By injecting sufferers of neurological diseases with therapeutic quantities of cultured adult stem cells, scientists based at Jerusalem’s Hadassah University Hospital have broken new ground in the field of stem cell research.

The researchers extracted stem cells from the hip bone marrow of 26 multiple sclerosis (MS) and amytrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients. The cells were re-injected into the patients via lumbar puncture following a two-month long process of in vitro cleansing, multiplication and chemical ‘tagging’. The researcher team was led by Professor Dimitrious Karussis and Prof. Shimon Slavin, the recently retired head of Hadassah’s bone marrow unit.

The particular type of stem cell used in the trial, marked a world first according to Karussis.

“The sole aim of this study was to explore the feasibility and the safety of this treatment, since it is applied for first time,” Karussis told ISRAEL21c.

The experiment was deemed a success with no adverse effects reported. Leading the way for further developments in forthcoming clinical trials, it was encouraging that patients also displayed anecdotal improvements in clinical symptoms.

“Most MS patients reported a stabilization of their condition and some an improvement in function, especially in sphincter control, muscle power in arms, tremor and stability in walking,” Karussis said. “ALS patients continued to show signs of deterioration – though at a lesser than previous degree.”

This is good news for both groups of patients. Resulting in impaired sensory, motor, balance and vision function, MS causes damage to the body’s central nervous system and affects over 2.5 million people worldwide. Causing the gradual and fatal loss of the patient’s capacity for movement, ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, involves a similar degeneration of neuronal cells. ALS is more rare and progresses more rapidly.

Both conditions are ideal targets for stem cell treatment since they are both caused by the deterioration of a specific type of cell.

Suggesting that it might be possible to regenerate damaged nervous systems through cell re-growth, the Hadassah researchers found that transplanted adult stem cells began to differentiate into the kinds of cells which the diseases had destroyed. This was observed during extensive experimentation on animal models of MS and ALS.

Despite suffering from a similar motor neuron disorder, the treated lab mice retained 90 percent of their neurons after the equivalent of one or two years in the human progression of the diseases.

Marking the first time such adult stem cells have been injected into human patients, Karussis cited the most recent safety study. The study has paved the way for a larger efficacy trial to be held over the course of the next few years, despite remaining highly experimental since the small-scale study lacked a control group.

“We are encouraged as these are patients with advanced cases, many of them in wheelchairs,” Karussis told the Jerusalem Post.

Since most of the attention in recent years has been directed towards embryonic stem cell research, the current work utilizing adult stem cells is significant say scientists. There are advantages to using adult cells. The chances of immune rejection are significantly reduced since the patient can serve as his or her own donor. The ethical issues which surround embryonic stem cells is also avoided with this approach.

The researchers hope to launch a controlled clinical trial of the therapies after first enlarging the safety study to include more patients. Applications from potential trial patients are a welcome sight.

However, a license must first be obtained from the Ministry of Health, as well as funding to cover the expense of treating patients; a cost that can be up to $20,000 per patient. Despite these significant challenges, the team says it will all be worthwhile in the long run.

Stem cells, Karussis notes, “have already shown some promise in the treatment of joint and bone diseases, immune conditions and ischemia of the heart.” And he is optimistic, he says, that MS and ALS will join that auspicious list one day “not far into the future.”

Leaving him hobbled and unable to work for nearly three years, Perry Anderson’s spine injury has changed the man’s life considerably. But stem cells are now being implanted into his spine and may work wonders in repairing his spine from a surgery that failed the first time.

The stem cells being used are not from human embryos. They come from bone marrow, and they not only have the potential to heal Perry’s spine, but the same type of cells allow diabetics to continue producing insulin, end the suffering caused be inflammatory bowel disease, and help heart attack patients heal.

Bone marrow stem cells, harvested both from cadavers and from live donors, are being developed for use against a range of illnesses. This is all while the ethical debate rages over the use of stem cells taken from discarded human embryos.

To control diseases caused by the sometimes harmful effects of the body’s own immune system these cells are proving useful in experimental drug therapies and have exhibited a remarkable ability to form fat, cartilage, ligaments, bone and tendons.

An adult stem cell-based drug is being tested at UC Davis by stem cell scientist Jan Nolta. She will be treating patients with Crohn’s, a chronic and painful bowel disease. Also using the cells in spine surgery, is the Sacramento based Dr. Pasquale Montesano.

Found in the tissue tucked inside the bone cavity are MSC’s, or mesenchymal stem cells.

Kept frozen, MSC’s can be stored for up to five years. But they must be used within 48 hours once removed in order to remain viable.

