Can Activated Platelet Rich Plasma Combined with Adipose-Derived Stem Cells Be Used to Treat Skin Wrinkles?

In recent years, Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) and Adipose-Derived Stem Cells (ADSCs) have been used separately for many clinical applications, especially skin rejuvenation. A combined injection of PRP and ADSCs could therefore be used to treat skin wrinkles. However, there are controversies and reports with conflicting results regarding the efficacy of this treatment. The authors aimed to determine the anti-wrinkle and skin rejuvenation mechanism of combined PRP and ADSCs treatment. The effects of PRP and ADSCs isolated from the same consenting donors were evaluated using in vitro and in vivo models. The in vitro effects of PRP and ADSCs on dermal fibroblast proliferation, collagen production, and inhibition of Matrix Metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) production were investigated using a co-culture model. Fibroblasts and ADSCs were cultured within the same dish, but in two separate cavities (using an insert plate), in the presence of the same PRP-supplemented medium. In vivo, the authors evaluated the effects of combined PRP and ADSCs on skin histochemistry, including changes in the dermal layer and collagen production in photo-aged skin (mice). They also determined the survival and differentiation of grafted ADSCs. The results show that combined PRP and ADSCs strongly stimulate in vitro fibroblast proliferation, collagen production, and inhibition of MMP-1 synthesis. Intra-dermal co-injection of PRP and ADSCs was observed to stimulate increased dermal layer thickness and collagen production compared with the untreated group. These results indicate that a combined PRP and ADSC injection can reduce wrinkles more effectively than either PRP or ADSC alone, and provide insight into the clinical use of PRP combined with ADSCs for dermal applications, particularly skin rejuvenation.

Dental Tissue Engineering Research and Translational Approaches towards Clinical Application

Stem cell-based dental tissue regeneration is a new and exciting field that has the potential to transform the way that we practice dentistry. It is, however, imperative its clinical application is supported by solid basic and translational research. In this way, the full extent of the potential risks involved in the use of these technologies will be understood, and the means to prevent them will be discovered. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to analyze the state-of-the-science with regard to dental pulp stem cell research in dental tissue engineering, the new developments in biomimetic scaffold materials customized for dental tissue applications, and to give a prospectus with respect to translational approaches of these research findings towards clinical application.

Gene Expression Regulation underlying Osteo-, Adipo-, and Chondro-Genic Lineage Commitment of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Human mesenchymal stem cells have a high potential in regenerative medicine. They can be isolated from a variety of adult tissues, including bone marrow, and can be differentiated into multiple cell types of the mesodermal lineage, including adipocytes, osteocytes, and chondrocytes. Stem cell differentiation is controlled by a process of interacting lineage-specific and multipotent genes. In this chapter, the authors use full genome microarrays to explore gene expression profiles in the process of Osteo-, Adipo-, and Chondro-Genic lineage commitment of human mesenchymal stem cells.

BMP Signaling in Regenerative Medicine

More than 40 years after the discovery of Bone Morphogenetic Proteins (BMPs) as bone inducers, a whole protein family of growth factors connected to a wide variety of functions in embryonic development, homeostasis, and regeneration has been characterized. Today, BMP2 and BMP7 are already used in the clinic to promote vertebral fusions and restoration of non-union fractures. Besides describing present clinical applications, the authors review ongoing trials highlighting the future possibilities of BMPs in medicine. Apparently, the physiological roles of BMPs have expanded their range from bone growth induction and connective tissue regeneration to cancer diagnosis/treatment and cardiovascular disease prevention.

Heart Valve Diseases in the Elderly

This chapter gives an overview of heart valve diseases, their diagnostics techniques, and current and future treatments with particular emphasis on the elder generation. It starts with a brief presentation of anatomy of the heart and its valves and the effect of aging on the function of the heart. Subsequently the projection of the global older population is given, and the most common and frequently occurring valvular heart diseases including aortic regurgitation, aortic stenosis, and aortic sclerosis are presented and discussed. Moreover, the current heart valve replacement techniques using mechanical or bio-prosthetic valves and the complications associated with the use of these artificial heart valves are presented and discussed. The chapter ends with a full account of the risk of mortality associated with the operation of heart valve replacement for older patients and the future directions for heart valve implementation using the tissue engineering concept.

