As this week's blog posts have all concerned news from TheraVitae's patients I thought we should end the week with belated birthday wishes . . . . . . in case you missed it 'Snuppy' celebrated his first birthday on April 25th.
Who's Snuppy? He's the world's first cloned dog, and also recipient of Time magazine's 'Invention of the Year' award for 2005. He was cloned by Korean researchers led by Prof. Hwang Woo Suk, most of whom's research was declared as being falsified by an investigative committee. However, the same committee did confirm that Snuppy was a genuine clone. Snuppy is pictured here tucking into his birthday cake.
Other, more substantial, news out of Seoul, taken from the Korea Times, concerns researchers' efforts to put the Hwang-gate sandal behind them. A new gene therapy clinic has been built at the site of the country's once-celebrated World Stem Cell Hub inside Seoul National University (SNU) Hospital. The new gene therapy center will focus on adult stem cells rather than embryonic stem cells, the field Hwang and his associates studied.
Today, TheraVitae issued the following press release to announce the significant improvement sen in the first patient to undergo VesCell therapy in conjunction with coronary artery bypass grafting surgery.
Cardiac MRI tests confirm a dramatic 60% increase in patient’s heart function after procedure that combines coronary artery bypass grafting surgery with adult stem cell therapy.
April 27, 2006 -- Cardiac MRI tests confirm a dramatic 60% increase in patient’s heart function after procedure that combines coronary artery bypass grafting surgery with adult stem cell therapy.
When 56 year old Thai businessman, Mr Sujin Lewwattanachotinan, underwent VesCell™ adult stem cell therapy in early July 2005 at Bangkok Heart Hospital he wasn’t expecting a miracle. Mr Lewwattanachotinan was a heart patient whose doctors had told him that there was very little chance of him leading an active life again. Then Dr. Kitipan V. Arom, Cardiothoracic Surgeon and Deputy Director at Bangkok Heart Hospital recommended VesCell from TheraVitae. On July 11th, 2005, he was treated using his own stem cells derived from a simple, painless 250cc blood donation. Mr. Lewwattanachotinan was the first patient in Thailand to undergo a new treatment that combines coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and stem cell therapy.
Four months later Mr Lewwattanachotinan made the journey from his hometown of Songkla, in the south of Thailand, north to Bangkok to undergo follow-up tests. He felt revitalized and recollects, “Before I received stem cells, I always felt tired and lethargic and could no longer work a full day. Now, a few months after I was treated using my own stem cells, I am working full-time again and exercising regularly. It’s as though the clock has been turned back!”
It was on July 1st, 2005, 10 days prior to treatment, that a Cardiac MRI taken at Bangkok Heart Hospital showed Mr. Lewwattanachotinan’s Ejection Fraction (EF%) to be 31.1%. EF% is a measurement of the heart’s capacity to pump blood. His cardiologist noted at the time that the scan indicated ‘Severely reduced left ventricular systolic function’ coupled with the presence of both coronary artery disease and clinical congestive heart failure.
A little over 4 months later in mid-November, Mr Lewwattanachotinan and his family anxiously awaited the results of his second MRI scan. His left ventricular systolic function was now diagnosed as only being ‘moderately depressed’ and his EF% had increased dramatically, from 31% to 51%. The results left no room to doubt the efficacy of VesCell™ in Mr Lewwattanachotinan’s mind.
When asked if he would recommend VesCell™ to others, he said with a smile, “I can’t put a price on the improvement I have seen in my life since last July. So, let’s just say that the stem cell treatment Bangkok Heart Hospital provided me with was definitely worth every penny.”
Commenting on the startling improvement shown, Jay D. Lenner Jr., Public Relations Manager at TheraVitae commented, “The doctors immediately noticed how well Khun Sujin looked when he came in for his follow up tests. But to see a 60% increase in Cardiac MRI-measured heart function really is extraordinary. Mr. Lewwattanachotinan is another example of a heart disease patient who has benefited immensely from stem cell therapy and he is now living a life he once thought impossible.”
That was the question that we recently posed several of our patients as part of a revamping of the VesCell website. Here's just one of the replies that we received from Dale M, USA:
What has VesCell Therapy done for me?
