Today, I give you a fantastic story through the eyes of a bone marrow donor who saved the life of a young boy. Her story began with the  simple task of having someone taking a cotton swab to the inside of her cheek and collecting some cells.

This is great reading and brings all of you reading this- potential bone marrow donors into what is asked for and required by a bone marrow donor (essentially a stem cell donor)- not a lot and you get the gift of saving a life.

I urge you to read the full story- but here is a teaser:

April 19, 2005, 8 p.m., I heard the voice message that returned me promptly back to earth: “Hello, this is the Gift of Life bone marrow registry. You are a potential match. Please call us back.

A MATCH? WHAT?! OH MY GOSH! I immediately called my mom, who is also on the registry. I signed up in December 2001 because a friend's colleague was in need of a donation, and the best chance for a match was from someone of Eastern European descent. I thought it was the right thing to do, and it was so easy to register - a mere cotton swab of the inside of the cheek to collect some cells. My mom also encouraged me, “What is the worst thing that can happen? You will be a match and potentially save a life?

I love that last line.  It makes perfect sense, so after reading this story here, make sure you go to www.marrow.org here.

Not surprisingly this comes from Osiris, an American adult stem cell therapy that has been around for a long time- just waiting to pounce on the American market, but being hindered by the heavy FDA regulations and process.

However, now it looks like they have found their way with this:

The experimental drug is called Prochymal, which is a massive dose of mesenchymal cells given in a few doses through an IV.

“Prochymal is a formulation of a particular kind of cell that's found in the bone marrow of children and, to a lesser extent, adults, and the cell is a mesenchymal cell, said C. Randal Mills, president and CEO of Osiris. “The mesenchymal stem cell is the cell in our body that enables us to respond appropriately to connective tissue injury. So what does that mean? If you burn yourself, if you cut yourself, if you break a bone, if you get an ulcer, the way you heal from those is mediated by the mesenchymal stem cells.

When the mesenchymal cells realize there is a connective tissue injury, Mills said they come out of the bone marrow, travel to the injury and graft. If it is a broken bone, they will heal the bone, he said; if it is a burn, they will turn off the inflammation associated with the burn and heal the damage and any muscle damage.

“They're a rather universal cell for how our body responds to injuries naturally, Mills said. “So what we've

been able to do is isolate that one cell out of healthy, young adult donors between the ages of 18 and 30 years old, so there's no ethical or political controversy around it, and we can actually grow the cell so it will expand and multiply, so we have from a single donation, we can actually make 10,000 doses of this product.

The drug is being developed for several diseases, but two are in Stage III studies the final stage of safety and efficacy studies until it goes to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval for use in the public. The graft-versus-host study is the furthest along, set for approval in the first half of 2009, Mills said, and the Crohn's disease study is a year or two behind.

Osiris sets out to solve critical unmet medical needs, Mills said, with no acceptable current therapeutic alternatives.

“Right now, Prochymal is set to if all goes well become the world's first stem cell product approved anywhere in the world for anything, Mills said. “And so certainly that is one of the goals we set out to do, is to bring to the market the world's first stem cell drug. But it's what we wanted to do that for that is important: To go in and solve an unmet medical disease like GVHD which literally kills little children, and they suffer a horrendous fate. It's going in and relieving that suffering and saving children's lives. It's the kind of thing we should be using stem cell technology for, and we feel very strongly about that.

Fantastic- "approved anywhere in the world for anything"!!!!!!  Imagine that.  They are also testing Prochymal in diabetes and COPD.  If you are interested in trying to get into one of their trials, you can- The company is still accepting volunteers for both the graft-versus-host study and the Crohn's study. For information or the possible participation, e-mail ibd@osiris.com.

Also, for all of you who say that the United States is falling behind in stem cell research (you know who you are-embryonic profiteers)- that isn't the case.  Actually the technology and research is here already: Adult Stem Cells.  The United States is just so slow to implement their use.  However, companies like Osiris are the future of medicine (and the future is now!)- and they didn't need a stem cell research bill passed to develop their product.  Hint hint Michigan!

Click here to read the full article

This one is so logical and makes so much sense- it is a no brainer. A new trial in England will inject the heart attack patient's own stem cells into his/her heart within 4 hours of having their heart attack. The goal is for the stem cells to go into the heart and help repair and limit the damage done by the heart attack-

Current treatments to unblock arteries immediately after a heart attack help reduce deaths from acute attacks, but the approach doesn't address the damage that has happened to heart tissue, and this can lead to heart failure later on, explained Prof Martin.

"Even though you open up the artery, there has been damage to the heart already," he said. "Our objective is to stop that damage happening and repair the little damage that has occurred by putting the stem cells down the artery as soon after the attack as possible, so they are going to the heart and they tell it how to repair itself."

The trial, which started in April, looks at the impact of taking stem cells from a patient's own bone marrow sample to deliver a "rescue force" to the heart. "When you come into my hospital in an ambulance and the diagnosis is made of heart attack, you will be asked if you want to enter our trial," said Prof Martin. "We believe if we can get the cells in early we can stop the damage. So we try to get them in within four hours."

Half of the 100 patients in the double-blind trial, funded by the UK Stem Cell Foundation and private donations, have their own stem cells delivered to their heart and the other half get water. Then they get follow-up tests on heart function and quality of life, he explained.

