A nearly 13-year-old skin cancer drug rapidly alleviates molecular signs of Alzheimer's diseas e and improves brain function, according to the results of a new mouse study being hailed as extremely promising. Early-stage human clinical trials could begin within months.
The New Medicine Service (NMS) offered by Engalnd’s NHS community pharmacies came into effect since 1st October 2011. NMS is a patient adherene service and focuses on patients with long term conditions that have been prescribed new medicines.
It is hoped that NMS will lead to the following outcomes:
But the Service since launch has seen severe criticism from pharmacists’ over several issues, especially how the pharmacist is re-imbursed for the providing the service which also involved patient counselling.
The answer perhaps can be found by applying predictive analytics to identify patients who are more likely to deviate or other likely to exhibit non-compliance in adhering to the prescription.
Express Scripts has developed a set of proprietary computer models that predict, up to a year in advance, which patients are at risk of not following through on their prescribed drug therapy. details
FICO an analytics service provider also provides medication adherence ranking based on predictive analytics details
The California stem cell agency today released its letter to leaders of the California legislature concerning the conflict of interest violation by the scientist who was then chairman of the panel that makes the de facto decisions on hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants.
The agency also posted the review summary of the application involved in the conflict of interest, which had been missing from its web site.
The incident occurred last April, but was not publicly disclosed by the $3 billion research enterprise until questions were raised this month by the California Stem Cell Report. The case involved John Sladek of the University of Colorado in Denver, then chairman of the CIRM grant review group, which makes decisions on the hundreds of grant applications. The CIRM board of directors has final approval but it almost never overturns a favorable recommendation from the grant panel.
Sladek resigned from the review group after CIRM staff discovered the conflict following the March 17 review session. CIRM called it a "technical violation."
The information provided today by CIRM added some details to the matter, including Sladek's statement that the conflict was inadvertent on his part.
The June 15 letter to the speaker of the state Assembly and the leader of the state Senate was labelled "confidential disclosure." Signed by then CIRM Chairman Robert Klein, it said,
"While preparing the public summary for Basic Biology III Awards Application No. RB3-02119, CIRM staff discovered that Dr. Sladek had co-authored two papers in the last three years with a researcher on the application. Although the researcher’s name was included on the CIRM conflict of interest form, Dr. Sladek did not disclose these publications to CIRM."
As reported earlier, Sladek's participation did not affect the outcome on the application, which was not recommended for funding.
As is CIRM's practice, the review summary of the grant application did not identify the scientist seeking funding. The summary listed one reviewer with an unspecified conflict, Ali Brivanlou of Rockefeller University.
The letter was provided by CIRM at the request of the California Stem Cell Report, which also asked for the review summary of the grant application after discovering it was missing. James Harrison, outside counsel to the agency, said in an email that the summary was not posted because of a "programming error."
The summary can be found here. Here is the letter.Sladek/CIRM Conflict of Interest Letter to California Legislative Leadership
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
A conflict of interest on a grant application before the $3 billion California stem cell agency last year led to the resignation of the grant review committee's longstanding chairman, John Sladek of the University of Colorado.
The incident occurred last April but was not publicly disclosed by CIRM until the California Stem Cell Report (CSCR) raised a question earlier this month.
Sladek is professor of neurology, pediatrics and neuroscience at the University of Colorado in Denver and a former president of Cal Lutheran University in the Los Angeles area. He had served on the stem cell agency's grant review group since 2005 and as its chairman from 2009 until April of last year.
Responding to an email from CSCR, James Harrison of Remcho, Johansen and Purcell of San Leandro, Ca., outside counsel to the stem cell agency, said that CIRM's staff uncovered the conflict in April after the grant review session was concluded on March 17. Harrison described it as a "technical violation."
He said,
"While preparing the public summary for Basic Biology III (grant round)applications, CIRM staff discovered that Dr. John Sladek was one of several co-authors on scientific publications with a researcher who was listed as a consultant on a CIRM grant application."
Harrison said,
"This is a technical violation of CIRM's conflict of interest rules, which prohibit a member of the Grants Working Group ("GWG") from participating in the review of an application if the member has co-authored papers with a salaried investigator listed on a CIRM application within a three year window."
Harrison said Sladek's conflict did not violate the state's political reform act nor did he have a financial interest in the application.
Harrison continued,
"Nonetheless, in the spirit of setting an example of strict compliance, Dr. Sladek tendered his resignation from the GWG."
