New synthetic corneal implants to restore eyesight in blind patients

May 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 21 (ANI): For patients, who have lost their sight in an accident or illness, transplantation of a plastic corneal implant could restore their ability to see.

Dr. Joachim Storsberg of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP in Potsdam-Golm developed material and production process for a corneal prosthesis made of plastic.

These can help patients who are unable to tolerate donor corneas due to the special circumstances of their disease, or whose donor corneas were likewise destroyed.

The miniscale artificial cornea has to meet almost contradictory specifications: On the one hand, the material should grow firmly together with the cells of the surrounding tissue; on the other hand, no cells should settle in the optical region of the artificial cornea – i.e., the middle – since this would again severely impair the ability to see.

In addition, the outer side of the implant must be able to moisten with tear fluids, otherwise the implant will cloud up on the anterior side. This would consequently require the patient to get a new prosthesis after a relatively brief period of time.

The outer side of the implant must be able to moisten with tear fluid, so that the eyelid can slide across it without friction.

Storsberg found the solution with a hydrophobic polymer material. This material has been in use for a long time in ophthalmology, such as for intraocular lenses.

To meet the various characteristics required, complex development steps were necessary.

The material was thoroughly modified on a polymer-chemical basis, and subsequently re-tested for public approval.

In order to achieve the desired characteristics, the edge of the implant was first coated with various, special polymers.

Then, a special protein was added that contains the specific sequence of a growth factor.

The surrounding natural cells detect this growth factor, are stimulated to propagate and populate the surface of the corneal margin.

Thus, the cells of the surrounding tissue grow with the implant, and the artificial cornea attains stability.

The eye prosthesis evolved jointly with physicians and manufacturers in the EU project, “Artificial Cornea”.

The interdisciplinary research team needed three years to develop the artificial cornea.

Firstly, they sent the chemical-biomimetic coated implant to Dr. Karin Kobuch of the Poliklinik fur Augenheilkunde at the Regensburg University Medical Center and to the medical center at the Technical University of Munich.

The physician examined the artificial corneas in dissected pigs eyes and specialized cell cultures.

Eventually, researchers at University Center for Ophthalmology in Halle (Saale) tested the more complex models in rabbits.

There, the design was further refined— the optics were made smaller, and the implant haptic enlarged in order to maintain a more stable construction.

Miro GmbH manufactured the implant, robin GmbH handled the distribution and sales and supported the specially adapted implantation centers in Europe.

By 2009, a prosthesis was already successfully in use; further implantations are anticipated during the first six months of 2010. (ANI)

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Sharad Pawar says end of season rains will help winter crops

September 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

New Delhi, Sep 18 (ANI): Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has said that late end-season rains will help India’s winter crops.

Talking to reporters here on Thursday, Pawar said, “It’s true that because paddy area transplantation has been dropped, but the late rains are very helpful particularly for Punjab, Haryana, Orissa and Chhattisgarh.”

“There would not be any pressure on food grains supply, as the stock position was good,” Pawar added.

Meteorological Department has said that since June 1, monsoon rains have been 20 percent below normal and heavy showers in the past week have reduced the total seasonal deficit by three percentage points.

Met department said the country can expect heavy rains for at least another week, but the withdrawal of the monsoon, which usually begins to wind down in early September, would be delayed.

A surge in food prices unexpectedly pushed the annual change in India’s wholesale price index into positive for the first time since late May, putting pressure on the central bank to bring forward an exit from its easy monetary policy.

The annualised wholesale price index rose by an unexpected 0.12 percent in the year to September 5, compared with the previous week’s 0.12 percent fall and analysts’ forecast of a 0.08 percent decline.

The food articles sub-index rose an annual 15.4 percent, up from the previous week’s 14.8 percent rise, as a dry spell hit nearly half of India’s districts, hurting summer crops and prompting the government to take steps to raise supplies. (ANI)

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Stem cell transplantation may correct rare genetic disorder in kids

September 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Sep 18 (ANI): Scripps Research Institute scientists have offered new hope for parents whose children suffer from the rare genetic disorder ‘cystinosis’ by showing through an experiment on mice that stem cell transplantation can successfully correct the defect.

“After meeting the children who suffer from this disease, like an 18-year-old who has already had three kidney transplants, and the families who are desperately searching for help, our team is committed to moving toward a cure for cystinosis, a lysosomal storage disorder. This study is an important step toward that goal,” said principal investigator Stephanie Cherqui.

In the study, the researchers used bone marrow stem cell transplantation to address symptoms of cystinosis in a mouse model.

