Category Archives: Stem Cell Therapy

Parkinson's is an incurable progressive condition of the brain. It affects movement, speech and balance and causes incessant shivering of the face and limbs. Genetic and environmental factors are believed to contribute to the degeneration of brain cells that maintain bodily movement. There is no particular test to detect the disease, with only physical symptoms enabling doctors to make a diagnosis.

After 15 years of suffering and two failed stem cell transplantation surgeries, a 68-year-old businessman finally decided to undergo surgery on the eve of World Parkinson's Day at Jaslok Hospital. According to the doctors, the businessman, who is from Gujarat, had uncontrolled Parkinson's disease (PD) and was lured by the temptation of finding a 'cure' for the disease.

"He was lured by the temptation of finding a 'cure' for Parkinson's disease he underwent intracranial stem cell transplantation (a neurosurgical procedure) in Bangalore. As he did not obtain any benefit, he was given a 'top up' by the intravenous stem cell route. Obviously, none of these worked and his disease progressed," said Dr Paresh Doshi, Director, Neurosurgery Department at Jaslok Hospital.

As the disease progressed, Jain decided to go for deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery, a standard surgical treatment for PD. "He had unbearable stiffness and discomfort and was taking large doses of medications. With the disease being in an advanced stage, DBS surgery was the only option," said Dr Doshi.

Since Jain had already undergone two operations, the team of neurosurgeons had a tough time executing the surgery. "Jain's case was tricky as the area we were interested in had already been operated on. Advanced technology and expertise helped us find our way into the brain and successfully accomplish the surgery," said Dr Doshi.

While Jain is now recuperating at the hospital, Dr Doshi said he is a classic example of poor awareness on PD. "The important message to convey is that stem cell treatment is a still at the laboratory stage. It can be tested on humans only after careful animal experimentation. So far, the efficacy of the stem cell therapy hasn't been proven and people shouldn't get misled," he said.

Neurologists say PD affects roughly one lakh people in India most of them over the age of 50, although it can sometimes affect younger adults. Awareness about the disease is a must in India, as the number of PD cases affecting those over the age of 60 are increasing sharply. "Parkinson's affects one in hundred individuals. While 55 crore Indians over 60 were afflicted in 2013, the number is estimated to triple to 160 crores by 2050. By then, over 22% of the Indian population will comprise of the elderly. It is therefore important to have more awareness on management of the disease," said Dr Doshi.

Dr Maria Barretto, CEO of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorder Society (PDMDS), which has twenty support groups in India including in Mumbai, Nasik and Baroda, agreed on poor general awareness about PD. "At PDMDS, we conduct various programs to spread awareness on the disease among both caregivers and the patients," she said.

Dr Charulata Sankhla, neurophysician at PD Hinduja Hospital who is also part of PDMDS, said that PD cases may be underreported due to lack of awareness. "Patients come to us very late because they don't recognise the symptoms. PD has to be diagnosed early, and it is very important to keep the patient active to ensure s/he has better mobility and a longer life."

Talking about surgery intervention, Dr Sankhla added that doctors would earlier wait for 5-6 years before taking a patient for surgery. However, surgery is being opted for in 3-4 years post the onset of PD. "Patients need to approach neurophysicians at the earliest so that it can be determined which stage of the disease the patient falls in. Treatment and surgery are recommended accordingly."

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Awareness about Parkinson's disease on shaky ground

(MENAFN - ProactiveInvestors)

Regeneus (ASX: RGS) has achieved a key milestone with the manufacture of its off-the-shelf stem cell therapy product Progenza for its First-in-Human trial for the treatment of osteoarthritis.

The company is on track to receive ethics approval and commence recruitment for the trial in the first-half of 2015.

Adding interest the company highlighted the benefit of using adipose or fat tissue over other tissue types by demonstrating the capacity to produce millions of therapeutic doses of Progenza from a single donor.

The production of commercial quantities of stem cells from a single donor is critical to maximise dose-to-dose consistency chief executive officer John Martin said.

This scale of production will minimise clinical trial and regulatory risks while reducing the cost of the final product.

One of the key advantages for manufacturing Progenza at industrial scale is that it uses stem cells sourced from adipose or fat tissue.

Adipose tissue is readily available from donors in large quantities and has significantly higher stem cells per gram of tissue than other tissue sources such as bone marrow or cord tissue.

Also adipose derived stem cells show greater capacity for expansion than stem cells from other tissue types.

Progenza adipose derived stem cells are adult stem cells they are not genetically modified like induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC).

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Regeneus hits key stem cell manufacturing milestone

Beverly Hills, California (PRWEB) April 07, 2015

Dr. Raj, the top Orthopedic Surgeon in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles, is now offering stem cell therapy to heal chronic tendonitis. The treatment works exceptionally well for those suffering from tendonitis of the rotator cuff, achilles, elbow and knee. For more information and scheduling, call (310) 247-0466.

As a pioneer in regenerative medicine, Dr. Raj has been helping patients with degenerative arthritis achieve relief and avoid joint replacements for years with stem cell procedures. By adding the procedures for tendonitis, Dr. Raj is now helping patients avoid potentially risky surgeries and get back to being more active for soft tissue related pain.

