Participating in Stem Cell Trials or Stem Cell Therapy

Participating in Stem Cell Trials or Stem Cell Therapy

A reader of this blog recently wanted to find out how to participate in stem cell trials or receive stem cell therapy. (The Korean World Stem Cell Hub website was overwhelmed by the number of requests when it began accepting applications November 1.) I am nowhere close to an expert on this subject—talking to your doctor would probably be better than asking me!—but here are some resources that might get you started.

For clinical trials in the United States, the NIH has a link of NIH-sponsored clinical trials at www.clinicaltrials.gov. Enter the search terms of interest (in this case, stem cells and disease or condition) to search for applicable clinical trials. The FDA website refers people to the same link. The Stem Cell Research Foundation also maintains a place to search for trials. The NIH site also includes some trials where recruiting is taking place in other countries.

For countries besides the United States, start with your health ministry website and see what kind of links or information they have. A lot of clinical trials are conducted at major university research hospitals, which may have links or information on their web pages. Many trials are driven in part by the biotech companies that are supplying the stem cells; many companies have a particular type of stem cell they are working with, and they support research and trials on those types.

Stem cell treatment is not a recognized therapy yet for many diseases. Bone marrow stem cell transplants for leukemia or lymphoma are probably the most widely practiced, and research and studies using stem cells to treat heart attacks seem to be proceeding rapidly. But stem cell treatment for neurological disorders is still very much in the research stages, and while some individual procedures have been done, I am not aware of any large-scale human trials yet.

I invite other readers of this blog to post comments or suggestions on how to find trials that are recruiting, or to supplement/correct anything I’ve said here.