Could the cells you bank today save your life ten years from now?

Could the key to curing devastating diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease be secreted away inside you at this very moment? Researchers working on developing new therapies that use a patient’s own adult stem cells believe the answer to that question is “yes.”

The use of adult stem cells to fight disease is actually not new. Transfer of adult stem cells via a bone marrow transplant has been used to fight leukemia and other diseases for years.

What is new is that researchers have developed new methods to collect these cells, ways to help the cells reproduce and survive longer and are researching a broad spectrum of diseases that may be able to be treated with a person’s own cells. These developments have led to the advent of adult stem cell banking.

To bank or not to bank

Stem cells are the cells that form the base every tissue, organ and cell in the body. While embryonic stem cells are essentially blank slates that can be coaxed into developing into any type of cell, adult cells are already programmed as specific cell types:

• Hematopoietic stem cells form blood
• Endothelial stem cells form arteries and veins
• Mesenchymal stem cells form bone, muscle, cartilage, fat and fibroblasts, the support structures for tissues and organs

At the present time, researchers are still working to find out if adult stem cells can be encouraged to be pluripotent stem cells, that is cells that can contribute to any type of tissue. Some studies have found that adult stem cells can be guided to transform into different cell types, but data from these studies has recently come into question so more research must be performed.

Until recently, the only method for collecting adult stem cells was to harvest them from bone marrow. That stem cell collection process, known as bone marrow aspiration, involves the insertion of a needle into several spots on the pelvic bone. General anesthesia is usually required for the procedure and it can be quite painful.

A new, less invasive technique has been developed by NeoStem, a biotech company based in New York. This new process makes collecting adult stem cells significantly easier on the patient. The process is known as stem cell mobilization. Two injections of a medication called Neupogen, a protein that stimulates the production of white blood cells, cause stem cells to migrate from bone marrow into the peripheral or circulating blood.

Once that step is completed, the second step, apheresis, begins. Similar to the process of donating blood, apheresis separates and collects the stem cells in your blood. Once collected, the stem cells are stored for future use. The process takes about three hours. Some stem cell banks also collect cells from adipose tissue (fat).

Put away young, healthy cells to be ready to fight tomorrow’s ills

Banking your own adult stem cells while you are in good health allows you to preserve the material that may be able to be used in the future to repair and regenerate damaged parts of your body.

“Banking your stem cells while you are healthy is a form of bio-insurance,” explains NeoStem Chair and CEO Robin L. Smith, a Yale educated physician. “By using your own cells for future treatment, you can avoid an immune response which can cause the body to reject cells and tissue from a donor. Statistics suggest that the engraftment of your stem cells is much faster (than with donor cells), the reconstruction of your immune system (if needed) more rapid, and your hospital stay much shorter.”

Dr. Smith notes another reason adult stem cell banking makes good medical sense. While some diseases can be treated with an organ or bone marrow transplant, organs are in short supply and finding a donor match for both organs and bone marrow is difficult. She notes that every day, 16 people die waiting for a transplant. The promise of a wealth of treatments

While there are no FDA-approved therapeutic treatments that use adult stem cells at the current time, there are more than 700 adult stem cell clinical trials currently registered with the National Institutes of Health.

Repairing the damage caused by a heart attack or heart disease is one area of intense interest. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and the Weill Cornell Medical College are involved in a trial to see if a patient’s own stem cells can reverse the damage caused by a severe form of heart disease known as chronic myocardial ischemia which limits blood flow to the heart. The treatment involves using imaging to map the heart and identify the areas where blood flow is most restricted. A special catheter is then use to deliver the patient’s prepared stem cells to those areas. The cells used in the procedure promote blood vessel and tissue growth. The goal is for these cells to ignite the growth of new capillaries or enlarge existing arteries to improve blood flow.

Researchers at PinnacleCare Center of Excellence Johns Hopkins are taking part in a trial that involves injecting adult mesenchymal stem cells to repair heart muscle damaged by heart attack. Cardiovascular specialists in Europe are well on their way to growing new heart valves from a patient’s own stem cells and predict the procedure will be routine within five years. These human-engineered valves can replace ones damaged by age or heart disease as well as valves with congenital defects.

Diabetes is another disease researchers are targeting with adult stem cell derived therapies. An animal study at Tulane’s Center for Gene Therapy discovered that injecting adult human mesenchymal stem cells into mice both repaired their damaged insulin-producing cells and also repaired kidney damage.

Adult stem cells are showing promise for treating a range of neurological conditions including multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy. The cerebral palsy research, which was conducted at Medical College of Georgia, found that if adult stem cells were injected into the test animal’s brain, the subject experienced improved motor function and had better balance.

People with corneal disease may also benefit from the rapidly growing field of adult stem cell therapeutics. Research undertaken in Europe recently resulted in the growth of new corneal cells which when transplanted in the eyes of rabbits with lesions of the cornea caused a 60 percent recovery of the corneal epithelium and markedly increased corneal transparency, both conditions required for improved sight.

The list of advances is long and also includes:

• The use of skin-derived stem cells to heal spinal cord injuries
• Muscle-derived cells that hold the potential to treat muscle injuries and diseases like muscular dystrophy
• Treatments for rheumatoid arthritis
• Strengthening the muscle responsible for female stress urinary incontinence

NeoStem offers examples of people who have received adult stem cell treatments in clinical trials and overseas and who achieved positive outcomes. One 60-year-old man with severe heart failure experienced a doubling of his ejection fraction (the measure of how well the heart is pumping) after treatment. Another patient reported that treatment caused her lupus symptoms to abate, while a patient with Parkinson’s disease saw a measurable decrease in trembling after treatment.

“The benefits of future stem cell-based therapies can only be reaped if those cells are quickly available, highly viable and unlikely to be rejected by the body if they are needed to treat disease or injury in the future. This is where NeoStem provides an invaluable service,” Dr. Smith adds.

In the coming year, PinnacleCare will be partnering with NeoStem to offer Members the opportunity to bank their stem cells for future therapeutic use. The decision of whether to bank your stem cells for future use can be a complex one. PinnacleCare Members can enlist the guidance of their personal Advocate to help them gather objective, science-based information that can help them make that decision.