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One Day, Growing Spare Parts Inside the Body

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One Day, Growing Spare Parts Inside the Body

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Expert Advice on Stem Cells (for Beginners)

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Expert Advice on Stem Cells (for Beginners)

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Understanding Stem Cell Research and Treatments

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The use of stem cells in medical treatments and therapies is fascinating. Our site discusses the topic in layman's terms.

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stem cell embryonic embryo bioethics parkinson's alzheimer's spinal cord injuries cell lines biotechnology genetic engineering bohlin

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A conservative Christian perspective by a scientist on the ethical problems of stem cell research, particularly embryonic stem cell research.

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Information Overload and Demand for a Solution

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Information Overload and Demand for a Solution

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A First: Organs Tailor-Made With Body’s Own Cells

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A First: Organs Tailor-Made With Body’s Own Cells

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ISSCR Statement on U.S. Court Decision to Overturn Ban on Federal Funding of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research

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ISSCR Statement on U.S. Court Decision to Overturn Ban on Federal Funding of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research

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International Society for Stem Cell Research

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The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) is an independent nonprofit organization and the voice of the stem cell research community.

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Groundbreaking Surgery for Girl Born Without Windpipe

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Groundbreaking Surgery for Girl Born Without Windpipe

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Nearly three weeks after the surgery, the girl is acting playfully with her doctors and nurses, at one point smiling and waving goodbye to a group of visitors. Dr. Mark Holterman, a pediatric surgeon at the hospital, said that Hannah was breathing largely on her own, although through a hole in her neck, not through her mouth yet. "She's doing well," he said. "She had some complications from the surgery, but the trachea itself is doing great."

Dr. Macchiarini described a look of befuddlement on the child's face when she realized that the mouth tube was gone and she could put her lips together for the first time. "It was beautiful," he said.

The goal of regenerative medicine, or tissue engineering, is to create or regrow tissues and organs to ease transplant shortages or treat conditions that do not have an effective cure. After years of scant progress, tissue engineers have begun to make advances as they have gained a better understanding of the role that stem cells - basic cells that can become tissue-specific ones - play in signaling the body to grow and repair itself.

Still, only a few relatively simple organs have been made and implanted, and the science-fiction-inspired goal of ready-made hearts or other complex organs remains far off. Until now, the youngest recipient of a tissue-engineered organ was a 4-year-old spina bifida patient who received a bladder.

Dr. Macchiarini has performed the five other windpipe implants similar to Hannah's. One patient, an American man who was operated on in Stockholm, has died. An Eritrean man has lived the longest so far, surviving for about 2 ½ years since the surgery.

To make Hannah's windpipe, Dr. Macchiarini's team made a half-inch diameter tube out of plastic fibers, bathed it in a solution containing stem cells taken from the child's bone marrow and incubated it in a shoebox-size device called a bioreactor.

Doctors are not sure exactly what happens after implantation, but think that the stem cells signal the body to send other cells to the windpipe, which then sort out so the appropriate tissues grow on the inside and outside of the tube. Because the windpipe uses only the child's own cells, there is no need for drugs to suppress the patient's immune system to avoid rejection of the implant.

Dr. David Warburton, director of the regenerative medicine program at the Saban Research Institute in Los Angeles, who was not involved in the windpipe work, said that "guarded optimism with a major dash of skepticism is the watchword" for such experimental approaches. "The challenges will be making a wind pipe that functions better than a temporary fix," he said.

While one-of-a-kind operations like this are ethically justified given the desire to save the life of the patient, some experts say that regenerative medicine would be better served by clinical trials that could, through analysis of more data, provide a better understanding of how effective these kinds of implants are and how they function.

"No doubt large trials are critical," said Martin Birchall, a professor at University College London who used to work with Dr. Macchiarini but has switched to using donor tracheas from cadavers, which he strips of their original cells.

Dr. Macchiarini said he was now ready to go ahead with a clinical trial in the United States, and the Peoria hospital said it would like to arrange one if it could gain F.D.A. approval.

