3 ms·

Sounds like another good reason to consider banking stem cells, as described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11830407 https://news.ycombinator.com/it

Sounds like another good reason to consider banking stem cells, as described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11830407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11830407 In this case the article describes using chemotherapy to stimulate generation of stem cells, then scrubbing them of the disease before reintroducing. I have no expertise in this field, but I would think having a bank of healthy stem cells would have simplified the procedure and perhaps improved the likelihood of positive outcomes. @markkat if you're reading this, do you have any comment?

blisterpeanuts 10y ago
In the study, the patients' immune systems were cleansed of the agent or agents that caused the autoimmune response. The agent might be present from birth; no one knows what it is, even today. Thus, unfortunately, banking stem cells and restoring them to the body might have the opposite effect of a cure. If they can figure out how to isolate only the specific agents that trigger the attacks on myelin, that would obviously be a huge step forward.
markkat 10y ago
>I would think having a bank of healthy stem cells would have simplified the procedure and perhaps improved the likelihood of positive outcomes. It is possible, assuming that the banked cells were drawn before progression to a disease state. Here, they used the patient's own cells, which they treated before reintroduction, which strongly suggests there is a state to which they can be reverted. It's reasonable then to assume that at the very least, previously banked cells could be similarly treated before reintroduction, which might be a better starting point. As speculated in the article, those patients that did not respond might have progressed too far for the treatment to work. If so, cells banked years before might be advantageous. Of course, that may not be reason why those patients didn't respond. Much of MS still remains a mystery. Still, these results are very exciting, and add to the growing evidence that bone marrow stem cells have real clinical potential. I'll ask our Chief Science Officer, Dr. Ben Buller, to discuss this trial in our blog: http://foreverlabs.co/blog http://foreverlabs.co/blog He has published work using bone MSCs to reverse demyelination, which occurs in MS. I'm sure he'll have some good perspective.

blisterpeanuts 10y ago

In the study, the patients' immune systems were cleansed of the agent or agents that caused the autoimmune response. The agent might be present from birth; no one knows what it is, even today. Thus, unfortunately, banking stem cells and restoring them to the body might have the opposite effect of a cure. If they can figure out how to isolate only the specific agents that trigger the attacks on myelin, that would obviously be a huge step forward.

markkat 10y ago

>I would think having a bank of healthy stem cells would have simplified the procedure and perhaps improved the likelihood of positive outcomes. It is possible, assuming that the banked cells were drawn before progression to a disease state. Here, they used the patient's own cells, which they treated before reintroduction, which strongly suggests there is a state to which they can be reverted. It's reasonable then to assume that at the very least, previously banked cells could be similarly treated before reintroduction, which might be a better starting point. As speculated in the article, those patients that did not respond might have progressed too far for the treatment to work. If so, cells banked years before might be advantageous. Of course, that may not be reason why those patients didn't respond. Much of MS still remains a mystery. Still, these results are very exciting, and add to the growing evidence that bone marrow stem cells have real clinical potential. I'll ask our Chief Science Officer, Dr. Ben Buller, to discuss this trial in our blog: http://foreverlabs.co/blog http://foreverlabs.co/blog He has published work using bone MSCs to reverse demyelination, which occurs in MS. I'm sure he'll have some good perspective.