The Panama College of Cell Science offers an in depth PhD program in stem cell biology and stem cell science. We believe that “This is the New Medicine, a quantum leap in treating our most difficult diseases” states Walter Drake, Acting Dean of the College: “Biologists well versed in this field will be in demand for years to come.”
Just visit the blog of Don Margolis to learn of the many many miracles being achieved internationally using adult stem cells, also referred to as “repair stem cells”. These are cells obtained from the patient themselves, sometimes multiplied in a lab or in other cases just concentrated, and then re-injected back into the patient. When Walter first came to Thailand in 2001 he read about the curing of blindness in a patient by the injection of adult stem cells. Now, more and more stories are coming out concerning blindness cases, as shown by the recent post by Don: “14-month old can see, thanks to stem cells”.
Don is a pioneer in stem cell treatments. Just when Walter was reading about the curing of blindness in Thailand, Don, also an American, was already in Bangkok successfully involved with a group treating heart patients (many from the USA) with injection of stem cells recovered from the patient’s own blood. The group was headed by a Thai cardiologist who had trained and become an expert at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York for over 20 years, and then left around 2000 because of the US restrictions on stem cell treatments.
It is impossible to read Don’s blog without becoming very enthusiastic about this new science. But one thing is missing…in nearly every case, patients have to travel outside the USA to obtain treatment. Our mission at the Panama College of Cell Science is to train more scientists to push for stem cell treatments in the US and worldwide using repair stem cells.
In April 2011, Stanford University School of Medicine claimed to have established the “first PhD program in stem cell science in the world”. You can read the story at: http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2011/april/stem-phd.html, stating that “Stanford is the first to create a free-standing doctoral program dedicated solely to stem cell biology and regenerative medicine”. The article goes on to emphasize that stem cell biology is a distinct field and as Dr. Irving Weissman, Director, put it: “We are establishing an entirely new field that affects both life sciences and medicine”.
Dr. Walter P. Drake, Acting Dean of the Panama College of Cell Science, which offers a three year online PhD degree program in stem cell science applauded the news and stated that the analysis by others to the effect that stem cell biology is a separate discipline vindicated the College’s offering of a PhD program specialized in stem cell education and training. “I have said many times, that the discovery of the many cures that can be effectuated today by using adult repair stem cells from the patient, constitutes a significant new medical treatment, which will be the New Medicine now and in the future. How patients and disease will be treated is going to change forever, and more people need to be trained in this new field”.
Dr. Drake further stated that he agreed with Dr. Renee Reijo Pera’s comment to the effect that a stem cell biology graduate program appeals to a new generation of graduate students interested in applying their knowledge to address critical clinical needs.
The curriculum of the Panama College of Cell Science has been modified to provide greater emphasis on stem cell science and hormonal control of cellular repair. Courses such as “Fundamentals of Stem Cell Biology”, “Stem Cell Laboratory Protocols”, and “Disease Treatment with Autologous Stem Cells”, and “Fetal and Embryonic Stem Cell Treatment” are examples of some of the courses being offered. In fact, nearly half of the academic credits relate to stem cell studies, and even core subjects such as Molecular Biology and Immunology are presented with an eye toward relevance to stem cells. It is hoped that graduates of the Panama College of Cell Science program can walk into any lab, clinical, or academic setting and be productive.
We are not a heavyweight like the Stanford School of Medicine, to be sure, but yet we offer a nice affordable graduate program in stem cell biology, well suited to working adults such as lab technicians, clinicians, clinic administrators, and those interested in academia. Tuition is $3,900 per year with payment plan, or $2,750/year if paid annually in advance. Our three year program may be just the ticket for many students who want to expand their knowledge of stem cell science, particularly with respect to the clinical uses of adult repair stem cells, but do not have the time or funds needed to complete a program such as that offered by the the Stanford University School of Medicine.
The above is the title of an article posted on Physorg.com discussing the problems with many PhD programs. The article, written by Deborah Braconnier, summarizes some of the problems as follows:
“According to Mark Taylor, the system for PhDs needs to be reformed or shut down. Universities are promoting their PhD programs in order to have the graduate students in the laboratories and as teaching assistants. This works as a benefit to the universities, but in the end provides no benefit to the graduate. The PhD programs have become too specialized in subfields and many find they are unable to talk to colleagues in the same general department because their knowledge is too specialized.”
“Taylor believes that in order for doctoral programs to keep up with the 21st century, they need to eliminate these specializations and move towards more cross-disciplinary knowledge. Curriculum should focus more on applying knowledge to practical problems providing real world solutions.”
The Panama College of Cell Science offers a three year PhD program in stem cell biology. We considered these things when we constructed our curriculum. As stated on our website: “Although this is a rigorous program, it can be completed in a shorter time than many Ph.D. programs because: (1) There is no summer break; and (2) as there is no campus per se, graduate students are not required to assist in teaching undergraduates, nor are they required to assist with laboratory set-ups for undergraduates, as is usually the case.”
Moreover, our curriculum is designed to serve working adults, lab technicians, clinicians, and those interested in expanding their knowledge in stem cell biology and to assist them in “applying knowledge to practical problems providing real world solutions”. Specifically, our program is designed to offer a broad based education in stem cell science so that our graduates can walk into any lab, clinic, or academic setting and be productive.
We believe that our biology graduate program is responsive to many of the complaints about the PhD “system”.
We made it shorter, we made it affordable ($3,900/year with payment plan), we eliminated students extraneous duties, and we made it so students can apply their broad based knowledge to the stem cell field now.
Dr. Walter P. Drake, Acting Dean of the Panama College of Cell Science, resigned his membership in the ISSCR. In a letter directed to the President of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, he criticized the organization for its one sided support of embryonic stem cell research to the exclusion of research with adult stem cells, even though adult stem cells from a patient’s own blood are being used daily in many international centers to control or cure many debilitating diseases.
“History shows the USA has been totally left behind as far as any initiatives whatsoever concerning therapies with adult stem cells,” he said, “and the ISSCR is part of the problem”.
Dr. Drake went on to say in the letter: “Embryonic stem cells are synthetic cells made in a lab. They are a lot of fun to play around with, but the public is being duped into thinking that research with these synthetic cells will ever amount to any cure or control of debilitating diseases, or in fact any disease.”
“Because the Panama College of Cell Science teaches applicable therapies found globally using stem cells, the one-sided approach limited to continuing embryonic stem cell research offered by the ISSCR could no longer be condoned by a continued membership.”
Readers may wish to learn about the history of adult stem cell treatment at the Drake Biomedical Institute website [http://drakebiomedicalinstitute.wordpress.com] and in particular the page at: http://drakebiomedicalinstitute.wordpress.com/history-of-stem-cell-treatments-2/ . This summary may be the best recitation of the early history of adult stem cell therapies available anywhere, and covers up to the year 2008.
The full text of the letter of resignation follows:
________________________________________________________________
March 5, 2012
Fred H. Gage, PhD
President
International Society For Stem Cell Research
RE: Resignation of Membership
Dear Dr. Gage
In the membership renewal package, you require that members answer the following questions:
1. Are you affiliated with any commercial entity offering cell based therapies in the context of regenerative medicine for human subjects?
2. For these therapies, are there any that are not yet in compliance with the ISSCR Guidelines for the clinical Translation of Stem Cells?
3. For these non-compliant therapies, please list the status of:
a. Publication of supporting data in peer reviewed journals
b. Achievement of approval for these therapies/clinical trials by the FDA/your country’s equivalent regulatory body.
c. Achievement of approval for these therapies/clinical trials by an Institutional review board/your country’s equivalent body.
These questions are inappropriate and I therefore resign my membership in the International Society for Stem Cell Research.
Although I am not currently affiliated with any stem cell treatments using autologous adult stem cells, I feel that the regulatory tone of such questions is inappropriate to a scientific body. Regulations and scientific inquiry are not compatible. Has the ISSCR become a regulatory body as well? Perhaps so, as it has given no encouragement whatsoever to the many international clinics successfully treating debilitating diseases with adult repair stem cells. It is apparent that the organization is determined to apply to adult stem cells harvested and re-implanted into the same patient, the same requirements for testing that are needed with embryonic stem cells, which are essentially synthetic cells, and cannot be used for any treatment due to their proliferative properties causing tumors as well as due to the severe immunological consequences that arise, such as graft vs host disease.
Other Things That Are Wrong With the ISSCR
(1) The ISSCR is engaged in regulatory activities which are incompatible with scientific inquiry.
The ISSCR’s attempt through its website, http://www.closerlookatstemcells.org, to scare patients away from bonafide international stem cell treatments which use the patients own adult stem cells, is another example of the organization’s improper regulatory zeal.
The website is deplorable in its attempt to control the world of adult stem cell therapy. There are many, many reports internationally demonstrating the clinical benefit of treatments with autologous adult stem cells. I, for one, do not feel that all of these patients, particularly Americans that have travelled overseas for such treatments, are liars and idiots. Rather, I conclude that something very important is happening here. And many papers are now coming out detailing these successful therapies with adult, not embryonic, stem cells.
When you paste the label “unproven” on all these international treatments, I would like to ask: Unproven according to who, the ISSCR? Unproven because of the lack of “clinical trials”? Rather than being “unproven”, there seems to be evidence that such treatments are beneficial, when one considers the patient as his/her own control, where the before and after clinical states are well documented with many objective medical tests. This is a kind of proof, is it not??
And I would like you to tell me what kind of “clinical trial” can be devised or implemented that relates to a tube of blood being taken from me, the adult repair stem cells expanded (multiplied) in vitro, and then re-implanted into me. Are you going to run a test with other people using my blood?? In fact, no such clinical trial can be devised. Yet, for synthetic embryonic stem cells, you certainly do need clinical trials, since the their injection into me, if they do not cause tumorigenesis, will certainly possibly kill me unless I am given high doses of immunosuppressive drugs.
(2) The Mission Statement of the ISSCR is misleading and needs revision.
The Mission Statement of the ISSCR states: “The International Society for Stem Cell Research is an independent, nonprofit organization established to promote and foster the exchange and dissemination of information and ideas relating to stem cells, to encourage the general field of research involving stem cells and to promote professional and public education in all areas of stem cell research and application.”
At this point in time, it is inappropriate and misleading to use the term “stem cell” alone. Unless the context clearly shows otherwise, one should clearly identify whether one is referring to embryonic stem cells or adult repair stem cells, or other cells such as cord blood stem cells.
The ISSCR clearly by acts and publications, only promotes research into embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cell studies, and more particularly therapeutic studies relating to adult stem cells are not promoted.
I wonder, and hate to believe possible, that the organization and its institutional members that benefit from the billions of dollars in US taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research, may purposefully use the generic term “stem cells”, so that when an infrequent study showing the benefits of adult stem cell therapy does in fact leak out, then everyone can rejoice that “stem cell” research has been productive, and then seek even more funding for embryonic stem cells studies.
I have nothing against funding basic research into embryonic stem cells, to the same extent as other basic research in other fields is funded. But let’s not place embryonic stem cells on some sort of pedestal requiring billions of dollars in extra funding when almost everyone recognizes by now that adult stem cells are far superior to embryonic stem cells for therapeutic purposes.
In my opinion, with respect to the mission statement to the effect that the Society promotes the exchange of ideas relating to stem cells, encourages the general field of research involving stem cells, and promotes public education in all areas of stem cell research and application, this is simply untrue as related to adult stem cells. The Society has not promoted any application using adult stem cells, and far from fostering the exchange of ideas, the Society has uniformly and solely promoted embryonic stem cell research. Your Mission Statement should be corrected.
(3) The ISSCR has failed to call for the abolishment of clinical trials respecting treatments with adult stem cells.