Well let me think . . . I was not in very good shape having problems breathing and walking at the same time, I could no longer ride my bike, I used to ride to the Home Depot purchase my small items and ride home. I just sat in my big chair and said I couldn't go on any more. I was so exhausted all the time.
Then the VesCell opportunity came up and my wife and I talked about it and we decided that I had nothing to loose, It was a problem getting the necessary blood work etc, my cardiologist was not happy about it at all.
Now, I am back to the person I was 10years ago. I can do all the projects like I could before, I have been rebuilding my daughters deck. I've finished putting in a watering system for the flower beds, I have patched a ceiling after making changes to the room, and I can ride my bike and I do 4-5 hours twice a week again and now I am working on putting new gates into my back entry and a new fence.
I am a little slower than I was once but it all gets done and my biggest joy is to do things with my Granddaughter who will be 6yrs old next Sunday I plan to keep her for a month in the summer as I am the only one not at work. My wife will be there in the evenings, and she and I will have a blast we will ride bikes she will go to Summer camp mornings and we will picnic and go to the pool and have great fun.
Without the VesCell Therapy I could not be doing this, It gave me my life back.
It was only yesterday that I mentioned on this blog how patients shouldn't expect to all see the same results. Today, I noticed this story about one of our patient's which appeared on April 24 in the The Spokesman Review, a local newspaper for Spokane, Washington, USA.
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Eight years ago, Doug Rice was told he had two years to live. Congestive heart failure was killing him slowly. Diabetes denied him the option of a transplanted heart. He could barely walk. Stairs were out of the question.
But the 60-year-old Otis Orchards resident held on, not knowing whether each day would be his last, until his ex-wife found something on the Internet late last year that gave Rice his future back.
An international biotechnology company called TheraVitae could extract Rice's adult stem cells from less than a pint of his own blood, reproduce them in a lab and then inject them back into his heart.
"The more I read about it, I didn't see it as a gamble," Rice said. "I felt confident it was going to work – and it did." So far, the results have amazed even Rice's Spokane cardiologist.
But before Rice could undergo the procedure in January, he had to borrow from friends to cover most of the nearly $40,000 cost of having the work done in Bangkok, Thailand. The retired Marine's medical coverage through the Department of Veterans Affairs would not pay for it. In fact, the procedure is not approved in the United States.
Rice, a self-described entrepreneur, inventor, photographer, stockbroker, race car driver, world traveler and great-grandfather, had run out of options except one, a mechanical heart.
"My father told me that if it takes a machine to keep you alive, you're not alive," Rice said. "So I made up my mind not to have the mechanical heart. I felt it was just time to go."
Rice's cardiologist, Dr. Don Canaday, said his patient was at end stage heart failure as a result of a series of heart attacks since 1992. His insulin-dependent diabetes made him a poor candidate for transplant.
So Rice flew to Bangkok, where a half pint of his blood was drawn at Chaophya Hospital, packaged in a temperature-controlled container and dispatched to TheraVitae's laboratory in Israel.
There, scientists isolated adult stem cells from Rice's blood, multiplied them and differentiated them into millions of stem cells called angiogenic cell precursors, which were sent back to Bangkok, where they were implanted into his coronary artery on Jan. 23. The entire process took about two weeks.
There are several theories about how the stem cells work once they are implanted, TheraVitae spokesman Jay Lenner said in a telephone interview from Bangkok.
They form blood vessels that help bring more blood to the heart. Some of the stem cells could turn into new heart muscle in damaged areas. Or they could act as "beacons" that tell the body where to repair itself. "No one really knows how they are working, exactly," Lenner said, "just that they are working."
Of the more than 100 patients, including about 60 Americans, treated over the past year, at least 80 percent are better off than they were before treatment, and the rest are no worse off, Lenner said.
The procedure was first done in May 2005, by Dr. Amit Patel, director of cardiac stem cell therapies at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, according to information provided on TheraVitae's Web site, vescell.com. The year-old medical technology is known by the trademark VesCell. In Rice's case, the effects of this stem cell therapy were immediate.
