AdultStemCell.com

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Nostrils flaring, ears pricked, Solid Gold shifted nervously as the vet stroked his injured foreleg.

The three-year-old racehorse had no way of knowing this injection would save his career, not end it.

While debate rages over the ethics of stem cell research for humans, a Singapore-based firm has given Asian racehorse owners a new weapon in the battle against career-threatening tendon and ligament injuries.

After harvesting bone marrow from the horse’s sternum, EZ Stemcell separates multi-potential stem cells, which are then injected directly into the injured tendon.

This cutting-edge technology will not only revolutionise the way injured horses are treated, says Dr Omie Rangabashyam, but two-legged patients could one day be treated in a similar way.

“By injecting the stem cells directly into the core lesion, the tendon will regain its integrity, will regain its strength, without the fibrous scar tissue that forms with conventional treatment,” Rangabashyam, a director of EZ Stemcell, told Reuters as he tried to calm the horse.

“Without stem cell therapy, Solid Gold would have been rested for a year, raced again and the tendon would probably tear again.

“That would be the end of him.”

COOL CURED

Following a few days’ box rest, Solid Gold will undergo a programme of gentle walks and exercise to get the tendon working as normal. He should be doing solid work on the track in about seven months, said Rangabashyam.

The treatment has already been used in Britain to some success, with the Martin Pipe-trained Mr Cool receiving stem cell therapy after injuring a tendon in March 2004.

The hurdler returned to competitive racing a year later and went on to win on its second outing after the procedure.

EZ Stemcell had already been approached by owners throughout Asia and Australia and the firm was looking into the possibility of expanding into the lucrative Dubai racing scene.

For owners and trainers in Singapore, where the racing calendar peaks with the $3 million Singapore Airlines International Cup, counting the cost of injuries runs into millions of dollars.

Rangabashyam, who owns more than 30 horses stabled at the Singapore Turf Club, paid 500,000 Singapore dollars ($308,600) for a German horse that has since run just twice in 2 ¸ years because of a succession of injuries.

A stem cell shot costs 2,888 Singapore dollars.

Mark Clements was the first trainer in Singapore to have a horse treated with stem cells.

“The traditional way to treat a horse with a tendon problem was rest — throw it in the stable and forget about it for a year,” the Zimbabwe native told Reuters at the Turf Club.

“They were also injecting various drugs into the injury, which never really worked.

“They had limited success with injecting raw bone marrow but the results with stem cells are on a different level.

“No scar tissue means the tendon gets its elasticity back, which means the horse’s movement, and ultimately its speed, is virtually unaffected.”

ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES

The benefits of stem cell therapy may one day reach far beyond racing circles.

Doctors in Thailand have been using an experimental procedure to treat heart patients with adult stem cells harvested from their own blood, bypassing both the risk of rejection and the controversial subject of embryonic stem cell use.

Some people oppose the use of embryonic stem cells, saying a human life must be destroyed to grow the cells.

Companies in the United States are also exploring the commercial potential for stem cells as treatment for diseases such as diabetes.

Rangabashyam, a liver specialist at Singapore’s Gleneagles hospital, says the green light for using stem cells in the treatment of liver disease is not far off.

“Soon we’ll have it for acute liver disease, for acute renal disease. There’s trials going on in the U.S. for the treatment of neurological disease,” he added.

Another Singapore firm was storing umbilical cords of newborns so that they could perhaps one day be used to cure them of disease or injury.

“The physiology of all living things is the same. With stem cells, anything is possible.”

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Researchers at a Children’s Hospital in Oakland believe they have found a new source of stem cells that could cure a variety of blood diseases. The breakthrough would help not just children, but adults as well.

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Researchers took stem cells from the placentas of consenting women who had Ceasarian sections at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley. Doctors found a large number of blood producing stem cells in those organs which they were able to grow.

Researchers say these cells don’t have to perfectly match the bone marrow of patients looking for transplants.

“The important thing is can you harvest them, are there plenty of them and can you use them? And that’s what we have shown,” said Dr. Frans Keypers.

Patients currently have to wait until a bone marrow donor match is found and if the tissue isn’t similar, the body will reject the transplanted marrow. With these placental stem cells, the match doesn’t have to be as precise, offering hope to African American, Asian and multiracial patients who often can’t find donor matches.

Before this, scientists were primarily studying embryonic stem cells which have the ability to grow into any kind of cell type. The findings appear in the next month’s issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine.

Stempeutics Research Pvt Ltd, a group company of Manipal Group, has achieved a major breakthrough in stem cell production technology with the manufacture of its Investigational New drug (IND) sourced from Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) derived from bone marrow of healthy donors. Using the IND, the company has commenced the placebo controlled double blind trials at Bangalore, Kochi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and New Delhi.

The company through its newly designed proprietary technology is able to achieve large scale expansion of MSCs at its cGMP compliant unit at Manipal near Mangalore. It can produce stem cell-based drugs for over 10,000 patients from a single healthy donor through the innovative technology. MSC has received considerable attention in biological research because of its self renewal capability and its ability to expand and trans-differentiate into many different cell lineages. In addition, MSCs are immune privileged and there are no ethical issues involved since it is derived from adult stem cells. To meet large scale bio-production and make the drug affordable, a fast MSCs expansion method was the need of the hour, BN Manohar, president, Stempeutics Research stated.

Having gathered information about the path breaking research and production efforts, Union minister for state science and technology, Prithviraj Chavan who was in Bangalore made a surprise call at the company to have a first hand comprehension of the development.

“Taking into consideration, the lack of a uniform approach for MSC culture and expansion, we designed a technology and manufacturing process by identifying an optimal culture media and the harvesting time. We also ensured an appropriate combination of cell culture containers – while maintaining its multi-lineage differentiation potential. Through this production research which has lasted for more than two years, Stempeutics has achieved its break through where by it can produce from a healthy voluntary donor, drugs required for more than 10,000 patients,” explained Manohar.

According to Dr Ranjan Pai, MD & CEO, Manipal Education & Medical Group, the global market for Stem Cell therapies estimated US$20 billion by 2010. Adult Stem Cell therapy currently dominates the global stem cells market with a share of almost 58 percent. The current stem cell therapy market in India is valued around US$540 million. While the opportunity is good it is essential that cost of stem cell treatment becomes less so that it is affordable by a common man. It is essential to come out with innovative production techniques for up scaling and make therapy affordable, he added.