News Release: Spinal Fusion with Adult Stem Cell Therapy
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News Release: Spinal Fusion with Adult Stem Cell Therapy - Video

Adult Stem Cells - Elaine Fuchs (Rockefeller/HHMI)
Adult stem cells regenerate a specific set of cells such as skin or blood. Fuchs focuses on skin stem cells and the success of using epidermal cells grown in vitro to treat burn patients.

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A Nurse #39;s Testament on Adult Stem Cell Therapy for Back Pain
A registered nurse describes her experience with an adult stem cell therapy procedure for back pain. More information at medrebels.org.

By: Med Rebels

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A Nurse's Testament on Adult Stem Cell Therapy for Back Pain - Video

News Release: Dr. Andrew Cappuccino #39;s Insight on Adult Stem Cell Therapy
Dr. Andew Cappuccino, team orthopedist for the Buffalo Bills, gives insight on using Adult Stem Cells to treat back pain. More information at http://medrebel...

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News Release: Dr. Andrew Cappuccino's Insight on Adult Stem Cell Therapy - Video

Bone marrow is the spongy tissue inside some of your bones, such as your hip and thigh bones. It contains immature cells, called stem cells. The stem cells can develop into red blood cells, which carry oxygen throughout the body, white blood cells, which fight infections, and platelets, which help the to blood clot.

A bone marrow transplant is a procedure that replaces a person's faulty bone marrow stem cells. Doctors use these transplants to treat people with certain diseases, such as

Before you have a transplant, you need to get high doses of chemotherapy and possibly radiation. This destroys the faulty stem cells in your bone marrow. It also suppresses your body's immune system so that it won't attack the new stem cells after the transplant.

In some cases, you can donate your own bone marrow stem cells in advance. The cells are saved and then used later on. Or you can get cells from a donor. The donor might be a family member or unrelated person.

Bone marrow transplantation has serious risks. Some complications can be life-threatening. But for some people, it is the best hope for a cure or a longer life.

NIH: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

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Bone Marrow Transplantation: MedlinePlus - National Library of ...

Mallory Family Wellness - Autologous Stem Cell Therapy
Mallory Family Wellness - Autologous Stem Cell Therapy.

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Mallory Family Wellness - Autologous Stem Cell Therapy - Video

MedRebels: A Quick ACL Recovery due to Adult Stem Cell Therapy [Storm Dunworth]
Storm Dunworth, a highschool athlete, uses adult stem cells to help with the recovery from an ACL injury. Hear her story. More information at http://medrebel...

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MedRebels: A Quick ACL Recovery due to Adult Stem Cell Therapy [Storm Dunworth] - Video

With more than 50 years of experience studying blood-forming stem cells called hematopoietic stem cells, scientists have developed sufficient understanding to actually use them as a therapy. Currently, no other type of stem cell, adult, fetal or embryonic, has attained such status. Hematopoietic stem cell transplants are now routinely used to treat patients with cancers and other disorders of the blood and immune systems. Recently, researchers have observed in animal studies that hematopoietic stem cells appear to be able to form other kinds of cells, such as muscle, blood vessels, and bone. If this can be applied to human cells, it may eventually be possible to use hematopoietic stem cells to replace a wider array of cells and tissues than once thought.

Despite the vast experience with hematopoietic stem cells, scientists face major roadblocks in expanding their use beyond the replacement of blood and immune cells. First, hematopoietic stem cells are unable to proliferate (replicate themselves) and differentiate (become specialized to other cell types) in vitro (in the test tube or culture dish). Second, scientists do not yet have an accurate method to distinguish stem cells from other cells recovered from the blood or bone marrow. Until scientists overcome these technical barriers, they believe it is unlikely that hematopoietic stem cells will be applied as cell replacement therapy in diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson's Disease, spinal cord injury, and many others.

Blood cells are responsible for constant maintenance and immune protection of every cell type of the body. This relentless and brutal work requires that blood cells, along with skin cells, have the greatest powers of self-renewal of any adult tissue.

The stem cells that form blood and immune cells are known as hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). They are ultimately responsible for the constant renewal of bloodthe production of billions of new blood cells each day. Physicians and basic researchers have known and capitalized on this fact for more than 50 years in treating many diseases. The first evidence and definition of blood-forming stem cells came from studies of people exposed to lethal doses of radiation in 1945.