Anderson’s stem cells arrived in a tiny jar carefully packed in dry ice and stored in a foam cooler on Thursday in the operating room at Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento.

Back in 2004, Anderson fell from a 6-foot ladder while he was painting. This resulted in an injured back. Searing headaches and pain were the symptoms of a bad disk pinching a nerve in his neck. In August of 2006, he had surgery to remove the damaged disk and fuse the vertebrae. But the procedure was not 100% successful.

“The headaches aren’t as bad, but my hands get numb, my arms are aching, I have lower back pain, anxiety attacks and depression,” Anderson, 42, said before his surgery Thursday. “I have worked since I was 17. Now I can’t do anything. I can’t mow the yard, I can’t go grocery shopping. It’s ridiculous.”

Careful to avoid Anderson’s carotid artery and spinal cord, Montesano first removed the scar tissue and bony fragments from between the damaged vertebrae.

He then took the crystal-like stem cell and packed them into a graft made from cadaver bone and shaped like a square nut from a hardware store. He tucked more cells around the graft after gently placing it into Anderson’s spine.

By screwing a small metal plate into his spine to anchor the bone in place while it heals, Montesano completed Anderson’s operation.

“Now we have to let Mother Nature take its course,” he said.

A handful of companies worldwide are currently taking mesenchymal stem cells from live donors in order to develop drugs. In Japan, researchers are studying the treatment of severe gum disease, England is working on multiple sclerosis, and in Iran, scientists are looking for a way to use MSC’s to treat cirrhosis.

Researchers used new blood forming stem cells to replace the immune systems of mice.

Creating a new immune system for people with genetic or autoimmune blood diseases by transplanting adult stem cells is the eventual goal that researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have taken a small but significant step towards in their mouse studies.

Effectively replacing their immune systems, the scientists found a way to transplant new blood-forming stem cells into the bone marrow of mice.

Irving Weissman, MD, a co-senior author of the study and director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine said that many aspects of the technique would need to be adapted prior to human testing.

Weissman suggested the remaining hurdles could eventually be overcome, which include the type of mice that was used which were a poor mimic of the human immune system.

The benefits have great potential when those barriers are overcome.

A person’s immune cells attacks their own body when they are afflicted with an autoimmune disease such as multiple sclerosis. Their defective immune system could potentially be replaced with an entirely new immune system that would not attack the body; an immune system transplant, live a heart or liver transplant, could be performed in order to accomplish this.

All the cells of the blood are generated by blood forming stem cells in the bone marrow. A new immune system can be created by transplanting new blood-forming cells into the bone marrow, but the defective cells must be eliminated first. Radiation or intensive chemotherapy is the typical method used to wipe out the existing system. However, increased risk of cancer, brain damage, infertility, and other tissue damage can be caused by chemotherapy while it eliminates the cells of the bone marrow. This makes the therapy inadequate, since the exchange of brain function in order to rid one’s self of multiple sclerosis is not a fair trade.

One potential path around the problem would be to eliminate only the blood-forming stem cells without affecting bone marrow cells or other tissues thought Weissman and co-first author Deepta Bhattacharya, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in Weissman’s lab. The cells can be effectively destroyed by injecting mice with molecules that latch on to specific proteins on the surface of the blood-forming stem cells. This feat was accomplished by the team which included Agnieszka Czechowicz, first author and medical student. Without further harming the mice, the technique eliminated the blood-forming stem cells.

“It is essentially a surgical strike against the blood-forming stem cells,” said Weissman, the Virginia & D.K. Ludwig Professor for Clinical Investigation in Cancer Research.

A new blood and immune system was established after the transplanted new blood-forming stem cells took residence in the bone marrow.

The new immune system would no longer attack tissues of the body in the person with autoimmune disease. For example, eliminating the cause of the disease in people with a genetic disorder such as sickle cell anemia, the new blood system would not have the sickle-cell mutation. But the hurdles that stand in the way are tall.

First, the researchers don’t know whether the same molecule on human blood-forming stem cells would be the right one to target with a therapy. Additionally, a functioning immune system is missing in the mice involved in the study. Before tests can begin on humans, the technique must first be tested on mice with normal immune systems.

Weissman said he considered this work to be the beginning of research that could lead to human studies although the steps will take time to overcome.

The November 23rd issue of Science published the study.

Also contributing to the work was postdoctoral scholar, Daniel Kraft, MD.

The National Institutes of Health, the Cancer Research Institute, and the Stanford Medical Scholars Program provided fellowships to fund the research.