Today

It’s Day 3 of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) 2018 Annual Meeting at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre: more than 2,500 stem cell scientists from 50 countries will hear from 150+ speakers, including:

Lab-grown mini-brains make new connections
Fred ‘Rusty’ Gage (USA) is making mini-brains from human stem cells in the lab. But in order for these new tissues to function, they need to become well-connected.

Fred is pioneering research to explore how transplanted human neural organoids (mini-organs) can mature into tissues with blood vessel and nerve connections. This work could lead to methods of replacing brain tissue lost to stroke or disease, and repairing spinal cords damaged by trauma.

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20-23 June 2018 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

International Society for Stem Cell Research 2018 Annual Meeting: 2,500+ stem cell scientists from 50 countries will hear from 150+ speakers including:

Lab-grown mini-brains make new connections

Fred ‘Rusty’ Gage (USA) is making mini-brains from human stem cells in the lab. But in order for these new tissues to function, they need to become well-connected.

Fred is pioneering research to explore how transplanted human neural organoids (mini-organs) can mature into tissues with blood vessel and nerve connections. This work could lead to methods of replacing brain tissue lost to stroke or disease, and repairing spinal cords damaged by trauma.

Tracing blood back to its beginnings to tackle leukaemia

Right now, the stem cells in your bone marrow are making one billion new red blood cells per minute. Andrew Elefanty (Australia) is studying both embryonic stem cells and more specialised blood-forming stem cells to reveal how our body makes blood and what leads to leukaemia and other blood diseases. He will reveal his team’s latest insights. [continue reading…]

New York, USA; June 20, 2018; and Melbourne, Australia; June 21, 2018:

Mesoblast Limited (ASX:MSB; Nasdaq:MESO) today announced key Day 100 survival outcomes of its Phase 3 trial for remestemcel-L, an allogeneic mesenchymal stem cell product candidate, in children with steroid refractory acute Graft Versus Host Disease (aGVHD). The results are being presented today at the 2018 annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), being held in Melbourne from June 20-23.

The open-label Phase 3 trial enrolled 55 children with steroid-refractory aGVHD (aged between two months and 17 years) in 32 sites across the United States, with 89% of patients suffering from the most severe form, grade C/D aGVHD. The trial was performed under an United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Investigational New Drug Application (NCT#02336230). [continue reading…]

Today

It’s Day 2 of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) 2018 Annual Meeting at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre: more than 2,500 stem cell scientists from 50 countries will hear from 150+ speakers, including:

Treating type 1 diabetes with stem cells
A Harvard team has shown they can control glucose levels in mice using a transplant of insulin-producing cells made from human stem cells. Doug Melton presents his research today.

His effort to fight diabetes involves a 30-person lab at Harvard and a start-up company, Semma Therapeutics, which he named after his children. His son Sam and daughter Emma both have type 1 diabetes.
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• Could you regrow an arm or a leg? Salamanders can.
• Should you be allowed to try unapproved treatments without the FDA tick when you’re terminally ill? President Trump says yes.

20-23 June 2018 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

International Society for Stem Cell Research 2018 Annual Meeting: more than 2,500 stem cell scientists from 50 countries will hear from 150+ speakers, including:

Taking stem cell science from the lab to the clinic, and what’s wrong with the US ‘right to try’ legislation—Roger Barker, UK

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Today:

• Could you regrow an arm or a leg? Salamanders can.
• Should you be allowed to try unapproved treatments—without the FDA tick—when you’re terminally ill? President Trump says yes.

It’s Day 1 of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) 2018 Annual Meeting at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre: more than 2,500 stem cell scientists from 50 countries will hear from 150+ speakers, including:

Taking stem cell science from the lab to the clinic, and what’s wrong with the US ‘right to try’ legislation—Roger Barker, UK

ISSCR is concerned about ‘right to try’ legislation just signed into law in the US, which allows terminally ill patients to try risky, unproven treatments without regulation or oversight. Doctors and scientists are alarmed. They say current compassionate use provisions allow access.

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Mending broken hearts and burnt eyes, and much more

• Stem cells are saving lives today—through bone marrow and cord blood transplants
• There are trials making new skin, restoring sight, treating diabetes, repairing the brain
• But we’ll also hear of the dangers of risky treatments, snake oil merchants, and new Australian and US regulations.

More than 2,500 stem cell scientists from 50 countries are in Melbourne this week for the massive International Society for Stem Cell Research 2018 Annual Meeting. It’s taking place from 20-23 June at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. Here are some highlights and we’ll have daily alerts for you with more people and ideas through the week.

