By Fiona Pinto
Treating Parkinson's with Adult Stems Cell and Other Alternatives
Using adult neural stem cells, Dr. Michel Levesque, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, reports a total reversal of symptoms in the first Parkinson's patient treated. The patient, a 57-year old former fighter pilot, is still without symptoms three years after the adult neural stem cells were removed from his brain, coaxed into becoming dopamine-producing cells, and then reimplanted. Because the stem cells came from the patient, there was no need for immunosuppression to overcome rejection. "I think transplantation of the patient's own neural stem cells and differentiated dopaminergic neurons is more biologically and physiologically compatible - more efficacious and more elegant," said Levesque. In addition to its use for Parkinson's, the technique is under study for juvenile diabetes, stroke, brain tumors, spinal cord injury, and other conditions. Results presented April 8th , 2002 at the meeting of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.
Successful Repair of Heart Damage Using Adult Stem Cells
Doctors in Germany report the successful use of a patient's own adult stem cells from bone marrow to regenerate tissue damaged after a heart attack. They injected the man's own bone marrow stem cells into his damaged heart muscle. Ten weeks later, the damaged area of heart tissue had been reduced, replaced by new cells, and heart function had increased by 20-30 %. The authors conclude that "transplantation of human autologous adult stem cells is possible under clinical conditions and that it can lead to regeneration of the myocardial scar after? infarction." They also point out that the therapeutic benefits can be ascribed to the adult stem cells. They plan to perform the same operation on 20 more patients in the coming months. The use of the patient's own adult stem cells from bone marrow or muscle to treat damage from heart attack is also in clinical trials in France and the U.S. (Reuters Health, July 23, 2001) B.E. Strauer et al., "Myocardial regeneration after intracoronary transplantation of human autologous stem cells following acute myocardial infarction," Dtsch Med Wochenschr 126, 932-938; Aug. 24, 2001.
New Corneas Grown from Patients' Own Adult Stem Cells Treat Corneal Scarring
Several recent reports show the effectiveness of using a patient's own adult corneal stem cells to treat corneal scarring. The research groups report growth of new corneal tissue and improvement of sight in most patients. Investigators noted that "The technique is suitable not only for acute ocular injury but also for 'chronic-phase patients with massive scarring'." Cornea 20, 488-494; July 2001. Cornea 20, 354-361; May 2001
Adult stem cells stimulated to form insulin-secreting pancreatic cells
Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital have successfully turned adult stem cells into insulin-producing cells that could reverse diabetes. They found that treating adult stem cells in the pancreas with a naturally occurring hormone can transform the stem cells into beta cells, which secrete insulin. This means new beta cells could be made from a patient's own pancreatic stem cells to treat their diabetes. Reference E.J Abraham et al.; "Insulinotropic hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 differentiation of human pancreatic islet-derived progenitor cells into insulin-producing cells"; Endocrinology 143, 3152-3161; August 2002
For more info, see www.stemcellresearch.org
Embryonic Stem Cell Research Still Problematic
Difficulty in Establishing and Maintaining Embryonic Stem Cell Lines " 'Simply keeping human embryonic stem cells alive can be a challenge,' says Peter Andrews of the University of Sheffield in England. --"Stem cells: New excitement, persistent questions," Science 290, 1672-1674; 12/1/00 "[T]he poor availability of human oocytes, the low efficiency of the nuclear transfer procedure, and the long population-doubling time of human ES cells make it difficult to envision this [embryo cloning to produce stem cells] becoming a routine clinical procedure?"--J.S. Odorico, D.S. Kaufman, J.A. Thomson, "Multilineage differentiation from human embryonic stem cell lines," Stem Cells 19, 193-204; 2001 Potential for Tumor Formation "But ES cells have plenty of limitations, too. For one, murine ES cells have a disturbing ability to form tumors, and researchers aren't yet sure how to counteract that." --"Can Adult Stem Cells Suffice?," Science, 292, 1820-1822, 6/8/01
