UK Stem Cell Bank to Distribute University of Sheffield Cell Lines

[Samir]

Human stem cells lines developed at the University of Sheffield are, for the first time, going to be distributed by the UK Stem Cell Bank (UKSCB) for potential use in medical therapies and research.

"The UK regulations for the derivation of such cells (monitored by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) state that we must deposit all lines with the UKSCB, which then distributes the cells worldwide for research and to those wishing to develop cell lines for clinical application."

"Our stem cell lines will be a significant step forward in getting regenerative medicines onto the market."

Professor Rivolta is developing a therapeutic approach to treat hearing loss using stem cells. He explained, "The aim of my group's research is to take stem cells, induce them to produce cells from a part of the inner ear called the cochlea, and use them to repair the damaged cochlea of deaf patients to restore their hearing."

Source: http://www.shef.ac.uk/faculty/science/news/uk-stem-cell-bank-1.684659

For those who don't know who Rivolta is:
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/bms/research/rivolta

 

[RB2014]

Great find Samir. Does anyone know how close Professor Rivolta is to achieving this goal? I don't think stem cells require clinical trials. If he could make this work, it would be just incredible.

 

[Aaron123]

I don't think stem cells require clinical trials.

In the US (and presumably Europe) they do.

 

[VRZ78]

It's great to hear some news from Rivolta and to know he is still working on this.

From what I gathered he was pretty close. A member here sent him a mail and he told him that he was going to try on a human with Meniere Disease this year, but I don't know if that's still on the agenda since it hasn't gotten public.

 

[BohemianLife]

I once sent e-mail to Rivolta. I asked what condition is about reversing hearing loss. He said replacing neurons is easier than hair cells. And he said that they can produce hair cells in tube but transplanting them will many more years. So their first goal is seems like to fix neurons.

 

[VRZ78]

I once sent e-mail to Rivolta. I asked what condition is about reversing hearing loss. He said replacing neurons is easier than hair cells. And he said that they can produce hair cells in tube but transplanting them will many more years. So their first goal is seems like to fix neurons.

Frequency Therapeutics for the hair cells, Rivolta for the neurons and we're good to go

 

[Jim51042]

Awesome. Did he say how likely success is with this neuron replacement. How exactly do the stem cells will replace the neurons or do they just intend to fix the neurons that are already there? Correct me if I'm wrong but faulty nerves are the crux behind tinnitus without hearing loss. Im surprised that so little discussion of the forum has been on nerve repair or nerve regrowth.

 

[Samir]

How exactly do the stem cells will replace the neurons or do they just intend to fix the neurons that are already there?

Neurons are not likely to need replacement. They have a good survival rate. It's their projections and synapses that will likely need to be repaired or regrown. Nerve growth factors are used for that purpose. There are also neural stem cells and progenitor cells that may be useful in neuron repairs as well as complete neuron regeneration.

Correct me if I'm wrong but faulty nerves are the crux behind tinnitus without hearing loss.

That's what we are led on to believe. No one really knows for sure. We have had animal models indicate that, and people who had their hearing restored with cochlear implants or hearing aids have had their tinnitus lowered or disappear completely. But we don't really know for sure what tinnitus is, and there can be many different forms of it and causes for it.

Faulty nerves without hearing loss? You wish! That makes no sense. You can't have faulty or severed auditory nerves and perfect hearing. Hearing loss is a two fold problem. One is loss of sensory cells, and one is loss or nerve cells. Loss, damage, malfunction, dysfunction... all different names depending on the severity of it. Also, the damage can happen instantly in a blink of an eye, or be prolonged and progressive. For example, cutting the auditory nerve will definitely give you hearing loss in a second. Another is age related, progressive hearing loss called presbycusis. Old age will definitely give you hearing loss, but it takes time to notice any significant change.

Im surprised that so little discussion of the forum has been on nerve repair or nerve regrowth.

Don't be! We are no scientists. Well, most of us are not. But we do follow the research, and most of us do know about the importance of nerves and synapses in tinnitus. Most of which has been brought in light by Charles Liberman.

