23 Seriously Ill MS Patients Recover After 'Breakthrough' Stem Cell Treatment (telegraph.co.uk)

schwit1 quotes a report from The Telegraph: Multiple sclerosis patients who were severely disabled are walking, working and even downhill skiing again following a breakthrough therapy which completely destroys, then rebuilds, the immune system. The trial, which is the first in the world to show complete long-term remission from the debilitating disease has been hailed by experts as "exciting" "unprecedented," and "close to curative." Although it is unclear what causes MS it is thought that the immune system attacks the protective coating which surrounds nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord leading to inflammation, pain, disability and in severe cases, early death. [The new technique, which is a treatment usually used to fight leukemia, involves using chemotherapy to entirely eradicate the damaged immune system, before rebooting it with a transfusion of bone marrow cells. Out of the 24 patients who were given the treatment at least seven years ago, the majority have seen significant improvements. 70 per cent of patients saw a complete stop to the progression of the disease, while 40 per cent saw a reversal in symptoms such as vision loss, muscle weakness and balance loss.] Last week, it was reported that a wheelchair-bound stroke victim was able to walk again after an "unprecedented" stem cell trial at Stanford.

Comments

Implications for other immune system disorders?

[Ann O'Nymous-Coward]

Wouldn't this possibly also have implications for fighting other disorders where the immune system attacks the body?

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[ColdWetDog]

Yep, all you have to do is risk total immune system, liver and other important organ failure. It's done with leukemia all of the time.

That's the rub. It's a pretty drastic 'cure'. They picked people who would, in all likelihood die or be greatly debilitated by their disease and tested it on them. The interesting point is that it may be a general reboot of the immune system, good for many immune system diseases (MS, Chron's, ulcerative colitis, Rheumatoid arthritis and yes, Lupus).

But it's going to be a while before you can do this in your local community hospital.

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't this possibly also have implications for fighting other disorders where the immune system attacks the body?

Implications? Sure, but it isn't something you do lightly.

However, it is important to note that this therapy can have serious side effects and risks. . . During the trial one participant died of liver failure due to the treatment and another required intensive care for liver complications.

I've known people who've had this done (due to Leukemia) and it has massive life long consequences. One of those people died before 30 due to heart valve issues which were a direct result of the procedure.

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely. This type of treatment has been available for a while, but used radiation to kill off the pre-existing immune system. This was typically so dangerous that it was used only in extreme cases. The much gentler/safer process they describe means it can be used much more broadly.

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[Anonymous Coward]

has massive life long consequences. One of those people died before 30

Getting sucked out of an airplane during a depressurization at 35,000' has massive life long consequences, too. However that may not mean the same thing to a person in that position as it does to you or I.

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[SuricouRaven]

It might, but the side effects are brutal - the treatment killed one patient and landed another five in intensive care. This is a treatment you'd have to be desperate to try. Perhaps further refinement can make it safer.

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. There have been a few small trials, and occasional single patient case reports, of the use of this treatment for a variety of conditions.

I saw it used about 15 years ago, for a young person with severe Crohn's disease. They had already had all their large bowel and about half their small bowel removed, and was needing about 2 surgeries a year for complications of the disease. The treatment-related infections were unbelievable (afterall, they had no immune system, and their entire intestine was basically falling apart and letting contents spill into their bloodstream). However, they survived, and the Crohn's disease simply stopped.

Of course, there was lots of existing damage, and several surgeries were needed to deal with the scarring that developed as all the bowel healed up over the next year or so - but the disease was effectively cured.

There have been a few experimental treatments for type I diabetes - the idea being that if you can stop the continuing attack on the pancreas islet cells, they may be able to regenerate. It seems to have worked in the few cases where it has been tried. Similarly, there are a number of reports of this treatment for a wide variety of autoimmune conditions: lupus, systemic sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis.

What is not really known is how long-term the effects will be. In most cases, the transplant performed is "autologous" - the stem cells are harvested from the patient's own bone marrow and preserved. Then the patient receives high dose chemotherapy possibly with whole body radiotherapy. Then their stem cells are then reimplanted by IV injection. The idea is that a new immune system gets reconstituted from the stem cells.

There is then a period of several years while the immune system matures (one of the reason why childhood diseases are so different to adult diseases, a child's immune system is not fully developed and is significantly weaker in some ways and has had little time to develop experience). The problem is that the triggers which cause the immune system to incorrectly recognise host tissue as foreign are not well known, although genetics are known to play a part. So, if you are re-implanting the patient's own immune stem cells, is there not a risk that the same disease could recur, because the same unknown trigger sets it off again? Maybe. The number of patients treated is too few, and the duration of follow-up is too short to know with any confidence.

