CLEMSON, S.C. The cells Mike Kents own cells, the donated stem cells now coursing through his stricken brothers body are working just fine. Thats what they tell him. His family and the doctors are careful to shield Mike, just 21 years old, from most of the bad news regarding Matts battle with Hodgkins lymphoma and lately there has been plenty of it. But they always make sure to tell him: Your cells are doing great.

It can mess with your head, being a stem-cell donor to your own brother. If something goes wrong, it is only natural to wonder if it was your fault. Were your cells bad? And Mike Kent, a 2009 Washington Post All-Met selection at West Springfield High, has enough on his plate right now not just Matts three-year fight with cancer, but also his own baseball career at Clemson to be saddled with all that guilt. Clemson opens play in the NCAA regionals at Columbia, S.C., on Friday.

(Family photo) - Mike Kent, right, poses with his brother, Matt, when Mike was a high school senior and a pitcher for the West Springfield, Va, baseball team.

Because now, Matts liver is failing, the veins breaking down from the high doses of chemotherapy and radiation. He floats in and out of consciousness in the intensive-care unit at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, unaware of his surroundings.

Ill be honest: Ive asked them, Is he going to survive this? said Susan Kent, Matt and Mikes mother, a look of sheer resolve on her face. Of course, the doctors wont answer.

Such an awkward spot for a mother who had raised two boys on her own. One of them, a college sophomore, is playing out his dream, preparing to pitch in college baseballs national championship tournament, his life spread out before him. The other son, 26 years old and a late-bloomer who was just starting to get his life in order before the diagnosis, is fighting for his life.

How do you handle such a fate? You play up the positives, thats how. You visit Matt in the hospital Matt being the one who taught Mike the game of baseball, in the absence of a father and you tell him, in great detail, about all of Mikes solid outings at Clemson: the scoreless relief appearances, the saves. And you spare him the gory details about the ugly ones the three-run homers, the bases-loaded walks, the losses.

And you give Mike the barest of details about Matts setbacks: There are some complications. Some side effects. But while Mike knows most of the more pertinent information the liver failure, the ICU you emphasize what is important, the thing Mike needs to know: Your cells are doing great.

Throwing extra innings

The injections, the doctors told Mike, would make him feel like he had the flu. The drug, Neupogen, was being given in eight doses, spread over four days to produce and stimulate white blood cells in his body in preparation for the stem cell transplant. One thing he shouldnt try to do, they told him, was play baseball.

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NCAA baseball: Mike Kent of Clemson’s biggest save came away from the diamond

Stem cells provided by San Diego-based Stemedica Cell Technologies Inc. are expected to be used soon in a phase I/II clinical trial for chronic heart failure in Mexico.

Stemedica announced May 29 that its strategic Mexico partner, Grupo Angeles Health Services, has received approval for a single-blind randomized clinical trial from Mexicos FDA equivalent regulatory agency, COFEPRIS.

The trial being conducted at multiple hospital sites throughout Mexico will involve Stemedicas adult allogeneic ischemia tolerant mesenchymal stem cells delivered via intravenous infusion. The trial will involve three safety cohorts at different dosages, followed by a larger group being treated with the maximum safe dosage.

The trial, set to begin on or before July 1 with 60 to 80 patients, is one of only two studies using allogeneic stem cells approved by COFEPRIS. The other study approved in 2010 was a clinical trial for ischemic stroke.

We are pleased that we will be working with the largest and most prestigious private medical institution in Mexico to study Stemedicas product for this indication, said Stemedica CEO Maynard Howe in a statement. If successful, our stem cells may provide a treatment option for the millions of patients, both in Mexico and internationally, who suffer from this condition.

Grupo Angeles, comprised of 24 state-of-the-art hospitals, conducts some 100 clinical trials annually, primarily with major global pharmaceutical and medical device companies.

Stemedica stem cells are also currently being used in a phase I/IIa trial for stroke patients at UC San Diego. The 36-patient clinical trial has been progressing about a year and is moving into its third and final cohort, said Dave McGuigan, vice president of marketing and business development for the company. When patient treatments are completed by the end of September, data will be evaluated to determine whether it moves to a full phase IIb trial to primarily determine efficacy in a larger population of 60 to 80 patients, McGuigan said.

Our next step would be to initiate a phase II clinical trial in multiple sites across the U.S. in 2013, he said.

Founded seven years ago, the privately held Stemedica specialty biopharmaceutical company has about 46 locally based employees in the U.S. and an additional eight staff in Switzerland, South Korea and Singapore.

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Stemedica Takes Part in Mexican Clinical Trial

ScienceDaily (May 31, 2012) An immune-system receptor plays an unexpected but crucially important role in keeping stem cells from differentiating and in helping blood cancer cells grow, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center report today in the journal Nature.

"Cancer cells grow rapidly in part because they fail to differentiate into mature cells. Drugs that induce differentiation can be used to treat cancers," said Dr. Chengcheng "Alec" Zhang, assistant professor in UT Southwestern's departments of physiology and developmental biology. "Our research identified a protein receptor on cancer cells that inhibits differentiation, and knowing the identity of this protein should facilitate the development of new drugs to treat cancers."

The family of proteins investigated in the study could help open a new field of biology integrating immunology with stem cell and cancer research, he added.

"The receptor we identified turned out to be a protein called a classical immune inhibitory receptor, which is known to maintain stemness of normal adult stem cells and to be important in the development of leukemia," he said.

Stemness refers to the blood stem cells' potential to develop into a range of different kinds of cells as needed, for instance to replenish red blood cells lost to bleeding or to produce more white blood cells to fight off infection. Once stem cells differentiate into adult cells, they cannot go back to being stem cells. Current thinking is that the body has a finite number of stem cells and it is best to avoid depleting them, Dr. Zhang explained.

Prior to this study, no high-affinity receptors had been identified for the family of seven proteins called the human angiopoetic-like proteins. These seven proteins are known to be involved in inflammation, supporting the activity of stem cells, breaking down fats in the blood, and growing new blood vessels to nourish tumors. Because the receptor to which these proteins bind had not been identified, the angiopoetic-like proteins were referred to as "orphans," he said.

The researchers found that the human immune-inhibitory receptor LILRB2 and a corresponding receptor on the surface of mouse cells bind to several of the angiopoetic-like proteins. Further studies, Dr. Zhang said, showed that two of the seven family members bind particularly well to the LILRB2 receptor and that binding exerts an inhibitory effect on the cell, similar to a car's brakes.

In the case of stem cells, inhibition keeps them in their stem state. They retain their potential to mature into all kinds of blood cells as needed but they don't use up their energy differentiating into mature cells. That inhibition helps stem cells maintain their potential to create new stem cells because in addition to differentiation, self-renewal is the cells' other major activity, Dr. Zhang said. He stressed that the inhibition doesn't cause them to create new stem cells but does preserve their potential to do so.

In future research, the scientists hope to find subtle differences between stem cells and leukemia cells that will identify treatments to block the receptors' action only in leukemia.

Other UT Southwestern researchers involved in the study from the departments of physiology and developmental biology include postdoctoral researchers Dr. ChangHao Cui, Dr. Xiaoli Chen, Dr. Chaozheng Zhang, Dr. HoangDinh Huynh, and Dr. Xunlei Kang; senior research associates Robert Silvany and Jiyuan Li; and graduate student Xuan Wan. Researchers from the department of immunology include former technician Alberto Puig Cant and Dr. E. Sally Ward, professor of immunology.

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Mechanism that maintains stem cells readiness identified