| * * * * * * |
| Adult Stem Cells Completely Cure Sickle Cell Patient |
| Pittsburgh, PA -- Stem cells are thought of as the Holy Grail of medicine. |
| One young boy agrees with that. He made medical history because he's been |
| cured of his life-threatening disease. The key to his cure did not come |
| from a human embryo, where all the controversy is, but from something that |
| is routinely toss in the garbage - an umbilical cord. Umbilical cords were |
| always considered medical waste. |
| Not anymore. |
| That's why new parents like Pam Dorne and Stephen Ayers of suburban |
| Chicago have decided to save their children's umbilical cord blood. Dorne |
| gave birth last spring to a baby boy, Kyle. |
| After a baby is born, there is just a 15-minute window to retrieve the |
| four to six ounces of blood in the umbilical cord. And in that blood are |
| potentially lifesaving stem cells that can be saved for future use. |
| "This is really where, I think, so much of biomedicine is going to be |
| going in the 21st century," says Dr. Andrew Yeager of the University of |
| Pittsburgh. |
| For instance, when stem cells from umbilical cord blood are injected into |
| a person's vein, they migrate to the bone marrow and can create what Dr. |
| Yeager calls a blood factory, replacing diseased blood with healthy blood. |
| According to the National Institutes of Health, stem cells may one day be |
| able repair the body's tissue and muscle and cure everything from spinal |
| cord injuries to Alzheimer's. |
| "It's not just pie-in-the-sky speculation," says Yeager. "There are |
| studies that would suggest that other organ dysfunction - nerve damage, |
| heart damage, brain-cell damage - might actually be fixed." |
| It has the potential to make paralyzed patients walk and make Alzheimer's |
| sufferers remember. |
| That potential is what Dr. Yeager was counting on to cure a young patient |
| named Keone Penn. |
| Keone suffers from a case of sickle cell, a painful genetic blood disease. |
| He was diagnosed when he was 6 months old. He was 5 when his sickle cell |
| caused a stroke. |
| "All I remember is I woke up and my mama was beside me and there was a |
| basket beside me and a teddy bear," he says. "It was very scary, I mean, |
| whew." |
| For six years, Keone and his mother, Leslie Penn, were constantly in and |
| out of an Atlanta hospital to receive transfusions to stave off another |
| potentially deadly stroke. By the time Keone was 11, the transfusions were |
| becoming less effective and he had excruciating pain in his joints and |
| lower back. |
| "The pain is usually so intense that even morphine, Demerol, those |
| heavy-duty medicines don't really touch it," Leslie Penn says. "All you |
| can really do is pray that he'll just go to sleep." |
| Keone says he's tough, but at 15, he looks much younger. Sickle cell |
| stunted his growth - he's just 4 feet, 9 inches, tall - and restricted |
| what he could do. |
| "I was impaired from doing a lot of things that normal kids do, like |
| sports or anything or run," he says. "Couldn't play basketball. Because, |
| you know, some people like roughhousing when they play basketball and they |
| can knock you over and push you and that could really hurt me." |
| The odds were that Keone had, at best, only five years to live. So Yeager |
| decided to take a chance on a new procedure. Never before had stem cells |
| from umbilical cord blood been used to treat sickle cell. |
| "The goal here is that these stem cells, which are in a relatively high |
| proportion in cord blood - higher than they would be in our own bone |
| marrow and definitely higher than in our own circulating blood - could |
| then be injected and would take hold and again, make more of themselves. |
| And make a whole new blood factory." |
| Yeager told the family he wasn't sure the procedure would work. |
| "He just basically said, 'This is just a 50-50 chance and it's up to you |
| all if you want to do it, I can't offer you any guarantees.'" recalls |
| Leslie Penn. |
| Keone Penn remembers how his mother told him: "She came in the room |
| looking very depressed. Pulled the chair up sat beside me in the bed and |
| told me everything. And I almost started to cry. But she was very calm |
| about it. She told me everything, said, 'You got-you may - have five years |
| to live,' you know." |
| Ordinarily, patients with a severe case of sickle cell, like Keone's, |
| would have had a bone-marrow transplant.That's because until recently bone |
| marrow was the only source for stem cells. |
| But bone marrow transplants can be tricky because there must be a precise |
| match between the person donating the bone marrow and the patient |
| receiving it. In Keone's case, no match could be found. |
| Stem cells from umbilical cord blood don't need an exact match. |
| Dr. Yeager and his team found a match that was close enough in a cryogenic |
| tank at the New York Public Blood Bank, which since 1992 has slowly been |
| collecting donations of umbilical cord blood. |
| Over Christmas vacation of 1998, after intensive chemotherapy to destroy |
| Keone's bad blood, he was injected with the stem cells. |
| After a few weeks, something extraordinary happened - the stem cells |
| changed his entire blood system from type O to type B. |
| "That concept there is the one that really blows my mind," says Leslie |
| Penn. "The thought that your whole blood type is changed. The umbilical |
| cord cell's donor, he took on their blood type. |
| A year later, doctors declared that the sickle cells in Keone's body had |
| disappeared. Today, he is considered cured. |
| It was umbilical cord stem cells that cured Keone, not stem cells from |
| human embryos. While the use of embryonic stem cells has generated fierce |
| controversy, umbilical cord stem cells have attracted little attention and |
| no political debate. And now it seems, more and more new parents have |
| decided to bank their hopes on the stem cells in their newborn's cord |
| blood. |
| Moments after Pam Dorne gave birth to a baby Kyle, his cord blood was |
| sealed, packed in dry ice, and given to a courier. Within hours, the |
| package was on a plane bound for Tucson, Arizona, where the largest |
| privately run cord blood bank in the country is located. |
| There, a child's umbilical-cord blood is stored in a cryogenic tank at a |
| temperature of minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit. |
| Dr. David Harris, laboratory director of the Cord Blood Registry, says it |
| takes only a small vial of cord blood to change a person's entire system. |
| So far, Cord Blood Registry has collected about 30,000 samples from |
| families willing to pay a $1,300 flat fee and $95 a year to analyze and |
| privately store their baby's cord blood. The company has taken in over $40 |
| million so far, selling a kind of biological insurance. |
| "Part of the issue when people bank," says Harris, "it is because they |
| have a family history or they work or live in a place where there is a |
| potential for cancer. But part of it is for peace of mind." |
