“Latest Stem Cells News”

Patients suffering from blindness now need not wait for donors as doctors have found a way to treat many with the stem cells derived from the cornea of a dead body.
Doctors at the AIIMS and a private clinic in the national capital are using corneal surface stem cells from a cadaver’s (dead person) eye for curing corneal injuries in many.

“We have used the corneal surface stem cells of cadaver’s eye for patients with corneal injury and have been able to correct many vision,” Dr Radhika Tandon, Associate Professor, Department of Opthalmology, AIIMS said, adding “this has been done on over more than 100 patients of corneal injury.” Usually, the standard practice has been a corneal transplant from human cadaver. But due to shortage of donors, doctors have become more specific in their mode of treatment.

The technique has come as a divine blessing to many patients, Tandon said.
“Instead of a whole cornea for one patient, we check the level of injury and use stem cells instead. This way we can help even four patients with one cornea,” Dr Asim Kumar Kandar, Consultant, Centre for Sight, said.
Stem cells exist in various regions of the eye but so far, they can be found at the outer edges of the cornea, he said.

In a startling new interview on stem cell research and adult stem cells in the near future, Dr. Christopher Centeno warns that Big Pharma and the FDA are teaming to control the use of a person’s own stem cells thus slowing innovation and the use of Adult Stem Cells to help patients now.

American Stem Cell Therapy Association

Dr. Centeno has formed the American Stem Cell Therapy Association to challenge the FDA’s assertion that a person’s own stem cells are a drug and thus should be regulated as such ie. subject to 7-10 years of clinical trials for each particular disease and condition.  That is 10 years for heart patients, 10 years of trials for stroke patients etc.

The FDA is Killing People By Slowing Down Use of a Person’s Own Stem Cells

The article/interview in H+ magazine states:

If we’re not careful, these therapies could become the exclusive domain of the pharmaceutical industry, as regulated by the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This could push the availability of this tool kit 15 to 20 years into the future. The opportunity-cost in terms of morbidity and mortality could be catastrophic.

“The Opportunity-cost in terms of morbidity and mortality could be catastrophic? This is just the author’s nice PC way of saying that the FDA is killing people by trying to regulate the use of our own cells.  If the FDA slows down the use of Adult Stem Cells- each year millions will suffer and die needlessly.

More from the article:

To Dr. Centeno (a pioneer in Adult stem cell therapy), it is inconceivable that a person’s own cells could be classified as a drug —  but that’s exactly what the FDA wants to do. “The FDA is working to protect the interests of Big Pharma,” he says. “If we wanted to insert some kind of new genes into these cells, we might all agree that could be a drug  — a new entity. But what we’re doing is simply culturing a person’s own cells. Most of the cells are bone-marrow derived; you can get them from synovial fluid in the knee or from other locations.”

I recommend you read the whole article carefully and see how the FDA is not helping and protecting and serving us-  but in reality, is hurting us.

Here is the link to the Adult Stem Cell article

If you are a doctor and interested in joining forces with Dr. Centeno in taking on the FDA- go to the http://www.stemcelldocs.org

If you are a patient or just interested in fighting the FDA for the use of our own stem cells- go to http://www.safestemcells.org

original post by Don Margolis

Washington State University researchers provided computer analyses for a new gene therapy study published in Science Translational Medicine.

The study – conducted by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and published May 9 – found stem cell gene therapy could protect blood cells from damage by chemotherapy in patients suffering from glioblastoma (malignant brain tumors), thereby extending life expectancy.

The WSU laboratory of co-author Grant D. Trobridge, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences, developed bioinformatics software that aided the Fred Hutchinson researchers in evaluating the safety of the procedure. The approach was to remove blood stem cells, add a gene that shields them from chemotherapy used to treat the brain tumor, and then reintroduce these protected stem cells.

Trobridge noted the co-lead authors of the Fred Hutchinson study both received their Ph.D.s at WSU – Jennifer Adair in 2005 and Brian Beard in 2003 – in the School of Molecular Biosciences. Both now work at Fred Hutchinson in the laboratory of Hans-Peter Kiem, who was senior author on the paper.

Researchers at Rutgers University have uncovered a new way to stimulate activity of immune cell opiate receptors, leading to efficient tumor cell clearance.

Dipak Sarkar, professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and his research team have been able to take a new pharmacological approach to activate the immune cells to prevent cancer growth through stimulation of the opiate receptors found on immune cells.