Basic research soon followed. After duplicating radiation sickness in mice, scientists found they could rescue the mice from death with bone marrow transplants from healthy donor animals. In the early 1960s, Till and McCulloch began analyzing the bone marrow to find out which components were responsible for regenerating blood [56]. They defined what remain the two hallmarks of an HSC: it can renew itself and it can produce cells that give rise to all the different types of blood cells (see Chapter 4. The Adult Stem Cell).

A hematopoietic stem cell is a cell isolated from the blood or bone marrow that can renew itself, can differentiate to a variety of specialized cells, can mobilize out of the bone marrow into circulating blood, and can undergo programmed cell death, called apoptosisa process by which cells that are detrimental or unneeded self-destruct.

A major thrust of basic HSC research since the 1960s has been identifying and characterizing these stem cells. Because HSCs look and behave in culture like ordinary white blood cells, this has been a difficult challenge and this makes them difficult to identify by morphology (size and shape). Even today, scientists must rely on cell surface proteins, which serve, only roughly, as markers of white blood cells.

Identifying and characterizing properties of HSCs began with studies in mice, which laid the groundwork for human studies. The challenge is formidable as about 1 in every 10,000 to 15,000 bone marrow cells is thought to be a stem cell. In the blood stream the proportion falls to 1 in 100,000 blood cells. To this end, scientists began to develop tests for proving the self-renewal and the plasticity of HSCs.

The "gold standard" for proving that a cell derived from mouse bone marrow is indeed an HSC is still based on the same proof described above and used in mice many years ago. That is, the cells are injected into a mouse that has received a dose of irradiation sufficient to kill its own blood-producing cells. If the mouse recovers and all types of blood cells reappear (bearing a genetic marker from the donor animal), the transplanted cells are deemed to have included stem cells.

These studies have revealed that there appear to be two kinds of HSCs. If bone marrow cells from the transplanted mouse can, in turn, be transplanted to another lethally irradiated mouse and restore its hematopoietic system over some months, they are considered to be long-term stem cells that are capable of self-renewal. Other cells from bone marrow can immediately regenerate all the different types of blood cells, but under normal circumstances cannot renew themselves over the long term, and these are referred to as short-term progenitor or precursor cells. Progenitor or precursor cells are relatively immature cells that are precursors to a fully differentiated cell of the same tissue type. They are capable of proliferating, but they have a limited capacity to differentiate into more than one cell type as HSCs do. For example, a blood progenitor cell may only be able to make a red blood cell (see Figure 5.1. Hematopoietic and Stromal Stem Cell Differentiation).

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5. Hematopoietic Stem Cells - NIH Stem Cell Information Home Page

Bone marrow is the spongy tissue inside some of your bones, such as your hip and thigh bones. It contains immature cells, called stem cells. The stem cells can develop into the red blood cells that carry oxygen through your body, the white blood cells that fight infections, and the platelets that help with blood clotting.

If you have a bone marrow disease, there are problems with the stem cells or how they develop.Leukemiais a cancer in which the bone marrow produces abnormal white blood cells. Withaplastic anemia, the bone marrow doesnt make red blood cells. Other diseases, such aslymphoma, can spread into the bone marrow and affect the production of blood cells. Other causes of bone marrow disorders include your genetic makeup and environmental factors.

Symptoms of bone marrow diseases vary. Treatments depend on the disorder and how severe it is. They might involve medicines, blood transfusions or abone marrow transplant.

Bone marrow tests check whether your bone marrow is healthy. These tests also show whether your bone marrow is making normal amounts of blood cells.

Bone marrow is a sponge-like tissue inside the bones. It contains stem cells that develop into the three types of blood cells that the body needs:

Another type of stem cell, called an embryonic (em-bre-ON-ik) stem cell, can develop into any type of cell in the body. These cells arent found in bone marrow.

Doctors use bone marrow tests to diagnose blood and bone marrow diseases and conditions, including:

Bone marrow tests also help doctors figure out how severe cancer is and how much it has spread in the body. The tests also are used to diagnose fevers and infections.

The two bone marrow tests are aspiration (as-pih-RA-shun) and biopsy.

Bone marrow aspiration usually is done first. For this test, your doctor removes a small sample of fluid bone marrow through a needle. He or she may have some idea of what the problem is, and the sample gives him or her useful information about the cells in the marrow.

