Pioneer In Regenerative Medicine For Neurodegenerative Disorders Receives Everfront Award At Stem Cell Conference In Taiwan

Dr. Paul Sanberg, Distinguished University Professor and senior associate vice president for research and innovation at the University of South Florida, received the Everfront Award at the 4th Pan Pacific Symposium on Stem Cell and Cancer Research held earlier this month in Taichung, Taiwan.

The Everfront Award honors outstanding research contributions in stem cell and cancer research, including pre-clinical, clinical and translational work, and is presented to a researcher at the forefront of his or her field. Dr. Sanberg, who also serves as executive director of the USF Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair, has spent decades in stem and cell therapy research.

Dr. Sanberg's stem cell research expertise, his efforts in innovation, technology transfer and translational medicine, and his initiatives in developing academic exchanges between Taiwanese and U.S. researchers were noted by symposium chair Dr. Shinn-Zong Lin, neurosurgeon and superintendant of the China Medical University Hospital. In particular, Dr. Sanberg's pioneering efforts in regenerative medicine for neurodegenerative disorders, capture the award's core criteria, Dr. Lin said.

Dr. Sanberg, a keynote speaker at the symposium, praised Taiwan and the China Medical University Hospital for their globally important research agendas as they work to bring innovative stem cell therapies to the patient's bedside under international standards. Senior officials of both the Taiwanese and South Korean Food and Drug Administrations held open discussions with academic, clinical and industry leaders worldwide at the symposium.

Source:
Randy Fillmore
University of South Florida (USF Health)

Key Innovations In Stem-cell Technology: Discoveries Will Advance Medicine And Human Health

A scientist at the Gladstone Institutes has made two significant stem-cell discoveries that advance medicine and human health by creating powerful new approaches for using stem cells and stem-cell-like technology.

In two papers published on April 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Sheng Ding, PhD, reveals novel and safer methods not only for transforming embryonic stem cells into large numbers of brain cells with multiple uses, but also for transforming adult skin cells into so-called neural stem cells - cells that are just beginning to become brain cells. Dr. Ding last month joined Gladstone, a leading and independent biomedical-research organization, where he is expected to make a significant contribution to the institute's exemplary stem-cell research.

"This work is an example of what we're expecting from Dr. Ding, one of the world's top chemical biologists in stem-cell science," said Deepak Srivastava, MD, who directs cardiovascular and stem-cell research at Gladstone. "Dr. Ding's perspective as a chemist brings a new approach to our stem-cell work here at Gladstone."

Embryonic stem cells - "pluripotent" cells that can develop into any type of cell in the human body - hold tremendous promise for regenerative medicine, in which damaged organs and tissues can be replaced or repaired. Many in the science community consider the use of stem cells to be key to the future treatment and eradication of a number of diseases, including some on which Gladstone research focuses, such as heart disease, diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

In the first of the two papers, Dr. Ding describes new methods to use embryonic stem cells to develop large numbers of neural stem cells, which are early-stage cells that can later develop into a variety of types of brain cells. With traditional stem-cell development techniques, neural stem cells remain at this early stage for only a short time - and so cannot produce enough new cells to be practical for biomedical use.

But Dr. Ding's new method uses a cocktail of chemicals, first to induce embryonic stem cells to become neural stem cells and then later to arrest the cells from further development. This ability to hold neural stem cells in an intermediate state has enormous implications for cell therapy and for basic biomedical research. Such tissue-specific cells - which have already begun to develop into brain or muscle cells, for example - are limited in number, life span and an ability to develop into any of a variety of cell types that might be required for therapy or research.

In his second paper, Dr. Ding builds on the induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell technology discovered by Gladstone senior investigator Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, in order to overcome some of the other challenges of working with embryonic stem cells. Because iPS cells are generated from a patient's own skin cells to act like stem cells, they offer a variety of benefits over embryonic stem cells. For example, iPS cells can be ideal for a personalized approach to drug discovery and for rejection-free transplantation, while they wholly avoid the ethical concerns of embryonic stem cells.

