This is very good news here. It seems that doctors have combined a bone marrow (stem cell) transplant and a kidney transplant to make a sick kidney patient into a healthy one. As many of you know, if you get a transplant of any kind, the anti- rejection medication one must take so the body doesn't reject the transplanted organ severely limits the person and causes many side effects and complications.  Now, thanks to this discovery, it seems like they are well on their way to finding a method so that transplant patients will no longer have to take immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of their lives:

At 12, Jennifer Searl (sur-hl) had a kidney transplant. From then on, she traded one health problem for another as the anti-rejection medications reeked havoc on her body.

"I had a very big problem with the kind of disfiguring growth on my legs and feet -- so bad that by the time I got to college, I really couldn't walk."

From not being able to walk, to running marathons. That's the progress Jennifer made thanks to a second kidney transplant. It was done using a new procedure that eliminated more than half of her post-transplant medication.

"It's like a dream come true for me, basically."

Doctor David Sachs and his team are testing out the new technique.
Patients who undergo a kidney transplant receive a bone marrow transplant during the same surgery.

"We have to eliminate the existing immune system first in order to train the new immune system."

Doctors say the additional bone marrow transplant tricks the immune system into thinking the new kidney is part of the patient's own body, recognizing donor and host cells as its own.

"The patient doesn't need to take immuno-suppressant drugs to prevent rejection. There is no rejection because that transplant is considered by the immune system as part of the patient's own body."

For Jennifer, the second transplant using this technique has provided a second chance at life -- a life without debilitating side effects.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard University School of Medicine Transplantation Biology Research Center http://massgeneral.org/transplant Interested study participants: (617) 726-3706

To see the full article, click here

All the components of a perfect story here- we have a boy with a deadly disease, we have a community uniting together to save him, and it involves my favorite subject repair (adult) stem cell therapy.

Jack Close, 8, from Rowlands Gill, Gateshead, England, was suffering from Chronic Granulomatous Disorder- a disease that destroys the body's immune system. He needed a bone marrow transplant, but he didn't have a matching donor. Therefore, the whole community started a campaign to get people to register their bone marrow to find a match. It worked!! Within 1 month, they found a matching donor for Jack who donated his bone marrow. And that's not all, the repair stem cells in the donor's bone marrow did their job- Jack is now "living life to the full." I think it is supposed to be "living life to the fullest," but maybe that is an English thing. Nevermind, the important thing is Jack is saved! Read on-

The Chronicle first told of Jack's plight last September. He had been diagnosed with a rare blood condition called Chronic Granulomatous Disorder, which was wrecking his immune system.

It meant cells in his bone marrow could not fight off bacteria and Jack was susceptible to infection, which could potentially have led to his death. He needed a bone marrow transplant urgently.

The Chronicle launched the Give Jack a Chance campaign asking people in the North East to register as bone marrow donors. A perfect match was found a month later.

He went into Newcastle's General Hospital on February 15 for a course of chemotherapy and had the operation two weeks later.

Jack, of Rowlands Gill, Gateshead, is now living life to the full.

Click here for the whole story

Yet another blind child can now see thanks to repair (adult) stem cells. And of course, the child is an American who had to go all the way to China to get it done. See below on how Savannah Watring suffering from Optic Nerve Hypoplasia can see now thanks to repair stem cell treatment.  This line from the article was especially touching "She saw herself in the mirror; not knowing it was her, she said hello," Can you imagine how the parents must have felt at that moment?  A child seeing for the first time, not knowing what a mirror is and saying hello to herself- imagine the joy they must have felt. That is fantastic! Let's get this going in the USA!

SEDALIA, Mo. An 8-year-old blind girl who is undergoing stem cell treatments in China can now see colors, her family says.

Savannah Watring, of Syracuse, flew to China with her father, Brent Watring; grandmother RaVana Watring; and aunt Shonna Millsap on July 23 and has received four treatments, with three more scheduled. Her family plans to return to the U.S. on Aug. 28.

Her aunt Sherla Hagerman, of Fortuna, said that Savannah is picking up on blue, green and red colors.

"She saw herself in the mirror; not knowing it was her, she said hello," said Hagerman, who gets updates on Savannah's progress through a Web site, www.sightforsavannah.com, and through daily e-mails and occasional telephone calls. "She said hello to herself in an elevator (after seeing her reflection). It blew everyone away. We weren't expecting that."