There is scope for donor bone marrow stem cells to be used (so called allogeneic transplant). However, there are potentially issues with rejection (termed graft versus host disease), and long term immune suppression may be needed to keep this in check. The dose of chemotherapy/radiotherapy needed may also be higher, as any original immune system activity left, can swiftly wipe out the fragile donor cells.

The other issue is that the high doses of chemotherapy/radiotherapy can have long term side effects. High risk of cancer in future life is expected. Infertility, loss of intellectual performance, nerve damge, kidney damage, liver damage, are all common side effects.

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[bill_mcgonigle]

But it's going to be a while before you can do this in your local community hospital.

Yep, better to die than to take the risk of dying. Current FDA body-count estimate is up to 2 Nazi Holocausts - when people believe they can achieve risk avoidance, they completely fail at risk management.

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[jblues]

A while back Slashdot reported that the same process was used to cure AIDS. A person with co-existing Leukemia was treated for that and recovered from both conditions.

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't this possibly also have implications for fighting other disorders where the immune system attacks the body?

Very possibly seeing as the immune pathways for MS, Scleroderma, Type 1 diabetes, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Shogrens and Ulcerative Colitis have a lot of commonalities, this therapy could possibly treat them in a similar manner. I doubt with how the FDA usually does business if cures to most of these diseases would be attempted in a similar manner because they are not considered "as life threatening" as MS. I think that that is an oversight of the FDA and they need to reconsider that because it is hard to argue that Type 1 diabetes for instance is not life threatening on many levels. Too many people who have limited understanding of the disease and the suffering it causes, will pop up and say stuff like "oh well type 1 diabetes.. you ate too much sugar!" those types need to not be involved in educated discussions on these diseases because they are idiots and have no understanding of the disease and it's causes and can't be bothered to do a google search or have an understanding of these problems before they open their mouth.

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, all you have to do is risk total immune system, liver and other important organ failure. It's done with leukemia all of the time.

That's the rub. It's a pretty drastic 'cure'. They picked people who would, in all likelihood die or be greatly debilitated by their disease and tested it on them. The interesting point is that it may be a general reboot of the immune system, good for many immune system diseases (MS, Chron's, ulcerative colitis, Rheumatoid arthritis and yes, Lupus).

But it's going to be a while before you can do this in your local community hospital.

Host versus graft disease would be a risk to this treatment. That is the argument that would be made.. if autoimmune disease could be treated like this it could be a one shot cure rather than a palliative treatment for life which has it's own risks and dangers.. like the case of insulin in type 1 diabetes.

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[Anonymous Coward]

The bone marrow transplant they received as part of the leukemia treatment was from a person with a genetic immunity to AIDS.

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[sjames]

I'm not about to claim the FDA is reasonable or even thinking. However, those who are largely unaffected between flare ups may prefer to live with it rather than risk death.

A big problem is the FDA, composed primarily of people who do not have a chronic condition, wants to decide for patients what risk is too high rather than just making sure the patient knows what the risk actually is and how much benefit they can expect from it.

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[sjames]

Actually, since the patient receives his own harvested marrow, rejection is not one of the risks.

Re:Implications for other immune system disorders?

[hackwrench]

Begging the question. You have said nothing to indicate that it won't quickly progress to one injection and you're done. not saying that's what's going to happen or I'd be begging the question just as much as you are, just illustrating the situation by stating the opposite in the same terms. So I'm just pretending to beg the question.

Before the inevitable comments

[ERJ]

These were bone marrow stem cells, not embryonic stem cells.

Re:Before the inevitable comments

[SuricouRaven]

It's been getting some coverage in the right-wing media, where it's being gleefully spun as proving that embryonic cells are useless and only dumb liberals would waste their money on research with them.

Everything is politics. The nature of the hyper-partisan nature of US political culture: There is nothing that cannot be spun into supporting one of the two major factions. Sometimes both spin it to their own ends.

Re:Before the inevitable comments

[chispito]

It's been getting some coverage in the right-wing media..

Everything is politics.

And yet you just brought up politics.

Re:Before the inevitable comments

[Anonymous Coward]

Which part of everything did you fail to understand?

Re:Before the inevitable comments

[quantaman]

These were bone marrow stem cells, not embryonic stem cells.

