to understand the roles of stem cells in tissue repair and cancer progression. Joyner said that previous studies by her lab and others had shown that a regulatory protein called Sonic hedgehog (Shh) orchestrates the activity of an array of genes during development of the brain. Scientists also knew that Shh played a role in promoting the proliferation of neural stem cells. However, Joyner said the precise role of Shh in regulating stem cell self-renewal — the process whereby stem cells divide and maintain an immature state that enables them to continue to generate new cells — was unknown. In the studies published in Nature, Joyner and Ahn developed genetic techniques that enabled them to label neural stem cells in adult mice that are responding to Shh signaling at any time point so they could study which stem cells respond to Shh. © 2005 Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 7997 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Katie Greene Researchers have now shown how a trio of proteins controls whether an embryonic stem cell takes an irreversible step toward developing into specific tissues or retains its raw potential to become a blood cell, bone cell, brain cell, or any other kind of cell. Stem cells' unique capacity to develop into any type of cell—a property known as pluripotency—underlies their medical promise. Researchers argue that this trait could someday lead, for example, to lab-grown tissue and organs that would be useful for transplants. The scientists set out to determine what genes define a stem cell. "We thought if we could uncover this network of genes, then we could see how pluripotency is established," says Laurie A. Boyer of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass. And with knowledge of the mechanics behind pluripotency, she says, scientists might learn to reprogram a mature cell so that it, too, could have the pluripotency of a stem cell. Boyer and her collaborators investigated three proteins known to play defining roles in keeping stem cells from developing into a specific cell type. The proteins, dubbed Oct4, Sox2, and Nanog, are classified as transcription factors. As such, they bind to specific genes and regulate the genes' activities. Scientists didn't know how these three transcription factors maintain stem cell pluripotency. ©2005 Science Service.

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Link ID: 7910 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jeff Miller MADISON, Wis. — Seven years ago, when James Thomson became the first scientist to isolate and culture human embryonic stem cells, he knew he was stepping into a whirlwind of controversy. He just didn't expect the whirlwind to last this long. In fact, the moral, ethical and political controversy is still revving up — in Washington, where federal lawmakers are considering a bill to provide more federal support for embryonic stem cell research; and in Madison, Thomson's base of operations, where Wisconsin legislators are considering new limits on stem cell research. Thomson, a developmental biologist and veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, made history in 1998 when he and fellow researchers derived the first embryonic stem cell lines from frozen human embryos. The breakthrough came after the news that a sheep named Dolly was born as the first cloned mammal — and together, the two announcements hinted at a brave new world of medical possibilities and moral debates. Since then, five of the university's cell lines have been approved for federal funding under the terms of the Bush administration's stem cell compromise of August 2001. Other cell lines have been derived from frozen embryos with private funding, and the bill approved by the House last month would open the way for more. © 2005 MSNBC.com

