Stem Cell News
On Monday, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary injunction blocking the federal government from implementing the current National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines governing research with human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). Here are some frequently asked questions about the ruling, and ScienceInsider’s answers.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration's expansion of stem cell research has suffered a significant setback with a judge's ruling that blocks important work on treating life-threatening conditions, say private groups pushing for scientific breakthroughs in medicine.
Using federally funded dollars, a University of Georgia graduate student in the school's Regenerative Bioscience Center found a way to grow crucial dopamine-producing cells lost in the brain of people with Parkinson's disease. He did it with the help of embryonic stem cells.
His findings are now being tested for new compounds that scientists hope hold the key to slowing down Parkinson's debilitating course. It's that kind of work that UGA professor and leading stem cell expert Steve Stice and others among Georgia's progressive research community fear could be in jeopardy.
A federal injunction against funding human embryonic stem cell research came as a shock, but will not stop more than $130 million worth of ongoing research, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said on Tuesday.
Collins said researchers who already have their grants in hand can continue with their work, despite the ruling that NIH funding violates the so-called Dickey-Wicker amendment that bars the use of taxpayer dollars to destroy human embryos.
ROCKVILLE, MD--(Marketwire - 08/16/10) - MarketResearch.com has announced the addition of Industry Experts's new report "Human Embryonic Stem Cells (hESC) - A Global Market Overview" to their collection of Biotechnology market reports. For more information, visit http://www.marketresearch.com/product/display.asp?ProductID=2745408
Embryonic stem cell (hESC) research has attracted a lot of attention the world over and the controversy surrounding it just does not seem to die down.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $3 million to the Georgia Institute of Technology to fund a unique research program on stem cell bio-manufacturing. The program is specifically focused on developing engineering methods for stem cell production, in order to meet the anticipated demand for stem cells. The award comes through the NSF’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Program, which supports innovation in graduate education in fields that cross academic disciplines and have broad societal impact.
Is our Innovation Crescent the new Research Triangle?
Move over North Carolina. The Research Triangle is definitely coming up on some competition. Georgia is on the brink of becoming one of the biggest biotech centers in the world. The state's relatively new Innovation Crescent - a spectacular 13-county swath of vibrant science community between Atlanta and Athens - represents the future of things to come.
While the behaviors of individual cells and the functions and properties of tissues and organs have been extensively studied, the complex interactions of cell clusters have not been examined in great detail.
A study published this week reinforces the potential value of stem cells in repairing major injuries involving the loss of bone structure.
The study shows that delivering stem cells on a polymer scaffold to treat large areas of missing bone leads to improved bone formation and better mechanical properties compared to treatment with the scaffold alone. This type of therapeutic treatment could be a potential alternative to bone grafting operations.
Click Here to View Full Article: Georgia Trend Magazine
Regenerative medicine therapies often require the growth of functional, stable blood vessels at the site of an injury. Using synthetic polymers called hydrogels, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have been able to induce significant vasculature growth in areas of damaged tissue.
It’s a debate fraught with irony. Georgia has some of the nation’s leading researchers in the area of embryonic stem cells, scientists recruited and paid for by the state as eminent scholars; and state leadership has identified the life sciences as a strategic industry of interest. And yet, many of Georgia’s elected officialshave made it clear that they do not want new research in embryonic stem cells happening in Georgia,...
Organizers of the recently established Georgia Tech Center for Advanced Bioengineering for Soldier Survivability seek to improve how quickly new technologies to improve tissue repair and regeneration processes are implemented to help wounded soldiers in military trauma centers.
The Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society recently elected GTEC’s own, Robert E. Guldberg, PhD, as its Chairman of the North American Region between 2009-2012. Guldberg, in his new position, will continue to promote the mission of TERMIS which is to bring together the international community in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine and promote education and research within the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine through regular meetings, publications and other forms of communication.
Translating stem cell promise into applications for routine use requires an innovative & technologically-advanced large scale production facility to produce stem cells of unparalleled quality & quantity. For this reason an international consortium gathered this past December to identify, focus, and develop strategies and technologies for the advancement of stem cell production and biomanufacturing. The workshop included presentations & brainstorming sessions focused on the technologies & issues related to advancing stem cell biomanufacturing.
