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Since they would be unable to bear the doses of treatment they would need to eliminate the tumors, patients with advanced cancer that has spread to many different sites often do not have many treatment options.

A technique to treat cancers that have spread throughout the body more effectively may have been discovered be researchers at City of Hope and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. So that normal tissue neighboring the tumor and throughout the body remain relatively unharmed, they used modified neural stem cells to activate and concentrate chemotherapeutic drugs predominately at tumor sites.

“This approach could significantly improve future treatment options for patients with metastatic cancer,” said Dr. Karen, M.D., assistant professor of Hematology/Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation and Neurosciences at City of Hope. “It not only has the potential to destroy residual tumor cells, but it should also improve patients’ quality of life by minimizing toxic side effects such as nausea, diarrhea or bone marrow suppression.”

The study will be published Dec. 20th in PLoS ONE. A second paper with comprehensive results from the study has been accepted for publication in the January issue of Cancer Research.

Toxic to naturally fast-growing cells in the body such as intestinal cells and hair follicles, most chemotherapy drugs affect both normal and cancerous tissue. However, Dr. Karen and her colleagues have developed a way to localize the drug

Scientists report that kids may be able to say goodbye to the dreaded root canal thanks to the promise of stem cells.

Allowing the young tooth

A shortage of neural stem cells in the brain was formerly thought to be the reason that older people exhibited a reduced capacity to learn and remember. However, new research reveals that the reduced ability may be caused by stem cells in brain dividing less frequently instead.

The findings suggest that by stimulating the stem cells’ ability to divide and produce new nerve cells, it may be possible to treat degenerative disorders, including dementia, depression, and Alzheimer

A world-first Australian medical therapy that uses stem cells to treat degenerative spinal disease has been approved for testing on patients in the U.S.

Using the treatment to replace painful bone grafts is the goal and hope of researchers.

The U.S. government awarded approval to an Australian biotechnology company for its adult stem cell treatment to be used in a major trial.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed it to bypass the small phase-one human safety trial and move directly into a larger phase-two trial since the preliminary animal trials were so promising.

This marks the first time that adult stem cells will be used to treat spinal disc disease in a genetically unrelated patient