Where did the bone marrow stem cells come from?

The treatment was done 13 years ago, I didn't think they were gene editing back then so I assume they come from donors? Does that mean they require immunosuppressant drugs?

Re:Before the inevitable comments

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. To do this they must first kill off the patient's immune system. It's the exact same treatment as is used for leukemia.

Re:Before the inevitable comments

[ShanghaiBill]

I assume they come from donors? Does that mean they require immunosuppressant drugs?

Immunosuppressant drugs should not be needed. The patient's original immune system is wiped out. The new immune system is regenerated from stem cells, and even if they are from donors, as the new immune system matures it will learn to recognize the patient's cellular surfaces as "self". So their should be no rejection.

Re:Before the inevitable comments

[CrimsonAvenger]

Where did the bone marrow stem cells come from?

The treatment was done 13 years ago, I didn't think they were gene editing back then so I assume they come from donors? Does that mean they require immunosuppressant drugs?

Bone marrow transplant survivor. If it requires immunosuppressant drugs, then there isn't a good enough match, probably. I had a very good match, and George (my new bone marrow) and I have gotten along just fine.

Re:Before the inevitable comments

[chispito]

Which part of everything did you fail to understand?

The part where he provided a source for the fringe, inconsequential commentary he repeated.

Re:Before the inevitable comments

[rgmoore]

The treatment was done 13 years ago, I didn't think they were gene editing back then so I assume they come from donors? Does that mean they require immunosuppressant drugs?

They do come from donors, and immunosuppressive drugs are not required. Transplants of tissue from living donors like bone marrow is very different from tissue from deceased donors like hearts and lungs. With transplants from deceased donors, the pool of donors is small and there's very little time to choose a recipient before the organ goes bad. In practice, that means it isn't always a very good tissue match, and it's usually necessary to give the recipient immunosuppressive drugs to avoid rejection.

With a transplant from a live donor, the pool of donors is larger- much larger in the case of hematopoetic stem cells or bone marrow, which grow back completely- and the tissue will keep indefinitely. That gives doctors plenty of time to search for the closest possible tissue type match, so the recipient and donor are generally perfect or nearly perfect matches. They won't even try to do the transplant unless there's a very close match.

Re:Before the inevitable comments

[MichaelSmith]

My father in law died when chemotherapy for cancer killed his bone marrow, and thus, his immune system. Maybe it would be a good idea to take samples of marrow stem cells before doing something which could kill the marrow entirely, so that the marrow could be re-booted, so to speak in the case of disaster.

Re:Before the inevitable comments

[Anonymous Coward]

These were bone marrow stem cells, not embryonic stem cells.

Who cares what un-educated science denier Republicans think?

It is not like they have any idea how to cure auto-immune diseases, nor do they care if they will be cured. All they seem to want to do is keep rehashing the abortion argument for some perceived political pay-off that only exists in their own minds. Meanwhile back in the real world, medical advancements in the area of cures and innovative treatments to alleviate suffering in the world have to happen somewhere other than the United States. So what is happening here is that for religious reasons, Republicans deliberately obstruct research to cure diseases that create so much suffering and cost to the medical system in this country. If there actually was a god like the bible says, he would be so ashamed of his followers I would be expecting another global flood any day now.(No not because the Republicans still think global warming is some left wing political conspiracy. That being said ocean levels are rising..)

So in summary:

Stem Cells do not come from abortions.
anyone who even implies that they do need to be tarred and feathered and thrown in the idiot science denier bin with the Sarah Palins, Ted Cruzes and Michelle Bachmans of the world. We really need to rid ourselves as a society of science deniers in leadership positions. They cause way more problems than they solve.

Re: Before the inevitable comments

[jmac_the_man]

Yeah yeah. Republicans hate us and want us to die. We know, dude.

Re:Before the inevitable comments

[SuricouRaven]

Here's one: http://onenewsnow.com/science-...
---
OneNewsNow asked why adult stem cell successes are not generally known. According to Prentice, it's partly because the emphasis has been on human embryo research.

“We kept hearing how embryonic stem cells were going to cure, as one person put it, 'all known maladies,'” he says. “Embryonic stem cells haven't helped a single person - and in decades of research they haven't helped that many laboratory mice. Usually they just grow and make tumors."
---
ONN is very right-leaning, but it's not really fringe. It's run by the AFA, a quite large and influential organisation.

