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Stem Cell Therapy for Parkinson’s Disease
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive condition caused by the loss of brain nerve cells responsible for dopamine production which is crucial for coordination of movement. The causes of decline of dopamine production remains unknown but the scientists link the development of Parkinson’s disease to different factors, most often to environmental and genetic factors. In addition to the available treatments of Parkinson’s disease, the patients may also benefit from the stem cell therapy which is both affordable and safe at the Integra Medical Center just across the border in Mexico. Over 50 patients from Mexico, the United States and Canada have received the stem cell therapy at the Integra Medical Center.
Dr. Omar Gonzales, director and founder of the Integra Medical Center uses stem cells therapy for treatment of Parkinson’s disease and claims that the patients who received the stem cell therapy experienced drastic improvement. After the treatment, the patients are reported to experience improvement in balance and coordination for 80 percent, decrease of stiffness and rigidity for 70 percent, improved mental clarity for 50 percent and mood improvement for 80 percent, having less tremor for 60 percent and reduced dependency on other people for 90 percent. In addition, Dr. Gonzales says, his patients even experience reversal of the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease after the treatment. Stem cells used in Dr. Gonzales’ therapy are prepared and kept at the Center’s laboratory.
Dr. Gonzales’ explains that the results of his stem cell therapy have three levels: slowing down the disease’s progression, inhibiting the disease’s progression and reverse of the disease’s symptoms. The last level is reported to be achieved in over 80 percent of all patients. The outcome of the Dr. Gonzales’ therapy greatly depends on several factors in first place on the age of the patient, time of occurrence of the symptoms and level of progression of the disease at the start of the treatment.
Subscribe to the comments for this postRobertson Foundation donates $10,2 million for Stem Cells Research
Duke University has received $10,2 million from the Robertson Foundation to advance their research on stem cells. The founder of Robertson Foundation, Julian Robertson says the Foundation decided to donate to Duke University because of previous work and research of Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, a division chief of Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplantation at the Duke University and medical director of Carolinas Cord Blood Bank. According to Julian Robertson, Dr. Kreutzberg’s work reflects the potentials to change the lives of thousands of people in the United States as well as around the world. Stem cells can differentiate into many kinds of specialized cell in the body and have great potentials in organ transplantation and patients suffering from a wide range of diseases and disorders.
According to Dr. Kreutzberg who says that Duke University is very excited about the donation, the money from the donation will go for establishment of Translational Cell Therapy Center which will feature laboratories with highly advanced technology for clinical therapy with stem cells. Dr. Kreutzberg also stated that the donation will enable the Duke to forward the research which is of great importance for the field of regenerative medicine, while chief executive officer of Duke University Health System and chancellor for health affairs Dr. Victor Dzau said the Translational Cell Therapy Center will help the University to expand its research on stem cell therapy and treatments for people with cerebral palsy, cancer, stroke and brain injuries, etc. He also emphasized the work of Dr. Kreutzberg and her team in stem cell field and importance of their work for medicine.
Part of the money from the donation will be also used for construction of laboratory for storage and creation of stem cells that will be build according to the guidelines of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Stem Cell Surgery Used to Rebuild a 10-Year-Old Boy’s Windpipe
The British and Italian surgeons at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London may have achieved a major breakthrough after nearly nine hour long surgery. They took a 10-year-old boy’s bone marrow stem cells, injected them into a windpipe of a donor and implanted the boy with the windpipe stripped off its cells. The implanted stem cells are expected to differentiate into the windpipe cells within the boy’s body and not to be rejected by the boy’s immune system because they originate from his own tissue. The boy who has not been named is the first child to receive stem cell organ therapy, while the surgeons replaced the longest airway ever. If successful, the procedure will most likely result in a revolution in the field of regenerative medicine and lead to replacement of other organs such as larynx and esophagus by using stem cell treatment.
The 10-year-old boy was born with a life-threatening condition known as long segment tracheal stenosis and was not able to breath due to tiny windpipe measuring only one millimeter in diameter. He received different treatments but his condition worsened. For that reason the boy’s doctors turned for help to Professor Paolo Macchiarini from the Careggi University Hospital in Florence. Macchiarini performed the first transplantation of an organ created from stem cells on an adult woman in Spain two years ago.
Cardiothoracic surgeon and director of tracheal services at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, Professor Martin Elliott says the boy is feeling extremely well after the surgery which took place on Monday, March 15. Elliott also said the boy is recovering well, breathing and speaking completely on his own, and saying that he is breathing a lot easier.
10-Year-Old Boy Receives Stem Cell Surgery
A 10-year-old boy who has not been named went through a stem cell surgery to rebuild the trachea or windpipe at London’s Great Ormond Street children’s hospital. The boy has received a donor windpipe deprived of its cells and injected with the boy’s own cells. Over the following month, the physicians believe the stem cells from the boy’s bone marrow will differentiate into windpipe cells. If successful, the procedure will revolutionize the regenerative medicine.
