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The patient (right) with the medical team at Beaumont Hospital |
The news surrounding the stem cell scandal of Professor Hwang Woo Suk will eventually fade. However, this does not mean that stem cell technology is taking a step back.
The current treatment outcomes, even though they are just in the initial stages, affirm that it is now possible to replace damaged or lost cells by “cloning” stem cells, thereby “restoring” the affected organ without violating ethical constraints.
Reuters welcomed the new year of 2006 with an article about the first successful treatments of heart failure using stem cells. A heart failure patient was injected with stem cells taken from their own blood to regenerate heart tissue. Since May 2005, 70 patients have been treated using this method at a hospital in Bangkok, Thailand.
With this technique, medicine has entered a new era following the heart transplant era initiated by Professor Christiaan Barnard (South Africa) on December 3, 1967. It is now possible to restore a weakened heart using the patient’s own cells, eliminating the need for donor hearts and reducing the risks of rejection or complications associated with coronary artery bypass surgery.
“A Miracle from Bangkok?”
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This type of cloning is currently banned |
Thailand has become the “receiving point” for this technology, which has been researched and implemented by the TheraVitae Group while awaiting approval to operate in the U.S. In January 2006, TheraVitae began treating cases of peripheral artery disease, which often leads to limb amputation, and by mid-year, they will address Parkinson’s disease, which causes tremors and weakness; in 2007, they plan to treat certain forms of blindness. In the future, TheraVitae aims to treat kidney failure, diabetes, and even bone fractures… This treatment is based on the principle: “Within our body, we have everything necessary to regenerate all that we need. No embryonic cells are required.”
The TheraVitae Group, founded in 2003, specializes in stem cell technology focused on using stem cells from the patient’s blood. TheraVitae has established a research base in Kiryat Weizmann (Israel), with financial headquarters in Hong Kong, and utilizes Bangkok Heart Hospital as its clinical treatment center. Despite having only 30 “core staff” across all three facilities, they are all world-leading experts: Professor Alexander Battler, Aaron Ciechanover (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2004), Tsvee Lapidot, and John Marshall (one of the pioneers in laser eye surgery).
Within just two years of opening, TheraVitae emerged as a “leading center” for heart treatment using stem cell techniques, registering the technique under the name VesCell™. In May 2005, Dr. Amit Patel (from the Center for Regenerative Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, USA) performed the first direct stem cell implantation into a patient’s heart using this method. The VesCell™ process is as follows:
1/ Extract stem cells from the patient’s blood.
2/ Due to the limited amount of “usable” stem cells, viable cells are selected and cultured in an appropriate environment, transforming them into millions of vascular precursor cells (APCs) capable of differentiating into specific cell types such as skin, liver, heart, or lung cells, and producing only those types. This cell cultivation process lasts about one week.
3/ Implant the precursor cells into the patient’s heart. Once reintroduced into the heart, these precursor cells will induce changes in the arterial and cardiac cells, restoring heart function and arterial integrity. Within a month, patients report feeling their heart “stabilized” with less angina.
4/ This method is minimally “invasive,” meaning it involves less surgical intervention than bypass surgery, which carries inherent risks each time a patient goes under the knife. It is also less “invasive” and painful than spinal cord cell implantation (source: www.theravitae.com).
In fact, Dr. Patel and the TheraVitae Group are not the only ones applying stem cell treatment methods. Since February 2003, Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, USA, has saved a 16-year-old boy who suffered a stroke due to a chest injury by using the patient’s own bone marrow stem cells after no heart donor could be found. The patient received medication to stimulate bone marrow cell production, and these cells were then reintroduced into the patient’s body through the aorta. The patient’s heart gradually recovered.
The results above (and more) debunk previous arguments suggesting that only embryonic cells could be used. It all began with the work of Professor James Thompson from the University of Wisconsin in 1998, who successfully isolated stem cells from human embryos and cultured them in a laboratory. Since then, there has been a rush to extract stem cells from embryos stored at artificial insemination centers.
There is also a different approach seeking to create embryos solely for therapeutic research purposes. Efforts are underway to stimulate embryonic stem cells to reproduce indefinitely, producing multiple generations of cells similar to the parent cells used in therapeutic applications. This raises serious ethical concerns: extracting stem cells from embryos results in the destruction of those embryos.
With the method of using the patient’s own stem cells, it is now possible to isolate stem cells from bone marrow, skin, blood, corneas, brain tissue, umbilical cords, and even fat tissue, and convert them into blood, bone, or cartilage cells. All of these have the potential to proliferate and create more perfect, healthier cells to restore function to weakened or damaged organs (from the heart and lungs to nerve cells, bones, skin, eyes, blood, and reproductive organs…) or simply to rejuvenate aged tissues.
When this method becomes perfected, it will revolutionize not only treatment but also economics: treating with stem cells instead of pharmaceuticals or surgery. Equally important is that this method does not require the destruction of any embryos, potentially circumventing the United Nations decision on February 18, 2005, which prohibited human cloning in all forms, including stem cell research techniques.
This decision was passed with 71 votes in favor, 35 against, and 43 abstentions, clearly showing the contradictions regarding this issue. The U.S. and 70 other countries believe that this form of research, regardless of its purpose, takes away human life. Countries like the UK, Belgium, and Singapore argue that the UN decision does not pertain to stem cell research for therapeutic purposes. China and South Korea agree to ban reproductive cloning but will allow embryonic stem cell research.
The Race Begins to Accelerate
Surprisingly, Dr. Patel’s research has been conducted not in the U.S. but in… South America, despite him being the director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh (USA), because this treatment method has not yet been approved by the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration). Following these successful results, Dr. Patel continued to “migrate” to Thailand to work with the TheraVitae Group. Half a million Americans with heart failure have sought treatment in Bangkok, with costs around $31,000 per procedure.
In fact, the U.S. has also made some adaptive moves to prevent the lucrative market serving tens of millions of heart disease patients from slipping away. A few states have made groundbreaking decisions. On November 2, 2004, California voters approved Proposition 71, known as the “Stem Cell Research and Treatment Initiative,” which allocated $3 billion for stem cell research.
Immediately, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) was established in early 2005. The state of Illinois proposed to fund $1 billion. Wisconsin proposed to establish a stem cell research institute with a budget of $375 million. New Jersey also aims to allocate $150 million for building a stem cell institute and an additional $230 million to support research.
Asia is also not left out of the race. South Korea has “fallen” due to excessive investment in Professor Hwang’s research. The Singapore government has allocated $600 million for stem cell research and numerous other biotechnology projects. Some researchers in Singapore are focusing on a new method for treating diabetes with stem cells.
According to PR Leap on November 18, 2005, the U.S. is experiencing a brain drain, as many American scientists in this field, unable to wait for federal legal resolutions, have moved to Singapore to work and even registered intellectual property rights there. China, India, and Japan are also investing heavily in this field.
HUU NGHI
