AdultStemCell.com

Don Margolis asked:


I call adult stem cell the greatest medicine in the history of mankind.

Think about that a little bit. What other medicine has absolutely no side effects? What other medicine can improve the condition of 100+ diseases and conditions. What other medicine other than adult stem cells can also help horses, dogs, and cats? What other medicine can help heal serious injuries such as broken bones, cartilage, and spinal cord injuries?

Stem cell treatment using adult stem cells is the future of medicine and the future is now. Adult stem cell treatment has the unique ability to replace cells and repair tissue affected by disease, age, and injury.

Adult Stem Cell therapy offers hope to billions of people, from heart disease patients who are in congestive heart failure, to Parkinson’s and Multiple Sclerosis patients, diabetic patients so they can eliminate their insulin, even helping paralyzed patients by Spinal Cord Injuries- just to name a few.

Adult Stem Cell Treatment offers no controversy such as the controversy associated with embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells have no risk of rejection. The worst thing that can happen when adult stem cells are used is that the adult stem cells don’t help- ie. no improvement. Not to mention that adult stem cells can save and improve millions of lives (and save billions of dollars in medical costs) right now.

Raising awareness of the benefits of adult stem cell treatment is vital to achieve that. For example, right now, in the United States, there are millions of heart patients who can benefit from adult stem cells, but it isn’t available to them. Even if they are fortunate to find the miracle stem cell treatment that may help them, they often have to travel half way around the world just to receive that treatment. There must be a better way and adult stem cells is the way. Let’s make them available in the United States and the rest of an unsuspecting world today!

Lawrence Ebert asked:


The stem cell article by Jennifer Washburn in the April 12, 2006 issue of the Los Angeles Times mentioned Jeanne Loring, an embryologist at the Burnham Institute in La Jolla: In 1999, Loring tried to launch a company to work with stem cells, but the firm quickly collapsed when it couldn’t raise the $100,000 in upfront fees the Wisconsin foundation [WARF] charged.

Washburn’s article did not mention an earlier article by Loring and co-author Cathryn Campbell, entitled “Intellectual Property and Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research,” which appeared in 311 Science 1716 on March 24, 2006. Therein, Loring and Campbell mentioned the changing royalty fees charged by WARF in response to a “memo of understanding” (MOU) with the federal funding agency. Loring/Campbell mentioned the “SBIR paradox” as to funding of small businesses, which may be a problem, but not one associated with patent law.

Both the Washburn and Loring/Campbell articles suggested that the WARF/Thomson patents would pose a long-term threat to stem cell science. Washburn noted the position of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, based in Santa Monica, which urges California’s stem cell agency to challenge the Wisconsin patents. In greater detail, the Santa Monica group stated: The stem cell institute faces a threat from a foundation associated with the University of Wisconsin [WARF], which claims that it is owed licensing fees because it holds patents on all human embryonic stem cells in the United States. John M. Simpson stated: “This is an outrageous raid on the treasury of California based on over-reaching patents. No other nation in the world recognizes them. They are blocking vital research in the United States. I call on the stem cell institute to challenge the patents’ validity.”

Neither the Washburn nor Loring/Campbell articles discuss the possible research safe harbor created in the Hatch-Waxman Act and codified at 35 USC 271(e)(1). The breadth of this safe harbor was recently affirmed in the Supreme Court decision of Merck v. Integra. Neither the Washburn nor Loring/Campbell articles discuss that patent infringement suits against states and state bodies (such as California’s CIRM) are likely to be heard in state court, not federal court, according to the Supreme Court decision in Florida Prepaid Postsecondary.

Although there may be a visceral reaction to lash out against patents perceived to be overbroad, the cautionary tale of NTP v. RIM suggests that sometimes negotiation is the better path for infringement defendants. Further, Loring/Campbell mention the possibility of an interference with Plurion, although this most likely would change only the identity of the owner of controlling patents. Separately, one recalls that the Thomson patents are about creating stem cells from blastocysts; they are not about “cloning” [SCNT] technology. To date, traditional methods for stem cell separation from blastocysts have failed wherein SCNT is involved. There may be a question of enablement as to the Thomson patents for cases involving SCNT, which is where the holy grail of patient-specific stem cell lines resides.

As a general proposition, the state taxpayers underwriting efforts such as Proposition 71 have the expectation that money will be used for research, not to litigate the patent positions of prior researchers. Extrapolating further, state funding to achieve patent positions could lead to a balkanization of research, in which entities from individual states (such as California, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, Connecticut) are fighting one another, rather than collaborating.

Gary P Owen asked:


Recent advances in stem cell research have shown that it is possible to reverse the effects of multiple sclerosis with stem cells being replaced. While this is still in the experimental stage some measure of success has been achieved in independent studies conducted at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago by Dr Richard K. Burt and his colleagues.

The study involved a group of 21 patients who were all relatively young and in the relapsing-remitting phase of multiple sclerosis. Stem cells were harvested from their own bone marrow and chemicals were used to destroy all the existing immune cells within the patient’s body. Younger people were selected because they had fewer disabilities and were not responding to interferon therapy. Previous attempts at this type of therapy had only limited success so the thought was that younger healthier patients might fare better.

The theory is that the body is stripped of all the immune cells that are the cause of multiple sclerosis. Stem cells that were removed from the patient’s own bone marrow are then injected back into the blood stream. These “naïve” stem cells would then repopulate the body with cells that have not been triggered to target the myelin and no further damage would be done to the myelin sheath.

The study was conducted over a period of three years and the results were hopeful. Seventeen of the patients showed an improvement of one full point on the disability scale. Five of the patients relapsed but after further treatment went into remission. After three years none of the patients showed any signs that the disease was progressing and 16 of them were no longer suffering from relapses. Some of the patients showed signs of improvement and reported no major side effects from the treatment of multiple sclerosis with stem cells.

While these results are impressive the treatment of multiple sclerosis with stem cells is still in its infancy and much more testing needs to be done.  The specialists are waiting to see if the immune system has actually been completely reset or if it has merely been suppressed for a longer period of time. Still they are very optimistic that this type of therapy will help those patients in the relapse-remitting phase.