In a breakthrough that will one day supply entire organs for transplants, British scientists have grown the world’s first artificial liver from stem cells.

The technique will be developed to ultimately create a full-size functioning liver. The liver that was grown, dubbed the “mini-liver”, is currently the size of a one pence piece.

The tissue was created from blood taken from babies’ umbilical cords just a few minutes after birth and the Newcastle University researchers called it a “Eureka moment”.

Preventing disasters such as the recent “Elephant Man” drug trial is a possibility since the mini organ can be used to test new drugs. Animal experiments would also be reduced by using the lab-grown liver tissue.

Repairing livers damaged by disease, injury, alcohol abuse, and paracetamol overdose could be possible within the next 5 years.

Entire organ transplants could take place using organs grown in a lab in only 15 years.

Hundreds of Britons are in desperate need of a new liver each year; the breakthrough provides renewed hope for the future.

72 people died waiting for a suitable donor in 2004. And 336 patients are currently waiting for a liver transplant.

The liver tissue is created from stem cells – blank cells capable of developing into different types of tissue – found in blood from the umbilical cord.

The stem cells were successfully separated from the blood removed from the umbilical cord minutes after birth by the Newcastle scientists working in partnership with US experts.

The stem cells were placed inside a piece of electrical equipment developed by NASA to mimic the effects of weightlessness, called a “bioreactor”. The cells multiplied more quickly than usual because they were free from the force of gravity.

The cells were then coaxed into becoming liver tissue using various hormones and chemicals.

So far, tiny pieces of tissue, less than an inch in diameter have been created.

Sections of tissue, large enough for transplant into sick patients will eventually be possible given some time.

The tissue could be used to test new drugs within the next two years say the Newcastle scientists. Prior to animal and human trials, the current method of testing drugs is conducted within a test tube.

However, the testing procedure is not without risk. Six healthy volunteers were left fighting for their lives during Northwick Park drug trials earlier this year.

Before new drugs are given to humans, lab-grown human tissue could be used to determine if there are any flaws in the formula that need to be corrected.

“We take the stem cells from the umbilical cord blood and make small mini-livers,” said Colin, a professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University.

“We then give them to pharmaceutical companies and they can use them to test new drugs on.

“It could prevent the situation that happened earlier this year when those six patients had a massive reaction to the drugs they were testing.”

The number of animal experiments could also be reduced with the use of mini-livers.

The artificial liver could be used to directly benefit people’s health within 5 years.

In much the same way a dialysis machine is used to treat kidney failure, the researchers envision sections of artificial liver being used to keep patients needing liver transplants alive.

The liver’s remarkable ability to quickly regenerate itself would be taken advantage of with this technique.

All of the functions that are usually carried out by a patient’s own liver would be taken over by an artificial liver that the patient would be hooked up to.

The patients own liver would be afforded enough resting time to regenerate and repair any damage while the artificial liver would do the work during several “dialysis” sessions a day over a period of several months.

The search for a suitable donor for transplant could also be extended by prolonging the health of the individual patient.

For those whose livers have been damaged beyond repair, it is hoped that it will be possible to create sections of liver suitable for transplant within the next 15 years.

This procedure would eliminate the need for an entire liver transplant in many cases.

Whole livers created in a lab for transplant use would come several years later.

The Newcastle team is the first to create sizeable sections of tissue from stem cells from the umbilical cord. Other researchers have created liver cells from embryonic stem cells.

However, the latter process leads to the death of the embryo. This makes the Newcastle team’s breakthrough incredibly appealing given that it will be ethically acceptable.

The Newcastle researchers foresee a time when cord blood from millions of babies born each year is banked, creating a worldwide donor register for liver dialysis and transplant.

For patients with liver problems, computerized registries could then match the cord blood with their tissue type or immune system to minimize the risk of rejection.

There are approximately a dozen cord blood banks around the UK and more than 11,000 British parents have so far chosen to preserve their children’s cord blood. It is already used to treat leukemia.