| According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, that peace of mind isn't |
| worth the money. The academy says the chances a family will ever need to |
| use its frozen cord blood are very small. What they say makes more sense |
| is to donate cord blood to a public bank, the kind where Keone Penn got |
| his stem cells. |
| That is something Pam Dorne, an obstetrician, says she understands in her |
| professional life. But her own personal choice was a private bank, she |
| says, for one reason. |
| "If the American Academy of Pediatrics could tell me that none of my |
| children would ever have a problem," she says. "Or that if they had a |
| problem, I would be guaranteed that there would be enough donors and |
| somebody would match them, that would be perfectly reasonable. But I don't |
| think anybody has that crystal ball." |
| What saved Keone Penn's life, Dr. Yeager says, is a public blood bank and |
| the umbilical cord blood from an anonymous donor. |
| "If they wish to pay, that's absolutely fine." He says of patients. "But |
| to look at a larger, greatest good for greatest number, I would contend |
| that a volunteer donation to a public blood bank would make the most |
| sense." |
| Meanwhile, Keone, a pioneer, is doing things he's never done before. |
| "I discovered the other day that I like playing basketball, " Keone says. |
| "I never played basketball, 'cause I've always been disabled to play it |
| and to have fun." |
| Keone, who one day hopes to become a chef, still has some major health |
| problems as a result of infections that occur in most stem-cell |
| transplants. Because of steroids and other medication, he has arthritis, |
| walks with a limp and will need joint replacement in his hips and knee. |
| But the good news is the sickle cell that was killing him is gone. |
| "I love stem cells," he says. "I mean they saved my life. If it weren't |
| for them I wouldn't, you never know, I probably wouldn't be here today." |
| Keone doesn't know where the cord blood came from or who is the owner. He |
| says he would like to know, just so he could say, "Thank You." |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Adult Stem Cells Completely Cure Sickle Cell Patient |
| Source: CBS News; November 28, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Stem cell therapy repairs a heart |
| by Hannah Cleaver and David Derbyshire |
| (Filed: 25/08/2001) |
| DOCTORS have patched up a patient's failing heart using stem cells taken |
| from his bone marrow, it was disclosed yesterday. |
| In the first operation of its kind, bone marrow stem cells were removed from |
| a 46-year-old man's pelvis and injected into arteries near his heart. The |
| cells should have developed into the constituents of blood. Instead, they |
| migrated to areas damaged by a heart attack and turned into healthy muscle |
| cells which began to beat. |
| The operation highlights the potential for adult stem cells as a treatment |
| for many problems, including heart disease, kidney failure or Parkinson's |
| disease. But it will also be seized upon by pro life campaigners who object |
| to plans to use stem cells taken from embryos as a source of tissue for |
| transplant. |
| Prof Bodo Eckehard Strauer carried out the treatment at the Dusseldorf |
| University Cardiac Clinic where he is director. He said: "Ten weeks after |
| the transplantation the size of the damage has reduced by nearly a third and |
| the capacity of the heart itself has clearly improved. |
| "Stem cell therapy could be more successful than all other previous |
| treatments put together. "Even patients with the most seriously damaged |
| hearts can be treated with their own stem cells instead of waiting and |
| hoping on a transplant." |
| Gaynor Dewsnap, spokeswoman for the British Heart Foundation, said the |
| development was exciting. "If this is proved to have worked and can be |
| repeated, then this would be excellent news for heart patients, particularly |
| as it avoids the ethical issues which some people have worries about. |
| "The cells used would have the same DNA as the rest of the body, leading to |
| no risk of rejection. It seems very promising." Stem cells are the body's |
| master cells. They have the ability to turn into a wide variety of other |
| cell types. |
| Those found in embryos, which are at the centre of an ethical row between |
| scientists and pro lifers, are the most flexible and easiest to culture. But |
| more specialised stem cells are also found in adults. Last month a team of |
| British researchers showed for the first time that bone marrow stem cells |
| were capable of turning into kidney cells. |
| The German heart operation was carried out four days after the unnamed man |
| suffered a serious heart attack. He lost a quarter of his heart muscle after |
| the organ was starved of oxygen. The team took stem cells from his pelvis - |
| an abundant source of bone marrow - and injected them into his coronary |
| arteries. |
| Prof Strauer said further tests were needed to confirm the success of the |
| procedure. He has treated six patients, aged between 38 and 67, with their |
| own stem cells since March and said that after a short period they showed |
| similar improvement. |
| Last month doctors attempted another form of stem cell therapy by injecting |
| cells directly into the heart tissue. "Our results should show that it is |
| possible to do this work without the ethically controversial embryonic stem |
| cells," said Prof Strauer. |
| http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$RDCPIMAAAAM5BQFIQMGSF |
| FOAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2001/08/25/wstem25.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/08/25/ixhome.html |
| Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 23:05:22 -0400 |
| From: "Jules Duguay" <dug@idirect.com> |
| To: <cinlife@cin.org> |
| Subject: Stem cell therapy repairs a heart (Filed: 25/08/2001) |
| * * * * * * |
| Researchers Find Adult Stem Cells in Mouse Brains |
| San Francisco, CA -- Researchers say they have found a way to sift stem |
| cells from mouse brains, a feat that promises to speed study of the cells |
| and could lead to drugs to help the brain repair itself. |
| The researchers extracted almost pure adult stem cell samples samples from |
| the lining of brain cavities known as ventricles. That will allow |
| scientists to study the cells to learn how to trigger them to develop into |
| cells a patient needs. |
| "The Holy Grail is to find drugs which can stimulate the stem cells that |
| are already in the brain to produce new nerve cells," said lead author |
| Perry Bartlett. |
| The work is reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. |
| The researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical |
| Research in Melbourne, Australia, used a combination of filtering |
| techniques to produce samples that contain 80 percent neural stem cells. |
| Previously, researchers had achieved only 5 percent. |
| Fred Gage, a stem cell researcher at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, |
