Still Another Stem Cell Break Through Most of the MSM will Ignore.

Today I heard an announcement of another breakthrough using adult stem cells that looks like it help those suffering from Muscular Distrophy. Before I get to the announcement I want to explain how I heard of it. 1st of all it wasn't through the (so-called) Main Stream Media (MSM). How I heard about it was listenning to the Rush Limbaugh Show with guest host Roger Hedgecock. He was talking about a story that was reported in The Seattle Times entitled Stem-cell injections helped dogs with muscular dystrophy.

The report was written by By Malcolm Ritter of The Associated Press (AP). In it he describes a study that was published online by the journal Nature. This study was funded in part by The Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA).

The study was done at the Stem Cell Research Institute at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute of Milan, Italy under the leadership of Giulio Cossu. The study focused on Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It is the most common form of the disease. they used a group of golden retrievers who had a canine form of the disease similar to Duchenne. According to the article: "Two dogs that were severely disabled by the disease were able to walk faster and even jump after the treatments."

The article goes on to say: "Researchers used stem cells taken from the affected dogs or other dogs, rather than from embryos. For human use, the idea of using such "adult" stem cells from humans would avoid the controversial method of destroying human embryos to obtain stem cells."

MDA also announced the success of the study & its results in a news release on its website. What is interesting is that unlike the Seattle Times/AP report, their news release carefully avoids using the term adult stem cells. But it had to admit that the special stem cells called "mesoangioblasts" come from living donors. While it is good to see MDA supporting adult stem cell research it also supports embryonic stem cell research. It knows how controversial that is & thus the word games to avoid differentiation in their news release. Hopefully they will soon realize that instead of pouring money into embryonic stem cell research that is not only immoral, but has had no success, they will put it all into adult stem cell research that has proven itself successful time after time & creates no moral & ethical problems.

The MDA report describes the proceedure used. "Thirteen dogs, divided into three groups, received either cells from healthy donors, their own cells that had been corrected to have the protein missing in DMD or no cells at all. The dogs that received cells from healthy donors responded the best, with one of that group walking well at 13 months (most dogs with the disease have difficulty walking by eight months of age and die at about one year). . . .

The dogs in this project were injected from three to five times with 50 million cells at one-month intervals. The cells were injected into the arterial system of a limb. Some of the animals were also treated with drugs to suppress the immune system.

Results were documented biologically and through at least two measures of muscle function. There was no evidence of immune response in any of the dogs."

“It’s not clear how long it will take to move this promising work to the clinic, but we’re cautiously optimistic,” said Valerie Cwik, MDA medical director and vice president of research. “The fact that the protein was effectively delivered to several muscles, rather than just one muscle at a time, is very significant.”

The AP article reports that Giulio Cossu said that "he hopes to start a small experiment in children in the next year or two." It also says: "The best results appeared when the cells were taken from healthy dogs. But Cossu said scientists should pursue the possibility of genetically manipulating a patient's own cells. That way, patients wouldn't have to undergo lifelong treatment to avoid rejection of donated cells."

Did you notice that last line. It gives another arguement in favor of adult stem cell research. These treatments can often be done using the person's own cells, giving it the additional advantage of avoiding the problem of rejection found when using someone else's cells as well as avoiding the moral problems inherant in cloning.

This is good news. & the fact that it was done by Italiano scientists feeds the pride I have in my Italian heritage. Congratulations to my paisani. & I point out again, it shows the successes & advantages to using adult stem cells.