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Today, I have a great interview with Dr. Desmond Schatz at the University of Florida. Dr. Schatz is conducting a clinical trial that treats Diabetes Type 1 in children with
adult stem cells taken from their own blood. This is a great story- I especially like how this trial was initiated by a parent of a child with
Diabetes and suggested it to Dr. Schatz:
Dr. Shatz: "It is a great story, actually. I got a phone call from a parent about four years ago and he called me up and said Dr. Schatz, I want to talk to you about a study he had recently seen in Nature and I asked which paper he was talking about. I read the paper and I saw that what they had done was that they had given bone marrow to animals that had been rendered diabetic and there was an improvement in the diabetes. He basically called me up and asked if I would give this drug to his child or would I give that drug, and I said no. He asked if I would I consider this and I said probably not. He said, "Well I want you to think about doing this. I have stored cord blood in my child. I believe it is safe. Is there anything to lose?"We discussed it as a group and we looked at the rationale. We clearly thought that it was safe (it is the child's own stem cells- of course it is safe- Don) and we decided to write them a one person protocol and this person was infused with cord blood from that particular child and that child seemed to do better. As a result, we said if it is worked in this particular child, let's devise a study to recruit patients from over the country and the world to participate in this research study."This is just the beginning. This adult
stem cell research is moving in the right direction (although too slow as always) It is almost unfortunate that a father of a diabetic child had to provide the push to get this going.
And all is not lost if you didn't store your child's cord blood. They can now extract stem cells from the blood stream and bone marrow (I'm not sure if there is a minimum age regarding a bone marrow extraction).
For more information on this trial, the article provides Dr. Schatz's contact info:
Desmond Schatz, MD
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL
Melanie Fridl Ross, Public Relations, (532) 273-5812
http://www.ufl.eduAnd you can
click here to read the whole interview for more information on the procedure