Let's hope it works

[NotInHere]

Let's hope it works, as for the usual stem cell treatments this is as helpful as the treatment itself.

Stem cell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe there was a different but similar study -- the one I read a few days ago involved killing the immune system of the patient and "rebooting it" via bone marrow transplant.

Another win for open source!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is very encouraging news. I hope this cure can help save others from that evil Micro$oft company.

23?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are bound to be millions more. Win10. Nuf said.

23/24 improved. Number 24 died.

[Anonymous Coward]

When noting 23 out of 24 vastly improved, it's worth including the fact that number 24 didn't merely not improve, but actually died as a direct result of the treatment.

Re:23/24 improved. Number 24 died.

[Anonymous Coward]

"And 70 per cent of patients saw a complete stop to the progression of the disease, while 40 per cent saw a reversal in symptoms such as vision loss, muscle weakness and balance loss."

Also, 70 + 40 = 110, WTF?

Re:23/24 improved. Number 24 died.

[techno-vampire]

My sister was diagnosed with MS over fifteen years ago, so I know more about it than most people need to. When you have an episode, various functions degrade, such as vision and so-on. When you go into remission, some, but not all of the functions return, meaning that you're on a gradual downward slope. Judging from what was written, not all of the patients who experienced a stop in the progression got any function back.

Re:23/24 improved. Number 24 died.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have MS, while my condition is nowhere near as serious as the people in the study (I'll never be able to ride a bike, but I can usually walk fine without a cane on level ground, sometimes even in a straight line), if someone came to me and said that there's a ~4% chance I'd die, but a ~35% chance my mental deterioration can be reversed (per the study 35% experienced an improvement) and ~60% chance I would stop getting worse, I would hop onboard pretty damn quick.

Before I jump on this, though, I'd want to know more about the side effects other than risk of death. Getting better then dying of a cold the week after would be some serious flowers for algernon shit.

The Magic of the Market

[Anonymous Coward]

You too can be cured, if you can afford it.

If it cures MS

[MrKaos]

does it mean it stops Windows 10 from installing?

Re:If it cures MS

[vux984]

I came here to confirm someone would have posted this.
You did not disappoint.

Re:If it cures MS

[MrKaos]

I tried to resist - honestly I did!

On a more serious note, I do have some vicarious experiences of friends who have suffered this disease and I hope that this turns out to be a cure for them and their Windows 10 problems. shit, I did it again, help me!!

Multiple sclerosis

[Livius]

So it's not about computers that have had Microsoft malware forced on them.

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

We won't be able to afford it.

Re: So?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a new treatment, it has been used to treat cancers for over 15 years, so all that is needed, from a regulatory perspective, is to repurposed the treatment rather than trying to validate a new treatment. So this won't have those costs associated. Also it is used extensively for treating Hodgkin's lymphoma, my friend had this treatment in the UK almost 15 years ago with a very successful outcome. As far as I understand it, the costs of the procedure are about the same as 2-3 years of the medication my wife is on for MS. If this meant that she could not get worse and have a chance of improving I think it is a viable treatment option and also give us a chance at aore normal life, hell maybe she could work again. The long term benefits could be huge for us.
So this is not novel and very expensive.
I would hope that it would radically cheaper soon as it is refined and expanded.

Re:23/24 improved. Number 24 died.

[wickerprints]

Stopping disease progression in MS does not automatically mean that a patient regains some amount of functioning that was lost to the disease. It simply means that the disease does not get worse, not that the patient is healed of the damage. Some cases of MS do not have acute phases with subsequent remission at all; and of those that do exhibit remission, sometimes it is not complete.

Therefore, one should not expect those percentages to add, since some patients would be counted in multiple categories.

Re:23/24 improved. Number 24 died.

[Guy Harris]

"And 70 per cent of patients saw a complete stop to the progression of the disease, while 40 per cent saw a reversal in symptoms such as vision loss, muscle weakness and balance loss."

Also, 70 + 40 = 110, WTF?

An article in the Toronto Star about this indicates that, of the 24 patients, "seven saw their symptoms deteriorate even after the transplant", although "this progression levelled off after about two years, Freedman said." (24-7/24)*100 ~= 70, so 70 percent apparently had no progression of symptoms after the treatment.

As for the 40%, presumably 30% saw a stop in the progression of the disease but no reversal of symptoms, 40% saw a reversal, and 30% saw no immediate stop although it appears that the progression at least leveled off after 2 years.