Clinical trials for humans relating to autologous adult stem cell therapy should be abolished, strongly curtailed, or modified. Clinical trials have no place in adult stem cell studies because each patient can serve as his or her own control. The supposed yet outdated requirement for clinical studies involving a patient control group is being used by the medical establishment to bar stem cell therapies in the US, and is one of many reasons why the US lags behind other countries in advancing stem cell therapies.
Stem Cell therapy with autologous adult stem cells constitutes the “New Medicine”. With all the modern technology for objective scientific assessment of a patient’s medical condition, there is no need for a randomized study. Each patient can be carefully evaluated, before, during, and after treatment, by objective medical testing using various equipment, and their condition after therapy compared to that before. Consequently, the treatment of each individual patient constitutes a “single patient clinical trial”. Moreover, the outdated clinical trial format is not relevant nor applicable to “patient specific” therapy involving adult stem cells or even applicable to adult fetal stem cells.
A better approach is that used in Thailand, in which ALL patients receive the proposed treatment regimen. There is no “control group” receiving nothing. Each patient serves as his/her own control. Particularly in the case where patients receive products of their own blood and tissues, such as autologous stem stem cells, there is no need for controlled studies. See for example: Chaithiraphan,S et al.: Transcoronary Injection of Angiogenic Cells Precursors and Autologous Stem Cells in Ischemicc Cardiomyopathy: A Clinical Study of 106 Cases in Thailand. Asean Heart Journal, 17(No.1): 13-22, 2009. Outcomes are compared to the patients’ condition prior to the treatment to determine its efficacy.
The ISSCR should revisit the foundational basis of the standard “clinical trial” such as it applies to treatments with autologous adult stem cells. After all, a patient’s own stem cells are not a “drug” as the meaning of that word as generally understood. Why can’t a patient serve as his/her own control in studies relating to injection or re-infusion of the patient’s own stem cells? In my opinion, these treatments relate to a “procedure” not to a “drug” requiring FDA approval.
Many times it is easier for a Society to take a novel or unpopular position (such as in modifying “clinical trials” for autologous adult stem cells) that individual scientists, fearful of ridicule or loss of stature, cannot take on their own. Or, if not in taking a position, at least framing a useful debate of an issue. This is the higher calling, the higher purpose, and in fact the responsibility of an organization like the ISSCR. And also it’s failure.
Why hasn’t the ISSCR proposed legislation to abolish clinical trials for adult stem cell therapies? We are not in the days of lemons and scurvy! We have sophisticated medical equipment now that can assess a patient’s status in every regard, prior, during, and following treatment.
(4) The ISSCR has failed to fairly evaluate, report and discuss the many international centers where treatments with adult stem cells have proven beneficial to patients.
“Blocked in the USA: The Stem Cell Miracle”, by William C. Radar MD, was published in March 2010. The book details the many successful stem cell treatments (using fetal stem cells and adult stem cells, not embryonic stem cells) that have occurred overseas, outside of the USA. It discusses how American patients must travel overseas to get adult stem cell therapy, because no adult stem cell therapies are yet available (i.e. permitted) in the USA.
What was the response of the ISSCR? Was it disdain? Was it ignore it and it will go away? Was Dr. Radar invited to speak at any ISSCR function? Did any Director or Member of the ISSCR bring this book to a public forum with the questions: Is this true…can adult stem cells really work?; Why do we have a situation in the USA where patients must travel internationally for therapy that should be available in the USA?; Why is the USA being left behind while advancements in therapy using adult stem cells are being developed and available in China, Thailand, Singapore, India, Spain, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Germany, Panama, Mexico, Israel, and elsewhere?
More and more favorable results using adult stem cells are being reported from international centers all the time. Are you aware that a spinal injury causing paralysis can be corrected using neural stem cells from a patient’s own nose? Yet, there are no talks or seminars at any meeting devoted to these new therapies and observations. It’s as if the ISSCR considers these advances as non-existent. Oops, I meant “unproven”.
The Society can promote or not promote anything it wants. But just don’t pretend to have a big tent, when in fact the tent is only open to card carrying embryonic stem cell researchers to the exclusion of everyone else.
(5) The ISSCR has failed to push for the fast-tracking of therapies using Adult Stem Cells.
While progress in defining beneficial treatments using a patient’s adult stem cells marches on in many countries, the USA is “missing in action” and otherwise absent from all such progress. To listen to the USA medical establishment, one would wrongly conclude that there are no treatments available anywhere using adult stem cells. Of course, many international centers are delivering successful treatments every day.
Why has the ISSCR failed to push for the fast-tracking of therapies using adult stem cells in the USA?
(6) The ISSCR has failed to lobby for the equal funding of research supporting the use of adult stem cell therapies.
I do not see any interest in actions or words that demonstrate that the ISSCR has initiated, supported, or advanced the increased funding for research into adult stem cell therapies. The organization is focused entirely on embryonic stem cells.
Of course, as above noted, you continue to wrongly use the term “stem cells” in much of your literature to give the false impression that promoting adult stem cell research is included in your activities. However, in reality it appears to me that using the term “stem cell” without any context is a cloak which masks the real interest and intent which is to push solely for advancement of embryonic stem cell research.
Embryonic stem cells are synthetic cells made in a lab. They are a lot of fun to play around with, but the public is being duped into thinking that research with these synthetic cells will ever amount to any cure or control of debilitating diseases, or in fact any disease.
(7) There is nothing “international” about the ISSCR and it should change its name.
Except for holding annual meetings at various international locations, there is nothing whatsoever “international” about the International Society for Stem Cell Research. The name should be changed to: USA Society for the Promotion of Embryonic Stem Cell Research.
And the use of the term “stem cell research” in the title is also inappropriate, because there is no inquiry whatsoever into the international therapies using adult stem cells. Nor is there much attention or inquiry given to adult stem cells or fetal stem cells as leading to available patient therapies now. Almost entirely, the Society devotes itself to embryonic stem cell matters.
I know that losing me as a member will scarcely be even noticed except for a change in the membership roster. I know I am not as important as the eminent scientists such as yourself, that make up the membership in the Society.
But yet I am in fact a published scientist with over 25 independent studies published in well respected biomedical journals. Which is to say, I know the scientific method when I see it. And I know a boondoggle as well, which is the sucking up of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds with the promise of delivering useful patient therapies, and then using those funds almost solely for embryonic stem cell research to the exclusion of research with the very cells (adult stem cells) which might actually lead to patient treatments.
I offer my opinions as a constructive criticism in the hope that there still may be some scientists with natural curiosity among the membership that might in fact consider some of the thoughts expressed herein.
Respectfully,
Walter P. Drake BA,MA,JD
Drake Biomedical Institute
Phuket, Thailand
CC: Members of the Board
The Panama College of Cell Science is pleased by the interest shown in our program from applicants in South Korea, India, and Nigeria. More and more biology majors are realizing the exciting field of stem cell science is now opening and that this is a field well worth pursuing as an advanced degree.
Manipal University in India [http://www.manipal.edu] has recently announced it will offer advanced degrees in stem cell studies.
The Panama College of Cell Science is the ONLY institution which offers a 3 year doctoral program in stem cell biology which can be completed entirely online. Not only are we the oldest stem cell science doctoral program, but we offer the most affordable biology doctoral degree.
Please visit us at http://stemcellcollege.wordpress.com
So, a warm welcome to our applicants from South Korea:
안녕하십니까
And a warm welcome also to our applicants from India:
अभिवादन करना
Of course, the support and interest we have had internationally and from the USA as well, is most appreciated.
Next class is forming for September 1, 2012….We hope you will join us!!
Dr. Carlos Lima, who pioneered using Adult Stem Cells to cure and/or improve paralysis from spinal cord injuries, has died on June 21. “The world has lost a wonderful, compassionate scientist and clinician in the field of adult stem cell therapy”, said Dr. Walter Drake, of the Drake Biomedical Institute, and acting Dean of the Panama College of Cell Science. Dr. Drake further noted that Dr. Lima of Portugal, will long be remembered for coining the term “repair stem cells” at the Stem Cell Symposium in Greece in 2008. The term refers to Adult Stem Cells found in all patients whose job it is to repair damaged tissue, defeat disease, organize new growth. This is as distinguished from Embryonic Stem Cells, which Dr. Lima referred to as “proliferating cells” which cause tumors when injected into adult hosts. Moreover, another companion fact, suppressed in the USA , is that embryonic stem cells are always rejected by the recipient’s immune system, and consequently can only be used, if at all, along with immuno-suppressive drugs.
At that same Symposium in 2008, Dr. Lima reported on his protocol wherein neural stem cells are obtained from the patient’s own nose and transplanted into a paralyzed patient’s backbone. His treatment was the first in the world permitting some paraplegics to leave their wheel chairs and walk! (If you don’t believe this, see patient’s testimony below). The term “repair stem cells” ONLY refers to adult stem cells in the patient’s own body, and NEVER refers to “embryonic stem cells”.
According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute [lozierinstitute.org], “Dr. Lima, who was based in Portugal, developed a procedure for chronic, severe spinal cord injury in which patients received their own stem cells contained in tissue from the inside of the nose called olfactory mucosa stem cells. The olfactory stem cell transplants were put into the spinal lesions of paraplegic and tetraplegic patients.Dr. Lima and his team in Portugal performed this surgery on over 100 patients with few adverse events and dramatic functional improvement when accompanied by appropriate physical rehabilitation regimes, and actually getting people walking with various degrees of success. “
“Two of Dr. Lima’s patients were profiled in the PBS series Innovation,” the Institute continued. Dr. Jean Peduzzi-Nelson of Wayne State University has been working to bring the technique to treat spinal cord injuries developed by Dr. Lima to clinical trial here in the United States.”
These findings were reported in a July 2006 Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine article, in which they wrote that adult stem cells are beginning to offer the most hope for those paralyzed from spinal cord injuries. Lima’s adult stem cell research showed restored motor function and sensation in a few paralyzed patients using adult stem cells obtained from a patient’s own nose.
Credit: From an article published 7/3/2012 at Lifenews.com by Steven Ertelt (Lisbon, Portugal)
*******************
Supporting these assertions is one of Dr. Lima’s patients, Susan Fait, who testified under oath before the USA Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, July 14, 2004:
My name is Susan Fajt, and I want to thank Chairman Brownback and members of this Committee for this opportunity to tell you of the adult stem cell treatment I received for spinal cord injury in Portugal by Dr. Carlos Lima, and its results to date. But first, allow me to share with you some basic facts about spinal cord injury to explain why I chose Dr. Lima’s procedure.
On November 17, 2001, I suffered a spinal cord injury and became paralyzed in an auto accident. My life has changed in ways unfathomable. Emotions run strong and decisions must be made to end needless suffering. I chose to live and fight for a cure. Perhaps paralysis has robbed me of my freedom, but it can never take away my belief that a cure is attainable through research. There are currently no effective treatments available for spinal cord injury in the United States.
When I was injured I was twenty-four years old, and I loved life more than you can imagine! Today, I have been given a great honor to tell you the story of my quest for a cure for this catastrophic condition.
After tears of pain and years of searching, I found, through my own research, Dr. Carlos Lima in Portugal. My treatment with Dr. Lima took place on June 17th, 2003. I was the 11th patient in the world, and the third from the United States, to receive this treatment.
Dr. Lima used an adult stem cell treatment that uses an Olfactory Muscosa graft to promote growth of axons to bridge the site of contusion, in my hopes that functional recovery would help me to once again walk, run, dance, and do everything I would love, not to mention normal daily activities which are so easily taken for granted, such as bowel and bladder control.
Only part of my dreams has been attained. But I have come farther than my American doctors ever thought. My most recent MRI took place 5 days ago. The doctors were in disbelief at the improvement they saw where my spinal cord had been injured. But most important on my way to recovery is that I can now walk with the aid of braces. I am now preparing to shed the shell of this wheelchair, which has confined me for over two years, to more often use my braces and walker for mobility. This is something my doctors here in America told me would never be possible with my level of injury and to accept my fate.