The procedure virtually halted the cystine accumulation responsible for the disease, and the cascade of cell death that follows.

Cystine is a by-product of the break down of cellular components the body no longer needs in the cell’s “housekeeping” organelles, called lysosomes.

Normally, cystine is shunted out of cells, but in cystinosis a gene defect of the lysosomal cystine transporter causes it to build up, forming crystals that are especially damaging to the kidneys and eyes.

Cystinosis is a rare but devastating disease affecting children as young as six months, who begin to suffer renal dysfunction, which grows progressively worse with time. Other symptoms include diabetes, muscular disease, neurological dysfunction, and retinopathy.

The only available drug to treat cystinosis, cysteamine, while slowing the progression of kidney degradation, does not prevent it, and end-stage kidney failure is inevitable.

In the new study, the researchers found that transplanted bone marrow stem cells carrying the normal lysosomal cystine transporter gene abundantly engrafted into every tissue of the experimental mice.

This led to an average drop in cystine levels of about 80 percent in every organ.

Not only it prevented kidney dysfunction, there was less deposition of cystine crystals in the cornea, less bone demineralization, and an improvement in motor function.

“The results really surprised and encouraged us. Because the defect is present in every cell of the body, we did not expect a bone marrow stem cell transplant to be so widespread and effective,” says Cherqui.

Cherqui said that adult bone marrow stem cell therapy is particularly well suited as a potential treatment for cystinosis because these cells target all types of tissues.

In addition, stem cells reside in the bone marrow for the duration of a patient’s life, becoming active as needed, a particular benefit for a progressive disease like cystinosis.

The study has been published in the journal Blood. (ANI)

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Forest authorities in Uttarakhand transplant trees

September 1, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Udham Singh Nagar (Uttarakhand), Aug 31 (ANI): Forest authorities here are transplanting trees, which were supposed to be cut in a road-broadening project.

Such an effort has been undertaken in countries like China and Singapore to save forests.

Inspired by their success ratio, forest authorities decided to adopt this in Udham Singh Nagar.

“We are trying to transplant 20 to 30 years old big trees planted on the roadsides with their roots.

Earlier, such efforts have been done in China and Singapore. But in Uttarakhand, it’s for the first time that such an effort is taking place on such a large scale,” said Parag Madhuker, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), tarai central forest division, Haldwani.

Forest officials feel that such an effort will play a pivotal role in forest conservation in the near future.

“According to the statistics, in the past around 60-70 per cent success has been achieved in tree transplantation. Since all trees were supposed to be cut, we undertook such an effort. I feel that in future, this effort will be important for forest conservation,” said Madhuker.

Trees are uprooted during transplantation for shifting them to the desired locations. They are treated with fungicide to safeguard them from infection.

Also Indole Butyric Acid (IBC) is used to promote the formation of roots at their new location. By Vipul Goel (ANI)

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Common drug can function as ‘off switch’ for Parkinson therapy

August 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 29 (ANI): A common antibiotic can act as an “off switch” for a gene therapy that is being developed for Parkinson’s disease, according to a study on rats conducted by University of Florida researchers.

The findings of the study have explained how new, therapeutic genes that have been irrevocably delivered to the human brain to treat Parkinson’s can be controlled if the genes unexpectedly start causing problems.

Meanwhile, in a review of Parkinson treatments, the researchers have said that earlier experiments using growth factors – naturally occurring substances that cause cells to grow and divide – to rescue dying brain cells may have failed because they occurred too late in the course of the disease.

Taken together, the findings have indicated that gene therapy to enable the brain to retain its ability to produce dopamine- a neurotransmitter that falls in critically short supply in Parkinson’s patients- could be safely attempted during earlier stages of the disease with an added likelihood of success.

“We have worked every day for 10 years to design a construct to the gene delivery vector that enhances the safety profile of gene transfer for Parkinson’s disease,” said Ronald Mandel, a professor of neuroscience at UF.

He added: “With that added measure of safety, we believe we can intervene with gene transfer in patients at earlier stages of the disease. We strongly believe that trials to save dopamine-producing connections in patients with Parkinson’s disease have failed because the therapy went into patients who were in the late stages of the disease and who had too few remaining dopamine-producing connections.”

Often patients are given prescriptions for levodopa (L-dopa), which is converted into dopamine by enzymes in the brain. But such treatment is not effective over time, and does nothing to slow the disease’s progression.

In the meantime, trials in the US to treat Parkinson’s involving direct infusion of growth factors or the transplantation of genes that produce growth factors have had limited success, with some side effects.

