News
Nuffield Council on Bioethics: Notice of Call for Evidence on emerging techniques to prevent the transmission of inherited mitochondrial disorders
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is inviting short written submissions of evidence to inform its consideration of ethical issues arising from emerging techniques to prevent the transmission of inherited mitochondrial disorders. In particular the Council is considering pronuclear transfer (PNT) and maternal spindle transfer (MST) techniques. These are not currently permitted for use in treatment in the UK.
Details of how to respond and background information on the techniques that the Nuffield Council are considering are available here. Officially the closing date for the consultation is 5pm on Friday 24 February 2012.
The Council will take the responses to the Call for Evidence into account as part of its aim to contribute information and insight on ethical issues arising from the use of these techniques. The findings of the project are intended to stimulate and inform deliberation and debate amongst the public, professional groups, regulators, policymakers and Parliamentarians. A short report will be published in spring/summer 2012.
If you have any queries about making a submission, or about the timeframe in which to respond, please contact Laura Riley either by phone on +44 (0)20 7681 9619 or by email.
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VALUE Project – Regenerative Medicines: Navigating the Uncertainties
This 1-day dissemination meeting has been organised to share the outcomes from VALUE, a two year project sponsored by the Technology Strategy Board, with the wider regenerative medicine community. The VALUE Consortium is a group of ten companies and organisations that are actively engaged in research, development, commercialisation, adoption and financing of regenerative medicines. They are Biolatris Ltd, Consulting on Advanced Biologicals Ltd, Bupa, NHS Technology Adoption Centre, NHS Blood and Transplant, Loughborough University, Cell Medica, Quy Biosciences, TiGenix and Neusentis – Pfizer’s European Research Unit.
The event will be held at the BIS Conference Centre, 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET on February 24th 2012.
Participants will gain a better understanding of how to resolve some of the uncertainties impacting the regenerative medicine sector. The meeting will consist of short presentations and facilitated panel discussions, followed by a networking session. The topics covered will include regulatory, financing, commissioning in the NHS and manufacturing issues.
For more information regarding the day and a link to registration, please click here or contact Mrs Eleri Bristow by email on E.A.Bristow@lboro.ac.uk or by phone on 01509 227690.
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BSGT Annual Conference 2012
The British Society for Gene Therapy (BSGT) annual conference will be a 1-day event aimed at showcasing the work of young scientists. Everyone in the stem cell and gene therapy community is welcome and encouraged to participate. As an additional motivation for early career scientists, MSc students, PhD students and early post-doctoral researchers will have the opportunity to get involved in all aspects of the conference and organisation. This will include reviewing abstracts, chairing sessions and presenting data.
The event will be held at the UCL Institute of Child Health, London on March 9th 2012.
There will be decent breaks throughout the day to allow poster viewing and networking with other delegates. Following the conference, everyone will be strongly encouraged to move to a local pub for drinks !
For more information regarding the day, a link to registration and details on how to submit an abstract, please click here or contact Clare Beach or Suzy Buckley by email on office@bsgt.org.
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Tissue Regeneration Strategies and Innovative Biomaterials in Orthopaedic Surgery
This 1-day conference held in association with Orthopaedic Research UK (ORUK) and hosted by BrightSTAR is focused on innovative biomaterials and tissue engineering strategies in orthopaedic surgery. The conference will present innovation emerging from European translational research aiming at tissue regeneration of bone and cartilage in applications such as spine and osteochondral pathologies. Pioneering concepts that integrate material science with cell biology and pre-clinical validation will be presented. The view of expert orthopaedic surgeons will provide an assessment of the clinical potential of these technologies while the presence of experts in the field, industrialists and policy makers will stimulate an interdisciplinary discussion about their socio-economical impact.
The event will take place in the Huxley Building at the University of Brighton on April 3rd 2012.
The day is suitable for trainees in their earlier years and also surgeons in practice who wish to widen their knowledge. The delegate fee is £65 for non members or £58.50 for ORUK members.
For more information, please click here or email info@oruk.org.
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The 2012 Stem Cell Discussion Forum
This 1-day event is a discussion workshop focused on the rapidly moving area of pluripotent cells. The aim is to bring together scientists to discuss important areas of work in this field with specific emphasis on practical technology. It offers participants a chance to explore aspects of the biology with the experts during round table and one-to one discussions.
The meeting will be chaired by Dr Glyn Stacey from the UK Stem Cell Bank, and the day has CPD accreditation.
The event will take place in the Penridge Suite, London, N11 1NL on May 18th 2012.
For more information, please click here or email the Meeting Secretariat at mickey.ramalho@euroscicon.com.
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World Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine Congress 2012
This 3-day conference is the region’s largest stem cells and regenerative medicine industry conference, and attracts leaders in the field from around the world. Participants can engage in a global forum with senior level decision-makers at Europe’s largest executive level stem cell conference, and are able to learn form the recent successes and failures experienced during cell therapy development.
For the first time, this congress will be co-located with the World Gene Therapy Congress, since obvious synergies between cell and gene therapy allow for great discussion between these two burgeoning industries.
The event will take place in the Victoria Park Plaza hotel in London between the 21st and 23rd of May 2012.
For more information, please click here or email enquiry.uk@terrapinn.com.
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School in Skeletal Tissue Engineering Mechanics, with links to Biology, Chemistry and Medicine
The Centre International des Sciences Mecaniques (CISM) has organised an Advanced School on Skeletal Tissue Eningeering Mechanics, coordinated by Christian Hellmich (Vienna University of Technology, Austria) and Aldo R. Boccaccini (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany).
