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Thank you for sharing this and I hope it reached an interested audience!  Gracias por su arduo trabajo en este proyecto.  Lo siento si la traducción es pobre; ¡ usé una herramienta en línea para hacerlo!

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No entiendo, pero me gusta mucho el formato. Luce muy bien. Buen trabajo

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After reading this I will definitely search more information about this interesting topic

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Stem cells could have an impact because they represent hope for families who have relatives suffering from diseases that seem to be incurable. 

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Stem cells could have an impact because they represent hope for families who have relatives suffering from diseases that seem to be incurable. 

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The reason why I decided to write about stem cells was because I was intrigued about how stem cells can help medical science to find answers to the cure of untreatable diseases.

I will leave it to your criteria
Do you want to become more informed about this important topic in medical science or not.

Just keep in mind that stem cells could one day be the factor that decides between life and death.

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In an article by CNN, 18 patients with severe vision loss were treated successfully with stem cells.

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Probably this caught your attention.
It is what you are thinking. Researchers are using stem cells to find a cure for Diabetes. Researchers are investigating how to deal with glucose sensing cells; the cells affected when a person is diagnosed with Diabetes type 1 or 2. This could help so many people in the United States.

If you want to read more about this section click the below link to an article from the Harvard University.

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It stands to reason that only by understanding the root causes of diseases like diabetes can we hope to develop effective therapies.
Modern biomedical research is best at finding treatments for diseases that have relatively simple causes and well-understood genetic risk factors. Unfortunately, type 1 diabetes (T1D) has very complex genetics, with many genes each making relatively small, poorly understood contributions to disease risk. Further, there are no animal models that accurately reflect the human disease. Thus, despite the expenditure of hundreds of millions of research dollars, no cures for T1D have been developed.

T1D is particularly challenging to study in human patients. By the time a patient is diagnosed with T1D, also known as juvenile diabetes, the destruction of insulin-producing beta cells by the immune system is nearly complete. Because of this, there is no way to discover what it was that led the person's immune system to attack the beta cells in the first place. Even if it were possible to identify future T1D patients before the immune attack on beta cells began, disease onset and progression could not be studied in these individuals due to the inaccessibility of the pancreas - where beta cells are found - in a living person.

A New Model for Disease

Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) scientists are attempting an ambitious, long-term, and high-risk project to create the first animal model for T1D. Engineered mice will allow researchers to better understand the disease and increase the odds of developing effective therapies.

The Vision

Recent advances in stem cell biology have opened the door to new ways of studying T1D. Specifically, it is now possible to reprogram a skin cell from a T1D patient (or any other person) into a cell that closely resembles an embryonic stem cell. These new stem cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), have the ability to give rise to any cell type in the human body. Further, iPS cells are genetically identical to the original patient, so all of the mutations that predisposed an individual to T1D are present. A virtually unlimited number of diseased cells can be produced using this method.

At the heart of the new T1D model will be transplanting the three human cell types that are the key components of T1D into mice. The T1D cell types are: beta cells; the immune cells that attack and destroy beta cells; and thymus cells, which educate the immune system by providing information about which cells should and should not be destroyed.

HSCI scientists will produce each of these cell types from patient-derived iPS cells while simultaneously raising genetically engineered mice that lack immune systems, allowing them to accept transplants of human cells. The researchers will transplant the T1D cell types into the mice, thereby creating a new T1D research model in which patient-derived cells can interact to generate the disease state.

A Collaborative Team

HSCI has assembled an inter-institutional team of experts in the stem cell and diabetes fields with a track record of ongoing and effective collaboration to build this model, giving us the best chance of success. Team members include Harvard Medical School, Boston Children's Hospital, and the Immune Disease Institute.

This new T1D mouse model will allow HSCI investigators to test whether cells from a given T1D patient generate T1D in every case or whether particular environmental conditions might also be required in order to develop T1D. The model will also reveal whether all patients who present with T1D have the same disease, or whether there are different sub-types.

These are lengthy and expensive experiments and the project will take several years before major insights can be reached. But with a team of researchers now in place, even partial success would provide significant advances to biomedical research, and to the T1D community. For example, if our scientists are successful in producing beta cells from iPS cells, this would provide an unlimited source of urgently needed cells for transplantation therapy.

A new approach to T1D research is desperately needed. It makes no sense to spend any more precious research dollars on experiments that lead to insufficient results. HSCI's project, while risky, has the potential to open up a new era in T1D research-one in which the disease is understood.