The boy was born with long segment tracheal stenosis, a life-threatening condition which is characterized by very small windpipe. He went through different treatments but his condition worsened in November when his doctors turned to Professor Paolo Macchiarini from the Careggi University Hospital in Florence. In 2008, Paolo Macchiarini performed a surgery in Spain on 30-year-old Claudia Castillo who was the first person to be implanted with an organ produced from stem cells. Unlike in Claudia Castillo’s case who received an organ grown from tissue outside her body, the tissue of the 10-year-old boy in London will be grown inside his body which is said to be far less complicated.
The boy who is the first child to receive such treatment is said to recovering and feeling very well. Professor Martin Elliott, cardiothoracic surgeon and director of tracheal services at London’s Great Ormond Street children’s hospital also said that the boy is breathing completely for himself and speaking. The doctors believe that the organ will not be rejected by the immune system like in case of traditional transplants because the cells originate from the boy’s own tissue. Professor Martin Birchall from the University College London says that further clinical studies are required to prove that the procedure worked and if it did it may enable transplantation of other organs such as esophagus and larynx in hospitals all over the globe.
New Stroke Treatment Passes Safety Trial
All new drugs and treatments must pass a safety clinical trial before their effectiveness can be studied by the doctors. Web site of journal of the American Heart Association, Stroke has published the results of safety stage trial of a new stroke treatment funded by Stem Cell Therapeutics and the National Center for Research Resources. The UC Irvine neurologist, Dr. Steven C. Cramer who led the clinical trial said that the new treatment to regenerate brain cells that were damaged by stroke has passed a highly important safety trial and that patients who were administered growth factors stimulating the production of neurons in areas of the brain affected by stroke have not shown any adverse effects. Even more, the majority of patients who participated in the trial had insignificant or any disability three months after going through the new stroke treatment.
The new stroke treatment safety study was conducted by Dr. Steven C. Cramer in association with doctors from UC Irvine Medical Center, Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach and the University of Calgary (Canada). 15 patients who participated in the study were administered beta-hCG, hormone which stimulates neural stem cell growth and erythropoietin, hormone that guides the neural stem cells to differentiate into neurons. Within two days after suffering an ischemic stroke, the patients were administered three beta-hCG injections once per day and then three once-daily erythropoietin injections. The combination of the mentioned growth factors which has been proven to lead to recovery of movement in animal studies has shown no safety concerns in humans.
Despite the exciting results from the animal studies and safety clinical trial in humans the new stroke treatment now must pass the phase IIb clinical trial in which its effects will be compared with those in placebo.
Menstrual Blood as a Source of Stem Cells
One of the main obstacles of widespread use of stem cells for therapeutic purposes is the difficulty of harvesting stem cells from a single person although stem cells are present in most tissues. The harvest of stem cells bases on invasive methods, commonly from bone marrow by using a needle and syringe. However, discovery of stem cells presence in menstrual blood may provide additional and less invasive way to obtain larger amount of stem cells from a single person although further studies are required about both application of stem cells as treatment of diseases and replacement of lost or damaged tissues as well as about their harvesting.
Menstrual blood as a source of stem cells, commonly referred as endometrial regenerative cells (ERC) has been discovered by two research groups in 2007 although scientists found stem cells in the cells lining the uterus wall – endometrium already in 2004. The menstrual blood is made up of shed endometrial lining and blood cells but the stem cells in the menstrual blood (ERC) seem different from stem cells in the endometrium. Surprisingly, the ERCs were shown to be able to differentiate into more types of cells than the stem cells from endometrium. In addition, the ERCs were also shown to have in common certain characteristics with the embryonic stem cells. Some researches suggest that the ERCs may develop into any kind of cell type, while the others remain skeptical. One of the main problem of harvesting stem cells from menstrual blood is the fact that the quality and quantity of stem cells obtained from menstrual blood may greatly vary from woman to woman and depend on many factors such as age. In addition, some scientist also suggest that there is a possibility of different types of stem cells being present in the menstrual blood which may cause difficulties in determining which type of stem cell is being tested.
There are many questions that remained unanswered about the stem cells residing in the menstrual blood including their origin but they future potential is not negligible.
Vitamin A and Heart Tissue Formation
The process of heart tissue formation in humans takes place in two phases in the fourth week: the First Heart Field (left ventricle and both atria) and the Second Heart Field (right ventricle and outflow tract). The research group at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California conducted a study which has identified the main mechanism of formation of heart tissue and helps to understand development of the Second Heart Field as well as the causes of common heart defects in infants.