Asked for comment, Sladek said that Harrison's account was accurate and that he had nothing to add. (Both Harrison's and Sladek's verbatim comments can be found here.)
In December, the CIRM board of directors approved, on a unanimous voice vote of the 21 directors present out of 29, a resolution commending Sladek for serving in "exemplary fashion."
The stem cell agency disclosed specifics of the conflict of interest violation after the California Stem Cell Report discovered a vague reference to it in the transcript of the January meeting of the Citizens Financial Oversight and Accountability Committee, the only state entity specifically charged with oversight of the agency and its directors.
Members of the committee had raised questions about conflicts of interests at CIRM. At one point, Harrison said,
"We have also had occasion where we have had a conflict of a very technical nature on the grants working group which we addressed pursuant to our procedure and reported to the legislature."
It was that remark that triggered the request for more details.
Asked about the report to the legislature, Harrison said CIRM wrote a letter to the legislative leadership about the incident. We have asked for a copy of the letter, which we will carry when we receive it.
As of this writing, the review summary for the grant application (RB3-02119) in question was not available on the CIRM web. Normally all the summaries are posted. We have queried the agency concerning its absence.
Harrison also said that in the seven-year history of CIRM no other instances exist of grant review committee members having been determined to be in a conflict of interest after participation in a review.
Our comment: CIRM is to be commended for taking care of this situation quickly last April. Sladek correctly resigned promptly. However, failure to disclose the incident at the time does not reflect well on the California stem cell agency nor does it inspire confidence in the agency's now improving openness and transparency.
CIRM is an enterprise that has substantial built-in conflicts of interests – all legal courtesy of Prop. 71, the ballot initiative that created CIRM. Institutions linked to CIRM directors have received $1.1 billion of the $1.2 billion the agency has given away. A display of reticence in this conflict-of-interest case does little to quell the suspicions of those who have criticized the agency for "cronyism," including the journal Nature and some in the biotech business community and elsewhere. As for the description of the incident as a "very technical" violation, that amounts to a bit of PR. Either it is a violation or it isn't.
Sladek's violation is the sort of thing not well understood by the public. Most public attention is focused on financial conflicts of interest in science. However, professional conflicts of interest involving scientists are among the most invidious. The California Stem Cell Report regularly hears complaints and suspicions about such dealings at CIRM: Big-name scientists receiving favored treatment, academic researchers unfairly evaluating applications from business researchers, younger researchers being shunted to background and more. All this as a billion dollars worth of applications have been evaluated behind closed doors with no public disclosure of the economic or professional interests of the reviewers. The stem cell agency would do well to improve its openness and transparency, particularly as it moves into ticklish and expensive relationships with industry. The first step would be to post on its web site the disclosure forms filed by its grant reviewers but withheld from the public by CIRM.
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
Here are the verbatim statements from James Harrison, outside counsel to the California stem cell agency, and John Sladek concerning Sladek's conflict of interest and resignation as chair of the agency's grant review group.
Harrison made these initial remarks first and provided a few other details later.
"While preparing the public summary for Basic Biology III (grant round)applications, CIRM staff discovered that Dr. John Sladek was one of several co-authors on scientific publications with a researcher who was listed as a consultant on a CIRM grant application.
"This is a technical violation of CIRM's conflict of interest rules, which prohibit a member of the Grants Working Group ("GWG") from participating in the review of an application if the member has co-authored papers with a salaried investigator listed on a CIRM application within a three year window."It should be noted, however, that Dr. Sladek's participation in the review of the application would not have constituted a conflict of interest under the Political Reform Act's conflict of interest standards because Dr. Sladek did not have a financial interest in the application. In addition, the amount of funding involved - approximately $3,000 of salary per year for three years, less than one percent of the total award - was not material, and Dr. Sladek did not stand to receive any financial benefit from the application. Finally, Dr. Sladek's participation in the review did not affect the outcome because the application was not recommended, or approved, for funding.
"Nonetheless, in the spirit of setting an example of strict compliance, Dr. Sladek tendered his resignation from the GWG."
Sladek's response to a question for comment:
"Mr. Harrison’s account is accurate and there really isn’t anything to add other than I was pleased to serve CIRM and California for several years and wish them well as they pursue such an important mission with respect to the potential for therapeutic applications to human disease and disorders. Thank you for your inquiry."