The U.S taxpayer pays over $30 million per day on care for spinal cord injury and only $68 million per year in a search for a cure. Medical research in the United States is more advanced and far more superior to any other country in the world. Yet citizens, such as myself, risk their lives and are forced to seek treatment in foreign countries.
Source: Crusade for Life [http://www.crusadeforlife.org/stem_cell_research.htm].
**************
Ed. Note: The success in the use of neural stem cells (from the patient’s nose) from a patient exhibiting paraplesia or quadraplesia, to treat the condition, seems to vary inversely with the time to treatment. Patients treated with stem cells shortly after injury or within 1-2 years of injury certainly do much better than those whose injury is more time distant. The postulate for this finding is that while the spinal cord is repaired in the more time-distant injuries, the patient’s muscle mass and the nerve-muscle feedback mechanism has been degraded to a substantial extent, that it can take a long time for recovery to occur, if at all. Perhaps what is needed in addition to the spinal repair via the patient’s own stem cells, is some mechanism of electrical charges or other techniques to promote the nerve-muscle feedback and recognition system. Going forward, it is best that patients with spinal cord injury attempt to obtain adult stem cell therapy early on, or as early as possible. If you are in the USA, get out and find an international treatment center. You can find one for free at: http://repairstemcells.org run by adult stem cell patient advocate, Don Margolis.
Tuition Reduced from $3,900 USD per year with payment plan to $2,950 USD per year, and Application Fee cancelled!!
The Panama College of Cell Science, which offers the only 3 year doctoral degree in stem cell biology that can be completed entirely online via the internet, is pleased to announce a reduction in tuition fees.
Effective January 1, 2013, tuition at the College has been reduced from $3,900 USD per year (with payment plan) to $2,950 USD per year (with payment plan) for all new students who begin our program after January 1, 2013. That means that for all new student applicants who apply now to enroll in our program, the annual tuition will be $2,950 USD per year, because the next start date is January 1, 2013.
The Board of Trustees announced the tuition reduction in keeping with our long standing mission to offer an affordable graduate program in biology. “Education costs should be way lower than they are, particularly for online programs”, said Dr. Walter Drake, Acting Dean of the Panama College of Cell Science. “Online education costs are kept artificially high in order to increase profits, and that includes at the so-called ‘non-profit’ institutions”.
So, in summary, the new annual tuition for the Panama College of Cell Science is $2,950 USD per year for 3 years. This annual tuition fee may be paid in installments with no interest, of $950 USD down, and 8 monthly payments of $250 USD each. Alternatively, a student can obtain a discount by paying only $2,550 in a lump sum in advance of each year session, for a savings of $400 USD. Therefore the student has a choice each year: pay $2,950 USD via a payment plan, or pay $2,550 USD in advance in a lump sum.
Because the program, including dissertation, comprises 72 credits, the cost per credit hour is $123 USD if the normal tuition is paid via a payment plan, and $106 USD if paid via the discounted advance lump sum method.
Dr. Drake mentioned that the tuition reduction came about in part because the College has moved toward a private banking system for tuition payments and away from credit card processing, payment processors, international bank accounts, and banking fees, thereby saving substantial costs which can be passed on to our students. “Every avenue that effects a cost reduction is another cost we don’t have to pass on to our students in higher tuition fees”, he said.
The Panama College of Cell Science offers a 3 year doctoral degree in stem cell biology. Students are awarded a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) upon completion of the program upon the recommendation of the faculty.
The curriculum offered is equivalent to that offered by a regionally accredited USA college or university, and consequently, and graduates are able to obtain a certificate stating same from various foreign education evaluation services approved by the USA Department of Education. And as an international (non USA) educational institution, we are continuing to work toward an international recognition of our program.
Those students who may be seeking a graduate program in biology that offers and online PhD program should look at us.
The Panama College of Cell Science recently revised its 3 year online curriculum to include a new course: “Blood- Components, Separation, Labeling, and Culture”. Because of the importance of the study of hematopoietic stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells, which can be harvested from the blood, the new course was added. “Blood is going to become the number one source of autologous stem cells for patient treatment, because of the ease of isolation relative to bone marrow or other patient sources. The second most prominent source will be fatty tissue”, reported Dr. Walter P. Drake, Director. He went on to say that “The only thing holding back full scale patient therapies with autologous adult human stem cells, is the poor technology of expansion (multiplication) of the adult stem cells to numbers high enough to be useful in therapy. This is a bio-engineering problem that will be eventually solved. I eventually see every physician having a large coffee pot size expansion chamber for multiplying patient stem cells in their office for injection of the patient!!”
The Panama College of Cell Science, a division of Blue Marble University, is the only biology graduate school in the world offering a stand-alone PhD degree in stem cell science that can be completed entirely online via distance education. It is a novel, scholarly, and fascinating program training scientists, clinicians, bio-engineers, and treatment center administrators in this “new medicine”.
Even our graduate students know that!!! Here at the Panama College of Cell Science, we try to teach students to be specific regarding their use of terms. Even though our three year online PhD biology program is delivered online, yet, we try to approach stem cell science in a scholarly manner.
Lately we have noticed a new term for stem cells bandied about in the scientific literature: “autologous embryonic stem cell”. This term is being used to describe Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells.
IPSC’s are artificially created by taking an adult cell, such as a skin cell, and forcing that cell, by way of viral infection, use of gene insertion or otherwise, to become pluripotent, with much the same properties as an embryonic stem cell, yet without being derived from a human embryo. Early on, this exciting development was thought to be a mechanism whereby patient specific embryonic stem cells (or more appropriately, patient specific pluripotent stem cells) could be created that would match the patient immunologically and not be rejected as “foreign” by the patient’s immune system.
Although the original idea has proven flawed in that such cells are immediately rejected by the immune system of the donor, some scientists apparently are trying by terminology to suggest that such iPSC’s are going to be really valuable in therapy. They have started to use the term “autologous embryonic stem cells”. While yes, it is true that such stem cells are derived from the cell of a particular patient, the use of the term “autologous” is totally inappropriate. “Autologous” is a term that has been aligned for over 50 years as an immunological term. Autologous tissue does not cause an immune response and is not rejected by a patient.
For example, consider an autologous bone marrow transplant, wherein a patient’s bone marrow is harvested prior to chemotherapy, and then reintroduced back into the patient with no negative immunological consequence. Or autologous adult stem cell therapy wherein adult stem cells are taken from a patient, and reintroduced into the patient at another site with no immunological consequence…i.e. No immune rejection.
Induced pluripotent stem cells are not “autologous” as that word has come to be understood and used based on immunological principles and observations. And consequently there is no such thing as an “autologous embryonic stem cell”, except perhaps in the dreams and hopes of some scientists.
No one could detail this better than one of our own graduate students in our PhD stem cell program, commenting on an exam about the term, “autologous embryonic stem cell”:
“This is a term fraudulently used to describe patient specific pluripotent cells. This description is based on the assumption that embryonic stem cells derived by somatic-cell nuclear transfer or reprogramming of adult somatic cells to a pluripotent state can provide human-leukocyte-antigen-matched cells, which may be transplanted without the need for immunosuppressive treatment as in autologous therapy. Zhao et al have shown that syngeneic iPSCs induced an immune response leading to tumour regression and immune rejection, suggesting that iPSC may not be immune privileged as previously thought but his syngeneic transplantation model was criticized as not being truly autologous but even at that iPSC’s have also been shown to express wholly different genes and surface markers from the adult cell from which they are derived so they cannot be described as patient specific much less autologous as claimed because the different gene and cell surface markers are very much likely to illicit immunological reaction contrary to a true autologous transplant where no immune reaction is expected.” [Graduate student Paul Faduola].
Our 3 year online PhD program in stem cell science is our only program…and we do it well. The Panama College of Cell Science…now a part of Blue Marble University.
The Panama College of Cell Science has announced that it has developed a unique system for providing student content. Called a “private student portal”, online biology students can access all their course content, syllabus for every course, downloadable resources and video links, assignments, academic records, and billing records. With this private web page, our students can access all their work and related matters at one site.
The private student course portal includes drop down menus for each course.
This new system has been implemented for all newly enrolled students of our 3 year online PhD degree program in stem cell biology, and we believe it to be revolutionary in its ease of use by both faculty and students. “There is virtually no learning curve” stated Walter P. Drake, Director of the program.
A screen shot of the private student portal appears below:
We continue to strive to deliver the best doctoral program in stem cell biology that can be delivered totally online, at an affordable in cost, and that can be completed in 3 years. In addition to our 3 year graduate school program in stem cell biology, we also offer, through our parent, Blue Marble University, a 5 year combined bachelors degree/doctoral degree BS/PhD in stem cell biology that can be entered right from high school.
Stem cell science is an exciting new area of biology, involving the study of embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells, and we are happy to be a part of this new science.
The Panama College of Cell Science offers what may be the only stand-alone graduate degree program in stem cell biology that can be completed entirely online.
The Panama College of Cell Science is the only online biology graduate school offering a doctoral degree in stem cell biology. If you review our curriculum at
http://stemcellcollege.wordpress.com/summary/curriculum/
you will note that our 3 year online program is divided into essentially three sections:
1. Study of Basic Sciences
2. Study of Stem Cell Biology
3. Presentation of Dissertation
Our Basic science portion of the curriculum covers biochemistry, embryology, enzymology, virology, molecular biology, physiology and human anatomy, and immunology. In particular, a thorough understanding of both Embryology and Immunology is required for the advanced study of stem cell biology.
Our stem cell studies courses include Blood, Hormonal Rejuvenation, Fundamentals of Stem Cell Biology, Stem Cells-Embryonic, Stem Cells-Adult and Fetal, Stem Cell Laboratory Protocols, Human Regenerative Biology, Disease Treatment with Autologous Stem Cells, Fetal and Embryonic Stem Cell Treatment, and Growth Media. Although presented entirely online, our program emphasizes laboratory protocols and stem cell expansion techniques. Our graduates develop a broad understanding of the field while studying the entire panoply of this new science. Graduates will be able to contribute at any level in their future endeavors.
The dissertation portion of the program is designed to develop and test independent thought and the scientific method. Our Research and Methodology course reviews correct scientific citation, and correct structure for research papers.
Generous credit is offered against our required basic science courses for students with a Masters Degree or other training/education which we deem equivalent to one of more of our basic science requirements.
For a sample of a typical basic sciences report by one of our graduate students, Click Here
At the Panama College of Cell Science, we only have one program, and we do it well.
Note to Students: A desk top adult stem cell multiplier apparatus is needed worldwide
The website of the Drake Biomedical Institute recently published rudimentary design criteria for the Stem Cell Expresso Machine, a desk top stem cell expansion bioreactor for use in physicians’ offices and small clinics.
As Dr. Walter Drake has stated: “We do not need any more complex, expensive, difficult embryonic stem cell research in order to deliver stem cell therapies today….we only need a machine to generate the needed numbers of adult stem cells already present in a patient’s blood or fatty tissue in small amounts”.
A tube of a patient’s blood contains many of the types of adult stem cells and progenitor cells that are useful in autologous patient therapy. Available internationally in various countries, autologous stem cell therapy is therapy in which the patient is the stem cell donor, and for which the adult stem cells are re-implanted into the same patient to treat some disease, injury, or tissue damage. See for example, The Repair Stem Cell Institute, and the Stem Cell Institute-Panama for information on debilitating diseases being treated now with adult stem cell therapy.
