Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi

Following the success of Iranian scientists in using stem cells to treat vascular occlusion and critical limb ischemia in the lower extremities, Press TV has conducted an interview with research team leader Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi.

Dr. Zafarghandi is a professor of vascular surgery in Tehran University of medical Sciences and the head of the vascular surgery and trauma department of Sina Hospital.

Press TV: According to news reports, you have successfully treated 12 patients suffering from vascular occlusion using stem cells. Could you tell us more about it?

Zafarghandi: Critical limb ischemia (CLI) results from severe occlusive disease that impairs distal limb perfusion to the point where oxygen delivery is no longer adequate to meet the metabolic needs of the tissue, even under resting conditions.

In order to treat CLI sufferers, several medications are prescribed to reduce the progression of the disease, its risk factors, and the associating pain. The patient is also urged to stop smoking. The definite treatment, however, is made through inserting a stent in the affected site or performing a bypass graft in the more serious cases.

These treatments depend on the severity of the disease; in cases with total occlusion of the terminal arteries, however, none of the abovementioned methods are effective.

In this method, we stimulated the formation of true new blood vessels (angiogenesis) and the development of collateral vessels from preexisting blood vessels (arteriogenesis), themost important processes in the pathophysiology of vascular disease, aiming to provide an alternative treatment strategy for patients with lower limb ischemia.

Previous studies had reported the role of bone-marrow mononuclear cells (BM-MNC) in increasing collateral vessel formation in both ischemic limb models and patients with limb ischemia.

Considering the fact that the proliferation and migration of progenitor endothelial cells (EPC) located in bone marrow and peripheral blood are responsible for neovascularization occurring in response to tissue injury and remodeling, we used mononuclear cells extracted from the patient’s bone marrow to induce neovascularization.

Our findings revealed promising results in 12 out of 15 patients awaiting leg amputation due to CLI secondary to buerger’s disease and diabetic foot. None of these 12 cases needed amputation after they were treated with our innovative method.

Press TV: Does this method prevent from amputation in every patient suffering from critical limb ischemia regardless of the underlying cause?

Zafarghandi: The patients suffering from peripheral artery diseases (PAD) such as buerger’s disease and diabetic foot, in whom different attempts to revascularize the affected site have failed, seem to be the best candidates for this method.

Further studies, however, are required to identify the patients who benefit from this method as the present research is still in its primary stages.

Press TV: How do you see the future advancements in this field?

Zafarghandi: This method can help save the lower extremities in PAD patients, accounting for 15% of all adults older than 55 years. More over, it lowers the heavy burden caring for disabled patients imposes on their families and the society.

from Press TV

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Dr. Roberto Fernandez Vina is scheduled to present a stem cell research study in which he helped improve Diabetes Type 2 patients with their own Adult Stem Cells and followed up on them for 3 years! The stem cell treatment and therapy was a great success. The results are below.

Stem Cell Pioneer and Doctor to Present Adult Stem Cell Study At ISSCR Meeting

Dr. Fernandez Vina will present the following abstract at the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) annual meeting in Barcelona in July 2009.  This is another milestone in Adult Stem Cell research as Dr. Fernandez-Vina has probably been the world’s foremost stem cell doctor in helping patients with their own stem cells.

FIRST REPORT FROM ARGENTINA OF FIRST THREE YEARS FOLLOW UP OF AUTOLOGOUS STEM CELLS IMPLANT IN DIABETES TYPE 2

Objectives: To evaluate the long time performance of Stem cells implant in pancreas in Diabetes Type 2 patients The adults stem cells CD34(+)CD38(-) have demonstrated the capacity to differentiate into functional cells in the endocrine pancreas.

Method: After three years on cell therapy for diabetes,patients the conclusions are optimistic. In this study were observed the evolution of 58 patients Diabetic type 2, 37 male, 21 female, 29- 71 years old. 29 patients were under insulin therapy, and 20 patients using Sulphonylureas + Biguanides. For the transplantation, we harvested bone marrow from the iliac crest by aspiration. The sample was processed using a density gradient separation method, obtaining 120ml (±95) of CD34(+)CD38(-) solution. For the implant was procedure a catheterization through Splenic Artery. No complications or further events were observed during or after the procedure. The patients were subjected to clinical and blood samples control during the 36 months following the implant.

