Stem Cell Clinic

Platelet-Rich Plasma Injections | What It’s Like Getting PRP Injections Into The Knee as a Skier – SnowBrains

By Platelet Rich Plasma Injections

In November 2021, I hiked up and skied Little Chute at Alta, UT.

When skiing down my knee swelled up and I could only bend it 90.

After arriving home the swelling went down.

This happened on a daily repeat cycle until February 2022 when the pain upon skiing became so intense I had to stop skiing altogether.

I talked to my surgeon.

He quickly diagnosed me with osteoarthritis caused by my knee surgery in 2015 to replace my ACL.

I had also vaporized my meniscus and ripped off a square centimeter of cartilage on the end of my femur resulting in a microfracture surgery (performed at the same time as my ACL replacement).

The first course of action was a Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug (NSAID) regimen (ibuprofen, etc).

That didnt work.

In February 2022, I had my first Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) injection.

I coupled the injection with 4 weeks off from skiing and physical therapy.

I returned to skiing in March 2022 and had a decent March, April, and May 2022.

I surfed great waves with no issues in the Maldives all of June and July (surfing is not hard on knees).

I returned to snow in August 2022 in Patagonia and on day #1 my knee swelled up and was painful again.

I was only able to ski 22 out of 60 days that summer

I went back in for another PRP injection in October.

This time it worked.

I had a strong 2022/23 ski season with record snowfall across the west and I skied 305 out of 365 days that year without issue, swelling, nor pain.

Since then, Ive officially drunk the Kool-Aid.

I found a doctor who will do PRP injections for $450 a pop and Im doing them every 3 months.

This week, I got my 5th PRP injection in the lateral compartment of my left knee (where there is no meniscus and no cartilage).

I plan on continuing with these PRP injections indefinitely.

In general, its advised to take it easy for a day or two after the injection.

I sometimes experience swelling for 24 hours after the PRP injection.

I believe that these injections are working for me and hopefully, theyll help me put off getting a knee replacement until Im at least 55.

Fingers crossed.

Im 45 years old, 61, 165lbs and Ive been skiing full time since I was 22 and Ive skied year round the last 13 years.

PRP treatment is not yet fully proven by science and therefore, health insurance generally wont cover it.

I also do a lot of physical therapy (building up the muscles in my legs) and I have a custom-made DonJoy knee brace that I wear anytime I ski that is called an unloader knee brace because it bends my knee bowlegged taking pressure off the lateral compartment of my left knee where I lack cartilage.

Unloader knee braces are also not well-proven in science.

You may have to get an MRI before you can get into a doctor to get PRP injections and the doctor you see (orthopedic surgeon) will also most likely take an x-ray of your knees.

All info below from Johns Hopkins University

Platelet-rich plasma consists of two elements: plasma, or the liquid portion of blood, and platelets, a type of blood cell that plays an important role in healing throughout the body. Platelets are well-known for their clotting abilities, but they also contain growth factors that can trigger cell reproduction and stimulate tissue regeneration or healing in the treated area. Platelet-rich plasma is simply blood that contains more platelets than normal.

To create platelet-rich plasma, clinicians take a blood sample from the patient and place it into a device called a centrifuge that rapidly spins the sample, separating out the other components of the blood from the platelets and concentrating them within the plasma.

After creating platelet-rich plasma from a patients blood sample, that solution is injected into the target area, such as an injured knee or a tendon. In some cases, the clinician may use ultrasound to guide the injection. The idea is to increase the concentration of specific bioproteins or hormones, called growth factors, in a specific area to accelerate the healing process.

The mechanism behind PRP injections is not completely understood. Studies show that the increased concentration of growth factors in platelet-rich plasma may stimulate or speed up the healing process, shortening healing time for injuries, decreasing pain, and even encouraging hair growth.

PRP injections are used for a range of conditions,* from musculoskeletal pain and injuries to cosmetic procedures.

Tendon, Ligament, Muscle and Joint Injuries

PRP injections may be able to treat a range of musculoskeletal injuries and conditions. For example, chronic tendon injuries such as tennis elbow or jumpers knee can often take a long time to heal, so adding PRP shots to a treatment regimen can help to stimulate the healing process, decrease pain, and enable a return to activities sooner.

Post-surgical Healing

Clinicians first used PRP to accelerate healing after jaw or plastic surgeries. Now, post-surgical PRP injections have expanded to help heal muscles, tendons, and ligaments, as procedures on these tissues have notoriously long recovery times.

Osteoarthritis

Early studies indicate that PRP injections may help treat osteoarthritis pain and stiffness by modulating the joint environment and reducing inflammation, but research is growing.

