The Intermountain Medical Center in Murray has begun a new clinical trial using adult stem cells to prevent or repair kidney damage that can occur after open-heart surgery. For the treatment, bone marrow stem cells are injected into the bloodstream where they are carried into the kidney. Said Christof Westenfelder, chief medical officer of biotech company AlloCure:
“This cell based therapy is superior to all the other therapies because the cells interpret correctly what is going on and fix it, and after they have fixed it they say okay we are done, leaving, we can now destroy ourselves. When you give a drug that is very different. When you give a drug, you know the drug has effects all over the place. These cells only go to sites where you have a problem.”
Meanwhile, embryonic stem cells continue to be plagued with a high probability of rejection and have not been FDA approved for any human clinical trials because of their potential to become cancerous
In other ethical stem cell news, it appears scientists have found another source of pluripotent stem cells. This time from men’s testicles (ht: Jivin J). If I had to make a choice, I’m not sure which would be more appealing to me, stem cells taken from a man’s testicles or from a woman’s menstrual blood…
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“I’m not sure which would be more appealing to me, stem cells taken from a man’s testicles or from a woman’s menstrual blood…”
Ewwwies.
But, so long as there’s no harm to the donor, both are good news.
Menstrual blood stem cells, called “endometrial regenerative cells” have already been used successfully in animals to prevent loss of limbs associated with poor circulation, a paper published by the company Medistem showed not only this, but also that these endometrial regenerative celsl can also become 9 differen tissues.
So why are people so obsessed with embryonic stem cells, which we know cause cancer, when stem cells from adult sources already work very well in animals and efforts should be made to accelerate their use clinically, like the great study mentioned above using adult bone marrow stem cells for kidney failure by the company Allocure from Utah.