>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 He has published work using bone MSCs to reverse demyelination, which occurs in MS. I'm sure he'll have some good perspective.
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 He has published work using bone MSCs to reverse demyelination, which occurs in MS. I'm sure he'll have some good perspective.