January 11, 2011 – Transplanting their own (autologous) bone marrow-derived stem cells into 48 patients with end-stage liver disease resulted in therapeutic benefit to a high number of the patients, report researchers publishing in the current issue of Cell Transplantation (19:11).  “These results suggest that autologous CD34⁺ stem cell transplantation may be safely administered and appears to offer some therapeutic benefit to patients with both viral and autoimmune-induced end-stage liver disease.”

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2011-01-cell-transplantation-success-end-stage-liver.html#jCp

Intravenous Mesenchymal Stem Cells Improve Survival and Motor Function in Experimental Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
“…prolong survival and improve motor performance in SOD1/G93A mice…MSCs were able to significantly delay animal death when injected after the occurrence of clinical symptoms, a condition in which most treatments fail….”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3409288/

“Mesenchymal stromal cell transplantation in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a long-term safety study”
First they test for safety, then they test for effectiveness (efficacy). This 9 year study shows the use of stem cells in treating ALS is safe. Next study…the effectiveness…

Read More: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/14653249.2011.613929

“…We believe that implantation of AC133+ stem cells to the heart is safe and might induce angiogenesis (physiological process involving the growth of new blood vessels), thus improving perfusion of the infarcted myocardium…”
http://www.herzchirurgie-rostock.de/dokumente/The-Lancet-2003-361-45.pdf

“…bone marrow stem cells are perhaps the most enticing candidates of non-pancreatic origin because of their established clinical protocols, their demonstrated (albeit unreplicated)
differentiation into pancreatic β-cells and their proven effectiveness at stimulating β-cell regeneration in damaged pancreatic tissue. In vivo murine studies have consistently shown that, even without differentiating into β-cells, bone marrow stem cell transplantation causes a reduction in plasma glucose levels and an increase in systemic insulin through a variety of mechanisms…” from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1464-5491.2011.03433.x/full

Jennifer Vasolakos continues to improve after receiving adult stem cells for her kidney disorder.  Ty Warner, CEO of Tyco, the Beenie Babies company, generously donated $20,000 to complete her fund raising efforts.

Hi,
I am happy to update you, and let you know that within the last week my blood pressure has come down enough for me to reduce my blood pressure medications. I am now only having to take a low dose of one type per day. I had been on a t

New research points to a future for stem cell therapy in degenerative muscle disease

A climber who was warned he faced the amputation of a limb has had his leg saved by a new stem cell technique.  Andrew Kent broke his leg so badly while rock climbing in the Lake District that traditional surgery failed.  For the first time in Britain, doctors then used his own stem cells to heal the bones in a technique they believe could revolutionise orthopaedic operations.

“I’ve got a good prognosis. I’m very pleased with the way things have turned out,” Mr Kent told Sky News.

He and his son were climbing in the Langdale Pikes earlier this year when a large boulder fell on his right leg, breaking it in five places.  His tibia – the shinbone – had broken through the skin just above  his ankle.  He was taken to the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle, where he underwent three operations to pin his bones back together.

But his wound became seriously infected and he was transferred to the Spire Alexandra Hospital in Chatham, Kent.  Surgeons warned that he was likely to lose his leg unless they tried the new stem cell technique.  “Receiving that news is pretty devastating,” he said.

“You think: ‘I don’t want to lose this foot. That would be horrendous’. Now I’m very pleased. I can wiggle my toes and they are looking good.”

Orthopaedic surgeon Anan Shetty removed stem cells from the bone marrow in his patient’s hip.  These were mixed with a new collagen gel called Cartifill to make a paste, which was smeared into the fractures. They finally fixed his leg in a metal cage to gently squeeze the bones together.   The cage was removed at the beginning of December, six months after the stem cell procedure.

Mr Shetty described how he had put all his weight on Mr Kent’s leg, but the bones remained solid.  “He has really surprised us. This is an amazing technique,” he added.  “He won’t be able to run for about a year, but after 18 months his bones will have healed completely. I’m sure he’ll be able to go back and rock climb again.”

The Cartifill collagen gel has been invented by an orthopaedic surgeon from South Korea, Professor Seok Jung Kim, who has helped Mr Shetty to pioneer a series of procedures.   The gel is also being used in combination with stem cells to repair torn cartilage in the knee.  The gel holds the stem cells against the bone, where they form a new layer of cartilage. Ten patients have been treated so far in Britain with an 80% success rate.