In many procedures, the concentration of repair stem cells from a blood or fatty tissue sample is not high enough to generate a therapeutic result. Consequently the stem cells harvested from the blood or fatty tissue must be expanded (meaning multiplied) in the lab or clinic in order to obtain a therapeutic number of cells. The number of cells needed for a therapeutic result is estimated roughly at 1 billion cells. The current techniques for expanding the numbers of adult stem cells and progenitor cells that will differentiate into the desired tissue are difficult, time consuming, and expensive.
It is this one technological problem….not a biological problem….that is keeping autologous stem cell therapy from being more readily available and more affordable.
“Solve this one problem and patients will be able to receive life changing adult stem cell transplants”, states Dr. Drake, further adding, “We hope that some of our students here at the Panama College of Cell Science may consider solutions to this problem and perhaps contribute, through their dissertation works, approaches that can lead to the realization of this type of apparatus.”
Graduate Studies at the Panama College of Cell Science- Sample Work
From time to time we like to post particularly good work by our graduate students. In this Assignment from the course, “Stem Cell Laboratory Protocols”, students were asked to present reviews of the current state of expansion protocols for stem cells. Expansion of stem cells (multiplication of cells ex vivo) is a particularly important issue for stem cell treatments with a patient’s own stem cells (autologous therapy) because many times it is the lack of sufficient numbers of stem cells harvested from the patient which leads to a non-therapeutic result.
The following is an excerpt from an Assignment generated by graduate student Paul Faduola of Nigeria. It is presented not only as a sample of our graduate students’ work, but also because it presents an excellent summary of the current state of research relating to stem cell expansion protocols:
**************************
Panama College of Cell Science
COURSE ASSIGNMENT
Stem Cell Laboratory Protocols
In your Syllabus for Stem Cell Laboratory Protocols, you were given 6 papers for download. Please be sure you have downloaded these papers for study and also the following two additional papers which I am giving to you here for download:
Bieback et al: “Human Alternatives to Fetal Bovine Serum for the Expansion of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells from Bone Marrow”, Stem Cells 27:2331-2341 (2009)
Shahdadfar et al: “In Vitro Expansion of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells: Choice of Serum Is a Determinant of Cell Proliferation, Differentiation, Gene Expression, and Transcriptome Stability” Stem Cells 23:1357-1366 (2005). This is in substitution for the Stute paper which was not available for free on the internet but which is mentioned in this paper. This paper builds on Stute and advances the concepts.
Assignment Part 1: Please prepare a scholarly review of each paper as if you were going to present its findings to your professors and colleagues at an informal scientific meeting. For each review, please emphasize what the investigators were trying to do from the standpoint of advancing knowledge with respect to stem cell expansion methods, and what contribution each paper made to IMPROVING expansion methodology.
1. Krawetz et al: Large Scale Expansion of Pluripotent Human Embryonic Stem Cells in Stirred-Suspension Bioreactors. Tissue Engineering, 16:573-582 (2010)
The current developments in cell therapy is focusing on identifying essential requirements for successful expansion of adult stem cells for therapeutic applications. Stem cells can be expanded from a particular cell types for specific applications if the stem cell fate is properly controlled by directing the cell differentiation to a desired lineage. The challenge in achieving this include the technical capacity in increasing expansion, honing differentiation efficiency, enhancing population purity, and improving cell viability.
This article by Roman Krawetz et al, is an attempt to translate progress made in expanding pluripotent murine ES cells using suspension bioreactor method into hESC research for the purpose of efficiently generating sufficient and viable stem cells necessary to generate a therapeutic result. Their protocol yielded a 25-fold expansion of hES cells over 6 days and enables hES cells to be expanded without feeder layers or matrices with minimal labor in a controlled and reproducible culture system. This finding demonstrate that the expansion and directed differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hesc’s) in stirred bioreactors for large scale production of therapeutically useful hesc progeny is feasible and can facilitate the adaptation of good manufacturing process (GMP) standards to the development of hES cell therapies. This paper has open a new challenge in hESC clinical application using this protocol in terms of expansion and differentiation by creating the need to improve on the expansion and directed differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in stirred-suspension bioreactors (SSBs) for large-scale production of therapeutically useful hESC progeny is feasible controlling key variables like nutrient and metabolite concentrations, growth factor compositions, and physiological parameters (e.g., temperature, pH, and oxygen).To control this expansion, this study used microcarriers which offers the advantage of providing a larger surface area for the growth of anchorage-dependent cells in a suspension culture system, and overcomes several problems with static cultures, including the requirement for large quantities of culture media, space expense, inefficient gas-liquid oxygen transfer, presence of concentration gradients, and difficulties in monitoring and control. Though this article attributed the successful expansion to the microcarriers in stirred bioreactors used and also compared the outcome to be the same with other similar works using microcarriers, they fail to mention that the favourable outcome recorded against similar works with reduced expansion could have been influence by variable factors including microcarrier shape and size which could affect cell-microcarrier aggregate morphology. High attachment efficiency have been observed on uncoated microcarriers with poor cell growth and/or gradual loss of pluripotency during extended culturing, higher cell yields and stable pluripotent states have been reported in microcarriers coated with Matrigel. Also,positively charged cylindrical cellulose microcarriers and large (190μm) positively charged spherical microcarriers have been shown to exhibit a high cell expansion potential and levels of pluripotency while lower cell yields have been obtained using smaller diameter spherical (65μm and 10μm) or macroporous beads (1).
This Critic however,can not take away the important finding of this article.In my view,the expansion method proposed by this paper is important especially because the hES cells do not have to be separated from microcarriers to be utilized in downstream applications suggesting that the microcarrier may be of bio-degradeble material thereby solving the difficulty of separating of cells from non-biodegradable microcarriers after enzyme treatment. This method can be improved upon to develop a bioreactor system which is precisely suited for expansion of specific cell types to optimize yield, purity, and quality of a desired cell product.
2.Allen Kuan-Liang Chen, Xiaoli Chen, Andre Boon Hwa Choo, Shaul Reuveny, Steve Kah Weng Oh. Stem Cell Research 2011;7 (2): 97-111 Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation May Be Option for Adults with Hematologic Malignancies, Oncology News International Vol 9 No. 21: discusses ex vivo expansion
The expansion of cord blood stem cells will be a major breakthrough in transplantation science because these cells can be collected only once for a particular person and is limited to the quantity obtained at this single point in time.To allow for multiple uses and also to increase their capacity for transplantation which is cell dose dependent especially in adults, researchers are developing methods to stimulate stem cells to divide and increase in number while retaining their primitive state. Stem cell expansion is an important tool both for improving transplant outcomes and enabling individuals to use their own cord blood samples for more than one treatment. Investigators at Duke University Medical Center administered cord blood stem cells expanded by the Aastrom Replicell System (developed by Aastrom Biosciences) to 27 patients with malignant and nonmalignant disorders. The recipients exhibited durable long-term engraftment and demonstrated the safety of this cell expansion technique for clinical use. This study has shown that is feasible to expand cord blood.
3.Sekiya,et al Expansion of Human Adult Stem Cells from Bone Marrow Stroma: Conditions that Maximize the Yields of Early Progenitors and Evaluate Their Quality STEM CELLS, 20: 530–541 (2002).
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) is an attractive option for new therapeutic approaches, due to their plasticity and differentiative potential. MSCs are multipotent stem cells that are able to differentiate into different lineages including mesodermal, ectodermal, and endodermal type cells . MSCs can be easily isolated by their ability to adhere to plastic generating single-cell-derived colonies that can be expanded to obtain high numbers of Cells but the rate of expansion and the yields of multipotential progenitors are inversely related to the plating density and incubation time of each passage. This study try to define conditions that maximize the yields of early progenitors, they found out how plating densities and incubation times can be varied to reach a compromise between the total yields of MSCs and the quality of the cells in terms of their content of early progenitors. They found a simple procedure of scoring cultures by phase-contrast microscopy which provides a rapid method of assessing the cultures. One of their important findings is that cultures enriched for the earliest progenitors (RS-1A) have the greatest potential for differentiation into adipocytes, cultures with somewhat later progenitors (RS-1B) have the greatest potential to differentiate into chondrocytes. One possible explanation for this observation they claim is that the later progenitors more readily undergo the condensation step that occurs in the initial phase of chondrogenesis. Their results show that the low plating density results in higher yields and a faster expansion of MSCs. They also observed that small spindle-shaped cells in some cultures grew more rapidly at a low plating density. MSCs isolated at the 1st passage were mostly broad and uneven, the expansion was slower and the cells were senescent at a low plating density.
4. Csaszar et al: Rapid Expansion of Human Hematopoietic Stem Cells by Automated Control of Inhibitory Feedback Signaling, Cell Stem Cell 10:218-229 (2012)
Growing of HSC cultures produces secreted factors that, if not neutralized have an overall inhibitory effect upon growing cultures. This article is an effort to improve the expansion of culturing conditions to better favor self-renewal by using automated feeding methods to limit the effects of inhibitory molecules (TGF-β, MCP-1, MIP-1α, MIP-1β, and IP-10) that accumulate within growing HSC cultures. By continually adding media at an optimized rate, an automated feeding method is reported to dilute inhibitory factors below a threshold so that the negative feedback effects on HSC expansion are sufficiently reduced. This method has led to an 80-fold increase in CD34+cells and an 11-fold increase in blood stem cells, which was better than simple media exchange of the cultures. This fed-batch method continually increases the volume of cultures so as to optimally expand cells and dilute away the inhibitory factors is better than perfusion driven media exchanges that maintain the same volume of the cultures by removing an equal amount of media that is added. The report claims that the fed-batch method simplifies HSC culturing conditions by eliminating the need for dosing the cultures with multiple compounds that independently target and inhibit the negative feedback ligands produced in culture. However, this benefit may be cancelled by the increased complexity over basic culturing methods required with an automated feeding system. Moreover, the authors found that the fed-batch method works synergistically when combined with small molecular factors that have demonstrated successful HSC expansion capabilities, suggesting that the optimal means of expanding HSCs involves combining fed-batch with small molecular therapeutics and cytokines. For instance, both the small molecule aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) antagonist StemRegenin (SR1) and the soluble TAT-HOXB4 were shown to expand HSCs more robustly when the inhibitory molecules were diluted away using the fedbatch culture feeding system.
5. Quantum Cell Expansion System: Automated expansion of Human mesenchymal stem Cells from precultured Cells Using the Quantum Cell Expansion System
The investigators were trying to develop a closed, automated technology with a platform for culturing cells which may offer an ideal solution for companies wanting to expand to therapeutic doses of adherent and suspension cell types without compromising cell quality with a reduced risk of errors and labor. Cells grown in the Quantum system’s bioreactor achieved an average viability of 94% with 7AAD flow cytometry. The experiment demonstrated MSC trilineage differentiation potential into osteoblasts, adipocytes, and chondroblasts for all 12 precultured MSC expansion runs.
6. Stemgenix: Ex-Vivo Expansion of CD34+ Stem Cells in HSC GEM/StemlineTM Medium Leads to Increased Levels of Total Nucleated Cells and CD34+ Cells (Sigma Labs)
Stem cell sources for example,cord blood products contain low numbers of total cells and progenitor cells which have limited their use primarily to smaller pediatric patients. In order to obtain optimal numbers of HSCs for transplantation in adults, invitro- expansion has been explored to ensure successful engraftment and minimize the short- term effects of neutropenia and thrombocytopenia. One of those methods that attempts to exploit the expansion of stem cells is this study by F.J. Swartzwelder et al, that seek to promote the serum-free medium, HSC GEM/StemlineTM which they develop for the optimal expansion of HSC. They evaluated this medium in the 3 primary cell sources, in both the traditional cell culture well plate format and in a clinical-scale expansion format, with both generating promising results for invitro expansion and viability which indicate that HSC GEM/StemlineTM provides a significant benefit over other commercially available serum-free formulations for the expansion of TNC, committed progenitor and primitive progenitor compartments . This suggests that in the clinical stem cell transplant setting, HSC GEM/StemlineTM may provide significant benefit toward reducing time-to-engraftment and may also result in the reduction in frequency and/or severity of neutropenia and thrombocytopenia. In the microplate culture system, use of HSC GEM/StemlineTM, when compared to other serum-free media, provides a significantly increased expansion of TNC from cultures of CD34+ cord blood cells, bone marrow and mobilized peripheral blood. Flow cytometric data indicates increased specific expansion of CD34+ cells and clinical scale data also supports the overall greater expansion of TNC and CD34+ cells in HSC GEM/StemlineTM, as well as the expansion of both committed and primitive progenitor compartments.