| Calif., who was not involved in the study, said the most important finding |
| was the ability to produce relatively pure samples of neural stem cells. |
| "What they've done is for the first time ... identify the source of stem |
| cells. We now have markers and we have techniques to pull them out with," |
| Gage said. |
| The Australian researchers also prompted the neural stem cells to begin |
| forming muscle cells, confirming previous studies. |
| The brain cells are examples of adult stem cells because they were |
| recovered from adult animals. They are different from "embryonic" stem |
| cells, which are taken from embryos. |
| Ronald McKay, a stem cell researcher at the National Institutes of Health, |
| said the new work does not eliminate the need for embryonic stem cell |
| research. "It's still going to take a lot of work to figure out how adult |
| cells can be turned into all the cells we need," McKay said. "This kind of |
| work on the adult cell needs to be greatly extended if we are going to |
| find out how to take an adult cell and get it to do anything we want." |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Researchers Find Adult Stem Cells in Mouse Brains |
| Source: Associated Press; August 15, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Canadian Scientists Find Versatile Adult Stem Cells From Skin |
| Toronoto, CA -- Canadian scientists may have found yet another alternative |
| to embryonic stem cell research that can offer new treatment for |
| neurological conditions. They have isolated stem cells on the skin of |
| adult mice that can grow into brain cells according to a study published |
| on Monday. |
| "The hope is that the adult stem cells will provide an alternative |
| approach to using embryonic stem cells, but that still has to be proven," |
| Karl Fernandes, one of the researchers, told Reuters. |
| The Canadian team found that stem cells isolated in the skin of adult mice |
| can grow into brain cells, fat cells or muscle cells. The research, led by |
| the Montreal Neurological Institute affiliated with McGill University, is |
| seen giving scientists new avenues to pursue in continuing stem cell |
| research. |
| "We believe our discovery is important as we have identified an exciting |
| new stem cell from a noncontroversial source that holds considerable |
| promise for scientific and therapeutic use," said Freda Miller, the lead |
| researcher. |
| The team has started preliminary experiments with human skin to see if |
| transplants of cells would eventually be possible, said Fernandes. |
| "We can isolate a population of cells from human skin, which at first |
| glance appear to be similar to the ones we get from rodents," said |
| Fernandes. He said the team has started "promising" transplants of |
| skin-type cells on rodents, focusing mostly on brain functions. |
| The study, published in the scientific journal "Nature Cell Biology," said |
| patients might be able to use stem cells from their own skin to repair |
| dysfunctions elsewhere in the body, avoiding the complications of organ |
| rejection linked to donor transplants. |
| The study shows that highly versatile adult stem cells may be easy to |
| access. "You could potentially take a small biopsy of skin and harvest the |
| patient's own stem cells, expand them (in a process that allows them to |
| proliferate in a laboratory dish) and then use them to treat that |
| patient," scientist Freda Miller said. |
| Unlike many other adult stem cells that have been studied, the ones Miller |
| worked with proliferated impressively in the laboratory. Being able to |
| generate large numbers of stem cells would be vital to allow for any |
| future transplantation of them into damaged tissue with the aim of |
| regeneration. In Miller's study, the only broad grouping of cells that the |
| mouse skin stem cells did not become was cells from organs such as the |
| liver. "And we're working very hard now to ask if they can become those |
| things as well," she said. |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Canadian Scientists Find Versatile Adult Stem Cells From Skin |
| Source: Reuters; August 13, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Adult Stem Cells Cure Sickle Cell in Mice |
| Washington, DC -- Researchers have cured laboratory mice of sickle cell |
| anemia, the inherited blood disorder that affects more than 70,000 |
| Americans, in an experiment using adult stem cells from bone marrow, genes |
| and a modified HIV virus. |
| Although the treatment is years away from being tested on humans, experts |
| called the experiment a milestone. |
| ``It corrected the sickling problem throughout the bodies of these mice,'' |
| said Philippe Leboulch, a Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts |
| Institute of Technology scientist who led the research team. ``All of the |
| mice were cured permanently.'' |
| Leboulch said additional study is needed before the technique can be tried |
| on humans and the first clinical trial could come in about two years. A |
| report on the study appears Friday in the journal Science. |
| The disease causes intense pain. It damages the liver, lungs and kidneys |
| and can trigger stroke or infections. There is no cure in humans, and |
| treatment consists of combatting the symptoms with antibiotics, blood |
| transfusions and surgery. A drug, called hydroxyurea, helps control some |
| symptoms in adults, but it has not been approved for children. |
| About 1.2 million Americans carry one sickle cell gene. They are said to |
| have the sickle cell trait and are not affected by the disease. A person |
| must inherit two sickle cell genes - one from each parent - to have the |
| disease. A child born to two parents with the sickle cell trait has one |
| chance in four of inheriting the disease. |
| Sickle cell anemia is most common in people of African heritage. It also |
| is found in people of Greek, Indian and Italian origin and can occur in |
| any race. |
| ``Although much more research is needed before human application, this is |
| a significant achievement that brings us closer to human gene therapy for |
| what is a very serious genetic blood disorder,'' said Dr. Claude Lenfant, |
| director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, one of the |
| National Institutes of Health. |
| ``This is an exciting result,'' said Dr. Michel Sadelain of the Memorial |
| Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. ``It is an important milestone |
| in gene therapy.'' |
| Sadelain earlier achieved a similar success in mice by correcting the |
| genetic flaw that causes thalassemia, a blood disorder related to sickle |
| cell anemia. |
| In the new study, researchers used two types of mice that are bred to have |
| a blood disease closely resembling the sickle cell anemia disease in |
| humans. |
| They removed from the mice samples of the bone marrow, which makes blood, |
| and then irradiated the mice to kill the remaining abnormal bone marrow. |
| The researchers mixed with the removed bone marrow a fragment of the HIV |
