Congestive heart failure patients improve after (adult stem) cell injections, researchers find

CHICAGO - Some people who were virtually housebound by congestive heart failure dramatically improved and even returned to work after doctors inserted new cells into their severely damaged hearts, according to a report Monday.

The experiment is the latest attempt at cell therapy, an approach still early in development that shows enticing hints that it can restore life to stunned and scarred areas of weakly beating hearts.

I was going to post this story a couple of days ago, but forgot. Then I saw a second, similar story today (see below) and decided to post both (couldn't find any previous post of these with a search). Adult, somatic stem cells continue to show high promise for therapeutic use. As I've said before, I think research on embryonic stem cells from animals is a great idea since it may help us learn how to harness all of the potential of human adult/somatic stem cells, but I hope the clamor for human embryonic stem cell research will abate following more such articles as these.

Cells could speed stroke recovery, study finds
By TINA HESMAN Post-Dispatch (4/3/03)

Stem cells extracted from umbilical cords may one day cure damage done by strokes, suggests new research by St. Louis University neurologists.

The researchers blocked an artery in the brain of rats to mimic strokes caused by blood clots, said Dr. Yi Pan, the neurologist who led the study. After the stroke, the researchers injected stem cells into arteries in the rats' necks.

The stem cells were originally taken from umbilical cord blood. Previous studies have shown that such cells may have the potential to produce many other cell types but may not be as versatile as embryonic stem cells.

The scientists first cultured the stem cells in laboratory dishes, feeding the cells certain nutrients and growth factors. The treatment produces cells that look like brain cells, Pan said.

After a week, the rats that got stem cell injections could pull tape off their paws about as well as they could before the stroke. Rats that got only a saline solution took nearly three weeks to return to normal. The rats treated with stem cells also recovered other movements slightly more quickly than untreated rats, Pan said.

The results are encouraging, Pan said, but may not indicate that stem cells taken from cord blood can replace injured brain cells.

When the researchers examined brains from the rats, they found that most of the stem cells had died, even though the rats had recovered. That could indicate that stem cells produce proteins or hormones that may help heal damaged brain cells or direct neighboring neurons to take over the jobs of dead and dying cells, Pan said.

Pan presented the results of the study Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Honolulu.

You mean they didn't have to chop up unborn babies to get this to work?

Just so. While this work is encouraging, I believe that it is still in the very early, primitive stages. I believe, for example, that proper use of already known (and maybe some yet-to-be-discovered) cell growth factors (cytokines) will increasingly be used to steer the cells in the right direction to do the most good. These cytokines are now used in vitro, but judicious use in vivo along with the cell injections may enhance therapy in the future.

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