stem cell news 110317-21

kittybruce

Glance at last issue:
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"It's an exciting time in stem cell biology for a host of reasons. We've entered a whole new phase in the stem cell field, which has been held up enormously by ethical issues for over a decade...It's possible now, of course, to take a few cells from an individual with an intractable disease of some kind for which there are no animal models or any way of studying it, to reprogramme them to an iPS cell state and then differentiate from those the cell type that's affected from the disease. We now have a way of taking them from that person and studying the cell type itself in vitro that will almost certainly have symptoms of the disease. It's possible to produce these models of human disease in vitro which we've never had access to before."--Paul Fairchild, co-director of the newly founded Oxford Stem Cell Institute." n! j4 K5 m, @8 O
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"In a laboratory dish, pluripotent stem cells promise to become any sort of cell a researcher could want. But when transplanted into the body, such cells could grow unpredictably: clinicians worry most about tumour formation, although one can imagine other dangers, such as tissues growing in the wrong place...Turning knowledge into medicine is never easy. But the pace of knowledge generation itself is fast and furious."--Monya Baker, editor of Nature Reports Stem Cells. $ ]3 N# |* z# e5 I+ z- @
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"Unlike diagnostic tests that use small sets of biomarkers to examine cells, the molecular model approach uses all of the thousands of pieces of information in a microarray. This results in a diagnostic test with remarkable sensitivity and specificity."--Scripps Research molecular biologist Jeanne Loring., s+ s5 J) ?& h- Y: T" V
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“If inventions relating to human embryonic stem cells cannot be patented, investment in Europe by the life sciences industry in this area is likely to dry up with the consequence that new [human embryonic] stem cell-related treatments will not be developed.”--Rob Fitt of the intellectual property lawyers Bristows in London.
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"Up until now, we've been targeting the lower part of the spine and if the therapy was effective -- and that's only if -- what would be retained would be the ability to walk. Walking is not necessarily essential for survival. What is essential for survival is the ability to breathe."--University of Michigan neurologist Eva Feldman.
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"Anytime a research-related tool receives prior clearance from the FDA it has the potential to accelerate the field's move to the clinic and that is CIRM's goal, so this clearance is good news for our mission and good news for patients."-- Alan Trounson, President of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.3 F2 R+ P- ~+ j
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