“One hundred million children are born around the world every year – that is 100 million different tissue types,” says Professor McGuckin.

“With that number of children being born every year, we should be able to find a tissue for me and you and every other person who doesn’t have stem cells banked.”

Co-researcher Dr. Nico said that their, “dream is that every metropolitan city would have such a bank.”

“If you could type the blood all, you would have to do is dial it up on your computer and fly it from Bristol to Newcastle or even Newcastle to Kuala Lumpur,” he added.

Many liver experts have welcomed the breakthrough.

“The stem cell is going to change the way we deliver treatment,” said Professor Nagy, of London’s Hammersmith Hospital.

Alison, Chief Executive of the British Liver Trust said that, “stem cell technology represents a huge leap forward in treating many diseases. With liver disease in particular it has the potential for tremendous advances.”

A spokesman for UK Transplant, which runs the country’s organ donor register, added that, “there is a lot going on in research that may have benefits for transplant patients. But, in the here and now, the obvious way to help these people is by more people adding their names to the organ donor register and to make their wishes known to their family.”

Rats that were bred to duplicate Lou Gehrig’s Disease had the initiation of their nerve damage delayed (typical of the disease), and their lives extended slightly after having their spinal cords injected with human stem cells at John Hopkins. The grafted stem cells do not themselves give way to Lou Gehrig’s, which is also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but actually develop into nerve cells and make extensive connections with existing nerves. This week’s issue of Transplantation has published the study.

“We were extremely surprised to see that the grafted stem cells were not negatively affected by the degenerating cells around them, as many feared introducing healthy cells into a diseased environment would only kill them,” says Vassilis, M.D., an associate professor of pathology and neuroscience at Hopkins.

“We only injected cells in the lower spine, affecting only the nerves and muscles below the waist,” he noted. “The nerves and muscles above the waist, especially those in the chest responsible for breathing, were not helped by these transplanted stem cells.”

A more complete transplant of cells – already being planned — along the full length of the spine to affect upper body nerves and muscles as well might lead to longer survival in the same rats says Vassilis. He believes his experiments present “proof of principle” for stem cell grafts, even though all the rats eventually died of ALS.

Animals engineered to carry a mutated human gene for an inherited form of ALS, also called SOD-1 rats, were used by the research team in their experiments. All the muscles in the body ultimately become paralyzed due to slow nerve cell death, just as it does in humans. The particular SOD-1 rats in the study developed an “especially aggressive” form of the disease.

Human neural stem cells – cells that can in theory become any type found in the nervous system, were injected into the lower spine of adult rats not yet exhibiting symptoms. Another group for comparison purposes was injected with dead human stem cells, which would not affect disease progression. To prevent transplant rejection, both groups of rats were treated with drugs.

Twice a week for 15 weeks, the rats were weighed and tested for strength. According to Vassilis, weight loss indicates disease onset. On average, weight loss started at 59 days for rats injected with live stem cells and they lived for 86 days after injection. The rats injected with dead stem cells (the control group) started losing weight at 52 days and lived for 75 days after injection.

To determine each rats overall strength, they were persuaded to crawl uphill on an angled plank. The highest angle each rat could cling to for 5 seconds without sliding backwards was recorded as an indictor of their strength. The rats injected with live cells grew weaker much more slowly than those injected with dead cells.

It was determined that 70 percent of the transplanted cells developed into nerve cells after close examination. Many of the nerve cells also grew new nerve endings connecting to other cells in the rat’s spinal cord.

“These stem cells differentiate massively into neurons,” says Vassilis, “a pleasant surprise given that the spinal cord has long been considered an environment unfavorable to this type of transformation.”

The cells aptitude to make nerve-cell-specific proteins and growth factors was another important characteristic. In the spinal cord fluid, researchers measured five times more GNDF (short for glial cell derived neurotrophic factor) than normal. Through physical connections, the transformed transplant cells may also deliver these growth factors to other cells in the spinal cord.