A criticism of this medium is that the human serum albumin is from animal-origin unlike HSA from human which has ultra low endotoxin levels and is ideal for use as a carrier protein. The use of animal source like bovine serum albumin has the disadvantage of being of Increasing the endotoxin level of the resulting solution.
7. Bieback et al: “Human Alternatives to Fetal Bovine Serum for the Expansion of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells from Bone Marrow”, Stem Cells 27:2331-2341 (2009)
Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) have successfully been expanded in FBS because of it potential clinical applications . Translating the potentials of MSC to the clinic will required substitution of FBS to that of human products .This study is an attempt to compare human serum (HS) ,thrombin-activated platelet releasate in plasma (tPRP) and pooled human platelet lysate (pHPL) to FBS to validate whether they are suitable alternative to FBS . This study showed that both HS and tPRP are comparable to FBS supported isolation and expansion of MSC but pHPL significantly accelerated BM-MSC proliferation to yield clinically relevant numbers within the first two passages. MSC quality and functionality including cell surface marker expression, adipogenic and osteogenic differentiation, and immunosuppressive action were similar in MSCs from all culture conditions. They did not find any spontaneous cell transformation in any of the culture conditions. Telomerase activity was not detected in any of the cultures at any passage. This study disagree with a previous data from adipose tissue-derived MSCs where pHPL was found to be the most suitable FBS substitute in clinical scale BM-MSC expansion.
8. Shahdadfar et al: “In Vitro Expansion of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells: Choice of Serum Is a Determinant of Cell Proliferation, Differentiation, Gene Expression, and Transcriptome Stability” Stem Cells 23:1357-1366 (2005).
The plasticity and differentiative potential of Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) has made it an attractive option for new therapeutic approaches. This study is an attempt to investigate if autologous serum (AS) or allogeneic human serum (alloHS) could serve as an effective substitute for fetal bovine serum(FBS) which has the risk of transmitting viral and prion diseases and proteins that may initiate xenogeneic immune responses for the expansion of hMSCs in vitro. Their Study reveals that the choice of serum could affect hMSCs expansion with hMSCs proliferating faster in AS than in FBS with growth arrest and death in alloHS. In term of differentiation, hMSCs in FBS differentiated more rapidly toward mesenchymal lineages compared with hMSCs in AS. They study claimed that hMSCs may be expanded rapidly and with stable gene expression in AS in the absence of growth factors while FBS induces a more differentiated and less stable transcriptional profile.
Assignment Part 2: Now, take the papers as a group, and synthesize from the papers what methodology would probably work best (which can be a new method suggested by you, but based on your thinking about these papers) in expanding autologous stem cells taken from a tube of patient’s blood or from a few cc’s of adipose tissue. To “synthesize” means to read and understand a previous paper(s) and from that understanding generate or put together the best technique you can come with for how to expand the cells better or faster or in greater quantity.
Integrated system for stem cell expansion
Expansion of adult stem cells in bioreactors could be a powerful method to generate large numbers of stem cells for clinical applications. Bioreactor expansion that allow continuous monitoring and control of the physical and chemical environment of the culture for studying the effect of dynamic temporal nutrient,oxygen or pH profiles and culture parameters known to have crucial influence over stem cell fate is extremely necessary for a successful clinical scale expansion protocol.This can be achieved by optimizing bioreactors through the integration of micro-nanotechnologies which will open a new opportunities to move the old cell culture dish to an integrated bioreactor, mimicking more closely the human body complexity. This will allow for example mimicking the in vivo vasculature through implementing fluid flow and cell perfusion cell culture devices using microfluidic systems. Such devices have been termed “Lab-on-a Chip”, and integrate reaction chambers, sensors, and fluid control on one chip. Lab-on- a-chips are powerful tools to control the soluble and mechanical parameters of the cell culture environment. In this way, they can be configured to work like the automated feeding method in order to regulate culture environment for example neutralizing the concentrations of secreted factors produced in the culture environment to prevent their inhibitory effect upon growing cultures by continually adding media at an optimized rate so that the negative feedback effects on HSC expansion are sufficiently reduced.
Miniaturization of cell culture platforms allows cell culture to be monitored in real-time to observe cellular behavior at the scale found in living systems with high-resolution imaging modalities ,this could lead to the development of a more effective method of assessing culture than they phase-contrast microscopy previously suggested. Stem cell expansion in bioreactors can be translated into clinical settings by addressing issues like the use of chemically define culture media without animal-derived products and pathogen free. In this case a more focus research to adapt human serum(especially autologous which is promising) and thrombin-activated platelet releasate in plasma into the bioreactor trials.
********************
The Panama College of Cell Science, located in the Commonwealth of Dominica, offers the only 3 year online doctoral program in stem cell biology leading to a PhD degree. Sponsored in part by the Drake Biomedical Institute, the program can be completed entirely online and features a USA style curriculum that meets the equivalency standards for foreign education. Containing 72 trimester credits, graduates may for a nominal fee obtain a certificate from a foreign credential evaluation service approved by the US Department of Education to the effect that the program is equivalent to a doctoral degree from a regionally accredited USA college or university.
Repair Stem Cell Institute October Newsletter details some current adult stem cell treatments.
And this is why, at the Panama College of Cell Science, our three year online PhD program introduces our graduate students to international stem cell therapies available now. Except of course in the United States, where few if any stem cell therapies are offered.
It is hoped that all of our graduate students, become knowledgeable in the fact that embryonic stem cells will never be a source for useful therapies. Much of the international medical community has long ago left behind the debate as to which is “better”….embryonic stem cells or adult stem cells….and have proceeded to embrace the “new medicine” which is adult stem cells and autologous stem cell therapy.
It is only by the dissemination of this knowledge can the ridiculous US policy, to the effect that a patient’s stem cells are a “drug” to be regulated, be changed.
The USA stands alone…and stands behind…the rest of the international medical community. And what for? Because you cannot patent a patient’s stem cells. And if the pharmaceutical industry cannot make any money from a procedure, they, through their cronies at the FDA, will not permit the procedure to be performed.
Wake up people…it’s your government…oops, sorry it really isn’t….
******************
October Newsletter, Repair Stem Cell Institute
In This Issue
Peyton Manning: Poster boy for stem cell treatment
Adult Stem Cells Allow Breast Reconstruction Without Implants
Lupus Patient 6 years after Stem Cell Treatment
Study Shows Stem Cells May Prevent And Cure Alzheimer’s
Are Excessive Regulations Prohibiting Doctors from Trying to Cure Patients?
NFL quarterback Peyton Manning turned in a record performance against the Super Bowl champion team the Baltimore Ravens. And he may have stem cell therapy to thank.
Real People…Real Treatments
Repair Stem Cells is the greatest medicine ever laid at the feet of mankind
The Repair Stem Cell Institute’s mission is to bring this absolute truth to an unbelieving world.
Find out if Repair Stem Cells can
WASHINGTON, September 6, 2013 — NFL quarterback Peyton Manning turned in a record performance yesterday against the Super Bowl champion team the Baltimore Ravens. And he may have stem cell therapy to thank.
During the 2010 and/or 2011 seasons, Manning sustained career ending neck injurys, undergoing conventional surgeries to repair neck discs pressing his spinal cord. Accordingly to widely published reports, these surgeries included having spacers and plates installed, a disc removed.
Statements made by persons treating Manning at the time indicated he would take a year to heal and he would lose flexion, extension and rotation. The prospect, it was said, of playing in the NFL again was at best, grim.
Unfortunately Manning’s surgical procedures all but failed. Conventional medical wisdom had Manning looking for a career in broadcasting, but Manning had other plans.
Manning investigated stem cell therapy only to discover America does not offer the therapy he needed. He did, however, locate a facility in Europe that performs stem cell therapy.
That therapy, based on Manning’s play in yesterday’s NFL football match up, succeeded. So why isn’t this therapy widely used in America?
Adult Stem Cells Allow Breast Reconstruction Without Implants
Using people’s own stem cells from their body fat could aid in plastic surgery procedures such as post-cancer breast reconstruction, a small, preliminary study suggests.
The study, published in the Sept. 28 issue of The Lancet, looked at whether stem cells might improve the current technique of “lipofilling” — where fat is removed via liposuction from one part of the body, purified, then injected into another area of the body.
Doctors use lipofilling in cosmetic procedures to create smoother skin or fuller lips. But it also has a range of medical uses. Fat injections can help reshape the breasts in women having reconstruction after breast cancer surgery. They can also be used in correcting facial deformities caused by an injury or congenital defect, or helping certain burn injuries heal.
The problem is that transferred fat often doesn’t last, explained lead researcher Dr. Stig-Frederik Kolle.
“It’s unpredictable,” said Kolle, of the plastic surgery department at Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark. “And you often have to repeat the procedure to get a [satisfactory] result.
So Kolle’s team tested a different approach: Take stem cells from people’s body fat and use them to “enrich” the fat tissue being transplanted from one body area to another. Stem cells are primitive cells that develop into more mature ones.
The researchers recruited 10 healthy volunteers who underwent liposuction to have fat taken from the abdomen. The fat was then purified and injected into the volunteers’ upper arms. In one arm, the fat transplant was enriched with stem cells; the other arm received a traditional transplant.
After about four months, the researchers took MRI images of the fat transplants, then removed them. It turned out that the stem cell-enriched transplants had retained about 81 percent of their initial volume, on average — compared with only 16 percent among the stem cell-free transplants.
Lupus Patient 6 years after Stem Cell Treatment
A Utah man who once was given a life sentence of never walking again by doctors is surprising everyone.
Shawn Wickards is the face of a new treatment using stem cells.
We’re not talking about “embryonic” stem cells that have been so controversial in recent years. This is about “adult stem cells” and they are giving hope to people with many kinds of diseases.
Shawn Wickard at the age of 42 is working out, not a big deal, unless you consider just a few years ago the only thing he could do was wiggle his big toe a quarter of an inch.
Study Shows Stem Cells May Prevent And Cure Alzheimer’s
Revolutionary findings in study by Seoul National University & RNL Bio Stem Cell Technology Institute suggest the first real breakthrough toward preventing Alzheimer’s and helping millions of patients and families by releaving its symptoms.
In the first study of its kind, researchers at Korea’s leading university and the RNL Bio Stem Cell Technology Institute announced this week the results of a study that suggests an astounding possibility: adult stem cells may not only have a positive effect on those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, they can prevent the disease. Using fat-derived adult stem cells from humans [scientific term: adMSCs, or human, adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells], researchers were able to cause Alzheimer’s disease brains in animal models to regenerate. The researchers, for the first time in history, used stem cells to identify the mechanism that is key to treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, and demonstrated how to achieve efficacy as well as prevention of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s with adult stem cells, a “holy grail” of biomedical scientists for decades.
Are Excessive Regulations Prohibiting Doctors from Trying to Cure Patients?
Imagine you are one of the millions of patients suffering from illness or injury who has lost the ability to lead a “normal” life. New discoveries reveal the tools to save lives in the patients’ own bodies, but the FDA forbids doctors to use these tools.
