With the ability to teach your skin to be young again, imagine a “chemical messenger” that can enter your skin cells and do just that.

The 500 mark for cord blood volunteer donations has been surpassed by an Indianapolis business and hospital.

Dropping dead or signing liability papers for an unusual treatment were the two choices Carron had to choose between when she had to make a decision on treating her serious heart condition.

The event planner, chose to sign the papers.

Dunking her toes in her backyard swimming pool and spending more time with her grandkids was a future worth looking forward to for Carol Franz. She thought as retirement approached, she’d start to ease into life.

Training her brain to spew out statistics as fast as any computer, delivering addresses to 1,000 people at a time and talking one on one with the president of the United States was something she was not expecting.

President Bush discussed the stem cell veto and executive order in June, and Franz was called to the White House to join in. Franz was mentioned in the president’s text.

“I appreciate the fact that we’re joined by a lot of folks who share the deep desire to advance science, and at the same time, uphold our moral values. I appreciate the fact that Mike Leavitt is here, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. I want to thank the members of the United States Congress and Senate who have joined us. I thank you for taking your time to be here on this important announcement today.”

“I’m joined on stage by two good docs, really smart, capable people: Dr. Bill Hurlbut, Professor of Stanford University Medical Center; Dr. Don Landry, Professor at Columbia University Department of Medicine — actually, he’s the Chairman of the Department. The reason they’re here is these are brilliant biologists who are seeking new ways to develop stem cell lines without violating human life. And these are smart folks, and I cannot thank them enough for coming to the Oval Office to share with me their wisdom and their vision.”

“I’m also up here with Carol Franz; she has whipped cancer twice by using adult stem cells. In other words, adult stem cells have saved her life.”

“She’s a determined woman who believes strongly that there are different alternatives available to use stem cells other than those which are created as the result of destruction of human life.”

Franz says that she doesn’t thin that same way as some people who wonder about their purposes in life.

She understands stem cell research and therapy and is on a mission to educate other American’s about the science and treatment alternative.

She knows what she is talking about considering the fact that such therapies have twice snatched her back from cancer’s jaws of death.

However, she is one of the very few, and this is a point of concern for her.

The stem cell field is riddled with various arguments, and she is familiar with all of them. But there is one point that has left her nearly furious, and that is that “adult” and “embryonic” are very different fields and people are confused about this point.

Any and all controversial issues are avoided by adult stem cell therapies according to Carol, who is a deeply committed Catholic.

Stem cell therapies are not only limited to cancer; they can be applied towards many more medical conditions. Carol cannot fathom how many doctors actually don’t have a clue about this.

Joining the numbers of the confused are some of the politicians she has spoken with. This presents a major dilemma. With 73 adult stem cell therapies that have saved thousands of lives, it would be an injustice to have confused politicians casting votes for or against embryonic stem cell funding.

“It’s sad when a 65-year-old grandmother in Owego has this information, and so few others do,” she says.

Carol has before and after pictures on her website www.carolfranz.com

. IN one photograph, he has a t-shirt on that reads, “Survivor Adult Stem Cell Transplant.”

Many people think that the word “adult” refers to her age, and that cells from an embryo saved her life. Carol is disappointed with the high level of misinterpretation which is a product of misinformation and insufficient stem cell education.

“They just don’t understand, they just don’t know,” says Franz.

She says she knows people right near her in Greater Binghamton, who are past adult stem cell transplant patients. They too are survivors.

However, while Carol feels the urge to tell everyone, the other individuals remain quieter and subtle.

But a few people are beginning to join Carol

Marking a significant milestone in the state of California’s bid to become the international destination of choice for the world’s leading regenerative medicine experts, a new lab will soon be opening in San Francisco headed by a Japanese pioneer in stem-cell research.

Mouse skin cells were reprogrammed last year, and changed back into an embryonic state thanks to the identification of specific genes by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University. The reprogrammed skin cells could be used to form different types of tissues.

In order to pursue what some have called the “Holy Grail” of regenerative medicine, the laboratory will be opened at the University of California-San Francisco affiliated non-profit research facility named the J. David Gladstone Institute in Mission Bay said Yamanaka at a press conference on Thursday. The goal is to create new treatments and replacement tissues for disease that could be personalized without using controversial embryonic stem cells. This would be accomplished by using a patient’s own cells that could be reprogrammed into stem cells.

