Category Archives: Stem Cell Treatments

Scientists in England say they have successfully restored hearing in deaf gerbils using stem cell treatments that could eventually help people with certain types of hearing disorders.

"We have the proof of concept that we can use human embryonic stem cells to repair the damaged ear," said the lead researcher, Marcelo Rivolta, a stem-cell biologist at the University of Sheffield, in a study published in the journal Nature.

More than 275 million people have moderate-to-profound hearing loss according to Nature, and many of those cases are due to a breach in the connection between the inner ear and the brain.

In this study, Rivolta and his team were able to make the first real link between the inner ear and the central nervous system using stem cells implanted in 18 gerbils with complete hearing loss in one ear.

The gerbils were made deaf with a drug that killed nerve cells transmitting information from the ear to the brain.

With further research, experts say the treatment used on the gerbils could be applied to cases of deafness in humans, but not before much more research is conducted.

"I think [applying this treatment to humans] is a ways down the line," said Richard Altschuler, a developmental biologist with the Kresge Hearing Research Institute at the University of Michigan, who has worked on similar studies in the U.S.

"We need to see a more robust connection to the central nervous system," said Altschuler in a phone interview on Thursday. "But it's a step," he said. "It helps to identify a population and source of stem cells, it helps to establish a protocol for differentiating the cells into an appropriate niche and space in the cochlea, and it shows that they can make connections to the central nervous system, something that hasn't been shown before until now."

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Stem Cells Restore Hearing In Deaf Gerbils

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Embryologist Ric Ross holds a dish with human embryos at the La Jolla IVF Clinic February 28, 2007 in La Jolla, California.

Two clinical trial patients, paralyzed with chronic spinal cord injuries, have regained some sensation after undergoing stem cell treatments led by a California biotech company and researchers from the University of Zurich.

The clinical trials by Newark, California-based StemCells, Inc involved three patients, two of whom regained some feeling after scientists injected them with purified human neural stem cells.

The neural stem cells are essentially adult stem cells that can renew and replicate into cells of the nervous system. They were derived from donated fetal brain cells, which dont require the controversial destruction of embryos, a company spokesman said.

The news comes ten months after another California biotech company Menlo-Park-based Geron Corporation surprised and disappointed many in the field when it abandoned its stem cell division including its highly-touted research into an embryonic stem cell treatment for spinal cord injuries.

The three patients in the University of Zurich trials had suffered complete injury to the thoracic - or chest-level spinal cord, which left each them with no function or feeling below the injury.

Four to nine months after their injuries, scientists at the University of Zurich transplanted 20 million stem cells into each patient's spinal column at the point of injury.

Six months after treatment, two of the patients can feel heat, electrical and touch stimuli below the location of the injury, according to results presented by researchers this week at the 51st annual International Spinal Cord Society meeting in London.

The reappearance of sensation was deemed rather unexpected by Dr. Armin Curt, principal investigator for the clinical trial at the Spinal Cord Injury Center at Balgrist University Hospital, University of Zurich.

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Novel stem cell treatment helps paralyzed patients feel again

The following is a script of "Stem Cell Fraud" which aired on Jan. 8, 2012, and was rebroadcast on Aug. 26, 2012. Scott Pelley is the correspondent. Oriana Zill and Michael Rey, producers.

(CBS News) There's no greater desperation than to be told that you, or your child, has a disease for which there is no hope. Many people with incurable illness look forward to the promise of stem cells. Stem cells have the potential to turn into any kind of cell and, in theory, they could repair damaged cells, though, scientists tell us that we are years away from realizing that dream.

There is no stem cell miracle today, so con men, have moved in to offer the hope that science cannot. Just look online and you will find hundreds of credible looking websites offering stem cell cures in overseas clinics.

Two years ago we began investigating stem cell charlatans. We worked with patients suffering from incurable diseases, and we discovered con men, posing as doctors, conducting dangerous medical experiments.

[Scott Pelley: You know, Mr. Stowe, the trouble is that you're a con man.]