In an effort to learn as much as possible about how human stem cells behave when transplanted, Vassilis hopes to take further advantage of his rodents with ALS and possibly make discoveries that lead to clinical applications in the future.

To save her sons life, Donna is considering having another child by IVF so its stem cells can be used as a treatment for her dying son.

Fanconi anemia is the rare blood disorder the Jamie, Donna’s son, suffers from.

The disorder is caused by the hereditary loss of both copies of the Fanconi anemia gene.

A birth rate of about one in every 360,000 is approximated due to the carrier frequency being estimated at around one in every 300 people.

The name of the disorder comes from Guido Fanconi, who was the Swiss pediatrician who discovered it.

Only a perfect match from a bone marrow donor will provide Jamie with a chance to survive.

Since April of last year, when Jamie was diagnosed, the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) has been searching for a donor for the eight-year-old boy.

Donna learned from the staff at GOSH that IVF may be an option.

IVF would allow Donna to conceive with an embryo that does not carry the faulty Fanconi gene.

The newborn would then have stem cells harvested from its umbilical cord and injected into Jamie.

“I want to speed up the process for him and the best chance of finding a perfect match would be to have another child,” said Donna, who is already a mother of four.

“I have been informed in most cases such as mine, where there is more than one child, I will be declined IVF treatment as I have other children and it would be unethical to bring another child into the world,” she added.

“I cannot understand this. I can appreciate the ethics surrounding these issues but the ultimate goal is to save someone’s life, knowing treatment is available, instead of giving someone a life sentence,” stated Donna.

Those suffering from Fanconi anemia, cannot successfully combat, fatigue, bleeding, infections, or spontaneous hemorrhaging.

People with the condition are also born with skeletal abnormalities.

Those diagnosed also have an increased risk of getting cancer and other serious health problems throughout their lifetime.

The syndrome is less common in females as opposed to males and most individuals suffering from the condition only live until their mid-20s.

Regular transfusions and steroids keep Jamie’s blood counts stable. But Donna says that his body is less likely to accept the bone marrow that longer he continues with the conventional treatments.

Since a baby conceived through IVF would be a last resort option, Donna wants people to sign up to the Anthony Nolan Trust’s bone marrow register to see if they are a perfect match.

“As Jamie’s mother I want to help him. And GOSH told me that I should not lose hope,” stated Donna.

“Unfortunately, I cannot donate my bone marrow as my husband and I are carriers of the faulty Fanconi gene.”

“It has come to the point now where I just want to speed the process up on the donor search by doing something myself, which I why have contacted News Shopper.”

“If I can encourage people to consider donating blood or becoming a bone marrow donor, I would feel as if I have achieved something.”

Cathy and her husband Billy decided to spend $1,700 to preserve their baby’s umbilical-cord blood when she was expecting with her fifth child. Billy works in his parent’s seafood restaurant and Cathy is a stay-at-home mom–so spending for them is not easy. But the Manassas couple wanted the security of knowing that the blood–loaded with stem cells–would be on hand if any of their children ever got sick.

Cord blood can be an expensive and unusable form of health insurance, but can also be an extraordinary means for treating serious medical conditions.

In this case, the blood has become a source of hope for the family.

Born with severe brain damage, their baby Abby went without oxygen for a time in the womb. The stem cells have given Abby’s family a promising tool for restoring her neurological functioning. Since her birth two years ago, with exciting but uncertain results, Abby has received two infusions of her own cord blood.

“If it doesn’t work, we’ve lost money. So what?” Cathy said. “But if it can improve her life, then it’s worth every cent.”

Although an increasingly common occurrence in American delivery rooms, preserving cord blood for a family is still not the rule. Without the ethical concerns of embryonic stem cells and all the promise, new born stem cells from cord blood and their storage have gained popularity. A few distinguished physicians also encourage the idea. Stem cells can enhance immune systems during cancer treatment, treat brain injuries and sickle cell anemia, they also have the potential to treat an assortment of other conditions.