Media are welcome.

Developing a stem cell product to cure blindness from burning—Michele De Luca and Graziella Pellegrini, Italy

Italian innovators Graziella Pellegrini and Michele De Luca have seen their work lead to patients regaining eyesight after 20 years of blindness. And it’s led to the world’s first non-blood-related commercial stem cell therapy.

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Here is a selection of images from the Australasian Society for Stem Cell Research (ASSCR) Stem Cell Image Competition 2018, being held in conjunction with the International Society for Stem Cell Research 2018 Annual Meeting.

Images may be used by the media, provided credit is given to the photographer.

For hi-res versions please click on the photo and then right click to download the file.

Human forebrain neurons derived from induced pluripotent stem cells and infected with Australian bat lyssavirus, a type of rabies found in Australian bats. (Credit: Vinod Sundaramoorthy / ASSCR)

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Media preview

20-23 JUNE 2018 AT THE MELBOURNE CONVENTION AND EXHIBITION CENTRE

• Stem cells are saving lives today—through bone marrow and cord blood transplants
• We’ll hear about trials making new skin, restoring sight, treating diabetes, repairing the brain
• But we’ll also hear of the dangers of risky treatments, snake oil merchants, and new US regulations

Australia is tightening regulations in an effort to reign in rogue stem cell clinics.

The US is also cracking down on clinics marketing unproven treatments to patients. But ‘right to try’ laws there allow seriously ill patients to try experimental therapies without regulation or oversight. Doctors and scientists are alarmed.

More than 2,500 stem cell scientists from 50 countries are in Melbourne next week for the massive International Society for Stem Cell Research 2018 Annual Meeting. They will hear sound science from 150+ speakers, including: [continue reading…]

Stem cell scientists gather in the city of landmark discoveries

The International Society for Stem Cell Research 2018 Annual Meeting brings the field’s scientists to a country and city with a rich stem cell research heritage.

Bone marrow transplants to treat blood cancers and other blood disorders were the first stem cell treatments. In the 1960s, Don Metcalf at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne discovered colony stimulating factors, the molecules that stimulate stem cells to multiply and mature, which revolutionised bone marrow transplants and the treatment of blood diseases.

Opera singer Jose Carreras, one of the millions of people who have had this stem cell treatment for leukaemia, credits his survival to Don Metcalf.

Around this time, wool was one of Australia’s top exports, but Australian merino sheep were having fewer lambs than their overseas counterparts. Sheep fertility and animal reproduction research received a massive funding boost in the 1960s and 1970s. [continue reading…]

Media release issued by ISSCR

The ISSCR, the largest professional organization of stem cell researchers from around the world, opposes the U.S. House of Representatives proposal to ban federal funding for fetal tissue research. ISSCR President Hans Clevers released the following statement:

“There is no scientific or ethical basis for the proposed restriction on fetal tissue research, which would roll back decades of consensus in the U.S., irreparably delaying the development of new medical treatments. Research using fetal tissue has saved millions of lives through the development of vaccines for diseases that once ravaged communities across the world. Polio is now almost eradicated, and rubella, measles, chickenpox, and rabies are all preventable diseases because of fetal tissue research. [continue reading…]

Media release issued by ISSCR

The ISSCR is disappointed with the enactment of the ‘Right to Try’ law. Along with more than 100 patient and research groups opposing the bill, we believe it will put patients at risk and undermine the effective FDA Expanded Access Program already in place to give seriously ill patients access to experimental treatments.

“Instead of helping patients, this law will harm patients by providing a route for snake-oil salesman to evade regulation and sell unproven and scientifically dubious therapies to patients,” said ISSCR President Hans Clevers. “In recent months, several patients have been blinded by clinics administering unproven stem cell interventions for eye disease. The Right to Try bill only emboldens bad actors looking for ways to take advantage of desperate patients,” he said. [continue reading…]

Media release issued by ISSCR

Progress in stem cell research and its translation to medicine is the focus of the International Society for Stem Cell Research annual meeting 20-23 June at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre in Melbourne, Australia. More than 3,000 stem cell scientists, bioethicists, clinicians, and industry professionals from over 50 countries will share and discuss the latest discoveries and technologies within the field, and how they are advancing regenerative medicine.