Our report started a federal investigation and since that story, we have been digging into the rapidly growing trade in fake stem cell cures. As we reported last January, we've found something even more alarming: illegal stem cell transplants that are dangerous and delivered to your doorstep. They are scams that often bilk the desperate out of their last dollar of savings and their last ounce of hope.

[Brandon Susser: I know you're tired.]

Adam and Brandon Susser are 11-year-old twins. Adam has cerebral palsy, his brain was damaged by a lack of oxygen before he and his brother were born.

Gary Susser: He's confined to a wheelchair. He needs assistance with all his daily living activities from cleanliness to feeding, to clothing.

Gary and Judy Susser have searched for anything that might improve on the judgment handed down by Adam's doctors.

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Stem Cell Fraud: A "60 Minutes" investigation

Unproven, Risky Treatments Mislead Patients to Seek Cutting-Edge Therapy

There's a dark side to stem cells: bogus treatments that prey on patients' hopes when mainstream medicine has little to offer.

Stephen Byer stepped far outside typical medical care when his son, Ben, had ALS. He took Ben to China for stem cell-like treatments, and later helped hundreds of people do the same, believing it would help them.

The unproven procedure could have killed Ben. It didn't -- but it also didn't work. Ben later died of ALS. So did the ALS patients Byer now regrets helping get the treatment.

Why take the chance? For Byer, it started with misleading promises online.

"The Internet, while increasing communication, has spawned a horde of charlatans and creeps," Byer says. "We were suckered into one of the earlier forms of stem cell chicanery."

But not everyone who seeks unapproved stem cell treatments feels ripped off. Even though the stem cell treatments Dawn Gusty got in Tijuana, Mexico, didn't ease her multiple sclerosis, she doesn't look back with regret.

That moment -- when hope surpasses science, and when someone claims to be able to bridge that gap -- may be one of the riskiest for patients to handle. And it's one of the most alarming for stem cell experts.

"It is a very dangerous situation," says Joshua Hare, MD, director of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute at the University of Miami.

Make no mistake: Hare is all for scientific stem cell research. His concern, he says, is "hype" that glosses over an inconvenient fact: There are no new approved stem cell therapies.

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Stem Cell Treatments: False Hope Warning Signs

Photo by Rachel Denny Clow, Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times file Cristina Rodriguez sits with her dogs Coby (left) and Flower at her home. Rodriguez's friends and family will have a recruitment event Saturday to find a bone marrow match for the 31-year-old former Zumba instructor, who has non-Hodkgin lymphoma.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Former Zumba instructor Cristina Rodriguez leads a flash mob at La Palmera mall in December 2010, a month before she stopped teaching because she developed a pain in her hip. She later was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Photo by Rachel Denny Clow, Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times file Cristina Rodriguez, who raised awareness about the importance for Hispanics to donate bone marrow and stem cells, now needs a donation herself.

CORPUS CHRISTI Cristina Rodriguez once counted herself among the lucky blood cancer patients who could survive on chemotherapy and stem cell treatments from their own bone marrow.

Buoyed by this blessing, she advocated for less fortunate Hispanics who needed transplants.

Now, the Corpus Christi woman who raised awareness about the importance for Hispanics to donate bone marrow and stem cells needs a donation herself.

It was an ironic twist of fate made worse by her understanding of the cold hard facts: Hispanics have a harder time finding matching donors than do other ethnicities.

"I knew the statistics and all that so I'm like, 'Oh great. I'm another statistic basically,' " she said.

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Woman who once advocated for more Hispanic bone marrow donors needs donation herself

The latest round of a stem cell debate may have concluded, but as far as the lawyers representing an orthopedics company that has offered stem cell treatments are concerned, its a long way from over.

The lawyers representing Colorado-based Regenerative Science said they were filing a notice of appeal this week after a U.S. District Court judges ruling in favor of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that its stem cell therapy is a drug. The case is being closely watched by everyone with a stake or an interest in the use of stem cells in medicine and could have significant ramifications for stem cell entrepreneurs who dont believe their procedures amount to a drug or biologic.

