The Don Margolis Blog

My organization issued a press release today. I am quoted of course. Here is the teaser:

Aug. 26 -- The Repair Stem Cell Institute LLC (RSCI; http://www.RepairStemCells.org) reported today that Stanford University School of Medicine's recent discovery there may be limitations to the effectiveness of human therapies derived from embryonic stem cells (ESC) because the cells injected in mice stimulated the kind of immune rejection seen with transplanted organs clearly delivers a blow to proponents of embryonic stem cell research who continue to ballyhoo the promise of ESC when in effect, as the Stanford study showed, the transplanted stem cells were dead within about seven to 10 days.

Who knew you could fit so many words in just one sentence? Here's more:

According to Don Margolis (donmargolis@gmail.com; 214.556.6377), founder and chairman of the RSCI, "The new Stanford findings further confirm the futility of embryonics in human therapy despite what proponents of human ESC research have been promising, that transplanted ESC can mature into several different types of tissue. Those cells could not survive in the mouse, suggesting the same would likely occur in a patient." He noted a statement from Stanford radiologist Dr. Joseph Wu, part of the research team: "I think there's some promise [to human ESCs] but you don't want to be foolish and say these cells are going to cure things in the next five years."

Yes, you are all welcome to call or email me and I will be happy to respond.- DM

Click here to read the whole thing

Now that the Olympics are over, everyone is taking a look back at what happened- "What are the Top 10 moments?" "Who was the greatest athlete at the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008?" My answer to both those questions is not Michael Phelps or maybe Usain Bolt- my answer is Maarten van der Weijden's gold medal in the 10 km open water swim.

Who is that guy? And how do I pronounce his name? I can't pronounce his name either, but I'll be happy to tell you about him. Maarten was diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukemia at the age of 19.  Given little chance for survival, Maarten was given a stem cell transplant.  Bingo! The stem cell therapy worked.  Bye Bye Leukemia! Maarten, now 27, has been off all medication for 3 years.

Read more about swimming's "Lance Armstrong":

Van der Weijden dedicated his gold medal to all who had donated money for cancer research. I am thrilled. Without their generous donations I might not be here, he said.

One battle had helped him to prepare for another. The leukaemia has taught me to think step by step, he said. When you are in hospital and feeling so much pain and feeling so tired, you don't want to think about the next day or week - you just think about the next hour. It teaches you to be patient when you are lying in a hospital bed and that was almost the same strategy I chose here, to wait for my chance in the pack.

Van der Weijden seized the day, tucked in to the finish lane with a two-metre advantage as his rivals headed across the course and maintained the lead over the final 100-metre sprint. The gold was his, 1.5sec ahead of Davies, with Lurz 0.5sec further adrift. The battling Briton said: His story is amazing and can inspire a lot of people. What he has achieved is phenomenal. -I'm inspired, aren't you? -DM

Read the whole thing

There seems to be a never ending supply of  stories coming out about children who can't see due to Optic Nerve Hypoplasia and then off they go to China where they receive repair stem cell treatment . Optic Nerve Hypoplasia is when the optic nerve doesn't form correctly leaving a child blind. Until repair (adult) stem cell therapy came along, these blind children had no hope to ever see, there was no cure for this disorder.

This story reports that 17 blind children have gone to China to receive this repair stem cell therapy and that almost all of them have seen improvement in their sight. That is dynamite! Read about Cody Bend and his very happy parents:

"The first reaction we really noticed from Cody was toward the beginning of the treatments," his mother said. "I woke up when the sun was rising, and looked over at Cody's bed. He was sitting up Indian-style, wide-eyed, taking everything in. He was just looking all around!"

Cody and his family returned home June 21. Today, he is able to see well enough to pick out all his colors and play peek-a-boo.

"One of the first things we noticed was that his eyes don't shake anymore, which was a side effect of (ONH)," Jessie Fend said. "Then we noticed he was bringing everything within 2 inches of his face and looking at it!"

That's when they began teaching Cody the colors of a toy ring.

"We would tell him the color and then we would mix it with all the other colored rings, and he was able to find the color we taught him," Jessie Fend said. "We progressed from there and now he knows and is able to locate all his colors.

"He's also able to play peek-a-boo with us. I tell him to look at Mommy, and he gets within a few inches of my face, and when our eyes meet, he smiles."

When the Fends returned home, they met with the chief of ophthalmology at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh. Jessie Fend said the doctor was amazed and excited about Cody's improvements.

"We are having a new MRI done, and all new tests to see exactly where his sight is on the charts. But just from the doctor seeing us in his office, he already mentioned about possibly getting Cody fitted for glasses, which were never even an option before," Fend said.

"They say what sight the stem cells give Cody he won't lose because the stem cells attach themselves to his optic nerve and regenerate the nerve to grow," Jessie Fend said. "The improvement in sight is the new part of the optic nerve regenerating and making the connection to bridge the nerve between his eyes to his brain."

