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Stem cell treatment succeeds in spinal cord-injured rats
March 29, 2006Stem cells can repair damaged spinal tissue and help restore function in rats with spinal cord injuries, according to a new study. The findings may eventually lead to insights that result in new treatments for humans with spinal cord injuries.
Michael Fehlings, MD, PhD, and his colleagues at the Krembil Neuroscience Center at Toronto Western Research Institute and the University of Toronto also identified a critical window during which stem cell transplants may be effective, says the study, which appears in the March 29 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
"This work breaks new ground by showing that therapeutically useful stem cells can be derived from the adult brain of rodents, and that these cells can be caused to differentiate into the types of cells that are useful for repairing the damaged spinal cord," says Oswald Steward, PhD, director of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center for Spinal Cord Injury at the University of California, Irvine.
Fehlings' team used cells from the brains of adult mice labeled with a fluorescent marker, enabling them to trace the cells after they were transplanted into rats whose spines had been crushed. Stem cells transplanted up to two weeks after the initial injury survived thanks to a cocktail of growth factors and immune-suppressing drugs the team developed. More than one-third of the transplanted cells traveled along the spinal cord, were incorporated into damaged tissue, developed into the type of cell destroyed at the injured site, and produced myelin, an insulating layer around nerve fibers that transmits signals from the brain.
An injured spinal cord loses its ability to regenerate myelin-forming cells, leading to paralysis. Fehlings showed that where stem cells restored myelin in the injured spine, rats showed some recovery and walked with more coordination.
One new aspect demonstrated by the study is that "the maximal effect of transplanting these cells is early after injury," says New York University School of Medicine professor Moses Chao, PhD. "The timing of neural stem cell application therefore is critical to successful therapy in the injured spinal cord."
One focus of future research will be to determine the reason why stem cells transplanted weeks or months later fail to function or sometimes even survive.
Each year, some 11,000 Americans sustain spinal cord injury, most often in traffic accidents. Costs of the condition approach $10 billion per year.
Society for Neuroscience
Fehlings' team used cells from the brains of adult mice labeled with a fluorescent marker, enabling them to trace the cells after they were transplanted into rats whose spines had been crushed. Stem cells transplanted up to two weeks after the initial injury survived thanks to a cocktail of growth factors and immune-suppressing drugs the team developed. More than one-third of the transplanted cells traveled along the spinal cord, were incorporated into damaged tissue, developed into the type of cell destroyed at the injured site, and produced myelin, an insulating layer around nerve fibers that transmits signals from the brain.
An injured spinal cord loses its ability to regenerate myelin-forming cells, leading to paralysis. Fehlings showed that where stem cells restored myelin in the injured spine, rats showed some recovery and walked with more coordination.
One new aspect demonstrated by the study is that "the maximal effect of transplanting these cells is early after injury," says New York University School of Medicine professor Moses Chao, PhD. "The timing of neural stem cell application therefore is critical to successful therapy in the injured spinal cord."
One focus of future research will be to determine the reason why stem cells transplanted weeks or months later fail to function or sometimes even survive.
Each year, some 11,000 Americans sustain spinal cord injury, most often in traffic accidents. Costs of the condition approach $10 billion per year.
Society for Neuroscience
Stem Cell Current Events and Stem Cell News RSSFirst reconstitution of an epidermis from human embryonic stem cells
Stem cell research is making great strides. This is yet again illustrated by a study carried out by the I-STEM* Institute (I-STEM/ Inserm UEVE U861/AFM), published in the Lancet on 21 November 2009. The I-STEM team, directed by Marc Peschanski has just succeeded in recreating a whole epidermis from human embryonic stem cells.
Your Own Stem Cells Can Treat Heart Disease
The largest national stem cell study for heart disease showed the first evidence that transplanting a potent form of adult stem cells into the heart muscle of subjects with severe angina results in less pain and an improved ability to walk. The transplant subjects also experienced fewer deaths than those who didn't receive stem cells.
U of M researchers find 2 units of umbilical cord blood reduce risk of leukemia recurrence
A new study from the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota shows that patients who have acute leukemia and are transplanted with two units of umbilical cord blood (UCB) have significantly reduced risk of the disease returning.
Researchers find potential treatment for Huntington's disease
Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham), the University of British Columbia's Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics and the University of California, San Diego have found that normal synaptic activity in nerve cells (the electrical activity in the brain that allows nerve cells to communicate with one another) protects the brain from the misfolded proteins associated with Huntington's disease.
Researchers 'notch' a victory toward new kind of cancer drug
Scientists have devised an innovative way to disarm a key protein considered to be "undruggable," meaning that all previous efforts to develop a drug against it have failed.
UCI embryonic stem cell therapy restores walking ability in rats with neck injuries
The first human embryonic stem cell treatment approved by the FDA for human testing has been shown to restore limb function in rats with neck spinal cord injuries - a finding that could expand the clinical trial to include people with cervical damage.
First use of antibody and stem cell transplantation to successfully treat advanced leukemia
For the first time, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have reported the use of a radiolabeled antibody to deliver targeted doses of radiation, followed by a stem cell transplant, to successfully treat a group of leukemia and pre-leukemia patients for whom there previously had been no other curative treatment options.
Immune therapy can protect against or treat later lymphoma
Specially developed immune system cells that target the common Epstein-Barr virus can protect immune-suppressed bone marrow transplant recipients against lymph system disease and cancers that arise from the viral infection.
Immunotherapy demonstrates long-term success in treating lymphoma
Targeted immunotherapy has been an attractive new therapeutic area for a number of cancers because it has the potential to destroy tumor cells without damaging surrounding normal tissue. New study results demonstrate high success rates using specialized white blood cells to prevent or treat lymphoma associated with the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV-lymphoma) in patients who have received a hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT).
Of mice and men: Stem cells and ethical uncertainties
The recent creation of live mice from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) not only represents a remarkable scientific achievement, but also raises important issues, according to bioethicists at The Johns Hopkins University's Berman Institute of Bioethics.
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