The 5 days of lectures will cover topics concerning the key challenges of contemporary tissue engineering strategies, which result from (at least) two competing requirements: (i) the tissue engineering scaffolds must exhibit a sufficient mechanical competence; and (ii) within the living organism, it should be continuously resorbed and replaced by natural bone. This relates to the topic of bioresorbable scaffolds enabling internal growth of new tissue. Thereby, bone tissue will be the key focus, since great progress has been made, not only in the fields of materials science and biology, but in particular in the fields of applied and computational mechanics.
The school will occur in Udine, Italy between 17th and 21st September 2012.
The fee for the school is 700 euros and applicants must contact the school one month before the beginning of the course.
For more information, please click here or alternatively contact CISM by email on cism@cism.it or by phone on +39 0432 248511.
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Intercytex offers new Cell2Therapy service
Intercytex is offering its extensive expertise in bringing a variety of autologous and allogeneic cell therapies to the clinic in the US, UK and mainland Europe through their new Cell2Therapy service.
This is a contract translation service which can provide practical help in any or all the steps from product development, through regulatory approvals, GMP manufacture of the product and clinical trial operation. Depending on a client’s needs and commercial plans, Cell2Therapy can either take responsibility for these processes or mentor the client through the various stages themselves.
For more information, please click here.
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Geron halting stem cell programs and focusing on novel cancer programs
On the 14th November 2011, Geron Corporation announced that they were discontinuing further development of their stem cell programs and seeking partners for these assets. The Company announced that going forwards they would be focusing on their first-in-class oncology programs.
As a result, Geron plans to close the GRNOPC1 trial for spinal cord injury to further enrolment, although the Company will continue to follow all enrolled patients, accruing data and updating the FDA and the medical community on their progress. In this trial, GRNOPC1 has been well tolerated with no serious adverse events.
Geron’s Chief Executive Officer, John A. Scarlett, M.D., said “Our employees, collaborators and shareholders can be proud of the pioneering role they have played to advance our stem cell technology into the clinic. Stem cells continue to hold great medical promise. We believe that our leadership role in the field and the quality of our stem cell assets-which are widely recognised as being among the most innovative, comprehensive and advanced cell therapy programs in the world-will be an important point of differentiation in our discussions to partner these assets."
For the official press release, please click here.
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Manufacturers’ Authorisation granted to NHSBT’s Advanced Therapy Unit in Liverpool, UK for the production of cell and tissue-based IMPs for clinical trials
NHS Blood and Transplant’s (NHSBT) Advanced Therapy Unit in Liverpool has been granted a Manufacturers’ Authorisation for the production of cell and tissue-based Investigational Medicinal Products (IMP) for clinical trials.
This authorisation, granted by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA), opens the way for NHSBT to work with the regenerative medicine industry to take innovative cell and tissue therapies to the clinic. NHSBT’s specialist production facilities include 32 clean rooms, staffed by trained and experienced scientists.
Keith Smith, Lead Quality Specialist with NHSBT said: “This authorisation confirms that our practices and quality system meet the stringent requirements of current Good Manufacturing Practice for the manufacture and supply of cell-based medicinal products. This compliments NHSBT’s existing authorisations for gene therapy medicinal products manufacture”.
Professor John Kearney, Head of Tissue Services said: “Regenerative medicine research is moving rapidly to develop therapies that will regenerate, repair or replace damaged tissues or cells. NHSBT offers high quality translational development and production solutions to evolving regenerative medicine companies.”
NHSBT has already been contracted by Progenteq, ReNeuron and a number of other UK companies to provide services helping to move forward the provision of patient treatments.
The LRMN look forward to hearing further developments regarding NHSBT’s manufacturing capabilities.
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ReNeuron report successful treatment of the first patient in the next dose cohort within their Phase I cell therapy clinical trial
ReNeuron have reported an update on progress within the Pilot Investigation of Stem Cells in Stroke (PISCES) Phase I clinical trial of their ReN001 stem cell therapy for disabled stroke patients. After the independent Data Safety Monitoring Board had reviewed the safety data from the first dose cohort of three patients treated with the therapy and deemed it suitable to allow the trial to progress, ReNeuron were able to move forwards and treat the first patient in the next dose cohort of three patients, who has now been successfully treated and discharged from hospital with no acute safety issues arising.
The PISCES study is the world’s first fully regulated clinical trial of a neural stem cell therapy for disabled stroke patients and this positive news regarding the progression of the trial is very encouraging.
The LRMN look forward to seeing further results reported.
For more information, please click here.
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The Morality of Patenting hESC inventions in Europe: Brüstle v Greenpeace
In its close alignment with Lawford Davies Denoon (LDD), LRMN has been speaking with Alexander Denoon, Partner at LDD, who has been keeping track of the developments concerning the on-going court case on the subject of patenting human embryonic stem cell (hESC) inventions.
Please click on the TAB: Brüstle v Greenpeace for an expert analysis of the decision published on Tuesday 18th October 2011.
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Cell therapy & Regenerative Medicine Glossary with BSI
The LRMN are working together with the British Standards Institution (BSI) to revise the original Regenerative Medicine glossary, published both by BSI and by Future Medicine in 2006.
The new glossary will contain the very latest definitions of all terms involved in the cell therapy and regenerative medicine sector and is due to be published in January 2012.