The money comes from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. At a meeting last month, local scientists, health advocates and CIRM leadership described the grant’s research focus.

“Any novel treatment option would not only be clinically competitive, but could have a major impact for thousands of patients currently battling this disease,” Don Cleveland, Ph.D., professor of Medicine, Neurosciences and chair of the UCSD Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, stated in a press release. “This approach has the potential to lead to the development of new therapies that could significantly extend the lifespan of individuals living with this disease, and improve their quality of life.”

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is now funding projects that are attempting to find ways to overcome immune system rejection of transplanted stem cells. The institute is the state stem cell agency created by Proposition 71, and on Tuesday it approved $25 million for 19 projects.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has provided Stanford University with a total of about $173 million for various projects since the institute was established in November 2004.

His discovery resulted in a class of much-sought stem cells that scientists can induce to become virtually any other type of functioning human cell that one day might be used to treat varied diseases or injuries.

Project officials said last week that the Vatican has agreed to donate approximately $2.7 million to the research, which is led by the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine.

The church is still firmly opposed to the use of embryonic stem cells for medical research purposes because it involves the use of embryos, but it claims to fully support the use of adult stem cells. “This research protects life,” Cardinal Renato Martino said at a press conference. “I want to stress that it doesn’t involve embryonic stem cells, where one helps oneself and then throws the embryo away and kills a human life.”

The team at Columbia was headed by Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, and her researchers replicated a 3-D scaffolding of bones using digital images of an undamaged human jaw bone. Stem cells from human bone marrow or fat were added to the scaffolding in a similarly-shaped bioreactor chamber. The bone replica was fed oxygen, nutrients and growth hormones and then grew in these chambers, responding to signals outside of a human body.

Burns victims are currently treated with skin grafts or with sheets of skin grown using their skin cells.
Unfortunately the current process can only grow epidermis — the thin outer layer of skin — and this can cannot stretch, perspire, grow hair, or have normal feeling or movement.

Scientists at the Sydney Burns Foundation hope to combat this issue by developing a full-thickness, living skin that can be transplanted to burns victims. Sydney University Professor Peter Maitz said extensive testing was underway to establish base data for testing on animals in the near future.

However, it is often forgotten that a significant portion of these cosmetic surgeries are for reconstructive purposes; to improve the functionality of physical abnormalities and help restore them to a more normal appearance. Despite modern medicine, most of these reconstructive procedures are still rather primitive in nature. They still require invasive cutting and lengthy recoveries. For a one year old infant undergoing cleft chin plastic surgery, this can be especially detrimental. Fortunately, stem cell technology may some day revolutionize procedures such as these.

What are stem cells?
As you probably already know, stem cells are a type of cell which has the unique ability to develop into various types of tissue – muscle, skin, nerve, brain, etc. In other words, their cell type has not been pre-determined (as is the case with the other cells in your body). While it’s true there is ethical and moral controversy surrounding human embryonic stem cells, fortunately scientists have discovered other sources for obtaining them. For example, umbilical cord blood is extremely rich in stem cells; this can be harvested during birth without affecting the baby. There are also a variety of other stem cell sources which do not involve the use of human embryos.

How will stem cells be used in plastic surgery?
The possibilities are endless, but let’s take a look at a few of the ways researchers believe they will someday be incorporated in both cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery:

Reconstructive

Scar Revision Surgery: This procedure has remained largely unchanged over the past several decades. Basically, it involves a plastic surgeon cutting out scar tissue and suturing the skin back together, in hopes that it will be more aesthetically pleasing after healing. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of scar revision is extremely limited. By using stem cells, doctors may be able to actually re-grow skin which has been damaged. This will be especially helpful for burn victims.

Cleft Palate Surgery: A cleft palate is a congenital abnormality where the two plates that form the roof of the mouth are not fused together. This results in an open gap between the nasopharynx and the nose. In order to correct this abnormality, plastic surgeons must remove tissue from one or both sides of the mouth in order to rebuild the palate. Sometimes multiple surgeries are required. Scientists believe stem cells may offer an alternative; they will be used to grow the appropriate tissue to fill in the gap.

Cosmetic

Breast Implants: Instead of using plastic bags filled with saline or silicone, eventually it might be possible to actually grow new breast tissue through the use of stem cells. Breast augmentation is typically considered a cosmetic procedure, but that’s not always the case. We receive a high percentage of posters on our breast implant forum whom are inquiring about reconstructing their breasts following a mastectomy.

Jaw, Chin, and Cheek Implants: Today’s facial implants consist of hard silicone which is shaped to fit over the bone’s natural contours. Being that these implants are made out of a foreign substance, it’s not uncommon for the body to reject them. The other drawback is that jaw and cheek implants rarely look natural. In the future, cheek implants may be replaced with natural cheek augmentation using stem cells instead.

Rhinoplasty: This is largely considered to be the most complicated facial plastic surgery procedure. The internal structure of the nose consists of a wide array of parts, as well as different types of tissue. When a nasal valve is collapsed due to weak or damaged cartilage, currently the only option a plastic surgeon has is to use cartilage from elsewhere on the body. Unfortunately, nasal cartilage is very unique and vastly different than that which is found in the ears and ribs. In fact, it has a tendency to warp deform, sometimes years after it has been placed in the nose. However stem cells may make it possible for doctors to generate cartilage which is virtually identical to that which is found in the nose.

Author: Michael is a forum administrator at PlasticSurgerySpot.com; a consumer resource consisting of plastic surgery message boards, research articles, and physician interviews. In this article, he will discuss the future role of stem cells in plastic surgery.

The new building is the first of many major, CIRM-supported laboratories to open. California’s stem cell agency provided most of the funding for the first phase of the project, which is going to be a hot spot for regenerative medicine research that will eventually be home to more than 200 UC Davis scientists and laboratory staff.

“Within this new stem cell institute, our scientists and physicians, from a wide range of disciplines, are working together to innovate and discover answers for people with serious injury and illness from across the state and around the world,” said Pomeroy. “This facility gives the best minds in medicine the tools they need to turn stem cells into cures.”

Over the past year and a half, work crews renovated 54,000 square feet of space, creating new research facilities that include Northern California’s largest academic Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) laboratory, a state-of-the-art suite of rooms that will allow scientists to prepare and manufacture cellular therapies for clinical trials.

What does this new meat look and feel like at this stage of development? The scientists say it has the consistency and feel of scallop.

“If we took the stem cells from one pig and multiplied it by a factor of a million, we would need one million fewer pigs to get the same amount of meat,” said Mark Post, a biologist at Maastricht University involved in the project.

The abilities displayed by these human blood stem cells could be used in the near future to create cures for a large number of chronic viral diseases, PhysOrg reports.

“We have demonstrated in this proof-of-principle study that this type of approach can be used to engineer the human immune system, particularly the T-cell response, to specifically target HIV-infected cells. These studies lay the foundation for further therapeutic development that involves restoring damaged or defective immune responses toward a variety of viruses that cause chronic disease, or even different types of tumors,” AIDS Institute member Scott G. Kitchen says.

UCLA Professor of Medicine and AIDS Institute Associate Director Jerome A. Zack says that the next step is to test this approach on more complex animal models, such as primates, before finally moving ahead with human trials.

“This approach could be used to combat a variety of chronic viral diseases. It’s like a genetic vaccine,” Zack adds. He is also a professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at the university. This strategy, analysts say, could be the first in a long row of ideas that may actually hold promise in defeating HIV/AIDS, as well as a number of other chronic viral infections.