remembering the Florida trial/are esc really greatest frontier in medicine.?

[sinbad]

5 years ago Florida team actually made the first esc trial.Results was dissapıoınting.I guess that later abondon this process.

What has been changed since 5 years?
If esc has so much potential why nobody has gained any recovery in terms of sensation or function in this planet show me one ?

This sententence "Embryonic stem cell research holds the keys to curing spinal cord injuries, " is very exaggereted.

I believe that desperate persons will be exploited due to this media exaggeration.

If you have a chance talk with with Florida researcherswhich is the origin of ESC research.

[Max]

Sindbad,

In florida they tried only fetal tissue, not embryonic stem cells...
5 years ago they did not know embryonic stem cells yet.

Max

[Wise Young]

There are indeed stem cells in the fetal tissues that were transplanted into the spinal cords of people in the University of Florida trial. I think that the lesson of the Florida trial is that it is not enough just to plop the cells into the spinal cord. You need to put the right cells in, under the right conditions, and accompanied by appropriate rehabilitation.

What do I mean by the right cells? There are many kinds of stem cells. The original mother stem cell, of course is the egg. However, once the embryo start to develop, stem cells begin to specialize and restrict their progeny to certain types of cells. For example, there are some stem cells that produce only glial cells and are called GRPs (glial-restricted precursors) or only neurons (neural-restricted precursors). In another posting, I suggested that perhaps we should restrict the term "stem cells" only to cells that can produce other stem cells. Although there is some evidence to suggest that stem cells can be "dedifferentiated" to produce more different kinds of cells, the tools that are available for this are still quite primitive. Basically, we know that a hormone called basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) or another growth factor called epidermal growth factor (EGF) support stem cells and, over a long period of time, tend to favor the survival of stem cells in culture. Ira Black found that a chemical can be used to convince bone marrow stem cells to produce neurons. Mezey and Brazelton have both reported that bone marrow stem cells will differentiate into neurons when they migrate into the brain. Scientists sometimes use conditioned media (i.e. tissue culture media in which certain cells are growth... like chicken soup) to stimulate cells to grown in certain directions. Most of these media, however, stimulate stem cells to differentiate rather than dedifferentiate. We don't have many other tools with which to get stem cells to de-differentiate.

What do I mean by the right condition? Stem cells respond to their environment. When stem cells are implanted into the acutely injured spinal cord, they produce mostly astrocytes because injured tissues are pouring out cytokines (cell messengers) that are telling the astrocytes to proliferate and to seal up the injury site. Please note that the act of transplantation causes local tissue damage. That is one of the reasons why I am so excited by the recent data suggesting the stem cells that migrate into a tissue (as opposed to transplanting them into the tissue) will produce more neurons than glia.

What do I mean by appropriate rehabilitation? I have been worried for several years that regeneration alone, unless accompanied by intensive and directed rehabiltation (forced use training, biofeedback, or other methods) may not restore function. At the very least, I believe that clinical trials should stipulate the rehabilitation and the type of rehabilitation that should be carried out to ensure that both the treatment and control groups are exposed to the same degree and type of rehabilitation.

There may be other reasons why the fetal transplant clinical trial did not show substantial recovery of function. One is the possibility that certain cells that were transplanted were immunologically rejected. After the transplantation was done, there was no easy way to tell whether and what kinds of cells survived and what their progeny are. The people received only a short course of immunosuppression. Another possible reason is that fetal stem cells (from aborted fetuses) may not as good as embryonic stem cells (from blastocysts). A third reason is that the fetal tissues were transplanted into the cystic cavity and this may not be the best place for the cells to be transplanted.

Wise.

[The Human Cannonball]

Am if notmistaken,the outfit known as CINN are trying to help Dr. Fessler keep results and data from florida expeiments, He and another scientist have jumped ship here to Chicago. http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/cool.gif http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

We areone of many muncipalities leading the way for diseases ending cures

Ps. Dr Young one of my favorite human beings in back in Chicago.. Dr Richard Penn, for some of you that don't knom him is , a pioneer in the development and efficacy of baclofen infusion pumps in late 80's and also does work with other nuerolgical disorders. It is good for this ol boy to know that he is at the UNiv. OF CHicago. Ever need a great neuro in Chicago, this is the Man. http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/cool.gif http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/biggrin.gif