Archive for September, 2009
Stem cell trial for ALS treatment gets FDA OK
From ChicagoTribune.com
A University of Michigan neurologist is the principal investigator for the first human clinical trial of a stem cell treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Dr. Eva Feldman has worked with a team of neurologists to develop the protocol for injecting neural stem into patients’ spinal cords. The cells are patented by Neuralstem Inc., a Rockville, Md.-based biotech company.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Neuralstem’s plan to test the safety of the treatment for the fatal, untreatable neurodegenerative disorder commonly called Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
The initial phase to determine the safety of the treatment is to take place at Emory University in Atlanta.
World Stem Cell Summit, September 21-23, 2009
The World Stem Cell Summit unites the stem cell universe of researchers, ReGEN industry leaders, funders, medical philanthropies, policy-makers, advocates, educators and regulators to chart the future of regenerative medicine.
The comprehensive, multi-track program covers advanced science, commercial perspectives, disease progress reports and in-depth reviews of policy, law, ethics, regulatory issues and global economic development. Join 125 presenting experts, attendees from 25 countries and representatives from more 200 sponsors, supporting organizations and media partners, at this preeminent international networking event.
Organizers are calling it the largest stem cell conference to date.
A Stem-Cell Discovery Could Help Diabetics
By Alice Park, Time.com
Researchers are inching ever closer to bringing the latest stem-cell technologies from bench to bedside — and are, in the process, learning more about some diseases that long have remained medical black boxes.
This week, scientists at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) reported the first success in generating new populations of insulin-producing cells using skin cells of Type 1 diabetes patients. The achievement involved the newer embryo-free technique for generating stem cells, and marked the first step toward building a treatment that could one day replace a patient’s faulty insulin-making cells with healthy, functioning ones.
The experiment, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also provided the first good model — in a petri dish — of how Type 1 diabetes develops, giving scientists a peek at what goes wrong in patients affected by the disease. Such knowledge could lead to not only new stem-cell-based treatments, but also novel drug therapies that might improve the symptoms of the disease.
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