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
 |
| Qatar Conference Center |
If our readers in the Middle East are looking for a first-hand assessment of the state of stem cell research, they might want to take in the four-day conference this week in Qatar, which features the president of the $3 billion California stem cell agency.
Alan Trounson is one of a number of international stem cell notables at the session at the new Qatar Conference Center in the tiny nation in the Persian Gulf. The country is putting on the conference as a means of developing its own stem cell research capabilities.
Qatar had a gross national product of $129 billion in 2010, with a per capita income of $138,000, according to the U.S. State Department. The population is about 1.7 million, more than 75 percent of whom are foreigners with temporary residence status.
In addition to Trounson, other California and CIRM-connected researchers are speaking at the conference in the Qatar center, which just opened in December. They include David Baltimore, Nobel Laureate and a former director of the stem cell agency. A company Baltimore co-founded, Calimmune, of Tucson, Az., is sharing in a $20 million CIRM grant. Other CIRM grant recipients or representatives of recipient companies appearing at the conference are Irv Weissman of Stanford; Deepak Srivastava of the Gladstone Institute, and Ann Tsukamoto Weissman of Stem Cells Inc. of Newark, Ca.
Social activities at the conference include sand dune "bashing" in off-road vehicles, camel tracking along with a look at their "robot jockeys" and a visit to the original Arabic Oryx farm.
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
The state of California plans to sell $2 billion in bonds next Thursday, but the California stem cell agency, which is entirely dependent on state borrowing, will have to wait until later this spring to see more cash.
J.T. Thomas, chairman of the stem cell agency, said he expected to see CIRM benefit from the next bond sale in April. The agency currently has sufficient funds to operate until about June, plus an arrangement with the state for continued funding if a timely bond sale is not completed.
The $3 billion stem cell agency was created in 2004 through a ballot initiative that authorized its funding through the sale of state bonds over a 10-year period. The interest on the bonds raises the total cost of the agency to taxpayers to about $6 billion. Likewise, the cost of a $20 million grant is actually more like $40 million.
Financially beleaguered California's interest costs have sharply increased in recent years as the state has borrowed $53.8 billion from 2007 to 2010. This year, interest costs will come to about $5.4 billion, nearly 6 percent of the state budget. Nine years ago, it was $2.1 billion or 2.9 percent, according a piece by Randall Jensen (no relation to this writer) of the Bond Buyer newspaper.
The expense of borrowing shrinks the amount of state money available for public schools, helping the medically indigent and other state purposes.
Next Thursday's bond sale will go to refinance debt at lower rates. This year, Gov. Jerry Brown and state Treasurer Bill Lockyer plan to sell only $5.2 billion in general obligation bonds, roughly one-fourth of what the state issued in 2009.
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
by: Tara Green
Bisphenol A overrides the natural heartbeat signal causing female heart cells to misfire, according to a recent study. Given how pervasive BPA is these days, this could mean heart problems, possibly even fatal ones, for millions of women.
BPA is everywhere
BPA is ubiquitous in the industrial world: in clear plastic containers, in the epoxy lining of canned foods, in dental sealants, and even coating many store receipts. Studies in the past five years have shown that nearly everyone living in the industrial world encounters at least trace amounts of this compound.
Yet industries using plastics for packaging, as well as some mainstream medical experts, have long assured the public that small concentrations of BPA do not pose a serious health hazard. FDA efforts in reference to BPA have so far been limited to supporting industry self-limitation such as eliminating the compound from products specifically designed for infants and children. Read more...
Ayurtox for Body Detoxification
Editor's note: Climate Query is a semi-weekly feature offered by Daily Climate, presenting short Q&A's with players large and small in the climate arena. Read others in the series at http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/query/climate-queries .
A nearly 13-year-old skin cancer drug rapidly alleviates molecular signs of Alzheimer's diseas e and improves brain function, according to the results of a new mouse study being hailed as extremely promising. Early-stage human clinical trials could begin within months.
The New Medicine Service (NMS) offered by Engalnd’s NHS community pharmacies came into effect since 1st October 2011. NMS is a patient adherene service and focuses on patients with long term conditions that have been prescribed new medicines.
It is hoped that NMS will lead to the following outcomes:
But the Service since launch has seen severe criticism from pharmacists’ over several issues, especially how the pharmacist is re-imbursed for the providing the service which also involved patient counselling.