Stem cells can reduce heart-attack damage by one-third in animal models, although scientists are not sure how it works, he said. "I have been very much criticised by other scientists saying I shouldn't do this until I know what is happening. I say it's so complicated we might never know how it works."

I have no doubt you are being criticized. Criticized by scientists who would rather watch heart attack victims suffer from congestive heart failure than to possibly be helped by adult stem cells. Since this trial uses stem cells from the heart attack victim, they are his/her own cells so there are no side effects- there is no downside to this. And the best possible scenario is the stem cell treatment will help (which will surely be the case).

This trial will take two years to complete and then undoubtedly more trials will be called for- think of how many heart attack victims could be helped in this time span. However, taking a glass is half full approach, at least this is a step in the right direction.

Click here to read the full article

While Newsweek is blaring to the world that stem cells probably won't be helping Parkinson's Disease, much more quietly, to a much infinitely smaller audience, the Star Bulletin in Honolulu is following up on the first known American to be treated successfully for Parkinson's using adult stem cell therapy.  That is what we are up against in trying to make this stem cell therapy available/known everywhere to everyone.

Well, the first known American to be successfully treated with adult stem cell treatment for Parkinsons is Penny Thomas, approximately 2 years ago, in where else?  Yes, China:

Penny Thomas of Captain Cook said people from all over the world have contacted her since the Star-Bulletin published reports of her stem cell surgery in Beijing two years ago.

"I've had people come to visit me here to see if I'm for real," said the Big Island woman, who has been living the past year with her daughter, Cheyenne, in Pagosa Springs, Colo.

After hearing about the successful treatment with 3 million stem cells from a donor's retina deposited in her brain in May 2006, others followed her to the Tiantan Puhua Neurosurgical Hospital, she said. "I don't know what the numbers are up to now."

She said she is "doing quite well" and is active backpacking, camping, gathering wood for winter and riding her two horses. She is looking forward to snow for cross-country skiing.

Thomas, 55, takes about one-fourth of a tablet of Sinemet, used to increase dopamine levels in the brain, and amino acids five to six times a day "to remain strong and tremor-free." She also takes an herb known as macuna pruriens which makes dopamine naturally, and has found that curcumin (turmeric) is a great help. It acts as an anti-inflammatory for the nervous system, as well as other parts of the body, she said.

"I'm really happy with my life because I have a life now," she said. "I feel I can participate in life, and I'm grateful that I've replaced pretty much all the prescription drugs with herbs and amino acids, which I believe the body can handle much better."

Wouldn't this be a great story to see in the New York Times?  International Herald Tribune?  A press release from the Michael J Fox foundation?  Where is the coverage?  Sadly, the coverage seems to consist only of me and the Star Bulletin. I take off my hat to them for following up on this wonderful story.

See the full story here-

Have you heard this before? "We have to fund embryonic stem cell research, otherwise our country will suffer a 'brain drain' and our best scientists will leave the United States so they can do their research thus leaving the USA behind in science and stem cell research"??

Well, this may be a sign of things to come for the United States although the brain drain will be the ADULT stem cell researchers, not embryonic stem cell researchers leaving...just like what is happening in the UK.

Newcastle specialist quits UK for France, citing undue focus on embryo research, writes Zoe Corbyn

A renowned British stem-cell expert is to leave the UK to pursue his research in France, claiming that there is insufficient support for his work here.

Colin McGuckin, professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University and an expert in adult stem cells, this week hit out at both his university and UK funding agencies. He said that they were prioritising embryonic stem-cell research above work with adult stem cells, despite the more immediate clinical benefits offered by his work.

Professor McGuckin plans to leave for the University of Lyon in January, taking a research team of about ten from Newcastle, including his research partner Nico Forraz. He will open the world's biggest institute devoted to cord blood and adult stem-cell research at Lyon.

Speaking exclusively to Times Higher Education, he said he was leaving because he had to put his patients and staff first. "The bottom line is my vocation is to work with patients and help patients and unfortunately I can't do that in the UK." He said France offered a "much better environment" both to "cure and treat more people" and to "do good work".

He said that France had kept a "much more reasoned balance" between supporting adult and embryonic stem-cell research, unlike the UK, which had focused on embryonic research to the detriment of adult stem-cell research.

"(France) is very supportive of adult stem cells because they know that these are the things that are in the clinic right now and will be more likely in the clinic," he said. "A vast amount of money in the UK from the Government has gone into embryonic stem-cell research with not one patient having being treated, to the detriment of (research into) adult stem cells, which has been severely underfunded."

He also criticised the attention embryonic stem cells received over the past year from academics, the media, Parliament and his university. "You would barely know that adult stem cells exist at Newcastle," he said.

There is so much that is wrong here.  A man wants to help his fellow countrymen as best he can and because of this embryonic stem cell fraud that is being forced on us, he has to leave. Good on you Colin, good on you.

"We desperately need more funding for adult stem-cell research because with these cells we really can make a difference to patients' lives, and we can do it now, not in ten years' time as is promised for embryonic stem cells," said Anthony Hollander, a professor of rheumatology and tissue engineering at the University of Bristol.

Well, the first part is right Anthony about needing more funding for adult stem cell research, but 10 years from now for embryonic stem cell cures would be a miracle.

Read the whole sad article here