"At least initially, the benefit appears to be amazing," Canaday said. He said Rice's ejection fraction – a number that tells how well the heart is pumping blood – doubled from about 15 to 30. Typically, an ejection fraction ranges from 55 to 75. Rice maintains his numbers improved from 11 percent to 41 percent.
The cardiologist believes the procedure holds huge promises for the future, but he is concerned about its lack of approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
"I wouldn't want people spending their life savings, flying off to Bangkok without first doing a lot of research and making sure they really had exhausted every option offered right here," Canady said.
Similar stem cell therapies are currently undergoing clinical trials in the United States, Lenner said, but "nobody is treating patients privately. Everyone is years away from that happening." He said TheraVitae was researching the possibility of using adult stem cells to treat other incurable disorders.
Rice, who is due to have new tests soon, said he is getting around better than he has in years. "I am walking about a half mile twice a day and not getting tired," he said recently from Texas, where he is helping a friend with a business venture.
Rice is less cautious than Canaday about endorsing the stem cell therapy. "I've been around a lot of people with bad hearts," Rice said. "I know if they looked at it, it might save their lives. I firmly believe it saved mine."
Although the majority of our patients have been from the USA, we have provided VesCell therapy to no-option heart disease patients of numerous nationalities. A couple of days ago, Peter, a 64 year old Australian who was treated in early October, sent us a brief progress report, 6 months on from receiving treatment:
Dear Don, Have been feeling a lot better last few weeks,perhaps it takes 6 months for the Cells to work….Have played lawn Bowls all day today after being unable to do so for about 4 years…Played well too…..Dr. P.emails me still….. Peter X. Australia
As Peter touches upon in his email, doctors and researchers don't exactly know how stem cell therapy works, therefore one patient should not automatically expect to see the same results as another. Some notice a general improvement in their well being within a couple of months, others such as Peter, see a more gradual improvement over time.
With states across the US rushing to vote to provide funding for embryonic stem cell research on the grounds that this holds more promise than adult stem cell research, it's good to read about a state who's representatives have stopped to think and consider the options first.
Which form of stem cell therapy is actually in use now? That using adult stem cells.
New treatments and medical advances are being discovered almost daily using . . . . adult stem cells.
Therefore, which new treatments, discovered as a direct result of state funding have the most chance of being accepted by patients and actually being used to treat patients in the near future? Those derived from various forms of adult stem cell therapy.
However, funding isn't guaranteed but Missouri's House of Representatives gave first-round approval to a bill that would require a fraction of the money paid to the state by tobacco companies that weren't part of the initial national tobacco settlement to be devoted to adult stem cell research.
Yesterday, TheraVitae issued the following press release to announce their sponsorship of a symposium for medical professionals entitled ‘Update and Advanced Management in Peripheral Arterial Disease' which was held on April 18th in Bangkok, Thailand.
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TheraVitae CEO Speaks at Peripheral Arterial Disease Symposium
Dr. Valentin Fulga, CEO of TheraVitae Ltd., spoke on the ‘Role of Stem Cell Therapy in Non-Reconstructable Ischemic Limbs’ at a symposium on Peripheral Artery Disease held April 18th in Bangkok, Thailand.
Bangkok, Thailand, April 19, 2006 -- Dr. Valentin Fulga, CEO of TheraVitae, Ltd., an international biotechnology company and the producer of VesCell™ - adult stem cell therapy for heart disease, spoke at a symposium entitled ‘Update and Advanced Management in Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD). This seminar for medical professionals, which was sponsored by Astella Pharma (Thailand) and TheraVitae (Thailand), was held on April 18 at Queen Sirikit National Conference Center, Bangkok, Thailand.
The opening speaker, Associate Professor Pramook Mutirangura MD, FRCST, FRCS (Edinburgh), Division of Vascular Surgery, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University; discussed ‘Introduction, Definition and Epidemiology Study of Peripheral Arterial Disease in Thai Patients’. Dr. Mutirangura is currently conducting a clinical trial using autologous adult stem cells from peripheral blood to treat severe peripheral artery disease in the lower limbs.
