Category Archives: Stem Cell Therapy

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MONDAY, Dec. 8, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Some professional football players are seeking unproven stem cell therapies to speed their recovery from injuries. But experts are concerned that they may be unaware of the potential risks, a new report shows.

Stem cell therapy has attracted the attention of elite athletes. A number of National Football League (NFL) players have highlighted their use of those therapies and their successful recoveries.

Twelve NFL players are known to have received unapproved stem cell treatments since 2009.

"The online data on NFL players and the clinics where they obtained treatment suggest that players may be unaware of the risks they are taking," report co-author Kirstin Matthews, a fellow in science and technology policy at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, said in a university news release.

"Players who are official spokespersons for these clinics could influence others to view the therapies as safe and effective despite the lack of scientific research to support these claims," she added.

Most of the players receive treatment in the United States, but several have gone to other countries for stem cell therapies that aren't available in the United States.

"With the rise of new and unproven stem cell treatments, the NFL faces a daunting task of trying to better understand and regulate the use of these therapies in order to protect the health of its players," Matthews said.

The NFL and other sports leagues may need to evaluate and possibly regulate stem cell therapies in order to ensure the safety of their players, the report authors suggested.

The paper appears in a special supplement to the journal Stem Cells and Development.

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Some NFL Players Use Unproven Stem Cell Therapies: Report

Major study: Professor Thomas Preiss from ANU JCSMR who has been involved in an international project researching stem cells. Photo: Graham Tidy

Scientists, including some from Canberra, have identified a new type of stem cell which is easier to grow and manipulate as part of a major study detailing the changes cells undergo as they reprogram into stem cells.

Experts from across the globe, including some from the Australian National University John Curtin School of Medical Research, have carried out the most detailed study of how specialised body cells can be reprogrammed to be like cells from the early embryo.

"The ultimate goal with this work is to develop therapies in regenerative medicine which is a therapeutic approach whereby you would ultimately replace cells or tissues or organs that are failing in a patient with replacement parts that are made in a laboratory from the patient's own cells or from genetically highly similar stem cells," Professor Thomas Preiss from ANU's JCSMR said.

Professor Preiss said it was hoped the research could help speed up the development of treatments for many illnesses and conditions.

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"There's a range of diseases where tissues are damaged or cells or lost. It ranges from neurodegenerative disease to spinal cord injuries, stroke, diabetes, blood and kidney diseases and ultimately perhaps even heart disease," he said.

"I'm not saying our publication immediately enables any of these therapies but we're working on the molecular basis of understanding the process of making cells that would be useful for this kind of therapy."

Fifty experts in stem cell biology and genomics technologies have been involved in Project Grandiose which mapped the detailed molecular process involved in the generation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

Since the 2012 Nobel Prize winning discovery that body cells can in principle be coaxed to become iPS cells, there has been a surge in research to better understand iPS cell reprogramming.

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Researchers identify stem cells that can be reprogrammed

Future of Care: The Future of Stem Cell Therapy (Full Presentation)
Watch our October 29, 2014 Future of Care presentation on the future of stem cell therapy featuring Dr. David Brenner, Vice Chancellor, UC San Diego Health Sciences, Paul Viviano, Chief Executive...

By: UCSDHSDEV

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Future of Care: The Future of Stem Cell Therapy (Full Presentation) - Video

Robert Vondracek has had multiple sclerosis for 20 years. His speech is starting to slur and he's been having more trouble getting around, and when he heard about a controversial stem cell therapy that might help, he got excited.

"I heard about the stem cell treatments being done right here in Phoenix," said Vondracek, 61. "It shocked me because it was not approved in this country, I didn't think."

The therapy was offered by an Arizona plastic surgeon who gives the stem cell treatments in the same clinic where he does cosmetic procedures.

But when Vondracek's neurologist heard about his interest in the therapy, which would cost $7,000 per treatment, "He went crazy," said Vondracek. He strongly advised Vondracek against it.