Hair Loss

PRP injections can be effective in treating male pattern baldness, both in preventing hair loss and promoting new hair growth. PRP can also aid in the stimulation of hair growth after hair transplants.

Skin Rejuvenation

PRP injections are sometimes used as an anti-aging treatment, but there is little evidence to show that PRP reduces wrinkles and other signs of aging.

PRP Therapy Risks and Side Effects

A PRP injection is a low-risk procedure and does not usually cause major side effects. The procedure involves a blood draw, so you should make sure you are hydrated and have eaten beforehand to prevent feeling lightheaded. After the procedure, you may experience some soreness and bruising at the injection site.

Because PRP injections are made up of your own cells and plasma, the risk of an allergic reaction is much lower than with other injectable medications like corticosteroids. Less common risks of PRP injections include:

If you are considering PRP injections, be sure to talk with your healthcare provider about all the benefits and risks.

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Platelet-Rich Plasma Injections | What It's Like Getting PRP Injections Into The Knee as a Skier - SnowBrains

Half of pediatric patients with aHUS benefit from Soliris after… – AHUS News

By Stem Cell Treatment

Treatment withSoliris (eculizumab) helped about half of the children diagnosed with atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) after they received a stem cell transplant, according to a small study.

Among 13 patients who started taking Soliris, seven survived and saw their disease-associated biomarkers normalize. Six died due to complications related to the stem cell transplant.

The study, Eculizumab treatment in paediatric patients diagnosed with aHUS after haematopoietic stem cell transplantation: a HSCT-TMA case series from Japanese aHUS post-marketing surveillance, was published in Bone Marrow Transplantation. The analysis was sponsored by Alexion, now a part of AstraZeneca Rare Disease, which developed Soliris.

aHUS is a type of thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA), a group of diseases wherein blood clots form in small blood vessels. In aHUS, this is caused by abnormal activity of the immune systems complement cascade. While there are often genetic factors, another trigger is typically needed for symptoms to manifest.

One such trigger can be a hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT), which is used to treat a range of blood and autoimmune disorders. It involves transplanting blood cell precursors into a patient to help repopulate their body with healthy blood cells.

Certain immune complications can occur that drive TMA symptoms, however, especially in people with underlying genetic risk factors. TMA is associated with high mortality rates after a stem cell transplant and the appropriate treatment strategy remains to be established. Soliris is approved for aHUS and other complement-mediated diseases, and inhibits the C5 protein to prevent the complement cascades activation, potentially making it an appropriate treatment for managing HSCT-TMA.

Here, scientists retrospectively analyzed clinical data from 13 pediatric patients in Japan who received Soliris after being diagnosed with aHUS following an HSCT procedure, whichwas intended to treat various forms of cancer or immune system diseases. TMA symptoms emerged about a month later, on average.

Three children had existing risk factors for aHUS, including a history or family history of TMA. Eleven patients had complications from the procedure that could have caused the complement cascade to overact, according to the scientists.

All the children were treated with other therapies before starting Soliris, which was initiated a median of 16 days after the onset of TMA. Soliris was infused into the vein, or intravenously, in a similar regimen as that approved for aHUS, with patients receiving a median of three doses.

Over a median observation period of nearly six months, seven patients survived, leading to a predicted survival of 53.8% six months after the onset of HSCT-TMA.

Among the survivors, Soliris decreased levels of lactate dehydrogenase, a marker of organ damage, after 22 days. It also increased the count of platelets, blood clotting cells that are lost as a cardinal aHUS symptom, after a median of 280 days (about nine months).

Median blood levels of creatinine, a marker of kidney damage, didnt change, but four of the seven survivors did see improvements. Three children who previously required dialysis, a blood cleaning procedure for when the kidneys are failing, discontinued it by the last follow-up visit.

None of the survivors had a TMA recurrence over a median of 111.5 days (around 3.6 months) after stopping Soliris.

Three patients died due to ongoing side effects that started before Soliris was initiated and two died due to infection-related side effects that arose after immunosuppressive therapy to treat an HSCT-associated immune complication. One patient didnt respond well to Soliris and died due to TMA.

The survival rates in those treated with Soliris after HSCT-TMA were lower than in a previous report. That could be because in that study, Soliris was started early as a first-line treatment and at individualized dosing regimens.

Early treatment with complement inhibitor and early evaluation of treatment response can be a preferential treatment strategy once complement dysfunction is suspected in HSCT-TMA, the researchers wrote.

No significant prognostic risk factors were identified by comparing survivors with non-survivors, which could be attributed in part to the small nature of the study.

Further research into the risk stratification of HSCT-TMA and the use of C5 inhibitors are needed to confirm appropriate use in HSCT-TMA and to identify factors that might predict patients responses to therapy, the researchers said.