With the improvements they are seeing in Cody, the Fends are considering another round of treatments.

"Each round of stem cell treatments builds on the next, so pretty much the more treatments he receives, the better his vision gets," Fend said. "We are talking about going back -- we'd almost be crazy not to, because right now it's the best thing going in the entire world."

I couldn't have said it better than Mrs. Fend-  right now it is definitely the best thing going in the entire world. For more information about this repair stem cell treatment in China and other repair stem cell therapies, you are welcome to call me at 1-214-556-6377 or email me at don@repairstemcells.org  - DM

Click here to read the whole article

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

A police officer who was paralyzed in a car accident is now doing better thanks to repair stem cell therapy.  Rickey Turner, had to go all the way  to China to get this stem cell therapy because it isn't yet approved in the USA (although it should be).  Is he walking again?  No, but the beauty of adult (repair) stem cell therapy for spinal cord injuries is that it is a very low risk procedure that has helped him (and others) in ways that people who aren't paralyzed have difficulty imagining.  Read on to see what I mean:

Quick results

Sitting at home in his electric wheelchair, Turner recalled a much different life before his brush with death in 2006.

Turner was seriously injured Aug. 29, 2006, while he was on patrol in Henderson. The wreck left him paralyzed.

"My left hand was sensitive to touch," Turner, a father of three, recalled. "My index and middle finger were hypersensitive on my left hand, and if I moved them, it shot a sharp pain up through my arm. If I had a spasm in my leg, it would send a pain like lava, and I would scream out in pain."

Turner also lost feeling in part of his arms and had no movement from his chest down to his legs. He also sustained irreversible injuries to his spinal cord. Doctors told him he would never walk again.

Turner said the pain from his condition caused him to withdraw as the Democratic nominee for Rusk County sheriff earlier this year.

But those prognoses since have changed.

In March, Turner traveled to Hangzhou, China to seek treatment at Xiaoshan Hospital. He received six injections of adult stem cells, harvested from umbilical cord blood, in his spinal cord in hopes that he would have the chance to move freely again.

Turner said he had to go to China to receive treatment because the spinal cord procedure has not been approved in the United States. Stem cells harvested from umbilical cord blood rehabilitates damaged nerves and improves motor functions, such as body movement and bowel control, according to the Beike Cell Medical Group that performed Turner's stem cell treatment and coordinated his trip.

The treatment worked.

"My mother was sitting with me that night, and I could touch my index and middle finger and didn't have the sharp pain," Turner said, recalling what happened after he received his fourth stem cell injection. "Then my finger began to move. My mother asked, 'Did you do that?' I told her, 'I think I did.' "

Turner said the doctors didn't expect any activity to occur for 75 days. It took three weeks.

"The doctors came in to check on me and couldn't believe it," Turner said. "They ran out of the room and came back in and started videotaping everything. My mother and I were crying because the last time I was able to move those fingers was before the wreck. It was really something."

Since his treatment, Turner has more mobility in his upper torso, has more strength and motion in his arms and can play-wrestle with his 4-year-old son Corbin Turner.

Click here to read the whole thing

Followers of this blog may know that I am the founder of the Repair Stem Cell Institute .  I formed this organization to get the word out that repair stem cells aka adult stem cells are the greatest medicine in the world today.  Millions of people with so called incurable diseases could be helped if they knew about the power of repair stem cells and if repair stem cells were available to them.

Today, my organization just came out with a press release.  The Repair Stem Cell Institute and our Scientific Advisory Board compiled the first ever set of  standards for stem cell treatment companies-

Here is more on this from myself:

"It's the responsibility of the RSCI and members of our SAB to establish
the industry's first standards of excellence at the highest level for RSC
treatment centers worldwide to meet and abide by," Mr. Margolis said. "We
must assure people seeking life-changing stem cell therapies that they can
expect to receive the best quality therapeutics from the facilities they
diligently research."
Along with licensing and certification, the RSCI stipulates stem cell
treatment centers must have a successful record of treating patients with Repair Stem Cells for a minimum of six months. The Repair Stem Cells must be either autologous (from the body of the patient) or from umbilical cords. Any other source must be clearly labeled "experimental" until there is a completed successful clinical trial using the experimental source of cells for the disease(s) being treated by the
treatment center. Also, the laboratory supplying the stem cells to the
treatment center must meet at least minimum recognized current Good
Manufacturing Procedure (cGMP) standards. That same laboratory must have over 100 successful RSC human implants to its credit. ("Successful" means having clearly improved the patient's quality of life.) For a complete listing of RSCI's standards of excellence, please visit http://www.repairstemcells.org .  Please go visit my site, especially if you or someone you know has some disease or condition that has diminished their quality of life- you may find the help  you need.

To read my full press release- click here