Conclusions: the implant of mononuclear CD34+CD38- ( stem cells) from autologous bone marrow improve pancreatic function in patients with type 2 diabetes, in a safe form and is maintained after 3 years at least

Stem Cell Treatment Now Available, But Not In the United States

Dr. Fernandez Vina from Argentina now is treating patients with their own stem cells in Argentina as well as El Salvador (a short flight from Houston) for conditions such as Spinal Cord Injury, Heart Disease, Lung Diseases (COPD and Emphysema) Diabetes Type 1 and Diabetes Type 2 as well as many other conditions.

If you are further interested in this Adult Stem Cell treatment, please go to our Repair Stem Cell Institute website and fill out this stem cell treatment request form and we will assist you in receiving more stem cell therapy information regarding Dr. Fernandez Vina

original post by Don Margolis

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CHICAGO (Reuters) – A new understanding of the genes that make muscle cells may change the way researchers think about stem cell transplants for muscular dystrophy and muscle injuries, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

In a surprise finding, they said genes important for forming muscle cells in embryos and newborns are not normally active in adult stem cells.
And researchers hoping to use muscle stem cells in stem-cell transplant therapies should not assume genes that control early muscle development serve the same purpose in repairing adult muscle, Christoph Lepper and colleagues at the Carnegie Institution in Baltimore reported in the journal Nature.

Earlier studies have shown that two genes — Pax3 and Pax7 — control cells that give rise muscle in embryos, and Pax7 also helps build muscle in newborn mice.
To get a better understanding of their function, Lepper and colleagues studied these genes at various stages of development in live mice.

“I thought that if they are so important in the embryo, they must be important for adult muscle stem cells,” Lepper said in a statement.
The team used genetic engineering to suppress both the Pax3 and Pax7 genes in adult muscle stem cells, and they found that adult stem cells were still able to function normally.

“I was totally surprised to find that the muscle stem cells are normal without them,” Lepper said
The researchers then looked at whether the same was true in injured muscles, when muscle stem cells go to work making new muscle tissue.

To study this, they injured mouse leg muscles between the knee and ankle, and found the muscle stem cells were able to make new muscle, even without the two key embryonic muscle stem cell genes.
The team said the embryonic muscle cell genes appear to only be active in mice within the first three weeks after birth. After that, they believe the genes go quiet and allow a different set of genes to take over.

Finding those genes will be important as scientists pursue new treatments for diseases like muscular dystrophy, a genetic, degenerative disease that affects voluntary muscles, they said.
And they said teams should look at other types of stem cells to see how age might affect their properties, and they should take age of stem cells into account in transplant-based treatments.

from Reuters

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After making news on several occasions, scientists may have made a definitive breakthrough, with the first possible transfusion using blood obtained from embryonic stem cells possibly coming within the next three years. The transfusion would be done with type O blood, which can be donated to any patient, and would be obtained by researchers using excess embryos from assisted fertilization. The project, which will be led by Marc Turner of Edinburgh University, will also receive contributions from the Transfusion and Transplant Service of the British National Health Service, as well as the same department and Scotland, and the Welcome Trust, a large charitable group for medical research. The story was reported by the Independent and immediately created controversy and distorted information.

“This isn’t just talk, this time it is a serious breakthrough, and the group behind the project is very serious,” said Professor Carlo Alberto Redi, the scientific director of the IRCCS (Hospital and Medical Treatment) Foundation of the San Matteo General Hospital in Pavia, commenting on the story. Redi emphasized that the capability for the regeneration of the hematopoietic progenitor cells in vitro is well-known and the time is right for real blood to be created, with the term artificial blood no longer appropriate. “When the term synthetic blood is used, people imagine silicone blood, when in reality, in all effects, this is real blood,” said Redi.

IT CANNOT REPLACE BLOOD DONATIONS

The blood that the British researchers plan to use in human treatments in the next three years will only “support and complement” blood donation. Giuseppe Novelli, a geneticist of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, commenting to Adnkronos Salute, was less optimistic. “This is only an announcement, and it seems premature to talk about a victory. This research is starting off well because it has millions in financing and is based on evidence that is very hopeful. But we are only talking about one piece of a very complex puzzle.”