I also know that most of us here are cheering for either Decibel Therapeutics or Frequency Therapeutics to deliver the first treatment. Decibel for it's support from Liberman and a promise of nerve and synapse restoration which would ultimately cure tinnitus if this is the very thing bringing it on, and Frequency for it's focus on sensory cell restoration, because you can have a sensory loss without much nerve loss. Once you restore the sensory cells the synaptic interface with the neurons may be re-established naturally if the degeneration has not gone too far, or it may be mediated with neurotrophins.

 

[RB2014]

In the US (and presumably Europe) they do.

We have stem cell clinics out here popping up all over the place that offer stem cell treatments. No clinical studies, no promises, etc. That is why I mentioned it. If they are to get a hold of a technique that works, they just offer it up as a service. I was really hoping this would be the case since we all know that clinical trials can add many years to the process.

Samir, I'm agreed with you. Frequency and Decibel seem like the biggest prospects right now for hair cell restoration. I'm excited for both. I'm still not sold on what Novartis is doing, but it is 2017 and hopefully we get the results of their clinical trial.

 

[Aaron123]

We have stem cell clinics out here popping up all over the place that offer stem cell treatments. No clinical studies, no promises, etc. That is why I mentioned it. If they are to get a hold of a technique that works, they just offer it up as a service. I was really hoping this would be the case since we all know that clinical trials can add many years to the process.

Unfortunately, that's not likely to work. Stem cell clinics typically use stem cells from adipose tissue and claim that they are "minimally manipulating" the tissue. Thus, the argument goes, what they are doing isn't medicine - it is more akin to drawing blood from someone and then giving that person back his or her own blood. That approach isn't going to restore hearing. Anything that does is going to involve some significant work. This work is likely beyond the capabilities of a stem cell clinic, but even if it is not, as soon as they go down this path, they will be shut down because they will lose their "minimal manipulation" argument. (It's possible they will lose this argument eventually anyway.)

I would also question the "no promises" premise as well. There are a number of recent and on-going lawsuits pertaining to actual damages as well as false promises.

 

[DebInAustralia]

Unfortunately, that's not likely to work. Stem cell clinics typically use stem cells from adipose tissue and claim that they are "minimally manipulating" the tissue. Thus, the argument goes, what they are doing isn't medicine - it is more akin to drawing blood from someone and then giving that person back his or her own blood. That approach isn't going to restore hearing. Anything that does is going to involve some significant work. This work is likely beyond the capabilities of a stem cell clinic, but even if it is not, as soon as they go down this path, they will be shut down because they will lose their "minimal manipulation" argument. (It's possible they will lose this argument eventually anyway.)

I would also question the "no promises" premise as well. There are a number of recent and on-going lawsuits pertaining to actual damages as well as false promises.

I beg to differ.

There is a study at the Florida Children's hospital, led by Dr Baumgartner, using IV Cord blood stem cells to treat congenital hearing loss. Positive results so far, so trial is continuing...

 

[Aaron123]

I beg to differ.

There is a study at the Florida Children's hospital, led by Dr Baumgartner, using IV Cord blood stem cells to treat congenital hearing loss. Positive results so far, so trial is continuing...

I'm not sure what you are differing about. The cord blood trial is a properly conducted trial and doesn't have anything to do with stem cell clinics.

Can you post a link to the positive results?

 

[DebInAustralia]

i cant copy and paste on my phone. youll find it in a google search.

What i am disagreeing with is your statement that stem cells arent going to restore hearing. it all depends on the cause. this study i am referring to is treating congenital hearing loss.

 

[Alue]

Faulty nerves without hearing loss? You wish! That makes no sense. You can't have faulty or severed auditory nerves and perfect hearing. Hearing loss is a two fold problem. One is loss of sensory cells, and one is loss or nerve cells. Loss, damage, malfunction, dysfunction... all different names depending on the severity of it. Also, the damage can happen instantly in a blink of an eye, or be prolonged and progressive. For example, cutting the auditory nerve will definitely give you hearing loss in a second. Another is age related, progressive hearing loss called presbycusis. Old age will definitely give you hearing loss, but it takes time to notice any significant change.

