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© 2011, 2012 Health Futures Digest
| For the first time, human embryonic and fetal stem cells have successfully treated a human disease, albeit in mice. The researchers want to move quickly to human trials. The question will be whether it is more moral to protect cells taken from discarded embryos that will never reach infancy, than to suffer little children to die for want of those cells.
That science can adequately serve humanity without help from religious dogma is evident in the dialectic between cautious and progressive scientific perspectives over sperm developed from stem cells. The one says the sperm are unsafe; the other, that they contribute to knowledge. In contrast to the embryonic stem cell debate, this is a reasoned argument that can be settled through reason. Other advances in regenerative medicine:
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| Stem Cell Therapy for Sandhoff Disease
Mice bred with the equivalent of Sandhoff disease, a fatal and incurable human brain disease similar to Tay-Sachs disease, went into temporary – but long-term – remission after receiving transplants of human embryonic and fetal stem cells. This appears to be the first success for a human embryonic stem cell therapy, albeit in mice. The joint US-UK-South Korean research team hopes soon to test their method in children with Sandhoff disease. The therapy might also be adapted for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS, and other neurodegenerative diseases. No side effects were seen. The stem cells were not rejected and no tumors formed. The treated mice lived 70 percent longer than untreated mice, and although the disease eventually returned it may be possible to hold it at bay with booster injections of stem cells. The transplanted cells replaced nerve cells damaged by the disease and carried nerve signals. They also boosted the brain’s supply of the enzyme hexosaminidase (also known as “hex”), which brain cells need to get rid of excess lipids that cause cell death. Researchers at the Universities of Göttingen and Münster and the Medical School of Hannover, in Germany, have cultivated immature sperm cells (spermatagonial cells) from adult stem cells taken from male human bone marrow. They now hope to get the spermatagonial cells to progress to mature sperm in the laboratory, which may take three to five years. The mature sperm might then be useful in fertility treatments, although proposed new laws would ban such use in the UK. In a BBC News report about the development, one pundit expressed caution about the results and pessimism about the prospects, citing potential permanent genetic changes in the sperm, making the cells unsafe to use in fertility treatments. Another pundit welcomed the development as contributing to the understanding of fertility processes. Setback for Drug, Step Forward for Stem Cells in Heart Disease While statins reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke by lowering the level of plaque-causing low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad” cholesterol), there is yet no drug that raises the level of plaque-busting high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or “good” cholesterol. Several companies have compounds in development, but recent published results show that some of them do not in fact bust plaque even though they raise HDL levels significantly, and one – torcetrapib — actually raised the risk of heart attack (and was taken out of trials as a result.) “Whether this failure represents a problem unique to torcetrapib or suggests a lack of efficacy for the entire class of similar drugs remains to be defined,” a Cleveland Clinic researcher told Thomas Maugh of the Detroit News . Meanwhile, University of Miami researchers have successfully used mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow to treat heart attack victims. The trial involved 53 patients who had suffered heart attacks in the 10 days prior to the therapy. One-third received a placebo, the rest received the stem cells, via infusion into the bloodstream. During a six-month period, patients who received the cells were only 25 percent as likely to suffer irregular heartbeats and 20 percent as likely to have premature contractions. The stem cells also reduced scarring and inflammation in the lungs and patients were able to breathe better, which suggests the therapy may also be useful for respiratory disorders such as asthma and emphysema. This summer, according to an Associated Press story carried in the Baltimore Sun , a trial of a powdered pig extract that appears to stimulate tissue regeneration is to take place among US soldiers who have lost parts of their fingers. The powder was used successfully twice in 2005. One was a man who lost the tip of a finger to the propeller of a model airplane, the other a man who lost a fingertip to a table saw. Both watched their fingers regrow to normal length over a period of 4-6 weeks. The trial involving injured soldiers may prove whether the powder was in fact responsible for the regeneration. From five to 10 burn patients with major losses in all their fingers and thumbs will have the end of a finger stub reopened surgically, with the powder applied three times a week. The hope is to grow enough additional finger length enable the patient to pinch between two fingers or partial fingers, and therefore be able to hold a small object such as a fork or a toothbrush. The powder, made by Acell Inc. has been used mainly to treat horses with damaged ligaments. Tissue-engineered Heart Valves Imperial College London scientists have grown 3cm-wide human heart valves from bone marrow stem cells placed in collagen scaffolds. The lead researcher said it could be used in transplants within three years and that a whole heart could be produced from stem cells within 10 years. The engineered valves will be implanted into large animals later in the year. |
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