News by Subject Medicine & Health

Regenerative Medicine is delighted to publish open access original research demonstrating the first virus- and oncogene-free induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology to produce safer pluripotent stem cells from cord blood and peripheral blood.

Growing functional blood vessel networks is no easy task. Previously, other groups have made networks that span millimeters in size. But now, a University of Delaware team has grown a self-assembling, functional network of blood vessels across centimeter scales, a size relevant for human use. With continued development and refinement, the microfluidic system could be used to grow blood vessels for human tissue and organ transplants.

Currently, uterus donation is only available for women with family members who are willing to donate. With live donors in short supply, the new technique might help to increase availability and give more women the option of pregnancy.

Umbilical cord blood stem cells that are cultured and expanded outside the body before being used for bone marrow transplant in adult blood cancer patients appear safe and restore blood count recovery faster than standard cord blood. The findings advance efforts to improve cord blood use among adults who have been diagnosed with blood cancers.

After over a decade of preclinical research and development, a new gene therapy treatment for Sickle Cell Anemia (SCA) is reversing disease symptoms in two adults and showing early potential for transportability to resource-challenged parts of the world where SCA is most common. Preliminary data from a pilot Phase 1-2 clinical trial testing the gene-addition therapy were presented Dec. 3 at the American Society of Hematology's (ASH) annual meeting in San Diego.

One obstacle to therapeutic use of microRNAs (miRNA), which are in clinical trial for a number of diseases, are ribonucleases, whose job it is to destroy them. Medical University of South Carolina researchers report in Inflammation that an miRNA (miR-126) protective against sepsis can be delivered effectively via a nanocarrier. Almost 67 percent of mice treated with one of the nanocarrier/miR-126 complexes were still alive at seven days vs. just 25 percent of controls.

Improving outcomes for patients with myeloid cancers who undergo stem cell transplantation is a focus of several studies to be presented by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists at the ASH Annual Meeting.