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Loading ...BANGALORE (Reuters) – Geron Corp said animals injected with its experimental cell therapy for subacute spinal cord injury developed microscopic cysts in the injury site, but its shares rose as the company reported none of the animals developed teratomas, a kind of tumor.
Shares of the stem cell research company rose 5 percent to $7.28 in early morning trade. Continue Reading »
In a setback for Menlo Park-based Geron, the company announced Tuesday that federal authorities have put on hold its groundbreaking test on people of a spinal-cord injury treatment it developed from human embryonic stem cells.
Officials at Geron, which has yet to give its treatment to humans, were vague about the reason for the hold, saying only that it involved the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s pending review of new animal study data the company had submitted. Continue Reading »
AHMEDABAD: In what is seen as a boost to the stem cell research in the country, India would soon get to host human clinical trials for therapies using umbilical blood cord (UBC) stem cell.
Chennai-based Apollo Hospital, America’s largest stem cell company StemCyte and Dr Wise Young, a leading expert on spinal cord injury, are in talks for conducting clinical trials in India using stem cell derived from UBC. The companies may ink an agreement by the end of this year. Continue Reading »
After conducting clinical trials for spinal cord injuries in the US and China, US-based stemcell transplantation and therapeutics company, StemCyte Inc is planning to conduct the same in India next year.
The company has set up a first-of-its-kind umbilical cord blood (UCB) public bank for India in a joint venture with Chennai-based Apollo Hospitals and Ahmedabad-based Cadila Pharmaceuticals. All set to be operational by the end of this year on the hospital premises in Ahmedabad, the new entity, called StemCyte India Therapeutics Pvt Ltd (SCITPL), will aid in carrying out clinical trials in India. Continue Reading »
It’s a chilling thought. In the coming year, 130,000 people worldwide will suffer spinal-cord injuries—in a car crash, perhaps, or a fall. More than 90 percent of them will endure at least partial paralysis. There is no cure. But after a decade of hype and controversy over research on embryonic stem cells—cells that could, among other things, potentially repair injured spinal cords—the world’s first clinical trial is about to begin. As early as this month, the first of 10 newly injured Americans, paralyzed from the waist down, will become participants in a study to assess the safety of a conservative, low-dose treatment. If all goes well, researchers will have taken a promising step toward a goal that once would have been considered a miracle—to help the lame walk.
The trial signals a new energy permeating the field of stem-cell research. Continue Reading »
ATLANTA (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Every year, spinal cord injuries force more than 11,000 people into a wheelchair. In the most serious cases, just taking a breath on their own is impossible. Patients often rely on cumbersome mechanical ventilators to stay alive, but a new device may free patients from the ventilators and help them breathe on their own.
A year ago, paramedics rushed Jenny Sorenson to the ER. She thought she was having a heart attack. Continue Reading »
An assistive technology that enables individuals to maneuver a powered wheelchair or control a mouse cursor using simple tongue movements can be operated by individuals with high-level spinal cord injuries, according to the results of a recently completed clinical trial.
“This clinical trial has validated that the Tongue Drive system is intuitive and quite simple for individuals with high-level spinal cord injuries to use,” said Maysam Ghovanloo, an assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “Trial participants were able to easily remember and correctly issue tongue commands to play computer games and drive a powered wheelchair around an obstacle course with very little prior training.” Continue Reading »
In January 2009, Geron, a biotechnology company located in Menlo Park, California, got FDA clearance to inject spinal cells derived from human embryonic stem cells into paralyzed patients.
This is the first time a stem cell based therapy will be assessed objectively — that is, as part of a clinical trial — in human beings. As early as this summer, eight to ten patients with spinal cord injury will be selected to participate. Continue Reading »
Dr. Victoria Claydon
People with spinal cord injury often experience extremes in their blood pressure. Episodes of both very high and dangerously low blood pressures caused by damage to the spinal cord may be associated with a lack of control over blood flow in the brain. This can cause a range of other problems that are directly implicated in heart disease, which is the leading cause of death among people with spinal cord injuries.
In this study from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of B.C. & Yukon, Dr. Victoria Claydon will look at what happens to blood flow in the brain during episodes of extreme blood pressure in approximately 40 people with an injured spinal cord. Continue Reading »