More and more stem cell research stories are popping up showing that repair (adult) stem cells are improving MS patients! This one I present today is just the latest(Thank you Adult Stem Cell Awareness and the honorable Wesley Smith for this):

All patients appeared to respond to treatment", reported Dr. Ionova. Improvement was seen in 62.3%, and stabilisation occurred in 37.7% of patients. Progression after improvement occurred in 7.1% and progression after stabilisation in 11.8% of patients.

Out of 26 patients included in the quality-of-life analysis, 24 exhibited a response and preserved a good quality of life during the follow-up. No unexpected treatment-related adverse events were observed.

According to Dr. Ionova, immunosuppressive therapy plus autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation appears to be a safe and effective therapy for multiple sclerosis, Dr. Ionova concluded.

Wonderful news? Yes, definitely. However, let's not forget the many MS sufferers who are unaware of adult (repair) stem cell treatment or it is not yet available for them. See the tragic example of an English woman with MS who is fighting for her right to assisted suicide. It is going to be a long struggle to get repair stem cells available to all and studies like this one are just the beginning.

Click here to see how repair stem cells are helping MS patients.

Six people can see again after receiving repair stem cell treatment! Being blessed with good eyesight, I don't really know what it is like to be blind. Therefore, I can only imagine the joy these six people in London must have felt when they had their vision restored thanks to repair stem cells:

Six blind patients have had their eye-sight restored after undergoing pioneering stem cell transplants.

Researchers at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London treated the patients as part of a clinical trial on patients who have lost their sight from chemical accidents or a rare genetic disease.

She said: "Before the surgery the patients were barely able to recognise when someone was waving a hand in front of their face but we have restored their vision to the point they can read three to four lines down the eye chart."

The patients were chemical burn victims or sufferers of a rare genetic disease known as aniridia. They had injuries to the limbal cells in their eyes, which are under the eye lid and maintain the transparent layer on the outside of the cornea.

Dr Daniels said: "Their cornea becomes opaque, blood vessels grow across it and their eyes become inflamed and they can't see anymore. It is very painful.

"By replacing the limbal stem cells, the cornea begins to clear up as the cells are replaced with the healthy transparent layer again.

Repair (adult) stem cells do it again! Hopefully, I now have six new readers of this blog.  :)

Click here to read this eye-opening story!

 

 

A couple days ago, I posted on the Australian scientists who took repair stem cells from human noses and then implanted the repair stem cells into rats which helped their Parkinson's.  Well, today, Dr. David Prentice, one of the United States' leading experts on stem cell research weighs in on that study:

Prentice says the press has paid little attention to the Australian study or the six other stories that have come out in the past few days about adult stem cells.

"They seem just so focused on embryonic," he says of the media. "It might be ideological, it might be just ignorance; but when it comes to actually thinking of the patients first, the bottom line is still adult stem cells. Embryonic [cells] all of the ethical problems aside, and those are huge have tremendous practical problems ... with tumors, with transplant rejection, with getting the cells to function the way you want them to" Prentice contends.

But the FRC spokesman notes adult stem-cell research simply involves taking "normal repair cells" and convincing them to work on a different "repair problem" within the body.

Hey Dr. Prentice!  You are starting to sound like me.  Don't get too depressed Dr. Prentice, at least I didn't say you looked like me :).

But seriously folks-  I see Dr. Prentice (and many other leading doctors/scientists) are starting to use this terminology such as describing adult stem cells as repair stem cells because that is what adult stem cells are-- repair cells that fix damage in the body.   Hopefully, using this terminology will help educate the public more about the differences between adult (repair) stem cells and embryonic stem cells.

Click here to read more on Dr. Prentice and the Parkinson's study 

Last week, I posted on what was reported as the "first disc surgery in the United States using adult stem cells to help repair a man's injured lower back." featuring a group of spinal surgeons in Colorado.  However, this week I found another group of spinal surgeons in Dallas, Texas that are being hailed as "the leaders of a cutting-edge surgical procedure that utilizes a patient's own adult stem cells to regenerate tissue":

Doctors Douglas Won, Michael Rimlawi, and Francisco J. Battle, all spine surgeons, have extensive experience in harvesting adult stem cells during routine spinal procedures and delivering those cells back to their patients to aid in the treatment of severe back pain.

"The advancing technology in stem cell therapy is driving spine surgeons to look at different approaches to what has been considered the standard of care," says Won. "The latest Fusionary procedure allows me to harvest the stem cells from the patient in a point of care process in the operating room during my routine spinal procedure. We not only deliver these tissue-forming adult stem cells back to the patient in a timely manner, but the pain of harvesting the cells is minimal." 

Well...I am not going to be the judge on who came first.  I think both groups of spine surgeons  are winners for recognizing that repair stem cells (adult stem cells)  are both safe and effective in helping their back patients improve their quality of life.

Click here to read the whole article on doctors using repair stem cells for routine back surgeries

Again, I usually don't get excited about "rat studies" where the scientist in question says "lots of potential here, but more research needs to be done." However, I think this one may have a little more to it. In Australia, it seems scientists have taken stem cells from human noses and implanted them into rats and it has helped with the rats' Parkinson's.

Now, I read that article and I thought "Hey! Dr. Lima in Portugal has had remarkable success treating spinal cord injuries in humans using the same repair stem cells- from the nose," so I spoke with Dr. Lima and I'll try to summarize what he explained:

The nose seems to be the only (or the best) place outside of the brain to get stem cells that can become neurons. Neurons are used to transmit signals to, through, and from the brain.

Most neurological diseases have neuron problems-- neurons are the transmitters of signals, but if they are deficient, the signal gets choppy. For example- In Parkinson's, people seem to shake when what is really happening is that the person's brain tells the arm to move, but the signals are broken- so the arm moves choppy. Similar to a cellphone, when your voice gets choppy or breaks up. So when Dr. Lima implants the nose stem cells into the break point of a spinal cord, the repair stem cells stay there and grow until eventually they are strong enough to transmit data to and from the brain, and then the stem cells replicate more and more and until the spinal cord injured patient is walking again.

Any scientist or layman who wants to explain more clearly, please feel free to leave a comment- DM.