Category Archives: Stem Cell Therapy

On the weekend, a whos who of hockey legends gathered to pay tribute to Gordie Howe in his hometown of Saskatoon.

In addition to sharing memories about Mr. Hockey, a constant theme of the festivities was his miracle recovery from stroke.

Mr. Howe, 86, suffered two strokes last year and, according to his family, was near death before he travelled to Clinica Santa Clarita in Tijuana, Mexico, in December for experimental stem-cell treatment.

Afterward, Mr. Howe was able to walk again. He regained a lot of weight and he began to resemble his old self. (Most of this is second-hand; Mr. Howe also suffers from dementia and has not or cannot speak of his symptoms or treatment first-hand.)

After his stem-cell treatment, the doctor told us it was kind of an awakening of the body, his son, Marty Howe, told The Canadian Press. They call it the miracle of stem cells and it was nothing less than a miracle.

Mr. Howes Lazarus-like recovery makes for a great tug-at-the-heartstrings narrative for a man whose career has been the embodiment of perseverance and longevity. But if you step back a moment and examine the science, all sorts of alarm bells should go off.

Stem cells, which were discovered in the early 1960s, have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cells, at least in the embryonic stage. They also serve as the bodys internal repair system.

The notion that spinal cords and limbs and heart muscle and brain cells could be regenerated holds a magical appeal.

But, so far, stem-cell therapies have been used effectively to treat only a small number of blood disorders, such as leukemia. (Canada has a public bank that collects stem cells from umbilical-cord blood and a program to match stem-cell donors with needy patients.)

Stem cells also show promise in the treatment of conditions such as spinal-cord injuries, Parkinsons and multiple sclerosis, but those hopes have not yet moved from the realm of science-fiction into clinical medicine.

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The stem-cell miracle is anecdotal

* BrainStorm develops cell treatments for neurodegenerative diseases

BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc., a biotechnology company in Hackensack, said Monday that it has received patent approval in Israel for its NurOwn technology.

NurOwn is self-transplanting adult stem-cell therapy.

BrainStorm said it received a notice of allowance from Israel's Patent Office for the rights to methods of producing neurotrophic, factor-secreting cells derived from mesenchymal stem cells and methods of using those cells for the treatment of neurologic diseases. The patent is held jointly with Tel Aviv University's technology transfer company, Ramot.

"This patent allowance in Israel further extends the geographic reach of our intellectual property, as we already have received similar claims in the U.S., with additional filings pending elsewhere," said BrainStorm's chief executive officer, Tony Fiorino, in a statement.

BrainStorm develops adult cell therapies from bone marrow cells to treat neurodegenerative diseases.

The business also has operations in Israel.

Email: anzidei@northjersey.com

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Hackensack biotech company gets Israeli patent for therapy

The Human Genome Unlocked
The Aspen Health Forum, 2009. With the mapping of the human genome complete, scientists are hoping to use stem cell therapy and related interventions to alleviate or even cure diseases. What...

By: The Aspen Institute

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The Human Genome Unlocked - Video

For patients with brain cancer, radiation is a powerful and potentially life-saving treatment, but it can also cause considerable and even permanent injury to the brain. Now, through preclinical experiments conducted in rats, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center researchers have developed a method to turn human stem cells into cells that are instructed to repair damage in the brain. Rats treated with the human cells regained cognitive and motor functions that were lost after brain irradiation. The findings are reported in the February 5 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell.

During radiation therapy for brain cancer, progenitor cells that later mature to produce the protective myelin coating around neurons are lost or significantly depleted, and there is no treatment available to restore them. These myelinating cells--called oligodendrocytes--are critical for shielding and repairing the brain's neurons throughout life.

A team led by neurosurgeon Viviane Tabar, MD, and research associate Jinghua Piao, PhD, of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, wondered whether stem cells could be coaxed to replace these lost oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. They found that this could be achieved by growing stem cells--either human embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells derived from skin biopsies--in the presence of certain growth factors and other molecules.

Next, the investigators used the lab-grown oligodentrocyte progenitor cells to treat rats that had been exposed to brain irradiation. When the cells were injected into certain regions of the brain, brain repair was evident, and rats regained the cognitive and motor skills that they had lost due to radiation exposure. The treatment also appeared to be safe: none of the animals developed tumors or inappropriate cell types in the brain.

"Being able to repair radiation damage could imply two important things: improving the quality of life of survivors and potentially expanding the therapeutic window of radiation," said Dr. Tabar. "This will have to be proven further, but if we can repair the brain effectively, we could be bolder with our radiation dosing, within limits." This could be especially important in children, for whom physicians deliberately deliver lower radiation doses.