| virus that had been manipulated to contain a normal red blood cell gene. |
| The virus infected the bone marrow, carrying into the blood-making cells |
| the normal red blood cell gene. The bone marrow was then reinjected into |
| the mice. |
| Once in the animals, the genetically altered bone marrow cells produced |
| normal red blood cells and corrected the sickling disease. |
| After 10 months, the mice were killed and their organs and blood examined. |
| Leboulch said there was no evidence of abnormal blood nor of the organ |
| damage that is common with sickle cell anemia. |
| The gene therapy technique will not be tried in humans, said Leboulch, |
| until the researchers learn how to safely neutralize the abnormal |
| blood-making gene in patients. Radiation was used in the mouse experiment |
| to kill the animal's bone marrow, but this would not be appropriate for |
| human sickle cell disease patients, said Leboulch. |
| Greg Evans of the NHLBI said that research is under way to find a safe way |
| to partially destroy the abnormal bone marrow in patients. The technique |
| would then make room for the genetically corrected bone marrow. |
| Sadelain said that earlier studies showed that the genetically corrected |
| bone marrow is ineffective against the blood disorder unless most of the |
| abnormal bone marrow is neutralized. |
| Both sickle cell anemia and thalassemia are caused by a failure of a gene |
| that helps to make hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries |
| oxygen. |
| In thalassemia, the gene fails to make enough hemoglobin. |
| In sickle cell disease, the gene makes an abnormal hemoglobin that is |
| sticky and stiff. Instead of the soft, doughnut-shaped, normal hemoglobin, |
| the abnormal protein often forms into a distinctive sickle shape with a |
| sharp point. The abnormal hemoglobin tends to clog small vessels, blocking |
| the flow of blood. This starves tissues of oxygen and can cause damage |
| throughout the body. |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Adult Stem Cells Cure Sickle Cell in Mice |
| Source: Associated Press; December 13, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Adult Stem Cells Hold Hope for Autoimmune Patients |
| Chicago, IL -- Adult stem cells extracted from the blood of two Crohn's |
| patients have been used to rebuild their faulty immune systems, the latest |
| success with a technique that is being tested at several U.S. hospitals. |
| While the debate over the use and funding of embryonic stem cells |
| continues, doctors are already using adult stem cells to counteract |
| autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's, multiple sclerosis and lupus. |
| Doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago said Thursday that a |
| 22-year-old female Crohn's patient, whose white blood cells were attacking |
| her digestive system, was doing "phenomenally well" 2-1/2 months after the |
| undergoing the procedure. |
| Doctors were so pleased with her progress that they performed the |
| procedure on a second Crohn's patient, a 16-year-old boy, earlier this |
| week. |
| Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory disease that can affect any part |
| of the gastrointestinal tract, afflicts some 50,000 Americans and is most |
| common in adolescents and young adults. |
| For treating patients, using a person's own stem cells may be preferable |
| to using embryonic stem cells since there is no risk of the body rejecting |
| its own cells. The experimental technique has been used by doctors on |
| people with autoimmune diseases, in which the immune system inexplicably |
| attacks the body's own tissues. |
| Immunologist Richard Burt of Northwestern, who performed the procedure on |
| the Crohn's patients, said early results in both of them were very |
| encouraging. |
| "This is a patient who had bloody, watery diarrhea about 10 times a day |
| for nine years, with a lot of abdominal pain. Since the procedure, she has |
| had no diarrhea, is eating and is in no pain," Burt said of the first |
| patient. |
| "But we have to be very careful. This is experimental, one patient never |
| means anything. We can't say we've cured anybody. Only time will tell. But |
| this is obviously the best thing we could have wished for," he added. |
| Multiple sclerosis patients who underwent a similar procedure at another |
| hospital to rebuild their immune systems with their own stem cells showed |
| progress, Burt said. Though the therapy did not repair existing damage to |
| their nervous systems, it halted the development of new lesions, he said. |
| However, stem cell therapy on lupus patients elsewhere did repair the |
| damage to their organs, Burt said. |
| Robert Craig, a gastroenterologist at Northwestern working with Burt on |
| Crohn's disease, said it took him three years to find suitable patients |
| for this experimental therapy. |
| "They need to be very sick. They have to have failed on other therapies. |
| There aren't that many people who are ill enough to warrant this type of |
| therapy because the therapy itself is life threatening," he said. |
| The process is risky because it involves destroying the patient's |
| defective immune system with chemotherapy and a protein that drives down |
| the number of infection-fighting white blood cells. A growth factor is |
| introduced to stimulate the bone marrow to produce stem cells, which are |
| then harvested from the bloodstream. Finally, the stem cells are injected |
| into a central vein, either in the neck or arm. |
| The whole process, including recovery, takes three weeks. |
| "It scares me," Craig said. "I sweat bullets with these patients. When |
| their white blood count is that low they're very susceptible to |
| infection." |
| Burt, the chief of Northwestern Hospital's division of Immune Therapy and |
| Autoimmune Diseases, began studying the process of regenerating the immune |
| systems of animal test subjects more than a decade ago. |
| For instance, scientists have manipulated blood stem cells from adult mice |
| to grow into tissue and that bone marrow stem cells can be made to |
| regenerate heart muscle. |
| Whether the process will work on human beings is not known, he said. |
| "Can we use blood stem cells for tissue genesis to repair organs? If we |
| can get a person's adult stem cells to do that from their blood then this |
| whole problem of embryonic stem cells in terms of the ethical problem is |
| not an issue," he said. |
| "If you're able to use your own stem cells, then this debate about |
| embryonic stem cells in not only moot, it's economically much better to |
| use your own because you don't have to have the extensive bank and ... |
| trying to see if you have a match, and all the quality control of |
| preserving the tissue. It's not just ethically moot, it's practically |
| moot." |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Adult Stem Cells Hold Hope for Autoimmune Patients |
| Source: Reuters; August 11, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| British Study Says Adult Stem Cells Can Change to Kidney Cells |