The answer perhaps can be found by applying predictive analytics to identify patients who are more likely to deviate or other likely to exhibit non-compliance in adhering to the prescription.
Express Scripts has developed a set of proprietary computer models that predict, up to a year in advance, which patients are at risk of not following through on their prescribed drug therapy. details
FICO an analytics service provider also provides medication adherence ranking based on predictive analytics details
The California stem cell agency today released its letter to leaders of the California legislature concerning the conflict of interest violation by the scientist who was then chairman of the panel that makes the de facto decisions on hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants.
The agency also posted the review summary of the application involved in the conflict of interest, which had been missing from its web site.
The incident occurred last April, but was not publicly disclosed by the $3 billion research enterprise until questions were raised this month by the California Stem Cell Report. The case involved John Sladek of the University of Colorado in Denver, then chairman of the CIRM grant review group, which makes decisions on the hundreds of grant applications. The CIRM board of directors has final approval but it almost never overturns a favorable recommendation from the grant panel.
Sladek resigned from the review group after CIRM staff discovered the conflict following the March 17 review session. CIRM called it a "technical violation."
The information provided today by CIRM added some details to the matter, including Sladek's statement that the conflict was inadvertent on his part.
The June 15 letter to the speaker of the state Assembly and the leader of the state Senate was labelled "confidential disclosure." Signed by then CIRM Chairman Robert Klein, it said,
"While preparing the public summary for Basic Biology III Awards Application No. RB3-02119, CIRM staff discovered that Dr. Sladek had co-authored two papers in the last three years with a researcher on the application. Although the researcher’s name was included on the CIRM conflict of interest form, Dr. Sladek did not disclose these publications to CIRM."
As reported earlier, Sladek's participation did not affect the outcome on the application, which was not recommended for funding.
As is CIRM's practice, the review summary of the grant application did not identify the scientist seeking funding. The summary listed one reviewer with an unspecified conflict, Ali Brivanlou of Rockefeller University.
The letter was provided by CIRM at the request of the California Stem Cell Report, which also asked for the review summary of the grant application after discovering it was missing. James Harrison, outside counsel to the agency, said in an email that the summary was not posted because of a "programming error."
The summary can be found here. Here is the letter.Sladek/CIRM Conflict of Interest Letter to California Legislative Leadership
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
A conflict of interest on a grant application before the $3 billion California stem cell agency last year led to the resignation of the grant review committee's longstanding chairman, John Sladek of the University of Colorado.
The incident occurred last April but was not publicly disclosed by CIRM until the California Stem Cell Report (CSCR) raised a question earlier this month.
Sladek is professor of neurology, pediatrics and neuroscience at the University of Colorado in Denver and a former president of Cal Lutheran University in the Los Angeles area. He had served on the stem cell agency's grant review group since 2005 and as its chairman from 2009 until April of last year.
Responding to an email from CSCR, James Harrison of Remcho, Johansen and Purcell of San Leandro, Ca., outside counsel to the stem cell agency, said that CIRM's staff uncovered the conflict in April after the grant review session was concluded on March 17. Harrison described it as a "technical violation."
He said,
"While preparing the public summary for Basic Biology III (grant round)applications, CIRM staff discovered that Dr. John Sladek was one of several co-authors on scientific publications with a researcher who was listed as a consultant on a CIRM grant application."
Harrison said,
"This is a technical violation of CIRM's conflict of interest rules, which prohibit a member of the Grants Working Group ("GWG") from participating in the review of an application if the member has co-authored papers with a salaried investigator listed on a CIRM application within a three year window."
Harrison said Sladek's conflict did not violate the state's political reform act nor did he have a financial interest in the application.
Harrison continued,
"Nonetheless, in the spirit of setting an example of strict compliance, Dr. Sladek tendered his resignation from the GWG."
Asked for comment, Sladek said that Harrison's account was accurate and that he had nothing to add. (Both Harrison's and Sladek's verbatim comments can be found here.)
In December, the CIRM board of directors approved, on a unanimous voice vote of the 21 directors present out of 29, a resolution commending Sladek for serving in "exemplary fashion."
The stem cell agency disclosed specifics of the conflict of interest violation after the California Stem Cell Report discovered a vague reference to it in the transcript of the January meeting of the Citizens Financial Oversight and Accountability Committee, the only state entity specifically charged with oversight of the agency and its directors.