But as Abby’s family has learned, the course from preserving cord blood to using it as treatment is scattered with obstacles as well as hope.

Dr. Bob at first thought cord-blood banking was a contrivance. But his wife read about it while pregnant with their third child. She was also a teenage cancer survivor and was convinced they should bank their child’s blood. After doing some research, Bob was persuaded as well.

Now Dr. Bob has written about cord-blood preservation on his website and has contributed to this story by phone from his California home.

“There’s so much research right now showing cord blood will treat very common childhood and adult diseases,” said Dr. Bob, who is a Pediatrician.

Because stem cells are immature the treatment possibilities are broad.

“They can change and grow into any kind of body tissue that they need to,” Dr. Bob said.

Dr. Bob said that collecting and storing the blood is not complicated. A doctor or midwife extracts the blood with a syringe after a baby’s umbilical cord is cut. Then the blood is put into a vial for the parents–or a medical courier–to ship off to a cord-blood company’s storage site.

Dr. Bob and Cathy noted that much of the moral, religious, and ethical, debates surrounding embryonic stem cells are eliminated with this procedure. Cord-blood collection involves no potential loss of human life.

“Every baby has a nice full-size unit of stem cells just sitting in the umbilical cord ready to be collected,” Dr. Bob said.

Private cord-blood banks currently dot the country with more than two dozen. Families can donate without a fee to public banks as well, but they do so with the knowledge that their child’s stem cells may be used for research or to help others.

Rita, who is a manager with one of the private firms, said that more than 450,000 cord-blood samples are stored in banks around the country; in Virginia, roughly 4,000 families have stored stem cells with the private firm Rita works for.

“There has been a definite increase in new clients,” she said in an e-mail.

Due to give birth to her second child in October, one of the new clients is Angie of Spotsylvania County. Angie said she paid $1,750 in her second trimester and will pay $125 annually in storage fees to preserve her baby’s blood.

“I’m sure we waste that in a year going out to Starbucks,” Angie said.

A health scare several years ago involving her older child Edward helped to convince her that storing her baby’s cord blood was the right decision.

“If something ever happened, I would have resources,” Angie said. “That’s something I didn’t have with my son.

Pregnant patients learn about the option at Mary Washington Hospital where Judy, coordinator of parent-child education services, informs them of the option.

“The more I learn about it, the more impressed I am,” Judy said.

Still, the cost is prohibitive to many. And a level of discomfort still remains associated with it. Many families assume that conventional therapies could treat them if they got sick and that they would never need the cord blood.

As for Abby’s family, they think their story shows just how valuable the cord-blood investment can be.

“Only one in a thousand ever needs it,” Cathy said, speculating on the odds. “Will, you be that one?”

‘The Gift of Hope’

Cathy was sold when she saw a segment on “Oprah” about cord-blood banking.

It never occurred to her that her baby would need the blood for herself. Putting aside some of their fifth child’s blood in case any of the other four got sick was what she was banking on, or so she figured.

Abby, who was born 10 days late, had a preliminary Apgar score of zero. The Apgar measures a newborn baby’s wellness. Her score later jumped to seven. Not terribly uncommon, she had a bowel movement in utero. But if newborns inhale the tar-like substance, oxygen deprivation and other serious problems can occur.

“Most kids just get it in their mouth,” Cathy said. “Abby got it in her lungs.”

It’s not clear how long she was oxygen-deprived. Abby was monitored at the hospital for two weeks. But an MRI a few months later confirmed that in three of her four lobes she had suffered moderate to severe brain damage. Doctors said she had microcephaly–a small head due to lack of oxygen.

“Her outcome, they said, would be abnormal,” Cathy said.

