(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) – One hundred and eight medical students can officially enjoy being addressed as “doctor” following the commencement ceremony at UC Davis School of Medicine this morning.

Today’s event on the Davis campus represented the 41st graduating class from the School of Medicine. The students filed into the Mondavi Center, led by the pomp and circumstance of a bagpipe marching band. Proud family members, friends and medical school faculty and staff packed the hall, with many using cell phones and cameras to capture the culmination of four challenging years in the world of medical education.

Speaking on behalf of the Class of 2012 was Leslie Crebassa, who is moving on to residency training in emergency medicine at a hospital in Fresno next month.

“I have been inspired by those patients and families who deal with illness or injury in a loving or constructive way,” said Crebassa, in an e-mail prior to commencement. “People may not realize it, but physicians can be as affected by their patients as their patients are affected by them.” Along with Crebassa, approximately 70 percent of the graduating class plan to remain in California for the next step in their physician training. Nearly half of the students chose residencies in primary care, which includes family practice, general pediatrics and internal medicine, areas in medicine where physician shortages can be particularly acute. About 13 percent of the medical students chose advanced subspecialty programs such as anesthesiology, emergency medicine, and obstetrics and gynecology.

This year’s commencement included nine graduates from the school’s Rural PRIME program, a special curriculum developed to attract and prepare future physicians for careers in medically underserved and diverse communities around the state. This was the first group of students to experience their third-year clinical rotations in the field. Students were assigned 4- and 8-week clerkships in primary care, pediatrics and OB-GYN, where they worked alongside experienced local physicians in smaller, more rural communities like Jackson, in Amador County.

The ceremony also featured a commencement address by Leon Jones, the school’s associate dean for Student Affairs and a clinical professor in the UC Davis Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Jones spoke about the connections students make to their communities and patients, connections that help shape them as individuals and as the physicians they will become during their careers in medicine.

In addition to the awarding of M.D. degrees, 24 other students received Master of Public Health degrees, and four students received Master of Health Informatics degrees. These graduate programs draw upon the multiple strengths of UC Davis in public health, epidemiology, rural health, occupational and environmental health, telemedicine and other research and academic studies. UC Davis developed its combined degree programs to address the growing need for health-care practitioners who can lead state and national efforts to track, manage and prevent injuries and disease, as well as work with large amounts of health information and data to enhance the practice of medicine and improve health for all.

The UC Davis School of Medicine is among the nation’s leading medical schools, recognized for its research and primary-care programs. The school offers fully accredited master’s degree programs in public health and in informatics, and its combined M.D.-Ph.D. program is training the next generation of physician-scientists to conduct high-impact research and translate discoveries into better clinical care. Along with being a recognized leader in medical research, the school is committed to serving underserved communities and advancing rural health. For more information, visit UC Davis School of Medicine at http://medschool.ucdavis.edu.

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UC Davis School of Medicine celebrates commencement

MARLBOROUGH, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (ACT; OTCBB: ACTC), a leader in the field of regenerative medicine, announced today that chairman and CEO Gary Rabin will be presenting at the World Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine Conference, May 21-23, in London.

Mr. Rabins presentation, titled Successes and ongoing advancements of human clinical trials for the treatment of AMD & Stargardts Disease, will be given on Monday, May 21 at 5:05 p.m. BST (London time). Mr. Rabin will provide an update on ACTs three ongoing human clinical trials in the U.S. and E.U. for Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration (Dry AMD) and Stargardts Macular Dystrophy (SMD).

ACT recently announced Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) approval to move forward with enrollment and treatment of additional patients with SMD in its U.S. SMD trial, and to treat the final two patients to round out the initial dosing arm in its European trial. All three of the companys ongoing clinical trials use human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells.

About SMD, Dry AMD and Degenerative Diseases of the Retina

Stargardts Macular Dystrophy (SMD) is one of the most common forms of macular degeneration in the world. SMD causes progressive vision loss, usually starting in children between 10 to 20 years of age. Eventually, blindness results from photoreceptor loss associated with degeneration in the pigmented layer of the retina, called the retinal pigment epithelium or RPE cell layer.

Degenerative diseases of the retina are among the most common causes of untreatable blindness in the world. As many as thirty million people in the United States and Europe suffer from macular degeneration, which represents a $25-30 billion worldwide market that has yet to be effectively addressed. Approximately 10% of people ages 66 to 74 will have symptoms of macular degeneration, the vast majority the dry form of AMD which is currently untreatable. The prevalence increases to 30% in patients 75 to 85 years of age.

About Advanced Cell Technology, Inc.

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., is a biotechnology company applying cellular technology in the field of regenerative medicine. For more information, visit www.advancedcell.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Original post:
Advanced Cell Technology to Present at World Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine Congress in London

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Indian clinic's stem cell therapy real?

Indian clinic’s stem cell therapy real?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

For more of CNN correspondent Drew Griffin’s investigation of India’s experimental embryonic stem cell therapy, watch “CNN Presents: Selling a Miracle,” at 8 and 11 p.m. ET Sunday on CNN.

