Thu 19 Feb 2009 |
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New Therapy With Stem Cells To Treat Crohn's Disease |
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ScienceDaily (Feb. 19, 2009) — Cellular therapy with stem cells is revolutionizing the focus of treatment of many serious diseases. Replacing the cells of damaged tissue with other new cells from the same patient is already a reality. This is the basis of cellular therapy and regenerative medicine, the latest great advance in biomedicine.
In this line, Hospital Clínic, Barcelona is exploring an innovative cellular therapy that uses stem cells to treat Crohn's disease, a chronic genetic disease that affects 1% of the population in Spain and which has considerable impact on the quality of life of the patients. The procedure is based on an autologous bone-marrow transplant (when patients receive a transplant of their own stem cells) and now constitutes a treatment option to cure an intestinal disease that sometimes does not successfully respond to drugs and requires highly complex surgery that does not provide a cure.
With this therapy, in an average follow-up period of 6 years, 80% of transplant patients are in a phase of total remission of the disease and the remaining 20% have shown considerable improvement following the transplant, and are now responding favorably to drugs.
Dr. Julián Panés and Dr. Elena Ricart over the Gastroenterology Department of Hospital Clínic, Barcelona are the driving force behind this therapy in Spain and began to implement regenerative cellular therapy in patients with Crohn's disease in August 2008. To date, a total of 6 patients are benefiting from this new treatment, of whom 3 I've already completed the process and are in the follow-up face, and a further 3 are at different stages of therapy. The transplant requires several weeks of admission to hospital before patients receive their own cells.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 February 2009 17:10 )
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Sat 10 Jan 2009 |
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Crohn's Disease Gene That Increases Susceptibility Discovered |
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ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2009) — Researchers at McGill University, the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI MUHC) and the McGill University and Génome Québec Innovation Centre, along with colleagues at other Canadian and Belgian institutions, have discovered DNA variations in a gene that increases susceptibility to developing Crohn's disease.
Their study was published in the January issue of the journal Nature Genetics.
The study was led by McGill PhD candidate Alexandra-Chloé Villani under the supervision of Dr. Denis Franchimont and Dr. Thomas Hudson. Dr. Franchimont, now with the Erasme Hospital in Brussels, Belgium, was a Canada Research Chair formerly affiliated with the Gastroenterology Dept. of the MUHC. Dr. Hudson, former Director of the McGill University and Génome Québec Innovation Centre, is now the President and Scientific Director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), located in Toronto.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 10 January 2009 16:55 )
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Wed 03 Dec 2008 |
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Immune System And Intestinal Bacteria |
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ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2008) — Researchers from the Institut Pasteur, CNRS and Inserm have just discovered a key mechanism that maintains the essential balance between bacteria living in our intestine and the immune system controlling them.
Their research, published in the journal Nature, paves the way for new forms of treatment for infectious diseases of the intestine, such as dysentery, or chronic inflammatory diseases, such as Crohn's disease.
 There are billions of bacteria in our intestine. These bacteria are not harmful, but help with digestion and also play a protective role by forming a barrier around the intestine, thus preserving it from attacks by pathogenic organisms. But, when their development ceases to be regulated, they can proliferate and become pathogenic themselves. The balance between these bacteria, known as commensals, and the immune system controlling them, is therefore essential. Changes in this balance can cause severe intestinal diseases, such as Crohn's disease, or other chronic inflammatory conditions with serious sequelae.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 03 December 2008 15:10 )
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Fri 06 Feb 2009 |
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Two Immune-system Proteins Linked To Colitis-associated Cancer |
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ScienceDaily (Feb. 3, 2009) — Recent research from the laboratory of Michael Karin, PhD, at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine – the first researcher to demonstrate a molecular link between inflammation and cancer – has identified two potential targets for the prevention and treatment of colitis-associated cancer (CAC), the most serious complication of inflammatory bowel disease. 
Karin, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology and Pathology and member of the Moores UCSD Cancer Center, and his team used genetic tools to demonstrate in mice that a cytokine called Interleukin 6 (IL-6), is an important regulator of tumor production during CAC development, and that its molecular effects are largely mediated by the transcription factor STAT3 in cancer cells. Their latest study – which is also the first to establish the cancer-promoting function of STAT3 in a validated mouse model of human cancer – will be published in the February 3 on-line edition of the journal Cancer Cell.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 06 February 2009 08:52 )
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Tue 06 Jan 2009 |
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Genetic Markers For Ulcerative Colitis discovered |
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ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2009) — An international team led by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers has identified genetic markers associated with risk for ulcerative colitis. The findings, which appear today as an advance online publication of the journal Nature Genetics, bring researchers closer to understanding the biological pathways involved in the disease and may lead to the development of new treatments that specifically target them.
Ulcerative colitis is a chronic, relapsing disorder that causes inflammation and ulceration in the inner lining of the rectum and large intestine. The most common symptoms are diarrhea (oftentimes bloody) and abdominal pain. Ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, another chronic gastrointestinal inflammatory disorder, are the two major forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
"Ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease are chronic conditions that impact the day-to-day lives of patients," said senior author of the study Richard H. Duerr, M.D., associate professor of medicine and human genetics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Graduate School of Public Health. "IBD is most often diagnosed in the teenage years or early adulthood. While patients usually don't die from IBD, affected individuals live with its debilitating symptoms during the most productive years of their lives."
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 06 January 2009 07:27 )
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Thu 20 Nov 2008 |
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Crohn's Disease Surgey Makes Steady Advances |
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ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2008) — Thousands of Americans suffering from the chronic inflammatory bowel condition known as Crohn's disease are leading longer, healthier lives due to innovative new surgeries, according to experts at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
"Four out of five Crohn's patients will require some kind of surgery at some point during their lives, but these advanced, often minimally invasive techniques are sparing precious bowel tissue while improving quality of life," says senior author Dr. Fabrizio Michelassi, Lewis Atterbury Stimson Professor and chairman of the Department of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College and surgeon-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
He and co-author Dr. Sharon L. Stein, assistant professor of surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College and colorectal surgeon at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, wrote a "state of the science" review in a recent issue of the journal Practical Gastroenterology.
As many as 500,000 people in the U.S. suffer from Crohn's disease, which triggers inflammation along the gastrointestinal tract, most typically in the lower bowel. Certain drugs can help ease symptoms, but there is no cure for this chronic illness. Some of the more severe complications of Crohn's disease include strictures (narrowing of the bowel), abscesses, perforations, fistulas (abnormal, obstructive connections between tissues), hemorrhage and even cancers. These types of complications often require surgical intervention.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 20 November 2008 07:47 )
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