I have been meaning to compile a listing of recent successes in adult stem cell research, the kinds of break throughs the MSM seem unwilling to report since it doesn’t progress their agenda on embryonic research. An act commonly known as propaganda. These are results that have been reported in the last few months alone:

Item 1

A PIONEERING form of surgery has been developed that can restore the sight of patients by using stem cells to encourage damaged eyes to repair themselves.

A team of British specialists has successfully treated more than a dozen patients with impaired corneas by transplanting human stem cells grown in a laboratory on to their eyes.
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The process involves taking stem cells, which occur naturally in the eye, and developing them into sheets of cells in the laboratory. These are transplanted on to the surface of the eye where they are held in place by an amniotic membrane, which dissolves away as the sheet fuses to the eye.

Item 2

McLaughlin, 48, began stem cell therapy in 2002 using cells from umbilical cords. No embryonic stem cells are used.

After a year, his strengthened eye was prepared for surgery. He underwent his first cornea transplant in June 2003.

He went from not being able to read the morning of the surgery to reading a magazine for the first time in 20 years that afternoon.

Item 3

Autologous stem cell transplant, also called peripheral blood stem cell transplantation, is a type of bone marrow transplant that restores stem cells that have been destroyed by high doses of chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy.

Stem cells are young cells that can mature into blood cells. They are found in the bone marrow, bloodstream or umbilical cord.

Autologous stem cell transplant is not a surgical procedure, but is rather more like a blood transfusion. The stem cells used in the procedure come from the blood of the patient who has been in remission (meaning, the signs and symptoms of cancer have disappeared).

Item 4

Children with a fatal genetic disorder called Krabbe disease can be saved and their brain development preserved if they receive stem cells from umbilical cord blood before symptoms of the disease develop, according to a study published in the May 19, 2005, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Without an immediate transplant of stem cells, Krabbe infants rapidly begin to lose all cognitive and motor functions and die by the age of two, said the researchers
…
The study is the first to demonstrate a life-saving treatment for newborns with Krabbe Disease, in which children are missing an enzyme critical to forming the myelin sheath that protects developing brain cells from damage. Moreover, the findings add to the growing body of evidence showing that cord blood can save children with other fatal “lysosomal storage diseases,” each of which stems from a specific enzyme deficiency.

Item 5

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is beginning a clinical trial to evaluate the safety and feasibility of a potential treatment for congestive heart failure that involves injecting a patient’s own bone marrow-derived stem cells directly into the heart muscle. The procedure is expected to be performed in five to 10 patients who are scheduled to receive a heart assist device as a bridge to organ transplantation.

Item 6

Arinzeh, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Techology (NJIT), is researching the use of stem cells to induce bone repair. Her research will help diabetics whose impaired bones will not properly heal. She is using adult stem cells, in combination with allografts—donated bone tissue—to regenerate and repair the patients’ damaged bones.
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One day soon, as a result of Arinzeh’s research, patients could be treated with off-the-shelf stem cell therapies instead of drugs. In five years, say, a patient with a bone ailment would visit a doctor and be injected with a ready supply of stem cells.

Item 7

The cells used in the research are called marrow stromal cells—a type of stem cell from which fat, bone and cartilage normally develop.

“We were interested in marrow stromal cells because of their potential for use in autologous cell-based therapy,” said Dr. Hashino, referring to cell transplantation in which a patient’s own cells are used in treatment. The cells can be collected easily and kept alive in the laboratory until needed, she said.

Item 8

Griffith University researchers have successfully grown adult stem cells harvested from the olfactory mucosa, the organ of smell in the human nose.

They demonstrated the cells can give rise not only to nerve cells but also to heart, liver, kidney, and muscle cells. Their paper is published in peer-reviewed life sciences journal Developmental Dynamics.

The research team, led by Professor Alan Mackay-Sim, Deputy Director of the university’s Institute for Cell and Molecular Therapies, has spent the past four years developing the research which will have potential clinical application in stem cell transplantation therapies and in understanding the biology of diseases.

Item 9

The study, published in the February issue of Stem Cells, outlines how researchers discovered that the jelly-like connective tissue surrounding the blood vessels of the human umbilical cord, the so-called “Wharton’s Jelly,” is rich in mesenchymal progenitor cells—cells that generate bone, cartilage and other tissues—and can be harvested to generate an abundant supply in a short amount of time. This expandable source of progenitor cells could greatly improve bone marrow transplantation, a painful yet common procedure that currently has a 30 to 40 per cent success rate in treating disease.