Chris Mills believe Workington Comets will revel in being among favourites

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by James Broadhurst

Last updated at 13:18, Wednesday, 02 April 2014

Workington Comets are fired up and ready to rise to the challenge of being one of the favourites for the Premier League title, according to Chris Mills.

Chris Mills

The Essex-based rider was part of the Comets line-up that cruised to victory over Glasgow Tigers in the League Cup at Derwent Park on Saturday.

Mills, who rides at reserve, scored an impressive eight points as Workington thrashed Glasgow 60-31. The other top scorers were captain Rene Bach with 17 points and number one Josh Grajczonek with 13.

Mills, who celebrated his 31st birthday on Saturday, said: We are tipped as the favourites for the league and scores like Saturdays and winning the Ian Thomas Shield are important.

Its a long season but everyone is really fired up. The expectations are there. Now we have to rise to it and hopefully we can pull it off.

Everyone can add to there average this season. There is no reason why we cant get some more silverware. All the way through the team there is competition. I dont want to be at reserve all year I want to push on.

Mills will spend most Saturdays making the 650-mile round trip from his home to Derwent Park stadium for home matches, added to the many away fixtures at places such as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Berwick.

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Chris Mills believe Workington Comets will revel in being among favourites

Chris Mills believes Workington Comets will revel in being among favourites

Posted on by

by James Broadhurst

Last updated at 13:18, Wednesday, 02 April 2014

Workington Comets are fired up and ready to rise to the challenge of being one of the favourites for the Premier League title, according to Chris Mills.

Chris Mills

The Essex-based rider was part of the Comets line-up that cruised to victory over Glasgow Tigers in the League Cup at Derwent Park on Saturday.

Mills, who rides at reserve, scored an impressive eight points as Workington thrashed Glasgow 60-31. The other top scorers were captain Rene Bach with 17 points and number one Josh Grajczonek with 13.

Mills, who celebrated his 31st birthday on Saturday, said: We are tipped as the favourites for the league and scores like Saturdays and winning the Ian Thomas Shield are important.

Its a long season but everyone is really fired up. The expectations are there. Now we have to rise to it and hopefully we can pull it off.

Everyone can add to there average this season. There is no reason why we cant get some more silverware. All the way through the team there is competition. I dont want to be at reserve all year I want to push on.

Mills will spend most Saturdays making the 650-mile round trip from his home to Derwent Park stadium for home matches, added to the many away fixtures at places such as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Berwick.

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Chris Mills believes Workington Comets will revel in being among favourites

Being Involved Has Always Been Important to DeFazio

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April 2, 2014 - American Hockey League (AHL) Utica Comets Any Comets fan that attended the St. Patrick's Day game on March 7th experienced a whirlwind of emotions, as Brandon DeFazio tied the game with less than eight seconds remaining. DeFazio did it again this past Sunday, as he scored the game-winning goal at the start of the third period.

DeFazio has always been a standout on the Utica Comets, but recently, he has stepped up his play and become a clutch goal scorer. When asked what has spurred his recent surge in points, Brandon explained, "I don't know if I've necessarily changed anything, but I definitely feel more confident. I think your play mimics how the whole team's doing, and we've found our groove and have experienced a lot of recent success."

In his third year playing professional hockey, DeFazio ranks fifth on the Comets in points scored, with 15 goals and 14 assists over 67 games played. He is also the only Comet to appear in all games during the inaugural season so far, with only nine games remaining.

Perhaps Defazio's biggest impact since arriving in Utica in October has been with the community. Last season with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, DeFazio was named the IOA/American Specialty AHL Man of the Year for his outstanding contributions to the community. He also won the same award during the 2011-12 season with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

"For me, there's no reason not to be involved," he said. "We're fortunate enough to be able to do what we love for a living, and any time you can help someone, whether it's putting a smile on a kid's face or cleaning up the city, those things go a long way."

This past Sunday was especially special for DeFazio, who helped put together an Alzheimer's Awareness night. It just so happened that he scored the game winning goal and was able to celebrate with members of the Alzheimer's Association of Central New York who attended the game.

"[Alzheimer's] is something that's close to my heart," he explained. "My nana went through the disease, and my mom and aunt went through it with her. It's very important to me, and it was the perfect night to get the game winner. It added to the whole feel of the game, and was definitely meant to be."