The technique only costs a few hundred pounds – far less than alternative techniques.  Professor Kim said: “Many people who have problems with the knee injuries can get effective, low-cost treatment with this technique.”  Mr Shetty will carry out the cartilage repair technique on around 30 patients before submitting his results to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), in the hope that it will be approved for use on the NHS.  “I can see huge potential for this technique,” he said.

Nice story huh?  Tragedy averted, heroic measures applied, unknown treatment utilized, leg healed…it’s got all the elements of a made for TV movie.  So why should this story “change your understanding of what stem cells are currently capable of?”  Because this story is not current.  In fact, it’s old, very old.  Three years old. surprised?

The capabilities of stem cell treatments are advancing everyday and I promise you, whatever you THINK stem cells CAN DO…you don’t know the HALF OF IT!

We knew stem cells provide therapeutic benefit to MS patients, we just hadn’t figured out exactly how yet…and now we have!

Cleveland researchers find key to stem-cell therapy for MS patients: Discoveries

CLEVELAND, Ohio — …Figuring out why the mice improved could help researchers see if the MSC injection will work well in a particular patient before the patient is injected, and possibly augment or improve the treatment as well.

In May, the research group at CWRU, headed up by neurosciences professor Robert Miller, discovered exactly what it is in the stem-cell soup that has a healing effect: a large molecule called hepatocyte growth factor, or HGF. The team published their results in Nature Neuroscience.

Miller’s group knew that it could be the stem cells themselves, by coming in physical contact with the myelin damage, that were having a healing effect. Or it could be something the stem cells secreted into the surrounding liquid culture, or media, they were grown in, that was key. HGF is secreted by the stem cells, Miller said.

The team identified the HGF by first injecting only the liquid the stem cells were grown in, but not the stem cells themselves, into the mice they were studying. The mice got better, so the team knew whatever was helping was in the media.

Next, they isolated the small, medium and large molecules from the media and tried each size on the mice. Only the large-molecule treatment had the healing effect, meaning that whatever was helping was somewhere in that mix, Miller said.

“The molecule that jumped out at us was HGF,” he said, because it is the right size, is made by MSCs, and in a couple of studies had been shown to be involved in myelin repair.

So the scientists took a purified sample of HGF and injected it into the sick mice. They got better. When they blocked the receptor for HGF in the mice, they stayed sick. It was pretty compelling evidence that they’d found what they’d been looking for, Miller said.

“We went on to show that HGF, like the MSCs, is regulating both the immune response, and it is independently promoting myelin repair in the brain,” he said.

MSCs, taken from the bone marrow, are currently being tested in more than 150 clinical trials in the United States and around the world to treat conditions such as osteoarthritis, diabetes, emphysema and stroke.

The local Phase 1 trial has enrolled 16 of 24 total patients, and eight of them have completed the trial protocol, said Dr. Jeffrey Cohen, Cleveland Clinic neurologist and lead investigator of the trial.

So far, the treatment seems to be working, Cohen said.

“It’s a little early to be saying it, but things have looked encouraging.”

And there have been no safety concerns and almost no side effects. There has also been no activation — an aggravation or return of symptoms — of this relapsing disease in the patients involved, which has happened unexpectedly with other types of MS treatments.

Miller’s discovery won’t change the course of the trial currently under way at the Clinic and UH, but it may change the future of MSC treatment.

While they don’t know yet what the outcome of that trial will be, it’s possible that if a patient doesn’t respond to the treatment, it could mean that his stem cells aren’t producing enough HGF to be effective at healing, Miller said. Miller will be studying MSC samples from all the patients in the trial to find out if those who are better at producing HGF fare better.

He’ll also be trying to see if they can predict how well a patient will do based on his HGF levels in the MSC sample…

“Finally, though we’re a long way from this, maybe we could augment the expression of HGF in patients whose stem cells aren’t that effective to enhance their effectiveness,” he said.

But why not just inject the HGF alone? Miller said there are two reasons. First, the receptor for HGF in the cells, called c-MET, has been implicated in liver and breast cancer. Injecting HGF by itself into the body may stimulate the c-MET pathway, he said, and the research team is not willing to risk that.

“The stem cells have the advantage that they tend to home to the area of insult, so they don’t stick around in other parts of the body,” he said. “They target the treatment where it’s needed.”

…

http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2012/09/cleveland_researchers_find_key.html

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/08/23/judge-allows-stem-cell-cure-for-2-year-old-girl/