US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth moved the research community forward today by ruling that NIH guidelines for the funding of embryonic stem cell research do not violate federal law. This ruling is an important step for advancing the field of biomedical research, and also serves as a testament to the important work that advocates have done over the past decade, thanks especially to those living with spinal cord injury and paralysis.

The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation is excited to share this victory with all those in our community, and we look forward to working with you as we continue to advance all fields of promising research.

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This news broke today (Friday):

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a trial judge's preliminary injunction that blocked government funding of research involving human embryonic stem cells, a significant legal victory for the Obama administration.

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Rob

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From Sam Maddox's new SCI Research blog:

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are a discovery barely five-years old but they are one of the most compelling stories in biology. Many presumed these adult-derived cells would bypass embryos in stem cell science. New research suggests, however, that iPS cells are not as much like embryonic stem cells (ES) as first believed. They remain a transformative discovery, especially in disease modeling, but it will require a lot more study before iPS cells are as medically revolutionary as hoped.

iPS cells are adult cells, derived from skin or blood, for example, that have been back-programmed into an embryonic-like state. Induced cells look and act like remarkably like ES cells. They might be able, as an ES cell can, make all the other cells in the body.

The concept is fascinating: Take your own cell, morph it into an iPS cell which in turn can become a heart cell or nerve cell – a very nifty biology trick. Limitless replacement parts, no immune rejection. And of course the ethical bypass is obvious (no embryos, no Dickey Wicker). But according to a closer look by a group led by Joseph Ecker, a molecular geneticist at the Salk Institute, iPS cells have "hotspots" in their gene libraries that are not completely reprogrammed.

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Yet another cautionary tale about embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells, published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, underscores why what we don't know about these remarkable cells can be potentially dangerous.

Coming from the Los Angeles Times:

People have pinned a lot of hopes on pluripotent stem cells -- which, because of their amazing capacity to morph into other types of cells, have been touted as a potential source for replacement tissues that might someday help reverse spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer's disease, and even the damage caused by heart attacks.

But so far only two companies have been granted permission by the Food and Drug Administration to move ahead with trials in humans -- Geron Corp., which is testing a treatment for spinal cord injury; and Advanced Cell Technology, which is testing a treatment for macular degeneration.

A new study, published Thursday in the journal Cell Stem Cell, may illustrate part of the reason why. Scientists still haven't figured out how to make sure most stem cells are safe, and won't develop into cancer once implanted in patients.

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Susan Howley
Executive Vice President, Research

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In this study, a combination of chitosan guidance channels and transplanted neural stem/progenitor cells is reported to improve cell survival, although not enough to result in any "significant" improved functional recovery. But the investigators say that the results are promising and that these channels (chitosan is a naturally occurring substance in the shells of lobsters and shrimp) could one day be safely and effectively used to help guide regeneration in the spinal cord. Study author Charles Tator, MD, PhD is a principal investigator in the Reeve Foundation's North American Clinical Trials Network.

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Susan P. Howley
Executive Vice President, Research

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The Reeve Foundation held its fourth Spinal Cord Symposium December 10-12, 2010 in Phoenix, AZ. It was historic because for the first time, scientists and clinicians from all four Reeve research programs were featured and early feedback suggests that everyone there felt the bench-to-bedside continuum of science was enriching and exciting. The first three symposia focused only on investigators holding Individual Research Grant awards; the Phoenix meeting also included members of the Reeve International Research Consortium and its North American Clinical Trials and NeuroRecovery Networks.

Pictured at right are the four speakers and session chair of Saturday morning's session on regeneration - Eun-Mi Hur, Moses Chao (chair), Michael Bastiani, Michael Fainzilber and Warren Allilain.

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And see photos from the Symposium.

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A second US company, StemCells Inc., announced plans Novmeber 15th for a spinal cord injury clinical trial exploring the safety of human stem cells. These particular cells are purified human neural cells derived from fetal tissue and the StemCells Inc. Phase I will enroll patients who are between three and 12 months post-injury.

Dr. Aileen Anderson, a StemCells Inc. collaborator, first published the results of her spinal cord studies in PNAS in 2005 (Human neural stem cells differentiate and promote locomotor recovery in spinal cord-injured mice, Brian J. Cummings, Nobuko Uchida, Stanley J. Tamaki, Desiree L. Salazar, Mitra Hooshmand, Robert Summers, Fred H. Gage and Aileen J. Anderson). This was followed in 2010 by a Plos One publication in a model of early chronic injury, Human Neural Stem Cells Differentiate and Promote Locomotor Recovery in an Early Chronic Spinal coRd Injury NOD-scid Mouse Model (Desiree L. Salazar, Nobuko Uchida, Frank P.T. Hamers, Brian J. Cummings, Aileen J. Anderson).

Dr. Anderson, an Associate Professor in the Departments of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine, is also Scientific Director of the Reeve Foundation's Injury Core Laboratory there.

Read more about it in the OC Register.

Stem Cells, Inc. press release.

Susan P. Howley
Executive Vice President, Research
Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation

If you will be in San Diego on Monday, you are invited to the 7th Annual Christopher Reeve Hot Topics in Stem Cell Biology Data Blitz Satellite Symposium at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) meeting going on there. The symposium is coordinated each year by Evan Snyder of the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in La Jolla. He sent us this note:

This has really become an SfN "tradition" -- an exceedingly popular & uniquely formatted gathering where thought leaders in the stem cell field (construed exceedingly broadly) assemble for an evening of food & drink to present -- in a rapid-fire blitz-like fashion -- the hottest & most cutting-edge work (typically unpublished) ongoing in their labs. Indeed, a "hot topic" is defined as the idea or experiment that most excited the investigator when he/she boarded the plane for this meeting. It is a great living legacy in the neuroscience world to Chris.

