Did Obama Open the Door to Human Cloning With His Stem Cell Order?

By Dan Gilgoff,Posted March 24, 2009

In lifting restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research this month, did President Obama leave the door open to human cloning? To hear Obama say it, the answer is unequivocally no. "We will ensure that our government

never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction," he said in a speech before signing the executive order that reversed George W. Bush's limits on embryonic stem cell research. "It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society."

In the days since, however, a slew of conservative Christian groups have charged Obama with misleading the public on human cloning. They accuse him of saying he's taking a zero-tolerance approach when he's not. That's because the president may allow federal funding for somatic cell nuclear transfer, a cloning process in which scientists produce embryos to provide stem cells for research, not for implantation.

via Did Obama Open the Door to Human Cloning With His Stem Cell Order? - US News and World Report.

Will Obama's Stem Cell Announcement Doom Promising Adult Stem Cell Research?

- Stem Cell Business Community Suggests Adult Stem Cell Advances Could Be Lost as Embryonic Researchers Compete for Funding

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., March 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Adult Stem Cell scientists and businesses are concerned that President Obama's executive order repealing restrictions on Embryonic Stem Cell research will have the unintended consequence of diverting attention and resources away from the promising Adult Stem Cell scientific advances.

STEMTech HealthSciences is a leading company in the field of Stem Cell Nutrition and its chief executive officer is speaking out to create awareness of Adult Stem Cell science's need for continued support and resources. Adult Stem Cells are naturally created by a person's own body while Embryonic Stem Cells are extracted from embryos.

"The amazing advances over the past few years in Adult Stem Cell science, including the Nobel Prize winning advances that led to the discovery that Adult Stem Cells travel to tissues and organs needing renewal and become cells of these organs and tissues, are at risk of being eclipsed because of the media and business furor over Embryonic Stem Cells" said STEMTech CEO Ray Carter.

According to Carter, Embryonic Stem Cell research is a multi-billion dollar industry with Wall Street, the media and now the U.S. government joining in to create visibility and mass funding. Meanwhile, the scientific progress made by companies such as STEMTech which owns the rights to the only patented product proven to enhance Adult Stem Cell release in a person's own body goes relatively unnoticed.

While not a mediagenic billion dollar player however, STEMTech has grown into 8 countries since 2006 with its Stem Cell Nutrition product line which supports healthy Adult Stem Cell physiology.

Christian Drapeau, author of The Stem Cell Theory of Renewal (March 2009, Sutton Hart www.suttonhart.com) and pioneer of the Stem Cell Nutrition field, explains the StemEnhance(R) value proposition that "a natural, mild long term increase in the body's level of circulating Adult Stem Cells delivers substantial wellness benefits".

According to Christian Drapeau, who serves as STEMTech's chief science officer, Adult Stem Cells have the greater potential for human wellness and he echoes Carter's concern that President Obama's removing restrictions Embryonic Stem Cell research could divert critical resources away from Adult Stem Cell research.

via Will Obama's Stem Cell Announcement Doom Promising Adult Stem Cell Research?.

"Second phase of trial will come to the U.S. (and Rochester) in the middle of 2010, if the FDA agrees to it"

Dear 1 to 2 million cardiac patients who die per year.  Good news, Phase 2 of the trial is coming in 2010 and phase 4 of the trial will be finished in about another 5 years...oh, right, you'll be dead by then.  Never mind.

In the meantime, Germany, Thailand, etc. have been successfully treating heart disease with adult stem cells for almost a decade.  - DG

3/5/2009 8:05:03 AM -By Jeff Kiger

Backed by Mayo Clinic research and investment, a Belgium biotechnology firm is testing a new treatment using stem cells to repair hearts,.

Cardio3 Biosciences recently launched a Phase II/III clinical study of C-Cure, its new cardiac disease treatment, in Belgium and Germany. While the length of the trial depends on getting patients enrolled, it has started with the first human already undergoing the treatment.

