Personal Stem Cell Story About MS

Personal Stem Cell Story About MS

The Birmingham (England) Post published a story about a man with multiple sclerosis who received umbilical cord stem cells in Holland. The man reported that he was able to walk unaided within hours, after years of using crutches or a wheelchair. His wife says that his memory is also significantly improved. Both members of the couple believe the UK needs to be doing more trials and testing of stem cells.

I approach this with a bit of scepticism, since the article does not say how long ago he had the treatments, and I want to know about the long-term effects. Will the stem cells survive over time?

I am glad for this man that he has so much improvement. And even if turns out to be short-term, how wonderful for that short term. But I would caution other people with MS to wait for more studies—which there should be.

Stem Cell Factor Receptor Proteins Important in Healing Heart Damage

Stem Cell Factor Receptor Proteins Important in Healing Heart Damage

Researchers in Toronto have discovered that mice who have specialized proteins called stem cell factor receptors, which are frequently found on stem cells in the bone marrow, had improved healing of their hearts after heart attacks compared to mice who lacked the proteins. The proteins function by communicating with other molecules and help let stem cells “know” they need to come perform healing functions. The researchers also found that so-called “natural killer” immune system cells seem to be important in heart healing; mice who lacked both the stem cell factor receptor protein and NK immune cells had double the death rate of mice who did not. The NK cells work in conjunction with the stem cells to produce new blood vessels.

The press release is on the CNN Matthews News Service. I found myself a little puzzled by the information that researchers were “surprised” by what they found; it seems obvious to me that if you have stem cells that can’t hear the call to go help, healing is not going to occur. And, clearly the researchers suspected that the stem cell factor receptor proteins were important, or they would not have done an experiment with mice without them. Is it the NK cell’s role that is a surprise, which does seem to have been a new discovery? Or is this press release hype/bad writing? Anyone out there able to clarify?

Type 2 Diabetes Study

Type 2 Diabetes Study

A team from Argentina has announced that stem cells harvested from the patients’ own bone marrow and transplanted in direct form into the pancreas improved the production of insulin, increased the levels of “C Peptide,” and decreased blood glucose levels and glycated hemoglobin levels. The press release on Medical News Today also says that 84% of the patients were able to stop taking insulin-producing drugs or insulin, and that none of the patients suffered complications. The researcher hypothesize that “the implanted autologuous stem cells regenerate the destroyed Beta Cells in the Islets of Langherhams in the pancreas of diabetes patients. It is also possible that they originate new Beta cells which produce the new Insulin.” The study was carried out on 16 patients. The results have been presented at the American Society of Cell Biology conference last December. The stem cells were implanted into the pancreas via a catheter in the femoral artery.

This is obviously a small study, and follow-up over a period of years is important to know if the patients remained in this condition over the long term. But it definitely sounds like something someone else should try to reproduce, and that should be tested in a large number of patients.