The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is looking for talented poets with an interest in stem cells to submit an original poem in honor of the second annual Stem Cell Awareness Day.
Authors of the best poems will each receive a framed stem cell image and could see their work published on the CIRM website and in the agency’s annual report.
Poems of up to 250 words related to stem cell science can be emailed to stemcellday@cirm.ca.gov before Sept. 14.
On August 19, 2009, a lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services which seeks to “enjoin and overturn” the controversial guidelines for public funding of embryonic stem cell research issued by the National Institutes of Health on July 7, 2009.
According to the plaintiffs, the NIH Guidelines released on July 7, 2009 "authorize public funding of research that depends upon and, indeed, requires the destruction of living human embryos." The complaint contends that such research violates the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which prohibited the use of federal monies to fund research in which embryos are destroyed or knowingly subjected to harm in 1995.
According to ChristianNewsWire, the suit is brought by a broad coalition of plaintiffs, including Dr. James L. Sherley, a former member of the MIT faculty, currently working as a senior scientist at the Boston Biomedical Research Institute; Dr. Theresa Deisher, the founder, managing member, and research and development director of AVM Biotechnology; Nightlight Christian Adoptions, a non-profit, licensed adoption agency dedicated to protecting and finding adoptive parents for human embryos conceived through in vitro fertilization; all individual human embryos whose lives are now at risk under NIH's guidelines; parents seeking to adopt human embryos; and the Christian Medical Association, a non-profit association of doctors dedicated to improving ethical standards of health care in the United States and abroad.
The Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending religious freedom and the sanctity of human life, is also serving as co-counsel on the case and providing financial support.
The Defendants are Kathleen Sebe-lius, in her official capacity as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, Dr. Francis S. Collins, in his official capacity as Director of the National Institutes of Health, and the NIH.
A copy of the complaint can be obtained by clicking here.
Stem-cell research may hold the key to cardiac regeneration by replacing many of the dead cardiomyocytes with functional cells and even prevent scar formation.
Most stem cell research targeted at the heart uses adult stem cells, which are injected directly into the heart muscle. There are less-invasive techniques being tried though, like injecting stem cells from the bone marrow into the skeletal muscles of limbs.
According to Dr. Douglas Losordo, a cardiologist at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, it is conceivable that this treatment could be widely used in a little over four years.
Here is a list of public and private companies developing stem cell therapies for the heart:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates which adult stem cell techniques are allowed to go into clinical trials and sets the requirements for more routine use.
"Whether the FDA will become more or less lenient in these respects is unclear," said Techung Lee, associate professor of biochemistry at the State University New York at Buffalo.
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This video originally aired April 1, 2008 on the Barbara Walters-hosted program: “Live to 150, Can you Do It? Secrets to Living Longer”
In a recent Newsweek article touting “embryonic stem cells are still regarded as the gold standard”, we learn more about Geron Corporation’s plans to conduct a spinal-cord-injury trial - the first trial ever for embryonic stem cells in the U.S.
To be held in California, the trial will recruit patients within one to two weeks of their injuries, before scar tissue has formed. Doctors will inject a derivative of stem cells, called progenitor cells, that manufacture myelin, the substance that coats the long, spindly projections on nerve cells, much the same way that insulation coats electrical wires.
Damage to cells that make and maintain the myelin sheath, as happens in spinal-cord injuries, prevents nerves from conveying messages from the brain. Although it's not clear yet whether the treatment is effective or safe, the restoration of even partial function would be a huge advance.
According to the article, Geron's CEO, Dr. Thomas Okarma, thinks that spinal injury is a logical place to begin. Because patients will be completely paralyzed from the waist down, any improvement will be the result of the therapy, not chance. And the spinal cord is an "immune-privileged site," meaning that the attack cells of the immune system cannot get in and destroy the embryo-derived cells. "If the therapy is safe and effective, the potential impact will extend way beyond spinal-cord injury," says Okarma. "It will mark the start of a new era in medical therapeutics."
Al Gore, now a partner in the venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has thrown his weight behind the research.
Geron’s success could give a bump to other stem cell companies working with embryonic stem cells, like Advanced Cell Technology (ACTC), which is scheduled to file an IND with the FDA to begin human clinical trials sometime “in the next 3 or 4 months.” (ADVANCED CELL TECHNOLOGY AND COLLABORATORS AT THE CASEY EYE INSTITUTE PRESENT PROMISING DATA SUPPORTING SAFETY AND EFFICACY OF STEM CELL THERAPY TO COMBAT RETINAL DISEASE)
Newsweek claims other companies aren't waiting for the results. The U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is pursuing two other embryonic-stem-cell-based therapies, which it hopes to have in clinical trials by 2011. In April the company partnered with University College London to pursue a therapy for macular degeneration, the principal cause of blindness in the elderly.
However, some doctors have criticized Geron’s plans as risky and clinically dubious because the entire rationale for the study is "based on a single experiment in eight rats." (Geron Stem Cell Trial Risky, Doctors Warn)