"It is a really big step," said Cardio3 CEO Dr. Christian Homsy from his Belgium office this week.

Under a collaborative research and licensing agreement with Mayo Clinic, Cardio3 has developed process to "differentiate" stem cells taken from a patient's own bone marrow to grow into new heart cells and repair diseased or malformed hearts.

C-Cure is based on research by Prof. Andre Terzic and Dr. Atta Behfar at Mayo Clinic. Terzic is one of the principal investigators for the clinical study.

"Second phase of trial will come to the U.S. (and Rochester) in the middle of 2010, if the FDA agrees to it," Homsy says.

via Postbulletin.com: Rochester, MN.

The brain´s reserve cells can be activated

Published on 22 February 2009, 23:38 Last Update: 8 hour(s) ago by Insciences

Tags: Biology Neuroscience Stem cells

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet have found a way of activating the neuronal reserves in the brains of mice by switching off the signal that inhibits the formation of  new nerve cells. The study is presented in the online edition of the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience.

Jonas Frisén Photo: Stefan Zimmerman

"So far, this is just basic research of no immediate practical significance, but the results are very exciting nonetheless," says Professor Jonas Frisén at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, who led the study.

New nerve cells are formed from stem cells in specific areas of the human brain. This process increases after a stroke, something that might explain the recovery that is often observed in patients, particularly in the first year following the onset of illness. In the present study, the scientists have demonstrated how a type of cell that does not give rise to new cells in the healthy brain is activated after a stroke in laboratory animals.

In addition to the stem cells that are normally active, there is therefore also a kind of reserve stock of cells the can be activated when demand increases. The team have identified the molecular mechanisms that control the activation of these cells, and shown that it is possible to increase the formation of new nerve cells in healthy mice by switching off the so-called Notch signalling pathway, which inhibits the creation of new nerve cells.

journal Nature Neuroscience.

Publication

Marie Carlén, Konstantinos Meletis, Christian Göritz, Vladimer Darsalia, Emma Evergren, Kenji Tanigaki, Mario Amendola, Fanie Barnabé-Heider, Maggie S Y Yeung, Luigi Naldini, Tasuku Honjo, Zaal Kokaia, Oleg Shupliakov, Robert M Cassidy, Olle Lindvall & Jonas Frisén

Forebrain ependymal cells are Notch-dependent and generate neuroblasts and astrocytes after stroke

Nature Neuroscience AOP, 22 February 2009, doi 10.1038/nn.2268

via insciences.org - The brain´s reserve cells can be activated.

Of stem cells, what would Gandhi say?
By Pankaj Mishra
Published: MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2005

LONDON: In 2001, President George W. Bush restricted U.S. federal financing for stem cell research. The decision, which was shaped at least partly by the Republican Party's evangelical Christian base, and which disappointed many American scientists and businessmen, provoked joy in India.

The weekly newsmagazine India Today, read mostly by the country's ambitious middle class, spoke of a "new pot of gold" for Indian science and businesses. "If Indians are smart," the magazine said, American qualms about stem cell research "can open an opportunity to march ahead."

Just four years later, this seems to have occurred. According to Ernst & Young's Global Biotechnology Report in 2004, Indian biotechnology companies are expected to grow tenfold in the next five years, creating more than a million jobs. With more than 10,000 highly trained and cheaply available scientists, the country is one of the leading biotechnology powers along with Korea, Singapore, China, Japan, Sweden, Britain and Israel.

A top Indian corporation, the Reliance Group, owns Reliance Life Sciences, which is trying to devise new treatments for diabetes and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, and create human skin, blood and replacement organs genetically matched to their intended recipients.

Some scientists have even more ambitious ideas. Encouraged by the cloning of a sheep by British scientists in 1996, they plan to do the same with endangered species of Indian lions and cheetahs.
excerpted from http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/21/news/india.php?page=1