Thursday, October 13, 2011
New Method Isolates Best Brain Stem Cells to Treat MS
The prospect of doing human clinical trials with stem cells to treat diseases like multiple sclerosis may be growing closer, say scientists at the University at Buffalo and the University at Rochester, who have developed a more precise way to isolate stem cells that will make myelin.
Myelin is the crucial fatty material that coats neurons and allows them to signal effectively. The inability to make myelin properly is the cause of MS as well as rare, fatal, childhood diseases, such as Krabbe’s disease.
The research, published online and in the October issue of Nature Biotechnology, overcomes an important barrier to the use of stem cells from the brain in treating demyelinating diseases.
Until now, it has been difficult to separate out the right progenitor cells – the ones that will develop into cells that make myelin, explains Fraser Sim, PhD, first and co-corresponding author on the paper and assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; he did much of the work while he was a researcher at Rochester.
“Characterizing and isolating the exact cells to use in stem cell therapy is one key to ultimately having success,” said Sim. “You need to have the right cells in hand before you can even think about getting to a clinical trial to treat people. This is a significant step.”
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