“Latest Stem Cells News”

Dr. Donald Leslie, medical director at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, has high hopes.

“We want to cure paralysis,” he said. “We want to stop spinal cord injury. How incredible would that be?”

Leslie’s mission has begun with T.J. Atchinson, the first step in research that he believes could lead to many steps for those who were told they would never walk again. Atchinson, 21, was the first human with a spinal cord injury to undergo embryonic stem cell therapy.

The athletic college student’s life took a hard turn in September when he was home from the University of Alabama visiting his family in Chatom and lost control of his car. Even before he was cut loose from the vehicle, he knew something was wrong.

“I realized I couldn’t feel from about here down,” nursing student Atchinson said, pointing to his waist. “When I got to the hospital, they said I would never walk again.”

The accident took place on the birthday of Christopher Reeves, the actor who had fought hard for embryonic stem-cell therapy but never lived to receive it. Atchinson was still accepting the news about his situation when doctors told him he’d be a great candidate for the therapy.

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Emory University researchers are participating in a groundbreaking clinical trial to treat patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) using human neural stem cells.

The Phase 1 trial, will assess the safety of stem cells, and the surgical procedures and devices required, for multiple injections of the cells directly into the spinal cord.

“This is the first U.S. clinical trial of stem cell injections into the spinal cord for the treatment of ALS,” says principal researcher Jonathan Glass, professor of neurology in the School of Medicin, and director of the Emory ALS Center. “Our main goal in this early phase is to determine whether it is safe to inject stem cells into the spinal cord and whether the cells themselves are safe.”

Three patients with ALS have received injections since the trial began in January. Up to twelve individuals will be enrolled at in this phase of the trial.

Nicholas Boulis, assistant professor of neurosurgery I the School of Medicine and a pioneer in developing surgical methods for delivery of therapeutics to the spinal cord, is performing the surgical procedures.

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Adult stem cells tested for defects before being implanted in the injured spinal cords of mice helped the animals recover with no cancerous side effects, according to new research. In recent years, scientists found that some experimental stem cell therapies can cause cancerous tumors. Pre-screened cells could result in potentially life- saving treatments without such side effects.

These new findings were presented at Neuroscience 2009, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health. “We tried to identify induced pluripotent stem cells from adult tissue that would be safe when applied to cell therapy for central nervous system disorders,” said Masaya Nakamura, MD, PhD, at Keio University School of Medicine, a co-author of the study. “These results suggest that properly pre-evaluated cells may be a promising source for future transplantation therapy.”

Here, the authors investigated the possibility of making transplantation therapies safer and more efficient by examining different types of stem cells. They generated 36 induced pluripotent stem cell clones, which differed in their origins and other characteristics. They found that the cell’s origin was a crucial indicator of whether the cells would result in tumors.

Results showed that immature (undifferentiated) stem cells are more likely to form tumors than mature ones. The transplantation of “safe” cells into mice with spinal cord injuries resulted in the formation of new neurons, while “unsafe” cells sped recovery for a short period but ultimately formed tumors.

“This study confirms that before human clinical trials go forward involving treatment of central nervous system disorders with induced pluripotent stem cells, pre-evaluating each cell clone carefully is essential,” Nakamura said.

from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091022115618.htm

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Neuralstem Inc. has received the green light to begin the first human stem cell trial to treat Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The company’s stock soared on the news.

Neuralstem has only received approval for the first stage of the trial that would consist of 12 patients who will receive stem cell injections in the lumbar area of the spinal cord.

Neuralstem said the trial will be under the direction of principal investigator Dr. Eva L. Feldman, Director of the University of Michigan Health System ALS Clinic and the Program for Neurology Research & Discovery. Feldman called the trial a major step forward in the treatment of ALS. “In work with animals, these spinal cord stem cells both protected at-risk motor neurons and made connections to the neurons controlling muscles. We don’t want to raise expectations unduly, but we believe these stem cells could produce similar results in patients with ALS,” Dr. Feldman said.

from

http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2009/09/21/daily7.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/americasRegulatoryNews/idUSBNG36053620090921

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Emory University researchers have received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to advance to the next phase of a landmark trial to treat patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) using human neural stem cells.

The Phase I trial, currently underway exclusively at Emory University, is designed to assess the safety of implanting neural stem cells into the spinal cord in up to 18 people with ALS and began in January 2010. The first 12 patients received neural stem cell transplants in the lumbar, or lower, region of the spinal cord. After reviewing safety data from these patients, the FDA has granted approval for the trial to advance to the final two groups of patients (three in each group), all of who will be transplanted in the cervical, or upper, region of the spinal cord.

“This represents a major accomplishment for the trial, meaning that we have achieved our stated goal of proving safety in the first 12 patients who received lumbar spinal injections,” says Jonathan Glass, MD, Professor of Neurology, Emory School of Medicine and director of the Emory ALS Center.

“Our next objective is to demonstrate that we can deliver the cells safely to the cervical spinal cord, which is particularly important because therapy in this region may help patients better maintain their ability to breathe.”

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Italian researchers have discovered new stem cells that could be potential sources of ‘spare’ neurons. A study carried out at the University of Verona has led to the discovery of Leptomeningeal Stem Cells (LeSC), a new population of stem cells located in the the meninges, which cover the entire central nervous system in mammals.

LeSCs are immature cells able to maintain themselves and differentiate into mature excitable neurons. This demonstrates that the brain has a greater regenerative capacity than what was believed until now. The results of the study, conducted on an animal model, were published recently in the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine.

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