As such a selfless and generous player, it is without a doubt that DeFazio's impact has and will continue to be felt throughout Utica. When asked what the most rewarding part of working so closely with charities is, DeFazio didn't hesitate, responding, "You look at what we give them, but we often forget how much they give back to us."

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Being Involved Has Always Been Important to DeFazio

Aloe vera barbadensis – natural medicin / Psoriasis – Dermatitis seborrhoica – Video

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Aloe vera barbadensis - natural medicin / Psoriasis - Dermatitis seborrhoica
Practical natural medicine. Personal experience, use and opinion. Extracting the gel of aloe vera barbadensis and applying it as external use to myself. Aks ...

By: Lothar Mayring

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Aloe vera barbadensis - natural medicin / Psoriasis - Dermatitis seborrhoica - Video

Travel Channel Greenlights Ten New Series, One Special, One Series In Development

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Travel Channel president Shannon ONeill today unveiled ten new series, one new special and a series in development. New seriesBig Crazy Family Adventure (wt), Hotel Amazon (wt), World Access (wt) and the special, One Day On Earth (wt), highlight the cultures, landscapes and people that make travel so transformative. Other series, including Big Time RV (wt), Booze Traveler (wt), Expedition Unknown, (wt), Resort Rescue and Tours By Unger (wt), will introduce new talent who share their knowledge on specific topics and places. And for traveling foodies, Travel Channel crisscrosses the country to discover Americas best grillers and BBQers in American Grilled and Underground BBQ Challenge. In addition, the network has greenlit two half-hour episodes for a new series in development called 1 Way Ticket (wt). Here is a description of the greenlit productions:

Series:

American Grilled pits grill masters from various backgrounds against one another in the ultimate outdoor cooking challenge. Host and renowned chef David Guas is turning up the heat on grillers across America as they compete for a $10,000 cash prize and bragging rights. Four contestants test their epic backyard skills by serving up delicious and original plates that skillfully showcase the grill and embrace the amazing local flavors. American Grilled (wt) is greenlit for 13 one-hour episodes produced by Original Media.

Big Crazy Family Adventure (wt) follows adventurer, writer and photographer Bruce Kirkby as he treks from Vancouver to the Himalayas with his wife and two children. Kirkby, an experienced world traveler, takes his family across undiscovered landscapes, through challenging climates and inside unique communities in an effort to escape the everyday modern world and expose his children to some of lifes simple wonders. Big Crazy Family Adventure (wt) is greenlit for eight one-hour episodes produced by dick clark productions and WD Entertainment.

Big Time RV (wt) gives viewers an all-access pass to Americas largest, and most prestigious, RV dealership located in sunny Florida. The larger-than-life sales force and over-the-top service center work together to satisfy the demands of RV lovers, looking to buy or rent the biggest, most customized RVs in the business. Big Time RV is greenlit for six half-hour episodes produced by Half Yard Productions.

Booze Traveler (wt)features cocktail connoisseur Jack Maxwell as he travels around the world, one drink at a time. Maxwell grew up in South Boston, where bars served as the neighborhood living rooms hosting family dinners, birthdays and weddings. In this new series, he will take his respect and appreciation for specialty cocktails to explore new locales, seeking out the people, places, customs and cultures behind drinks across the globe. Booze Traveler (wt) is greenlit for eight one-hour episodes produced by Karga Seven Pictures in association with White Reindeer Productions.

Expedition Unknown (wt) chronicles the adventures of Josh Gates as he investigates iconic mysteries across the globe. Gates begins by interviewing key eyewitnesses and uncovering recent developments in the story, then springboards into a fully immersive exploration. This authentic, roughshod adventure leads Gates closer to the truth behind these unanswered global enigmas, such as the disappearance of Amelia Earharts plane. Expedition Unknown is greenlit for six one-hour episodes produced by Ping Pong Productions.

Hotel Amazon (wt) chronicles longtime friends Rusty Johnson and Stephan Jablonski as they leave New York to pursue their dream of building a world-class resort in the middle of the Peruvian Amazon. Johnson and Jablonski discover that the Amazon is a fierce terrain, and building a luxury resort on top of it is a grueling endeavor. In order to reach their goals, Johnson and Jablowski need to overcome dire conditions, including harsh jungle weather, dangerous native creatures and a severe lack of essential supplies. Hotel Amazon (wt) is greenlit for six one-hour episodes produced by Crazy Legs Productions.

