Heres to hoping that all this new codebase and exciting concepts gets put into a worthy sandbox. Personally as a somewhat jaded Star Wars Galaxies, on again, off again player I am hoping that this is the harbinger for a new Star Wars themed KOTOR era MMORPG. If not and Bioware is doing a unique world than hopefully something futuristic as I think we are getting a little oversaturated with elves and orcs and magic (Ohh my)
xenografts are extremely common in these sorts of initial trials. The brain as a whole is protected from many normal immune functions that would kill foreign cells. These sorts of responses, if they happen at all, take long time giving researchers the ability to see how cells behave inside the brain. The problem is that rat and mouse ES cells do not behave the same as human ES cells, even in the dish. Thus many initial experiments are done trying to determine how to culture and direct ES cell differentiation and then transplantation before even thinking about trying to do it in human model.
Right now the research and preliminary clinical trials are starting to ramp up in human ES to human patient research. Many researchers I have talked with believe that within 5 years there will be ES transplant trials testing stem cell lines that have been modified to be non tumor forming, or purification methods will allow for only only differentiated cell types to be transplanted. The next real big question will be how effective will they be? In my mind at least initially the Parkinson's transplants will probably be beneficial, but not a miracle cure. Spinal cord transplants will take longer to begin, but I think their initial results will be more dramatic.
IAASCR (I am a stem cell researcher)and while adult stem cells are indeed useful in certain cases, at the current level of understanding and utilization, they are not as proliferative, nor multipotent as embryonic stem cells. ES cells do have a lot of issues, but this tumor issue is pretty old news for those of us who work with stem cells. I think an increased level of availability and funding there is a better chance to overcome some of the negative issues associated with ES cells as opposed to alterting and manipulating adult stem cells into becoming more potent
From what I can gather from the lay press terminology, they are planning to use a mixture of immature neuronal precursors and stem cells. Neuronal precursors are not true "stem" cells in that they are already committed to becoming neurons. There are "stem" cells in the brain at this time and they are rapidly dividing to form both new neurons and new glial cells, but they are vastly outnumbered by these dividing committed precursor cells. Without knowing more about the initial cell population and what they plan to do with them in culture prior to transplantation it is hard to really qualify these cells.
The mention of fully formed cells used for Parkinson's and strokes is also slightly misleading as well. Most of the fetal cells that are harvested for use in Parkinson's are taken from the region that degenerates in Parkinson's, the substantia nigra. At the early fetal age in this region there are immature neurons, but also neuronal progenitors that can turn into fully formed neurons. in either case the need for immature neurons, derived from stem or progenitor cells is that these younger cells are more robust, and are more capable of making functional connections in the brain.
With Batten disease being a early childhood disease the transplants are also being placed into a brain environment more accomodating for neuronal rearrangement and new synase formation. However I am still curious as to how effective they hope these cells will be in producing and releasing enough enzyme to effectively reduce the aggregate protein load throughout the brain.
"If you feel that new stem cell lines are necessary, you are more than welcome to gather support from others who feel the same and provide the necessary funding. But don't ask people who are firmly opposed to such research to help pay for it."
What I find sad, and somewhat ironic is that the very same people who don't want to pay for it, for whatever reason, will likley be some of the first to want to use whatever therapeutic options come out of stem cell research. Doctors and Scientists do not have the right or the luxury to define who gets helped by our advances, but personally I am much more willing to work on a cure for Parkinson's disease for someone who supported my work, than to help cure someone who denied me funding, called me insulting names, and tried to restrict my work. I hope no one here ever has to suffer from any of the diseases such as PD, Alzheimers or diabetes, but if you ever do, tell me if you would refuse a cure based on stem cell work.
True I don't work on bone marrow cells, but bone marrow derived or mesenchymal stem cells still are a matter of debate about their potential. To be fair I think they are one of the more exciting cells to examine. I was more refering in my original post to the CD45+, SCA+, Thy 1.1 low fraction of hematopoeitic stem cells, not whole bone marroww. The HSC, when sorted through FACS cannont be cultured but you are right, the adherent MSC's can be cultured and do show some evidence of transdifferentiation.
Thats not entirely true...human ES cell lines are derived from healthy blastocyts, and usually show as much proliferation as mouse ES cell, and cancer to for that matter. The trick has always been that you human ES cells take a very rigorous protocol to grow well and it takes very little to screw that culture condition up. That is why the human cells are contaminated they had to be grown on feeder cell layers from mice in order to grow at all. New techniques are being devloped that can do away with these feeder layer, but you need to rederive the cell line from scratch in order to make sure it was never contaminated previously.