Mandel’s research group has concentrated on using an adeno-associated virus to engineer brain cells in animal models with genes that can protect dopamine-producing cells, which then do the vital work of producing glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF).

The naturally occurring protein is important for the survival of dopamine-producing neurons during brain development, and a survival factor when given to adults.

For the current study, the researchers engineered the virus with two genes that must act in concert to produce the protein.

But this precise interaction can be inhibited with dietary doxycycline, an antibiotic that is often prescribed in low doses to treat bacterial growth related to acne.

Depending on the amount of the antibiotic, protein production can be reduced or stopped, which would for the first time give medical investigators the ability to regulate gene therapy after the treatment was delivered.

“With this technique, you could adjust the therapy in the patient. That would be extremely helpful because no one is really certain yet what dosage is required for a protective effect in humans. The process is also much more sensitive than we had imagined it would be. GDNF production can be shut down completely with a dose of doxycycline that is much smaller than what is commonly prescribed,” said Fredric P. Manfredsson, a postdoctoral associate in UF’s department of neuroscience.

The researchers used a number of methods to gauge GDNF production, but one was uncommon and involved the novel observation of the rats’ weight.

The scientists found that they could control the rate of weight gain in the rats with dietary doxycycline, which essentially verified they were controlling the GDNF therapy.

The study has been published in the journal Molecular Therapy. (ANI)

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Microscopic ‘beads’ may revolutionise organ transplantation

July 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, July 7 (ANI): If Medical College of Georgia researchers are to be believed, organ transplantation in future may include microscopic beads that create “designer” immune cells so that patients may tolerate their new organ.

Dr. Anatolij Horuzsko, reproductive immunologist at the MCG Center for Molecular Chaperone/Radiobiology and Cancer Virology, has already used this approach successfully in mice with skin grafts.

“It’s absolutely natural,” says the researcher.

The degradable microparticles deliver the most powerful known form of HLA-G, a natural suppressor of the immune response, straight to dendritic cells, which typically show the immune system what to attack.

The microparticles are given right after a transplant, just as dendritic cells are giving the immune system a heads up to get busy attacking the new organ.

Dr. Horuzsko says that microparticle therapy likely would be needed for just a few weeks, until the dendritic cells have learned instead to ignore it.

“It’s like a calming effect and once tolerance is established, we don’t need it any more,” he says.

His team compared the success of HLA-G microparticles with the dendritic cell marker to those without a marker, those with were much more efficient at getting where needed and acting.

He says that those without direction likely were consumed by garbage eaters called macrophages.

“We want to create in kidney transplant patients, the same tolerance to the new kidney,” says Dr. Horuzsko, who reckons that HLA-G microparticles could be doing just that within five years.

He presented the patented process along with his other latest HLA-G findings during an opening lecture of the 5th International Conference on HLA-G in Paris, July 6-8.

Dr. Horuzsko believes that marked microparticles also have treatment potential in diseases where the immune system attacks normal tissue, such as arthritis, multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease.

He is currently working in collaboration with Dr. Laura Mulloy, chief of the Section of Nephrology, Hypertension and Transplantation Medicine in the MCG School of Medicine, to find out whether higher natural levels of HLA-G already are giving some transplant patients an edge, by comparing HLA-G expression in those who keep and reject their transplanted kidneys. (ANI)

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Human term placenta found to be a reservoir of hematopoietic cells

June 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, June 25 (ANI): Scientists at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, Oakland, California, have discovered a new method to obtain large numbers of hematopoietic stem cell from human term placenta.

The results of the study give a detailed account on quantification, characterization, engraftment capacity, and most importantly, practical way to obtain hematopoietic stem cells from placenta in numbers that are several-fold higher than could be obtained from cord blood.

The investigating team led by Dr. Vladimir Serikov, performed studies in human term placentas, human cord blood, and immunodeficient mice.

Serikov said, that more than a year ago, their team had for the first time reported that the human term placenta is a hematopoietic organ.

He said that in this study they have shown that human placentas could provide abundant amounts of CD34+ CD133+ colony-forming cells, as well as other primitive hematopoietic progenitors, suitable for transplantation in humans.

The researchers claimed that their results indicate for the first time that human term placenta is a high capacity source of live and functional hematopoietic stem cells.

By using placental circulation and stem cell receptor blockade an abundant amounts of hematopoietic stem cell could be easily obtained in sterile conditions by non-destructive methods.