"Surgery for tendonitis is often not 100% successful for patients, and the rehabilitation period may take six months," states Dr. Raj. "With the stem cell therapy, pain relief is quick and athletes get back to sports faster!"

Regenerative medicine for tennis elbow has been shown in research studies to be effective at relief and helping avoid surgery. A 2013 study out of South Florida showed that 28 out of 30 patients with chronic tennis elbow avoided surgery and got back to being very active.

For several years in a row, Dr. Raj has been named the top orthopedic doctor in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. He is an ABC News Medical Correspondent as well as a WebMD Medical Expert.

Hundreds of patients have benefited from stem cell procedures with Dr. Raj at Beverly Hills Orthopedic Institute. They come from all over Southern California, along with throughout the country. Call (310) 247-0466 for scheduling stem cell therapy with an orthopedic surgeon Beverly Hills trusts and respects.

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Dr. Raj at Beverly Hills Orthopedic Institute Now Offering Stem Cell Therapy to Heal Chronic Tendonitis

(MENAFN - ProactiveInvestors) () a biotechnology company announced the expansion of its cancer stem cell intellectual property portfolio to include targeting of the gene NR2F2 (also known as COUP-TFII) a closely related family member to the cancer stem cell gene NR2F6 with the filing of two patent applications.

Patent application #14588374 is for treatment of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) by inhibition of NR2F2 and patent application # 14588373 is for methods and compositions for treatment of cancer by inhibition of NR2F2 the San Diego California-based company said in a statement today.

Patent application #14588374 covers methods compositions and treatment protocols for the treatment of MDS. This patent application also covers induction of differentiation or stimulation of apoptosis as a result of NR2F2 inhibition to reduce the state of MDS and/or in other embodiments to inhibit or revert progression to leukemic states Regen said.

Patent application #14588373 covers utilizing of gene silencing technologies pertaining to suppression of the nuclear receptor NR2F2 for use as cancer stem cell inhibitors as well as cancer stem cell pathway inhibitors and methods of using such compounds to treat cancer.

These new patent applications add to the company's existing portfolio of intellectual property covering therapeutics that can be used as differentiation therapy a new form of cancer treatment that works by instructing cancer stem cells to mature in to normal cells that have a limited lifespan.

This intellectual property will compliment other intellectual property in the gene silencing of cancer stem cells therapeutics platform including in-house and acquired IP from the University of Toronto for the cancer stem cell gene NR2F6 (also known as EAR-2) and the company's CTCFL technology also known as BORIS).

We are working on establishing an area of expertise in gene silencing of cancer stem cell target genes that builds upon a licensing agreement with Benitec Biopharma for use in conjunction with their shRNA gene silencing platform chief executive officer David Koos said in the statement.

This allows us to take advantage of synergisms by establishing strengths and programs that we can use to comprehensively target the important genes in the cancer stem cell space. This will lead to economies of scale in therapy development.

The cancer stem cell is the most important and sought after cellular target of cancer therapy. Not every cancer cell within a tumour is able to divide. Cancer stem cells are the cells within the tumour that can divide an infinite number of times and are the cells within the tumour that allow a tumour to maintain its cancerous ability therefore it is important to target those cells specifically.

"Patent protection is also essential for thoroughly protecting the Company's space in this field chief scientific officer Thomas Ichim said in the statement.

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Regen BioPharma expands Its differentiation therapy of cancer stem cells platform

Brazilian researchers announced progress toward the use of implanted stem cells as a treatment for Parkinsons disease.

Investigations at the DOR Institute for Research and Education (IDOR) and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) report that their newly developed therapy reduced symptoms in mice.

Using an FDA approved substance for treating stomach cancer, S.K. Rehen and colleagues were able to grow dopamine-producing neurons derived from embryonic stem cells. The cells remained healthy and functional for as long as 15 months after implantation into mice restoring motor function without forming tumors.

Parkinsons, which affect as many 10 million people in the world, is caused by a depletion of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain.

Current treatments include medications and electrical implants in the brain which causes severe adverse effects over time and fail to prevent disease progression.

In the current study, researchers build upon past investigations that have indicated the transplantation of embryonic stem cells improves motor functions in animal models. However, until now, the procedure has shown to be unsafe, because of the risk of tumors upon transplantation.

To address this issue, the researchers pre-treated undifferentiated mouse embryonic stem cells with mitomycin C a drug already prescribed to treat cancer. The substance blocks the DNA replication and prevents the cells to multiply out of control.

The researchers used mice modeled for Parkinsons. The animals were separated in three groups. The first one, the control group, did not receive the stem cell implant. The second one, received the implant of stem cells which were not treated with mitomycin C and the third one received the mitomycin C treated cells.

After the injection of 50,000 untreated stem cells, the animals of the second group showed improvement in motor functions but all of them died between three and seven weeks later. These animals also developed intracerebral tumors.

In contrast, animals receiving the treated stem cells showed improvement of Parkinsons symptoms and survived until the end of the observation period of 12 weeks post-transplant with no tumors detected. Four of these mice were monitored for as long as 15 months with no signs of pathology.

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Stem Cell Therapies on Mice Reduce Parkinson Symptoms