I was injured in a car accident more than two decades ago. As my back and knees rapidly deteriorated, I began researching alternative ways of treating them. I rejected traditional surgical options for my conditions because they are invasive and risky, and frequently lead to further surgeries and drug dependencies. Aware of the potential of stem cell therapies to revolutionize the practice of medicine, I was optimistic that my own stem cells could heal me. As soon as my hopes rose, they were dashed: I discovered the FDA, in an unprecedented case of bureaucratic overreach into the practice of medicine, had defined a person’s own stem cells as “biological drugs.” This designation makes the use of one’s own stem cells subject to FDA regulation, as opposed to being classified as “medical procedures” regulated by state medical boards,
Surgeons transplant hearts and other body parts on a routine basis; these are classified as “medical procedures” and not subject to FDA approval. There are many stem cells in a transplanted heart, for example, yet heart transplants are classified as “medical procedures.” In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) is considered a “medical procedure.” IVF involves using sperm cells from one person, egg cells from another person and manipulating them in a lab to create a third person. In the case of surrogacy, this highly manipulated material is implanted into a fourth person. The entire process is defined as a “medical procedure,” therefore IVF is not subject to FDA regulation. However, taking one’s own cells, manipulating them and injecting them back into one’s own body now causes those cells to be classified as drugs.
****************
[Please Note: I am not opposed whatsoever to embryonic stem cell research which continues to lead to valuable understandings about cell-cell interactions. However, these synthetic laboratory models are not likely to lead to any patient therapies, which for many people, particularly patients with debilitating diseases, is the most important goal of stem cell research.]
It has been almost 16 years since the first embryonic stem cells were identified by Dr. James A. Thomson. [Thomson, J.A., Itskovitz-Eldor, J., Shapiro, S.S., Waknitz, M.A., Swiergiel, J.J., Marshall, V.S., and Jones, J.M. (1998). Embryonic stem cell lines derived from human blastocysts. Science. 282, 1145-1147]
So what do we have and where are we going with this new science.
Embryonic Stem Cells have proven to be worthless for patient therapy
If one is looking toward patient therapy and not just unending biomedical research, we can certainly say that the dream of miracle therapies derived from embryonic stem cell research is over for the most part. Embryonic stem cells (ESC’s) as far as patient therapy is concerned have been a dismal failure and are likely never to result in any useful therapy. As we say in one of our stem cell courses at the Panama College of Cell Science, if any student can point to any therapy using ESC’s anywhere in the world, please share with us and collect your “A” for the course.
As I have said before, ESC’s are artificially created cells that are fun to play with in the lab, but will never yield any results leading to patient therapy. Never say never they say…..But the role of ESC’s in therapy can best be summarized by the “secret clinical trials” performed by Geron Inc. The Embryonic Stem Cell Camp, which controls what is done in the USA, is so protective of their pet ESC’s (please give us billions more money and we will find some cure for something), that they convinced the US Government to permit a secret clinical trial so that in the event a bad result was obtained, no bad publicity would ensue. Details of the test are unavailable. But the results of the secret clinical trial are not. In 2011, Geron immediately closed down its entire ESC research program and withdrew from all further development of ESC’s as a future therapeutic modality.
The use of this artificial “model”, namely using various laboratory derived stem cell lines that last in culture for years has done little more than clog up all the medical journals with worthless “observations” and “findings” that relate to the artificial models the ESC scientists created but have no real relevance whatsoever to stem cell therapy for patients.
Why are ESC’s worthless for therapy?
(1) They are foreign cells when injected into a patient, and are thus eliminated by the immune system unless powerful immunosuppressive drugs are used (like in a kidney transplant).
(2) They always form tumors and teratomas because their differentiation is uncontrollable
(3) Because ESC’s can form any cell of the body, their differentiation into the desired type of cell and tissue is essentially impossible to control, define or regulate.
But enough of these silly cells…let’s be serious and talk patient therapy.
There are 5 broad categories of conditions for which adult stem cells might be helpful:
(1) Treatment of Injury: An example of this is the treatment of burn victims with stem cell skin precursors. Another example is the treatment of severe spinal injury by use of neural stem cells applied in the area of the injury to regrow the spinal cord. Trauma due to heart attack or stroke also fit into this category. As an aside, I would like to note the incredible successes of Dr. Carlos Lima (now deceased) in treating spinal cord injury using neural stem cells harvested from the patient’s nose. Some paralyzed patients were able to walk following treatment. Yet for many, the treatment did not work. My feeling about this is that if one is a paraplegic or quadriplegic of long duration, fixing the spinal column alone may not successfully lead to full bodily function because the nerve-muscle feedback mechanism may be permanently damaged. The nerves are restored, but muscle is not working to the point where both systems are functioning. This is why Dr. Lima prescribed extensive physical therapy in connection with his treatment. The bottom line is that if one has a spinal injury, early adult stem cell therapy is essential to a successful result, the earlier the better, but certainly within 1 year or so if possible.
(2) Treatment of Disease: For this category we are generally referring to a disease which occurs other than from genetic defect. An example might be damage to the liver from viral hepatitis, which is reversed by the use of stem cells. Another similar example might be the regeneration of a liver following cirrhosis caused by alcohol abuse or other causes. What we are referring to is treatment of tissue or organ that was once normal but which has become non-functional due to viral disease or abuse. Cardiac disease would be in this category.
(3) Genetic Defects: These are defects in the genes which cause disease. For example, diabetes is in this category. There are quite a few genetically caused diseases that result from the defective production or lack of production of some necessary protein, enzyme or other substance. Stem cell treatments will not be able to “cure” diseases caused by genetic defects. Why is this? Because cellular environment is the #1 and most important criteria for how a stem cell will differentiate and into what form it will differentiate. Normal stem cells, say derived from adipose tissue of a patient, and then placed into a cellular environment (tissue or organ) containing genetically defective cells, will be likely signaled to become like the defective cells, and exhibit a genetic defect. Stem cell treatments may in fact still likely be effective in assisting in the control of the disease, but the effect will be short lived. By this I mean that a patient may need stem cell treatments for life, possibly four times per year, or at worst, maybe one time per month. Genetic defects will require repetitive stem cell treatments. This problem makes it even more crucial that we are able to generate stem cells from a patient for injection cheaply and efficiently. And we do not have this capability at this time.
(4) Pathology: In this category I place Aging in general. Recall the terrific little video of Aubrey de Grey and his novel formula of aging that you saw in the Hormonal Rejuvenation course: “Metabolism causes Damage, Damage causes Pathology”:
Parkinsons Disease may be in this category, as it results from death of dopamine generating cells and the accumulation of protein inclusions. Alzheimers disease, which is associated with plaque formation in the brain may be another pathology induced condition. Stem cell treatments should be helpful in these kinds of situations wherein normal bodily functions are restored by the transplanted cells. And indeed, these two conditions have already proven to be treatable with stem cells. Again, we are talking about the treatment of tissue or organs that once functioned normally.
(5) Developmental Defects: The final category of conditions are those that arise through non-normal development. The DNA (genes) are OK, but something occurred during development that resulted in a defect, such as certain forms of blindness.
Some current International Examples of Stem Cell Therapy Centers
The international medical community is using adult stem cells (ASC’s) with excellent success
Those in control of stem cells in the USA continue to label all international treatments as “unproven” and “fraudulent” and continue to warn patients against traveling to a foreign country for stem cell treatment.
But many international centers are government sponsored. Thailand, China, and India are just three countries that are promoting adult stem cell treatment. Adult stem cell treatment many times involves the use of a patient’s own stem cells, and consequently, such therapy is sometimes referred to as “autologous” stem cell treatment. In other cases, umbilical cord blood containing adult stem cells from normal deliveries is used, due to the observation that such cells do not cause any immunogentic event when transplanted into an adult for treatment. Lastly, in the adult stem cell arsenal are stem cells derived from fetal tissue harvested from legal abortions, due to the observation again that fetal tissue from the first trimester of pregnancy can be transplanted into an adult with no immunogenic effect because the Hla and other antigens have not developed on the cell membranes at that point. If these new therapies are so “unproven” as the USA embryonic stem cell lobby contends, then it appears that the governments of whole countries must be engaged in medical quackery!!! Well, like they said, if you believe that, I have a bridge I can sell you…
Rules for Success
In order to have a successful therapeutic result with adult stem cells, I believe that the following are required:
(1) You must have a sufficient number of adult stem cells in order to achieve a therapeutic result. While every kind of therapy and patient may require a different amount, as a starting point for discussion, we need a billion stem cells. And you are not going to have that number from just a tube of the patient’s blood or from aspirated fatty tissue. The adult stem cells have to be expanded, that is multiplied, before re-implantation to the patient. Which is why I proposed the need for a Stem Cell Expresso machine. Different therapeutic numbers (lower or higher) may eventually be determined for different diseases, or for different methods of transplantation, and likely even related to the age of the patient. But two things we can say for sure. First, if we are talking about a tube of the patient’s blood or a few cc’s of adipose tissue, there is likely to be an insufficient amount of stem cells collected, and ex vivo expansion of the cells will have to be undertaken. Second, if an attempted use of autologous stem cells did not appear to result in a therapeutic benefit, it is highly likely that the cause is an insufficient number of transplanted stem cells.
(2) Because cellular environment is the most important factor determining how a transplanted stem cell will behave, there should be some basis to believe that the manner of the delivery of the stem cells will result in the stem cells reaching the site of defect or injury. The best result in cardiac disease has been direct injection of cardiac stem cell precursors into cardiac tissue.
(3) The treatment should involve some kind of testing to ensure the quantity and quality of stem cells being transplanted to a patient. This of course can be difficult and expensive.
I like to see a lot of information on a website proposing stem cell treatments that discusses these three elements, and some centers to better than others in this regard.
Some Example Centers
An example of a center using umbilical cord blood:
The Panama Stem Cell Institute has an excellent adult stem cell treatment program. I have heard the criticism…”Oh it is not even run by an MD”… Well that is true, Dr. Riordan, the Director, only holds a lowly PhD degree. But he was perhaps the first one to realize how patient therapy could be based on the use of umbilical cord blood. His terrific review paper appears here: Riordan Cord Blood paper Once Dr. Riordan made that connection that cord blood could be transferred to any patient, the Panama Stem Cell Institute was created….of course, overseas due to constant harassment of anyone that seriously suggest that adult stem cells are a good thing and should be applied to therapy now.
An Example of a center using Autologous Stem Cells:
I think the Thailand stem cell centers are excellent. They are all under a government controlled entity and are set up to provide treatments that are designed to work. Their websites provide excellent information. The Thais were the first to treat cardiac disease using autologous stem cells and smart enough to know that with modern medical test methods, each patient serves as his/her control. The so called “clinical trial” is not necessary in these circumstances. The Thai stem cell treatments for cardiac disease have been ongoing now for maybe 10 years and were initiated by a Thai physician who trained in cardiaology for over 20 yerars at Mt Sinai Hospital in New York, became disgusted when autologous stem cell treatments were not going to be permitted and moved back to Thailand to begin treating patients.
