February 22, 2010

While current reconstructive procedures can move soft tissue from other areas of the body, there remains an unmet need for new modalities that are less invasive & more precise. Adipose tissue is the component necessary for soft tissue reconstruction.

Plastic surgeons in Japan, Europe, and Israel are harvesting fat and stem cells from hips and thighs to sculpt bigger, shapelier breasts without the leaks, slippage, and short shelf life that often accompany saline and silicone implants. At least that's the claim. The procedure is controversial among researchers in the United States (it's not available there...yet-human studies could begin in the next 3 to 5 years.

"These are adult stem cells, not embryonic cells, so the concern isn't an ethical one about an embryonic source," says McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member J. Peter Rubin, MD (pictured), Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, co-director of the Adipose Stem Cell Center at the University of Pittsburgh, and co-founder and chairman of the International Federation of Adipose Therapeutics and Science. "Stem cells from fat tissue can turn into blood vessels and make new fat cells, so they could create long-lasting tissue for breast augmentation and reconstruction. But there are safety issues."

February 10, 2010: 06:30 AM ET

CLEVELAND, Feb. 10, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Athersys, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATHX) announced today that it has been granted U.S. patent 7,659,118 that covers non-embryonic multipotent stem cells, their isolation and expansion, and related pharmaceutical compositions. Athersys also announced that it has been granted - and the opposition period has cleared - EP patent EP1218489B1 that covers non-embryonic pluripotent stem cells, their isolation, expansion, and usage.

The issued patents cover Athersys' proprietary scalable MultiStem® technology, which is an investigational stem cell therapy that has demonstrated therapeutic potential to treat a broad range of diseases and indications, including acute myocardial infarction, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), bone marrow transplant support and ischemic stroke. Athersys announced in December 2009 a strategic partnership with Pfizer under which the companies will jointly develop MultiStem for IBD.

Scientists from the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), a biomedical research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), and the National University of Singapore (NUS), have discovered a transcription factor, known as Nr5a2, which is responsible for the reprogramming of differentiated cells into stem cells. Stem cells generated from differentiated cells are known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). This find, published on January 21, 2010 in the prestigious journal Cell Stem Cell, is especially crucial in the area of cell therapy-based medicine.

The reprogramming of differentiated cells into iPS has been one of the most important breakthroughs in stem cell research recently. iPS cells behave like embryonic stem cells (ESCs) in that they give rise to all other differentiated cell types that make up the human body. As such, they are important starting points for the creation of organs for replacement or transplantation.

Consistent with its corporate strategy, Cell Medica will utilize its commercialization expertise in the regulatory, reimbursement and production aspects of cell therapies to ensure that potential life-saving treatments developed by the Center can be introduced for broad clinical use as soon as possible. The safety and efficacy of these new therapies have been developed up to the Phase I/II stage by the Center.

Cell Medica and the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy have identified specific areas of interest involving the use of cell therapies for the treatment of infectious diseases in patients who are profoundly immunosuppressed following bone marrow transplants. The senior researchers at the Center have been instrumental in demonstrating the clinical effectiveness of cell therapies in this patient setting. This approach also has the potential for the treatment of certain hematological malignancies associated with oncogenic viruses.

(CNN) -- If you've just had your first heart attack, doctors may one day be able to reverse the damage done with stem cell therapy.

An intravenous method of injecting stem cells into patients who had experienced heart attacks within the previous 10 days suggested that this method works to repair -- not just manage -- heart damage, a recent study found.

The study is a step forward in a field in which a lot of approaches have been tried in animals and preliminary human trials, but none has been approved for widespread clinical use for heart patients.

The new results are a milestone in stem cell research, and for patients, said Jeffrey Karp, a researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, who runs a stem cell biology lab at Harvard University. He was not involved in the study.