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Bone Marrow Cells & Tissue

AllCells is able to provide whole bone marrow aspirate and

collected from healthy individuals. These bone marrow products are available in fresh or frozen format.

The following bone marrow cells and tissue product types are available from AllCells:

Please view all of our Bone Marrow Products below.

Bone Marrow (BM) contains hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells, which are self-renewing, proliferating, and differentiating into multi-lineage blood cells. Multipotent, non-hematopoietic stem cells, such as bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, can be isolated from human bone marrow as well. These non-hematopoietic, bone marrow stromal cells are capable of both self-renewal and differentiation into bone, cartilage, muscle, tendons, and fat. 100 mL of bone marrow cells and tissue is drawn into a 60cc syringe containing heparin (80 U/mL of BM) from the posterior iliac crest, at a maximum of eight separate sites. Whole bone marrow products are diluted with PBS. Please see our entire Bone Marrow Product inventory below.

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New Cancer Treatment: Stem Cell Therapy
Writing 160 Project #2.

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African scientists in Nairobi to explore stem cell therapy
African Scientists are converging in Nairobi to explore ways of using regenerative medicine or stem cell therapy, to help prevent the increasing cases of non...

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What Is Stem Cell Therapy? Get The Candy Coated Illustration - Dr. Bill Johnson, Dallas
http://www.InnovationsStemCellCenter.com (214) 699-6948 Find out just how your own body #39;s stem cells can help you build new cells that have been damaged. SVF...

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What Is Stem Cell Therapy? Get The Candy Coated Illustration - Dr. Bill Johnson, Dallas - Video

Last updated: 03/2012

The brain and spinal cord together form the central nervous system (CNS) which is responsible for processing all the information coming from our senses, keeping our organs and reflexes functioning, and directing our movements, thoughts and feelings.

The spinal cord is the critical organ that connects the brain to the rest of the body by conveying electrical impulses along the long nerve fibres that are bundled within it.

The nerves that branch out from the spinal cord to the rest of the body comprise the peripheral nervous system (PNS). These peripheral nerves both receive and convey messages creating a feedback loop that allows us to feel sensation and enable movement.

A nerve cell, or neuron, has a long slender projection, called the axon that acts like a transmission line coming from the control centre of the cell. Even though axons are microscopic in diameter, they may be many feet long. Wrapped around the nerve fibres is a fatty substance called myelin that is similar to insulation on a telephone wire. Myelin is a critical component of the nervous system in that it speeds up the electrical signals and protects the nerves. In addition to neurons, the brain is also home to glial cells which play a critical role in stabilizing the environment, making myelin and supporting and protecting the neurons.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) may occur anywhere from the neck to the lower back. During an initial trauma in which the spinal vertebrae fracture or dislocate, the delicate spinal cord is violently struck. While the cord itself typically remains in one piece, many of the tiny nerve fiber bundles within it are severed. After this initial mechanical injury, inflammation, swelling, and other metabolic processes are triggered, causing further damage and disruption of the nerve fibers. The severity of paralysis experienced by the patient is dependent upon the degree of damage done to the spinal cord. However, even in cases of complete paralysis where the patient has no feeling or movement below the injury, the spinal cord itself is not severed completely, and in fact, there are some axons that remain intact across the injury site. Some of these are thought to have lost their myelin sheaths (their insulation) and therefore do not conduct electrical signals well.

Spinal cord injury affects mostly young adults, about 80% of whom are males. Car accidents are responsible for about 50% of cases. Sporting accidents, serious falls, wounds, and diseases of the spine, such as spina bifida, can also cause permanent injury to the spinal cord. In North America, it is estimated that more than a million individuals live with a disability resulting from some type of spinal cord injury.

Because spinal cord injuries are often the result of terrible accidents which paralyze otherwise fit and mostly healthy young people, they can cause significant and prolonged suffering. Depending on the severity of the injury, rehabilitation may help many people to regain some degree of function.

Unlike the skin, blood, muscle and other organs, for many reasons the CNS does not routinely regenerate after damage hence, the disability caused by spinal cord injury may be permanent and profound. In contrast, the nerves in the PNS tend to regenerate after injury, both because they are intrinsically better programmed to regenerate, and because the cells that myelinate axons in the PNS (called Schwann cells) tend to encourage regeneration.