The study is published in the July 2009 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine. (ANI)

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‘DNA Sudoku’ to revolutionise genome sequencing, medical genetics

June 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, June 25 (ANI): Sudoku, the popular mathematics puzzle that has taken people by storm, is now set to revolutionize the world of genome sequencing and the field of medical genetics, according to a new study.

Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have combined 2,000-year-old Chinese math theorem with concepts from cryptologyto develop what they dubbed as the “DNA Sudoku”, because of its similarity to the logic and combinatorial number-placement rules used in the popular game.

The strategy allows tens of thousands of DNA samples to be combined, and their sequences – the order in which the letters of the DNA alphabet (A, T, G, and C) line up in the genome – to be determined all at once.

The accomplishment is quiet contrary to past approaches that allowed only a single DNA sample to be sequenced at a time.

It also has an upper hand on current approaches that, at best, can combine hundreds of samples for sequencing.

“In theory, it is possible to use the Sudoku method to sequence more than a hundred thousand DNA samples,” said CSHL Professor Gregory Hannon, leader of the team that invented the “Sudoku” approach.

With such efficiency, the approach promises to reduce costs dramatically.

The new method has tremendous potential for clinical applications. It can be used, for example to analyse specific regions of the genomes of a large population and identify individuals who carry mutations that cause genetic diseases – a process known as genotyping.

The key to the team’s innovation is the pooling strategy, which is based on the 2,000-year-old Chinese remainder theorem.

The method is currently best suited for genotype analyses that require only short segments of an individual’s genome to be sequenced to find out if the individual is carrying a certain variant of a gene or a rare mutation.

However, with the improvement in sequencing technologies and researchers gaining the ability to generate sequences for longer segments of the genome, Hannon envisions wider clinical applications for their method such as HLA typing, already an important diagnostic tool for autoimmune diseases, cancer, and for predicting the risk of organ transplantation.

The report will be published as the cover story in the July 1 issue of the journal Genome Research.(ANI)

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Gene therapy ‘helps minimize risk linked to stem cell transplantation’

May 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 22 (ANI): Researchers from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Centre suggest that genetically modifying stem cells prior to transplantation can help minimize the risk associated with the therapy.

Stem cells intended to treat or cure a disease can end up wreaking havoc simply because they are no longer under the control of the clinician.

“Stem cell therapy offers enormous potential to treat and even cure serious diseases. But wayward stem cells can turn into a runaway train without a conductor,” said senior author Dr. Ronald G. Crystal, chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

“This is an issue that can be dealt with and we have the technology to do that in the form of gene therapy,” he added.

Researchers said that one of the biggest potential problems with stem cell therapy is the development of tumors.

Also stem cells directed to become beating heart cells might mistakenly end up in the brain. Or insulin-producing beta cells which can’t stop means the body can no longer regulate insulin levels.

The best way to avoid the problems is genetic modification of the stem cells prior to actually transplanting them, Dr. Crystal said.

“Almost all therapeutics we use have a half life. They only last a certain amount of time,” he said.

“Stem cells are the opposite. Once the future stem cell therapist does the therapy, stem cells have the innate potential to produce more cells,” he added.

The study appears in the journal Cell Stem Cell. (ANI)

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Embryo’s heartbeat triggers blood stem cell formation

May 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 14 (ANI): In a breakthrough study, researchers have found that heartbeat and blood circulation play key role in the formation of blood cells in embryos.

The finding might provide an answer to why embryonic heart begins beating so early even before the tissues actually need to be infused with blood.

Researchers hope that clues about how blood forms could provide new strategies for treating blood diseases such as leukemia, immune deficiency and sickle cell anaemia.

During the study, Dr Leonard Zon, of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Children’s and Director of its Stem Cell research program used zebrafish, whose transparent embryos allow direct observation of embryonic development.

They found that compounds that modulate blood flow had a potent impact on the expression of a master regulator of blood formation, known as Runx1.

The study, appearing in journal Cell, showed that nitric oxide, whose production is increased in the presence of blood flow, is the key biochemical regulator.

Increasing nitric oxide production restored blood stem cell production in the mutant fish embryos, while inhibiting nitric oxide production led to reduced stem cell number.

“Nitric oxide appears to be a critical signal to start the process of blood stem cell production,” said Zon.

“This finding connects the change in blood flow with the production of new blood cells,” he added.

Another study published in Nature, showed that blood flow also triggers blood-forming or hematopoietic stem cell production in mouse embryos.

The researchers showed that shear stress – the frictional force of fluid flow on the surface of cells lining the embryonic aorta – increases the expression of master regulators of blood formation, including Runx1, and of genetic markers found in blood stem cells.