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The above story is based on materials provided by Cell Press. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Human stem cells repair damage caused by radiation therapy for brain cancer in rats

Published 04 February 2015

International Stem Cell, a California-based biotechnology company developing novel stem cell-based therapies and biomedical products, announced that the company has completed manufacturing of the cell bank of clinical-grade human neural stem cells using its patented process for the recently announced phase 1/2a clinical trial in Parkinson's disease.

The cell bank contains over 2.6 billion human cells, sufficient to meet the company's foreseeable clinical trial requirements.

"Completing the production of clinical-grade cells using the previously published protocol is one of the final steps before starting our clinical program," said Ruslan Semechkin, Ph.D., ISCO's Chief Scientific Officer.

"Because of the complexity involved in manufacturing live human cell products, having our own GMP facility is not only a strategic advantage, but also allows us to control the production costs. We continue to anticipate, subject to regulatory agency approval, beginning the clinical trial in early 2015 and will provide a further update in the near future."

ISCO's master cell bank of human parthenogenetic neural stem cells (ISC-hpNSC) is produced in compliance with current good manufacturing practices (cGMPs) and the chemistry and manufacturing controls (CMC) discussed in the previously reported pre-IND meeting with the FDA. The cells are karyotypically normal hpNSCs and free of measurable contaminants of human or animal origin.

The production of hpNSCs from undifferentiated pluripotent human parthenogenetic stem cells in the master cell bank uses qualified reagents and a standardized protocol developed by ISCO. The undifferentiated human stem cells are derived from the parthenogenetic line and were recently cleared by the FDA for use in clinical trials.

Each batch of hpNSC is subjected to standardized quality control testing to ensure viability, sterility and appropriate cellular composition before clinical use. The existing master cell bank and current production scale are sufficient to supply our anticipated product needs through pivotal clinical trials. The cell bank was produced at the company's state of the art GMP manufacturing facility located in Oceanside, Calif.

ISC-hpNSCs are a novel therapeutic cellular product derived from the Company's proprietary human pluripotent stem cells. Neural stem cells are self-renewing multipotent cells that are precursors for the main cell types of the central nervous system.

The ability of ISC-hpNSCs to differentiate into dopaminergic neurons and express brain-protecting neurotrophic factors offers a new opportunity for the treatment of Parkinson's disease. ISCO's preclinical program includes animal studies to assess the safety and tolerability of our novel cell therapy as well as doses ranging efficacy to be used to design the first clinical trial in Parkinson's disease patients.

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International Stem Cell completes cell bank manufacturing for Parkinson's disease clinical trial

Gordie Howe has made such a dramatic recovery after having stem cell therapy in December in Tijuana, Mexico, that hes heading to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, this weekend for a dementia fundraiser involving Wayne Gretzky.

The Kinsmen Arena there will be renamed the Gordie Howe Kinsman Arena.

Murray Howe raced from Toledo, Ohio, to Lubbock, Texas, in late October, unsure whether his father, who had suffered a massive stroke, would still be alive when he got there. The Detroit Red Wings hockey legend was being cared for by his daughter, Cathy, and family members were advised to get there quickly if they wanted to see him again.

Murray Howe told the Free Press in a telephone interview Tuesday he was heading back to Lubbock today to help accompany his father, along with other family members, to Saskatoon for the public appearance.

Gordie Howes younger brother, Vic, who played for the New York Rangers, died Saturday at age 85 in Moncton, New Brunswick. Murray Howe said Gordie would not be able to attend his brothers funeral, but would be with two sisters, Helen and Vi, while in Saskatoon, and the family would gather there for a memorial service for their brother.

Although the event in Saskatoon had been planned for more than a year, the Howe family told organizers in August that Gordie probably wouldnt be able to attend because of declining health. They definitely didnt think hed be able to attend following a series of strokes that he had in the months that followed.

But Howe has made a drastic recovery, to the point that family members told the organizers if theres an extra chair for him, he thinks he can make it.

Murray Howe said he was very skeptical when representatives from Stemedica reached out a following the news of Gordie Howes massive stroke.

Stem cells werent even on my radar, Murray Howe said, who did a bunch of research before his father agreed to pursue the therapy.

Stemedica has a stem cell trial in the U.S., but patients have to wait six months following their stroke before they can begin to the therapy. The stem cell trial by Novastem at Clinica Santa Clarita in Mexico did not require a six-month wait.

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Howe to Assist Dementia Fundraiser