The puzzle, in this case, is represented by the blood that runs through our veins and arteries, “made up of red and white blood cells, platelets, and plasma,” said Novelli. “It is a very complex liquid, which carries out an essential function in our body.” The British study which is currently being launched “is limited to red blood cells, which are certainly not able to resolve all of the problems with transfusions”. The British studies are also developing type O negative blood, a group that is able to donate to any patient without any risk of rejection. “This is blood that can be used, and is used, only in case of emergency.” Novelli continued to say that “the new blood will not be able to replace real blood donation, and I don’t want these announcements to inhibit people from donating blood, or make them underestimate the value or the importance blood donation”.

As for an estimate on how much time it will take to create a synthetic blood that will resolve all problems linked to a lack of donations, Novelli said: “I’m not a magician! Science needs realism, and predictions cannot be made for this type of study. Certainly,” he concluded optimistically, “the progress made with stem cells in the past 12 years since their discovery is a great cause for hope”.

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Adult Stem Cells Giving Hope

Adult Stem Cell research has given us new hope. Patients like Leonard Narracci are living examples of how this new stem cell therapy can help. Leonard previously wrote me and informed me of his stem cell treatment for his cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure on October 8th, 2008. He reported that 7 weeks after his treatment, his ejection fraction (a measure of the heart’s pumping ability) had gone from 18% all the way to 33%.  Not only that, he had  renewed energy and sense of well-being that he had not experienced in 3 years!

That was in December- 3 months after the stem cell research had worked its magic on Leonard.  Now, more than 6 months after the adult stem cells were implanted, Leonard has more good news.

6 Months After Stem Cell Treatment- Good News!

His ejection fraction has gone up from 18% before treatment to 51% 6 months post stem cell treatment.

From the stem cell press release:

It goes against traditional theory that we should try to fix damaged heart muscle, but we are generating new heart tissue with impressive results that improve cardiac function and quality of life,” said Dr. Leonel Fernandez Liriano, Professor of Medicine at Pontifical Catholic University School of Medicine (PCUSM), and the head of the cardiology team that treated the patient with adult stem cells.

Grekos states, “After comparing this patient’s echocardiogram and MUGA nuclear scans before and after treatment, we are very pleased to see a profound increase in cardiac function.”

More on Stem Cell Research for Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Good to hear from Leonard again.  We also covered 2 other dilated cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure patients who are doing well after adult stem cell therapy- Mike Rumble and Dan Jackson.

original post by Don Margolis

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CD133 (Prominin) is widely used as a marker for the identification and isolation of neural precursor cells from normal brain or tumor tissue. However, the assumption that CD133 is expressed constitutively in neural precursor cells has not been examined.

Methodology/Principal Findings

In this study, we demonstrate that CD133 and a second marker CD15 are expressed heterogeneously in uniformly undifferentiated human neural stem (NS) cell cultures. After fractionation by flow cytometry, clonogenic tripotent cells are found in populations negative or positive for either marker. We further show that CD133 is down-regulated at the mRNA level in cells lacking CD133 immunoreactivity. Cell cycle profiling reveals that CD133 negative cells largely reside in G1/G0, while CD133 positive cells are predominantly in S, G2, or M phase. A similar pattern is apparent in mouse NS cell lines. Compared to mouse NS cells, however, human NS cell cultures harbour an increased proportion of CD133 negative cells and display a longer doubling time. This may in part reflect a sub-population of slow- or non-cycling cells amongst human NS cells because we find that around 5% of cells do not take up BrdU over a 14-day labelling period. Non-proliferating NS cells remain undifferentiated and at least some of them are capable of re-entry into the cell cycle and subsequent continuous expansion.

Conclusions

The finding that a significant fraction of clonogenic neural stem cells lack the established markers CD133 and CD15, and that some of these cells may be dormant or slow-cycling, has implications for approaches to identify and isolate neural stem cells and brain cancer stem cells. Our data also suggest the possibility that CD133 may be specifically down-regulated during G0/G1, and this should be considered when this marker is used to identify and isolate other tissue and cancer stem cells.

from Elites TV

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Christopher J. Centeno, M.D.

