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Harold Atkins treated Jennifer Molsons MS

At 21, multiple sclerosis (MS) had Jennifer Molson wheelchair bound. But since her stem cell transplant, she has worked, driven, danced at her own wedding.

The story had a room of 1,000 professional stem cell scientists sniffling at the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) meetingsaid sniffling reaching a crescendo when the quiet, pretty Molson concluded: Im living proof stem cells can save lives.

Diagnosed with Relapsing Remitting MS, Molson had failed many standard treatments when she tried a hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT, or bone marrow transplant (BMT)) in 2002, as part of a clinical trial.

That trial, firstreportedon in 2013 by three Canadian centers, has seen dramatic results:noneof the trials 14 immuno-monitoring sub-study patients saw remissions in the first two years. The transplants halted all new focal inflammatory MS disease, verified by both medical examinations and brain MRIs. A paper on a larger cohort of 24 patients is being compiled.

There have been500MS HSCTs worldwide. MS is an inflammatory autoimmune disease in which the immune system is thought to attack its own nervous system via the myelin protecting nerve fibers.

Results globally have been mixed. Indeed, Molsons doctors, Ottowa Hospitals Harold Atkins and Mark Freedman, wrote in a2012 reviewthat although a few patients have had dramatic improvements after HSCT, most reports of improvement are modest.

Not so in this study. One reason, Atkins conjectured in a recent email toBioscience Technology: a more intense regimen than usual was used to wipe out the immune system of Molson and the other Canadian patients.

Globally, the trend was toward more non-myeloablative approaches. But while gentler, these may not ablate enough immune cells trained on attacking self-antigen. Self-antigen are proteins on cells marking them as self.

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