Re:23/24 improved. Number 24 died.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wife was diagnosed with MS 2 years ago. Our experience with MS doctors hasn't been that great, basically here are the standard meds with a no f*cks given attitude. And no support for the psychological effects of knowing you have something that cant be fixed and its only going to get worse with time.

Common...

[jopsen]

Yep, better to die than to take the risk of dying...

Many immune deceases Chron's, UC, etc. aren't likely going to kill you. Full experimental immune system reboot might be a bit risky for those patients :)

- when people believe they can achieve risk avoidance, they completely fail at risk management

That argument goes both ways... take the question of whether or not colonoscopy is useful for screening cancer.

Avoiding or seeking to minimize risk is not easy... Please tell me what level of risk one should accept for diagnosis and treatment of annoying but largely manageable deceases like Chron's, UC, etc. ?
1/300 for major complication and possible disability? Or 1/10 ? or 1/10000 ?

It's super hard as a patient to know whether or not you should let a doctor do a procedure. I largely figure they aren't affected by financial incentives, yet, doctors can't help but be affected by the mindset of their specialization.

Re:Common...

[ShanghaiBill]

Please tell me what level of risk one should accept for diagnosis and treatment of annoying but largely manageable deceases like Chron's, UC, etc?

It should be the level of risk acceptable to the informed and consenting individual patient, not the level of risk acceptable to a government bureaucrat. Many of these diseases may not be directly fatal, but they can destroy a person's quality of life to the point they feel their life is not worth living, so they may be willing to take a substantial risk for a cure. Nobody should have the right to veto that decision.

Re:Common...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me what level of risk one should accept for diagnosis and treatment of annoying but largely manageable deceases like Chron's, UC, etc?

It should be the level of risk acceptable to the informed and consenting individual patient, not the level of risk acceptable to a government bureaucrat. Many of these diseases may not be directly fatal, but they can destroy a person's quality of life to the point they feel their life is not worth living, so they may be willing to take a substantial risk for a cure. Nobody should have the right to veto that decision.

THIS THIS a billion times! THIS!

If something like this could cure my top 1 diabetes and I would never have to listen to another asshole trying to tell me I got type one from eating at mc donalds too much or eating too much candy as a kid... yes it would be worth risking dying!

Re:Common...

[ArylAkamov]

That argument goes both ways... take the question of whether or not colonoscopy is useful for screening cancer.

It works great when they fuck up and perforate your colon, leaving you in the ICU for two months, then booting you out with a bill just shy of one million dollars.

Re: Common...

[Anonymous Coward]

This! A hundred times this!

Re:Common...

[Anonymous Coward]

Very good common sense point. You sound Libertarian.

Re:Common...

[hackwrench]

Whenever someone trots out the "informed" pony, I think along the lines of, in cases like this: To be really informed is to know enough to be able to perform the operation yourself AND insure a positive outcome. I don't care how the best outcome is obtained as long as it is the best outcome available. Even the judgement of someone who aced statistical analysis might be preferable.

Fuck. There's no stopping them now!

[Anonymous Coward]

Read headline as:
23 Seriously Ill Microsoft Patents Recover After 'Breakthrough' Stem Cell Treatment.

Thought:
This is how the Cylons win.

Weird math

[NotQuiteReal]

Why say things like "70 percent" and "40 percent" for such a small group (of 24).

Are we to believe 16.8 of the 24 had their symptoms stop and 9.6 had reversals?

Re:Weird math

[M0j0_j0j0]

But of course! Hence the name "Multiple" Sclerosis.

Wait, wait!

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

But Republicans and the far-right religious zealots keep telling us that stem cell research is evil and bad and wrong. They couldn't possibly be mistaken, could they??

Just wait until one of these anti-stem cell fucktards needs a stem cell-derived treatment to save his life or that of his child, then you'll see them change their fucking tune. Suddenly it'll be "god's will that led the scientists" to these breakthrough treatments.

Re:Wait, wait!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice strawman, pretty much no Republican has been against stem cell research itself. The opposition is source of embryonic stem cells, a la aborted fetuses, which as mentioned above, is not the type of stem cells used in this treatment.

Re:Wait, wait!

[Anonymous Coward]

But Republicans and the far-right religious zealots keep telling us that stem cell research is evil and bad and wrong. They couldn't possibly be mistaken, could they??

Just wait until one of these anti-stem cell fucktards needs a stem cell-derived treatment to save his life or that of his child, then you'll see them change their fucking tune. Suddenly it'll be "god's will that led the scientists" to these breakthrough treatments.