March 2009 - Washington Post Article
March 2009 - New York Times Article
March 2009 - Atlanta Journal Constitution Article
May 2009 - French-American Cultural Center Article
January 2009 - Atlanta Journal Constitution Article
June 2008 - View Article
April 2009 - View Video of Todd McDevitt's, PhD, presentation at the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience's Breakfast Club. McDevitt gives a 45 minute overview of the research taking place in his laboratory at Georgia Tech.
May 2009 - Atlanta Journal & Constitution Article
May 2009 - Science Daily Article
See Video on Fox 5 website
Listen to Interview of Barbara Boyan being interviewed on NPR regarding her new Center for Advanced Bioengineering for Soldier Survivability.
Learn how to grow and use human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cell lines and differentiate these cells towards neural and mesodermal cells. Join UGA for an NIH-sponsored human embryonic stem cell workshop - August 30 to September 3, 2009 (Application deadline July 30, 2009). The Human Embryonic Stem Cell Toolbox Workshop (HEST) is an intensive, laboratory-based, four-day course that offers the rare opportunity to work and train with instructors experienced in generating and developing pluripotent stem cells , both embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cell lines. Visit the website for more information.
June 1, 2009 - View Article by Pop Science
July 6, 2009 - U.S. News & World Report article.
July 12, 2009 - The race to craft stem cells that have the virtues, but not the notoriety, of their embryonic brethren faces its final hurdle: becoming safe enough to help patients. Researchers have unveiled a flurry of advances in recent months in the development of "induced pluripotent" stem cells. . . ."Stem cell research pretty clearly has public support, so this is not a hard choice for Obama," says science policy expert Aaron Levine of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. But, he cautions, "The opponents will continue to be very vocal."
...It’s a debate fraught with irony. Georgia has some of the nation’s leading researchers in the area of embryonic stem cells, scientists recruited and paid for by the state as eminent scholars; and state leadership has identified the life sciences as a strategic industry of interest. And yet, many of Georgia’s elected officialshave made it clear that they do not want new research in embryonic stem cells happening in Georgia,... “Induced pluripotent cells are a great success story, but it’s owed wholly to the fact that we had a starting basis in embryonic stem cells,” says Todd McDevitt, a Georgia Tech scientist who directs stem cell technology research in his lab and focuses most of his attention on ES cells... For Georgia Tech professor Bob Nerem, research needs to move forward in all areas. “At some point we will know about what makes the most sense from a patient point of view,” says Nerem, director of both the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Tech, and the Georgia Tech-Emory Collabora-tion for Regenerative Medicine (GTEC)... But for a young scientist like Todd McDevitt, whose lab at Georgia Tech has attracted some $2 million in federal funds and employs 10 other researchers, a differing opinion that has the potential to criminalize his work forces him to consider other options.
January 19, 2010 -
Abstract
Local or systemic stem cell delivery has the potential to promote repair of a variety of damaged or degenerated tissues. Although various stem cell sources have been investigated for bone repair, few comparative reports exist, and cellular distribution and viability postimplantation remain key issues. In this study, we quantified the ability of tissue-engineered constructs containing either human fetal or adult stem cells to enhance functional repair of nude rat critically sized femoral defects. After 12 weeks, defects treated with cell-seeded polymer scaffolds had significantly higher bone ingrowth and torsional strength compared to those receiving acellular scaffolds, although there were no significant differences between the cell sources....
June 18, 2010 - The Associated Press - TOKYO — A Japanese scientist who created the equivalent of embryonic stem cells from ordinary skin cells has won one of this year's Kyoto Prizes and will receive a $550,000 prize. Shinya Yamanaka, 47, developed a way to reprogram skin cells so that they can be developed into all kinds of tissue, such as that of the heart or brain. This has vast potential to speed medical research, creating genetically matched cells for use in damaged parts of the body.
May 2009 - When a soldier is wounded during combat, surgeons must focus on reducing infection and reconstructing damaged bone and tissues. Technologies that could improve the repair and regeneration processes are being developed in research laboratories across the country, but they are not being moved quickly enough into military trauma centers.
January 2010 - A study published this week reinforces the potential value of stem cells in repairing major injuries involving the loss of bone structure.
February 2010 - While the behaviors of individual cells and the functions and properties of tissues and organs have been extensively studied, the complex interactions of cell clusters have not been examined in great detail.