The study published in the journal Developmental Cell on March 16, 2010, has shown that the formation of the Second Heart Field tissue is regulated by retinoic acid, a vitamin A derivate. By using animal models, the research group has discovered that both deficiency and excess amount of retinoic acid are responsible for common birth defects because retinoic acid acts as stimulant of the differentiation of progenitor cells (cells which have the potency to differentiate into virtually any kind of cells) into heart tissue. Specific molecular markers enabled the team to observe the formation of the outflow tract by the moving cells which according to chief investigator Henry Sucov, Ph.D., resembles a conveyer belt. In animal models with retinoic acid deficiency, the process was halted and resulted in misaligned and shortened outflow tract. Compromised development of the Second Heart Field led to malfunctions such as overriding aorta, double outlet right ventricle and persistent truncus arteriosus which are common in human infants and may be fatal without surgical correction.
Sucov stated that further research is necessary to determine how the findings of their study may help to prevent and correct heart defects in humans. The chief investigator also announced further studies concerning specific treatments for human heart defects on animal models.
Hemangiomas and Stem Cells
Hemangiomas, noncancerous birthmarks resembling strawberries affect 4 to 10 percent of infants and are commonly harmless. However, hemangioma consisting of tangled blood vessels can result in destruction of the tissue and lead to vision or breathing difficulties in about 10 percent of cases. The tumors are treated by corticosteroids such as prednisone and dexamethasone since the 1960′s but corticosteroids are not always effective and may cause different side effects including growth retardation, swelling in the face, high blood pressure and hyperactivity. In addition, the mode of action of corticosteroids has remained unknown.
Corticosteroids were believed to target the endothelial cells which make up approximately 30 percent of the tumor cells but the researchers at the Children’s Hospital Boston have discovered that that is not the case. The research published in The New England Journal of Medicine on March 18, 2010, has shown that corticosteroids act on stem cells of hemangioma by inhibiting their ability to induce growth of blood vessels. This is achieved by inhibiting production of the VEGF, a factor which is responsible for stimulating the growth of blood vessels in malignant tumors and macular degeneration. Thus the researchers at the Children’s Hospital Boston finally managed to reveal the mode of action of corticosteroids as well as propose new and safer ways to inhibit and shrink the hemangioma by targeting the stem cells.
The earlier studies have shown that hemangiomas may develop as a result of an embryonic mutation in a stem cell which in turn results in disturbance of normal development of blood vessels. Thus targeting the stem cell – inhibiting its proliferation, preventing its differentiation into undesired blood vessels and eliminating the source of the VEGF-A may significantly limit the growth of hemangioma.
Duke University receives $10 million from the Robertson Foundation
The Robertson Foundation, founded by Julian H. Robertson, Jr. and his wife Josie and their family in 1996 decided to donate $10,2 million to the Duke University to aid the Duke’s research of umbilical cord blood stem cells for treatment of cerebral palsy. It is the largest private donation to fund the medical research and study at the local universities
The money from the donation will be used for the establishment of the Translational Cell Therapy Center at Duke University which will significantly advance the research of treatments based on stem cells and especially the work of Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg who has a long history in research of stem cells for treatment of cancer and series of other disorders and diseases including genetic disorders in children. Julian Robertson stated that Dr. Kreutzberg work may significantly change thousands of lives in the country as well as in other parts of the world. The importance of Dr. Kreutzberg and her team’s work was also underlined by Dr. Victor Dzau, chief executive officer of Duke University Health System and chancellor for health affairs who also emphasized the importance of the Translational Cell Therapy Center for the future research of stem cell therapies and programs for patients suffering from series of diseases and disorders including cancer and diabetes because of the potentials of the stem cells which have the capacity to develop and grow into many kinds of specialized cells in the body.
Dr. Joanne Kreutzberg is a division chief of Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplantation at the Duke University and medical director of Carolinas Cord Blood Bank. She is known as pioneer of the use of umbilical cord blood stem cells as treatment for cancer and children’s genetic disorders.
Influence of Geometric Patterns on Development of Stem Cells
Use of stem cells for therapeutic purposes has great potentials and scientists all over the world are working on the identification of conditions necessary for development of specific stem cell lines and their use for therapeutic purposes. So far, the majority of scientists were focused on the role of proteins in future development and behavior of stem cells but the scientists at the University of Chicago used geometrical patterns to manipulate the stem cell development. The approach of the research group led by Milan Mrksich may seem unusual but the team has shown that the shape plays very important role in stem cell development.
Milan Mrksich and his team at the University of Chicago are renowned for their work in development of methods for control of shapes, sizes and location of cells with patterning surfaces. Their new research published in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on March 1, 2010, reveals the importance of structural shape for the fate of stem cells which has been ignored by the majority of scientists. The researchers have proven that the shape alone determines whether the cells will develop into bone or fat. The star-shaped cells were shown to induce tense cytoskeleton, while loose cytoskeleton is promoted by a flower shape. Thus the star shape leads to development of stem cells into bone and flower shape into fat.
The leader of the research group Mrksich admits that their method to manipulate and control stem cell development is far from being ready for stem cell production and use in therapeutic purposes but it reveals the importance of different approaches to the study of stem cells and may have a significant influence on the future direction in the stem cell field.
The study was funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the National Cancer Institute.