Posts Tagged ‘stem cells’
A New Japanese Stem Cell Treatment Raises Hopes — And Ethical Questions
Posted on September 10th, 2019
The country fast-tracked the controversial therapy, opening an international rift over who should make health care decisions.
In 2015, Shinji Kusachi, a 47-year-old teacher living in the Japanese prefecture of Okayama, was high-diving at a local pool — a passion he had developed in his 30s — when a tricky dive went awry. “I hit my head on the bottom,” Kusachi recalled of the incident that damaged his spinal cord and left him mostly paralyzed. “They said I couldn’t use my arms and legs. I was really in despair.”
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New trial offers new hope for those with spinal cord injuries
Posted on January 25th, 2014
A Winnipeg paramedic has become the first Canadian to take part in an international clinical trial involving the treatment of spinal cord injuries using stem cells.
Alex Petric was injured last year during a winter vacation in Panama.
“I misjudged the water and just dove in,” the 29-year-old recalls. “I hit shallow water and became paralyzed immediately.”
Petric, now a paraplegic, became involved with the trial just four months after his injury.
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Bone Marrow May Hold Key to Stem Cell Breakthrough
Posted on April 24th, 2012
PATIENTS suffering from spinal cord injury may soon find help in the form of stem cells drawn from their own bone marrow, thanks to a research project from the University of Western Australia.
UWA Associate Professor Stuart Hodgetts and PhD student Sarah Lovett are using human bone marrow stem cells (BMSCs) to promote an endogenous host response after spinal cord injury (SCI), by isolating stromal cells found in a patient’s own bone marrow and transplanting them back into the injury site in animal models.
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Young Aims for Spinal Injury ‘Cure’
Posted on March 7th, 2012
One of the world’s leading researchers into spinal cord injuries says China could hold the key to a cure that he has been searching for since he met late actor Christopher Reeve in the 1990s.
US-based Doctor Wise Young first used the word “cure” in relation to his work after a conversation with Reeve, the Superman hero who became a quadriplegic in an equestrian accident in 1995.
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First Embryonic Stem Cell Treatment Tried on Spinal Cord Injury
Posted on October 12th, 2010
A California bio-tech company has begun testing an embryonic stem-cell drug treatment on a patient with spinal cord injuries, marking the first time a drug made with embryonic stem cells has been used on a human.
The patient was enrolled at Shepherd Center, a spinal cord and brain injury rehabilitation center in Atlanta.
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