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 7554 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Scientists have announced that they have coaxed all three primary brain cells to grow in tissue cultures from a type of cell found deep in the brain. The researchers speculated that related medical therapies, such as the ability to repair or replace brain cells damaged by head trauma or diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's, could occur within five years. "The field of regenerative medicine is moving so quickly," said Dennis Steindler, who led the research. "New discoveries happen every day, so I would like to offer hope to people with such conditions that they could benefit from related breakthroughs even sooner (than the estimated five-year period)." Steindler, who is executive director of the University of Florida's McKnight Brain Institute, added, "With the new brain cell technology we have created a method, a protocol and a model that enable us to get stem-like brain cells into a dish, to look at them and to induce them to differentiate." Findings will be published in an upcoming Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Steindler and his team extracted glial-fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP+) cells from a region called the subventricular zone, which lies deep within the brain. They worked with cells from adult mice, but say humans possess these exact same cells. Copyright © 2005 Discovery Communications Inc.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 7497 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Christen Brownlee In many ways, 9-year-old Jacob Sontag is much like his fourth grade classmates. He loves reading, watching movies, and listening to music, and he's well liked by a large circle of friends. However, Jacob is not a typical boy. He has Canavan disease, a rare neurodegenerative disorder that has gradually depleted the myelin, or electrical insulation, in his brain and confined him to a wheelchair. Jacob and his family are looking to a controversial experimental approach to cure him someday. "We hear a lot of talk about the hope and the promise of stem cells," says Jacob's mother, Jordana Holovach. Jacob's doctor, neuroscientist Paola Leone of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Camden, N.J., says that if today's early research pans out, stem cells transplanted into the boy's brain eventually might replace the myelin-producing cells that he lacks. Researchers seeking cures for many other medical conditions—including type-1 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, osteoporosis, and heart disease—are also looking to stem cell transplants for cures. Copyright ©2005 Science Service.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 7129 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), one of the National Institutes of Health, and their colleagues have isolated human postnatal stem cells for the first time directly from the periodontal ligament, the fibrous, net-like tendon that holds our teeth in their sockets. The scientists also say these cells have "tremendous potential" to regenerate the periodontal ligament, a common target of advanced gum (periodontal) disease. This enthusiasm is based on follow up experiments, in which the researchers implanted the human adult stem cells into rodents, and most of the cells differentiated into a mixture of periodontal ligament — including the specific fiber bundles that attach tooth to bone — and the mineralized tissue called cementum that covers the roots of our teeth. "The stem cells produced beautifully dense, regenerated tissue in the animals," said Dr. Songtao Shi, a senior author on the paper and an NIDCR scientist. "That was when we knew they had great potential one day as a treatment for periodontal disease, and we're continuing to follow up on this promise with additional animal work." The results are published in the current issue of The Lancet. Shi said scientists have suspected since the 1970s that the periodontal ligament might contain its own unique stem cells. But, for a variety of technical reasons, the search had come up empty, leaving some to wonder whether stem cells could be extracted from such a tiny bit of tissue known to contain a confusing mixture of cell types and subsets.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 5787 - Posted: 06.24.2010

When George Bush quietly dismissed two members of his Council on Bioethics on the last Friday in February, he probably assumed the news would get buried under the weekend’s distractions. But ten days later, it’s still hot—see, for example, two articles in Slate, and an editorial in the Washington Post, as well as Chris Mooney's ongoing coverage at his blog. Bush failed to appreciate just how obvious the politics were behind the move. The two dismissed members (bioethicist William May and biochemist Elizabeth Blackburn) have been critical of the Administration. Their replacements (two political scientists and a surgeon) have spoken out before about abortion and stem cell research, in perfect alignment with the Administration. Bush also failed to appreciate just how exasperated scientists and non-scientists alike are becoming at the way his administration distorts science in the service of politics (see this report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, which came out shortly before the bioethics flap). And finally, Bush failed to appreciate that Blackburn would not discreetly slink away. Instead, she fired off a fierce attack on the council, accusing them of misrepresenting the science behind stem cell research and other hot-button issues in order to hype non-existent dangers. The chairman of the council, Leon Kass, failed as well when he tried to calm things down last Wednesday. He claimed that the shuffling had nothing to do with politics, and that he knew nothing about the personal of his new council members. Reporters have pointed out the many opportunities when Kass almost certainly did learn about those views.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 1: Introduction: Scope and Outlook; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
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Link ID: 5141 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ANDREW POLLACK In cloning human embryos and extracting universal stem cells, scientists in South Korea have taken a big step toward a tantalizing goal: growing tailor-made replacement tissues for people who are sick or injured. Imagine new cardiac muscles to restore a heart after a heart attack, insulin-producing cells for diabetics or neurons to stave off Parkinson's disease. But significant scientific barriers lie between this accomplishment and any actual therapy, experts said. Moreover, ethical objections have put such research off-limits to some scientists — including the many in the United States who rely on federal money — and lack of investment has felled many companies trying to develop cell-replacement therapies. The South Korean work is a step toward what is called "therapeutic cloning." The work so far is "proof of concept of cloning but it's not therapeutic yet," said Dr. Steven A. Goldman, chief of the division of cell and gene therapy at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

