Human Patients Treated for MS With Adult Stem Cells

After immunosuppressive therapy fifty-six human patients with Multiple Sclerosis received autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (h/t Wesley Smith). Tatiana Ionova, MD, PhD, Department of Haematology, Pirogov National Medical Surgical Center, Moscow, Russia reports that “All patients appeared to respond to treatment.” From the release:

Improvement was seen in 62.3%, and stabilisation occurred in 37.7% of patients. Progression after improvement occurred in 7.1% and progression after stabilisation in 11.8% of patients.

There were no deaths during the course of the study.

Out of 26 patients included in the quality-of-life analysis, 24 exhibited a response and preserved a good quality of life during the follow-up. No unexpected treatment-related adverse events were observed.

Dr. Ionova concludes that this treatment is a safe and effective therapy for MS.

Meanwhile a woman in the UK is fighting for the right of her and her husband to travel to Switzerland for an assisted suicide after she can, “no longer bear being alive.” Tragic.

New Hope for Parkinson’s

According to a Griffith University study, published last Thursday in the journal Stem Cells, there is evidence that stem cells taken from a patient’s nose could produce dopamine-producing brain cells when transplanted into the brain. It has been a success in mice anyway.

I find this study particularly interesting because just a few years ago human spinal cord injury patients were also treated with stem cells from their own noses and every one of the seven patients showed improved ASIA motor scores, among other improvements (Read testimony from patient Jacki Rabon, or watch video).

Previous posts:
Stem Cells Treat Parkinson’s Disease
Ethical Life Science News (see last paragraph, story “Cell-based Therapy Shows Promise In Patients With Parkinson’s Disease”

Friendly Fire: Dawn Eden reports on the ANT debate

It’s one I’ve been interested in for awhile, but with the recent iPS breakthroughs, concerns about ANT seemed to have taken a back seat in the world of Catholic bioethics. Dawn’s article is a great read not only for those who may not be familiar with the concerns surrounding ANT and its federal funding under the umbrella of pluripotent stem cell research, but also for those of us who have been wondering “what’s up with that?” of late.

Check it out at Inside Catholic: Friendly Fire: The Rough and Tumble World of the Stem Cell Debate

Cure Found for Child’s “Untreatable” Skin Disease!

Two year old Nate Liao is the first person to be successfully treated with cord blood and bone marrow stem cells to correct his epidermolysis bullosa (EB). Now doctor’s say they have set the path for a cure for his painful genetic skin disease. Those who suffer from this disease experience a life of chronic pain, blisters, sores, amputations, infections and it can eventually lead to cancer. Nate received the stem cells from his healthy brother last October. Nate’s brother Jacob, who also has the disease, received a cord-blood transplant from an unrelated donor on May 30. Watch video

While scientists back off claims that embryonic stem cells will ever treat human patients, ethical “adult” stem cells continue to impact the lives of many.

Previous ASCA post:
Adult stem cells may help children with a severe skin disease

Enzyme Induces Adult Stem Cells to Grow Bone

So far scientists have had a hard time making human adult stem cells produce bone, but some researchers are closer to solving this problem:

Researchers at the University of Twente have shown that if the enzyme PKA is previously activated in the stem cells in the lab, following implantation this results in substantial bone formation. This opens up new ways of repairing bone tissue using cell material from the patient. The researchers are publishing their work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Read more

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.

Previous post:
Hair Raising Stem Cell News

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.

Pay Attention, Nancy Reagan

Once the late Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s Disease progressed so far that his wife Nancy could, “no longer reach him” she, and her son Ron, came out publicly in favor of embryonic stem cell research in the hope of finding a cure for this devastating disease. They have both been strong advocates for this life destroying research ever since. But Ron and Nancy may want to re-think their position in light of some new developments in research involving umbilical cord blood stem cells.

In a pre-clinical study, published in the March issue of Stem Cells and Development:

researchers from the University of South Florida and Saneron CCEL Therapeutics, Inc., found that targeted immune suppression using stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood reduced Alzheimer’s disease progression in a mouse model….

During the study, researchers administered a series of low-dose infusions of umbilical cord blood cells into mice with abnormalities mimicking Alzheimer’s disease. As they observed the mice, they found that the levels of amyloid-beta proteins, which are key markers of Alzheimer’s progression in the brain, were reduced by nearly two-thirds (62%), and cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA, another marker of the disease in which the amyloid proteins harden the brain’s blood vessel walls) was improved by 86 percent. The cord blood infusions were shown to suppress the inflammatory activity, which indicates their potential to block the inflammatory response involved in Alzheimer’s disease and also related disorders.

See the original research report

This is very early research, probably years away from any human trials, but already miles ahead of any progress shown with ESCs. Some decry the commercialization of private umbilical cord blood banks, but if this research continues to develop who knows what the future might hold. Those who cannot afford to preserve their own UCB can certainly donate it for use in transplants and current/future stem cell research and trials.

Some UCB banks:
Cryo-Cell International, which partially funded this research
Saint Louis Cord Blood Bank
Cord Blood Registry
Where to Donate Cord Blood
Charity guide to donating cord blood

China stem cell therapy offers hope, U.S. offers “caution”.

There are several stories here, but let’s first give a hat tip to Don Margolis for blogging this article about little Lydia Olmsted, born with an ocular defect, septo-optic dysplasia. You may recall reading about another little girl here, Rylea, born with another ocular defect, optic nerve hypoplasia.

So, what are the stories here?

First, hope where there was none. Lydia can see better after having traveled to China to receive therapies derived from umbilical cord cells. Just like Rylea.

These therapies are not FDA approved. American stem cell scientists as well as other medical professionals warn patients to be cautious because these treatments have not been submitted to the protocols required in FDA clinical trials.

But both these families are well-informed about the novelty of the treatments they have submitted their daughters to. Both the girls can see things they could not before. American physicians time and time again offered them no hope. What would you do? And what do future families stand to gain because these families were willing to not only take the risk, but in addition, pay for it, too?

How many opportunities, therapies, and cures have we lost (to foreign researchers?) . . . not because of caution, but because of a pathological obsession with the use of embryonic stem cells? Where would be now if all those minds, all that talent, and truly — all that money had gone to adult stem cell research?

“A Cellular Approach”

Shhh…don’t tell the drug companies! Here is a news clip from the Journal of the American Medical Association about patients with auto immune diseases and cardiovascular disorders being treated with their own stem cells. From Dr. Richard Burt from Northwestern University Feinburg School of Medicine on the JAMA Report:

“It’s a whole new approach to these diseases. Rather than just surgery or drugs, you can use a cellular approach that seems, in many different studies, to be benefiting the patient.”

The review of these treatments appears in this weeks publication of JAMA.

(a friend of mine emailed me this story after seeing it on Vital Signs)