The ISSCR annual meeting is the world’s largest meeting focused on stem cell research, with lectures, workshops, poster presentations, and a dynamic exhibition floor with nearly 100 exhibitors. Presentations span the breadth of the field, including topics such as cell-based disease modeling, gene editing and gene therapy, neural, cardiac, blood and other developmental systems and their diseases, and potential breakthrough therapies currently being tested in clinical trials, among others. [continue reading…]

Media release issued by ISSCR

The ISSCR today announces the recipients of its 2018 awards, to be presented at the society’s annual meeting, 20-23 June in Melbourne, Australia.

• ISSCR Award for Innovation: Michele De Luca, MD, and Graziella Pellegrini, PhD, Full Professors at the University of Modena e Reggio Emilia, Center for Regenerative Medicine, University of Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy;
• ISSCR Dr. Susan Lim Award for Outstanding Young Investigator: Shuibing Chen, PhD, Associate Professor of Chemical Biology in Surgery and in Biochemistry, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, U.S.;
• ISSCR Tobias Award Lecture: Connie Eaves, PhD, FRS (Canada), Distinguished Scientist, Terry Fox Laboratory, BC Cancer, and Professor of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada;
• Public Service Award: Megan Munsie, PhD, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Centre for Stem Cell Systems, The University of Melbourne, and Head of Education, Ethics, Law & Community Awareness Unit, Stem Cells Australia, The University of Melbourne, Australia.

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Friday 28 July 2017, at the RACI Centenary Chemistry Congress, Melbourne Convention Centre

Today at the Centenary Chemistry Congress

• Gender in the lab: is science inclusive and how do we stop women leaving academia?
• Using renewable energy to make more sustainable fertilisers

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Thursday 27 July 2017, at the RACI Centenary Chemistry Congress, Melbourne Convention Centre

Today at the Centenary Chemistry Congress

• Sniffing out rhino horn and ivory: creating an electronic nose at UTS
• From Chernobyl to farms – minimising the impacts of radiation: an IAEA insider speaks
• Testing for disease and clean water with your phone: La Trobe researchers want to smash the cost of testing
• The Nobel Laureate who transformed how our fuels, plastic and drugs are made: now he’s tackling acid rain by getting the sulphur out of diesel
• UK to ban petrol cars, we need better batteries: ANSTO/Wollongong researchers tracking ions

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Wednesday, 26 July 2017, at the RACI Centenary Chemistry Congress, Melbourne Convention Centre

Today at the Centenary Chemistry Congress

From a molecular motor to the nanocar and beyond: 2016 chemistry Nobel Prize recipient Ben Feringa is speaking in Melbourne and available for interview today and Thursday. More below.

The man who unboiled an egg: Colin Raston won an IgNobel Prize in 2015 for unboiling an egg. Now he and his team are taking the technology to market. And it’s set to transform the $160 protein folding industry. More below.

A pheromone-based alternative to insecticides; and cleaner, greener household products: Frances Arnold is confusing insects so they can’t mate (a bit like spraying bad perfume). And James Clark wants to take the fossil fuels out of solvents used in paint and cleaning products. More below.

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Monday 24 July 2017, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

Dr Alan Finkel AO delivered the opening address to the Royal Australian Chemical Institute Centenary Congress in Melbourne. The speech was titled ‘Solutions’.

Solutions

It is a great honour to pay tribute to one of Australia’s most stable compounds: the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, in its centenary year.

Thousands of chemists, in high concentration, in my home town.

I grew up in the era when junior chemistry kits were the rage and children were encouraged to invent their own fun.

You could say that I was an inventive youth.

And one of the first things I discovered was that magnesium ribbons could be burned for entertainment, and zinc dust and sulphur powder could make rocket fuel.

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Tuesday, 25 July 2017, at the RACI Centenary Chemistry Congress, Melbourne Convention Centre

Nobel Peace Prize winner on eliminating chemical weapons

While the threat of countries using chemical weapons has diminished, “chemical terrorism is no longer a theoretical proposition or even imminent threat, but a stark reality,” according to His Excellency Mr Ahmet Üzümcü.

Winner of the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, Mr Üzümcü is the Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

In 2013, the OPCW along with the United Nations and 30 partner countries participated in an operation to remove all the chemical weapons declared by the Syrian Arab Republic.

Since then, the OPCW has remained engaged in Syria through an ongoing fact-finding mission to establish whether chemical weapons have been used in Syria.

They’re also keeping a close eye on North Korea, one of only four countries who haven’t yet joined the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international treaty outlawing the production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons. The treaty came into force 20 years ago.

Limited availability for interviews – talk is at 2.30pm.

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