4 Stem Cell Patents Issued Last Week

Dear manoj kumar valluru,

Last week 4 patents of relevance to the area of stem cells were issued.

1. # 7,306,903 (Patent Spotlight), teaches how screen for analogues of morphogens.

2. # 7,306,943 provides a keratinocyte population that is not immortalized and can be doubled more than 150 times.

3. # 7,307,166 covers chemical compounds that stimulate hematopoiesis.

4. # 7,306,817 covers a herbal extract for treatment of AML and CML.

In The News

Mesenchymal stem cells inhibiting cancer

Monday December 10th, 2007 @ 03:20:53 EST

Chengdu, China -

The use of mesenchymal stem cells is now a "clinical reality"http://www.stemcellpatents.com/news-show-154, primarily for the treatment of diseases such as multiple sclerosis and other inflammatory conditions. This is due to the known ability of mesenchymal stem cells to differentiate into various tissues, and also to suppress pathological immune responses Mesenchymal stem cells can directly inhibit activated T cells, or can indirectly inhibit them through the activationn of T regulatory cells (previously called T suppressor cells), which can systemically regulate inflammatory responses.

In a recent study (Lu et al. The growth inhibitory effect of mesenchymal stem cells on tumor cells in vitro and in vivo. Cancer Biol Ther. 2007 Nov 14;7) the ability of mesenchymal stem cells to inhibit tumor cells was demonstrated both in vitro and in vivo.

The researchers demonstrated that mouse bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells:

- Inhibited proliferation of mouse hepatoma (H22) and lymphoma (YAC-1 and EL-4) cells.

- Inhibited proliferation of rat insulinoma (INS-1) cells.

- Suppressed ability of hepatoma to form ascites when injected into mice.

These results are of particular interest since it is possible that the mesenchymal stem cell may have direct communication with tumor stem cells Given that tumor stem cells are known to be chemoresistant it makes sense that approaches that induce direct differentiation or mitosis arrest of tumor stem cells may be attractive therapeutic interventions for the future.

Ask a question OR leave your comments.

This Week's Patent Spotlight

Methods and compositions for identifying morphogen analogs

Patent Number: 7,306,903

Assignee | Inventor

One of the interesting methods of building up a patent portfolio is to cover not only therapeutic candidates, but also methods of identifying therapeutic candidates. In the current patent, the company Curis covers ways of identifying compounds that have morphogen activity.

Specifically the patent covers methods of identifying compounds with similar biological effects as the morphogens OP-1, OP-2, BMP-2, BMP-3, BMP-4, BMP-5, BMP-6, BMP-9, Vgl, Vgr-1, DPP, or 60A. Broadly speaking, the patent covers the identification of compounds through the following steps:

a) taking a cell that has inside of it a DNA sequence that is involved in the activation of transcription of the morphogen or agents induced by the morphogen and operably linking a reporter to that DNA sequence so that the reporter is activated and gives a signal when the DNA is activated.

b) exposing the cell to the agent which is being tested

c) assessing expression of the reporter.

Numerous DNA sequences and methods of enabling this patent are provided.

Ask a question OR leave your comments.

LATEST JOBS