It also increased formation of colonies of progenitor cells that give rise to specific lineages of blood cells.

This showed that biomechanical forces promote blood formation.

“In learning how the heartbeat stimulates blood formation in embryos, we’ve taken a leap forward in understanding how to direct blood formation from embryonic stem cells in the petri dish,” said lead researcher Dr George Q.

Daley, director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Children’s Hospital Boston. (ANI)

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Novel genetic risk factors for kidney disease identified

May 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, May 11 (ANI): Scientists have found three genes with common mutations that are associated with altered kidney disease risk.

One of the discovered genes, the UMOD gene, produces Tamm-Horsfall protein, the most common protein in the urine of healthy individuals, which was recently found to be linked with chronic kidney disease risk.

Chronic kidney disease is characterized by reduced kidney function or kidney damage. Its progression may lead to kidney failure, and the need for dialysis or transplantation.

It also increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, mortality and medication side effects.

For the study, the researchers conducted genome-wide association studies of more than 20,000 people enrolled in four large population-based studies of cardiovascular disease risk factors, and even replicated their findings in another 20,000 participants.

Out of more than 2,500,000 genetic variants that were evaluated for each study participant, only three genes, UMOD, SHROOM3, and STC1 were found to be novel risk genes for reduced kidney function and chronic kidney disease.

“Previous research showed that rare mutations in the UMOD gene cause hereditary forms of severe kidney disease. Our research indicates that a common genetic variant with a frequency of 18 percent in populations of European ancestry is associated with about 25 percent lower risk of chronic kidney disease,” Nature magazine quoted Dr. Anna Kottgen, a researcher at Johns Hopkins and lead author of the study, as saying.

“We have known for a long time that a higher level of proteins, such as albumin, which aren’t usually present in urine, is a risk factor for kidney disease and its progression. The UMOD finding suggests that Tamm-Horsfall protein, which is thought to be a normal part of the urine, deserves attention since its genetic variation relates to risk,” said Dr. Josef Coresh, professor at Johns Hopkins.

He added: “For all three genes the findings are novel and suggest brand new areas for investigation including the need for developing methods to measure levels in urine or blood.”

The findings have been published in the journal Nature Genetics. (ANI)

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New way to reduce tumour-risk factor in stem cell therapy unveiled

May 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 7 (ANI): Paving the way for advancement in the field of stem cell therapy, scientists have discovered a method to potentially eliminate the tumour-risk factor in utilizing human embryonic stem cells.

Human embryonic stem cells are theoretically capable of differentiation to all cells of the mature human body, and are hence defined as “pluripotent”.

The above capability, along with the ability to remain undifferentiated indefinitely in culture, make regenerative medicine using human embryonic stem cells a potential tool for the treatment of various diseases, including diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and heart failure.

However, the biggest hurdle in using stem cells is their tendency to grow into a specific kind of tumour, called teratoma, when they are implanted in laboratory experiments into mice.

And scientists have thought that the tumorigenic feature will be manifested upon transplantation to human patients as well.

Thus the development of tumours from embryonic stem cells is especially puzzling, keeping in mind that these cells start out as completely normal cells.

So, researchers at the Stem Cell Unit in the Department of Genetics at the Silberman Institute of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University analysed the genetic basis of tumour formation from human embryonic stem cells, and identified a key gene that is involved in this unique tumorigenicity.

The gene called survivin is expressed in most cancers and in early stage embryos, but it is almost completely absent from mature normal tissues.

The gene is especially highly expressed in undifferentiated human embryonic stem cells and in their derived tumours.

The researchers could neutralise the activity of survivin in the undifferentiated cells as well as in the tumours, and thus managed to initiate programmed cell death (apoptosis) in those cells.

The inhibition of this gene just before or after transplantation of the cells could minimize the chances of tumour formation.

But the researchers have warned that a combination of strategies may be needed to address the major safety concerns regarding tumour formation by human embryonic stem cells. (ANI)

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Has the cure for HIV been discovered?

