Adult stem cells: Still a sense of wonder
by Janice Gibbs - Telegram Staff Writer
Published February 13, 2008
Dr. Darwin Prockop has been researching adult stem cells for 18 years
and yet maintains a sense of wonder about his work.
"We get surprises every week," Prockop said.
Prockop, director of the Center for Gene Therapy at the Tulane
University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, will be relocating
to Temple in August.
He will serve as inaugural holder of the Stearman Chair in Genomic
Medicine, professor of molecular and cellular medicine in the Texas
A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and director of the
Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Scott & White.
Everyone has stem cells, which are "generic" cells that can make
exact copies of themselves indefinitely. In addition, a stem cell has
the ability to produce specialized cells for various tissues in the
body - such as heart muscle, brain tissue.
"There are still some mysteries about stem cells, but many people are
now using the cells to treat almost any disease you can name -
arthritis, heart disease, diabetes, stokes, kidney diseases," Prockop
said.
Why stems cells do what they do is a puzzle, he said.
"Our ideas have changed," Prockop said. "It seems as though we are
tapping into cells that are there to repair any tissue in the body."
The problem, he said, is that the body doesn't produce enough stem
cells to keep up with diseases and injuries.
Prockop's research team takes a teaspoon of a patient's bone marrow
into the laboratory and makes about 300 million of the cells in about
three weeks.
"By getting back millions you can speed up the process of repair," he
said.
In the past couple of months there have been reports of breakthroughs
in embryonic stem cells research - with one group of scientists
indicating they had derived embryonic stem cells from adult skin
cells and another group reporting they could cultivate stem cells
from embryos without destroying the embryo.
Prockop said he's not planning to pursue research in these areas
because the technology is very complicated and difficult.
There have been no reports of any patient trials using embryonic stem
cells, he said.
"There have been some major technological problems," Prockop
said. "One thing is they form tumors in animals that look like the
beginnings of cancer and nobody quite knows how to get around this
problem."
Dr. Prockop's group is recognized as a world leader in the production
and characterization of adult stem cells. He was awarded a $4.3
million grant by the National Institutes of Health in 2003 to
establish the first laboratory for the preparation and distribution
of these cells from bone marrow stroma to academic scientists at
other centers in the United States and abroad.
So far, shipments have been made to about 250 research centers
worldwide.
Those receiving the cells have been studying the basic biology of the
cells and also using them for animal models of human diseases,
Prockop said.
"The number of models being tested for human diseases is almost
limitless and include Alzheimer's, Parkinsonism, Multiple Sclerosis,
heart diseases, lung diseases, kidney diseases and even some
cancers," he said.
Prockop did say a laboratory is being set up at Tulane and another
will be established in Temple to make cells for treatment of patients.
http://www.temple-
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StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:
Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/
Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123
The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
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