Also speaking, on the ‘Role of Intervention Therapy for PAD’, was Associate Professor Damras Tresukosol, MD, FRCPT Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University. Dr. Tresukosol is conducting a clinical trial using autologous adult stem cells from peripheral blood to treat angina pectoris in patients suffering from ischemic heart disease. The interim results of this trial were presented at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting in Dallas last year.
Other distinguished speakers included:
*Assistant Professor Wiwun Tungsubutra, MD, FACC, Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University
*Dr. Chumpol Wongwanit, MD, FRCST, Fellow in Vascular Surgery (Sydney) Division of Vascular Surgery, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University
This symposium was held as part of Siriraj Hospital’s commemorations of the 60th Anniversary Celebration of His Majesty’s Accession to the Throne which are taking place throughout 2006. The hospital itself was originally founded by His Majesty’s father, Prince Mahidol, who is regarded as the father of modern Thai medicine.
TheraVitae’s Public Relations Manager, Mr. Jay D. Lenner Jr., described the April 18 event as, “A great opportunity for healthcare professionals to share, gain, and spread information on the treatment of Peripheral Arterial Disease,” going on to add “Thousands suffer from undiagnosed PAD in Thailand annually. Therefore, we, at TheraVitae, are delighted to take a leading role in the symposium and would like to extend our thanks to our colleagues at Siriraj Hospital; and co-sponsors Astella Pharma (Thailand), for their support and vision in helping spread word of innovative methods of diagnosis and treatment of PAD.”
CNN will be holding their first 'Future Summit' in June, bringing together some of the brightest minds of our time to see how science and technology are shaping our future.
The summit will cover the fields of genetics, robotics, cybernetics and stem cell research. The Summit homepage provides more information on the event which will be held in Singapore and also provides links to information pages on the various areas of research that are being focused on.
The Stem Cell Research page consists of a summary of the state of play in the world of stem cell therapy, covering both embryonic and adult stem cells, and the challenges and controversies that surround this field of research today.
Thai scientists are set to begin the country's first official study into the effects of adult stem cell technology in curing heart disease. Forty patients will be tested over two months, with 20 receiving stem cells transplanted into their hearts and the rest given normal medical treatment, to determine the effectiveness of the treatment.
Deputy Chief of the Medical Sciences Department, Pongpan Vongmanee, is quoted as noting that although there are many reports of stem cell studies worldwide, Thailand has no official reports about consequences from this new medical technology. The trial results will be a concrete guideline for drawing up an effective plan for stem cell development. He goes on to add that his department is currently building a multi-million baht stem cell research laboratory.
However, what reports don't mention is the method that will be used to extract the Angiogenic Cell Precursors (ACPs), which are required in order to treat heart disease, from the patient's body. These originate in bone marrow and then circulate in the blood vessels. Once harvested, they then have to be expanded into a therapeutic quantity.
Starting the week of with a story that not only includes an eyecatching headline but also includes thought provoking content.
The basic idea behind the use of stem cells in treating diseases is to enable the body to heal itself. However, certain animals do this already, some in only a limited manner, whilst others can regrow significant parts of their bodies.
One exmple is the zebra fish which can regrow fins, scales, spinal cord and even part of its heart. You may not think that you have much in common with a zebra fish, but humans share some of the same genes. It appears that both humans and zebra fish have the specific gene that is responsible for triggering regrowth. However, in humans the gene is switched off.
Therefore, what is needed is for researchers to discover how this gene can be reactivated, and theoretically, then enable the human body to regenerate organs and body parts.
On 12 April, TheraVitae issued the following Press Release marking the start of our first clinical trial to study the use of stem cell therapy to treat patients suffering from severe Peripheral Artery Disease. +++
TheraVitae Ltd. announced that the first clinical trial using its autologous adult stem cells from peripheral blood to treat patients suffering from severe Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) of the lower limbs has commenced at Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand.
April 12, 2006 -- TheraVitae Ltd., an Israeli-Thai biotechnology company specializing in adult stem cell therapies, recently enrolled its first patient in a clinical trial to study the safety and efficacy of the administration of autologous adult stem cells to patients suffering from severe Peripheral Artery Disease of the lower limbs. Principle Investigator of the study, being conducted at Siriraj Hospital, the largest hospital in Bangkok, is Associate Professor Pramook Mutirangura, Head of Vascular Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital. Dr. Mutirangura administered cells to his first patient on April 11, 2006.