Regenerative Science

Colorado-based Regnerative Sciences Regenexx procedure is presented as an alternative to traditional surgery that can treat fractures that have failed to heal, joint cartilage problems, partial tears of tendons, muscles, or ligaments, among other problems. It works like this: A physician takes a small bone marrow sample from the back of the patients hip through a needle. Blood samples are taken from a vein in the patients arm. The samples are sent to the Regenerative laboratory where the mesenchymal stem cells are isolated from the bone marrow and grown to greater numbers using growth factors in the patients blood. The stem cells are injected back into the relevant area in the patient.

The FDA initially sent a warning letter to Regenerative in 2008 after seeing its website. The company turned around and sued the FDA, and two years ago the FDA sought an injunction to shut it down.

The companies that occupy the stem cell treatment landscape are as diverse a group as you could hope to find in medicine. Some offer age-defying beauty solutions, others provide life-saving technology, others have quality-of-life-improving treatments for joints and muscles. There are entrepreneurs leading startups and Big Pharma companies too.

In 2010, the stem cell therapy market was $139.6 million and it was projected to grow to $1 billion by 2015, according to data compiled by Robin Young, the publisher of Orthopedics Week and the CEO of medical data mining company PearlDiver Technologies.

This is on the very cutting edge of medicine and the FDA needs to move forward with it by making sure they have the best information on this science available to inform their decision-making,said Michelle Hart Yeary, counsel with Decherts life science practice.

Minimally manipulated

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Is it drug manufacturing or the practice of medicine? Stem cell therapy debate just getting started

The quest to save her grandson's eyesight began more than four years ago when Carmie Carr discovered a business on the Internet offering experimental stem cell injections in China.

At 4 months old, Cayden Baggett was diagnosed with optic nerve hypoplasia, a condition where the nerves in the eyes never fully develop. His family was told he would eventually go blind. Right now, Cayden can see light and dark, but little else.

Soon after learning about the stem cell treatments, the Carr family launched a campaign to raise $50,000 to cover the costs. The 2010 Gulf oil spill, coupled with the 2011 tornadoes in Tuscaloosa that destroyed their retail business, made collecting the funds next to impossible, they said.

Then, a friend told the family about a construction project he was working on just down the street. It was for a local radiologist who planned to offer stem cell injections to athletes with sports-related injuries.

He introduced the Carrs to Dr. Jason Williams. After talking with the family and researching the procedures, Williams agreed to help.

"There is no doubt in my mind this is the road the Lord has been leading us down," said Carmie Carr. "It connected like a perfect puzzle. We thought we were going to have to travel around the world. Instead, we drove four blocks."

A goal of Cayden's stem cell treatment is to stimulate new nerve growth that might improve his vision. Some children with similar health problems have shown marked improvement in recent years after being treated with stem cells in China, Carmie Carr said.

When the day of his procedure finally arrived, a groggy Cayden, now 5, was carried by his mother, Leanna Carr, into the Gulf Shores medical practice. During the procedure, Williams used the little boy's own fat through liposuction to harvest stem cells that were processed, then injected into his back.

Stem cells, sometimes called the body's master cells, are precursor cells that can develop into blood, bones and organs, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates their use. Their promise in medicine, researchers say, is that the cells have shown potential to help regenerate other cells.

For about four months, Williams, a radiologist, has been performing stem cell injections, which are considered investigational in the U.S., at his Baldwin County practice. He has said the procedures meet FDA guidelines because the stem cells are collected from a patient's fat tissue and administered back to the same person.

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Cayden's second chance: 5-year-old has stem cell injection that may help his vision

June 29, 2012

Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

In 1993, the autosomal dominant gene mutation responsible for Huntingtons Disease (HD) was discovered. However, no treatments are known to slow its progression. New research may pave the way to better understanding of the disease. Researchers at Johns Hopkins recently announced that they were able to produce stem cells from skin cells from a person who had severe, early-onset form of HD; the cells were then changed into neurons that degenerated like the cells affected by HD.

