Stem Cells for Soldiers

Recently the federal government dedicated $85 million for the creation of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM) to fund a type of stem cell therapy for veterans injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. This therapy helps grow brand new bone:

Orthopaedic stem cell surgery has been practiced by only a handful of doctors nationwide. Proponents complain that medicine involving adult stem cells is underfunded because it is often confused with controversial embryonic stem cell research. But the stem cells Einhorn uses don’t come from embryos; they come from the patients themselves.

“His own live cells,” Einhorn said.

Einhorn extracts stem cells from the patient’s bone marrow, drawn from the pelvis. Some is used for what Einhorn calls “grout.”

“By mixing the bone marrow cells with protein, it gives me a kind of a grouting material that I can use to fill in the gaps,” he said.

Dr. George Muschler, who pioneered the surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, which is a grant recipient, said, “I think [the procedure] has applications to some challenges that might have previously cost patients their leg, because we didn’t have a way to heal their bone.”

Muschler has been monitoring patients in the past six years, and says he is convinced that the method results in the growth of strong, new permanent bone.

What great news not only for stem cell research, but for our men and women in combat who are coming home with some devastating injuries.

Cord Blood Clinical Trials

More human patients will be treated with “adult” stem cells:

DURHAM, NC–( Marketwire - April 16, 2008 ) - Aldagen, Inc. today announced that the first patient has been treated in a Phase III clinical trial for ALD-101. Aldagen is developing ALD-101 to improve cord blood transplants used to treat inherited metabolic diseases in pediatric patients. ALD-101 is a population of adult stem cells isolated from cord blood using Aldagen’s proprietary technology. The company commenced the Phase III clinical trial of ALD-101 to evaluate its ability to accelerate neutrophil and platelet engraftment following cord blood transplantation in these patients.

40 pediatric patients with inherited metabolic diseases undergoing a cord blood transplant will be treated in the multi-site Phase III clinical study. The primary goal of the study is to determine if ALD-101 can accelerate the restoration of circulating platelets. A 24-patient Phase I/II study of ALD-101 was previously conducted and a statistically significant reduction in the time to platelet engraftment was observed in patients receiving ALD-101 as part of a cord blood transplant compared to patients who had received a cord blood transplant without ALD-101 in an earlier independent clinical trial.

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See my adult stem cell archive

Hair Stem Cells Have Potential

University of Buffalo scientists believe that stem cells derived from hair follicles may be able to be formed into new blood vessels. Yes you read that correctly, these “adult” stem cells can be formed into “new” blood vessels:

During the study, UB researchers showed that stem cells isolated from sheep hair follicles contain the smooth muscle cells that grow new vasculature.

The group recently produced data showing that stem cells from human hair follicles also differentiate into contractile smooth muscle cells.

“We have demonstrated that engineered blood vessels prepared with smooth muscle progenitor cells from hair follicles are capable of dilating and constricting, critical properties that make them ideal for engineering cardiovascular tissue regeneration,” said Andreadis.

Moreover, this new, accessible source of cells may make possible future treatments that allow for the regeneration of these damaged organs.

How convenient would it be if patients could be treated with stem cells from their own hair?!

For the record, it would be wise for you, in the future, to just tune out when news reporters try to explain the “difference” between embryonic and adult stem cells. It usually goes something like this: “Embryonic stem cells are more flexible and can be manipulated into becoming any type of stem cell found in the human body. Whereas adult stem cells cannot be changed. A liver cell can only be a liver cell, a skin cell a skin cell, etc…” Modern stem cell science is continually disproving this, but I wouldn’t expect the media to be catching on.

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Hair Raising Stem Cell News

Review of “Embryo: A Defense of Human Life”

InsideCatholic.com has a review of Robert P. George’s new book - a must read for those of us who care about the most vulnerable.

Stem Cells Treat Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s patients have been treated in a clinical trial with bone marrow stem cells from their own bodies. From the story:

To date, Dr. Armestar’s team has implanted stem cells in 15 women and 32 men. The average age of the patients was about 50 years; Parkinson’s disease had been diagnosed from 1 year to 18 years before implantation.

At the 1-week follow-up, 39 patients had achieved a 35% improvement as assessed by a battery of Parkinson’s disease validated tests. At the 1-month follow-up, 34 patients showed a 52% improvement. At 3 months, 23 patients had improved an average of 59%; at 6 months, 6 patients had improved 76%; after 12 months the 1 person to reach that level had achieved an 80% improvement (P < .001), he said.

And another one: Uterine Stem Cells Create New Neurons That Can Curb Parkinson’s Disease:

The injection of uterine stem cells trigger growth of new brain cells in mice with Parkinson’s disease, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in an abstract presented at the 2008 Society for Gynecologic Investigation (SGI) Annual Scientific Meeting held March 26-29 in San Diego, California. “Previously, we were able to coax these multipotent stem cells to differentiate into cartilage cells,” said lead author Hugh S. Taylor, M.D., professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale School of Medicine and section chief of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Yale School of Medicine. “Now we have found that we can turn uterine stem cells into neurons that can boost dopamine levels and partially correct the problem of Parkinson’s disease.”

The latter story surely debunks the theory that ASCs are unable to differentiate into other specialized cells. And each disprove the notion that the use of human embryos is necessary for the advancement of stem cell research and the development of stem cell treatments, therapies and cures.