Modeling Colorectal Cancer

Mathematical modeling is increasingly used to improve our understanding of colorectal cancer. In the first part of this chapter, the authors give a review of systems biology approaches to investigate colorectal cancer. In the second part, the mathematical model proposed by Johnston et al. (2007) is expanded to include time delays and analysed for its stability. For both models, the original and the extended version, the authors obtain the necessary and sufficient conditions for stability. This is confirmed by numerical simulations. Thus, some new mathematical and biological results are obtained.

Designing Biomedical Stents for Vascular Therapy

The breakthrough technologies of stent have revolutionized the medical industry, particularly in the field of percutaneous coronary interventions and other vascular therapies. However, recent concerns of late stent thrombosis and in-stent restenosis have rekindled an interest in developing new and improved therapeutic stent devices. A multidisciplinary approach of regeneration therapy, biomedicine, and nanotechnology is the next frontier for this. The chapter presented here gives a comprehensive overview of the evolving stent technologies for efficient vascular tissue therapy and articulates the potential of these technologies to design the next generation of therapeutic stent. In addition, the chapter also encompasses upcoming technologies to develop bioactive stents for efficient healing and remodeling of damaged local vascular biology.

Regulatory T Cell-Based Immunotherapy

CD4+CD25+ regulatory T (Treg) cells expressing the forkhead box transcription factor Foxp3 have a vital function in the maintenance of immune homeostasis and the prevention of fatal multi-organ autoimmunity throughout life. In the last decade, Foxp3+ Treg cells have raised the hope for novel cell-based therapies to achieve tolerance in clinical settings of unwanted immune responses such as autoimmunity and graft rejection. Conceptually, the antigen-specific enhancement of Treg cell function is of particular importance because such strategies will minimize the requirements for pharmaceutical immunosuppression, sparing desired protective host immune responses to infectious and malignant insults. This chapter discusses current concepts of Treg cell-based immunotherapy with particular emphasis on antigen-specific Treg cell induction from conventional CD4+ T cells to deal with organ-specific autoimmunity.

The Hidden Markov Brains

This chapter presents Hidden Markov models (HMM) of the brain on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for the inference of white matter hyperintensities and brain age prediction to study the bidirectional vascular depression hypothesis in the elderly and neurodegenerative diseases, respectively. Rating and quantification of cerebral white matter hyperintensities on magnetic resonance imaging are important tasks in various clinical and scientific settings. The authors have proposed that prior knowledge about white matter hyperintensities can be accumulated and utilised to enable a reliable inference of the rating of a new white matter hyperintensity observation. The use of HMM for rating inference of white matter hyperintensities can be used as a computerized rating-assisting tool and can be very economical for diagnostic evaluation of brain tissue lesions. They have also applied HMM for MRI-based brain age prediction. Cortical thinning and intracortical gray matter volume losses are widely observed in normal ageing, while the decreasing rate of the volume loss in subjects with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease is reported to be faster than the average speed. Therefore, neurodegenerative disease is considered as accelerated aging. Accurate detection of accelerated ageing of the brain is a relatively new direction of research in computational neuroscience, as it has the potential to offer positive clinical outcome through early intervention.

Proliferation and Regeneration

There is an increasing tendency to use stem cells as potential therapeutics in various human diseases. This is a rapidly progressing field, believed to change the face of treatment and healing in the majority of human diseases. However, basic knowledge concerning the biology of stem cells and their use in various treatment protocols is inadequate, and there is still much to be learned. One of the “hot-spots” of stem cell research is their use in cancer treatment and post-treatment reconstruction. This chapter focuses on describing the main progress in the field of regenerative methods as far as cancer treatment is concerned. In addition, it reviews the up-to-date knowledge on the field of post-therapy reconstruction. Finally, the chapter mentions some aspects of proliferation and tries to give insight to the separation between proliferating tumor cells from proliferating stem cells.