Resort Rescue follows world-famous hospitality consultant Shane Green as he helps hotel and resort owners figure out whats going wrong inside their establishments. Green watches every move through hidden surveillance footage taken across the premises. Afterwards, Green reveals his findings to the owners and shows them how to fix these lingering issues. Resort Rescue is greenlit for 13 one-hour episodes produced by Relativity TV.

Tours By Unger (wt) goes where ordinary travelers cant, pulling back the curtain on the hidden history all around us. Host Brian Unger is the ultimate tour guide, bringing his irreverent humor and point of view to fascinating places most Americans dont know about. Tours by Unger (wt) is greenlit for six half-hour episodes produced by Half Yard Productions.

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Travel Channel Greenlights Ten New Series, One Special, One Series In Development

Plato at the Googleplex, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

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Plato wouldnt disagree that philosophy is, in fact, a way of life attractive to, and perhaps available only to, the happy few. Running throughout Goldsteins long and highly original book are various arguments about what she calls the Ethos of the Extraordinary. Do some of us matter while others of us dont? To the early Greeks, the achievement of kleos, meaning glory or renown, was the chief aim of life. To be talked about, honored and remembered this was the only immortality to be had.

By the time of Plato (fourth century B.C.), this cult of celebrity had been transformed and deepened, indeed interiorized through the notion of arete, usually translated as virtue. Arete essentially is the health of the soul. As Goldstein explains, each time you lie, even if youre not caught, you become a little more of this ugly thing: a liar. Character is always in the making, with each morally valanced action, whether right or wrong, affecting our characters, the people who we are. You become the person who could commit such an act, and how you are known in the world is irrelevant to this state of being. In the end, who we are inside matters more than what others think of us.

Have I got this right? Its hard to say. Plato himself, as Goldstein reminds us, never laid out in treatise form any of his convictions. Instead, he actually staged the free play of ideas as plays, his Dialogues spotlighting the snub-nosed and ugly Socrates, but sometimes introducing such notable co-stars as the award-winning dramatist Aristophanes and Athenian bad boy and major heartthrob Alcibiades. In Platos work, these real-life characters, and many others, elegantly argue about everything from the nature of love (Symposium and Phaedrus) to the nature of good government (The Republic).

A novelist as a well as a philosopher, Goldstein pays homage to that ancient dramatic tradition by introducing Plato into several modern-day dialogues. Be warned: Readers expecting a sober presentation of ancient philosophy may be in for a shock when Plato, on book tour, visits the headquarters of Google, then later participates in a debate about child-rearing at New Yorks 92nd Street Y, assists a modern-day advice columnist as she answers questions about fraught relationships and is interviewed on a cable news program. Do these scenarios sound cutesy and even slightly condescending? I thought so at first, but Goldstein brings them off with panache, especially Plato at the 92nd Street Y.

The setup is this: Facetious newspaper columnist Zachary Burns is moderating a discussion on How to Raise an Exceptional Child with three bestselling writers: Mitzi Munitz, author of Esteeming Your Child: How the Best-Intentioned Parents Violate, Mutilate and Desecrate Their Children; Sophie Zee, author of The Warrior Mothers Guide to Producing Off-the-Charts Children; and Plato, author of The Republic. After clarifying that his last panelist prefers not to be called doctor or professor, Burns proceeds with his introduction:

Plato it is then! Plato has long been hailed as one of the most creative and influential thinkers in the history of Western thought. Indeed, some have argued that all of philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato, which is high praise indeed. He was born in Athens, Greece, a city where he has spent the bulk of his life and where he informally studied as a young man under the famous philosopher Socrates. . . .

In the free-for-all debate that follows, Munitz argues that the young should be encouraged to follow their own bent and to become who they truly are. To the psychoanalyst, Zees desire to raise an exceptional child is a desire to sacrifice the integrity of the child, to transform human beings into monkeys trained to please their parents. Zee quickly counters that strict discipline, with rewards and punishments, ultimately leads to a childs empowerment, and to a better, richer adult life later on.

And what is Platos view? Here, Goldstein presents in miniature largely using the philosophers own words parts of the educational system laid out in The Republic. Plato recognizes that children possess varying capabilities and temperaments. A teacher is charged with bringing his or her student into contact with the beauty that answers to that students type of character and mind. He notes that his guardians the ascetic elite whose lives are devoted to overseeing the ideal state must exhibit as children, besides intelligence, Zees spiritedness and Munitzs love of truth.

Throughout the fierce give-and-take, all the participants come off surprisingly well (Zach Burns not so much). Indeed, Im not sure that Munitz doesnt outsoar the Greek philosopher. But then this whole chapter possesses the sparkle and vivacity of a Bernard Shaw play. As Plato says, The best thinking is always playful.

That said, Goldstein does offer solid, more straightforward chapters about various aspects of Platonic philosophy. She analyzes love in a section that retells the complicated relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades; discusses the opposing claims of reason and intuition in our understanding of the world; provides several different interpretations of Platos parable of the cave; and, finally, speculates about whether Plato actually believed in immortality. In this last instance, she emphasizes that a kind of transhuman transcendence is possible by identifying ones whole self with the harmony and timeless, mathematical beauty of the cosmos. This rather Spinozist pantheism should come as no surprise since Goldstein has written an earlier book on Spinoza, to many the greatest philosophical mind since Plato.

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Plato at the Googleplex, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

Minnesota's initial bid for Super Bowl 52 is in

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By JON KRAWCZYNSKI AP Sports Writer

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Minnesota organizers submitted a preliminary bid Tuesday to host the 2018 Super Bowl, laying out a plan to host one of the biggest events in professional sports while also making thousands of visitors feel warm and welcome in what will almost certainly be a frigid February.

Minnesota is competing with New Orleans and Indianapolis for the game, hoping that the new indoor stadium that is due to be completed in 2016 will help put the bid over the top.

The Vikings revealed some details, including potential venues throughout Minneapolis, St. Paul and the suburb of Bloomington for various activities. The NFL Experience, a football theme park set up at the Super Bowl site each year, would likely be held at the Minneapolis Convention Center, while more than 180 hotels and 19,000 hotel rooms will be available for the flood of visitors.

"Today, we put Minnesota's best foot forward, and we feel extremely good about our bid," said Richard Davis, the Super Bowl bid committee co-chair and U.S. Bank CEO.

The committee will meet with NFL staff in New York later this month to get feedback on the bid and make any final changes or clarifications before turning in the final version on May 7. A formal presentation will be made to team owners in Atlanta two weeks later.

Gov. Mark Dayton and several state Republican and Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter of support for the bid, which covered everything from practice sites for the two teams to 48 different venue options for events surrounding the game.

"The effort from the bid committee, as well as from Minnesota's business and community leadership, has been nothing short of outstanding," Vikings owner and team President Mark Wilf. "NFL owners will greatly enjoy this community's hospitality, venues and energy. Minnesota will deliver an outstanding Super Bowl in 2018."

One thing the bid does not contain, at least yet, is assurances of tax breaks that other cities have granted the NFL in years past, including players' salaries and tickets. State lawmakers are discussing the matter, with some expressing concerns that too many tax breaks will reduce the positive economic impact of bringing a Super Bowl to Minnesota. Chances that any of those tax breaks pass during this year's legislative session appear to be remote.

"This new stadium is being built to attract and host major events, some that will bring more than 100,000 visitors to fill our hotels and restaurants and to shop in our stores," said Michele Kelm-Helgen, Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority chair. "Events like the Super Bowl provide national and international exposure to Minnesota as a place to live, work and do business. We hope this will be just one example of the many economic benefits the stadium will provide our great state."

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Minnesota's initial bid for Super Bowl 52 is in

Brain games: Science makes remarkable discovery about the human mind

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For years now, physicists and engineers have been building computer simulations of physics in order to understand the behavior of objects in the world. Want to see if a bridge would be stable during an earthquake? Enter it into the simulation, apply earthquake dynamics, and see what happens.

Recently, the prestigiousProceedings of the National Academy of Sciencespublished workby MIT psychologists (and my labmates)Peter Battaglia,Jessica Hamrick, andJoshua Tenenbaum, arguing that all humans do roughly the same thing when trying to understand or make predictions about the physical world. The primary difference is that we run our simulations in our brains rather than in digital computers, but the basic algorithms are roughly equivalent. The analogy runs deep: To model human reasoning about the physical world, the researchers actually used an open-sourcecomputer game physics engine the software that applies the laws of physics to objects in video games in order to make them interact realistically (think Angry Birds).

Battaglia and colleagues found that their video game-based computer model matches human physical reasoning far better than any previous theory. The authors asked people to make a number of predictions about the physical world: willtower of blocksstand or fall over, what direction would it fall over, and where would the block that landed the farthest away land; which object wouldmost likely fall off of a tableif thetable was bumped; and so on. In each case, human judgments closely matched the prediction of the computer simulation but not necessarily the actual world, which is where it gets interesting.

Whether or not a tower of blocks (or a bridge, etc.) will fall over depends on its exact dimensions and the exact position of each block, potentially down to the millimeter. But a human cant tell the dimensions and position of every block down to the millimeter just by looking. That is why we invented rulers. Instead, we knowapproximatelyhow big each block is and where it is. If the simulation was given the exact coordinates of the blocks, it predicted human judgments reasonably well but far from perfectly. If the simulation was givenapproximatecoordinates, taking into account human uncertainty, it matched the actual world less well but human judgments very well.

In retrospect, it may seem intuitive that when we made predictions about the physical world what will happen to towers during earthquakes or books on shelves we query an internal, virtual simulation of the real world, but it represents a sharp departure from previous scientific thinking. Many scientists thought that we use rules-of-thumb to predict the world around us.

As a theory, the rules-of-thumb account seems to be a failure: Battaglia and colleagues tested a number of plausible rules-of-thumb. For instance, maybe we base our guesses as to whether a block tower will fall based on the towers height or center of mass. None of the rules-of-thumb fared as well as the simulation account. Even worse, rules-of-thumb have to be tailored to the question: The heuristics for the tower of blocks scenario are useless for the table-bump scenario. In contrast, simulations are one-size-fits-all.

But that leaves the question of whether the simulation account is plausible. After all, if we already have a physics simulator in our heads, why did scientists have to discover the laws of physics, and why do we have to learn physics in school (or not at all)? Part of the answer may lie in the distinction between implicit and explicit knowledge. A bird doesnt have to be able to teach a university course on aerodynamics in order to fly, and we dont have to understand biophysics in order to walk or neuroscience in order to think.

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Brain games: Science makes remarkable discovery about the human mind

UTSA Ph.D. students bring stem cell advancements to veterinarians

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

1-Apr-2014

Contact: KC Gonzalez kc.gonzalez@utsa.edu 210-458-7555 University of Texas at San Antonio

Two University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) biomedical engineering doctoral students, Ramon Coronado and Tony Yuan, have launched Mobile Stem Care LLC, a company that will help veterinarians treat their patients with the latest advancements in stem cell therapies.

The first of its kind in Texas, Mobile Stem Care is a mobile service that offers adipose stem cell and platelet rich plasma (PRP) isolation to veterinarians for treatments in dogs, cats and other animals suffering from degenerative diseases such as osteoarthritis or hip dysplasia, ligament and tendon injuries or non-healing wounds.

Mobile Stem Care takes adipose tissue (fat) collected from the affected animal by the veterinary doctor and isolates the adult stem cells on-site in less than 90 minutes. A concentration of the animal's stem cells and other immune-regulatory cells are returned to the doctor and injected into the damaged area of the animal to stimulate growth of healthy cells and aid healing.

Steven A. Davis, M.D., founder and director of the Dermatology & Laser Center of San Antonio, clinical professor at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio and co-founder of privately held StemBioSys, Inc., is an investor in Mobile Stem Care.

"The first thing you invest in is people and I'm very confident in Tony and Ramon. They are energetic, bright, and they have proven themselves in a degree program with a lot of credibility," said Dr. Davis. "The stem cell arena is exciting from both a scientific and commercial standpoint. Mobile Stem Care is a unique idea and its services have value in the biomedical sphere. I think it can be successful."

Coronado and Yuan began the Ph.D. program in Biomedical Engineering in 2011 and became fast friends, sharing a common passion for science, helping others, rock-climbing and now business. Since 2012, they have worked in the laboratories of the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research where they have been exposed to advancements in stem cell research and treatments.

The company idea came to fruition in August 2013 when Coronado and Yuan started the Graduate Certificate program in Technology Entrepreneurship and Management offered through the UTSA College of Business and led by Cory Hallam, UTSA chief commercialization officer and director of the Center for Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship. The 12-hour certificate is designed to help current UTSA graduate students unlock their inner entrepreneur and equip them with the fundamental skills required to start a technology company.

