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Stem Cell Treatment Repairs Rat Spinal Cord Damage Betterhumans Staff Thursday, November 13, 2003, 5:57:44 PM CT Transplanting cells differentiated from human embryonic stem cells has restored function to rats with spinal cord injuries. The finding, by scientists from Menlo Park, California-based Geron Corporation, demonstrates that human embryonic stem cell-derived therapies could treat people with spinal cord injuries. "These results are exciting," says Jane Lebkowski, Geron's vice-president of regenerative medicine. "They show that cells derived from hESCs can have therapeutic efficacy in a model of human disease." Spinal cord repair The research, conducted by Hans Keirstead and colleagues from the University of California, Irvine, utilized rats with spinal cord injuries. In one group of rats, the researchers implanted human embryonic stem cell-derived oligodendroglial progenitors directly into sites of spinal cord damage seven days after injury. Oligodendrocytes are cells that produce myelin, a protective sheath that insulates the axons of nerve cells to enable normal nerve impulse conduction. Oligodendrocytes also produce compounds that spur neuron "sprouting." After about one month, rats receiving the stem cell-derived treatment showed improved weight-bearing capacity, paw placement, tail elevation and toe clearance compared to injured untreated animals. A control group implanted with human fibroblasts showed little or no improvement. Mass production "This work demonstrates the versatility of hESCs and their potential utility for broad-based cellular therapeutics," says Thomas Okarma, Geron's president and chief executive officer. "In these studies, oligodendroglial progenitors were produced multiple times from the same human embryonic stem cell line over a period of months," Okarma says. "The success of these studies and potential economies from large batch production of oligodendroglial progenitors from hESCs supports development of this potential product for the treatment of patients with acute spinal cord injury." Geron aims to now begin safety and efficacy studies of the treatment approach and to increase production of the stem cell-derived oligodendroglial progenitor cells for possible use in human clinical trials. The research was reported in New Orleans, Louisiana at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. SOURCE: Betterhumans, Canada http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2003-11-13-2 * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn