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WorldWeird: Injecting your own stem cells into your heart.

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      CommentAuthorV
    • CommentTimeApr 14th 2010
     (8056.1)
    Double bypass surgery, accompanied with an injection of the patient's own stem cells to facilitate heart muscle generation.

    So far their first patient is doing very well.
    The researchers plan to recruit more patients (here in Quebec) and enter the first phase of a study.

    The process involved:

    * Harvesting stem cells from bone marrow
    * Sending the cells to Dr. Denis Claude Roy at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital to isolate the most immature stem cells.
    * Injecting the stem cells directly into the heart muscle.
    * Using cutting-edge imaging techniques to see whether the stem cells are working.


    More here: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/04/13/heart-stem-cells.html
  2.  (8056.2)
    Wow! That's given me some hope that when I start falling to bits they'll just be able to make the duff parts grow back.

    The person who wrote the first comment on there could do with growing a new fucking brain though...
    • CommentAuthorcoffeemug
    • CommentTimeApr 14th 2010
     (8056.3)
    Can... can I put those into my liver? Interesting to see how effective these direct applications are already turning out to be. The irony being that they apparently need to use the cutting-edge technology to see whether the whole thing is actually working.

    Also:
    "I'm in near perfect shape," Tremblay said in French.
    • CommentAuthorZeebo
    • CommentTimeApr 14th 2010
     (8056.4)
    There are actually quite a few clinical trials and promising results of similar procedures in recent years and one of the most promising areas for cell therapy is heart disease.

    Unfortunately, there are also a number of caveats to the procedure. Namely, a lot of things can affect the engraftment, proliferation, and differentiation potential of adult cells. Such things include age, kidney failure, and the beetus, which means a lot of patients may have less-than-optimal results. Naturally, this means people are trying the same thing with umbilical cord blood, which is probably about as close as you can get to Elizabeth Bathory.

    The other interesting point that's often omitted in such things is that isolating the most immature stem cells almost certainly involved a machine that can accurately count and characterize millions of cells a second and separate them by their characteristics, even if only 1/1M is the correct cell type.
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      CommentAuthorV
    • CommentTimeApr 14th 2010
     (8056.5)
    @JonCarpenter - I almost went to go read the comments to see what you were referring to, and then I remembered that it is almost always a terrible idea to read the comments on news stories. Blargh to that.

    @coffeemug - Why are you surprised by the French part? I assure you the patient almost certainly spoke French before the operation as well. Hee hee. :)
    (It happened here in Montreal. This city is very bilingual, but the primary language is still French and most certainly it is the main language of this province.)

    @Zeebo - Indeed. That's why the researchers involved are cautioning that it will be at least a couple years before they can determine if the procedure was a success even in the short term. Still an exciting start though. The necessary access to the machine is why they'd need to bring any participating subjects over to the specific facility.
    • CommentAuthorcoffeemug
    • CommentTimeApr 14th 2010
     (8056.6)
    Well, not the french itself, but more that the writer apparently felt the need to mention that the guy was talking... IN FRENCH!
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      CommentAuthorV
    • CommentTimeApr 14th 2010
     (8056.7)
    Ha! Fair enough.
    • CommentAuthorRaid71
    • CommentTimeApr 15th 2010
     (8056.8)
    In May I'll undergo a stem cell transplant in my bone marrow (I'm just awaiting results as they can use my Stem cells or if I need a donor)
    Stem cells now offer a cure (fingers crossed) for a once incurable cancer.

    More info about it here
  9.  (8056.9)
    Best of luck, Raid.
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      CommentAuthorV
    • CommentTimeApr 15th 2010
     (8056.10)
    @Raid71 I hope your recovery is full and as easy as possible. Good luck.
    • CommentAuthorroadscum
    • CommentTimeApr 15th 2010
     (8056.11)
    @Raid71, good luck, hope it goes well.
    • CommentAuthorRaid71
    • CommentTimeApr 15th 2010
     (8056.12)
    Thanks for the kind thoughts
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      CommentAuthorHayama
    • CommentTimeApr 15th 2010
     (8056.13)
    In 2007, I was to be a stem cell donor for my brother to try & save him from his cancer, after it was decided that the chemotherapy wasn't going to work. I was partway thru the drug treatment I was to get to cause my body make more stem cells (which makes your bones hurt & you can only take acetaminophen for the pain) when the doctor decided that the cancer was basically ignoring the chemo drugs & my brother wouldn't last long enough for the procedure to even work. After they took him off the chemo drugs & put him on morphine, he died 2-1/2 days later.
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      CommentAuthormagician
    • CommentTimeApr 15th 2010
     (8056.14)
    What a fantastic concept. I feel like this is something I'd read in a John Darnielle blog post about black metal.

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