Treatment with stem cells

Patient (right) with the doctor of Beaumont Hospital 

The news about the scandal of the stem cells of Professor Hwang Woo Suk will also pass away. However, not so that stem cell technology step backwards.

The current results of the treatment, although initially, have confirmed that it could replace damaged or lost cells by 'breeding' stem cells, thereby 'recovering'. 'The unit is ill without colliding with moral constraints.

Reuters welcomed the new year 2006 with an article about the first cases of successful treatment of stem cell heart failure. A heart failure patient is injected into the heart of stem cells taken from the patient's own blood for the purpose of regenerating the heart muscle. There have been 70 patients treated with this method since May 5-2005 at a hospital in Bangkok, Thailand.

With this technique, medicine has passed a new era after the heart transplant era started by Professor Christiaan Barnard (South Africa) on December 3, 1967. From now on, it can restore the weakened heart by the patient's own cells, not to find people for the heart, do not worry about rejection or the uncertainty of coronary artery bypass surgery.

"Miracle from Bangkok?

Cloning of this type is prohibited

Thailand is the 'receiving point' of this technology, which is invested in research and deployment by TheraVitae Group while waiting to be operated in the United States. In January 2006, TheraVitae began to treat peripheral vascular diseases that often lead to limbs, which will treat Parkinson's disease in the middle of this year, causing muscle tremors and weakness; In 2007, treatment of some blindness. In the future, TheraVitae will treat kidney failure, diabetes, including fractures . This treatment is based on the motto: 'There is everything we need in our body to recreate everything we do. need. No need for embryonic cells'.

TheraVitae Group was established in 2003 and specializes in stem cell technology in the direction of using stem cells from patient blood. TheraVitae has a research facility in Kiryat Weizmann (Israel), has a financial office in Hong Kong, borrowed Tim Bangkok Hospital as a clinical treatment center. All with only 30 'organic employees' for all three facilities, but all are leading experts in the world: Prof. Alexander Battler, Aaron Ciechanover (2004 Nobel Prize in chemistry), Tsvee Lapidot, John Marshall (a in pioneers laser eye surgery).

After just two years of opening, TheraVitae has emerged as the 'leading' center for heart disease treatment with stem cell technology, registered as VesCell ™ technology. In May 2005, Dr. Amit Patel (of the Center for Genetic Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, USA) first implanted stem cells right into the patient's heart according to this method. VesCell ™ method is as follows:

1 / Extract cells from patient's blood.

2 / Because the amount of 'useful' stem cells of patients is very small, they will select 'available' cells, then feed in a suitable environment, turning them into millions of vascular cells (ACP) It is possible to differentiate (into a type of cell such as skin, liver, heart, lung cells . and create only that kind of cell). This cell culture process lasts about a week.

3 / Put in the patient's heart cells the cells. Once re-implanted into the heart, these pre-cells will produce changes in arterial and cardiac muscle cells, restoring cardiac muscle and arterial cells. Within a month, the patient will feel 'stable' heart, less angina.

4 / This method is less 'invasive' or less 'cutlery' as the bypass surgery method has a certain uncertainty rate on every operating table. Nor is it 'invasive' as painful as the spinal cell culture method (source: www.theravitae.com ).

In fact, it is not just each Patel doctor or TheraVitae Group that applies the stem cell treatment. Since February 2003, Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak (Michigan, USA) has saved the life of a 16-year-old boy with a stroke from a chest injury by using the patient's own bone marrow stem cells, after when the heart donor cannot be found. It has been given to patients a drug that stimulates the production of bone marrow cells, then takes these cells back into the patient's body through the aorta. Heart patients revive step by step.

These results (and more) have rejected previous arguments that embryonic cells can only be used. It all began with the isolation of human fetal stem cells and reared in the laboratory of Professor James Thompson of the University of Wisconsin in 1998. Since then, people have tested stem cells from embryos. reserve at artificial conception centers.

There is another policy to go further, to create embryos only for alternative therapy research. People will stimulate embryonic stem cells to reproduce in an unlimited way, to create many generations of cells like mother cells used in replacement therapy. The moral grave problem is that every time an embryonic stem cell is removed, the embryo will be destroyed.

With the method of using the patient's own stem cells, from now on stem cells can be separated from the spinal cord, skin, blood, corneal eyes, brain, placenta stalks, even from adipose tissue, then converting into blood, bone or cartilage cells. All have the ability to differentiate and create more perfect, healthier cells to restore function to organs, organs that are weakened or damaged by disease (from the heart of the lungs, god cells). Cerebrospinal fluid to the bones, flesh, skin, eyes, blood, genital organs .) or simply aging.

When this method becomes perfect, it will be a revolution not only in therapy but also economically: stem cell therapy instead of chemotherapy or surgery. Equally important is that with this method, there is no need to kill any embryos, maybe the 'spleen' is decided on February 18, 2005 by the UN to prohibit human duplication in any form, including stem cell research techniques.

This decision was passed with 71 votes in favor, 35 votes against and 43 abstentions, clearly showing conflict on this issue. The United States and 70 other countries believe that this form of research, no matter what purpose, is taking away human life. England, Belgium, Singapore . think that the UN decision has nothing to do with stem cell research for therapeutic purposes. China, South Korea agreed to ban reproduction cloning but will allow embryonic stem cell research.

The race started to accelerate

Surprisingly, Dr. Patel's research was conducted not in the United States but in . South America, even though he was the director of the University of Pittsburgh Regenerative Medical Center (USA), due to This treatment has not been approved by the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration). After this successful result, Dr. Patel continues to 'migrate' to Thailand to work with TheraVitae Group. Half a million Americans with heart failure have found their way to Bangkok, with treatment costs of about $ 31,000 per shift.

In fact, there have been some adaptations in the United States, too, to keep the lucrative market with tens of millions of people with this heart disease from getting out of hand. Several states have made breakthrough decisions. On November 2, 2004, California state voters voted through a proposed law 71 called the California State's 'Stem Cell Research and Treatment Initiative' that funded $ 3 billion of research on health. stem cells.

Immediately launched the California Regenerative Medical Research Institute (CIRM) in early 2005. The Illinois state government proposed a $ 1 billion grant. The state of Wisconsin has a project to establish a stem cell research institute with a cost of 375 million USD. New Jersey state also wants to spend $ 150 million to build a stem cell institute and spend another 230 million to support research.

Asia does not stand outside the race. South Korea is now "falling horse" because it has invested too much in Professor surnamed Hoang. The Singapore government spends $ 600 million investing in stem cell research and many other biotech projects. Some Singapore researchers are focusing on a new way to treat diabetes with stem cells.

PR Leap November 18, 2005 said that the United States is brain drain because many American scientists in this field, because it is impossible to wait for federal law-breaking decisions, went to Singapore to work and even register Intellectual property here. China, India, Japan also invested heavily in this field.

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