Some of the stem cell centers in Mexico, run by US physicians appear to be pretty good, as an example www.regenexx.com
I think Dr. Roberto Vina’s clinic in Argentina does excellent work at a moderate price for a limited number of diseases: heart disease, lung disease, and diabetes using bone marrow autologous stem cells [fundacionfernandezvina.org/fundacion.php] Although the credentials and experience of Dr. Viña are impeccable, and the cost of treatment very affordable, it may be difficult for a patient to access the treatment center directly unless they speak spanish. However, a patient can go via the Repair Stem Cell Institute [repairstemcells.org] See: http://www.repairstemcells.org/Resources/Featured-Deals/RSCI-Announces-Reduced-Stem-Cell-Treatment-Fees-fo.aspx
Treatment with Fetal Tissue
This is a strange though undoubtedly incredibly useful treatment method, and has a strange history as well. Fetal tissue is derived from legal aborted fetuses. It is ground up and rather than just use the cells in therapy, many times the entire “soup” is injected into a patient. The soup contains theoretically the adult stem cells from the fetal tissue, for example liver, along with cellular proteins, cytokines and other small biological molecules. The treatment makes use of the fact that fetal tissue from fetuses less than 12 weeks into development, contain no cell membrane antigens that cause immunological rejection when implanted into an adult. No immunosuppressive drugs are needed. For over 20 years in Russia and Poland, physicians were regenerating whole livers in adults whose livers were damaged by abuse (alcohol) or disease (hepatitis), or injury. That’s a fact jack, and no liver transplants were required. No immunosuppressive drugs were needed either. I am not sure what occurred in Russia, but this practice seems to have been discouraged recently. The practicioners of this technique are now centered in the Ukraine http://uctclinic.com with a good center in Mexico as well: stemcellofamerica.com
Fetal tissue as a regenerative tool works, there is no doubt about it. But I am not sure whether it is stem cells or the proteins, growth factors, messenger proteins and cytokines in the soup (or both) that is yielding the beneficial result. It is something that defintely works but we don’t know why.
A country to maybe think twice about.
From the standpoint of volume, the Chinese have turned out more therapies than anyone. At first, say 10 years ago, their programs seems to be avant garde and they led the world in some aspects. This is due to the fact that their initial medical practicioners were trained atthe prestigious USA National Institutes of Health, and then a bunch of them left en masse to return to China to establish the first Chinese adult stem cell treatment center. Now, as with all things Chinese, there are a lot of copycats, and it is difficult to figure out which are the genuine centers and which are not. After all, this is a country that has yet ot produce its own automobile or truck. Why is it that Thailand produces all the trucks for the USA and Japan, yet no one trusts China to produce any?? Even tiny Malaysia manufactures their own vehicle for export (Proton), and India as well produces thier vehicles for the domestic and export market. The second thing is I wish the Chinese websites would improve their infomration on their website as to sources of stem cells used, numbers for therapeutic result and whether any expansion of cells is undertakien. I am also wary of “secret ingredients” that result in success. Hey, if you have something that works, why not share it with the world. If you need a kidney transplant, you don’t have to wait, you can go to China right now, stay at a hospital for two weeks and fly home with a new kidney. But, their failure rate has been reported to be 50%. Now why is that?? Are they cutting corners in some way, is the source of the kidneys suspect?
Fat cells and cosmetics
Yes, to be sure, there are mesenchymal stem cells located within adipose tissue (fatty tissue in the abdomen for example). And some practitioners are harvesting fatty tissue from a patient and reimplanting the tissue into the face, alleging that the stem cells will cause a rejuvenating effect. The problem with this idea, at least at this time, is that the identification of what cells are being injected, and How Many are being injected, is usually sadly lacking. It is never clear what is causing a supposed beneficial cosmetic effect. Possibly just the injection of fatty tissue is leading to a healthier looking face…or possibly just the manipulation itself resulting in a general inflammatory response is causing a resultant “youthful glow”. Unless you are being treated at a center that can define what cells are being injected, and how many, you are probably wasting your money. And whatever effect is being achieved or sought to be achieved will not last more than a couple of months.
Aging and Stem Cell Therapy
It is now quite clear that autologous stem cell therapy in the aged adult is not as successful as in a more youthful patient. It can be successful, just not as much so. This fascinating Howard Hughes Medical Institute video presents the “paired mouse experiments” (Video Chapters 14-19, Time Sections 16:14 to 24:20 minutes):
This is the section of the video that presents the experiment on muscle regeneration in old mice who are conjoined by surgery to create a shared blood stream with a young mouse. The experiment demonstrates that when an old animal is paired with a young animal, the capacity of the old animal’s stem cells to regenerate injured muscle is increased. There were two follow-up experiments: (1) Serum (not cells) from a young mouse activated stem cells from an old mouse in vitro; (2) Cells from a mouse containing a green fluorescent tag in every cell were NOT transferred to an old paired mouse, thereby clearly showing that it is serum factors, cytokines and the like from the younger animal that is restoring high activity in the stem cells of the older animal rather than any stem cells being transferred to the older animal.
As mentioned in the video, the three factors affecting stem cells in the older animal (human as well) are:
1. The decreased number of stem cells which occurs as we age;
2. The reduction in the capacity of remaining stem cells to regenerate injured tissue;
3. The altered cellular environment in the aged animal contributes to decreased stem cell activity (as shown in the above experiments).
So, when we treat the older patient with autologous stem cells, we are creating a therapeutic effect, but we are only successfully fixing one of the three items: namely decreased number of stem cells.
An excellent summary of aging issues relating to stem cell therapy can be found at: Aging and Stem Cells
Summary
So, as we move forward with learning some of the therapeutic approaches involving adult stem cells, keep these things I have just covered in mind:
A. Genetic defects play a role in how successful a therapy is likely to be (because of cellular environmental factors). Stem cell therapy may very likely be successful for a short term but will likely have to be repeated from time to time in order to obtain a sustained beneficial result.
B. Age is an important factor in how successful therapy is likely to be, again because of the contribution of as yet unknown cellular factors (or absence of such) which tend to reduce effective stem cell activity.
C. Do we have enough stem cells for a therapeutic result?
Clinical trial not necessary for adult stem cell therapy
I would argue that clinical trials (of the kind applied to new drugs) are not necessary for adult stem cell therapy because modern medical instrumentation can monitor the patient before and after therapy to yield objective findings.
From the book “Design and Analysis of Clinical Trials” we have the following account of the first “clinical trial” as described by James Lind carried out in 1747 while at sea on board the Salisbury:
“On the 20th May, 1747, I took twelve patients in the scurvy on board the Salisbury at sea. Their cases were as similar as I could have them. They all in general had putrid gums, the spots and lassitude, with weakness of their knees. They lay together in one place, being a proper apartment for the sick in the fore-hold; and had one diet in common to all, viz., water gruel sweetened with sugar in the morning; fresh mutton broth often times for dinner; at other times puddings, boiled biscuit with sugar etc.; and for supper barley, raisins, rice and currants, sago and wine, or the like. Two of these were ordered each a quart of cyder a day. Two others took twenty five gutts of elixir vitriol three times a day upon an empty stomach, using a gargle strongly acidulated with it for their mouths. Two others took two spoonfuls of vinegar three times a day upon an empty stomach, having their gruels and their other food well acidulated with it, as also the gargle for the mouth. Two of the worst patients, with the tendons in the ham rigid (a symptom none the rest had) were put under a course of sea water. Of this they drank half a pint every day and sometimes more or less as it operated by way of gentle physic. Two others had each two oranges and one lemon given them every day. These they eat with greediness at different times upon an empty stomach. They continued but six days under this course, having consumed the quantity that could be spared. The two remaining patients took the bigness of a nutmeg three times a day of an electuray recommended by an hospital surgeon made of garlic, mustard seed, rad. raphan., balsam of Peru and gum myrrh, using for common drink narley water well acidulated with tamarinds, by a decoction of wich, with the addition of cremor tartar, they were gently purged three or four times during the course.
The consequence was that the most sudden and visible good effects were perceived from the use of the oranges and lemons; one of those who had taken them being at the end of six days fit four duty. The spots were not indeed at that time quite off his body, nor his gums sound; but without any other medicine than a gargarism or elixir of vitriol he became quite healthy before we came into Plymouth, which was on the 16th June. The other was the best recovered of any in his condition, and being now deemed pretty well was appointed nurse to the rest of the sick “
“In spite of the relative clear-cut nature of his findings, Lind still advised that the best treatment for scurvy involved placing stricken patients in “pure dry air”. No doubt the reluctance to accept oranges and lemons as treatment for the disease had something to do with their expense compared to the ‘dry air’ treatment. In fact it was a further 40 years before the British Navy supported lemon juice for crews of its ships at sea; once again the question of cost quickly became an issue with lemons being substituted by limes, condemning the British sailor to be referred to for the next two hundred years as ‘limeys’. “
*******************************************
Clinical trials for humans relating to autologous adult stem cell therapy should be abolished, strongly curtailed, or modified. Clinical trials have no place in stem cell studies because each patient can serve as his or her own control. The supposed yet outdated requirement for clinical studies involving a patient control group is being used by the FDA and medical establishment to bar stem cell therapies in the US, and is one of many reasons why the US lags behind other countries in advancing stem cell therapies.
Stem Cell therapy with autologous adult stem cells constitutes the “New Medicine”. With all the modern technology for objective scientific assessment of a patient’s medical condition, there is no need for a randomized study. Each patient can be carefully evaluated, before and after treatment, by objective medical testing using various equipment, and their condition after therapy compared to that before. Consequently, the treatment of each individual patient constitutes a “single patient clinical trial”. Moreover, the outdated clinical trial format is not relevant nor applicable to “patient specific” therapy involving adult stem cells or even adult fetal stem cells.
Moreover, the fact of the matter is that the so called “clinical trials”, the gauntlet that new medical applications and drugs must run in order to become approved, are immoral. A clinical trial is a study in which 1/2 of the patients are given no treatment. They are the “control group”. Would you ever want to be in the “control group”, needing treatment and getting none??
One questions what kind of informed consent is obtained from patients who will receive no treatment. Are they invited “to be part of a study” and therefore believe they will all be receiving some new experimental treatment?? This appears to some to be a medical fraud.
Professor Georges Mathé, a well respected pioneer in stem cell transplantation and winner of the Grand Medal of the National Academy of Medicine (France’s highest medical honor) gave a lecture in 1998 entitled: “From Moral via Ethics to the Politically Correct”. He discussed how ethics boards determine what is ethical, and thereby change the publics’ perception of what is moral. He stated: ”One of the most immoral such acts concerns medical experimentation. Most people are unaware that 500 patients are chosen at random to receive a “placebo”, while 500 others are given an experimental drug.” [Excerpted from the lecture given at the World Philosophers Meeting , Geneva, Switzerland 1998].
One might also find it strange that, although scarcely reported, more and more so called “clinical trials” are being performed overseas outside of the USA. A whole new industry has formed over the last 5-10 years to perform clinical trials overseas. If these “studies” are so great for a patient to be involved in, why are they being sent overseas? One would suspect it is because the level of informed consent, if any, is probably a lot more lax overseas. Almost 3/4 of US clinical trials are being conducted overseas, with India’s share growing each year.
A better approach is that used in Thailand, in which ALL patients receive the proposed treatment regimen. There is no “control group” receiving nothing. Each patient serves as his/her own control. Particularly in the case where patients receive products of their own blood and tissues, such as autologous stem stem cells, there is no need for controlled studies. See for example: Thai Cardiac Paper [ Chaithiraphan,S et al.: Transcoronary Injection of Angiogenic Cells Precursors and Autologous Stem Cells in Ischemicc Cardiomyopathy: A Clinical Study of 106 Cases in Thailand. Asean Heart Journal, 17(No.1): 13-22, 2009] Outcomes are compared to the patients’ condition prior to the treatment to determine its efficacy.
Clinical trials, which are one of the foundations of modern medicine, should be abandoned or modified for stem cell studies. This type of experimentation is certainly appropriate for animal studies but not for humans. First, stem cell therapy does not involve any drug. Particularly with respect to the injection of autologous stem cells (that are found naturally in the patient), the patient is receiving what one already has, just more of it.
Second, with all the modern technology for objective scientific assessment of a patient’s medical condition, there is no need for a randomized study. Each patient can be carefully evaluated, before and after treatment, by objective medical testing using various equipment, and their condition after therapy compared to that before. Why is such a collection of testing evidence using modern scientific equipment not sufficient to ensure that a positive beneficial effect of a stem cell treatment with autologous adult stem cells is well documented, and hence, “proven”???