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Half of pediatric patients with aHUS benefit from Soliris after... - AHUS News

Three Win Grant for Pediatric AML NK Cell Therapy Trial – Mirage News

By Stem Cell Treatment

Fehniger (left), Bednarski and Pfeiffer

Todd A. Fehniger, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine, and co-principal investigators Jeffrey J. Bednarski, MD, PhD, an associate professor of pediatrics, and Thomas Pfeiffer, MD, an assistant professor of pediatrics, all at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, have received a total of $1.4 million from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research and Siteman Kids. The funding will support a phase 2 clinical trial of a novel cell-based immunotherapy used in conjunction with a stem cell transplant. Developed at Washington University, the immunotherapy is for children with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a type of blood cancer.

With the goal of reducing relapse after stem cell transplantation, the researchers will treat patients with memory-like natural killer (NK) cells, a type of immune cell, that have been exposed to a protein cocktail that reprograms them to better identify and eliminate cancer cells. The memory-like NK cells will come from the same donor who provided the patient's stem cells and be given about one week after a patient's stem cell transplant.

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Three Win Grant for Pediatric AML NK Cell Therapy Trial - Mirage News

Promising new sickle cell therapy trialed at Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU and VCU Medical Center – VCU Health

By Stem Cell Medical Center

By Kate Marino

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved two gene therapies to treat sickle cell disease in people ages 12 and older a gigantic step toward curing this often-debilitating disease. Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU and VCU Medical Center were involved in the clinical trial that led to the approval of these products.

India Sisler, M.D., is interim division chief and clinical director of the Division of Hematology and Oncology and medical director of the pediatric comprehensive sickle cell center at CHoR. She explains how the new therapy works and why its approval is monumental.

Using a process called peripheral blood stem cell collection, we isolate and pull out the patients stem cells. We then send those cells to a company that specializes in gene modification so they can change the way those cells produce hemoglobin. We work to knock the patients bone marrow out completely and give them their own stem cells back with the modified hemoglobin gene.

This is a multi-step process that involves meticulous planning and special care for the patient along the way.

While treatment is only currently available to this certain subset of patients, our hope is that it will become more widely available in the near future. Clinical trials in children under 12 are still in process.

As we see in many patients, as Walter got older he was having a lot of complications and pain, which made daily life difficult. What made him a great candidate was his motivation to improve his health in order to be the social, active young man he wanted to be. He was all-in and hes doing so well now. Every time we see him, hes almost in tears telling us the things hes able to do and the new lease on life he feels like he has.

At this point Walter is done with treatment and cured of sickle cell. He will follow up with our transplant team so we can monitor him for any side effects every couple months for now, then well space out to a year. We dont really know what to expect 20 years from now since this a new treatment, but its so promising and were thrilled to see Walter thriving.

Beth Krieger, M.D, a pediatric hematology and oncology specialist at CHoR, conducted advanced fellowship training with leading experts in the field of bone marrow transplant and cellular therapies at University of Minnesota, where she did a significant amount of transplant work for non-cancerous conditions. Her knowledge and expertise have been instrumental in Walters care during this study and in bringing curative therapy to CHoR.

Our sickle cell teams work hand-in-hand on a daily basis to help patients transition seamlessly from pediatric to adult care, so were accustomed to collaborating and know it is beneficial for everyone.

Two different sickle cell gene therapy products were actually FDA approved the one we trialed and another one and we are working to begin offering both of them here. Our hope is also that many more patients will qualify in the near future and that we can begin curing people of sickle cell disease without them having to experience the extreme pain and other side effects of vaso-occlusive crises.

Similar gene therapy has also been FDA approved for beta thalassemia, another red blood cell disease. Its much less common than sickle cell, but we have patients undergoing this clinical treatment and it has the potential to be equally life changing.

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Promising new sickle cell therapy trialed at Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU and VCU Medical Center - VCU Health

Scientists Grew ‘Mini Brains’ From Stem Cells. Then, The Brains Sort-of Developed Eyes. – ScienceAlert

By Stell Cell Research

Mini brains grown in a lab from stem cells spontaneously developed rudimentary eye structures, scientists reported in a fascinating paper in 2021.

On tiny, human-derived brain organoids grown in dishes, two bilaterally symmetrical optic cups were seen to grow, mirroring the development of eye structures in human embryos.

This incredible result will help us to better understand the process of eye differentiation and development, as well as eye diseases.

"Our work highlights the remarkable ability of brain organoids to generate primitive sensory structures that are light sensitive and harbor cell types similar to those found in the body," said neuroscientist Jay Gopalakrishnan of University Hospital Dusseldorf in Germany.