| London, England -- Stem cells from bone marrow can change into kidney |
| cells and may provide a new method to treat kidney disease that could |
| reduce the need for transplants, British scientists said on Wednesday. |
| Stem cells are master cells in the body that can transform into most other |
| cell types. Researchers at Britain's Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) |
| showed that kidney cells can be derived from stem cells in bone marrow. |
| "Until now people weren't entirely sure how the kidney took care of its |
| normal wear and tear. People assumed that it was all done within the |
| kidney. What we've shown is that cells from outside the kidney are able to |
| contribute to the repair process," molecular biologist Dr Richard Poulsom |
| said in a telephone interview. |
| The finding opens up the possibility of mobilising a patient's own bone |
| marrow stem cells to repair or replace kidney cells destroyed through |
| disease or injury. It could also pave the way for using bone marrow stem |
| cells containing genes resistant to cancer or other diseases to protect |
| the kidney from further damage. |
| "In people whose kidneys are failing, we might be able to generate more |
| functional kidney cells. That is something that has not been known |
| before," Poulsom added. |
| Scientists believe stem cells could revolutionise medicine and provide new |
| therapies for diseases like Alzheimer's and diabetes and severe injuries. |
| Poulsom and his colleagues studied adult bone marrow stem cells in mice |
| and humans. Their research is published in the Journal of Pathology Online |
| (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0022-3417/). |
| The scientists found kidney cells derived from donated male bone marrow in |
| female mice whose own bone marrow had been destroyed by radiation. |
| In the human studies, biopsies from male kidney transplant patients who |
| had received a kidney donated by a woman showed male kidney cells among |
| the female cells. The man's bone marrow cells had transformed into kidney |
| tissue. |
| "They are cells that could have only have come from the man, migrated |
| around and set up shop and differentiated into functional kidney cells," |
| said Poulsom. |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: British Study Says Adult Stem Cells Can Change to Kidney Cells |
| Source: Reuters; July 24, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Harvard Researcher: Adult Stem Cells May Eliminate Need Embryonic Ones |
| Boston, MA -- The permanent reversal of Type 1 diabetes in mice may end |
| the wrenching debate over harvesting stem cells from the unborn to treat |
| adult diseases. Researchers at Harvard Medical School killed cells |
| responsible for the diabetes, then the animals' adult stem cells took over |
| and regenerated missing cells needed to produce insulin and eliminate the |
| disease. |
| "It should be possible to use the same method to reverse Type 1 diabetes |
| in humans," says Denise Faustman, the associate professor of medicine who |
| leads the research. Setting up a trial for patients has already begun at |
| Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. |
| Type 1 diabetes is an "autoimmune" disease in which the body's blood cells |
| attack its own organs and tissues. Such maladies include rheumatoid |
| arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, and more than 50 other ailments. |
| Faustman believes that many of them may be similarly cured by poisoning |
| the offending cells and letting adult stem cells regrow replacement |
| organs. |
| "Once the disease is out of the way, adult stem cells regenerate normal |
| organs and tissues," Faustman says. "What is more, we should be able to |
| replace damaged organs and tissues by using adult stem cells, thus |
| eliminating, at least temporarily, the need to harvest and transplant stem |
| cells from embryos and fetuses. Of course, it will take years before we |
| know for sure if we can do this in humans." |
| Stem cells from embryos have the ability to grow into all other types of |
| cells. They may be able to mature into brain cells to repair damage from |
| strokes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases; into heart cells to heal |
| the ravages of heart attacks; and into organs to replace those ruined by |
| cancer. But problems exist in getting such cells to mature into a specific |
| type of cell and to home in on a specific place. There's also the problem |
| of stopping them from growing once the repair is made. Uncontrolled growth |
| may lead to tumors. |
| The existence of adult stem cells raises the question of why the body |
| doesn't use them on a regular basis to heal itself. It may be because |
| adult stem-cell populations are small and need some sort of outside |
| stimulation. There's recent evidence that additional adult cells injected |
| into mice start to repair heart attack and stroke damage. |
| In the diabetes experiments, cells that attack insulin-producing islet |
| cells in the pancreas were destroyed. The researchers intended to follow |
| up the killings with transplants of healthy islet cells but, to their |
| surprise, this turned out to be unnecessary because adult stem cells took |
| over the work. |
| "It was a miracle that we didn't expect," Faustman comments. |
| An estimated 16 million people have diabetes in the United States. About |
| 10 percent of these patients suffer from Type 1, which used to be called |
| juvenile diabetes because it commonly appears between ages 10 and 16. Type |
| 1 diabetics cannot make insulin to convert blood sugars into energy, so |
| they must inject themselves daily with the hormone to survive. New cases |
| have tripled in the United States in the past 50 years. |
| Type 2, formerly called adult-onset diabetes, usually occurs gradually |
| after age 40, and often can be managed by diet and exercise. The two types |
| together are the leading cause of kidney failure, adult blindness, and |
| limb amputation, as well as major risk factors for heart disease, strokes, |
| and birth defects. |
| Faustman isn't sure if her technique will work with Type 2 diabetes. "We |
| really don't know if replacing the islet cells will do the job," she says. |
| "Some experts think that the resistance to insulin comes from outside the |
| pancreas. There's also the possibility that Type 2 diabetics used up their |
| stem cells at a faster rate," which decreases their repair capacity. |
| The Harvard-Massachusetts General Hospital team believes they can move |
| from mice to humans because the same defective pathways exist in both |
| species. "We always begin our projects with human cells," Faustman |
| explains. "When we observe something important but can't experiment with |
| patients, we go to mice." |
| The defective pathway in both humans and mice has been known for years. |
| It's been well-studied in cancer and AIDS research, but everyone missed |
| its connection to autoimmune disease until Faustman's lab hit upon it. |
| The defect involves a genetic mutation that causes white blood cells to |