New Delhi (CNN) — Cash Burnaman, a 6-year-old South Carolina boy, has traveled with his parents to India seeking treatment for a rare genetic condition that has left him developmentally disabled. You might think this was a hopeful mission until you learn that an overwhelming number of medical experts insist the treatment will have zero effect.

Cash is mute. He walks with the aid of braces. To battle his incurable condition, which is so rare it doesn’t have a name, Cash has had to take an artificial growth hormone for most of his life.

His divorced parents, Josh Burnaman and Stephanie Krolick, are so driven by their hope and desperation to help Cash they’ve journeyed to the other side of the globe and paid tens of thousands of dollars to have Cash undergo experimental injections of human embryonic stem cells.

The family is among a growing number of Americans seeking the treatment in India — some at a clinic in the heart of New Delhi called NuTech Mediworld run by Dr. Geeta Shroff, a retired obstetrician and self-taught embryonic stem cell practitioner.

Shroff first treated Cash — who presents symptoms similar to Down Syndrome — in 2010. “I am helping improve their quality of life,” Shroff told CNN.

After five weeks of treatment, Cash and his parents returned home to the U.S.

That’s when Cash began walking with the aid of braces for the first time.

Read the rest here:
Family hangs hope for boy on unproven therapy in India

See the original post:
Cell Therapy now being used for carpal tunnel syndrome at the Center for Regenerative Medicine

Indian clinic’s stem cell therapy real?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

For more of CNN correspondent Drew Griffin’s investigation of India’s experimental embryonic stem cell therapy, watch “CNN Presents: Selling a Miracle,” at 8 and 11 p.m. ET Sunday on CNN.

New Delhi (CNN) — Cash Burnaman, a 6-year-old South Carolina boy, has traveled with his parents to India seeking treatment for a rare genetic condition that has left him developmentally disabled. You might think this was a hopeful mission until you learn that an overwhelming number of medical experts insist the treatment will have zero effect.

Cash is mute. He walks with the aid of braces. To battle his incurable condition, which is so rare it doesn’t have a name, Cash has had to take an artificial growth hormone for most of his life.

His divorced parents, Josh Burnaman and Stephanie Krolick, are so driven by their hope and desperation to help Cash they’ve journeyed to the other side of the globe and paid tens of thousands of dollars to have Cash undergo experimental injections of human embryonic stem cells.

The family is among a growing number of Americans seeking the treatment in India — some at a clinic in the heart of New Delhi called NuTech Mediworld run by Dr. Geeta Shroff, a retired obstetrician and self-taught embryonic stem cell practitioner.

Shroff first treated Cash — who presents symptoms similar to Down Syndrome — in 2010. “I am helping improve their quality of life,” Shroff told CNN.

After five weeks of treatment, Cash and his parents returned home to the U.S.

That’s when Cash began walking with the aid of braces for the first time.

Read more from the original source:
Medical success or boondoggle?

See the rest here:
Columbia firm is world's first to market with stem cell drug

Read more here:
Osiris shares climb on stem-cell therapy approval

Osiris Therapeutics Inc said on Thursday that Canadian health regulators have approved its treatment for acute graft-versus host disease in children, making it the first stem cell drug to be approved for a systemic disease anywhere in the world.

Osiris shares rose 14 percent to $6.00 in extended trading after the news was announced.

Graft versus host disease (GvHD) is a potentially deadly complication from a bone marrow transplant, when newly implanted cells attack the patient’s body. Symptoms range from abdominal pain and skin rash to hair loss, hepatitis, lung and digestive tract disorders, jaundice and vomiting.

The disease kills up to 80 percent of children affected, Osiris said. To date there have been no approved treatments for the disease. Canadian authorities approved the therapy, Prochymal, for use in children who have failed to respond to steroids.

Prochymal was approved with the condition that Osiris carry out further testing after it reaches the market. C. Randal Mills, the company’s chief executive, said in an interview that could take three to four years.

Some investment analysts have been skeptical about Prochymal’s future. In 2009, two late-stage clinical trials failed to show the drug was more effective overall than a placebo in treating the disease, though it showed promise in certain subgroups of patients.

Since then, the company has mined data from all its clinical trials to show that in patients with severe refractory acute GvHD — those who have more or less failed all other therapies — Prochymal demonstrated a clinically meaningful response at 28 days after therapy began in 61-64 percent of patients.

In addition, treatment with Prochymal resulted in a statistically significant improvement in survival when compared with a historical control population of pediatric patients with refractory GvHD.

The Canadian authorities approved the drug on the basis of that data, the company said.

FDA submission this year

See the original post here:
First stem cell drug approved for systemic disease treatment

MADISON, Wis., May 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Novelos Therapeutics, Inc. (NVLT.OB), a pharmaceutical company developing novel drugs for the treatment and diagnosis of cancer, today announced that it has successfully completed the first cohort in a U.S. multi-center Phase 1b dose-escalation trial of its cancer-targeted molecular radiotherapeutic compound I-131-CLR1404 (HOT) in cancer patients with advanced solid tumors. The first two-patient cohort was successfully dosed with approximately 20 mCi of HOT, triggering enrollment into the second cohort at approximately 40 mCi. Details of the trial design are available on www.clinicaltrials.gov ID: NCT01495663, or at www.novelos.com in the ‘Clinical Trials’ section. Glenn Liu, M.D., University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, is the trial’s principal investigator. Detailed trial results are expected to be presented at a scientific venue at a later date.