Here are some of the presenters:
The Fred (Rusty) Gage Lab, Salk Institute, La Jolla
"Primate Evolution using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPS)"

The Ole Isacson Lab, Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital
"Differentiation of Ventral Midbrain Dopaminergic Neurons form Human ES/Parkinson's Disease Patient iPS Cells for Neuronal Vulnerability Assays & Cell Therapy"

The Derek Van der Kooy/Cindy Morshead Labs, University of Toronto
"A Novel Neural Stem Cell at the Top of the Adult Brain Neural Stem Cell Hierarchy"

The Vittorio Gallo Lab, Children's National Medical Center, Washington, DC
"White Matter Injury and Regeneration in the Perinatal Brain"

The Jeff Macklis Lab, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston
"Building a Neuron is Complex: CTIP2 Exerts Cell-Autonomous and Non-Cell-Autonomous Control Over Specific Post-Mitotic Neuron Subtypes Derived from Specific Progenitors"

The Arnold Krigstein Lab, University of California, San Francisco
"A Novel Neural Stem Cell in the Developing Mouse Brain"

The Jenny Hsieh Lab, UT, Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas
"A Master Negative Regulator of Adult Neurogenesis in Quiescent Stem Cells"

The Mary-Beth Hatten Lab, Rockefeller University
"A Translational Profiling Approach for the Molecular Characterization of ES Cells"

The Vi Chu Lab, EMD Millipore, Temecula, CA
"Efficient Differentiation of Human Neural Progenitors to Oligodendrocytes"

The Clive Svendsen Lab, Cedars Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute, Los Angeles
"Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells from HD Patients: A Consortium Approach"

The Evan Snyder Lab, Sanford|Burnham Medical Research Institute, La Jolla
"Human Neural Induction: Instructive or Default?"

The Marius Wernig Lab, Stanford University, Palo Alto
"Direct Conversion of Fibroblasts to Functional Neurons"

The Hongjun Song Lab, Johns Hopkins
"Role of sFRP3 in Adult Hippocampal Neurogenesis and Antidepressant Responses"

No need to RSVP for this event or even register for the SfN meeting. Just show up when and if you can.

Rob

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This from The Washington Post:

Doctors have injected millions of human embryonic stem cells into a patient partially paralyzed by a spinal cord injury, marking the beginning of the first carefully designed attempt to test the promising but controversial therapy, officials announced Monday.

The patient was treated Friday at the Shepherd Center, a 132-bed hospital in Atlanta that specializes in spinal cord and brain injuries, according to announcement by the hospital and Geron Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif., which is sponsoring the research.

The hospital is one of seven sites participating in the study, which is primarily aimed at testing whether the therapy is safe. Doctors will also conduct tests to see whether the treatment restores sensation or enables the patient to regain movement. No additional information about the first patient was released.

The milestone was welcomed by scientists eager to finally move the research from the laboratory to the clinic, as well as by advocates for patients and by patients hoping for cures. Although the cells have been tested in animals, and some clinics around the world claim to offer therapies using human embryonic stem cells, the trial is the first to have been vetted by a government entity and aimed at carefully evaluating the strategy. After repeated delays, the Food and Drug Administration gave the go-ahead in July.

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FInd out more about our stem cells in our Stem Cell Research Center.

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This today from the Washington Post:

Scientists reported Thursday they had developed a technique that can quickly create safe alternatives to human embryonic stem cells, a major advance toward developing a less controversial approach for treating for a host of medical problems.

The researchers published a series of experiments showing they can use laboratory-made versions of naturally occurring biological signals to quickly convert ordinary skin cells into cells that appear virtually identical to embryonic stem cells. Moreover, the same strategy can then coax those cells to morph into specific tissues that would be a perfect match for transplantation into patients.

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Read the scientific paper.

Visit the Foundation's stem cell research center.

Rob

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A federal appeals court said Tuesday the Obama administration can continue to fund embryonic stem-cell research, reversing for the time being a trial judge's injunction barring the funding.

The one-page order by a three-judge panel of the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the administration met the legal standard for a stay of the injunction, but didn't discuss the case in detail.

Read the rest on the Wall Street Journal.

Learn more about the role of stem-cells in SCI research.

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We just got this information from the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research:

Yesterday, the Department of Justice filed a request for a stay with the appeals court of Judge Lamberth's injunction. We have just learned that the stay was granted, and at least temporarily for a short period of time, research can move forward. Stay tuned for a more full explanation of what has happened over the past 72 hours!

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We will keep you up to date.

Rob

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A few months ago, Dr. Thomas Einhorn was treating a patient with a broken ankle that wouldn't heal, even with multiple surgeries. So he sought help from the man's own body.

Einhorn drew bone marrow from the man's pelvic bone with a needle, condensed it to about four teaspoons of rich red liquid, and injected that into his ankle.

Four months later the ankle was healed. Einhorn, chairman of orthopedic surgery at Boston University Medical Center, credits "adult" stem cells in the marrow injection. He tried it because of published research from France.

Einhorn's experience isn't a rigorous study. But it's an example of many innovative therapies doctors are studying with adult stem cells. Those are stem cells typically taken from bone marrow and blood — not embryos.

For all the emotional debate that began about a decade ago on allowing the use of embryonic stem cells, it's adult stem cells that are in human testing today. An extensive review of stem cell projects and interviews with two dozen experts reveal a wide range of potential treatments.

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From The New York Times today:

The world’s first authorized test in people of a treatment derived from human embryonic stem cells has been cleared to begin by the Food and Drug Administration. The trial will test cells developed by Geron Corporation and the University of California, Irvine in patients with new spinal cord injuries.

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Read more about stem cells.

Rob

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