Umbilical Cord Stem Cells Could Repair Brain Injury.

TAMPA, Fla. (Feb. 18, 2001) – Stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood may help restore brain function after disease or injury, according to new studies from USF and Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

Results of several studies were presented Feb. 18th in San Francisco at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. AAAS is the largest science organization, and publishes Science. An accompanying AAAS press conference generated dozens of stories across the world, from the Irish Times and the BBC to WebMD, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Associated Press.

For the first time, the researchers have shown that human umbilical cord stem cells, obtained after birth, can be reprogrammed to act as brain cells (neurons and glia). Until now, umbilical cord stem cells have been used to fight blood diseases such as leukemia in children.

"What we know from this is that umbilical cord blood contains stem cells able to differentiate into neural cells," Paul Sanberg, PhD, DSc, director of USF's Center for Aging and Brain Repair, said. Stem cells are multipotent cells--able to grow into other kinds of cells.
"This finding suggests that umbilical cord blood is a noncontroversial, readily available source of stem cells for brain repair," Dr. Sanberg said.
"We already know that stem cells derived from embryonic tissue may be effective in rebuilding the damaged brain in diseases like Parkinson's and stroke."

Several scientists commented on the potential uses of these stem cells. "There is a lot of exploring yet to go on. But theoretically this could be the universal repair tissue," USF's Juan Sanchez Ramos, MD, PhD, told the Associated Press.

In a related study, the team went on to inject human umbilical cord cells in rats with stroke, and had surprising results that suggest that these stem cells can restore function after stroke--even when the cells were simply given intravenously.

"In the rats, the effects were fairly rapid, and new cord-derived cells could be seen clearly on the stroke side of the brain," Dr. Sanberg said.
The studies are funded through Florida's High Tech Corridor initiative. The state awarded its grant based on the USF group's collaboration and funding from CCEL Bio-Therapies, Inc., a subsidiary of CRYO-CELL International, Inc., of Clearwater, Fla., which provided the cord blood to the research team.
USF researchers are involved in several clinical trials using cell implants into the brain to treat Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, and the damage caused by stroke.

Principal researchers on these trials included Dr. Sanberg, who is director of the USF Center for Aging and Brain Repair and director of Neurosurgical Research; Dr. Sanchez Ramos, Professor of neurology and holder of the Ellis Chair in Parkinson's Disease Research; Alison Willing, PhD, member of the USF Center for Aging and Brain Repair; and Michael Chopp, PhD, Professor and Vice Chairman of Neurology, Henry Ford Hospital.

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