Making Beta Cells

HSCI scientists are also investigating how to treat diabetics with stem cell therapies. The goal is to create glucose-sensing, insulin-producing beta cells, the cells impacted in both type I and type II diabetes. The HSCI is approaching the problem in four ways.

Growing Cells

Our researchers have refined the process of making general pancreatic endocrine cells from embryonic stem cells so that it is more efficient. Using a unique bioreactor, it is possible to grow cells at a large enough scale to run extensive experiments and be effective therapeutically.

With this in place, researchers are now honing in on the final step of the process-turning pancreatic endocrine cells into beta cells. This last maturation step has taken place in the live mouse, but has not yet been accomplished in the lab setting. Once the process can be controlled, it will ensure that patients receive the right number and type of cells.

Direct Differentiation

A second approach is to turn other types of pancreatic cells into beta cells. HSCI Co-Director Douglas Melton, PhD, proved that this could be done by turning pancreatic acinar (digestive) cells in the live mouse into insulin-producing beta cells. Melton's lab used a virus to make genetic modifications that could not be safely done in humans. However, the experiments proved that this type of "direct differentiation" was conceptually feasible. Scientists are now working with the same strategy on other closely related cell types, such as liver cells.

Reprogramming

A third approach is to take cells from patients who have diabetes, use reprogramming methods to create induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) and then differentiate them into beta cells. Melton's lab has already created many iPS cell lines from diabetics with different genetic backgrounds, but again, the final step of transforming iPS cells into beta cells is not yet ready for humans.

Self-Regulation

A fourth approach is not to turn other cells into beta cells but to get beta cells to make more of themselves. Thanks to work coming out of the Melton lab, it is now understood that beta cells in the pancreas do make more of themselves, albeit very slowly and at a low rate. This replication slows down even further with age.

These findings suggest that a possible strategy for type II diabetes and very early-diagnosed T1D is to increase the beta cell replication rate. Intrigued by the fact that the number of beta cells increases significantly in pregnant mammals, the Melton lab studied the differences in genes that are on or off before, during, and after pregnancy. The researchers identified several causal factors that led to the recent formation of a three-way joint development agreement between the lab, a biotechnology company, and a large pharmaceutical company to develop drugs that could affect this pathway. If successful, this development will result in a drug that can directly raise the number of beta cells by stimulating replication.

Disease Prevention

HSCI's work to make functional beta cells is in motion, and while the reproducible production of beta cells from stem cells has not yet been achieved, our scientists have demonstrated that this is possible.

Encapsulation Devices

Parallel to this effort, and in planning for its success, HSCI investigators are now focusing attention on developing and testing devices for implantation, eventually in human subjects, that would protect functional beta cells from being attacked by the immune system.

Such devices would serve as receptacles for beta cells that would be transplanted into people, allowing the cells to read glucose levels and secrete insulin, while simultaneously preventing physical access by immune cells (T-cells). This is possible because glucose and insulin are both relatively small molecules, tiny in comparison to the size of T-cells.

In the longer term, HSCI researchers aim to make beta cells that are opaque or invisible to the immune attack, so that shielding them with an encapsulation device will not be necessary. But making an opaque beta cell is a complex challenge- one that is unlikely to be met in the next few years.

Encapsulation devices that have been developed to date by various labs and small manufacturers include those with alginate coating as well as devices that resemble "tea bags" made from high tech materials such as Teflon and Gore-Tex. In each of these configurations, the aim is to have a mesh or filter that allows sugar and insulin to easily pass through while blocking passage of the larger immune cells.

At this time, these devices are not routinely available, and those that have been created are expensive. A further problem that has slowed the development and testing of this approach has been the lack of a reproducible supply of human beta cells. Thus, existing devices have only been tested with human or rodent pancreatic tissue, which are inherently variable because of the state of the tissue donation and the method used for isolation. As such, there has been a distinct lack of robust testing of any device, most of which to date are high cost and in limited supply.

HSCI scientists will work to further develop and test encapsulation devices, in the first instance, using the immature beta cells that can now be derived from stem cells and mature following transplantation into animals. The focus of this work will be to explore the maturation and function of cells transplanted into devices.

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It stands to reason that only by understanding the root causes of diseases like diabetes can we hope to develop effective therapies. Modern biomedical research is best at finding treatments for diseases that have relatively simple causes and well-understood genetic risk factors.

