By: Jean Johnson for Back1 Mention stem cells and people either get their hackles up or let their eyes glaze over and drift away from the conversation. Indeed, nothing on the front of medicine these days is more contentious or more complicated. What are stem cells anyway? Why all the hoopla? Where do embryos come into the equation? And mostly, why is stem cell research so promising for spinal cord injuries and receiving such avid interest on the part of the scientific community?
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Would Stem Cell Research Help Me?According to the National Institutes of Health, stem cell research shows promise for fields studying conditions related to cell division and human development such as birth defects and cancer.
Stem cell research also has the potential for medical treatment as a source of replacement cells and tissues to treat diseases, conditions and disabilities including:
Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases
Spinal cord injury
Stroke
Burns
Heart disease
Diabetes
Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis
Clinical Studies
Click here to visit the National Institutes of Health and learn about stem cells, current debates or even participate in clinical studies.
Other Resources
To learn more about stem cell research (or to donate to research if you support in it) visit the following sites:
The Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (click here) is comprised of nationally-recognized patient organizations, universities, scientific societies, foundations, and individuals with life-threatening illnesses and disorders, advocating for the advancement of breakthrough research and technologies in regenerative medicine.
The Stem Cell Research Foundation (click here) has the goal to “help realize the hopes of stem cells by supporting innovative basic and clinical research in the emerging and critical area of stem cell therapy.”
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I’m no exception. Even though I’ve written other articles on stem cells and visited the topic of spinal cord injuries before, I’d much rather be in the garden doing something entirely mindless and pedestrian like planting an odiferous daphne or heirloom tomatoes or even weeding – most anything other than teasing out the complicated details on the subject of stem cells once again and making sense of what’s currently in the news. Yet, that’s what tops my summertime agenda today – a job central to helping us be a more informed public and hence better participants in our democracy. Indeed, writing about stem cells is a task I take particularly seriously since the late actor Christopher Reeve did so much to raise awareness of the horribly tragic plight people with spinal cord injuries suffer. More, according to the Stem Cell Research Foundation, some 11,000 Americans are stricken with spinal cord injuries annually – largely from auto accidents.
Clearly it is a sorrowful situation to be without the mobility needed to even get your own drink of water. Sad upon sad. Grief taken to new heights. Now that I’m reminded of these larger implications, my garden chores seem to pale in comparison – seem considerably less pressing. If you’re feeling the same, come along on this read. As my flutist pal from the Netherlands told her scientist husband once, “Marcel, you should be able to put everything you do into simple terms so I can understand it. Otherwise, don’t even bother to speak to me of your doings because I’m not going to follow all those scientific terminologies.” Amen. My sentiments precisely.
The News
Essentially the latest stem cell news is that a Canadian experiment showed that a combination of stem cells – not stem cells from embryos, but rather stem cells taken from mice brains – administered in a cocktail with growth hormones and anti-inflammatory drugs – help lessen the immobilizing effects of spinal cord injuries in rats.
While the stem cell cocktail treatment did not completely restore the function in the legs of the laboratory animals with spinal cord injuries, research confirmed that it did give the rats greater function and more coordination than those in the control group that did not received the cocktail combination of stem cells, hormones and drugs.
Why is this cocktail so important? Basically because it’s another small step in understanding how stem cells can best be used to regenerate specific cells in the body that have been damaged.
What the Canadian team from the Toronto Western Research Institute led by Michael Fehlings, M.D., Ph.D., found was that with the supporting hormones and anti-inflammatory drugs, a third of the stem cells injected into the rats survived and 80 percent of those actually developed into specialized cells capable of minimizing the effects of a spinal injury.
The cells are called oligodendrocytes and are critical because they produce myelin which is the crucial layer around nerves responsible for sending signals to the brain. Myelin is what is damaged in a spinal cord injury and without it, the elegant communication between the brain and our extremities is doomed and paralysis ensues.
The Comment
Fehlings’ team published their results in a March 2006 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience but told NewScientist.com that successful stem cell treatment for human spinal cord injuries is years away. Still, Fehlings said that research has been moving forward at a significant clip. “Ninety percent of what we know about spinal cord injury has been learned in the past 10 to 15 years.”
Consequently, director of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center for Spinal Cord Injury at the University of California at Irvine, Oswald Steward, Ph.D., took note of the study from Canada, citing it as pioneering activity.
“This work breaks new ground by showing that therapeutically useful stem cells can be derived from the adult brain of rodents,” said Steward, “and that these cells can be caused to differentiate into the types of cells that are useful for repairing the damaged spinal cord,” said Steward.
Stem Cells, the Chameleons of the Body
Steward’s comment on differentiation speaks to precisely why stem cells are a big deal: they have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body. For example, in other experimental work scientists in Germany at the Göttingen School of Medicine isolated spermatogonial stem cells from adult male mice – thus again avoiding ethical issues related to using embryonic stem calls – and in test tube cultures were able to develop various cell types including nerve, vascular, skin, liver, pancreatic and cardiac muscle cells that actually contracted in a rhythmic manner the way cells in a living heart do.
Stem Cell History and Current Advances Around the World
Stem cells have two important characteristics. First they are unspecialized and renew themselves for long periods via cell division. Second, under certain conditions they can be induced to develop into cells with special functions.
Scientists first discovered ways to obtain stem cells from mouse embryos 20 years ago, and in 1998 successfully isolated stem cells from human embryos. Currently, work is proceeding around the world on this promising front, despite the bogus claims from South Korean researchers last year that were ultimately proven false and completely misleading.
In Germany there’s the Göttingen work (see Chameleon section above) which is being heralded in a March 2006 Nature as an important advance because religious and moral questions are circumvented by using the spermatogonial stem cells.
Similarly, in Italy, researchers working on mice made headway using stem cells to treat an inherited nerve disease that strikes early in life and results in convulsions, seizures, personality changes, spasticity, and progressive dementia.
Mahendra Rao, M.D., Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Invitrogen Corporation said “There is much excitement in the field of cell-based therapy, and this study is a clear indication of its potential.” Rao went on to underscore that the Italians have not fallen prey to the cloud under which the South Korean research was discredited. “This carefully-conducted study suggests that a different cell type, such as myelin-producing cells, may be better than others when used for therapy.”
From Mice to Humans
Finally, right here Portland, Ore., just miles from my own garden, stem cell research is about to begin on human beings at the Doernbecher Children’s Hospital at the Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU). According to the Stem Cell Research Foundation, OHSU researchers will be starting a Phase I clinical trial using stem cells to treat infants and children with a rare neurodegenerative disorder called neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (NCL).
“NCL is a heartbreaking and devastating diagnosis for children and their families,” said Robert D. Steiner, M.D., F.A.A.P., F.A.C.M.G., vice chairman of pediatric research and head of the Division of Metabolism and the study’s principal investigator at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, OHSU. “While the preclinical research in the laboratory and in animals is promising, it is important to note that this is a safety trial and, to our knowledge, purified neural stem cell transplantation has never been done before. It is our hope that stem cells will provide an important therapeutic advance for these children who have no other viable option.”
When the physician puts it that way, I’m glad I spent this time revisiting the subject of stem cells. Now I can go to my garden with a larger appreciation for our world, our precious lives, and the things we do as human beings to try and help one another.
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