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Dual Antibody Treatment Knocks Down HIV Viral Loads in HIV-Infected Patients

According to two early-stage clinical trials reported in the journals Nature and Nature Medicine, a combination of two different antibodies against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) have successfully diminished the virus levels in patients not taking anti-HIV medications.  Infusions of these antibodies kept virus levels low in the blood of a percentage of these patients for two-three months,…

Stem Cells from Baby Teeth Regenerate Dental Pulp after Implantation into Injured Teeth

Going to the dentist is usually not anyone’s idea of fun.  In particular, root canals are no fun.  However, if you have an abscessed tooth that hurts like the dickens, then a root canal may be your best bet for resuming normalcy.

In younger patients, the innermost part of the tooth, the pulp, may die off for a variety of reasons.  This phenomenon, known as “pulp necrosis” arrests root development…

Building a Better CAR-T cell to Attack Solid Tumors

Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cells or CAR T-cellsare genetically engineered white blood cells that have been taken from a patient’s own blood, genetically engineered to express a receptor that can tightly bind to cancer cells, expanded in culture, and then re-administered into the patient’s blood.  These CAR T-cells then act like guided anti-cancer missiles that find, attack, and kill cancer…

Cynata’s Cymerus MSC Treatment Improves Cardiac Function Recovery in Preclinical Heart Attack Study

Cynata Therapeutics Limited, an Australian stem cell and regenerative medicine company, has announced the results of a preclinical trial in which it tests its Cymerus mesenchymal stem cell treatment in a preclinical heart attack model.

Cynata uses induced pluripotent stem cell technology to make large numbers of mesenchymal stem cells for therapeutic treatments.  To review, induced pluripotent…

Steminent Biotherapeutics Inc Receives FDA Approval to Test Fat-Based Stem Cell Product to Treat Spinocerebellar Ataxia

Steminent Biotherapeutics Inc. is a biotechnology company based in Taipei, Taiwan, with subsidiary offices in San Diego and Shanghai. It is developing stem cell-based treatments for neurological conditions for which there are presently no treatment options.

The main product developed by Steminent is “Stemchymal.” Stemchymal consists of fat-based stem cells isolated from healthy donors. The cells…

Aegle Therapeutics is Awarded IND to Test Extracellular Vesicles from Stem Cells in Burn Patients

Aegle Therapeutics is a Miami, FL-based biotechnology company that has taken a completely novel approach to regenerative medicine.  Aegle Therapeutics has developed new techniques to isolated extracellular vesicles made by cultured stem cells.  Specifically, Aegle Therapeutics isolate extracellular vesicles from bone marrow-based mesenchymal stem cells for therapeutic purposes.

Scientists at…

According to their website, Rexgenero is a “regenerative medicine company and developer of advanced cell-based therapeutics for the treatment of serious diseases that are poorly treated with existing therapies.”   The head office of Rexgenero is in London, but their Research and Development laboratories are in Seville, Spain.  They also have a United Kingdom office in Brighton, which is a town…

Artificial blood vessels made by University of Minnesota Scientists

In patients who must receive dialysis to accommodate failing kidneys, ports are placed in their blood vessels, and a vein and an artery are tied together.  The name for the connection of an artery and a vein is a Cimino-Brescia fistula. Such fistulas are necessary for dialysis, and they are usually made in the arm. Since blood, like other fluids takes the path of least resistance, such fistulas…

Infusion of high-dose umbilical cord blood cells normalized brain connectivity and improves motor function in children with cerebral palsy

Cerebral palsy is a congenital disorder that adversely affects movement, muscle tone and posture. Because those who suffer from congenital cerebral palsy are bone with it, there is often little that can be done to predict or prevent it. Cerebral palsy or CP is usually due to abnormal brain development prior to birth, but it can also result from in utero strokes, or oxygen deprivation during…

Using Light to Guide T Lymphocytes to Attack Tumors

Solid tumors have a whole bag of tricks to avoid the immune system. Fortunately, new therapies aim at these strategies to sensitize the patient’s immune system to the tumor. A new study from the University of Rochester Medical Center laboratory has discovered a simple, practical way that uses light and optics to turn killer immune cells to the tumors. The lead author of this study, Minsoo Kim,…

  One of the “Holy Grails” of stem cell biology has been growing blood cells in culture for use in clinical settings. Such a feat would provide large quantities of blood cells for post-surgical patients, or those with leukemia or other blood-based illness. The clinical applications are manifold and extensive. Unfortunately, growing blood-making stem cells in the laboratory has proven to be a…

Repeated Administrations of Stem Cells are More Effective than Single Administration

After a heart attack, the heart can undergo several structural and functional changes. Even after oxygen delivery to the heart muscle has been restored, a temporary loss of contractile function can persist for several hours or even days. This phenomenon is called myocardial stunning and it can also occur in people who have undergone cardiovascular procedures or central nervous system trauma.…

Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation Tests Stem Cell Combination in Heart Attack Patients

The Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation has announced a new clinical trial that will examine the ability of a stem cell combination to treat patients with ischemic heart failure. In patients who have suffered from former heart attacks, clogged coronary blood vessels and heart muscle that hibernates can result in a heart that no longer works well enough to support the life of the patient. The…

Dosing Recent Heart Attack Patients with G-CSF Doesn’t Seem To Work

Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor (G-CSF)is a small protein that stimulates the bone marrow to produce more of a particular class of white blood cells called granulocytes and release them into the bloodstream. A commercially available version of G-CSF called Filgrastim (Neupogen) is used to boost the immune system of cancer patients whose immune systems have taken a beating from chemotherapy.…

Hair Follicles Can Direct Wound-Based Cells to Induce Scar-Free Healing

News from the University of Pennsylvania reports a new method that involves the use of fat to help heal skin without the formation of scar tissue.  This work comes from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and it is the result of a large-scale, multi-year study that collaborated with the Plikus Laboratory for Developmental and Regenerative Biology at the University…

Stem Cell-Based Skin Graft for Severe Burns

Severe wounds are typically treated with full thickness skin grafts. Some new work by researchers from Michigan Tech and the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzhou, China might provide a way to use a patient’s own stem cells to make split thickness skin grafts (STSG). If this technique pans out, it would eliminate the needs for donors and could work well for large or…