| attack the insulin-producing cells. It's as if the body rejects part of |
| itself because it cannot tell the difference between normal cells and |
| foreign invaders like viruses or bacteria. Faustman's team found they |
| could destroy the offending cells with drugs. |
| When given to the mice, a compound known as CFA boosted the production of |
| another substance known as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF). Years ago, |
| researchers tested TNF as a cancer drug, then as an AIDS treatment, but |
| have abandoned it since. |
| TNF wiped out cells that couldn't tell self from nonself, but this was |
| believed to be only a temporary respite. Everyone thought it could only |
| last until the body made new white blood cells with the same defect. To |
| counter this inevitability, they planned another treatment to re-educate |
| the new cells so they would not attack insulin-making tissues in the |
| pancreas. |
| Once the diseased cells were out of the way, however, adult stem cells |
| took over and grew new islets in 40 days. |
| "At first we thought we had failed," Faustman recalls. She and her |
| colleagues planned to follow up by transplanting healthy islet cells grown |
| in their laboratory. "But the biological indicators we saw were not what |
| we wanted for such transplants. Then we gradually realized that there were |
| now islet cells where none had existed 40 days before. It was astonishing! |
| We had reversed the disease without the need for transplants." |
| "These results are remarkable and surprising," comments David M. Nathan, |
| the Harvard professor of medicine who will attempt to do the same |
| experiments with humans at Massachusetts General Hospital. "We need |
| careful studies to find out if we can delete the offending blood cells in |
| humans in the same way that it was done in mice. Adult stem cells in these |
| mice were apparently inactive or suppressed until cells that attacked the |
| pancreas were removed. We don't know yet if human adult stem cells can |
| accomplish the same regeneration. If they can, and it will take years to |
| find out, that opens the way to treating other autoimmune diseases like |
| multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis." |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Harvard Researcher: Adult Stem Cells May Eliminate Need Embryonic Ones |
| Source: Hrvard University Gazette; July 19, 2001 |
| * * * * * * * * |
| Hard Cell -- Science Does Better With Adult Stem Cells |
| by Richard Miniter |
| [Pro-Life Infonet Note: Mr. Miniter is an editorial page writer for The |
| Wall Street Journal Europe. His column appears Fridays.] |
| When President Bush meets the pope today, one of the issues they're sure |
| to discuss is the controversy over embryonic stem-cell research. Mr. Bush |
| is reportedly struggling with the decision of whether to accept a |
| last-minute Clinton decision that would effectively lift the ban on |
| federal funding of such research. During his campaign, Mr. Bush promised |
| to uphold the ban. |
| Proponents of such research, and the media, frame the issue as one of |
| religion vs. science, arguing that if the president keeps his promise, he |
| will set back new medical advances and sacrifice potential cures for |
| diseases like Parkinson's. |
| But science isn't on their side, and Mr. Bush doesn't have to choose |
| between convictions and cures. While federal funding for embryo research |
| is banned, the research itself is not. The private sector lavishly funds |
| research on stem cells drawn from both embryos and adults. Yet research on |
| embryonic stem cells is no more developed than the embryos themselves -- |
| while research on adult stem cells is close to delivering miraculous |
| treatments. |
| Consider these recent advances: |
| * Surgeons in Taiwan restored vision to patients with severe eye damage by |
| using stem cells from the patients' own eyes. Their vision improved from |
| 20/112 to 20/45, according to results published in the New England Journal |
| of Medicine. |
| * British scientists found that adult stem cells in bone marrow can turn |
| into liver tissue, a first step toward developing new treatments for liver |
| damage. Their work was reported in the journal Nature. |
| * Two recent studies show that adult stem cells in bone marrow |
| transplanted into the brain of mice can develop into neurons and have been |
| reprogrammed into healthy brain cells in lab rats. Previous research had |
| shown this transformation was possible in cultured cells, but these |
| studies, one of which was published in the journal Science, show it can |
| happen in living animals. |
| * Scientists found that adult stem cells in bone marrow injected into a |
| damaged mouse heart could become functional heart muscle cells, and that |
| these new cells partially restored the heart's pumping ability. One of the |
| scientists predicted that after successful follow-up studies, human |
| clinical trials could start in three years. The results were published in |
| Nature. |
| These findings were all reported within the past year. And they are only a |
| few examples of the breathtaking medical breakthroughs occurring after |
| years of research on adult stem cells -- stroke victims' brains repaired |
| with adult stem cells becoming fully functional neurons connecting with |
| existing brain cells, new cartilage grown to repair damaged knees. |
| We are on the verge of astounding human applications using adult stem |
| cells. Embryonic stem cells, by contrast, have yet to save a single life. |
| Stem cells are unspecialized cells that have the ability to transform |
| themselves, in varying degrees, into many other types of cells. Thus a |
| single stem cell could become a skin cell, a hair cell, a liver cell and |
| so on. All of us were once stem cells, and our bodies still hold many |
| forms of these cells. |
| It appears that every organ and tissue in the body has undifferentiated |
| stem cells. These cells may exist to repair organs when they are |
| traumatized or damaged, but scientists are still puzzled by how they work |
| and what exactly they are supposed to do. If scientists can improve this |
| natural repair process with adult stem cells, people may be able to grow |
| new livers from stem cells extracted from their own liver. Another source |
| of adult stem cells is body fat. And umbilical cords provide a large |
| supply of stem cells -- without political or moral controversy. |
| A National Institutes of Health report, released just in time for last |
| week's congressional hearings, argues that stem cells from embryos are |
| better. But on closer examination, the evidence is shaky and speculative, |
| while the unique drawbacks of embryo stem cells are becoming clearer. |
| The case for the superiority of embryo stem cells rests on three pillars: |
| They are easier to harvest, there are more stem cells in embryos than in |
| adults, and they can be more easily changed into every organ and tissue in |
| the body. |
| The first two claims are misleading. Harvesting is a nonproblem. |