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Link ID: 4963 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists may have found what they hope is a less controversial way of getting special human cells that can turn into any part of the body and potentially solve many diseases. Scientists already know they can get these cells from human embryos—but many people oppose this and the federal government has banned most research. But as this ScienCentral News video reports, this new source doesn't use embryos. Stem cell research is leading scientists to investigate the possibility of regenerative or reparative medicine—treatments in which stem cells "turn into" a specific cell type required to repair damaged adult cells. It's a controversial topic because one source of stem cells is the destruction of embryos. But genetics researchers say they found a new source for stem cells—unfertilized egg cells created by a process called parthenogenesis, a form of reproduction in which the egg develops without being fertilized. © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

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Link ID: 4761 - Posted: 06.24.2010

— In a study that calls into question the plasticity of adult stem cells, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, have demonstrated that adult bone marrow cells can fuse with brain, heart and liver cells in the body. The phenomenon of fusion would give the appearance that bone marrow stem cells are altering themselves to become mature cells in other tissues, when in fact they are not, according to one of the study's senior authors, HHMI investigator Sean J. Morrison at the University of Michigan. The researchers published their findings October 12, 2003, in the online version of the journal Nature. The studies were carried out by collaborating scientists, Manuel Alvarez-Dolado and Ricardo Pardal, in the laboratories of Arturo Alvarez-Buylla of the University of California, San Francisco and Morrison at the University of Michigan. Other co-authors are from the University of Valencia in Spain, the University of Dusseldorf in Germany and MIT. ©2003 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

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Link ID: 4370 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SACRAMENTO,(AP) — Gov. Gray Davis today signed a law that explicitly allows research on stem cells from fetal and embryonic tissue. The measure is meant to encourage the type of research that the Bush administration made subject to federal limits last year. State officials said they believed they were the first in the country to take such a step. Mr. Davis was joined in announcing the law by the actor Christopher Reeve, who became a stem cell research advocate after an accident left him paralyzed from the neck down. Mr. Davis, Mr. Reeve and other supporters said the legislation was necessary to keep California at the forefront of medical research. The bill was opposed by the Roman Catholic Church and anti-abortion groups. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 2687 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY President Bush raised a lot of hope but also generated dire warnings a year ago Friday when he decided to limit the use of federal money for research on embryonic stem cells. Now it's clear that neither the hopes nor the fears have fully materialized. Stem cells, found in all human embryos at their earliest stages of development, are the undifferentiated cells capable of turning into all cells the body needs for development. If science could harness their potential, researchers see the prospect of harvesting the cells to treat some of the world's cruelest killers — teaching stem cells to become new brain cells for Parkinson's patients and to form spinal cords for the paralyzed and new insulin-producing cells for diabetics. But harvesting the cells destroys the blastocyst, the 200-cell hollow ball that develops four to six days after sperm meets egg, while creating an ethical issue for many and a serious moral concern for Bush, who believes life begins at conception. © Copyright 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 2414 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The controversy surrounding stem cell research—in particular whether the cells should come from embryonic sources or adult ones—hinges on what, exactly, cells from the two sources are capable of. Embryonic stem cells, which are more politically contentious because they must be harvested from human embryos, can differentiate into any tissue in the human body. Adult stem cells, although available from less controversial sources, have so far shown less plasticity than their embryonic counterparts. Now the results of two studies published online by the journal Nature provide additional insight into the abilities of both classes of stem cells. The findings further suggest that only by investigating the two kinds of stem cells will it be possible to determine which source will prove most useful in treating a particular disease. Catherine Verfaillie and of the University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute and her colleagues report that a particular kind of adult stem cell, derived from bone marrow and dubbed a multipotent adult progenitor cell (MAPC), can differentiate into nearly all types of mouse tissue. The scientists injected MAPCs into mice blastocysts (embryos comprised of approximately 100 cells), which were then transferred to foster mothers for gestation. The resultant animals exhibited multiple tissue types, including brain, lung, retina, spleen and skin, attributable to the MAPCs. "Some of the animals are 40 percent derived from the bone marrow stem cells, suggesting that the cells contribute functionally to a number of organs," Verfaillie notes. "This is similar to what one would expect of [embryonic stem] cells." The team next injected MAPCs into a living animal and found that the cells still differentiated into liver, intestine and lung tissue, but overall MAPCs were detected in fewer tissue types than in the blastocyst-injected mice. © 1996-2002 Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 2249 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Tampa, FL — Intravenous injections of cells from human umbilical cord blood improved the neurological and motor function of rats recovering from severe traumatic brain injury, researchers at Henry Ford Health Sciences Center (HFHSC), Detroit, and the University of South Florida (USF), Tampa, found. The study appears in tomorrow's issue of the journal Cell Transplantation, a special issue that focuses on emerging approaches in neural transplantation and brain repair. It is one of several articles exploring the therapeutic potential of human umbilical cord blood (HUCB) cells as an alternative to embryonic stem cells. While studies of cellular therapies continue to grow in importance, the emphasis has been on neurological diseases like Parkinson's disease and stroke, and, more recently, on spinal cord injury.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 2216 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Tampa, FL — University of South Florida neuroscientist Tanja Zigova, PhD, has been awarded a $1.3-million federal grant to study whether stem cells from human umbilical cord blood (HUCB) can rescue the brain from age-related decline. Using an animal model, the 5-year, National Institute on Aging study will address critical questions about HUCB cells' true potential to successfully treat the normal mental declines of aging as well as neurodegenerative diseases. Studies at USF and elsewhere have suggested that HUCB may be a noncontroversial and more readily available source of therapeutic cells for treating neurological diseases like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease and brain injuries such as stroke.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 1960 - Posted: 06.24.2010