Cathy asked if Abby’s cord blood could help and the doctors told her no. But an e-mail from their cord blood bank publicizing advances using cord blood to repair neurological and spinal-cord damage gave the family renewed hope. The families Google search began as they looked for a doctor with expertise in cord-blood transplantation. Every hospital Cathy contacted about Abby’s transplant said that it was no use and the cord blood would not be able to help their daughter.

“You have a lot of naysayers out there that need cold, hard facts,” she said. “But the way I see it is if there’s a small chance to help your child have a better quality of life, why not do it?”

A professor of pediatrics at Duke University with a specialty in stem-cell transplantation eventually came up in their search, and the family contacted Dr. Joanne.

Cathy asked Dr. Joanne if she would transplant Abby’s stem cells. After several exchanges, mostly by e-mail, she got the answer she’d hoped for.

Abby’s stem cells were sent to Duke at the doctor’s request.

Two transplants have taken place in Durham, the first when Abby was 6 months old and the second more recently. Abby turned 2 on September 9th.

Each transplant is a costly $10,000, and insurance does not cover the experimental procedures. Despite the cost, the procedure is quite simple: an infusion of her cord blood is sent through an IV in Abby’s hand.

Abby’s first infusion was paid for with money raised by friends at All Saints Catholic School in Manassas, and Abby’s parents refinanced their home to pay for the second. Another infusion in two years is probable.

“You’ve got to do whatever it takes for your kids,” Abby’s father Billy said.

Dr. Joanne cautioned the family and continues to do so, telling them to keep their expectations low.

“Dr. Joanne said you have to expect nothing will happen. This is not a cure,” she said. “But what she gave us was the gift of hope. I can look at Abby and say, ‘Baby girl, we did everything we could to help you.'”

And Cathy and Billy are certain the procedures have helped.

“She’s definitely making progress,” Billy said.

Abby wouldn’t lock eyes with anyone, and she couldn’t focus her gaze, prior to the first infusion

“She was literally like Stevie Wonder, with her head left to right, left to right,” Cathy said.

But two weeks after the first transplant, Cathy said, Abby looked straight at her during a bath and smiled.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, she sees me!'” she said. “I was just hysterical.”

Abby is scheduled to have an MRI tomorrow. Cathy said Dr. Joanne has cautioned that even if the scan shows improvement, it doesn’t mean the stem-cell transplants worked.

Whatever the scan shows, Abby’s family is grateful that she has undergone the procedures.

“She wasn’t getting better before,” Cathy said. “There’s no ‘proof,’ but I have all the proof I need.”

Abby’s visual therapist, Peggy, said she’s uncertain if Abby’s development can be attributed exclusively to the cord-blood transfusions. But along with the more conventional therapy Abby’s family has done, she find it likely that the cord blood is a contributing factor.

“The combination has really gone a long way in making progress in that little girl’s life,” Chenoweth said.

Abby, who turned 2 yesterday, doesn’t do a lot of the things most kids her age do. But she blows raspberries, gets around with a walker and makes eye contact.

“These seem like very small steps for a lot of people, but they’re hurdles for Abby,” her mother said. “I would love to see my daughter just run around and be fine, and I pray for that. But if not, it’s OK. We’ve done everything.”

With the hopes of stabilizing her, a former Albuquerque girl afflicted with a rare blood disease has just undergone an additional infusion of donor stem cells. With her condition deteriorating, her family hopes the treatment will prevent the progression of the disease.

The infusion, called a stem cell boost, was administered to nine year old Kailee on August 30th.

“Now, we start the stressful waiting and watching again, hoping in three or four weeks Kailee’s (blood cell) counts will start to climb once more,” her father said.

Kailee suffers from a very severe aplastic anemia, a disease in which the bone marrow no longer creates sufficient blood cells. Doctors had pronounced her free of the disease after a second marrow transplant was performed in November 2000 at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

However, Kailee’s blood counts were decreasing and she was requiring more blood transfusions over the last five months.