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Stem cells treatment and therapies also have the potential to cure Alzheimer's disease, stroke, cancer, blindness, and spinal cord injury and many more neurological problems. 

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Studying stem cells can help find answers to how conditions such as birth defects and cancer develops. They could help answer many unanswered questions in medical science.

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Stem cells come from different parts of our bodies and they can divide and produce more cells. Stem cells are the foundation to our organs and tissues. They serve as a repair system for the body. There are numerous and different types of cells in the body. However, Stem cells are different from other cells in the body in three ways: They can divide and renew themselves over a long time. They are unspecialized, so they cannot do specific functions in the body. They have the potential of becoming specialized cells, such as muscle cells, blood cells, and brain cells (medlineplus).

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Here is a picture showing the types of stem cells: tissue, embryonic and pluritopotent.

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According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, “Over 1 million patients worldwide have been treated with adult stem cells and experienced improved health.” Demonstrating that stem cells are not only benefiting people in the USA, but people around the world. According to the same study, there are patients in more than 75 countries who have been successfully treated with adult stem cells (Charlotte Lozier Institute)

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One of the important areas in medicine that stem cells are used, is regenerative medicine. This type of medicine could completely cure organs and tissues from the human body someday.  If you would like to know more information about how this type of medicine is being developed,  click the link below.  The Mayo Clinic website is a really cool website that has information on this medical field.

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Here is a brief summary about  Douglas Waters, who was suffering from severe sight loss.
The treatment in which Douglas Water was sometido was macular regeneration. Waters was treated with retinal pigment epithelium cells; a type of cells that is implanted as a retinal eyepatch. The insertion of this eyepatch could last about two hours. After the insertion, Waters was monitored for a year.  After this period, he showed a remarkable improvement in his vision. He went from almost blind and not seeing anything to being able to read and help his wife with gardening (UC at Santa Barbara, 2018)
What to read the full article click the link below:

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In July 2015, 86-year-old Douglas Waters developed severe age-related macular degeneration (AMD). He struggled to see things clearly, even when up close.

A few months later, he became part of a clinical trial that used stem cell-derived ocular cells developed in part by researchers at UC Santa Barbara. His retinal eyepatch was implanted at Moorfields Eye Hospital, a National Health Service (NHS) facility in Waters' hometown of London, England.

In the months before Waters' surgery, his vision was poor and he couldn't see anything out of his right eye. After the surgery, his eyesight improved so much that he could read the newspaper and help his wife with gardening.

The results of this groundbreaking clinical study, published in Nature Biotechnology, describe the safe and effective implantation of a specially engineered patch of retinal pigment epithelium cells derived from stem cells to treat people with sudden severe sight loss from wet AMD -- the form that afflicted Waters. This is the first description of a completely engineered tissue that has been successfully used in this way.

"This study represents real progress in regenerative medicine and opens the door on new treatment options for people with age-related macular degeneration," said co-author Peter Coffey, a professor at UCSB's Neuroscience Research Institute and co-director of the campus's Center for Stem Cell Biology & Engineering.

Macular degeneration accounts for almost 50 percent of all visual impairment in the developed world and usually affects people over 50 years of age. AMD affects the central (reading) vision while leaving the surrounding vision normal. Wet AMD is generally caused by abnormal blood vessels that leak fluid or blood into the region of the macula in the center of the retina and almost always begins as dry AMD. Researchers hope the new procedure will also help in the future to treat dry AMD.

The study investigated whether the diseased cells at the back of the patients' affected eye could be replenished using the stem cell patch. A specially engineered surgical tool was used to insert the patch under the retina in the affected eye of each patient in an operation lasting one to two hours.

In addition to Waters, a woman in her early 60s who also suffered from a severe form of wet AMD and declining vision underwent the procedure. She and Waters were monitored for 12 months and reported improvements to their vision. They went from not being able to read at all -- even with glasses -- to reading 60 to 80 words per minute with normal reading glasses.

"We hope this will lead to an affordable 'off-the-shelf' therapy that could be made available to NHS patients within the next five years," said Coffey, who founded the London Project to Cure Blindness more than a decade ago.

The study is a major milestone for the project, which is a partnership of Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology and the National Institute for Health Research.

