stem cell

In a breakthrough clinical trial on humans, researchers used gene therapy to encourage the heart to repair itself after cardiac damage.

Mounting evidence has pointed towards the heart having a regenerative potential but its capacity for regeneration is insufficient to replace the massive loss of cardiomyocytes following ischaemic damage.

NEW YORK – The stem cell and regenerative medicine industry is facing a serious funding problem. Just as the first therapies are reaching commercialization, biotechs in phase 2 and 3 are struggling to raise the funds needed to finish their studies. Over 300 biotechs, pharmas, investors, and suppliers will be meeting in Boston on September 20-21 at the Stem Cells USA and Regenerative Medicine Congress 2012.

The Stem Cells USA & Regenerative Medicine Congress is the region's largest commercial stem cells conference.

Most stem cell companies face two options - go bankrupt or find a partner with deep pockets. Despite there being hundreds of companies with promising technologies, most of them never pass Phase II trials due to lack of funding.

Mouse hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation is a well-established in vivo model system to study various factors affecting normal and pathologic blood cell development. Based on the currently accepted classification primitive HSCs are multipotent adult stem cells that can be divided developmentally into two different stages: long-term HSCs and short-term HSCs (1). However, bone marrow contains largely heterogeneous and functionally distinct subpopulations of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells separated by their self-renewal ability, clone size, differentiation capacity, migration patterns, and primitiveness (2). Due to this variability the reproducible isolation of HSCs representing biologically homogenous population is a very difficult task. Therefore, the characterization of HSCs is based on the in vitro functional assays, such as methylcellulose colony forming assay, or in vivo studies like competitive repopulation unit assay and the ability to form hematopoietic chimera after transplantation.