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Researchers in the Center for Regenerative Medicine are studying the use of intraspinal deliver of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to the cerebral spinal fluid of ...

You've heard about stem cells in the news, and perhaps you've wondered if they might help you or a loved one with a serious disease. ...

From Mayo Clinic’s HLHS News and Views Blog. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal discusses the therapeutic potential of umbilical cord blood ...

Cardio3 BioSciences, an international Mayo Clinic collaborator, has received FDA approval for a phase III pivotal clinical trial of its stem cell therapy. The trial will ...

From Mayo Clinic's Discovery's Edge magazine. Nearly everyone knows someone with diabetes — it's hard not to. In the United States, 1 in 3 adults and 1 in 6 children have high blood sugar, according to the National Institutes of Health. After you eat, glucose is absorbed into your bloodstream and carried throughout your body. Insulin — a hormone made by beta cells in your pancreas — then signals your cells to take up glucose, helping your body turn the food into energy. With diabetes, this process can go wrong in two basic ways: Type 1 diabetes results from the body's failure to produce insulin; type 2 diabetes occurs when there's plenty of insulin but the cells lose their ability to perceive its signal. In both cases, cells starve. Living well with diabetes requires a lifelong commitment to monitoring blood sugar, eating properly, exercising regularly and maintaining a healthy weight. People with type 1 diabetes must also rely on insulin replacement therapy, usually through insulin injections. People with type 2 diabetes might need oral medication. Still, every year, diabetes kills about 70,000 people in the United States and is a contributing cause in another 160,000 deaths each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yasuhiro Ikeda, D.V.M., Ph.D., a molecular biologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., wants to change that. After beginning his career as a veterinary feline specialist, Dr. Ikeda had to change course when he developed an allergy to his four-legged patients that made it impossible to be in a room with them. He turned his attention toward research and discovered that his interest in molecular virology had human as well as feline applications. The story of one Mayo Clinic patient with diabetes turned Dr. Ikeda's attention back toward healing. "He had to have his legs amputated, then went blind, then developed kidney disease," Dr. Ikeda recalls. "He couldn't walk, couldn't see, and one day he decided not to come in. He refused treatment and died a few days later. That story stays in my mind. That's why I'm here now, because this new technology may really change things." And that's why Dr. Ikeda and his research team are screening hundreds of thousands of compounds to discover potential drugs to treat type 2 diabetes — drugs that don't lead to crashing blood sugar levels. Dr. Ikeda — known as Ike to friends and colleagues — is also working toward developing a cure for type 1 diabetes. He plans to use gene therapy to prevent pancreatic beta cell loss in patients newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. "We are almost there," he says.

Abba Zubair, M.D., Ph.D, believes that cells grown in the International Space Station (ISS) could help patients recover from a stroke, and that it may even be possible to generate human tissues and organs in space. Dr. Zubair says, “On Earth, we face many challenges in trying to grow enough stem cells to treat patients. It takes a month to generate enough cells for a few patients. A clinical-grade laboratory in space could provide the answer we all have been seeking for regenerative medicine.” Now, the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), a nonprofit organization that promotes research aboard the ISS, has awarded Dr. Zubair a $300,000 grant to send human stem cells into space to see if they grow more rapidly than stem cells grown on Earth. Dr. Zubair, medical and scientific director of the cell therapy laboratory at Mayo Clinic in Florida, says the experiment will be the first one Mayo Clinic has conducted in space and the first to use these human stem cells, which are found in bone marrow. To learn more, watch the video below. http://youtu.be/8ZrqdKORo5M

Mayo Clinic researchers and colleagues in Belgium have developed a specialized catheter for transplanting stem cells into the beating heart. This new catheter is being used in the European CHART-1 clinical trials, now underway. This is the first Phase III trial to regenerate hearts of patients who have suffered heart attack damage. The novel device includes a curved needle and graded openings along the needle shaft, allowing for increased distribution of cells. The result is maximized retention of stem cells to repair the heart. The findings appear in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions. Researchers from the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine in Rochester and Cardio3 Biosciences in Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium, collaborated to develop the device, beginning with computer modeling in Belgium. Once refined, the computer-based models were tested in North America for safety and retention efficiency. To learn more, watch the video below. Read the full news release here. http://youtu.be/YsJsorTdGFk

Imagine lying in a hospital room after a heart attack. The doctor comes in with a small device that looks like a tiny apple corer ...