Last weeks transplant came from the same donor as before. A perfect cell match that Kailee’s parents and doctors called a miracle, the donor is a physician from China.

She did not require an extensive hospital stay, nor did she need radiation or chemotherapy to kill off her own immune system since Kailee’s DNA is so closely matched with the donor.

“Instead, she received her stem cell boost as an outpatient and we were able to return home the same night,” said her father.

Her parents coordinated dozens of drives from the U.S. to China to find an ideal donor match. Her parents adopted Kailee from China as an infant.

A previous transplant was unsuccessful since the stem cells that were used were not a perfect match.

Kailee remains free of aplastic anemia but her doctors say a stem cell boost was necessary because of a “late graft failure” which causes her marrow to stop producing. The cause of the failure still remains unclear.

Scientists are reporting that they have come up with a new treatment for children with brain tumors called medulloblastomas as the use of adult stem cells continues to outpace embryonic stem cell research. Chemotherapy can take as long as a year in children with high-risk tumors and the odds of them surviving and living to the age of 5 is a low 30-40 percent at best.

Using a patients own stem cells is having a remarkable result in treating cancer says Dr. Amar of St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

“Not only can we now cure about 70 percent of children with high-risk medulloblastoma, we can also cure more than 80 percent of those with standard-risk disease with a shorter, and therefore more convenient, chemotherapy approach,” he says.

The latest issue of The Lancet Oncology has published the research teams results.

Adjusted for the severity of the disease, the team administered radiation therapy. A shorter course of chemotherapy than normally used followed this preliminary radiation treatment.

Adult stem cells implanted after each round of chemotherapy make the shorter course possible. The cells allow the child’s body to recuperate from the damage the preceding round caused before moving on.

Of 134 children with medulloblastoma who endured the treatment (86 average-risk, 48 high-risk), 119 (89%) finished the study. Some 70 percent of those in the high-risk group 85 percent of the patients in the average-risk group and lived to the age of 5 years old.

A 70 percent survival rate overall could be acknowledged due to the adult stem cell treatment.

Stem cell therapy “can be used to improve the outcome of patients with high-risk medulloblastoma,” concluded the research team.

“By reducing the amount of [chemotherapy drug] cisplatin from eight doses to four doses, and the amount of vincristine from 32 doses to just eight doses, we could alleviate a lot of the neurotoxicity associated with the higher dose of vincristine without reducing survival,” Amar said.

Amar said that the stem cell therapy his team used could become commonplace.

“This approach should be feasible in most pediatric oncology units at academic medical centers,” he said.

Recently exfoliated (lost) deciduous (baby) teeth may serve a much more important purpose than functioning as trading chips for the tooth fairy. U.S. National Institutes of Health researcher Dr. Songtao became interested about his daughter’s teeth when she lost her first baby tooth at the age of six. Dr. Songtao, who is also a pediatric dentist, was conducting pioneering research by extracting adult stem cells from wisdom teeth. With his background, he took his daughter’s tooth into the lab and was able to extract “intermediate” stem cells. His daughter and even her friend’s exfoliated deciduous teeth were soon being collected.

Much like umbilical cord tissue is now (in a program called SHED, Stem cells from Human Exfoliated Deciduous), Dr. Songtao feels these stem cells should be harvested and “banked” just the same. A company in Texas is actually performing this service already for a one time processing fee of $595, plus $89 per year for storage.

Considered “intermediate”, the stem cells of exfoliated deciduous teeth are extracted soon after the tooth becomes loose. Capable to turning into tooth-forming cells (odontoblasts), fat cells, bone cells, and even nerve cells, they are versatile and much less controversial than embryonic stem cells.

The potential to even cure Parkinson’s disease exists if the teeth are harvested early and stored in liquid nitrogen said Australian researcher Dr. Stan.

It is hoped that the technology will be available to use these cells in many more ways in less than 10 years. Even now, researchers are examining the opportunity of using the stem cells to make dental implants that would be better accepted by the human body, generate new bone to repair the damage of gum disease, and grow new teeth to restore lost ones.