“Patients with advanced solid tumors need safer and more effective therapies,” said Dr. Liu. “Based on animal data, results from a completed Phase 1a dosimetry trial, and now initial data from this Phase 1b trial, HOT appears to deliver radiation directly and selectively to cancerous tumors. Data from the first cohort indicates HOT was well-tolerated, without any grade 3 or 4 toxicities, enabling enrollment of the first patient in the second cohort. HOT uptake in cancerous tumors persisted for at least 21 days. One patient with advanced prostate cancer remains on trial at two months following treatment with HOT, while another patient with advanced colorectal cancer has completed the trial.”

“We are pleased with HOT’s safety profile and selective cancerous tumor uptake and retention in this first cohort at a dose of approximately 20 mCi,” said Kim Hawkins, Vice President of Clinical Development of Novelos. “We now look forward to evaluating HOT at approximately 40 mCi in cancer patients with advanced solid tumors, as per the trial protocol. We also look forward to adding two additional clinical investigators to the trial, Joanne Mortimer, M.D., at the City of Hope and Michael Pishvaian, M.D., Ph.D., at Georgetown University.”

“We intend to combine the data from this trial with calculation of effective doses for HOT based on quantitative positron emission tomography (PET) tumor imaging data using I-124-CLR1404 (LIGHT), our small-molecule cancer-targeted PET imaging agent,” said Harry Palmin, President and CEO of Novelos. “Together, we believe these data will enable us to commence HOT Phase 2 proof-of-concept trials in the first quarter of 2013 in cancer patients that have significant unmet medical need.”

About HOTHOT (iodine-131 radiolabeled CLR1404) is a small-molecule, broad-spectrum, cancer-targeted molecular radiotherapeutic that we believe has first-in-class potential. HOT is comprised of a small, non-pharmacological quantity of CLR1404 (COLD) acting as a cancer-targeted delivery and retention vehicle and incorporating a cytotoxic (cell-killing) dose of radiotherapy (in the form of iodine-131, a radioisotope that is already in common use to treat thyroid and other cancer types). The ongoing Phase 1b dose-escalation trial is aimed at determining the Maximum Tolerated Dose of HOT. We expect to initiate HOT Phase 2 efficacy trials as a monotherapy for solid tumors with significant unmet medical need as soon as a minimal efficacious dose is established, subject to additional funding. We may determine such an effective dose upon calculating it from ongoing PET imaging trials in cancer patients with LIGHT (since PET imaging is quantitative, enabling determination of tumor radiation exposure at a given dose level) or seeing a tumor response in the Phase 1b trial. Preclinical experiments in vitro (in cell culture) and in more than a dozen in vivo (in animals) models have demonstrated selective killing of cancer cells along with a benign safety profile. In view of HOT’s selective uptake and retention in a wide range of solid tumors and in cancer stem cells, its single-agent efficacy in animal models and its non-specific mechanism of cancer-killing (radiation), we are first developing HOT as a monotherapy for solid tumors with significant unmet medical need.

About Novelos Therapeutics, Inc.We are a pharmaceutical company developing novel drugs for the treatment and diagnosis of cancer. Our three cancer-targeted compounds are selectively taken up and retained in cancer cells, including cancer stem cells, versus normal cells. Thus, our therapeutic compounds appear to directly kill cancer cells while minimizing harm to normal cells. This offers the potential for a paradigm shift in cancer therapy by providing efficacy versus all three major drivers of mortality in cancer: primary tumors, metastases and stem cell-based relapse. I-124-CLR1404 (LIGHT) is a small-molecule cancer-targeted PET imaging agent. We believe LIGHT has first-in-class potential and Phase 1-2 clinical trials are ongoing. I-131-CLR1404 (HOT) is a small-molecule, broad-spectrum, cancer-targeted molecular radiotherapeutic that delivers cytotoxic radiation directly and selectively to cancer cells and cancer stem cells. We believe HOT also has first-in-class potential. HOT Phase 1b dose-escalation trial is ongoing and we expect HOT to enter Phase 2 trials in the first quarter of 2013 as a monotherapy for solid tumors with significant unmet medical need, subject to additional funding. CLR1404 (COLD), a pre-clinical cancer-targeted non-radioactive chemotherapy, works primarily through Akt inhibition. Together, we believe our compounds are able to “find, treat and follow” cancer anywhere in the body in a novel, effective and highly selective way. For additional information please visit www.novelos.com

INVESTOR CONTACTSJ. Patrick Genn, Vice President of IR

Anne Marie Fields, Senior Vice President

Novelos Therapeutics, Inc.

LHA

Read more:
Novelos Therapeutics Successfully Completes First Cohort In Phase 1b Solid Tumor Trial With I-131-CLR1404 (HOT) Cancer …