| Scientists have been extracting some types of human adult stem cells for |
| almost a decade, while human embryo stem cells weren't successfully |
| isolated until 1998. Several biotech companies have developed proprietary |
| methods to make adult-cell isolation and extraction even easier. "We've |
| been here in the background while all the noise was going on, and there's |
| been a pressure on us to provide a solution," John Wong, CEO of MorphoGen |
| Pharmaceuticals, told BioWorld Today last August. "We believe we've |
| provided that solution. The technology has just moved beyond stem cells |
| from embryonic tissue." |
| While it's true that embryos have a higher ratio of stem to nonstem cells, |
| that doesn't mean much. Scientists have discovered stem cells in adults in |
| virtually every major organ, including the brain and body, and researchers |
| last year identified conditions that would allow for the multiplication of |
| adult stem cells in culture by a billion-fold in a few weeks. |
| The real argument for using stem cells from embryos is they are more |
| "plastic" -- that is, they are easier to change into other types of cells. |
| This is a hard claim to evaluate because, as last week's NIH report notes, |
| "the field of stem-cell biology is advancing at an incredible pace with |
| new discoveries being reported in the scientific literature on a weekly |
| basis." Any distinguishing advantage from using embryo stem cells today |
| may already have been overtaken by a lab that is waiting for its results |
| to be published. |
| Indeed, scientists have already proved adept at turning adult stem cells |
| into a variety of seemingly unrelated cells. Jonas Frisen, a scientist |
| working at NeuroNova AB, a Stockholm-based biotech firm, published some |
| exciting work in one of the world's leading scientific journals, Science, |
| in June 2000. "We have demonstrated that the potency of these [adult stem] |
| cells was far greater than expected and what seemed to be a fairly |
| restricted cell type can give rise to many different types of cells. These |
| recent findings may turn some previous concepts upside down," Dr. Frisen |
| said in a press release. Already, human adult stem cells have been |
| transformed into cartilage, muscle, bone, cardiac tissues, neural cells, |
| liver tissues and blood vessels. Research with animal adult stem cells |
| indicate the ability to transform them into kidney, heart, lung, intestine |
| and nervous-system tissues. |
| While adult stem cells may never be as completely "plastic" as embryo stem |
| cells they will almost certainly be plastic enough for all practical |
| applications. "These adult tissues don't appear to be as restricted in |
| their fate as we thought they were," Dennis Steindler, a professor of |
| neuroscience and neurosurgery at the University of Tennessee-Memphis, told |
| Blood Weekly magazine in May. "In some ways they may not have the same |
| potential as embryonic cells, but once we figure out their molecular |
| genetics, we should be able to coax them into becoming almost anything we |
| want them to be." |
| Diane Krause of the Yale School of Medicine -- a supporter of embryonic |
| stem-cell research -- says she was "surprised" by her own research on |
| adult stem cells. "It went against our dogma," Dr. Krause says. Stem cells |
| found in the liver were believed to be limited to making liver tissue, |
| stem cells in the skin more skin and so on. "But at least for stem cells |
| found in bone marrow, that is not true." Scientists, who previously |
| underestimated the potential of adult stem cells, are "searching for a new |
| paradigm," she adds. |
| What's more, new research suggests that embryonic stem cells may be a |
| little too plastic. "The emerging truth in the lab is that pluripotent |
| [embryonic] stem cells are hard to rein in," University of Pennsylvania |
| bioethicist Glenn McGee told MIT's Technology Review. "The potential that |
| they would explode into a cancerous mass after a stem-cell transplant |
| might turn out to be the Pandora's box of stem-cell research." In a recent |
| Weekly Standard article, author Wesley J. Smith, who opposes embryonic |
| stem-cell research on moral grounds, cites a chilling report from China in |
| a study in the May 1996 edition of Neurology, the official journal of the |
| American Academy of Neurology, in which implanted embryonic and fetal stem |
| cells became bone, skin and hair cells -- inside a test subject's brain. |
| He died. |
| Then there is the problem of rejection. Transplant patients know that they |
| must take antirejection drugs for years and, in some cases, for life. New |
| tissues developed from embryonic stem cells may require a long-term |
| regimen of drugs to suppress the body's immune system. These drugs have |
| side effects, and a suppressed immune systems can increase the risk of |
| infection. This is not a problem of adult stem cells because they can be |
| drawn from the patient's own body. |
| Adult stem cells appear to be easier to control than embryonic cells, are |
| closer to commercial application, and have a history of proven benefits -- |
| including bone-marrow applications. It's easier to transform, say, a |
| pancreatic adult stem cell into pancreatic tissue than to turn an |
| embryonic stem cell into pancreatic tissue. "It is inherently a shorter |
| biological step to make a beta cell from a duct [adult stem] cell than it |
| is from other possible cells, such as embryonic stem cells," according to |
| the British Medical Journal. Human adult pancreatic stem cells have |
| already been grown in culture and differentiated into insulin-producing |
| cells. |
| Adult stem cells are also being used in human clinical trials and |
| applications to treat multiple sclerosis, leukemia, liver disease, cardiac |
| damage, brain tumors, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, arthritis, lupus and |
| other conditions. French physicians used a patient's own adult muscle stem |
| cells to treat heart disease, with promising results. |
| Little wonder, then, that the private sector is focusing almost |
| exclusively on adult stem-cell research. Of the 15 U.S. biotech companies |
| solely devoted to developing cures using stem cells, only two focus on |
| embryos. "While the embryonic cells are rumored to have broad potential, |
| so far only adult stem cells have demonstrated wide uses," writes Scott |
| Gottlieb, a physician and staff writer for the British Medical Journal, in |
| The American Spectator. |
| In the race to cure Parkinson's disease, cancer and other age-old |
| scourges, the private sector is more than a few laps ahead. And perhaps a |
| dozen private-sector projects are within a few years of human trials. |
| StemCells Inc. is using adult stem-cell research to develop methods for |
| regenerating damaged central nervous systems and restoring function to |
| kidneys and livers. Baltimore-based Osiris Therapeutic Inc. has already |
| developed technology for isolating adult stem cells, found adult stem |