"These organoids can help to study brain-eye interactions during embryo development, model congenital retinal disorders, and generate patient-specific retinal cell types for personalized drug testing and transplantation therapies."

Brain organoids are not true brains, as you might be thinking of them. They are small, three-dimensional structures grown from induced pluripotent stem cells - cells harvested from adult humans and reverse engineered into stem cells, that have the potential to grow into many different types of tissue.

In this case, these stem cells are coaxed to grow into blobs of brain tissue, without anything resembling thoughts, emotions, or consciousness.

Such 'mini brains' are used for research purposes where using actual living brains would be impossible, or at the very least, ethically tricky - testing drug responses, for example, or observing cell development under certain adverse conditions.

This time, Gopalakrishnan and his colleagues were seeking to observe eye development.

In previous research, other scientists had used embryonic stem cells to grow optic cups, the structures that develop into almost the entire globe of the eye during embryonic development. And other research had developed optic cup-like structures from induced pluripotent stem cells.

Rather than grow these structures directly, Gopalakrishnan's team wanted to see if they could be grown as an integrated part of brain organoids. This would add the benefit of seeing how the two types of tissue can grow together, rather than just growing optic structures in isolation.

"Eye development is a complex process, and understanding it could allow underpinning the molecular basis of early retinal diseases," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"Thus, it is crucial to study optic vesicles that are the primordium of the eye whose proximal end is attached to the forebrain, essential for proper eye formation."

Previous work in the development of organoids showed evidence of retinal cells, but these did not develop optic structures, so the team changed their protocols. They didn't attempt to force the development of purely neural cells at the early stages of neural differentiation, and added retinol acetate to the culture medium as an aid to eye development.

Their carefully tended mini brains formed optic cups as early as 30 days into development, with the structures clearly visible at 50 days. This is consistent with the timing of eye development in the human embryo, which means these organoids could be useful for studying the intricacies of this process.

There are other implications, too. The optic cups contained different retinal cell types, which organized into neural networks that responded to light, and even contained lens and corneal tissue. Finally, the structures displayed retinal connectivity to regions of the brain tissue.

"In the mammalian brain, nerve fibers of retinal ganglion cells reach out to connect with their brain targets, an aspect that has never before been shown in an in vitro system," Gopalakrishnan said.

And it's reproducible. Of the 314 brain organoids the team grew, 73 percent developed optic cups. The team hopes to develop strategies for keeping these structures viable on longer time-scales for performing more in-depth research with huge potential, the researchers said.

"Optic vesicle-containing brain organoids displaying highly specialized neuronal cell types can be developed, paving the way to generate personalized organoids and retinal pigment epithelial sheets for transplantation," they wrote in their paper.

"We believe that [these] are next-generation organoids helping to model retinopathies that emerge from early neurodevelopmental disorders."

The research has been published in Cell Stem Cell.

A version of this article was first published in August 2021.

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Scientists Grew 'Mini Brains' From Stem Cells. Then, The Brains Sort-of Developed Eyes. - ScienceAlert

Candel Therapeutics Receives FDA Fast Track Designation for CAN-2409 in Pancreatic Cancer

By Global News Feed

NEEDHAM, Mass., Dec. 12, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Candel Therapeutics, Inc. (Candel or the Company) (Nasdaq: CADL), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing multimodal biological immunotherapies to help patients fight cancer, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Fast Track Designation for its lead investigational adenovirus asset CAN-2409 plus prodrug (valacyclovir) for the treatment of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) to improve overall survival.

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Candel Therapeutics Receives FDA Fast Track Designation for CAN-2409 in Pancreatic Cancer

electroCore Expands Intellectual Property Portfolio for Nerve Stimulation Technology

By Global News Feed

ROCKAWAY, N.J., Dec. 12, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- electroCore, Inc. (Nasdaq: ECOR), a commercial-stage bioelectronic medicine and wellness company, today announced the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued a patent related to a system for stimulating a nerve target in the head or neck of a patient for treatment of various disorders, such as primary headache.

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electroCore Expands Intellectual Property Portfolio for Nerve Stimulation Technology

Mainz Biomed Showcases ColoAlert® at Two Prominent Gastroenterology Conferences in Poland

By Global News Feed

BERKELEY, Calif. and MAINZ, Germany, Dec. 12, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mainz Biomed N.V. (NASDAQ:MYNZ) (“Mainz Biomed” or the “Company”), a molecular genetics diagnostic company specializing in the early detection of cancer, announced today its active participation alongside Polish partner TestDNA at two significant gastroenterology conferences in Poland, strengthening their commitment to advancing colorectal cancer (CRC) detection and gastroenterological innovation.

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Mainz Biomed Showcases ColoAlert® at Two Prominent Gastroenterology Conferences in Poland

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