In this groundbreaking cellular-reprogramming research, Dr. Ding focuses on reprogramming skin cells into neural stem cells using the existing iPS technology - but with a twist. Dr. Ding never lets the cells enter the pluripotent state of iPS cells, in which they could develop into any type of cell. Instead he uses yet another cocktail of factors to transform the skin cells directly into neural stem cells. Avoiding the pluripotent state is important because it avoids the potential danger that "rogue" iPS cells could develop into a tumor if used to replace or repair damaged organs or tissue. And as with Dr. Ding's embryonic stem-cell research, this cell-reprogramming work also makes it possible to create a far greater number of cells for research or regenerative purposes.

"These cells are not ready yet for transplantation," Dr. Ding said. "But this work removes some of the major technical hurdles to using embryonic stem cells and iPS cells to create transplant-ready cells for a host of diseases."

Notes:

Dr. Ding is a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease and a professor in the department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California San Francisco. He has pioneered the development and application of innovative chemical approaches to stem cell biology and regeneration. Dr. Ding earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry with honors from the California Institute of Technology in 1999 and a PhD in chemistry from The Scripps Research Institute four years later. Dr. Ding performed the work described in the two papers at The Scripps Research Institute.

Source:
Mara Brazer
Gladstone Institutes

BioTime And XenneX Form LifeMap Sciences, Inc. To Create Roadmap For Regenerative Medicine

BioTime, Inc. (NYSE Amex: BTX), a biotechnology company that develops and markets products in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine, announced it has formed LifeMap Sciences, Inc., in collaboration with XenneX, Inc. LifeMap Sciences will develop and commercialize a database of the thousands of cell lineages branching from embryonic stem cells, and their molecular markers. LifeMap Sciences plans to make certain aspects of the database available for use by stem cell researchers at pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and other institutions through paid subscriptions or on a fee-per-use basis. The database will permit users to follow the development of embryonic stem cell lines to the purified progenitor cell lines created by BioTime using its proprietary ACTCellerateTM technology.

Background

Regenerative medicine refers to the development and use of therapies based on human embryonic stem (hES) cell or induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell technology. The great scientific and public interest in regenerative medicine lies in the potential of hES and iPS cells to become all of the cell types of the human body. Many scientists therefore believe that hES and iPS cells have considerable potential as sources of new cell replacement therapies for a host of currently incurable diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson's disease, heart failure, arthritis, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injury, macular degeneration, hearing loss, liver failure, and many other disorders where cells and tissues become dysfunctional and need to be replaced.

The complexity of cell types obtainable from hES and iPS cells presents a challenge in the development of cell replacement therapies. Human therapeutic products require a high degree of purity to meet the hurdles of regulatory approval. BioTime's ACTCellerate™ technology was invented as a means of generating over 140 diverse human progenitor cell types from hES or iPS cells in a scalable and highly purified state. These diverse cell lines have applications in basic laboratory research and are being marketed for that purpose. In addition, many of the ACTCellerate cell lines may have important human therapeutic applications. Because the complexity of human development is mirrored by the complexity of cell types arising from hES and iPS cells, there is a great need for a database to aid researchers in selecting the progenitor cell lines that are most likely to develop into tissues usable in cell replacement therapies.

"XenneX currently commercializes GeneCards®, a leading relational database for information on each of the thousands of genes in human DNA, a resource widely used by medical researchers," said Michael D. West, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of BioTime. "In a similar manner, working with XenneX, we plan to accomplish the first detailed roadmap of the complexities of the thousands of cell types that arise from human embryonic stem cells. Just as GeneCards has benefitted the field of molecular biology, we believe the database created by LifeMap Sciences will benefit cell biologists, and will provide high visibility to our diverse portfolio of novel progenitor cell types currently marketed to the research community."

"The opportunity to develop a platform for stem and progenitor cells is one we could not let pass," said David Warshawsky, Ph.D., Chairman of the Board of XenneX, Inc. "The aging baby boom population and rising costs of healthcare make cost-effective therapies in age-related diseases a near-term necessity. Stem and progenitor cells lines are instrumental in helping researchers develop therapeutics for these diseases. We aim to give them one place to find all the information they need to determine which cells they need for their research and the cell-related information necessary to develop life-saving cures in the future."

