Our goal is to develop a cellular strategy for repairing the damage seen in children's myelin disease, Multiple Sclerosis and other neurological diseases.

 
Rocky Mountain News: - Craig front-runner for stem cell work

Patients at Craig, a rehabilitation and research hospital, would receive human stem cells for the purpose of reconnecting damaged spinal tissue. Craig is working in tandem with the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, which teamed with Craig's Dr. Scott Falci five years ago to perform the world's first embryonic spinal cord transplant.

The goal that time wasn't to restore movement to paralyzed people, but to prevent deterioration of their conditions.

"Our goal was to fill the cavities and cysts with fetal spinal cord tissue," Falci said. The tissue, from aborted fetuses, stabilized the spinal cords and showed no signs of rejection.

Since then, stem cells -- primitive cells from embryos, fetuses or fertilized eggs -- have emerged as the hope for regenerating tissue.

Craig's relationship with Sweden proved fortuitous last year when President Bush announced that only existing stem cell lines could be used for federally funded medical research, like the work planned at Craig.

About 40 percent of all existing stem cell lines are in Sweden, making the Karolinska Institute, Sweden's largest medical research center, among the best places in the world to do such research.


posted by Canadian Myelin Research Initiative at 11:52 PM

 
Yahoo! News - Stem Cell Therapy May Help Stall MS

"These patients had been rapidly deteriorating, so to get them to a point where they are stabilized is great progress," Kraft said.
However, at least three patients also suffered serious infections and fevers related to the suppression of their immune systems, including one patient who died several weeks later from a virus. Within 17 months of the treatment, a few patients showed some new MS symptoms, Kraft said.

posted by Canadian Myelin Research Initiative at 3:37 PM

 
BBC News | HEALTH | Stem cells therapy 'may grow tissue'

Scientists have developed a process using adult stem cells which could be used to grow replacement tissue for use in reconstructive surgery.
The US team took small deposits of fat from behind the kneecap and "reprogrammed" them into functioning cartilage, bone and fat cells.
posted by Charles Tupper Jr at 2:09 AM

 
ScienceDaily Magazine -- Stem Cell Transplants May Be Effective For Multiple Sclerosis Patients

For the study, 26 people with severe MS underwent this treatment, which is called autologous stem cell transplantation. Their results were followed for an average of 14.2 months. Conventional treatments had previously been unsuccessful for all of the patients, either because they had no improvement or were not able to tolerate the side effects.

Fifteen of the patients had tried multiple treatments with no success. After the stem cell transplant, 20 patients were stable, with no change in their amount of disability. Six patients showed some degree of mild improvement in some measures, Kraft said.


posted by Charles Tupper Jr at 2:07 AM