The toddler faces a long rehabilitation process as she breathes normally for the first time. Doctors hope that with additional operations she will be able to eat through her mouth and speak.

As the girl grows, she will also need a bigger windpipe. Dr. Macchiarini estimated that she might need a new one in four years, but said his team tried to delay a replacement for as long as possible by oversizing the implant and including some biodegradable plastic, which may allow it to stretch.

The girl's parents, Darryl and Young-Mi Warren, said that shortly after Hannah was born they had been told that there were some treatments for her condition, but that the odds of her living past age 6 were very slim. "We didn't want Hannah for just another couple of years," Mr. Warren said. "We wanted her for the rest of our lives."

Mr. Warren did some Internet research two years ago and discovered Dr. Macchiarini's work. He shared it with Dr. Holterman, who happened to learn about Hannah while on a business trip to South Korea. Dr. Holterman and the hospital's chief surgeon, Dr. Richard H. Pearl, persuaded Dr. Macchiarini to come to Peoria to do the procedure.

Mr. Warren said he was amazed that it all worked out. "It actually is unbelievable," he said. "The fact that they're doing this, at this time, when Hannah needed it the most."

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Groundbreaking Surgery for Girl Born Without Windpipe

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Nearly three weeks after the surgery, the girl is acting playfully with her doctors and nurses, at one point smiling and waving goodbye to a group of visitors. Dr. Mark Holterman, a pediatric surgeon at the hospital, said that Hannah was breathing largely on her own, although through a hole in her neck, not through her mouth yet.

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Stem Cell Research by Melissa Samples

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Injection of human stem cells into mice with tumors slowed down tumor growth, finds research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Stem Cell Research & Therapy. Human mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), isolated from bone marrow, caused changes in blood vessels supplying the tumor, and it is this modification of blood supply which seems to impact tumor growth.

The use of stem cells in treating cancer has been controversial, with some studies finding that stem cells force tumors to enter programmed cell death. However other studies find that stem cells actually promote tumor growth by inducing infiltration of new blood vessels. In attempting to sort out this puzzle researchers from INSERM groups at Université Joseph Fourier in collaboration with CHU de Grenoble investigated the impact of MSC on already established subcutaneous or lung metastasis in mice.

For both the subcutaneous and lung tumors, injection of MSC reduced cell division, consequently slowing the rate of tumor growth. Part of the mode of action of stem cells therefore appears to be due to with angiogenesis, but the mechanism behind this is still unclear.

Claire Rome who led this study explained, "We found that MSC altered vasculature inside the tumor -- although new blood vessels were generated, overall they were longer and fewer than in untreated tumors. This could be restricting the oxygen and nutrients to the tumor, limiting cell division." She continued, "Our study confirms others which propose that stem cells, in particular MSC, might be one way forwards in treating cancer."

Commenting on this study Celia Gomes, from the University of Coimbra, said, "One of the interesting questions this study raises is when MSC promote tumor growth and when they restrict it. The answer seems to be timing -- this study looks at already established tumors, while others, which find that MSC increase growth, tend to be investigating new tumors. This is a first step in the path to identifying exactly which patients might benefit from stem cell therapy and who will not."

Journal Reference:

Michelle Kéramidas, Florence de Fraipont, Anastassia Karageorgis, Anaïck Moisan, Virginie Persoons, Marie-Jeanne Richard, Jean-Luc Coll and Claire Rome. The dual effect of MSCs on tumour growth and tumour angiogenesis. Stem Cell Research & Therapy, 2013, 4:41 [link]

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stem cells; brain tumor; lung cancer; prostate cancer; cancer; skin cancer; ovarian cancer; leukemia

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Clarifying the effect of stem cell therapy on cancer

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Injection of human stem cells into mice with tumors slowed down tumor growth, finds new research. Human mesenchymal stem cells, isolated from bone marrow, caused changes in blood vessels supplying the tumor, and it is this modification of blood supply which seems to impact tumor growth.