David Warshawsky, Ph.D. will lead LifeMap Sciences as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Warshawsky founded XenneX, Inc. in 2003 and currently serves as its Chairman. During the past decade, Dr. Warshawsky has served in a number of management roles at companies engaged in the development of life sciences databases, pharmaceutical products, or investing in the life sciences industry. Prior to moving into the business world, Dr. Warshawsky was engaged in academic research in life sciences. From 1996-1999 he was a research fellow at Harvard and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Warshawsky earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology in 1995 from the University of Illinois at Chicago and his B.Sc. in Biology from Tel Aviv University in 1991.

Source:
BioTime, Inc.
XenneX, Inc.

 

World Stem Cell Report To Be Published In Regenerative Medicine

he Genetics Policy Institute (GPI) and Future Medicine have announced that its 2011/12 World Stem Cell Report will be published as a special supplement to the award- winning, peer-reviewed journal Regenerative Medicine. It was also announced that Regenerative Medicine becomes the platinum media sponsor of the GPI's 2011 World Stem Cell Summit that will take place in Pasadena, California, October 3-5.

Bernard Siegel, Executive Director of GPI said, "We are proud to partner with the truly superb editorial team at Regenerative Medicine to elevate the World Stem Cell Report to PubMed status. This collaboration will allow the Report to reach an even broader global audience. We will continue to provide an array of specialized articles offering unique insights of leading policy-makers, regulators and experts in law, ethics, advocacy, industry and philanthropy from countries, regions and states. The Report provides a critical unmet need by providing a global framework to understand how the intersection of ethics, law, economics and society impact the advancement of regenerative medicine and the quest for cures."

Elisa Manzotti, Editorial Director at Future Medicine said "We are delighted to be working with Bernie Siegel and GPI on this exciting collaboration. Our editorial team will take great care to ensure that the World Stem Cell Report articles deliver concise, timely and actionable intelligence to our readers. In becoming a platinum media sponsor of the World Stem Cell Summit, we recognize the Summit's important role in bringing together leaders from around the globe to chart the future of regenerative medicine."

The Report will be made available to all attendees at the World Stem Cell Summit. The Summit is the world's largest interdisciplinary stem cell meeting and is organized this year by GPI, City of Hope, Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute, California Institute of Technology and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). The Summit program will feature 170 prominent scientists, business leaders, regulators, policy-makers, advocates, economic development officers and experts in law and ethics, who will discuss the latest scientific discoveries, business models, legal and regulatory solutions and best practices. The Summit is expected to attract more than 2,000 attendees from 25 nations, 60 exhibitors and more than 150 endorsing organizations and media partners.

Notes

About Regenerative Medicine

Impact factor: 2.929
Indexed on MEDLINE & EMBASE

ISSN: 1746-0751
Volume: Number 6 (2011)
Frequency: 6 issues per year

Senior Editor
Chris Mason, Professor of Regenerative Medicine Bioprocessing, University College London, UK

Description

Apart from answering some of the most fundamental questions of biology and stem cell research, regenerative medicine offers unprecedented opportunities for developing new medical therapies for debilitating and life-threatening diseases.

Regenerative Medicine is the award winning forum for a fast-growing community of specialists to address the important challenges and advances that are now occurring in stem cell research and regenerative medicine. It delivers this essential information in concise, clear and attractive article formats.

The journal is a one-stop shop for all stakeholders in the field, with our unique News and Views section dedicated to providing concise updates on all important issues facing the regenerative medicine sector. By bringing together researchers, clinicians and policy-makers, from academia and industry, the journal is successfully helping to facilitate the translation of basic stem cell service into therapies for routine clinical practice.

The journal covers:

- Bench-to bedside translation and scale-up of stem cell and regenerative medicine therapies
- Potential application for stem cell-based strategies in pathological conditions
- Stem cell pluriopotency and emerging technologies
- Tissue engineering and characterization of engineered tissues
- Medical devices and artificial organ development
- Regulatory and reimbursement issues
- Ethical and legal perspectives

Citations: MEDLINE/Index Medicus, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Chemical Abstracts, Science Citation Index Expanded™ (SciSearch®), Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, Biotechnology Citation Index®, Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition®, Scopus

Source:
Future Science Group
Genetics Policy Institute (GPI)