Recent Patents on Regenerative Medicine - Volume 3, Issue 1, 2013

Regenerative medicine using pluripotent stem cells represents the future for curing developmental abnormalities, degenerative disorders and aging-related illnesses. However, today's regenerative medicine faces two major challenges with respect to stem cells: their shortage in supply and uncertain safety in clinical therapy. The recent discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells or iPSCs) derived from patients' som Read More

Skeletal muscle is highly efficient at self-repair following injury via a complex interplay of muscle and nonmuscle cellular components, soluble growth factors, and the extracellular matrix. Under certain circumstances, such as after extensive acute tissue injury, prolonged periods of muscle disuse, and in some diseases, the regenerative capacity of muscle can be overwhelmed or impaired. Predictive muscle break down can Read More

The mammalian heart has a limited capability of physiological cardiomyocyte turnover during adult life to substitute aged or damaged cells. While this regenerative mechanism has been preserved throughout mammalian evolution, it is insufficient to counteract more extensive tissue loss, which results in scar formation at the expense of cardiac function. In recent years, regenerative medicine studies investigated the efficiency of Read More

Healthy and active stem cells are able to differentiate into mature cells of the cardiac tissue, such as cardiomyocytes, fibroblasts and endothelial cells. Adult stem cells seem to be less responsive to stimuli of differentiation in cardiomiocytes, as compared to embrional stem cells. However, the extent of survival, proliferation, and cardiac differentiation of adult stem cells can be enhanced by physical and chemical agents. The ch Read More

In recent years, the concept of preserving and/or replenishing the functional β-cell mass vital to sustain insulin output and normalized blood glucose levels has gained much interest as a therapeutic approach in regenerative medicine for the treatment of Diabetes Mellitus. Herein, we surveyed the diabetes area patent literature published in recent years to identify novel uprising therapeutic targets specifically implicated in rege Read More

Stem and progenitor cells have generated considerable scientific and commercial interest in recent years due to their potential for novel cell therapy for a variety of medical conditions. A highly active research area in the field of regenerative medicine is vascular biology. Blood vessel repair and angiogenesis are key processes with endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) playing a central role. Clinical trials for ischemic condi Read More

The information on relationships between paracrine communication and stem cells is spread over a large amount of patent and scientific publications. This article provides an overview of some major issues to be considered when searching for such information by using freely available databases. Major trends that drive innovation in scientific and patent production, as well as association between specific topics, can be e Read More

The recent patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent databases, and are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue. The patents are categorized in fast emerging areas of regenerative medicine e.g. stem cells, human embryonic stem, gene therapy, tissue engineering, regenerative biomolecules, use of biomaterials for treating disease and injury, and tissue/ organ regeneration relate Read More