Promoters of non-controversial adult stem cell research say that priority funding should be directed not towards destructive embryonic experiments but adult stem cell research given the promising results that have been achieved with the latter.

To testify to the effectiveness of adult and other non-embryonic stem cell research, a bioethics specialist, researchers, and patients joined in a news conference in Washington.

According to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine, patients who do not respond to initial chemotherapy may be aided by a new treatment that has been discovered by researchers at IU

According to a team of researchers, stem cells may help repair damaged tissue after a heart attack.

Stem cells played a significant role in repairing damaged hearts in a study that was conducted using mice. But whether it is cells from elsewhere in the body or actual heart cells that are doing the repair is a continuing point of investigation.

So that their heart muscle cells could be stained with a fluorescent protein, Richard Lee of the Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues genetically engineered mice.

Around 80 per cent of the heart muscle cells in young mice picked up the stain. Demonstrating that heart muscle cells are not normally replaced in life, the stain level remained the same as the mice aged stated researchers. But, suggesting that new muscle cells are formed in response to injury was a drop to 70% in stained cell count when heart attacks were induced in the mice.

Lee thinks that a limited ability to self-heal would characterize the adult mouse heart and align it with the study results.

“The mechanism to activate cardiac regeneration is present, but it’s inadequate,” he says. “Could that be because mammals don’t have enough [heart] stem cells? There are other theories as well. We need to understand what is holding the system back, so that we can devise a strategy to turn that brake off.”

But Kenneth Chien of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston is not yet convinced that Lee’s team has identified heart stem cells in the mice. Heart stem cells were only first discovered last year, and although the paper provides many answers, Chien thinks it also raises several questions.

“The evidence is circumstantial because the data is not related to finding the pool of new cells and tagging it, but simply showing that the existing pool changes,” Chien says. “The most important question now is: can you identify that new pool? Are they pre-existing immature cardiac muscle cells? Or are they [stem cells] from the heart or elsewhere in the body?”

Cornea stem cell growth was demonstrated by a new technique at the Area of Cellular Therapy of the University Clinic (University of Navarra). Researchers demonstrated the efficacy of adult stem cells in this capacity.

70 rabbits, which served as test animals, were treated for diseases of the cornea using stem cells. The technique was developed by Dr. Ana Fern

The scientific community’s brief obsession with cloning experiments for stem cell research is about to end if the speculations surrounding the headlines from the June 7 journals Nature and Stem Cell are indeed the major breakthrough they seem to be. The published findings reveal that Japanese researchers have produced embryo-like stem cells from the somatic cells of mice.

“Neither eggs nor embryos are necessary. I’ve never worked with either,” said the papers author Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in an interview with the London Times. At a conference on stem cell research at the University of Manchester, Yamanaka presented his findings this week.

The cells were made to have the same qualities as a stem cell taken from a very early-stage embryo. The pluripotency was achieved by introducing four proteins which “reprogram” the nuclear DNA in mouse skin cells.

In order to renew and replace tissues in the body, stem cells are used. Thus, healing injuries and curing diseases have become a focus of researchers who are trying to develop new medical applications by using stem cells. Success in experimental treatments of Parkinson’s disease and diabetes, as well as many other conditions has been accomplished with adult stem cells. These cells are now commonly used in some forms of cancer treatment.

Stem cells found in the body are limited in the different types of tissues they can produce. Many researchers support this assessment, especially those who focus on embryonic stem cells research. The pluripotency of embryonic stem cells is an attractive characteristic.

However, the “holy grail” of stem cell research, the equivalent of “transforming lead into gold” could accurately describe the Japanese team’s findings if they are indeed accurate. The discovery of a method of creating pluripotent stem cells exactly matched to the patient without killing an embryonic human being would be one of the most significant discoveries in stem cell research.

Numerous false alarms have transpired over the years with scientists claiming to have discovered a way to work with embryonic stem cells without actually destroying or harming the embryo itself. None of the potential breakthrough’s were a true departure from harming embryos but it seems that the Japanese research team has made this leap.

When asked if whether he thought the Japanese research was another false alarm, Dr. John Shea answered that the paper appeared to present a legitimate breakthrough. Shea said he was still being cautious, but that the research could lead to an ethical solution to the embryo and cloning debate.

Shea, who is a medical ethics consultant to Canada’s pro-life lobby, Campaign Life Coalition said that, “the Japanese team has produced pluripotent embryo-like stem cells similar to blastomeres, those cells found in the earliest stages of embryonic life, but have not created embryos.”