16 replies to this topic

[John Schloendorn]

Without having investigated this particular case, I must emphasize that these "experimental" stem cell therapies have to be regarded with extreme caution, especially when related information about the physicians is not easy to get. For one particularly scary example, have a look at this one.

[reason]

Yup yup - a lot of very shady stuff going on in Russia, for example. Much more information needed.

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme
reason@longevitymeme.org
http://www.longevitymeme.org

[John Schloendorn]

Well, at least the researcher and some of the institutions involved do seem to exist. That's better than with many similar reports. Unfortunately, I have no clue how to "investigate" the case further...

[marcus]

I found some pretty good information by googling the guy and his research institution. Unfortunately, I don't have subscriptions to the journals he has published in, but I've checked out some of the abstracts. This one has an email address with an author contact email. He appears to speak english, so I'm going to send him an email to see if I can get any information from the horses mouth.
http://www.wanfangda...0403/040307.htm

I'm still sorting through all the hits for information specific to the procedure mentioned in the newspaper. I'll post what I find and if I get an email reply from him.

Marcus

[caliban]

I suspect they must be using the technique reported by the Korean group of transferring the nucleus from cells harvested from the patient into embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and once they have cultured them in sufficient quantity and coded them for semi-differentiation periodically transplanting them back into the patient.

Why bother? Article says they are using a "blastocyst cell line". Stopp worrying about cancer so much.

Pei has thought about MSC and cord blood .

The article has all the ingredients of a "good story", no information to make it worthwhile and not even a cool headline like "boffins create zombie dogs" [tung] Foetal cellular extracts have been sold as anti- aging treatment since the 1970's with reported good sucess and very similar stories in the press.

[caliban]

I don't follow what you're getting at here, Caliban.

Prometheus, you seem to be assuming that the patients cells are used. I'd simply suggest it more likely that they inject human "ES" cells from a cell line, in light of the last paper by Pei possibly even just a cord cell line.

[Cyto]

secret stem-cell activation material

Mr Wilson said the researchers did not want to reveal the exact details of the procedure so as not to tip off their competitors in the field.

However, he did say the material injected into the participant was taken from a blastocyst line.

Researchers say it is possible to continue growing the required material for years from the one blastocyst.

"Material," what wonderfully descriptive word.



Looking at some of his papers I find that this man could just as easily ellicit the idea of injecting "youth-providing cells." Would he be injecting vector-seeded cells to ramp-up the patient's own cell lines? Going to look over more of them but sofar I think this one is interesting.

[caliban]

The cell line would have to be immunologically matched.

So do we know if Mr. Recipient is on immunosuppresants? People make it sound as if we didn't transplant stem cells every day. Obviously SNT is the ideal solution, but you don't need it to effect potential curative results. Also bear in mind that there are various biobanks being set up in china.

Most importantly, there is still some debate wheter ESC's exibit MHC. MHC-II can be ruled out, MHC-I is controversial.

[Chip]

Apparently antigen compatibility is rare but not nonexistant for some tissue specific stem cells:

from http://www.sagarika.net/faq.php#quest6

What are the chances of finding a suitable stem-cell donor for Sagarika?
The odds of finding a match in an unrelated individual can be anywhere from 1 in 20,000 to 1 in 1,000,000. The odds for a donor of the same ethnicity are much higher, however. You could be that special person!

Why are compatible donors so rare?
A compatible donor must have a compatible tissue type (blood type is irrelevant). Human tissue contains a number of different markers, or antigens. For a successful stem-cell or marrow transplant, the donor’s antigen pattern must be completely compatible with that of the patient. If the antigens are incompatible, the patient’s body will reject the infusion of stem-cells.

from http://www.nature.co...bt0302-237.html

It is extremely likely that ES cell cytoplasm, or the nuclear remodeling proteins present in mature oocytes, will be used to reprogram the phenotype of somatic cells and produce pluripotential cell lines compatible with a wide range of immune subtypes for patients.

Certainly appears important though to use nuclear material from patients for the creation of ESC whenever possible. The data bank and the ability to match donors to patients often enough to render such less significant appears a long way off.

Edited by Chip, 01 July 2005 - 05:49 AM.

[John Schloendorn]

It is also possible that transplanted cells in fact get cleared by the immune system, while they still manage to initiate a remarkable curative process, such as reported here for eye reconstructive therapy. This would also reconcile Bates' observation of the synonymous use of "secret stem-cell activation material" and "material [...] taken from a blastocyst line".
Whether or not ESCs have substanitial MHCs, the more differentiated graft cells that derive from them certainly do (otherwise they'd face NK mediated clearance for example). Furthermore, minor HC mismatch can be sufficient to create grave clinical complications, including rejection.