“The research and medical teams at TheraVitae and Siriraj Hospital are very excited to see this highly anticipated clinical trial commence," commented Public Relations Manager, Jay D. Lenner Jr. “We are optimistic that the results will pave the way for doctors to offer this treatment to all no-option PAD patients before the end of the year,” he added.
Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) is a near-pandemic condition that threatens millions with loss of limbs and even life. PAD is the result of narrowing arteries that, in turn, reduce the blood supply to regions of the body. The current trial will treat severe PAD of the legs, a disease that interferes with walking and often leads to the amputation of toes, feet and legs. Researchers envisage that adult stem cell therapy will enable patients' own bodies to repair damaged blood vessels and grow new ones, thus restoring blood flow and oxygen to damaged tissues.
TheraVitae executives are confident this new product will follow in the successful footsteps of VesCell™, the company’s proprietary therapy for heart disease which has been used to treat over 100 patients including Hawaiian entertainer Don Ho. Co-Founder Mr. Don Margolis expects this new treatment to create a revolution in vascular therapy; one that could, in due course, save tens of thousands of limbs and ultimately lives each year. "This is an incredibly important treatment because we may soon have the ability to restore the blood supply to tissues that have been damaged from lack of blood supply. This treatment has the potential to not only save, but return function to, limbs that previously may have been amputated,” remarked Mr. Margolis.
TheraVitae is supplying its latest generation of Angiogenic Cell Precursors (ACPs) for the clinical trial. TheraVitae takes stem cells from the patient's own blood, differentiates them into ACPs, and then expands them into a therapeutic dose. The brand name for this new cell population specifically differentiated for treating PAD has not yet been released.
About Peripheral Artery Disease
Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) affects tens of millions of people worldwide, most of whom are not aware that they have the disease. It is especially common in smokers, diabetics, those with high cholesterol levels (hypercholesterolemia) and people who lead a sedentary lifestyle. It can, however, occur in anyone who is aging.
PAD consists of atherosclerosis, a progressive disease that involves the hardening and narrowing of many of the body's arteries due to a gradual buildup of plaque (fatty deposits). The narrowing of the arteries reduces the blood supply to the affected organs, such as the limbs, eyes and brain and reduces their ability to function normally.
Specific cases of PAD are of the heart, in which the disease process may lead to heart failure; of the brain where it can lead to a stroke and progressive deterioration (vascular dementia); and of the eyes where it may cause a decrease in vision.
PAD of the legs can make walking difficult or impossible due to the pain caused by limited blood supply to the legs. Progression of PAD of the legs is the most common cause of amputation of toes, feet and other parts of the legs which degenerate due to the lack of blood supply caused by the progressive narrowing of the blood vessels leading to the legs.
A patient with PAD has about five times the risk of dying of a heart attack or stroke over the next ten years as the patient who does not have peripheral arterial disease.
More good news from another of our patients who emailed TheraVitae Co-Founder Don Margolis with news of the improvement in his 6 minute walk test. The patient also reports that he still suffers from SOB (Shortness of Breath) occassionally, but this is to be expected as treatment only took place 2 months ago and cardiologists wouldn't expect to see noticable improvements until at least 3 months after a patient has been treated.
To: Donald Margolis
From: George S.
Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 3:03 PM
Dear Don,
Thank you so much for the call last nite and the pictures!
Looking back, I'm certainly a lot better than when those pictures were taken. It has been two months and change. My 6 minute walk test has increased by 50%, but I still have days of SOB without explanation. Non of my objective tests are back yet, but I will keep you posted.
One of our most recent patients, Mr. Manny Montemayor is currently recovering in Bangkok following his stem cell therapy which took place on March 21.
Mr. Montemayor's local paper, the Northwest Herald, reported on his family's efforts to raise funds for treatment of his hereditary heart condition which has struck him down at the age of 41. The report also mentions two of Mr. Montemayor's children who, although not yet in their teens have also been diagnosed as suffering from the same condition as their father. The one ray of light is the fact that, so far, his youngest daughter, aged 4, has not shown any signs of carrying the gene.