Plastic surgeons, other doctors and naturopaths at more than 100 clinics round the country are charging thousands of dollars for a controversial procedure called stem cell therapy to treat a range of disorders, including neurological diseases like MS and Parkinson's.

Robert Vondracek and his girlfriend, Terese Knapik.

The procedure has angered many neurologists and prominent researchers who say these doctors are preying on vulnerable people and capitalizing on the huge but still unrealized potential of stem cell research, which they say is years away from producing an approved treatment for neurological diseases.

"Peddling snake oil in the guise of stem cell therapies is really a threat to legitimate research," said Dr. George Daley, director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Boston Children's Hospital, past president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research and a professor at Harvard Medical School.

"Finding cures is hard, it takes sometimes decades, it's extremely expensive and it's not something that we can just wish and hope for," he said. "It can only be achieved through very, very hard work."

Dr. George Daley is a nationally recognized expert on stem cells at Boston Childrens Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

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Use of Unproven Stem Cell Therapy Questioned

Released: 1-Dec-2014 1:00 PM EST Embargo expired: 3-Dec-2014 5:00 AM EST Source Newsroom: McMaster University Contact Information

Available for logged-in reporters only

Newswise Hamilton, ON (Dec. 3, 2014) Scientists at McMaster University have discovered that human stem cells made from adult donor cells remember where they came from and thats what they prefer to become again.

This means the type of cell obtained from an individual patient to make pluripotent stem cells, determines what can be best done with them. For example, to repair the lung of a patient with lung disease, it is best to start off with a lung cell to make the therapeutic stem cells to treat the disease, or a breast cell for the regeneration of tissue for breast cancer patients.

Pluripotency is the ability stem cells have to turn into any one of the 226 cell types that make up the human body.The work challenges the previously accepted thought that any pluripotent human stem cell could be used to similarly to generate the same amount of mature tissue cells.

This finding, published today in the prestigious science journal Nature Communications, will be used to further drug development at McMaster, and potentially improve transplants using human stem cell sources.

The study was led by Mick Bhatia, director of the McMaster Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Human Stem Cell Biology and he is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.

Its like the stem cell we make wants to become a doctor like its grandpa or an artist like its great-grandma, said Bhatia.

Weve shown that human induced pluripotent stem cells, called iPSCs, have a memory that is engraved at the molecular/genetic level of the cell type used to make them, which increases their ability to differentiate to the parent tissue type after being put in various stem cell states.

So, not all human iPSCs are made equal, Bhatia added. Moving forward, this means that iPSC generation from a specific tissue requiring regeneration is a better approach for future cellular therapies. Besides being faster and more cost-efficient in the development of stem cell therapy treatments, this provides a new opportunity for use of iPSCs in disease modeling and personalized drug discovery that was not appreciated before.

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Not All Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Are Made Equal

ORLANDO, Fla. -

If you think your dog is suffering from arthritis, researchers at the University of Floridas Health Science Center want you.

[WEB EXTRA: See if your pet meets study criteria | More info on stem cell process ]

Well, actually your pet.

Your dog may be eligible for a blind study being conducted by the University of Floridas College of Veterinary Medicine.

UF veterinarians are looking for 30 dogs, ages 2 to 10 years old, to participate in the next phase of a stem cell therapy project.

The dogs must be healthy, 10 to 120 pounds, and should have been diagnosed with elbow arthritis or dysplasia by their local vet.

Doctors are injecting stem cells directly into the elbows (front leg joints) of the animals to determine if the treatment will decrease the inflammation and pain associated with elbow dysplasia.

Dr. Stanley Kim, a specialist in small animal surgery, says some pets are given a placebo and not even the owner will know if saline or stem cells have been injected into the pets joints until the 6 month study is completed.

The dogs are evaluated at one month, three months and then again at six months but no dog will be left without the stem cell therapy.

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UF researchers recruiting local pets for arthritis study