May 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

p
London, Apr 27 (ANI): Taking a major leap in AIDS research, scientists have claimed that they have found a cure for the HIV virus by using a long established cancer treatment to help destroy the killer disease-bone marrow transplants./pp
Doctors have successfully treated one patient using the method and are confident the process will work for other sufferers./pp
In their opinion, using of bone marrow transplants to cure HIV could become common in just five years./pp
The procedure involves using bone marrow stem cells already used to help beat blood cancers like leukaemia and lymphoma./pp
The man who was cured of HIV is 43 years old and had carried the virus for many years. He was also suffering from leukaemia./pp
He was treated after doctors exchanged his bone marrow with that of a donor with a rare natural resistance to HIV./pp
And since three years of treatment, he has no detectable signs of the disease in his body./pp
I can see the day when it might be possible to treat many HIV patients with a bone marrow transplant from people who have this natural resistance to the virus, The Daily Express quoted Professor Eckhard Thiel of the Charite University Hospital in Berlin, who led the research, as saying./pp
He added: We are convinced this treatment works. The patient we treated three years ago is perfectly healthy and we are sure the HIV virus has gone and will not come back. But we will want to carry out trials on other patients./pp
Our patient is doing very well and is completely clear of the virus and living a normal life./pp
At present treatment will be limited as only three per cent of the world’s population are immune from HIV./pp
But experts believe that they could take the bone marrow from a few donors and grow an inexhaustible supply of stem cells in the laboratory, thus treating many thousands of sufferers./pp
Details of the advance were revealed at the annual meeting of the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation in Gothenburg, Sweden, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. (ANI)/p

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Medical experts sceptical of China’s organ transplantation practices

April 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 23 (ANI): A majority of doctors have expressed concerns over the organ transplantation practices in China.

According to a report, over 95 percent of organ donors in China are prisoners.

Globalization of medical and surgical technology has increased the capacity for countries worldwide to perform organ transplantation.

However, geographic variation in the availability of organs for transplantation and a parallel discrepancy in financial resources for healthcare have increasingly led desperate patients to transplant tourism.

The practice of transplant tourism has been condemned by numerous national and international healthcare organizations, who have cited serious concerns about clandestine international brokers, surreptitious payment, coercion of organ donors (and/ or donor families).

Moreover, substandard medical and surgical practices may lead to lower success rates and higher risk for transmission of infectious disease.

The majority of doctors surveyed said that they would provide post-transplantation care for patients who underwent liver transplantation at another domestic centre, in a foreign country or in China. However, respondents who suspected unethical procurement practices in China were more reluctant to do so.

They have also raised concerns over the unethical use of organs. International ethical guidelines exist to ensure that the donation of organs is voluntary, both in life and after death.

But not all countries adhere to these ethical guidelines. When travelling from one country to another country for organ transplant surgery, patients risk using an organ obtained in an unsafe or unethical manner.

In 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported the transplantation of 66,000 kidneys, 21,000 livers and 6,000 hearts. Approximately 10 percent of these procedures occurred via transplant tourism.

The leading destination countries for transplant tourism include China, India, the Philippines and Pakistan.

Transplant tourism to China has been isolated as particularly controversial. Organ procurement from executed prisoners in China has been reported by the U.S. Department of State, non-governmental investigative reports and in medical literature.

“Physicians caring for patients in need of organ transplantation must balance the duty to the individual patient vs. the duty to society,” said Dr. Scott Biggins of the University of California San Francisco, which conducted a survey on healthcare professionals.

“We aim to raise awareness of the need for adherence to international accepted ethical standards for procurement of organs and regulation of transplant tourism by international regulatory and credentialing bodies,” he added.

The report appears in Clinical transplantation. (ANI)

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Medical experts sceptical of China’s organ transplantation practices

April 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 23 (ANI): A majority of doctors have expressed concerns over the organ transplantation practices in China.

According to a report, over 95 percent of organ donors in China are prisoners.

Globalization of medical and surgical technology has increased the capacity for countries worldwide to perform organ transplantation.

However, geographic variation in the availability of organs for transplantation and a parallel discrepancy in financial resources for healthcare have increasingly led desperate patients to transplant tourism.

The practice of transplant tourism has been condemned by numerous national and international healthcare organizations, who have cited serious concerns about clandestine international brokers, surreptitious payment, coercion of organ donors (and/ or donor families).

Moreover, substandard medical and surgical practices may lead to lower success rates and higher risk for transmission of infectious disease.

The majority of doctors surveyed said that they would provide post-transplantation care for patients who underwent liver transplantation at another domestic centre, in a foreign country or in China. However, respondents who suspected unethical procurement practices in China were more reluctant to do so.

They have also raised concerns over the unethical use of organs. International ethical guidelines exist to ensure that the donation of organs is voluntary, both in life and after death.

But not all countries adhere to these ethical guidelines. When travelling from one country to another country for organ transplant surgery, patients risk using an organ obtained in an unsafe or unethical manner.

In 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported the transplantation of 66,000 kidneys, 21,000 livers and 6,000 hearts. Approximately 10 percent of these procedures occurred via transplant tourism.