Nancy Reagan went through that during the 2008 election and she supported Barak Obama.

The Republican party is in shambles over their frequent errors in judgment such as the ones you point out. This is probably why Donald Trump is the best one they can come up with this time.

Organ transplants?

[Applehu Akbar]

Organ transplant patients have to spend the rest of their lives gobbling immunosuppressive drugs. Could this technique be used to remove and reboot the immune system, including in the replacement organ, for such patients?

Re:Organ transplants?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. You would somehow have to get a bone marrow match between all three parties, or an organ donation from the same person. The problem is that the donated organ is still foreign as far as the immune system is concerned. There aren't any device drivers that reinitialize when you delete the immune system and replace it with someone else's. As far as the new immune system is concerned, the foreign tissue is still alien and must be destroyed, because it doesn't match the markers the immune system carries.

Stephen Hawking

[Anonymous Coward]

what about Stephen Hawking

Re:Stephen Hawking

[Anonymous Coward]

what about Stephen Hawking

I thought The Hawk had ALS rather than MS. It would be rather awesome if this treatment could help him and others facing that condition.

Not in the blurb

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Embryonic stem cells are never used anymore, these trials were conducted by harvesting bone marrow from each patient and growing their own stem cells from that. 2) The Ottawa researchers stated that this treatment was useful for about 15% of patients. Other factors included age of patient and length of time they had the disease: older patients were selected out, and patients who had the disease for decades (not just 1 or 2 years) would not have benefited from this because the long term damage of the disease is not repairable. You can stop the disease at any time (and that's what this does), but there is no going back from long term damage. Also in the blurb it said something about Stanford. This trial was not done in the US, it was done in Ottawa, Canada.

put this bitch to bed..

[Anonymous Coward]

It took my mother, her sister, and may be taking me as well.
Fuck it. Lets hope this bit of news is legit,, and put it to bed..

Probably not

[Okian Warrior]

Organ transplant patients have to spend the rest of their lives gobbling immunosuppressive drugs. Could this technique be used to remove and reboot the immune system, including in the replacement organ, for such patients?

I believe the answer to your question is "no", although I'm not a biologist.

Cells have a specific molecule, the "major histocompatibility complex", which lives in the cell wall and presents bits of broken-down proteins to the outside. The immune system checks these proteins to determine the health of the cell and to determine whether a response is needed.

Each MHC complex also has its own particular code, and the immune system of the body is trained to recognize these codes as "self" and not trigger a response to the MHC itself. This happens in the thymus, where developing T-cells are culled if they show any response to the "self" MHC codes. There are about 16 total code variables per MHC molecule, and some individual variables can have 600 or so variations. If two people are not identical twins, then their different MHC proteins would trigger an autoimmune response.

If you remove and reboot the immune system, the thymus will still be making cells that expect the "self" MHC codes, and will show a response to foreign cells. Most of the cells in the body would present "self" MHC molecules, and the transplants would still present a "non-self" molecule.

Unless you take some type of further step, such as adjusting the Thymus or cleansing the transplanted organ of MHC molecules, you'll still get a response when you reboot the immune system.

Re:Probably not

[AmiMoJo]

Thanks for that really informative post. May I trouble you with another question?

How about auto immune diseases like Reiter's Syndrome / Lupus, and how about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? I'd be willing to try almost anything to improve these conditions, but there isn't much research or many trials.

Use measles to reboot the immune system?

[TDDPirate]

Another possible way to reboot the immune system is to infect the patient with measles.
One of the effects of this disease is to erase all information accumulated by the immune system and force it to relearn how to make antibodies for everything.
Hopefully, it won't learn how to attack its host's body.

I wrote a blog article about the need to treat information embodied in the patient's body: http://www.zak.co.il/tddpirate...

70 per cent ... 40 per cent

[Anonymous Coward]

So... rounding up I guess?

I believe 25% of patients also died

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe this is the study where ~25% of the patients also died. As a result, the treatment is only suggested for very late stage, RRMS. Someone with more current knowledge is free to correct me.

Dear reader ain't gettin' any younger, you know

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> unprecedented stem cell MS cure
> unprecedented stem cell paralysis cure

Unprecedented penis growth and functionality cure?

Auto Immune Diet Protocol

[Anonymous Coward]

You can also check this from Dr Terry Wahls
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc
http://terrywahls.com/

Heh heh

[wkwilley2]

"Why are we not funding this?" - Peter Griffin