Yes, but how do you define hearing loss? You can still be transmitting a signal but have noise in that signal. One theory is that the noise in the signal being transmitted to your brain becomes too great to be filtered out by the CNS. That, or there is some sort of dysfunction in the signal processing portion of the brain.

 

[Aaron123]

What i am disagreeing with is your statement that stem cells arent going to restore hearing.

My post is referring to the use of stem cells derived from adult adipose tissue. As I said in my earlier post that approach is not going to restore hearing. I didn't make any general statement about the potential effectiveness of stem cells.

I've been following the cord blood trial for months. It will be interesting to see the final results. I don't put much stock in preliminary results.

 

[VRZ78]

Can someone please link the trial libk ?

And FYI just long press on text or text field to copy paste on phones......

 

[VRZ78]

But isn't umbilical cords SC the type of treatment that clinics like SC21 offers and what ATEOS had ? If the trials shows good results that means that maybe those clinics can you actually help...

 

[Samir]

Yes, but how do you define hearing loss? You can still be transmitting a signal but have noise in that signal. One theory is that the noise in the signal being transmitted to your brain becomes too great to be filtered out by the CNS. That, or there is some sort of dysfunction in the signal processing portion of the brain.

Isn't that a bit like asking "if I don't look at the moon, is it still there?"

The way I look at it, it's all about perception. If the noise is that much more greater than the signal that you can't perceive the signal, then you don't hear it. When you don't hear the signal, the sound information itself, then you have hearing loss.

What is causing the dysfunction is irrelevant to me. Of course, if I were to try to locate the problem and fix it I would investigate what causes the dysfunction. But that's a different topic.

How does it help you hear if all you hear is noise? If you had a normal hearing level on an audiogram, but all you could hear was noise, would you argue that you don't have a hearing loss? The sense of hearing is about picking up sound information. You don't do that when all you hear is noise.

How does this relate to tinnitus? As far as I know, people with tinnitus are not completely deaf. They can still perceive sound information. The noise or the ringing is not all that they hear. Which brings to mind the reports of deaf people who have tinnitus. Can they hear anything other than the tinnitus ringing or noise? If not, then this is very interesting. Because it supports this very idea that tinnitus may be this excess of noise in the signal. In other words bad signal quality. Which of course might be cleaned up at the source (the ear), or at the destination (the brain), or at some other stage along the signal route. Can these deaf people with tinnitus hear any sound information? If not, then they have hearing loss. Which is of course expected of someone who is deaf. How else would you define deafness!

So in conclusion, noise is not equal to hearing. In fact, hearing noise may suggest some level of hearing loss, in other words loss of signal. This is what many of the discussions on this site are about - restoring lost sensory cells and synapses in order to improve the signal at the source. If we can do that, the brain is likely to rewire itself and make any necessary adjustments for the renewed signal input.

Lastly, yes, I like to think that the moon is there even when I don't look at it!

 

[acufenero]

So according to the article and this very paragraph:

Professor Rivolta is developing a therapeutic approach to treat hearing loss using stem cells. He explained, "The aim of my group's research is to take stem cells, induce them to produce cells from a part of the inner ear called the cochlea, and use them to repair the damaged cochlea of deaf patients to restore their hearing."

Could we expect clinical trials for his treatment? Like next year? Seems a very optimistic article to me.

 

[Alue]

Isn't that a bit like asking "if I don't look at the moon, is it still there?"

The way I look at it, it's all about perception. If the noise is that much more greater than the signal that you can't perceive the signal, then you don't hear it. When you don't hear the signal, the sound information itself, then you have hearing loss.

What is causing the dysfunction is irrelevant to me. Of course, if I were to try to locate the problem and fix it I would investigate what causes the dysfunction. But that's a different topic.

How does it help you hear if all you hear is noise? If you had a normal hearing level on an audiogram, but all you could hear was noise, would you argue that you don't have a hearing loss? The sense of hearing is about picking up sound information. You don't do that when all you hear is noise.