The research was recently published in the journal Cell Stem Cell. The investigators worked with an international consortium in creating HD in a dish. The group was made up of scientists from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the University of California at Irvine, as well as six other groups. The team looked at many other HD cell lines and control cell lines to verify that the results were consistent and reproducible in other labs. The investigators believe that the findings allow them to better understand and eliminate cells in people in with HD. They hope to study the effects of possible drug treatments on cells that would be otherwise found deep in the brain.

Having these cells will allow us to screen for therapeutics in a way we havent been able to before in Huntingtons disease, remarked lead researcher Dr. Christopher A. Ross, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, neurology, pharmacology and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in a prepared statement. For the first time, we will be able to study how drugs work on human HD neurons and hopefully take those findings directly to the clinic.

The team of researchers is studying small molecules for the ability to block HD iPSC degeneration to see if they can be developed into new drugs for HD. As well, the ability to produce from stem cells the same neurons found in HD may have effects for similar research in other neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimers and Parkinsons. In the experiment, Ross took a skin biopsy from a patient with very early onset HD. The patient was seven years old at the time, with a severe form of disease and a mutation that caused it. By using cells from a patient who had quickly progressing HD, Ross team were able to mimic HD in a way that could be used by patients who had different forms of HD.

The skin cells were grown in culture and reprogrammed to induce stem cells that were pluripotent. Then, another cell line was created in the same way from someone who didnt have HD. The other HD and control iPS cells were produced as part of the NINDS funded HD iPS cell consortium. Investigators from Johns Hopkins and the other consortium labs changed the cells into typical neurons and then into medium spiny neurons. The process took a total of three months and the scientists found the medium spiny neurons from the HD cells acted how the medium spiny neurons form an HD patient would. The cells demonstrated quick degeneration when cultured in the lab with a basic culture medium that didnt include extensive supporting nutrients. On the other hand, control cell lines didnt demonstrate neuronal degeneration.

These HD cells acted just as we were hoping, says Ross, director of the Baltimore Huntingtons Disease Center. A lot of people said, Youll never be able to get a model in a dish of a human neurodegenerative disease like this. Now, we have them where we can really study and manipulate them, and try to cure them of this horrible disease. The fact that we are able to do this at all still amazes us.

Source: Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

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Skin Cells Create Stem Cells In Huntington Disease Study

SAN DIEGO CA--(Marketwire -06/29/12)- Medistem Inc. (MEDS) announced today notice of allowance from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a patent covering the use of fat stem cells, and cells associated with fat stem cells for treatment of diseases related to a dysfunctional immune system. Such diseases include multiple sclerosis, Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. The allowed patent, entitled "Stem Cell Mediated Treg Activation/Expansion for Therapeutic Immune Modulation" has the earliest priority date of December 2006.

"We have previously published that giving multiple sclerosis patients cells extracted from their own fat tissue, which contains stem cells, appears to confer clinical benefit in a pilot study," said Thomas Ichim, CEO of Medistem. "The current patent that has been allowed, in the broadest interpretation of the claims, gives us exclusive rights to the use of specific types of fat stem cell therapy for autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis."

Subsequent to the filing of the patent application, Medistem together with collaborators at the Lawson Health Sciences Research Institute, Canada, reported data that fat tissue contains high numbers of T regulatory cells, a type of immune cell that is capable of controlling autoimmunity.

This finding was independently confirmed by Dr. Diane Mathis' laboratory at Harvard University, who published a paper in the prestigious journal, Nature Medicine, in which detailed experimental evidence was provided supporting the initial finding that adipose tissue contains high numbers of T regulatory cells. A video describing the paper can be accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEJfGu29Rg8.

The current patent discloses the use of T regulatory cells from fat, combinations with stem cells, and use of fat-derived mononuclear cells. Given that there are currently several groups utilizing this technology in the USA in treating patients, Medistem believes revenue can be generated through enforcement of patent rights.