A leading adult stem cell therapy organization is warning the public that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has teamed up with the pharmaceutical industry to declare a person’s own stem cells to be a “drug” which can be regulated, thus slowing down the progress of these promising therapies by requiring years of clinical trials before use.
Dr. Christopher Centeno, of Regenerative Science, Inc. of Broomfield, Colo., realized what was happening when he was contacted by the FDA last summer about his work using a patient’s own stem cells to regenerate bone and cartilage.

“The FDA contends that if one cultures stem cells at all, regardless of the use of those cells, then it’s a prescription drug,” said Dr. Centeno.
By declaring adult stem cells to be a drug means subjecting each application to 7-10 years of clinical trials before approved use.

“So while your doctor could do all of this safely in a physician-run lab and begin treating a host of diseases, you have to wait 5-20 years for access to your own stem cells (as a drug),” Dr. Centeno said. (…)

“If we can treat your heart failure with your stem cells, send them to the lab down the street where they’ll process them, and we’ll put the cells back into you — that would dramatically and negatively compete with the big pharma embryonic stem cell business model,” he said.
Dr. Centeno, who established an organization to define guidelines and standards for adult stem cell research called The American Stem Cell Therapy Association (ASCTA), hired a team of lawyers last summer to challenge the FDA’s assertion.

It was during this process that they discovered a critical change had been made in 2005 to the agency’s definition of human cell tissue or tissue based products, known as HCT/P’s. This change is what now allows adult stem cells to fall into the category of a biological drug. (…)

By changing one simple phrase, the agency has given itself sweeping new powers to regulate stem cells as biological drugs. But this change is problematic for the FDA because it amounts to a new regulation, something they are not authorized to make without notifying the public and offering the public the opportunity to comment. (…)

“First, the FDA has itself acknowledged that there exists a low risk of the spread of communicable disease when adult stem cells are taken from the patient and re-implanted into that same patient. Moreover, if the FDA asserted its jurisdiction over any product or procedure which involved the slightest possibility of contamination, the FDA would thereby regulate every hospital and doctor’s office in the country. The sorts of contamination to which Ms. Peper refers are commonly called ‘infections.’ An infection is a medical complication, not a federal public health issue.”

Read more on The Bulletin

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The University of Minnesota is proceeding with embryonic stem cell research, despite an anti-abortion group’s claim that it is illegal under a new ban on the use of state tax dollars for human cloning.

Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life called on the university Tuesday to “cease its pursuit of human cloning and to end its violation of state law through its ongoing destruction of human embryos.” The organization cited the new cloning ban, along with legislative testimony from a U executive that the ban would stifle “ongoing” research if passed.

University spokeswoman Mary Koppel said the executive’s comments referred to earlier versions of the bill that were broader in scope. The ban doesn’t apply, she added, because the university is not using state tax dollars for any cloning or creation of new embryonic stem cell lines. Koppel said the university already has an internal policy against the use of state tax funds for such purposes.

“This just sort of codifies what we already have in place,” she said.

The ban was a key issue in the final days of budget negotiations between Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Legislature. Pawlenty was prepared to fight a higher education budget bill unless it included the ban, which state Senate and House leaders agreed to add in final conference sessions.

The term cloning evokes images of creating a whole new person. And while the funding ban certainly covers this form of “reproductive cloning,” it also applies to “therapeutic” cloning, the process of copying human cells by transferring a person’s DNA into an unfertilized human egg.

The university is conducting research with stem cell lines that were created years ago — research that is eligible for taxpayer funding. Diabetes researcher Meri Firpo is also using private funds to create new stem cell lines out of embryos that are left over from fertility procedures. However, she said this process doesn’t involve cloning, nor does university policy even allow this type of cloning.

She said it was nonetheless “worrisome” to see a political body dictate what type of research can take place.

Abortion opponents are also against the creation of new stem cell lines from human embryos, because potential human lives are destroyed in the process.

U researchers counter that embryonic cells may unlock treatments for diabetes and cancer.

The university’s Stem Cell Institute is engaged in a variety of stem cell research, including treatments that use the cells from a patient’s own body. U researchers have also replicated a Japanese study in which ordinary skin cells were reprogrammed into an embryonic state.

from Twincities

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The ‘White Room’ at Meyer pediatric hospital in Florence needs to complete a few more procedures to become completely functional. This stem cell and cellular product ‘factory’ will allow cells to be manipulated for therapies used in bone marrow treatments against leukemia and tumors and in reconstructive medicine to reproduce bone, cartilage, fat, and nervous tissue in metabolic and neurological diseases and treatments for serious autoimmune disorders.

