First-Ever Patient Treated In Stem Cell Study

Groundbreaking news! For the first time ever in the United States, a patient has been treated with embryonic stem cells. It’s part of the first study authorized by the Food and Drug Administration to test this controversial therapy. (Experimental stem cell treatments have already taken place in China.)

Millions of embryonic stem cells were injected into a patient who was partially paralyzed by a spinal cord injury, according to an announcement this morning by the Geron Corporation of Menlo Park, California, which is sponsoring this study. Here’s a link to the announcement. The patient was treated at the Shepherd Center, a hospital in Atlanta that specializes in spinal cord and brain injuries.

Two Million Stem Cells Injected

In the treatment, scientists injected about 2 million “oligodendrocyte progenitor cells,” created from embryonic stem cells, in the hopes that the cells will form a restorative coating around the damaged spinal cord.

Room For Hope

Supporters of these privately funded, government-approved tests are confident that research has been thorough. Indeed the Food and Drug Administration has demanded extensive experiments to provide evidence that the cells are safe enough to test in people and that they hold great promise.

But Some Are Concerned

But many scientists are worried. “There’s a lot of angst around these trials,” said Evan Y. Snyder, director of the stem cell program at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in San Diego. “There’s going to be this perception that if the cells do not perform well, the entire field will be illegitimate.” And some researchers cite the case of Jess Gelsinger, whose 1999 death from a gene therapy experiment set the field back years.

Still, this study marks a milestone in this research, considered potentially one of the most promising developments in medical research in decades.

Medical Milestone

As Ann Pietrangelo reported here less than two weeks ago, a federal appeals court recently ruled that federal funding of embryonic stem cell research could continue for the time being. This decision was in response to an earlier cutoff of federal funding for this research, but it is a temporary action, and the final outcome is still in doubt.

This study is controversial, but it is also bringing hope to many.

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David G.

9:40AM PDT on Oct 17, 2011

REGENERATING THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM
I exceeded the amount of space for commenting so if you want to see the rest of my comment you can find it here: repairstemcell.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/regenerating-the-central-nervous-system/

October 17
send a green star

9:32AM PDT on Oct 17, 2011

Sorry Ritam, your information is about 20-30 years dated. First off, the sense of smell is neurological AND constantly regenerating after every cold, inhalation of smoke, etc. Secondly, our bodies do have regeneration capabilities and they are very powerful in infants and then we lose that capability. An infant

Ritam C.

8:48AM PDT on Oct 17, 2011

Spinal cord is a component of Central nervous system. Mammalian central nervous system cannot regenerate after any type of injury or damage but in case of teleost such as Zebra fish their nervous system can regenerate after any transection or hemisection at spinal cord. So how can in this case CNS regeneration happens?

10:49PM PDT on Oct 16, 2011

ADULT STEM CELL TREATMENTS FOR SPINAL CORD INJURY
http://tinyurl.com/SCIvsASC

http://repairstemcell.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/spinal-cord-injury-and-repair-stem-cell-treatments/

October 16
send a green star

alexander m.

12:45PM PST on Feb 21, 2011

key wors here "i think" i think that god would not give us the thought to jump this far my wife was against this and i asked her fine what if you got in to a wreck and got injured would you not want it done ofcourse she said "no i respect life" and then i stoped and asked what if are child were epileptic and chances of death were high and the doctors came up and said we can do stemcell treatments and he will be fine well she stood there and looked at me with anger and said " under those circumstances yes i would do stem cell " so it shows that every one will change there minds if given the right chances i say that everone can take a hard look around and tell me if they just because of there health being ok do they have a right to speak i say only let those who have such problems speak not the old fat rich man not the middle aged house wife not the young college student but the large amount of people that would benefit from this

February 21
send a green star

Hannah H.

1:49PM PST on Dec 21, 2010

I don't get how it works...

December 21
send a green star

Rebecca T.

8:43AM PST on Nov 16, 2010

Thank you for that educated, beautifully articulated string of comments, Grischa.

November 16
send a green star

Grischa G.

10:53PM PST on Nov 15, 2010

(continuation of comment below)

later on, respectively.

Now for our treatment we draw the cells from the part which will later on form the fetus's head; we can be sure, that 100% of these cells are non-blood-forming and in addition these cells are very easily to be differentiated into neurons, as this would be their natural course of differentiation.

Again Math: 20 Mio cells, all of which are non-blood-forming. Further more going through the difficulties of differentiation and treatment about 80% of these cells will form into neurons, ergo about 16 mio cells.

This is the main reason why Adult Stem Cells are just not applicable for many conditions.

As an end note: just one thing to Charles Webb:

Abortions do happen separately of stem cell treatment, and right now all of these aborted cells in America are just wasted and thrown away, even though they could be used to save and improve thousands of lives.

I am not an American, so i might be a little biased, but if your government would just take 1% of what they are spending on their military and divert it into stem cell research, America could become the world leader in this new technology within a decade. It seems to be very unfortunate that it is easier to start wars, than to actually safe lives..

November 15
send a green star

10:52PM PST on Nov 15, 2010

(continuation of comment below)

able to differentiate only about 30 % of those cells into neurons, which are needed for example for the treatment of spinal cord trauma.

So, to do the math: Lets say we start with 20 Mio. stem cells, 19,6 Mio of those are blood-forming and can not be used for treatment. That leaves us with 400.000. If we are lucky we will be able to form about 130.000 of those into neurons, but during the course of treatment, even with a very high knowledge and advanced medication and technologies (which any center that would consider adult stem cells to treat the central nervous system most certainly does not possess) some of these cells will die, leaving us maybe with about 100.000 cells in the end. In an environment which is build out of billions and billions of cells, these 100.000 will most certainly not make any impact.

At the center where I work, we use so called "nervous stem cells" for the treatment within the central nervous system. These stem cells are won from fetal sources, to be more specific, from a fetus which about 3 weeks old. At this point, it can not be compared to a living human being, there is no body structure to be seen as there is no brain yet, of course there are also no brain waves or any awareness of the fetus. At this point the fetus is just a mass of different stem cells; just progressed far enough that you are able to see two connected "blobs", a bigger one and a smaller one, which will form into the fetus's head and body