How does this relate to tinnitus? As far as I know, people with tinnitus are not completely deaf. They can still perceive sound information. The noise or the ringing is not all that they hear. Which brings to mind the reports of deaf people who have tinnitus. Can they hear anything other than the tinnitus ringing or noise? If not, then this is very interesting. Because it supports this very idea that tinnitus may be this excess of noise in the signal. In other words bad signal quality. Which of course might be cleaned up at the source (the ear), or at the destination (the brain), or at some other stage along the signal route. Can these deaf people with tinnitus hear any sound information? If not, then they have hearing loss. Which is of course expected of someone who is deaf. How else would you define deafness!

So in conclusion, noise is not equal to hearing. In fact, hearing noise may suggest some level of hearing loss, in other words loss of signal. This is what many of the discussions on this site are about - restoring lost sensory cells and synapses in order to improve the signal at the source. If we can do that, the brain is likely to rewire itself and make any necessary adjustments for the renewed signal input.

Lastly, yes, I like to think that the moon is there even when I don't look at it!

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Maybe it's just my choice in words. When I say noise I'm not talking about sound noise I'm talking about random fluctuations of data that's being transmitted from the cochlea to the brain. I mean a loss in fidelity in the signal being transmitted. So we can call it hidden hearing loss. Signal processing is not an all or nothing thing, and cleaning up noise in a signal is not an easy task, and in some cases it's impossible. What I'm getting at is you can lose a lot of quality in your hearing and still have a normal audiogram, and yes, I would call that hearing loss although much of the medical community does not recognize it.

What is causing the dysfunction is irrelevant to me. Of course, if I were to try to locate the problem and fix it I would investigate what causes the dysfunction. But that's a different topic.

So we are trying to fix a problem without even fully understanding the problem? That doesn't usually turn out well.

 

[Samir]

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Maybe it's just my choice in words. When I say noise I'm not talking about sound noise I'm talking about random fluctuations of data that's being transmitted from the cochlea to the brain. I mean a loss in fidelity in the signal being transmitted. So we can call it hidden hearing loss.

In other words less noise, less distortion, and better frequency response? Maybe less frequency response more than anything?

Signal processing is not an all or nothing thing, and cleaning up noise in a signal is not an easy task, and in some cases it's impossible.

I agree! Which reminds me just how perfect, normal human hearing is. No signal processing, no high quality audio equipment comes anywhere near human hearing.

What I'm getting at is you can lose a lot of quality in your hearing and still have a normal audiogram

But what property of hearing quality do you think is lost? Frequency response?

I would call that hearing loss although much of the medical community does not recognize it.

Then we need to change their opinion. Having a perfect hearing level, but a hearing fidelity of an old radio is not perfect hearing. But how do you measure quality of hearing in a clinical setting?

The brain may play an important role in this, but what I would mostly like to see happen in the next 3 years is restoration of sensory cells in human cochlea. I would expect that to improve the frequency response, which makes sense when you think about it. If you have dead hair cells in some regions of the cochlea you have a loss of receptive field. Even the slightest restoration, like restoring the outer hair cells should improve fidelity. That's what I think at least... I can't wait to see what the first trials will reveal.

 

[RB2014]

But isn't umbilical cords SC the type of treatment that clinics like SC21 offers and what ATEOS had ? If the trials shows good results that means that maybe those clinics can you actually help...

This is what I was thinking as well. If it is a simple matter of taking stem cells and re-injecting them into the blood stream, or even into the ear, couldn't this be offered as another procedure for the stem cell clinic? You can't get your own embryonic stem cells though, if you didn't have them saved at birth.

If they could develop a procedure to take your cells, convert them into embryonic cells, and then re-inject them into your bloodstream, it seems like it could help with hearing loss, or any other health problems that you may have. The studies have shown that there are no adverse effects to doing this.

 

[Aaron123]

You can't get your own embryonic stem cells though, if you didn't have them saved at birth.

Cord blood SCs are not the same as embryonic SCs.