| cells in the body's connective tissues and conducted a clinical trial of |
| adult stem-cell infusion for breast cancer patients who'd had |
| chemotherapy. "The practical use of adult stem cells is not 10- to 15 |
| years away but well along in the commercialization process," Osiris |
| president James Burns told Transplant News in March 1999. "We believe that |
| adult stem cells will become a routine treatment for cancer, immune |
| disorders, orthopedic injuries, transplant medicine, congestive heart |
| failure and degenerative diseases." |
| By contrast embryo stem-cell research is at the drawing-board stage -- not |
| for lack of funds but for lack of promising research to finance. Venture |
| capitalists have no agenda beyond making money; if they see embryo |
| projects that are likely to bear fruit over the next five to seven years |
| -- the usual VC time horizon -- they will fund them. |
| That the market is speaking so loudly against embryo stem-cell research |
| probably explains why embryo researchers are so eager to reverse the ban |
| on government funding. But medical science will continue to advance even |
| if Mr. Bush keeps his word. |
| Whatever the president decides, though, the NIH should put more funds into |
| adult stem-cell research. That would give the most promising research a |
| big push -- and isn't that what's most important? |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Hard Cell: Science Does Better With Adult Stem Cells |
| Source: Wall St. Journal; July 23, 2001 |
| * * * * * * * * |
| Nat Henthoff: Adult Stem Cell Research Deserves Support |
| [Pro-Life Infonet Note: Nat Henthoff is widely respected as a leading |
| pro-life liberal Democrat voice. He writes regularly for the Village Voice |
| and a weekly column for the Washington Times.] |
| Not even the national debates about abortion or the patients bill of |
| rights equal in intensity -- and in future impact -- the controversy as to |
| whether there should be full-scale federal funding of embryonic stem cell |
| research, which appears to have great promise for remarkable therapy for |
| especially serious diseases. These embryonic stem cells can turn into any |
| kind of cell or tissue in the body. |
| Such dread conditions as Alzheimer's, strokes or muscular dystrophy might, |
| in time, be treated by these embryonic stem cells if enough federal |
| research funds will be committed for this research. |
| What has caused, however, intense controversy about this use of human |
| embryos -- even those extra embryos frozen in fertility clinics and likely |
| to be destroyed -- is illustrated by this definition of an embryo from the |
| 1989 edition of the "American Medical Association Encyclopedia of |
| Medicine" -- "From the time of conception until the eighth week, the |
| developing baby is known as an embryo." |
| Such technical scientific names as blastocyst (the embryo four days after |
| fertilization) are not emphasized in that widely known medical reference |
| book's definition. The word, "baby," is at the heart of this debate. |
| >From the very beginning of human life -- as Professor Dianne Irving has |
| written in "When Do Humans Beings Begin?" in the International Journal of |
| Sociology and Social Policy (1999): "This new human being -- the |
| single-cell human zygote -- is biologically an individual, a living |
| organism -- an individual member of the human species." |
| Or, as Georgetown University bioethicist Patricia King, who is in favor of |
| abortion rights, told the New York Times: "I think the early embryo is not |
| nothing. I don't think of it as just tissue." |
| In 1996, the National Advisory Bioethics Commission recommended that |
| federal funds be used for embryonic stem cell research, but the commission |
| said clearly that federal funding is "justifiable only if no less morally |
| problematic alternatives are available for advancing the research." |
| Now, as pressure increases -- even from such pro-life advocates as Sen. |
| Orrin Hatch -- there is increasing evidence of an alternative that would |
| not require the use of human embryos for this research. On PBS's "Jim |
| Lehrer News Hour," David Prentice, a professor of Life Sciences at Indiana |
| State University and a founding member of Do No Harm, The Coalition of |
| Americans for Research Ethics, reported that scientific evidence does |
| indicate that adult stem cells are a viable alternative. |
| "They're actually being used now," he said, "to treat human patients for |
| new corneas for restoring sight to the blind. In the animal models and |
| actually the adults themselves, I believe they have shown more success |
| than in any of the embryonic cells -- reversing diabetes in mice, treating |
| Parkinson's spinal cord injury, repairing heart damage. So I do think we |
| have a less morally problematic alternative here." |
| As for the claim that discarded frozen embryos used in research would have |
| otherwise been destroyed, Mr. Prentice noted that "there are embryo |
| adoption options -- the Snowflake program, for example, in California, and |
| others." |
| And in a recent letter to President Bush, Rep. Chris Smith and 13 other |
| House members -- as reported in the Wall Street Journal -- asked the |
| president to meet with three young children that had been "kept in |
| storage, as frozen embryos, until they were adopted by infertile couples." |
| Moreover, as The Washington Post reported, research for an article in the |
| prestigious journal Science showed that "embryonic stem cells are |
| surprisingly unstable, at least in mice. If the same is true for human |
| embryonic stem cells, researchers said, then scientists may face |
| unexpected challenges as they try to turn the controversial cells into |
| treatments for various degenerative conditions." Part of that finding was |
| deleted from the article in Science at the last minute, said The |
| Washington Post, to not give ammunition to opponents of embryonic stem |
| cell research. |
| Also, the widely respected journal Cell notes: "Several recent reports |
| suggest that there is far more plasticity than previously believed in the |
| developmental potential of many different adult cell types." Adult bone |
| marrow cells, for example, "have tremendous differentiative capacity" as |
| they can turn into "cells of the liver, lung," and other parts of the |
| body. |
| Both scientific and ethical priorities require federal funding of adult |
| stem cell research that has such potential for the lives of all of us. |
| From: The Pro-Life Infonet <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Reply-To: Steven Ertelt <infonet@prolifeinfo.org> |
| Subject: Nat Henthoff: Adult Stem Cell Research Deserves Support |
| Source: Washington Times; July 23, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Source: Associated Press, MSNBC; March 7, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |
| Source: Reuters; September 19, 2000 |
| precious gift of human life from fertilization to natural death. |
| Source: Right to Life of Michigan; July 27, 2001 |
| * * * * * * |