Scleroderma patients seek experimental U.S. stem cell therapy

CTVNews.ca Staff Published Saturday, October 25, 2014 10:30PM EDT Last Updated Saturday, October 25, 2014 11:46PM EDT

An estimated 16,000 Canadians live with scleroderma, an incurable autoimmune disorder which causes the body to produce too much collagen, resulting in a hardening of the skin and tissue. There is no cure for the scleroderma, but some patients in Canada are now seeking a costly and experimental stem cell therapy in the U.S.

A little over a year ago, Mike Berry of Kingston, Ont., started having trouble breathing. It was the first sign of scleroderma.

Berry, 42, suffers from the systemic version of scleroderma, which attacks his internal organs. His lungs have been scarred by the disorder, with his lung capacity dropping to 41 per cent in just nine months. His disease may ultimately be fatal.

He described to CTV News how scleroderma has impacted his day-to-day life.

"I'm unable to work any longer; it affects me and everything now," he said. "It's hard to walk fast; I can't walk and talk."

Drugs to treat his scleroderma haven't worked, so now Berry is trying to fundraise more than $150,000 for an experimental U.S. stem cell treatment called Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT), in the hopes that it will save his life.

"It would give me as second chance, I guess I just have a lot to fight for," he said.

Pioneered by Dr. Richard Burt at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, patients receiving HSCT are administered stem cells intravenously.

During the treatment, the patient's stem cells are harvested, and then the patient's over-active immune system is destroyed with powerful chemotherapy drugs. Doctors then re-program the patient's immune system with the harvested stem cells, in the hopes that the cells will "reset" the patient's immune system and stop scleroderma.

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Scleroderma patients seek experimental U.S. stem cell therapy

Back in my Louboutins…thanks to a stem cell jab in the foot: Experimental treatment that fixed socialite Hofit Golan …

Hofit Golan broke her tibia and foot in a nightclub accident in 2011 She had a year of sticking to conventional treatment with limited success So took controversial holistic therapy at the Villa Medica clinic in Germany One of the few centres in the world to offer Fresh Cell Therapy It is a controversial technique that uses injection of embryonic stem cells from animals

By Katie Nicholl For The Mail On Sunday

Published: 16:16 EST, 25 October 2014 | Updated: 16:16 EST, 25 October 2014

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For any woman who adores wearing heels, Hofit Golan, the Israeli-born socialite who has graced countless red carpets from Cannes to New York, offers a cautionary tale.

Bizarre as it may sound, the 33-year-olds partying came to an abrupt halt after an accident in a nightclub involving her stilettos.

And Hofits recovery is just as remarkable. After a year of sticking to conventional treatment with only limited success, it took a controversial holistic therapy to see her back on track and in heels again.

Hofit Golan broke her tibia in three places and suffered a broken foot when a man landed on her in a nightclub

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Back in my Louboutins...thanks to a stem cell jab in the foot: Experimental treatment that fixed socialite Hofit Golan ...

Scientists Create Toxin Secreting Stem Cells To Fight Brain Tumors

A team of Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital has successfully engineered stem cells to produce toxins that can kill cancerous cells, turning them into lethal weapons to in the war against brain tumors. Their study was published online in the journal Stem Cells Friday.

For years, scientists have attempted to create cells that would not only kill cancerous cells but also do it without harming themselves or surrounding healthy cells. The genetically engineered stem cells created by the researchers in Boston were reportedly able to do so, making the development a potential milestone in the field of cancer treatment.

Now, we have toxin-resistant stem cells that can make and release cancer-killing drugs, Khalid Shah, a co-author of the study and the director of the molecular neurotherapy and imaging lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, said in a statement. Cancer-killing toxins have been used with great success in a variety of blood cancers, but they dont work as well in solid tumors because the cancers arent as accessible and the toxins have a short half-life.

Based on experiments conducted on mice, the results were very positive, Shah said. After doing all of the molecular analysis and imaging to track the inhibition of protein synthesis within brain tumors, we do see the toxins kill the cancer cells, he said.

Chris Mason, a professor of regenerative medicine at University College London who was not involved in the research, hailed the findings as representative of the future of cancer treatment. This is a clever study, which signals the beginning of the next wave of therapies, Mason told BBC News. It shows you can attack solid tumors by putting minipharmacies inside the patient which deliver the toxic payload direct to the tumor.

However, Nell Barrie, the senior science information manager for Cancer Research UK, told BBC News that much more work is needed to see whether the treatment works on humans. Nonetheless, she said, We urgently need better treatments for brain tumors, and this could help direct treatment to exactly where its needed.

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Scientists Create Toxin Secreting Stem Cells To Fight Brain Tumors

UC San Diego named stem cell 'alpha clinic'

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

23-Oct-2014

Contact: Scott LaFee slafee@ucsd.edu 619-543-6163 University of California - San Diego @UCSanDiego

In a push to further speed clinical development of emerging stem cell therapies, Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center at UC San Diego Health System was named today one of three new "alpha clinics" by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state's stem cell agency.

The announcement, made at a public meeting in Los Angeles of the CIRM Governing Board, includes an award of $8 million for each of three sites. The other alpha grant recipients are the City of Hope hospital near Los Angeles and University of California, Los Angeles.

"A UC San Diego alpha clinic will provide vital infrastructure for establishing a comprehensive regenerative medicine clinical hub that can support the unusual complexity of first-in-human stem cell-related clinical trials," said Catriona Jamieson, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine, deputy director of the Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center, director of the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center stem cell program and the alpha clinic grant's principal investigator.

"The designation is essential in much the same manner that comprehensive cancer center status is an assurance of scientific rigor and clinical quality. It will attract patients, funding agencies and study sponsors to participate in, support and accelerate novel stem cell clinical trials and ancillary studies for a range of arduous diseases."

The alpha clinics are intended to create the long-term, networked infrastructure needed to launch and conduct numerous, extensive clinical trials of stem cell-based drugs and therapies in humans, including some developed by independent California-based investigators and companies. These trials are requisite before any new drug or treatment can be approved for clinical use.

The clinics will also emphasize public education to raise awareness and understanding of stem cell science in part to combat "stem cell tourism" and the marketing of unproven, unregulated and potentially dangerous therapies and help establish sustainable business models for future, approved stem cell treatments.

"Everything we do has one simple goal, to accelerate the development of successful treatments for people in need," said C. Randal Mills, PhD, CIRM president and CEO. "Stem cell therapies are a new way of treating disease; instead of managing symptoms, cellular medicine has the power to replace or regenerate damaged tissues and organs. And so we need to explore new and innovative ways of accelerating clinical research with stem cells. That is what we hope these alpha stem cell clinics will accomplish."

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UC San Diego named stem cell 'alpha clinic'