Savannah was born with optic nerve hypoplasia, the leading cause of blindness in children.

It happens when the optic nerve fails to develop in utero, but doctors aren't sure what causes the condition. Swedish researchers found that it occurs in 10.9 children per 10,000.

Click here to read the whole thing

Teresa Mason, a director from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia went to China to receive repair stem cell therapy for her Olivopontocerebellar atrophy, a specific form of the neurological condition Ataxia.  I think I may not be the only one who finds it ironic that someone who works for the organization (the CDC) that may have the most access to information and treatments to rare conditions/diseases in the United States has to travel to China to get the proper (really, the only) treatment known. The United States may be winning the overall medal count in the Olympics now in Beijing, but China deserves another gold medal for being able to help yet another person by making adult (repair) stem cell treatment available to those in need. And unsurprisingly, Teresa Mason is already showing positive results from her stem cell treatment:

Mason said while she has experienced immediate results from the treatments, her doctors in China indicate that it will take two to six months for the stems cells to effectively synchronize with her existing cells. She said there are noticeable improvements, although she still feels herself trembling a little when she is tired, and her gait is not completely smooth.

"However, my balance and speech are much stronger," Mason said. "I know that the stem cell treatments are working, and what is most important now is that I watch my dietary intake and have some form of physical exercise on a daily basis."

While in the hospital, Teresa received four doses of 10 million to 15 million umbilical cord stem cells injected into her cerebral spinal fluid via an epidural catheter and through an IV. The 30-day treatment also included rehabilitative sessions six days a week. Those rehabilitative sessions included balance exercises, practice walking in a straight line, running, jogging and going up and down steps without holding on.

The Walker family said they are elated to see immediate improvements.

Click here to read the whole thing

That title isn't news to regular readers of this blog.   However, I am posting on  this article today because it includes an informative interview with Dr. Joshua Hare, the head of the University of Miami's new Stem Cell Institute.  In layman's terms, he describes very well what repair (adult) stem cells are and how they work.  Read on:

While researchers until recently believed adult stem cells were limited because they could develop only into cells similar to them bone marrow cells only into blood cells, for example evidence is growing that they, too, may become the tissue for hearts, brains, kidneys and other organs.

Hare expounds on these developments:

Q. You've said that the basic idea behind your work is that a healthy human body is creating stem cells all the time to keep its organs healthy, and you're trying to tap into this ability to expand its powers?

A: That's the theory. It does sound fantastic. Actually, it happens in the body all the time, in tiny amounts. In our blood, to survive, we have red blood cells that carry oxygen, white cells that regulate the immune system and platelets, which are tiny cells that seal off cuts. They come from stem cells in the bone marrow. The marrow is the source for all red blood cells, platelets and some white blood cells.

The cells circulate in the blood all the time. Unless there's a signal that says, "Come here and do this," they will just keep circulating. If you get a cut, the cells will be recruited to that area to do what they do.

Q: Could such cells heal a heart attack all by themselves?

A: Experts believe the ability of the body to heal itself without help is limited. The system can slowly replace missing cells here and there, over a lifetime. But it's not designed to repair a massive injury like a heart attack. That's where we as doctors can intervene.

Q: In fact, you are intervening. You've led two studies at Johns Hopkins University and University of Miami in which you have harvested immature, or "mesenchymal" adult stem cells from the bone marrow, multiplied them many times in the lab, then injected them into the damaged heart. Is the idea that the bone marrow stem cells become heart cells?

A: This is where the biology gets somewhat murky. We don't understand all the elements. We do have evidence that the cells differentiate, develop into healthy heart tissue.

Q: And this could be true with a damaged liver, kidney or brain?

A: In theory.

Q: You've said other kinds of adult stem cells are at work too?

A: Many cells are involved in the body's attempts to heal itself. Some are from blood cells from bone marrow. But also, within the organs themselves, there are resident precursor cells that are stem cells. They're sitting there like front-line soldiers in an injury. We think those cells form collections that talk to each other and can go out and do healing. So we are engaging in a new study that will look at cardiac stem cells.

We can take pieces of heart tissue during surgery, multiply the stem cells in the lab and have a large amount to give back to the patient.

Click here to see the full interview with Dr. Hare