I was perusing google news stories about stem cell research this evening and this delightful little article from the Salt Lake Tribune caught my eye. Some clips:
Adult stem cells are less versatile than embryonic stem cells – but also less controversial, easier to come by and may be marketed for new therapeutic uses in the U.S. much sooner.
In Utah, researchers are exploring whether adult stem cells can help repair damaged hearts or restore nerves’ ability to communicate.
Hope for broken hearts. Doctors already use adult stem cells in treatments in the U.S. – bone marrow transplants, for example – and are inching closer to innovative new uses.
Adult stem cells are more developed than embryonic stem cells, which are extracted from days-old embryos. Adult stem cells can be gleaned from bone marrow, umbilical cord blood, aborted fetuses and tissues throughout the body.
Studies suggest they retain some ability to transform. Such cells from bone marrow, for example, can become skeletal or cardiac muscle cells. That means they could be injected into hearts to repair tissues damaged by a heart attack or heart disease.
G. Russell Reiss, a cardiothorasic surgeon at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salt Lake City, has federal approval to try injecting bone marrow stem cells into the hearts of patients with coronary artery disease. Preliminary studies have shown the cells can improve heart function after heart attacks, he said…
More Utah innovators: Michael Pulsipher, director of the Utah Blood and Marrow Transplant Program, is conducting several clinical trials to find safer ways to transplant blood and bone marrow into adults and children.
The hope is that patients who receive donated bone marrow transplants after chemotherapy would have fewer immune reactions, said Pulsipher, an assistant professor of hematology and pediatrics at the University of Utah.
And Q Therapeutics in Salt Lake City is using technology licensed from the U. to discover whether adult stem cells can restore myelin – the coating on nerves that enables them to conduct impulses between the brain and other parts of the body.
Once Q Therapeutics is able to show “proof of concept” with adult stem cells, it will begin exploring embryonic stem cells’ potential, said president and CEO Deborah Eppstein.
The company expects its cell therapy for spinal cord injuries to be in clinical development at Johns Hopkins University by the end of the year – and on the market within five to seven years.
The article goes on to its main focus – stem cells treating Batten Disease. This was apparently tested with stem cells isolated from the brain of a fetus. They didn’t say where the fetus came from, i.e. spontaneous or elective abortion, so I don’t quite know how to take that one, but the rest of the article is fabulous. It is a nice alternative to all of the anti-ASC/pro-ESC research propaganda that is in the news normally.
Related story:
From Human Cord Umbilical Cord Blood Successfully Engineered To Make Insulin