"Our corporate philosophy has been to remain highly focused on our ongoing clinical stage programs using Medistem's universal donor stem cell, the Endometrial Regenerative Cell (ERC), in the treatment of critical limb ischemia and congestive heart failure," said Dr. Vladimir Bogin, Chairman and President of Medistem. "However, due to the ease of implementation of our fat stem cell technology, combined with the major burden that autoimmune diseases have on our health care system, we are highly incentivized to explore partnering, co-development and licensing opportunities."

Autoimmune conditions occur as a result of the body's immune system "turning on itself" and attacking its own organs or cells. Current treatments for autoimmune conditions are based on "globally" suppressing the immune system by administration of immunosuppressive drugs. This is associated with an increased predisposition to infections and significant side effects. The utilization of stem cells and T regulatory cells offers the potential to selectively suppress pathological immunity while preserving the ability of the body to fight bacteria and viruses. According to the NIH there are approximately 23 million victims of autoimmune conditions.

Links to Documents:

Link to peer-reviewed publication: http://www.translational-medicine.com/content/pdf/1479-5876-7-29.pdf

Link: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/medistem-files-patent-application-on-therapeutic-cell-population-found-in-fat-tissue-frankfurt-s2u-812298.htm

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Medistem Receives Notice of Patent Allowance Covering Fat Stem Cell Therapy of Autoimmune Diseases

Main Category: Huntingtons Disease Also Included In: Stem Cell Research Article Date: 28 Jun 2012 - 9:00 PDT

Current ratings for: Huntington's Research Tool Developed Using Stem Cells

Cedars-Sinai scientists have joined with expert colleagues around the globe in using stem cells to develop a laboratory model for Huntington's disease, allowing researchers for the first time to test directly on human cells potential treatments for this fatal, inherited disorder.

As explained in a paper published June 28 on the Cell Stem Cell website and scheduled for print in the journal's Aug. 3 issue, scientists at Cedars-Sinai's Regenerative Medicine Institute and the University of Wisconsin took skin cells from patients with Huntington's disease and reprogrammed them into powerful stem cells; these were then made into the nervous system cells affected by the disease. Seven laboratories around the world collaborated to demonstrate the cells had hallmarks of Huntington's.

"This Huntington's 'disease in a dish' will enable us for the first time to test therapies on human Huntington's disease neurons," said Clive Svendsen, PhD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute and a senior author of the study. "In addition to increasing our understanding of this disorder and offering a new pathway to identifying treatments, this study is remarkable because of the extensive interactions between a large group of scientists focused on developing this model. It's a new way of doing trailblazing science."

The Huntington's Disease iPSC Consortium united some of the world's top scientists working on this disease. Cedars-Sinai researchers took skin cells from a several Huntington's patients, including a six-year-old with a severe juvenile form of the disease. They genetically reprogrammed these tissues into induced pluripotent stem cells, which can be made into any type of cell in the body. The cells lines were banked by scientists at Cedars-Sinai and scrutinized by all consortium members for differences that may have led to the disease. These cell lines are now an important resource for Huntington's researchers and have been made available via a National Institutes of Health-funded repository at Coriell Institute for Medical Research in New Jersey.

Huntington's, known to the public, for example, as the cause of folksinger Woody Guthrie's death, typically strikes patients in midlife. It causes jerky, twitching motions, loss of muscle control, psychiatric disorders and dementia; the disease ultimately is fatal. In rare, severe cases, the disorder appears in childhood.

Researchers believe that Huntington's results from a mutation in the huntintin gene, leading to production of an abnormal protein and ultimately cell death in specific areas of the brain that control movement and cognition. There is no cure for Huntington's, nor therapies to slow its progression.

The consortium showed Huntington's cell deficits or how they differ from normal cells, including that they were less likely to survive cultivation in the petri dish. Scientists tried depriving them of a growth factor present around normal cells, or "stressing" them, and found that Huntington's neurons died even faster.

"It was great that these characteristics were seen not only in our laboratory, but by all of the consortium members using different techniques," said Virginia Mattis, a post-doctoral scientist at the Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute and one of the lead authors of the study. "It was very reassuring and significantly strengthens the value of this study."

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Huntington's Research Tool Developed Using Stem Cells