Three dimensional bioengineered smooth muscle tissue and sphincters and...

This patent covers methods of producing artificial sphincters.  Specifically, smooth muscle cells are grown on an extracellular matrix that is placed on a tissue culture vessal coated with polydimethyl siloxane and a mold made of a cylindrical shape which is coated with the same material.  Examples of extracellular matrices useful for the invention include fibrin.  The patent covers a variety of sphincters including internal anal and sphincters of the gastrointestinal tract.

Sphincter repair is currently in clinical trials from several companies, including the French... [Read more]

Multi-lineage directed induction of bone marrow stromal cell...

This patent covers a 2 step method of generating insulin producing cells.

According to the first issued claim, the initial step involves obtaining what essentially appears to be a mesenchymal stem cell (adherent cell positive for CD44, CD90 and CD71, negative for monocyte and hematopoietic markers, CD11b and CD45, respectively) and culturing them with an antioxidant in order to generate an endodermal/neuronal precursor cell, said cell is then differentiated in the second step to an insulin producing cell by culture in basic fibroblast growth factor. The second claim covers... [Read more]

Loop peptide and TGF.alpha. for stimulating stem cell proliferation and...

Stem cells need to be maintained in a quiescent state when they are not needed to make new cells.  This is because if stem cells were consistently proliferating then there would be a high propability of mutations, thus leading to cancer.  One of the methods that stem cells maintain themselves in a non-proliferating state is through autocrine secretion of inhibitory factors.  One such main autoinhibitory factors is Transforming Growth Factor (TGF)-beta.  This is why patents, such as US patent #6627191 cover the use of neutralizing... [Read more]

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