“Clinical Trial” requirements, for treatments involving autologous adult stem cells, should be modified so as to focus not on who is included in the study and their treatment protocol, but rather to focus on the identity of the appropriate medical tests to define the patient’s condition before and after treatment.
If just this one small change were to be made, stem cell treatment with autologous adult stem cells could proceed in the US at am amazing pace!!
Randomized Clinical Trials Are Not Always Necessary
We find great solace and support for the position that the need for clinical trials in the case of autologous stem cell transplants should be eliminated or modified in this amazing report from the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ 334:349-351 (2007) [randomizedtrialsnotnecessary.pdf] to the effect that when treatments have dramatic results, biases can be ruled out without the necessity of randomized clinical trials!!! When the relation between treatment and its effect is so dramatic, randomized trials are unnecessary.
When will the new bell ring????
When an important member of Congress or even a President, has to go overseas for a stem cell treatment, only then will a new tune ring in the halls of Congress……
*****************************
The Panama College of Cell Science, located in the Commonwealth of Dominica, offers the only 3 year online doctoral program in stem cell biology leading to a PhD degree. Sponsored in part by the Drake Biomedical Institute, the program can be completed entirely online and features a USA style curriculum that meets the equivalency standards for foreign education. Containing 72 trimester credits, graduates may for a nominal fee obtain a certificate from a foreign credential evaluation service approved by the US Department of Education to the effect that the program is equivalent to a doctoral degree from a regionally accredited USA college or university.
Description of the 3 year online stem cell biology PhD program at
Panama College of Cell Science.
The Panama College of Cell Science has been operating for 10 years. It began with, and still offers, the only stem cell biology PhD program in the world that can be completed entirely online via distance learning. In addition, it remains one of the very few stem cell biology programs available anywhere.
The program can be completed from any country and does not require any campus visit. In fact, the College has no campus but serves an international student body via course materials being delivered over the internet. Students experience a self-learning format made possible by computer technology. Rather than having instructors that teach, the program has been designed to facilitate distance learning using internet resources and downloadable texts, with instructors serving rather in a mentoring and monitoring role. All staff are qualified doctoral Instructors.
The doctoral program at Panama College of Cell Science begins with some basic science courses. It is important to an understanding of the role of stem cells to know some basic anatomy, molecular biology, and immunology. The rules of immunology play a major role in how and if stem cells can be used in patient therapy. And patient therapy was the focus of the College in 2005 when it was first started and sponsored by the Drake Biomedical Research Institute. At that time it was felt there was way too much emphasis on embryonic stem cells, and little attention being paid to adult stem cells, and that the field could benefit from scientists trained to evaluate techniques and processes relating to the harvesting, handling, expansion, and transplantation of adult stem cells.
Following some introductory basic science courses, the program proceeds to a study of embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, fetal stem cells, and adult stem cells. Current therapies with stem cells being used internationally are reviewed with emphasis on government sponsored and private international stem cell clinics.
Lab oriented courses are included which cover the new growth media, cell expansion methodology, microscopy, and videos demonstrating laboratory techniques.
Finally, the successful student proceeds to complete a dissertation. Some students with access to laboratory equipment or facilities put together a lab based research project; others complete literature reviews in specified subjects.
Some applicants have wondered about the lack of actual laboratory experience. Originally the Panama College of Cell Science proposed to feature a stem cell demonstration project for hands on experience. However, this idea has been dropped as being unfeasible for international students with varying financial resources for travel as well as visa issues. The staff came to the conclusion that most graduates will be trained “on the job”, almost exclusively in techniques and procedures not learned in a graduate program, depending on their eventual arrival in industry, clinical settings, biomedical research labs and facilities, or even in the pharmaceutical industry. Moreover, the majority of our students have Masters degrees in the biomedical sciences, or are already associated with a laboratory environment, and thus have some laboratory experience.
Students are encouraged to seek out training sessions, and various stem cell lab projects which occur from time to time in their home countries. Such hands on lab training is certainly beneficial, and if completed during the student’s study with the College, is added to the official academic record of the student.
Stem cell science is what is called the “new medicine”. It is the most powerful new topic in modern biology and thus makes for an excellent graduate study at the doctoral level. Moreover, the whole new emphasis on patient specific therapy has created a need for scientists at many different levels of biomedicine that can contribute knowledge and critical thinking to solving current problems of manipulating and delivering stem cells in the clinical setting.
The Panama College of Cell Science offers a nice affordable graduate program in stem cell biology, well suited to working adults such as lab technicians, clinicians, clinic administrators, and those interested in academia. The three year program may be just the ticket for many students who want to expand their knowledge of stem cell science, particularly with respect to the clinical uses of adult repair stem cells, but do not have the time or funds needed to complete a program such as that offered for example by the the Stanford University School of Medicine.
If interested applicants will view our curriculum, they will find an exciting, novel, and very interesting biology PhD program. Mention “stem cells” and everyone turns to listen. The graduate program at Panama College of Cell Science will give you the tools to become an expert in this new science. A 3-year totally online PhD program in the new biology- stem cell science….that is what the Panama College of Cell Science offers.
The Panama College of Cell Science….
Innovative Thinking and Innovative Education
The Panama College of Cell Science offers the world’s only online PhD degree in stem cell biology, what is now becoming the “New Medicine”. It is an exciting new field, and quite possibly the hottest field in biology today.
So, how does the dissertation requirement work?
A dissertation, also known as a thesis, is a requirement for graduation.
Naturally, with students from all over the world and no laboratory facility, most dissertations at the Panama College of Cell Science are “review papers” in which some aspect of stem cell biology research is pulled together and discussed with a view toward suggesting what future additional experiments might be useful, or pointing to a useful future direction. In this way, a graduate student demonstrates the ability to synthesize concepts from known data.
Time: We allocate only 1 year for completion of your dissertation. But you can take longer if you want. We do not believe that students should be in “dissertation purgatory”, or have a difficult time. The only purpose of the dissertation requirement is for the student to show a command for stem cell biology and to demonstrate some independent thought. And, if you made it this far in our program, you can already do both.
Guidance: We give you active guidance throughout and suggestions for topics. All projects are pre-approved after discussion. That way, all you have to do is to complete the project following a pre-approved game plan. This avoids those many situations elsewhere where, after maybe 3 or more years of work, your dissertation is not accepted by the “dissertation committee”.
Lab based Projects: Some students with access to labs or laboratory equipment at their work, university, or friend’s lab, are able to construct simple experiments and complete lab benched studies by purchasing stem cell test kits and other materials. Their research papers are therefore not reviews but actual reports of experiments. However, a lab based project is not a requirement, but rather up to the student based upon his/her circumstances.
Dissertation Instructions: We do not have any. Unlike most other institutions, we do not give you 50-100 pages of instructions defining what font to use, what size font, how big the margins should be and so forth. Rather, we expect you to be familiar with the format and style of one of more biomedical journals, including reference citation style. After all, it is hoped that your work will be accepted by a peer reviewed journal, so, best to try to align your work with acceptable journal styles.
Dissertation Length: No particular length is required. Of course, a scholarly work befitting a graduate student is necessary. Junk will not be approved nor accepted. But our position is that if Einstein could write the theory of relativity on a napkin, it is the essence of the work and not its length that is the important consideration. Moreover, we expect every dissertation to be published. Almost every biomedical journal has length restrictions and no journal we know of is going to publish 100-200 pages of work. That is why in many cases, a 20 page report, accepted by a peer reviewed journal, is the goal. Most of our students do a more lengthy work, and then cut it down to 20 page summary form, for purposes of publication.
Publication: All dissertations are required to be published. We are not interested in dissertations that no one ever sees or reads. We do not have a basement to store a bunch of worthless works that a student may have spent years to generate. But don’t worry. We are with you 100%. We will suggest possible publication outlets. We know how to get things published, and your work will be published as well. You will have a published work to show any employer or educational institution.
So, don’t be afraid or intimidated in any way by our dissertation requirement. We want you to succeed and make us look good too!!!
Description of the 3 year online stem cell biology PhD program at
Panama College of Cell Science.
The Panama College of Cell Science has been operating for 10 years. It began with, and still offers, the only stem cell biology PhD program in the world that can be completed entirely online via distance learning. In addition, it remains one of the very few stem cell biology programs available anywhere.
The program can be completed from any country and does not require any campus visit. In fact, the College has no campus but serves an international student body via course materials being delivered over the internet. Students experience a self-learning format made possible by computer technology. Rather than having instructors that teach, the program has been designed to facilitate distance learning using internet resources and downloadable texts, with instructors serving rather in a mentoring and monitoring role. All staff are qualified doctoral Instructors.
The doctoral program at Panama College of Cell Science begins with some basic science courses. It is important to an understanding of the role of stem cells to know some basic anatomy, molecular biology, and immunology. The rules of immunology play a major role in how and if stem cells can be used in patient therapy. And patient therapy was the focus of the College in 2005 when it was first started and sponsored by the Drake Biomedical Research Institute. At that time it was felt there was way too much emphasis on embryonic stem cells, and little attention being paid to adult stem cells, and that the field could benefit from scientists trained to evaluate techniques and processes relating to the harvesting, handling, expansion, and transplantation of adult stem cells.
Following some introductory basic science courses, the program proceeds to a study of embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, fetal stem cells, and adult stem cells. Current therapies with stem cells being used internationally are reviewed with emphasis on government sponsored and private international stem cell clinics.
Lab oriented courses are included which cover the new growth media, cell expansion methodology, microscopy, and videos demonstrating laboratory techniques.
Finally, the successful student proceeds to complete a dissertation. Some students with access to laboratory equipment or facilities put together a lab based research project; others complete literature reviews in specified subjects.
Some applicants have wondered about the lack of actual laboratory experience. Originally the Panama College of Cell Science proposed to feature a stem cell demonstration project for hands on experience. However, this idea has been dropped as being unfeasible for international students with varying financial resources for travel as well as visa issues. The staff came to the conclusion that most graduates will be trained “on the job”, almost exclusively in techniques and procedures not learned in a graduate program, depending on their eventual arrival in industry, clinical settings, biomedical research labs and facilities, or even in the pharmaceutical industry. Moreover, the majority of our students have Masters degrees in the biomedical sciences, or are already associated with a laboratory environment, and thus have some laboratory experience.
Students are encouraged to seek out training sessions, and various stem cell lab projects which occur from time to time in their home countries. Such hands on lab training is certainly beneficial, and if completed during the student’s study with the College, is added to the official academic record of the student.
Stem cell science is what is called the “new medicine”. It is the most powerful new topic in modern biology and thus makes for an excellent graduate study at the doctoral level. Moreover, the whole new emphasis on patient specific therapy has created a need for scientists at many different levels of biomedicine that can contribute knowledge and critical thinking to solving current problems of manipulating and delivering stem cells in the clinical setting.
The Panama College of Cell Science offers a nice affordable graduate program in stem cell biology, well suited to working adults such as lab technicians, clinicians, clinic administrators, and those interested in academia. The three year program may be just the ticket for many students who want to expand their knowledge of stem cell science, particularly with respect to the clinical uses of adult repair stem cells, but do not have the time or funds needed to complete a program such as that offered for example by the the Stanford University School of Medicine.
If interested applicants will view our curriculum, they will find an exciting, novel, and very interesting biology PhD program. Mention “stem cells” and everyone turns to listen. The graduate program at Panama College of Cell Science will give you the tools to become an expert in this new science. A 3-year totally online PhD program in the new biology- stem cell science….that is what the Panama College of Cell Science offers.
The Panama College of Cell Science….
Innovative Thinking and Innovative Education
