A stem cell therapy for osteoarthritis that could revolutionise its treatment is to be tested on patients for the first time in Britain.

Osteoarthritis affects an estimated eight million people in the UK, a million of whom seek help from their doctor.

NEW YORK, July 12 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- NeoStem, Inc. (NYSE Amex: NBS) ("NeoStem" or the "Company"), an international biopharmaceutical company with operations in the U.S. and China, today announced that it has been awarded a $700,000 contract from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (USAMRMC-TATRC) under U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity contract number: (W81XWH-10-2-0039). This contract is for the purpose of evaluating the use of topically applied bone marrow-derived adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for rapid wound healing. The Company previously announced that this funding was included in the Department of Defense FY09 Appropriations Bill and will begin receiving funds to initiate the program in 2010.

Almost 50 percent of patients without even minimal residual disease/Study led by hematologists from Heidelberg published in Blood

The transplantation of stem cells from a healthy donor (allogeneic) offers the chance of cure for patients with an aggressive form of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), irrespective of genetic prognostic factors and the prior course of the disease. The German CLL Study Group proved this in a multicentric clinical phase II study led by Professor Dr. Peter Dreger, senior consultant and head of the division of stem cell transplantation at the Department of Internal Medicine V at Heidelberg University Hospital. The results were published online in the prominent journal "Blood" at the beginning of July.

In the last few years, a number of methods have been developed to repair cartilage damage. These include osteochondral transplantation, microfracture surgery and autologous chondrocyte (cartilage cell) implantation.

A feature common to all of these techniques is that they are limited to the repair of focal lesions. Patients with OA are excluded from treatment.

Tampa, FL (July 8, 2010) -- The University of South Florida's Department of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair has been granted a patent for a cell transplantation procedure combining human umbilical cord blood (HUCB) cells and a sugar-alcohol compound called "mannitol" that may make a big difference in treating life-threatening neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and stroke, among others.