It's reading stories of families like this which, through genetics rather than lifestyle, lead members to suffer from cardiomyopathy that makes the team at TheraVitae more committed to finding an effective, natural therapy for heart disease that will one day be available to all.
Our prayers and wishes go out to Manny for a speed recovery.
Another example of the ways in which adult stem cells are being used to treat a growing number of diseases is found in the article, from the San Francisco Chronicle, about an experimental therapy for AIDS which uses gene therapy in conjunction with a patient's blood stem cells to provide treatment.
The harvested stem cells are treated with a virus which carries a benign gene that in turn tells the cells how to create a ribozyme that targets the HIV virus. Researchers theorize that these stem cells are immune to the AIDS virus and will destroy it when it attempts to infect these cells. Over time any infected cells in the body would eventually die and would be replaced by the new 'super' cells which would remain in the body.
This treatment is still in the trial stage and no scientific data has been released yet, but the article reports on a patient who underwent this exciting new form of treatment almost a year ago and has not required any anitviral drugs since.
This story taken from India's 'The Hindu' news service, reporting on reseach presented at the recent meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in San Diego, caught my eye over the weekend. One common effect of heart disease is a stroke, and now researches have discovered that adult stem cells could be used to significantly enhance recovery. At present only animal testing has been undrtaken, but the results are positive.
The full story taken from 'The Hindu' is reprinted below:
There is now a hope for patients with a neurological damage like stroke.
According to a new research a single dose of adult donor stem cells given to animals that have neurological damage similar to that experienced by adults with a stroke or newborns with cerebral palsy can significantly enhance recovery from these types of injuries.
Using a commonly utilised animal model for stroke, researchers administered a dose of 200,000-400,000 human stem cells into brains of animals that had experienced significant loss of mobility and other functions. The stemcells used in the study were a recently discovered type, referred to as multipotent adult progenitor cells, or MAPCs.
Treated animals experienced at least 25 per cent greater improvement in motor and neurological performance than controls, Dr Cesario V. Borlongan, neuroscientist at Medical College of Georgia and the Veterans Affairs Medical Centre in Augusta said.
The findings were presented April 7 at the 58th annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in San Diego.
In humans, the findings hopefully will translate to incremental but important recovery advances, Dr David Hess, adult stroke specialist, chair of the MCG Department of Neurology and a study co-author said.
"The single largest cause of disability among adults in the US is stroke," said Dr Hess. "It's a huge public health problem in the world." He says he hopes one day stem cell therapy, along with aggressive physical therapy possibly can work synergistically to reduce that disability.
There's nothing like an attention grabbing headline to get reader's attention. However, as with most attention grabbing headlines the facts that lie behind it possibly aren't so substantial.
This story relates to a Thai biotech firm 'Macro Food Tech Co.' that has been working on research that aims to rejuvenate old cells while improving immune functions by developing functional food that can be used to encourage stem cells in the human body.
The basic idea is to find a way in which to grow adult stem cells and this requires a new functional food to deal directly with stem cells. The company has used its brainchild polysaccharidepeptides (PSP) -created from different types of cereal grains that are now used to improve body functionality and health - in research to proliferate the stem cells.
The research covers the creation of supplements for patients to consume to generally stimulate the growth of stem cells in organs all over the body as well as the development of special nutrition to feed stem cells derived from blood and bone marrow in the laboratory.
In the development of supplements, scientists in the initial step tested the supplement themselves for about two weeks. Before the trial, their blood was tested to determine the number of stem cells to be compared with the number after the body has been fed with the new supplement. It was found that the number of stem cells in the scientists' blood increased by a factor of twelve.
On the face of it, this may sound like good news. However, by releasing all manner of stem cells into the bloodstream these researchers are putting themselves at risk. As anyone who has taken an interest in th fieldof stem cell research will know, certain types of stem cells are responsible for the growth of tumours and cancers. Releasing large numbers of these these into the bloodstream, with no control over where they circlulate is something that shouldn't be undertaken lightly.
Time will tell if this research is on the right track or not. Click here for the full story from Thailand's 'Nation' newspaper.