Journal Reference:

Lyndon da Cruz, Kate Fynes, Odysseas Georgiadis, Julie Kerby, Yvonne H Luo, Ahmad Ahmado, Amanda Vernon, Julie T Daniels, Britta Nommiste, Shazeen M Hasan, Sakina B Gooljar, Amanda-Jayne F Carr, Anthony Vugler, Conor M Ramsden, Magda Bictash, Mike Fenster, Juliette Steer, Tricia Harbinson, Anna Wilbrey, Adnan Tufail, Gang Feng, Mark Whitlock, Anthony G Robson, Graham E Holder, Mandeep S Sagoo, Peter T Loudon, Paul Whiting, Peter J Coffey. Phase 1 clinical study of an embryonic stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelium patch in age-related macular degeneration. Nature Biotechnology, 2018; DOI: 10.1038/nbt.4114

Cite This Page:

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eye care; stem cells; personalized medicine; medical topics; prostate cancer; diseases and conditions; today's healthcare; skin cancer

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Stem cells treat macular degeneration: Researchers helped develop a specially engineered retinal patch to treat people with sudden, severe sight loss

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In July 2015, 86-year-old Douglas Waters developed severe age-related macular degeneration (AMD). He struggled to see things clearly, even when up close. A few months later, he became part of a clinical trial that used stem cell-derived ocular cells developed in part by researchers at UC Santa Barbara.

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About Regenerative Medicine

Though great progress has been made in medicine, current evidence-based and palliative treatments are increasingly unable to keep pace with patients' needs, especially given our aging population. There are few effective ways to treat the root causes of many diseases, injuries and congenital conditions. In many cases, clinicians can only manage patients' symptoms using medications or devices.

Regenerative medicine is a game-changing area of medicine with the potential to fully heal damaged tissues and organs, offering solutions and hope for people who have conditions that today are beyond repair.

Regenerative medicine itself isn't new - the first bone marrow and solid-organ transplants were done decades ago. But advances in developmental and cell biology, immunology, and other fields have unlocked new opportunities to refine existing regenerative therapies and develop novel ones.

The Center for Regenerative Medicine takes three interrelated approaches:

Rejuvenation. Rejuvenation means boosting the body's natural ability to heal itself. Though after a cut your skin heals within a few days, other organs don't repair themselves as readily.

But cells in the body once thought to be no longer able to divide (terminally differentiated) - including the highly specialized cells constituting the heart, lungs and nerves - have been shown to be able to remodel and possess some ability to self-heal. Teams within the center are studying how to enhance self-healing processes.

Replacement. Replacement involves using healthy cells, tissues or organs from a living or deceased donor to replace damaged ones. Organ transplants, such as heart and liver transplants, are good examples.

The center aims to expand opportunities for transplants by finding ways to overcome the ongoing donor shortage, the need for immunosuppression and challenges with organ rejection.

Regeneration. Regeneration involves delivering specific types of cells or cell products to diseased tissues or organs, where they will ultimately restore tissue and organ function. This can be done through cell-based therapy or by using cell products, such as growth factors. Bone marrow transplants are an example.

Regenerative medicine holds the promise of definitive, affordable health care solutions that heal the body from within.

The role of stem cells

Stem cells have the ability to develop - through a process called differentiation - into many different types of cells, such as skin cells, brain cells, lung cells and so on. Stem cells are a key component of regenerative medicine, as they open the door to new clinical applications.

Regenerative medicine teams are studying a variety of stem cells, including adult and embryonic stem cells. Also being studied are various types of progenitor cells, such as those found in umbilical cord blood, and bioengineered cells called induced pluripotent stem cells. Each type has unique qualities, with some being more versatile than others.

Many of the regenerative therapies under development in the Center for Regenerative Medicine begin with the particular patient's own cells. For example, a patient's own skin cells may be collected, reprogrammed in a laboratory to give them certain characteristics, and delivered back to the patient to treat his or her disease.

Stem cells 101

Stem cells and their use in regenerative medicine have been in the media a lot lately. But what exactly does it mean? Physicians and researchers in the Center for Regenerative Medicine say it has to do with developing completely new ways to treat and manage chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart failure, and degenerative nerve, bone and joint conditions.

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Center for Regenerative Medicine - About Regenerative Medicine

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Though great progress has been made in medicine, current evidence-based and palliative treatments are increasingly unable to keep pace with patients' needs, especially given our aging population. There are few effective ways to treat the root causes of many diseases, injuries and congenital conditions.