The leading destination countries for transplant tourism include China, India, the Philippines and Pakistan.

Transplant tourism to China has been isolated as particularly controversial. Organ procurement from executed prisoners in China has been reported by the U.S. Department of State, non-governmental investigative reports and in medical literature.

“Physicians caring for patients in need of organ transplantation must balance the duty to the individual patient vs. the duty to society,” said Dr. Scott Biggins of the University of California San Francisco, which conducted a survey on healthcare professionals.

“We aim to raise awareness of the need for adherence to international accepted ethical standards for procurement of organs and regulation of transplant tourism by international regulatory and credentialing bodies,” he added.

The report appears in Clinical transplantation. (ANI)

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Blood cells can be reprogrammed to act as embryonic stem cells

April 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 21 (ANI): Embryonic stem cells have long been coveted for their potential to treat a multitude of diseases. Now, researchers have successfully reprogrammed cells found in circulating blood into cells that are molecularly and functionally indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells.

The new study may provide a readily accessible source of stem cells and an alternative to harvesting embryonic stem cells.

“Our findings provide the first proof that cells from human blood can morph into stem cells,” said senior study author Dr George Q. Daley, an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Children’s Hospital, Boston.

“Making pluripotent stem cells from blood, which is one of the easiest tissues to obtain, provides an easy strategy for generating patient-specific stem cells that are valuable research tools and may one day be used to treat a number of diseases,” he added.

To produce the new stem cells called pluripotent (iPS), the researchers collected the blood from a 26-year-old male donor.

From the blood sample, they isolated CD34+ cells, a type of stem cell that produces only blood cells, and cultured them in growth factors for six days to increase their number.

During the culture, the scientists infected the CD34+ cells with viruses carrying reprogramming factors, genes normally expressed in embryonic stem cells that can reset the blood cells to an embryonic state.

Colonies of cells exhibiting physical characteristics similar to embryonic stem (ES) cells appeared about two weeks after the procedure.

In further studies, the iPS cells readily developed into clusters of cells called embryoid bodies from which cells of virtually any type can develop.

“Not only has this work identified a new programmable cell type, but the cells are easy to obtain and analyze in many research laboratories and bone marrow transplantation centers around the world,” said Dr Grover C. Bagby, Professor of Medicine and Molecular and Medical Genetics at Oregon Health and Science University.

The study appears online in journal Blood. (ANI)

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Face Transplant Patient Well on his Way to Recovery

April 16, 2009 By Leave a Comment

On Thursday, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston witnessed the second face transplant operation performed in the United States and the seventh in the world.

The surgeon who led this surgery said that he and his team are “cautiously optimistic” over the recovery of the patient.

“So far he is doing very, very well,” said Dr. Bohdan Pomahac.

At a press conference, on Friday, Dr. Pomahac revealed that the patient had not undergone immunosuppressant therapy before the operation became necessary; a departure from the hospital’s previously stated policy on facial transplantation. But the doctors and ethicists are of opinion that the move was justified in this case was made in order to liberalize the rule so that more patients, in need, could be helped.

“We felt it was a natural progression of the program to extend [the operation] to the patient who is not on immunosuppressants,” said Pomahac.

Dr. Joseph McCarthy, director of the Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, said that the side effects of immunosuppression may be an even more a cause of concern than the surgery itself.

“You are really committing the patient to a lifetime of treatment to prevent rejection,” he said.

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Canada surgeons stop baby heart transplant; donor breathed on own

April 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

New York/Toronto – The parents of a two-month-old baby wanted to donate the heart of their severely brain-damaged daughter for another baby, but physicians in Toronto cancelled the transplant at the last minute.

The reason was the strength of Baby Kaylee’s heart and lungs. The baby continued to breathe without the respirator, the Toronto Star reported on Wednesday.

“We assess the situation on a moment-by-moment, day-by-day basis,” chief surgeon James Wright told reporters outside the Hospital for Sick Children. “But given that she’s breathed on her own overnight, it doesn’t appear as if she’ll be a candidate for transplantation.”

A one-month-old baby had been prepared to receive the heart on Wednesday. Physicians discovered how strong Kaylee was when they disconnected her from the respirator on Tuesday evening in preparation for the operation.

Kaylee was born with Joubert Syndrome, a malformation of the brain and brain stem that can prevent her from breathing, the Star reported. Doctors said there is no hope for recovery from the malformation, but the longer she stays alive the more her heart could be damaged and become unsuitable as a donated organ. (dpa)

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Key gene that protects against leukaemia identified

April 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 9 (ANI): Paving the way for a targeted treatment for leukaemia and other blood cancers, scientists have found a gene called JunB that controls the rapid production and differentiation of the stem cells that produce all blood cell types.