If they could develop a procedure to take your cells, convert them into embryonic cells,

It's not possible to create ECSs from adult cells. It is possible to create induced pluripotent stem cells. Those cells can then be guided to a number of different types of cells. It is very, very unlikely that stem cell clinics can or will be able create iPSCs much less guide them to form different types of cells. (Besides, in the US at least, this is no longer minimal manipulation.)

re-inject them into your bloodstream, it seems like it could help with hearing loss, or any other health problems that you may have.

Stem cells don't work this way. During development there are signalling cues that guide cell fate. Those cues do not exist when stem cells are injected and must be provided. This is well beyond simply injecting stem cells.

The studies have shown that there are no adverse effects to doing this.

What studies do you have in mind?

 

[jeff W]

It's great to hear some news from Rivolta and to know he is still working on this.

From what I gathered he was pretty close. A member here sent him a mail and he told him that he was going to try on a human with Meniere Disease this year, but I don't know if that's still on the agenda since it hasn't gotten public.

Did he mention exactly what he was going to try on an md patient? I am shocked to hear this.

 

[Jim51042]

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-...ts-are-being-tested-once-again-for-parkinsons

I honestly have know idea on what to expect regarding the future viability of stem cells. Are we within 5-10 years of neuronal transplants for the ear? Or is this so far out another regeneration technique will supplant stem cells research before any concrete progress is made. Either option seems possible to me. I would welcome educated opinions on stem cells future for the ear.

@jeff W I didn't paper for that paper on current stem research. What's your take?

 

[jeff W]

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-...ts-are-being-tested-once-again-for-parkinsons

I honestly have know idea on what to expect regarding the future viability of stem cells. Are we within 5-10 years of neuronal transplants for the ear? Or is this so far out another regeneration technique will supplant stem cells research before any concrete progress is made. Either option seems possible to me. I would welcome educated opinions on stem cells future for the ear.

@jeff W I didn't paper for that paper on current stem research. What's your take?

Whats my take on what?

 

[Mario martz]

Human stem cells lines developed at the University of Sheffield are, for the first time, going to be distributed by the UK Stem Cell Bank (UKSCB) for potential use in medical therapies and research.

"The UK regulations for the derivation of such cells (monitored by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) state that we must deposit all lines with the UKSCB, which then distributes the cells worldwide for research and to those wishing to develop cell lines for clinical application."

"Our stem cell lines will be a significant step forward in getting regenerative medicines onto the market."

Professor Rivolta is developing a therapeutic approach to treat hearing loss using stem cells. He explained, "The aim of my group's research is to take stem cells, induce them to produce cells from a part of the inner ear called the cochlea, and use them to repair the damaged cochlea of deaf patients to restore their hearing."

Source: http://www.shef.ac.uk/faculty/science/news/uk-stem-cell-bank-1.684659

For those who don't know who Rivolta is:
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/bms/research/rivolta

Professor Rivolta is also working on a patient with Menieres disease, somebody should email him just to check out how is it going...

 

[Samir]

somebody should email him just to check out how is it going

I have emailed him. I will post back later.

 

[Jim51042]

Whats my take on what?

I know your doubtful of Rivolta but outside of him what is your take on the future of stem cells for hearing regeneration? Can you envison this field playing a part or is it too difficult/risky to have a future in hearing resoration?

 

[jeff W]

I know your doubtful of Rivolta but outside of him what is your take on the future of stem cells for hearing regeneration? Can you envison this field playing a part or is it too difficult/risky to have a future in hearing resoration?

I don't want to come across the wrong way. I am a huge fan of Rivolta, he could turn out to be a genius of otology, I just think that his extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. That is all. Look gene therapy is one thing but stem cells (let alone es cells) harbour a power greater than people realise. Of course stem cells have the potential to reverse deafness but they also could become unstable and cause tumours. The exact chemical signalling involved with how these cells form otic progenitors is still being teased out. I just don't think it's fair on other labs to overrepresent your results to gain an upper hand for funding. This is what I believe Rivolta did.