— Researchers have found that neural stem cells isolated from the brains of adult rats can mature into functional neurons. Stem cells, which are found in tissues throughout the body, are immature progenitor cells that give rise to more specialized cells that form tissues and organs. The scientists emphasized that although their studies show that adult stem cells have the capacity to develop into functioning brain cells, their findings do not mean that clinical application of adult neural stem cells is imminent. The studies were published April 15, 2002, in an advance online article in Nature Neuroscience by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator Charles F. Stevens and colleagues Hong-jun Song, an HHMI research associate, and Fred H. Gage at The Salk Institute. According to Stevens, previous experiments showed that adult neural stem cells bear certain molecular markers that suggested that they could become neurons. “It’s absolutely clear that embryonic stem cells can make perfectly good neurons, otherwise there would be no development of the brain,” said Stevens. “But nobody had demonstrated before that adult stem cells can generate fully functional neurons, beyond just having particular protein markers.” ©2002 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

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Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 1877 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Tina Hesman Saey One small step for skin cells could mean one big leap for regenerative medicine. For the first time, scientists have converted adult cells directly into neurons. If the technique, performed on mouse cells, works for human cells, the achievement may bypass the need to revert a patient’s cells to an embryonic state before producing the type of cell needed to repair damage due to disease or injury. Researchers at Stanford University transformed skin fibroblast cells from mice into working neurons by inserting genes that encode transcription factors. Transcription factors are proteins that help regulate gene activity, usually by turning genes on. To convert skin cells into neurons, only three genes for regulatory proteins needed to be added, the team reported online January 27 in Nature. The three transcription factors, called Ascl1, Brn2 and Myt1l, normally appear while new neurons are being born. Scientists previously thought that this type of flexibility required taking cells several steps backward in development to become pluripotent stem cells, which are capable of adopting nearly any identity. Both embryonic stem cells and other pluripotent stem cells that are created in the lab have these capabilities. The new technique skips the stem cell stage entirely, converting one cell type directly into another. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2010

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 13729 - Posted: 06.24.2010