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UTSA Ph.D. students bring stem cell advancements to veterinarians

Big Breakthrough In Stem Cell Manufacturing Technology

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April 1, 2014

University of Nottingham

Scientists at The University of Nottingham have developed a new substance which could simplify the manufacture of cell therapy in the pioneering world of regenerative medicine.

Cell therapy is an exciting and rapidly developing area of medicine in which stem cells have the potential to repair human tissue and maintain organ function in chronic disease and age-related illnesses. But a major problem with translating current successful research into actual products and treatments is how to mass-produce such a complex living material.

There are two distinct phases in the production of stem cell products; proliferation (making enough cells to form large tissue) and differentiation (turning the basic stem cells into functional cells). The material environment required for these two phases are different and up to now a single substance that does both jobs has not been available.

Now a multi-disciplinary team of researchers at Nottingham has created a new stem cell micro-environment which they have found has allowed both the self-renewal of cells and then their evolution into cardiomyocyte (heart) cells. The material is a hydrogel containing two polymers an alginate-rich environment which allows proliferation of cells with a simple chemical switch to render the environment collagen-rich when the cell population is large enough. This change triggers the next stage of cell growth when cells develop a specific purpose.

Major priority

Professor of Advanced Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering, Kevin Shakesheff, said:

Our new combination of hydrogels is a first. It allows dense tissue structures to be produced from human pluripotent stem cells (HPSC) in a single step process never achieved before. The discovery has important implications for the future of manufacturing in regenerative medicine. This field of healthcare is a major priority for the UK and we are seeing increasing investment in future manufacturing processes to ensure we are ready to deliver real treatments to patients when HPSC products and treatments go to trial and become standard.

The research, Combined hydrogels that switch human pluripotent stem cells from self-renewal to differentiation, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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Big Breakthrough In Stem Cell Manufacturing Technology

The crowd pitches in $243K (and counting) for clinical trials of a stem cell therapy for MS

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While donation-based crowdfunding has taken some industries, like consumer technology, by storm, its been dismissed by some as a source of early-stage life science funding because of the sky-high price tag that biotech and medical device R&D carries. Raising a few thousand dollars wont really do much to get a company off the ground.

But a few recent campaigns are challenging that idea, pulling in more than $100,000 in donations through Indiegogo. The latest is Tisch MS Research Center, a nonprofit research center in New York thats so far collected more than $243,000 for a Phase 1 clinical trial of a stem cell treatment for multiple sclerosis.

Tisch researchers have gotten the green light from the FDA to proceed with a safety and tolerability study of a treatment it says has the potential to reverse damage done by MS. The autoimmune disease attacks the protective coating of axons (the myelin sheath) in the brain and spinal cord, disrupting the ability of nerve signals to travel properly. That can cause numbness, pain, vision loss, difficulty walking and even paralysis.

Stem cells are hypothesized to promote repair in MS by migrating to areas of demyelination, blocking damage-forming events and enabling repair, Tisch researchers explain on their campaign page.

Their proposed therapy uses neural progenitors that are derived from adult stem cells isolated from bone marrow to promote repair in MS. Bone marrow is taken from a patients hip or sternum and sent to a lab, where stem cells are isolated and neural progenitors are derived from the sample. Then theyre administered in multiple rounds intrathecally into the cerebrospinal fluid, rather than into the bloodstream every three months.

The researchers have demonstrated proof-of-concept and feasibility in preclinical studies and are planning a Phase 1 trial that will enroll 20 progressive MS patients. They would receive six months of treatment, followed by up to 27 months of follow-up by the researchers, who say enrollment would begin once they obtain the necessary funding and IRB approval.

According to most recent estimates, the number of people living with MS has gone up 10 percent over the last five years, reaching 2.3 million. A new drug made by Biogen Idec was FDA approved last year for treating relapsing MS, and a number of treatments are in late-stage development. Cell-based therapies, though, havent advanced quite that far yet. But in a paper published in The Lancet last fall, researchers expressed optimism about the evolution and translation of such therapies for treating MS.

Tischs researchers have been working for more than 10 years on their investigational drug.

[Image credit: Tisch MS Research Center]

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The crowd pitches in $243K (and counting) for clinical trials of a stem cell therapy for MS