After spinal cord injuries occur, there is only a small window of opportunity hours, maybe weeks in which therapies may reduce the disability. Restoring the electrical transmission between the brain and spinal cord requires repairing the myelin sheath around the damaged neurons and, in severe cases, the regrowth of severed nerve fibres across the site of injury and into the neural network below the lesion. Scarring and other cellular damage that occurs when the body responds to injury often compounds the difficulties in bridging the lesion site in the aftermath of the injury, and in many cases rehabilitation is the only recourse.

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Spinal Cord Injury - Stem Cell Network

For years we have seen immobilized rats walking after getting an injection of stem cells for their spinal cord injuries. The good thing is that along the way, stem cells have started to be used in studies and experimental therapies to attempt to get SCI patients walking again. While the results for humans have not been nearly as miraculous as for mice, many patients have reported, and some studies have shown, that these early treatments do bring back some sensory ability and improved motor function. Most importantly, a good percentage of patients who have received stem cell transplantsfeel that the treatment has helped not only to improve their quality of life but also that of their caretaker.

Clinical trials and studies using stem cell treatment for spinal cord injuries have been done in Argentina, China, Portugal and are now starting in the United States. The signs are quite positive that within ten to fifteen years, stem cell treatment will be widely available to the general public. The stem cells that being tested in clinical trials today in the west will be approved for medical use for the public in ten years. For patients who dont want to wait for this process, Beike provides an option chosen by over 1000 patients since 2003 making it one of the most established experimental therapies available today.

Stem cell treatment, using Beikes cord mensenchymal stem cells and protocols for spinal cord injuries, is available at various hospitals in China and one in Thailand. Generally, many patients have reported improvements soon after treatment, and continue to notice more improvements for up to 12 months following the stem cell transplants.

Patients who report that they do benefit from the procedure, most always report that those improvements are retained permanently, without regression. Reported improvements differ from patient to patient (depending on the severity of their injury and specifics of their case) - some patients may experience mild increases in sensation, while some regain muscle control and strength where there was little or none before. Many of the patients who see the greatest benefits from the treatment focus heavily on rehabilitation after their stem cell transplant. Like any medical procedure or medicine, there are some patients who report no improvement.

To learn first hand from other patients who have had the treatment, contact us and we will do our best to put you in touch with past patients with similar spinal cord injuries (including those who saw good results and those with no results) who were treated with Beikes stem cell treatment.

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Spinal Cord Injury Treatment (Adult Stem Cell Therapy)

By the time Bill Beatty made it to the Emergency Department in Howard County, he was already several hours into a major heart attack. His physicians performed a series of emergency treatments that included an intra-aortic balloon pump, but the 57-year-old engineers blood pressure remained dangerously low. The cardiologist called for a helicopter to transfer him to Johns Hopkins.

It was fortuitous timing: Beatty was an ideal candidate for a clinical trial and soon received an infusion of stem cells derived from his own heart tissue, making him the second patient in the world to undergo the procedure.

Of all the attempts to harness the promise of stem cell therapy, few have garnered more hope than the bid to repair damaged hearts. Previous trials with other stem cells have shown conflicting results. But this new trial, conducted jointly with cardiologist Eduardo Marbn at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, is the first time stem cells come from the patients own heart.

Cardiologist Jeffrey Brinker, M.D., a member of the Hopkins team, thinks the new protocol could be a game-changer. That's based partly on recent animal studies in which scientists at both institutions isolated stem cells from the injured animals hearts and infused them back into the hearts of those same animals. The stem cells formed new heart muscle and blood vessel cells. In fact, says Brinker, the new cells have a pre-determined cardiac fate. Even in the culture dish, he says, theyre a beating mass of cells.

Whats more, according to Gary Gerstenblith, M.D., J.D., the animals in these studies showed a significant decrease in relative infarct size, shrinking by about 25 percent. Based on those and earlier findings, investigators were cleared by the FDA and Hopkins Institutional Review Board to move forward with a human trial.

In Beattys case, Hopkins heart failure chief Stuart Russell, M.D., extracted a small sample of heart tissue and shipped it to Cedars Sinai, where stem cells were isolated, cultured and expanded to large numbers. Hopkins cardiologist Peter Johnston, M.D., says cardiac tissue is robust in its ability to generate stem cells, typically yielding several million transplantable cells within two months.

When ready, the cells were returned to Baltimore and infused back into Beatty through a balloon catheter placed in his damaged artery, ensuring target-specific delivery. Then the watching and waiting began. For the Hopkins team, Beattys infarct size will be tracked by imaging chief Joao Lima, M.D., M.B.A.,and his associates using MRI scans.