The investigators have also uncovered evidence that could lead to a protocol for bone marrow transplants that could boost the chance of a cure in some patients.

Led by Dr. Emmanuelle Passegue, of the University of California, San Francisco, the research team has shown that the JunB gene is at the centre of a complex network of molecular and environmental signals that regulate the proliferation and differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells.

Hematopoietic stem cells are the multipotent, self-renewing cells that give rise to all blood cell types.

For the study, the researchers studied the behaviour of JunB-deficient HSCs in both the culture dish and when transplanted into mice.

In every case wherein engraftment of the HSCs occurred in the mice, the scientists noted a progressive expansion of the myeloidlineage, which constitutes a type of mature white blood cell that fights infection.

After 6 to 12 months of transplantation, the expansion led to the development of a myeloproliferative disease, which can evolve to leukaemia.

The finding indicated that the proliferating JunB-deficient HSCs causes leukaemia, say the researchers.

JunB curtails both the rate at which HSCs are proliferating and the rate of differentiation toward the myeloid lineage that ultimately results in leukaemia.

When JunB is absent, HSCs lose their ability to respond to signals from the protein receptors Notch and TGF-beta, which reside on the cells’ surface and play critical roles in determining cell fate.

“By uncovering this mechanism, we might one day be able to determine the difference between normal HSCs and leukemic stem cells in gene regulatory networks. This could allow us to develop more targeted therapies. These kinds of therapeutic applications are still down the road, but they can happen very quickly in the blood/leukemia field,” said Passegue.

The study demonstrated that JunB does not affect the cells’ potential for unlimited self-renewal.

The study has been published in the journal Cancer Cell. (ANI)

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Health dept, docs discuss way out of tricky organ donation issues

April 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

CHENNAI: If the blood relative of a brain-dead patient is in need of a vital organ, can the family who is willing to sign papers for donation
demand that the organ be given to the relative? Is the doctor or hospital coordinating a cadaver organ donation liable if the organ retrieved loses it vitality? If the organs of a brain-dead person, the result of a road accident, is removed, will it mean tampering with evidence in a medico-legal case?

These and other related questions came up for a detailed discussion on Saturday when doctors from at least 50 hospitals in Tamil Nadu, mostly licensed transplant centres, met officials from the state health department at a workshop on cadaveric transplantation in Tamil Nadu’, organised by the director of medical services and rural health. The workshop was organised to discuss the Transplant of Human Organs Act 1994 and a series of government orders issued by the health department since January 2008 to promote cadaver transplant.

Over the past six months, the state has seen a rapid increase in organ donation. Forty kidneys, 14 livers, six hearts, 26 corneas, 14 heart valves and skin were harvested from 20 cadavers. Health secretary V K Subburaj said that the meeting was called to discuss problems the network faced in the last six months. “We are sure in the next few months we would be able to streamline the system for cadaver organ donation that would possibly reduce the need for any live donors,” he said.

IT secretary PWC Davidar, instrumental in issuing the government orders (GOs) while he was in the health department, discussed the GOs. “These are not just a set of rules written to be filed as orders. We want every hospital to certify brain death,” he said.

One city-based doctor wanted to know if the donor’s relatives had the right to dictate who the recipient should be. “In one case, the donor’s brother was blind and was waiting for a corneal transplant. They were willing to donate all the organs but requested that one eye be used for his brother. It was tricky situation and we did not know how to handle it,” he said.

Most government officials were for hospitals remaining firm. “With the present rules we don’t have provisions for that. We only encourage voluntary donation with no strings attached,” said Dr J Amalorpavanathan, convenor, cadaver transplant programme.

After hearing out narrations of several incidents, Davidar said that the department would look at options such as passing government orders that could deal with such special situations. “Sometimes, when the donor’s blood relative is in need of an organ, we will have to work it out as well,” he said. “We are also working on orders for organ transplant in medico-legal cases,” he said.

Presently, doctors take in only those cases where the cause of death is ascertained as a road accident. “We also take written consent from the investigating officer that the organ donation will not hamper investigations,” said Dr Amalorpavanathan.

Doctors clarified that no doctor or hospital was legally bound for the viability of the organs before or after transplants. Hospitals agreed to pay Rs 10,000 as annual fee for being a part of the organ sharing network. They decided that a website giving limited information about organ donation and organ sharing would help the public and ensure patient confidentiality.

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