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

The stakes were high, literally life or death, but a 68-year-old Air Force Major decided to take the gamble.

With the hopes of returning to the life he loves in Green Valley, where he lives in The Springs with his two dogs, Buck decided to try to revive his failing heart with the stem cell therapy.

Doctors implanted Buck’s own stem cells into his heart at the Bangkok Heart Hospital.

An important mechanism for controlling the behavior of adult stem cells has been discovered by scientists at the Forsyth Institute.

Involved in cell-to-cell communication, the proteins in the flatworm, planaria, are play a novel role as researchers have observed.

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the developed world.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Pro-life conservatives are often accused of placing faith before progress by opponents of the ethical limitations on scientific research. Ironically, faith is exactly the primary element in their assertion that only embryonic stem cells will be able to treat our worst ailments.

This point was demonstrated when President Bush vetoed a bill that would force taxpayers to fund the experimental destruction of human embryos, Senator Hillary Clinton was quite critical of the decision.

Said Clinton: “Our scientists have been set back years in the race for life-saving cures because they’ve been held back by a narrow ideology that rejects sound science.”

President Bush on the other hand, strenuously encouraged non-controversial stem cell research and directed Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt to do just that. This fact is conveniently omitted by Senator Clinton in her criticism.

It is as if Bush and fellow conservatives reject stem cell research entirely. Or at least that is what many politicians, pundits, and journalists claim. This is at the very best, lazy. And completely misleading the public at its worst. Those opposed to embryonic stem cells research want to cure loved ones as well. They get injured, sick, and paralyzed too. The difference is that there is a better way to find cures that doesn’t involve the killing of embryos.

Using cord blood stem cells, and those derived from amniotic and other adult sources, thousands of patients have been treated worldwide. But Senator Clinton won’t tell anyone this. With increasing frequency, ethical stem-cell advancements are now being reported almost every day.

These non-controversial treatments and their benefits to those suffering from more than 70 different conditions can easily be found in peer-reviewed scientific literature that is free to access.

Thus far, no documented success in human trials has been achieved using embryonic stem-cell research. Tumor formation still plagues mice, even after 26 years of testing. This is where the fanatics of embryonic stem cell research come in. Faith in scientific arrogance. These individuals see ethics as excess baggage on a journey to a pseudo-future.

These advocates still march on despite all the scientists urging pundits to stop the hype, no embryonic stem cell success ever achieved in history, and venture capitalists fearful to invest because of the risk of failure. While all this goes on, non-controversial adult stem cell research and treatment flourishes.

The first goal should be to support and pour all our available resources into ethically sound sources of stem cells. It would be cruel to deny help to the suffering while those faithful to speculative research insist on spending public funds on the least likely path to cures.

Perhaps Ron Reagan said it best when he addressed the Democratic National Convention in his 2004 prime-time speech: “Their belief is just that, an article of faith, and they are entitled to it. But it does not follow that the theology of a few should be allowed to forestall the health and well-being of the many.”

Reagan was unaware at the time how applicable his statement would be to present day stem cell research.