Now back home and still struggling with episodes of compromised stamina and shortness of breath, Beatty says his Hopkins cardiologists were fairly cautious in their prognosis, but hell be happy for any improvement.

Nurse coordinator Elayne Breton says Beatty is scheduled for follow-up visits at six months and 12 months, when they hope to find an improvement in his hearts function. But at least one member of the Hopkins team was willing acknowledge a certain optimism. The excitement here, says Brinker, is huge.

The trial is expected to be completed within one to two years.

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Stem Cell Research at Johns Hopkins Medicine: Repairing Heart Damage

Marty Greenfield with UCLA doctors

Marty Greenfield lives with crushing pain every day due to angina, a condition that is caused by an inadequate supply of blood to the heart. He has suffered a heart attack, and a coronary bypass procedure and angioplasty have provided little relief. His doctor referred him to UCLA to be considered for a heart transplant.

Dr. Jonathan Tobis, a UCLA clinical professor of cardiology, performed an angiogram and angioplasty on Greenfield, 64, but found that the patient was not a candidate for a heart transplant because his heart muscle function was still good.

Instead, Tobis suggested that Greenfield consider participating in a Phase 3 clinical trial that uses a patient's own blood-derived stem cells to try to restore circulation to the heart. The procedure uses the latest technology to map the heart in 3-D and guides the doctor to deliver the stem-cell injections to targeted sites in the heart muscle.

On Oct. 17, Greenfield became the first patient at UCLA to participate in the multicenter clinical trial. He said he jumped at the chance to help, even though the study is double blind, which means that neither the patients nor the researchers know who is receiving stem-cell injections and who is receiving placebos.

"This just isn't about me," said Greenfield, a married father of two sons who lives near Las Vegas. "If I can help move this research forward so that it helps just one person, it will be worth it."

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UCLA doctors test stem-cell therapy to improve blood flow in ...

BACKGROUND:

SCIPIO is a first-in-human, phase 1, randomized, open-label trial of autologous c-kit(+) cardiac stem cells (CSCs) in patients with heart failure of ischemic etiology undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). In the present study, we report the surgical aspects and interim cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) results.

A total of 33 patients (20 CSC-treated and 13 control subjects) met final eligibility criteria and were enrolled in SCIPIO. CSCs were isolated from the right atrial appendage harvested and processed during surgery. Harvesting did not affect cardiopulmonary bypass, cross-clamp, or surgical times. In CSC-treated patients, CMR showed a marked increase in both LVEF (from 27.5 1.6% to 35.1 2.4% [P=0.004, n=8] and 41.2 4.5% [P=0.013, n=5] at 4 and 12 months after CSC infusion, respectively) and regional EF in the CSC-infused territory. Infarct size (late gadolinium enhancement) decreased after CSC infusion (by manual delineation: -6.9 1.5 g [-22.7%] at 4 months [P=0.002, n=9] and -9.8 3.5 g [-30.2%] at 12 months [P=0.039, n=6]). LV nonviable mass decreased even more (-11.9 2.5 g [-49.7%] at 4 months [P=0.001] and -14.7 3.9 g [-58.6%] at 12 months [P=0.013]), whereas LV viable mass increased (+11.6 5.1 g at 4 months after CSC infusion [P=0.055] and +31.5 11.0 g at 12 months [P=0.035]).

Isolation of CSCs from cardiac tissue obtained in the operating room is feasible and does not alter practices during CABG surgery. CMR shows that CSC infusion produces a striking improvement in both global and regional LV function, a reduction in infarct size, and an increase in viable tissue that persist at least 1 year and are consistent with cardiac regeneration.

This study is registered with clinicaltrials.gov, trial number NCT00474461.

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stem cell therapy treatment for Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india
improvement seen in just 3 months after stem cell therapy treatment for quadriplegic cerebral palsy by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india. Stem Cell Therapy done ...

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stem cell therapy treatment for Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india - Video

stem cell therapy treatment for dystonic cerebral palsy by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india
improvement seen in just 3 months after stem cell therapy treatment for dystonic cerebral palsy by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india. Stem Cell Therapy done date...

By: Neurogen Brain and Spine Institute

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stem cell therapy treatment for dystonic cerebral palsy by dr alok sharma, mumbai, india - Video