“The certification procedures are very long,” explained the head of transfusions and cellular therapy, Franco Bambi, “because we will be considered a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, but we are planning to finish the procedures by the end of the year.” The facility is made up of three laboratories, including a quarantine area, a sterilization and decontamination lab, a filter area and as a cryopreservation lab, which will store cells and tissues in containers with liquid nitrogen at -193 degrees. This morning the White Room was given a 300 thousand dollar donation collected from 15,000 Unicoop Florence and Coop members.
The check was delivered this morning by the president of the Unicoop Florence management council Golfredo Biancalani to the president of the Meyer Foundation and the commissioner of pediatrics Tommaso Langiano.

Already 1,500 Coop members have visited the White Room at Meyer after making their donation. Yesterday morning 35 Unicoop sectional presidents were taken on a guided visit by Doctor Franco Bambi together with Regional Health Councilman Enrico Rossi, Meyer President Tommaso Langiano, Unicoop Florence management council president Goffredo Biancalani, and president of the Medical Department at the University of Florence Gianfranco Gensini. “Citizens know that when faced with an important health-care problem, our system is capable of responding,” commented councilman Rossi during the delivery of the check to Meyer by Unicoop Florence. “Initiatives like this one make citizens more involved in their health-care.”

At the event, the ‘Meyermeo’ experimental project for TV and radio for the children at Meyer, done by the students of the Florence art institute and coordinated by director Giovanni Micoli, was also inaugurated.

In the upcoming weeks, all of the hospital rooms will be given multimedia stations, radio ethernet in every room, and areas where videos will be played in playrooms for the children and in the oncohematology unit.
The White Room at Meyer, which should be fully functioning by the end of the year, is already working on several activities. Today, the stem cell manufacturing facility directed by Franco Bimbi received bone marrow from a donor in Honolulu, which was used in a transplant in a child with leukemia.
The marrow arrived to the cellular therapy laboratory through the international donor registry and was requested by Meyer’s oncohematology unit directed by Maurizio Aricò, who currently is treating a patient for leukemia.

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Because18 months ago, the thought of getting on a bicycle was too much exertion for the Michigan native. In 2006, at the young age of 34, James suffered a major heart attack, which damaged his heart muscle.

The heart damage left James fatigued, exhausted and short of breath. It was increasingly difficult to meet the demands of his job as an automotive engineer. He was gasping for breath and sweating all the time. His ejection fraction (EF) had sunk to 20-25%. Feeling depressed, James had given up hope of ever improving his quality of life. However, hope was restored when James found Vescell ™ adult stem cell therapy on the internet.

“I was in Class III congestive heart failure and had given up, but the amount of research and patient success stories I found on Vescell™ gave me new hope. I contacted them immediately,” James said.

On November 14, 2007, James flew to Bangkok, Thailand and received 41 million of his own stem cells via catheter to heal his ailing heart muscle. James exclaimed, “I didn’t feel a thing, it was just a simple catheterization!”

James raved about his experience and the care he received in Bangkok, “I have never been so well cared for in all my years going in and out of multiple hospitals for congestive heart failure. The doctors really listened to me and gave me confidence that they were my partners in improving my heart.”

After the treatment, James was thrilled with the results of the Vescell ™. “I had an echocardiogram only 2 weeks after my stem cell therapy and my completely dead apex was beating again. I was shocked and ecstatic at the same time.”

Since then, James has continued to improve and 18 months after treatment, he says, “I can do anything, the sky is the limit. I am now in Class I heart failure. My ejection fraction is at 50% and my doctors have lifted all restrictions.”

Today, James devotes his spare time to help other patients, as a patient volunteer, “I shudder to think how my life would have turned out if I hadn’t found the Vescell website. I was lucky. I want others to get the same second chance that I had.”

James is one of more than 500 patients who have had the Vescell ™ treatment. VesCell™ harnesses and enhances stem cells’ unique abilities, enabling the patient’s own body to heal itself.

from TransWorldNews

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