Bay Area firms lead the way in stem cell research

Batches of human embryonic stem cells that hold the promise of treating spinal-cord injuries are being grown inside a Peninsula laboratory — ready, and now federally approved, for injection into paralyzed patients.

In the worldwide race to develop stem cell therapies, biotech giant Geron Corp. in Menlo Park will be the first to begin a human clinical trial using the controversial stem cells, which are created through repeated divisions of a human embryo. Continue Reading »

The quest for a cure: Stem cells’ potential for 10 vexing illnesses

With President Barack Obama’s recent lifting of the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, scientists now have new prospects for developing medical treatments. Excitement over the embryonic cells comes from their remarkable ability, as biological blank slates, to become virtually any of the body’s cell types. Many observers believe the president’s move will accelerate the hunt for cures for some of our most vexing diseases.

However, the benefits are largely hypothetical, given the infancy of the field, and are offset by some real obstacles: The risks of embryonic stem cells, as well as cells programmed to become like them, include the possibility they will actually cause cancers in people who receive them. Continue Reading »

Spinal patient spins a comeback

Therapy “a 24/7 job”: Ten years after a skiing accident, Leah Potts stays driven.

Ten years ago, Leah Potts was a patient at Craig Hospital, after a skiing accident that broke her neck and damaged her spinal cord. The first doctors she saw warned her she might never walk again.

Today, Potts teaches Spinning, the popular and intense indoor group bicycling class. The Aspen resident can walk (with a cane). She skis again (with outriggers). And she blogs about her progress at leahpotts.com.

“I remember lying there in bed at the beginning,” she said. “I remember lying there thinking, ‘OK, this doesn’t sound too good. I have two choices: Lie here and cry about it, or get up and do something about it.’ I was 23 years old. I’d just graduated from college. I felt like my life was just beginning.” Continue Reading »

Magnesium Improves Function After Spinal Cord Injury

Improves motor function and spares white matter

MONDAY, April 13 (HealthDay News) — Magnesium treatment shortly after spinal cord injury in rats improves motor function and spares white matter, according to study findings published in the April issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine.

Diana Barrett Wiseman, M.D., from the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues generated a moderate-to-severe spinal cord injury in rats, then treated them with saline, magnesium, methylprednisolone, or magnesium plus methylprednisolone within 10 minutes of injury. Continue Reading »

The stem-cell funding ban is a step backwards for Texas

Why would Texas hamper its own universities, discouraging them from seeking cures for age-old diseases? Why would state leaders cut the state off from millions of dollars in research funding in the search for those cures? Why would Texas want to brand itself as a state where science and research are held in little regard? The answer, of course, is that it shouldn’t. But that is where Texas is heading if a provision in the Senate’s version of the state budget makes it into law.

The provision, inserted into the proposed budget by Senate Finance Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, would prohibit state funding of research on stem-cell embryos. The provision is a back-door method of legislating on an issue that deserves a vote on its own. Continue Reading »

Team Regrows Neurons Controlling Movement in Rats

Goal is to one day develop a therapy to help with spinal cord injuries

MONDAY, April 6 (HealthDay News) — Using genetically engineered cells and a virus as a delivery method, researchers were able to regenerate a type of nerve fiber in rat brains that controls movement.

This isn’t the first time researchers have shown it’s possible to re-grow some neurons responsible for movement. But the new research showed regeneration of a particular type of neuron — corticospinal motor axons — that had so far proven resistant to regeneration efforts. Continue Reading »

By Shutting Down Inflammation, Agent Reverses Damage From Spinal Cord Injury In Preclinical Studies

ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2009) — Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) have been able to speed recovery and substantially reduce damage resulting from spinal cord injury in preclinical studies.

Their research, published online in Annals of Neurology and led by Kimberly Byrnes, PhD, shows that inflammation following injury causes the neurotoxicity that leads to lasting nerve cell damage, and that an experimental agent is able to block this inflammatory reaction. Continue Reading »

Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act Signed by President Obama as Part of Omnibus Public Land Bill

Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation expresses appreciation to Congressional co-sponsors for passing first legislation specific to the paralysis community

SHORT HILLS, N.J., March 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, the national, non-profit organization dedicated to finding cures and treatments for spinal cord injuries and improving the lives of people living with paralysis, applauds President Obama for signing the Omnibus Public Lands Bill. Passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on March 25 and the U.S. Senate on January 15, Title XIV of the Bill contains the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act. The Act was named for the late Christopher Reeve and his wife Dana, whose courage and grace in the face of adversity, coupled with their extraordinary activism, were an inspiration to millions around the world. Continue Reading »

Hans Keirstead to brief Congress on stem cell research

UCI scientist is behind the field’s first human clinical trial

Irvine, Calif., UC Irvine’s Hans Keirstead – the neurobiologist behind what will be the world’s first human embryonic stem cell clinical trial – will brief Congress on the state of the field 10-11:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 24, in Washington, D.C.

Keirstead will join Robert Klein, a spinal-cord-injury research advocate, and Thomas Okarma, Geron Corp. president and chief executive officer, for the briefing, in Room H-122 of the Capitol. Geron will conduct the clinical trial for Keirstead’s acute-spinal-cord-injury therapy. Continue Reading »

Meeting with Congress

UCI scientist will visit Capitol Hill to share plans he has with other researchers regarding stem-cell treatments.

A leading neuroscientist and co-director of UCI’s stem cell research center will meet with members of Congress today and explain what he and his team will do when they conduct the first human trials of stem-cell therapy in the country later this year, university officials said.

Hans Keirstead, co-director of the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center and faculty member at the Reeve-Irvine Research Center, will meet with members of Congress and their aides to explain how he plans to implement his success spinal-cord injury therapy to humans. Continue Reading »