New research done at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem shows that adult stem cells may one day be used to make new tendon or ligament tissue, which is good news for athletes who tend to overexert themselves. In the US over 200,000 people undergo tendon or ligament repair each year, usually consisting of tissue grafting or synthetic prostheses, neither of which has proved to provide a good long-term solution.
The Journal of Clinical Investigation reports that Researchers Prof. Dan Gazit and colleagues at the Skeletal Biotechnology Laboratory at the Hebrew University Faculty of Dental Medicine engineered mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), which reside in the bone marrow and fat tissues, to express a protein called Smad8 and another called BMP2. When injected into rats with torn Achilles tendons, these stem cells not only survived, but were drawn to the site of injury to help repair tendons.
Dwight A. Towler and Richard Gelberman from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, reported that, "Given our limited understanding of how MSCs become tenocytes, the recent progress demonstrated in these studies is quite remarkable and may be potentially useful in cell-based therapeutic approaches to musculoskeletal injuries."
A very interesting article which first appeared in April's medical journal 'The Lancet' but was also published widely on health and medical sites yesterday. (The full story.)
Way back in 1999 a reseach team at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina, led by Dr. Anthony Atala, transplanted the first tissue enginered bladder into a human. Dr. Atala published papers on the medical technique but until now had not mentioned human cases so as to allow a follow-up period to make sure that the organs were working.
Now, almost 7 years later Dr. Atala has made his findings public. In 'The Lancet' article, Dr Steve Chung, of the Advanced Urology Institute of Illinois hailed this achievement as a "milestone." Not only in the treatment of bladder cancer but also as a stepping stone to other organs being successfully grown outside the laboratory.
The bladder, which is basically a membranous sac, is a very inert organ. It is not known how complex organs like the heart or the lung can grow in laboratory conditions but Dr Atala's team is currently working on 20 different organs and tissues including blood vessels and hearts. It's worth pointing out that this technique doesnt stem cell population or cloning techniques but does use the patients own cells to hopefully grow new organs. In the not too distant future will patients simply be able to grow their own replacement organs? Immortality is only a step away!
Just when you thought you'd heard the last of the scandals involving discredited South Korean researchers, today's The Korea Times includes a story about 'Stem Cells', the international journal of stem cell differentiation and proliferation, retracting a paper authored by South Korean scientists involved in the 'Hwanggate' scandal.
Two key photos in the scientific paper, which were described as being different, were in fact identical, leading to this quote from Curt I. Civin, Editor-in-Chief at Stem Cells:
"They (the pictures documented at Stem Cells) are, at best, a graphic indication of unacceptable scientific record keeping and reporting or, at worst, fraudulent."
More postive news is coming out of Canada where the University of Toronto has been carrying out research involving the use of adult stem cells to repair damaged spinal tissue in rats and help them move again.
The latest research, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, could offer new hope to paralysed patients. The team said the technique appeared to work best in the two weeks after the spinal cord was injured.
It has long been hoped that stem cells could hold the key to treating severe disability as well as serious illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease. In the latest research Dr Michael Fehlings and colleagues from the University of Toronto took stem cells from the brains of rodents.
These cells were labelled with a fluorescent marker, allowing the scientists to trace the cells after they were transplanted into the rats' crushed spines. Using a cocktail of growth factors and immune-supressing drugs, the stem cells transplanted up to weeks after the initial injury survived in the spine.
The scientists found that more than one-third of the transplanted cells travelled along the spinal cord and were incorporated into the damaged tissue. These cells developed into the type of tissue that was destroyed at the injured area and were able to produce myelin - an insulating layer around nerve fibres that transmits signals from the brain. When the spinal cord is injured it loses the ability to regenerate myelin-forming cells, which leads to paralysis.
Dr Fehlings found that where the stem cells restored myelin in the injured spine, the rats showed some recovery and were able to walk with more co-ordination.
Dr Oswald Steward, director of the Reeve-Irvine Research Centre for Spinal Cord Injury at the University of California, welcomed the study. "These cells can be caused to differentiate into the types of cells that are useful for repairing the damaged spinal cord," he said.
The above article can be found on 'The Scotsman's website.
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