Stem Cells to Treat Brain Injury in Children

BigDukeSix writes "The first stem cell trial with widespread public health implications is set to begin in Houston. From the article: "Trauma is far and away the main cause of death and disability among children, and the main reason children die from trauma is brain injury...The clinical trial is the first to apply stem cells to treat traumatic brain injury. It does not involve embryonic stem cells.""

Comments

More Information:

[TripMaster Monkey]

Some more information on using stem cells from bone marrow to grow neurons can be found here.

As you can see from the date of the above referenced article, the idea of using stem cells derived from bone marrow to treat brain injury has been around for a while, but now that we've finally progressed to human trials, this field is going to get very exciting very fast. This has the potential to completely rewrite the textbooks on brain & nerve trauma...it's a real pity that Christopher Reeve had to leave us before we made these advances.

Re:More Information:

[pizzaman100]

In this case the embryonic controversy does not apply. According TFA, they are using stem cells derived from the patient's own bone marrow.

Re:More Information:

[PortHaven]

PLEASE....educate yourself on this issue. You are extremely misinformed!

Try reading the article for starters, here is a quote:

The clinical trial is the first to apply stem cells to treat traumatic brain injury. It does not involve embryonic stem cells.

A bit more about stem cell research:

1. There is no ban on stem cell research. Merely, a provision stating that Federal funds will not be used for fetal stem cell research. (Privately funded research is still available.) Furthermore, the government allocated $500 million to stem cell research. Far from a ban to say the least.

2. All successful or promising stem cell development has been achieved using adult & umbilical stem cells. In fact, many experts in the field believe that there is no need what-so-ever to use fetal stem cells. a) that all goals can be achieved from non-fetal stem cells given a bit more time and study b) said additional study will likely take less time than the study necessary to learn how to control and utilize fetal stem cells.

3. Fetal stem cell research has to date had very little success. The most common end result is "tumors". The fetal stem cells are too reactive and uncontrolled. Of the few dozen articles on stem cell success I have read not a single one has been due to fetal stem cells.

4. When people keep ignorantly making statements above they merely show themselves to be poorly misinformed at best and quite a bit more at worse.

- Saj

Re:More Information:

[pete-classic]

There is no ban on embryonic stem cell research.

There is a partial ban on using federal funds for embryonic stem cell research.

I can't imagine how it can be controversial to say that we aren't going to confiscate money from people and spend it research that they believe to be immoral.

-Peter

Blood-brain barrier?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only a Phase I trial. Phase I trials are very early trials predominantly concerned with establishing safe levels of the parameters. It won't show effectiveness.
I find it a little curious to see that the bone marrow stem cells would be injected intravenously since the blood-brain barrier could limit the stem cells from reaching their destination. I presume that they figure that with trauma, blood would easily get to the damaged area. I think it is extremely hopeful to expect that enough stem cells would latch onto the damaged areas to make any difference. Also it is unclear if they are doing this for the acutely injured brain or for children who were damaged at some point in the past.
If I was a betting man, I would not bet on the side of any positive result.

Successful Stem Cell Usage

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost every real advance that has been made using stem cells has been made with either adult stem cells or cord blood.

Actually...

[cr0sh]

There is a partial ban on using federal funds for embryonic stem cell research.

The truth is closer to:

There is a ban on performing embryonic stem cell research (outside of the few established stem cell lines, most of which are contaminated or otherwise unviable) in a research facility which uses federal funds for any research.

That is where the problem lies. There are plenty of research facilities in the United States, both public and private, willing to do embryonic stem cell research using non-public (ie, non-federal) funding, but because they already do research in other areas (not even related to stem cell research) using federal, public funds, they have been told that if they pursue embryonic stem cell research (outside of those established lines), even with private funding, that the federal funding to their other research projects would be in jeopardy and be cut off.