Stem Cell Therapy For Als Disease

Therapeutics to slow stop and reverse als are needed.

Stem cell therapy for als disease.

People travel around the world to get stem cell treatment glass says. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis als is the disease that struck down baseball great lou gehrig and now bears his name. Stem cell therapy is emerging as a potential new approach to treating als. Harvard stem cell institute hsci scientists are leaders in the search for an effective therapy for als.

The hope with this therapy is to protect the neurons that are there and to slow the disease course one cell type derived from the patient s fat cells mesenchymal stromal cell msc has been suggested as a possible therapy to treat als. They have emerged as a major tool for research into the causes of als and in the search of new treatments. They can develop into blood neurons bone muscle skin and other cell types. Ipscs are derived from adult human tissues including those of patients and.

With the lack of effective drug treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis als and compelling preclinical data stem cell research has highlighted this disease as a candidate for stem cell treatment. Stem cell treatment for patients diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis als als is progressive disease which means that symptoms get worse over time therefore it s not curable however a patient diagnosed with als can benefit from stem cell treatment improve the overall quality of his life and even expand it for 6 to 8 months bearing in mind the severity of the disease swiss. Researchers use many types of stem cells in their work including induced pluripotent stem cells ipscs which may be among the most promising of cells with a potential for treatment. Stem cell transplantation is an attractive strategy for neurological diseases and early successes in animal models of neurodegnerative disease generated optimism about restoring function or.

Several early stage clinical trials have been launched to assess the potential of stem cells for als treatment. If a therapy sounds too good to be true it probably is and if it costs a lot of money it probably isn t legitimate he explained. The accelerated pace of advancements in stem cell biology at hsci has enabled the production of millions of motor neurons generated from mouse embryonic stem cells derived from als genetic disease models as well as normal human embryonic. No currently available treatment either stops or reverses this disease.

Stem cells have the ability to divide for indefinite periods in culture and give rise to multiple specialized cell types.