I realize by putting expert into this topic I probably have started a giant flaming ball rolling but ohhh well.
To clarify I am a 4th yr Ph.D student who has spent most of my college and grad school career studying neurodegenerative diseases and stem cells. In posting I am not advocating any particular position, merely trying to give to the community at large the current state of stem cell research as seen from one actually doing it.
Adult stem cells have shown good potential in treating different conditions arising in tissues from which they are derived (ie stem cells from the brain used to treat brain degeneration, stem cells from the liver treating liver disease). Adult stem cells show little to no evidence of tumor formation and some types can be cultured and expanded for use, though not all (bone marrow stem cells cannot be expanded which is why you have to collect and freeze so many) The ability to turn one type of adult stem cell into a cell from another part of the body is VERY controversial, though many people believe that there are certain conditions that can push adult stem cells into other types, but the functional ability of these cells is still under vigorous experimentation.
ES cells on the other hand have a well established history of being able to transform into almost all of the tissue and cell types in the body. Most of these experiments have noted that tumor formation, in the form of teratocarcinomas, is a common occurence, especially in trying to use ES cells to repair brain damage from Parkinson's disease or to replace pancreatic islet cells in diabetes. Bush's stance on no federal funding to derive new ES cell lines, regardless of morality, is hindering the effort. A recent report has stated that current human ES cell lines are likely contaminated with a mouse protein that can cause an immune reaction in human patients. Even with all that being said there is great potential for ES cells and having worked with mouse ES cells I can tell you that they are opeing some exciting doors for being able to repair dmaged brain circuits. I will end on the note that mouse ES cells and human ES cells behave very differently so that those who think we can do all of our work with animal cells and then jump directly to humans are sadly mistaken
Also there seems to be a mental association with abortion and ES cell derivation. Most private comapnies deriving ES cell lines are taking previously donated eggs and sperm to fertilize the egg and then witin a few days stopping the cell division to harvest the ES cell. Outside of a human body these blastocyts could not generate a viable human. For one ES cells do not generate the extraembryonic tissue needed for placenta formation. Withou this the blastocyst would lack nutrient and die as they became more developed. As far as I know there is no work being done on any sort of abortion derived material.
I am more than willing to provide any other information or references to anything related to the above or any other stem cell or neuroscience related topics...my way of giving back to a community that has brought me so much knowledge and debate.
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Heres to hoping that all this new codebase and exciting concepts gets put into a worthy sandbox. Personally as a somewhat jaded Star Wars Galaxies, on again, off again player I am hoping that this is the harbinger for a new Star Wars themed KOTOR era MMORPG. If not and Bioware is doing a unique world than hopefully something futuristic as I think we are getting a little oversaturated with elves and orcs and magic (Ohh my)
xenografts are extremely common in these sorts of initial trials. The brain as a whole is protected from many normal immune functions that would kill foreign cells. These sorts of responses, if they happen at all, take long time giving researchers the ability to see how cells behave inside the brain. The problem is that rat and mouse ES cells do not behave the same as human ES cells, even in the dish. Thus many initial experiments are done trying to determine how to culture and direct ES cell differentiation and then transplantation before even thinking about trying to do it in human model. Right now the research and preliminary clinical trials are starting to ramp up in human ES to human patient research. Many researchers I have talked with believe that within 5 years there will be ES transplant trials testing stem cell lines that have been modified to be non tumor forming, or purification methods will allow for only only differentiated cell types to be transplanted. The next real big question will be how effective will they be? In my mind at least initially the Parkinson's transplants will probably be beneficial, but not a miracle cure. Spinal cord transplants will take longer to begin, but I think their initial results will be more dramatic.
IAASCR (I am a stem cell researcher)and while adult stem cells are indeed useful in certain cases, at the current level of understanding and utilization, they are not as proliferative, nor multipotent as embryonic stem cells. ES cells do have a lot of issues, but this tumor issue is pretty old news for those of us who work with stem cells. I think an increased level of availability and funding there is a better chance to overcome some of the negative issues associated with ES cells as opposed to alterting and manipulating adult stem cells into becoming more potent
The mention of fully formed cells used for Parkinson's and strokes is also slightly misleading as well. Most of the fetal cells that are harvested for use in Parkinson's are taken from the region that degenerates in Parkinson's, the substantia nigra. At the early fetal age in this region there are immature neurons, but also neuronal progenitors that can turn into fully formed neurons. in either case the need for immature neurons, derived from stem or progenitor cells is that these younger cells are more robust, and are more capable of making functional connections in the brain.