“The next step is to apply the technology to humans,” said Yamanaka, who also will become a professor of anatomy at UCSF.

Meaning that they can turn into any tissue in the body, the term “pluripotent” has been used in recent months when describing the reprogrammed mouse cells that several teams of scientists recently developed. The catalyst for these further breakthroughs was Yamanaka’s work.

For changing the ethical debate over using embryos in stem-cell research as well as being called a crucial development for science, the news was met with applause worldwide.

With research based on adult human cells being reprogrammed to have the same qualities as embryonic cells, minus the controversy, experts said that Yamanaka’s arrival will put California front and center in the development of this type of research. Patient and disease-specific cell lines could be developed as a result of this research. New therapies and medicines will more than likely be developed.

Within one to two years, the goal of developing pluripotent human adult stem-cell lines could be reached said Yamanaka. The fast paced expectations arise from the competition between two Boston-area teams and his own. But considering that the time between the discovery of mouse embryonic stem cells and human embryonic stem cell was 2 decades, some experts are less optimistic of the rapid time frame.

Due to less government interference in his groundbreaking work and his previous association with the Gladstone Institutes Yamanaka decided on California as his new home. to approve research protocols, it can take up to one year in some cases for the Japanese government to approve of work.

Yamanaka’s work and that of others in the key new area of stem-cell research will help “unravel the mechanics of the disease itself,” believes Dr. Arnold Kriegstein, director of the UCSF Institute for Regeneration Medicine.

Yamanaka’s move was cited as evidence that the state’s initiatives were successful by officials from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. They created Proposition 71 in 2004 to oversee the state’s publicly financed $3 billion stem-cell research efforts.

“California is becoming a mecca” for leading researchers, said CIRM spokesman Dale Carlson.

A half-dozen, like Yamanaka, have part-time positions with medical research facilities in the state, and at least another 14 established stem-cell investigators have moved to California since 2005 stated CIRM.

The availability of public and private resources in the state should continue to draw researchers said interim CIRM director Arlene Chiu. She expects the significant research competition to add to the appeal.

“I am agnostic about what kind of cell, as long as it works,” she said.

The debate over regenerative medicine will likely not end because of his work said Yamanaka. Even though his work does not rely on embryonic stem cells he says his desire to develop a solution for infertile couples could still raise some questions.

“We would like to help infertile couples,” he said, but predicted a new ethics debate would rage.

When we are young, our organs, bones, and muscles heal fairly quickly from injury. However, this process slows down as we age. When older, our recovery is also more limited and regeneration is not as strong compared to when we are young. When we are younger, we get a better build after injury as opposed to when we are older. The answer to why this is the case can be found on the cellular level according to researchers.

The process of cell injury and cellular aging is being studied by Professor Thomas Rando who is a professor of neurology at Stanford University. He has found that an important role in the healing process if played by adult stem cells. Adult stem cells allow a tissue to repair itself after injury says Rando.

“You cut your skin the skin heals itself. That’s because there are stem cells sitting in skin that are continuously generating new skin cells,” Rando says.

“Without these stem cells, you would run out of blood cells, you would run out of skin cells, you would run out of cells in your gut that are always turning over, and there are stem cells in a lot of other organs as well and tissues, like skeletal muscle, like liver, even some in the brain.”

Wnt proteins, which are a cell product, were the focus of Rando’s study. In response to tissue damage, cellular regeneration by stem cells is aided by the presence of the Wnt protein according to researchers. But that is not all they are limited to says Rando.

“What we found surprisingly was that with age it appears as if there are low levels of these Wnt proteins that are continuously acting on stem cells,” Rando explains.

“And it’s something about that continuous activity at a low level that instead of promoting stem cell function, they actually inhibit stem cell function. When the cells are exposed to this environment where there’s a lot of this Wnt protein around, they essentially go into a dormant state or a state that is more difficult to get them to begin dividing and making new healthy cells.”

If researchers could find ways to enhance tissue repair by blocking the Wnt protein signals, new therapies could be developed. The effects of Wnt need to be better understood to make this a reality.

“It’s really more in the realm of