The potential benefit of stem cell research is almost without limit, even though this is a new area for scientists. Our current best efforts in regards to medical treatments may appear medieval in comparison to the new technologies that may develop.

News regarding stem cell therapy has taken a new twist as athletes turn to stem cell banking as an insurance policy. According to a report, noteworthy football (soccer) players are preparing for potential career-threatening sports injuries by banking the stem cells from their newborn babies for prospective future treatment. The banking could help the athletes and also help their entire families in the event of injury.

Cartilage and ligament injuries could be treated in the future as players are freezing the cells derived from the umbilical cords of their babies. Even injured organs and tissue could be regenerated because stem cells are the earliest form of cells. Athletes with heart conditions, broken bones, a torn ACL; essentially an entire plethora of injuries and conditions could be remedied using the umbilical cord cells to perform non-controversial stem cell treatments.

“We decided to store our new baby’s stem cells for possible future therapeutic reasons, both for our children and possibly for myself,” said an unnamed Premier League player from a north west club.

“As a footballer, if you’re prone to injury it can mean the end of your career, so having your stem cells – a repair kit if you like – on hand makes sense,” he added.

Using a commercial stem cell bank, five players have frozen their children’s stem cell to date. One would expect the trend to continue given the high salaries that player command. Just as a surgeon could not perform with ALS, a player could not perform without the proper use of a leg or arm. Stem cell therapy using cells that have a portion of matching DNA is beneficial and reduces the likelihood of an immune response.

To protect their children from future illness, more than 11,000 parents have paid about 1,500 pounds in the past 5 years to store their baby’s stem cells in order to grow tissue if needed.

Thousands of umbilical cord blood stem cell transplants have already been carried out in order to successfully treat children with severe blood conditions and immune disorders.

Injections of bone-marrow stem cells and implanted “cartilage plugs” top the list of wanted treatments, as doctors test innovative processes to stimulate cartilage regrowth in damaged knees.

The cartilage that cushions the knees has only a limited natural ability to repair itself, thus, the knees are are the joints most likely to become problematic. The need for new and innovative treatments is great.

Unlocking the ability for accelerated self repair of the joint is the primary goal.

Those individuals who only require small amounts of cartilage to grow are the preliminary group to try the new alternatives.

The techniques, if they do indeed work, could help people with arthritis as well since their cartilage breaks down over time.

The pad of cartilage referred to as the meniscus, basically the knee’s shock absorber, is the first to be in clinical trials for this treatment. Using cells from donated bone marrow with an aim to regenerate tissue, the outcome is eagerly anticipated.

The meniscus is surgically removed in about 800,000 American’s each year. A painful tear can result in an older person with only a simple wrong step, due to the fact that the pad deteriorates with age. Thus, young athletes are not the only ones who can suffer. Meniscus injuries are commonplace in this world.

Studies have demonstrated that combining knee lubricating fluid with stem cells helps to regrow the meniscus in goats. The adult stem cells are called Mesenchymal cells, and live within bone marrow. These cells can convert into cartilage forming cells called chondrocytes. Is it possible that the cells which serve as building blocks for tissue could also work similarly in humans?

Individuals with half of their meniscus removed enrolled in the study, 55 patients total. The study consisted of a placebo injection or one containing millions of mesenchymal stem cells; these were administered one week after the meniscus surgery.

Researchers are now evaluating each patients remaining meniscus for signs of regrowth using high powered MRI machines.

“No one’s ever looked at the meniscus in terms of volume,” says Dr. Thomas of the University of Southern California, lead researcher for the study.

Preliminary results are due in October and so far there have been no safety problems. The study is still blind so researchers are oblivious to which patients were among the placebo group and which were not.

“It’s very, very exciting research,” says Dr. David, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist at Washington Hospital Center in the nation’s capital.