This research, funded by the National Institutes of Health-National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholosm, is featured on the cover of the May 11 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. It describes two structurally different but functionally similar opioid receptors, Mu- and Delta-opioid receptors. These receptors form protein complexes as either two structurally similar receptors as a homodimer—formed by two identical molecules—or two structurally dissimilar protein complexes as a heterodimer—formed by ethanol inducement—in immune cells. The team pharmacologically fooled these two structurally different but functionally similar opioid receptors to form more homodimers so that opioid peptide increases the immune cells’ ability to kill tumor cells.

“The potential for this research can lead to production of endogenous opioids in the brain and the periphery becoming more effective in regulating stress and immune function,” says Sarkar.

Opioids, like endorphins, communicate with the immune system, so when there is a deficit of endorphin – due to fetal alcohol exposure, alcoholism and drug abuse, anxiety, depression and chronic psychological stress – the body undergoes stress shocks and, as Sarkar suggests, causes “immune incompetence.”

A recent scientific follow-up study of patients who underwent autologous stem cell therapy for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig‘s disease, has proved the effectiveness of the therapy. Returning Hope, in Thailand, is one of the first Asian health care providers to arrange for this type of stem cell treatment.
The follow up study was conducted by a team from Akay Hospital, GATA, the University of Marmara, and the Sila Neurorehabilitation Center. It followed 13 patients for one year after stem cell treatment for ALS.

Participants in the study had the following outcomes:

• Nine of thirteen participants had significant improvement, proven by electroneuromyography.
• Three patients died from conditions unrelated to ALS, including lung infection and myocardial infarction
• One patient’s condition was stable, with no improvement or decline

Previous treatments for ALS included growth hormone therapy, which was recently proven ineffective.

Brian Dardzinski, Returning Hope’s CEO, believes the study’s results were inevitable. “We have been partnering with treatment facilities to provide stem cell therapy for ALS for some time now. Our patients have had substantial improvement”.

“It was only a matter of time before a widely publicized study proving our results became available. But we are very pleased that more patients may have the opportunity to undergo stem cell therapy for ALS, due to the new study”, Mr Dardzinski continued.

ALS is one of the most common neuromuscular diseases world wide. Prominent sufferers like Stephen Hawking, guitarist Jason Becker and baseballer Lou Gehrig brought the disease to prominence.

About Returning Hope
Returning Hope is an online portal and facilitator, providing information and assistance to patients looking for adult stem cell treatment. Most of the procedures that Returning Hope facilitates involve autologous transplants – stem cells are harvested from a patient’s own fat in a quick, simple bedside procedure and re-implanted. Autologous adult stem cell therapy can give hope to patients who were previously told their conditions were untreatable, including stroke, autism, ALS, diabetes, cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.

Dr. Feng Lin, Director of Research at Bio-Matrix Scientific Group Inc. (OTCBulletinBoard: BMSN) and Entest BioMedical Inc., today stated that he believes that an effective new therapy for “traumatic brain injury” (TBI) using autologous “adipose-derived” stem cells represents a potential cure for TBI. According to Dr. Lin, both Bio-Matrix and Entest BioMedical are now studying the “therapeutic effect of fat stem cells on traumatic brain injury-associated brain ischemia and inflammation and replacement of damaged neurons with neuron cells differentiated from fat cells.” Bio-Matrix Scientific Group Inc. and Entest BioMedical Inc. recently submitted a research summary proposal to the U.S. Army with a goal of funding traumatic brain injury treatment research. BMSN is a San Diego-based biotechnology research and development company. Entest BioMedical Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BMSN. Entest is focusing on stem cell research applications, as well as testing procedures for diabetes.

“Currently there is no effective therapeutic approach to reverse the initial brain damage caused by trauma,” stated Dr. Lin. “Brain cells or neurons have limited ability for self-repair and spontaneous axonal regeneration. Extensive studies have been focusing on novel therapeutic strategies for traumatic brain injury. In my opinion, adipose-derived stem cells could possess the capacity for self-renewal and differentiation into diverse cell types such as neural cells. We could be looking at an exciting and potential cure for traumatic brain injury patients.”

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs when an external force injures the brain. TBI is a major cause of disability and death worldwide, but especially in young people. Causes include vehicle accidents, falls, violence, as well as explosive blasts in battle fields. In the U.S., approximately 1.5 million new TBI cases occur each year, adding to the almost 6.5 million cases that are permanently affected by the irreversible physical, cognitive, and psychological defects associated with TBI. The total annual economic impact of TBI is approximately $60 billion.