With Batten disease being a early childhood disease the transplants are also being placed into a brain environment more accomodating for neuronal rearrangement and new synase formation. However I am still curious as to how effective they hope these cells will be in producing and releasing enough enzyme to effectively reduce the aggregate protein load throughout the brain.
"If you feel that new stem cell lines are necessary, you are more than welcome to gather support from others who feel the same and provide the necessary funding. But don't ask people who are firmly opposed to such research to help pay for it." What I find sad, and somewhat ironic is that the very same people who don't want to pay for it, for whatever reason, will likley be some of the first to want to use whatever therapeutic options come out of stem cell research. Doctors and Scientists do not have the right or the luxury to define who gets helped by our advances, but personally I am much more willing to work on a cure for Parkinson's disease for someone who supported my work, than to help cure someone who denied me funding, called me insulting names, and tried to restrict my work. I hope no one here ever has to suffer from any of the diseases such as PD, Alzheimers or diabetes, but if you ever do, tell me if you would refuse a cure based on stem cell work.
True I don't work on bone marrow cells, but bone marrow derived or mesenchymal stem cells still are a matter of debate about their potential. To be fair I think they are one of the more exciting cells to examine. I was more refering in my original post to the CD45+, SCA+, Thy 1.1 low fraction of hematopoeitic stem cells, not whole bone marroww. The HSC, when sorted through FACS cannont be cultured but you are right, the adherent MSC's can be cultured and do show some evidence of transdifferentiation.
Thats not entirely true...human ES cell lines are derived from healthy blastocyts, and usually show as much proliferation as mouse ES cell, and cancer to for that matter. The trick has always been that you human ES cells take a very rigorous protocol to grow well and it takes very little to screw that culture condition up. That is why the human cells are contaminated they had to be grown on feeder cell layers from mice in order to grow at all. New techniques are being devloped that can do away with these feeder layer, but you need to rederive the cell line from scratch in order to make sure it was never contaminated previously.
True, but thats why I have to write the thing in Word and not in a tiny text window.
I realize by putting expert into this topic I probably have started a giant flaming ball rolling but ohhh well. To clarify I am a 4th yr Ph.D student who has spent most of my college and grad school career studying neurodegenerative diseases and stem cells. In posting I am not advocating any particular position, merely trying to give to the community at large the current state of stem cell research as seen from one actually doing it. Adult stem cells have shown good potential in treating different conditions arising in tissues from which they are derived (ie stem cells from the brain used to treat brain degeneration, stem cells from the liver treating liver disease). Adult stem cells show little to no evidence of tumor formation and some types can be cultured and expanded for use, though not all (bone marrow stem cells cannot be expanded which is why you have to collect and freeze so many) The ability to turn one type of adult stem cell into a cell from another part of the body is VERY controversial, though many people believe that there are certain conditions that can push adult stem cells into other types, but the functional ability of these cells is still under vigorous experimentation. ES cells on the other hand have a well established history of being able to transform into almost all of the tissue and cell types in the body. Most of these experiments have noted that tumor formation, in the form of teratocarcinomas, is a common occurence, especially in trying to use ES cells to repair brain damage from Parkinson's disease or to replace pancreatic islet cells in diabetes. Bush's stance on no federal funding to derive new ES cell lines, regardless of morality, is hindering the effort. A recent report has stated that current human ES cell lines are likely contaminated with a mouse protein that can cause an immune reaction in human patients. Even with all that being said there is great potential for ES cells and having worked with mouse ES cells I can tell you that they are opeing some exciting doors for being able to repair dmaged brain circuits. I will end on the note that mouse ES cells and human ES cells behave very differently so that those who think we can do all of our work with animal cells and then jump directly to humans are sadly mistaken Also there seems to be a mental association with abortion and ES cell derivation. Most private comapnies deriving ES cell lines are taking previously donated eggs and sperm to fertilize the egg and then witin a few days stopping the cell division to harvest the ES cell. Outside of a human body these blastocyts could not generate a viable human. For one ES cells do not generate the extraembryonic tissue needed for placenta formation. Withou this the blastocyst would lack nutrient and die as they became more developed. As far as I know there is no work being done on any sort of abortion derived material. I am more than willing to provide any other information or references to anything related to the above or any other stem cell or neuroscience related topics...my way of giving back to a community that has brought me so much knowledge and debate.