Members of the committee had raised questions about conflicts of interests at CIRM. At one point, Harrison said,
"We have also had occasion where we have had a conflict of a very technical nature on the grants working group which we addressed pursuant to our procedure and reported to the legislature."
It was that remark that triggered the request for more details.
Asked about the report to the legislature, Harrison said CIRM wrote a letter to the legislative leadership about the incident. We have asked for a copy of the letter, which we will carry when we receive it.
As of this writing, the review summary for the grant application (RB3-02119) in question was not available on the CIRM web. Normally all the summaries are posted. We have queried the agency concerning its absence.
Harrison also said that in the seven-year history of CIRM no other instances exist of grant review committee members having been determined to be in a conflict of interest after participation in a review.
Our comment: CIRM is to be commended for taking care of this situation quickly last April. Sladek correctly resigned promptly. However, failure to disclose the incident at the time does not reflect well on the California stem cell agency nor does it inspire confidence in the agency's now improving openness and transparency.
CIRM is an enterprise that has substantial built-in conflicts of interests – all legal courtesy of Prop. 71, the ballot initiative that created CIRM. Institutions linked to CIRM directors have received $1.1 billion of the $1.2 billion the agency has given away. A display of reticence in this conflict-of-interest case does little to quell the suspicions of those who have criticized the agency for "cronyism," including the journal Nature and some in the biotech business community and elsewhere. As for the description of the incident as a "very technical" violation, that amounts to a bit of PR. Either it is a violation or it isn't.
Sladek's violation is the sort of thing not well understood by the public. Most public attention is focused on financial conflicts of interest in science. However, professional conflicts of interest involving scientists are among the most invidious. The California Stem Cell Report regularly hears complaints and suspicions about such dealings at CIRM: Big-name scientists receiving favored treatment, academic researchers unfairly evaluating applications from business researchers, younger researchers being shunted to background and more. All this as a billion dollars worth of applications have been evaluated behind closed doors with no public disclosure of the economic or professional interests of the reviewers. The stem cell agency would do well to improve its openness and transparency, particularly as it moves into ticklish and expensive relationships with industry. The first step would be to post on its web site the disclosure forms filed by its grant reviewers but withheld from the public by CIRM.
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
Here are the verbatim statements from James Harrison, outside counsel to the California stem cell agency, and John Sladek concerning Sladek's conflict of interest and resignation as chair of the agency's grant review group.
Harrison made these initial remarks first and provided a few other details later.
"While preparing the public summary for Basic Biology III (grant round)applications, CIRM staff discovered that Dr. John Sladek was one of several co-authors on scientific publications with a researcher who was listed as a consultant on a CIRM grant application.
"This is a technical violation of CIRM's conflict of interest rules, which prohibit a member of the Grants Working Group ("GWG") from participating in the review of an application if the member has co-authored papers with a salaried investigator listed on a CIRM application within a three year window."It should be noted, however, that Dr. Sladek's participation in the review of the application would not have constituted a conflict of interest under the Political Reform Act's conflict of interest standards because Dr. Sladek did not have a financial interest in the application. In addition, the amount of funding involved - approximately $3,000 of salary per year for three years, less than one percent of the total award - was not material, and Dr. Sladek did not stand to receive any financial benefit from the application. Finally, Dr. Sladek's participation in the review did not affect the outcome because the application was not recommended, or approved, for funding.
"Nonetheless, in the spirit of setting an example of strict compliance, Dr. Sladek tendered his resignation from the GWG."
Sladek's response to a question for comment:
"Mr. Harrison’s account is accurate and there really isn’t anything to add other than I was pleased to serve CIRM and California for several years and wish them well as they pursue such an important mission with respect to the potential for therapeutic applications to human disease and disorders. Thank you for your inquiry."
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
|
| Qatar Conference Center |
If our readers in the Middle East are looking for a first-hand assessment of the state of stem cell research, they might want to take in the four-day conference this week in Qatar, which features the president of the $3 billion California stem cell agency.
Alan Trounson is one of a number of international stem cell notables at the session at the new Qatar Conference Center in the tiny nation in the Persian Gulf. The country is putting on the conference as a means of developing its own stem cell research capabilities.
Qatar had a gross national product of $129 billion in 2010, with a per capita income of $138,000, according to the U.S. State Department. The population is about 1.7 million, more than 75 percent of whom are foreigners with temporary residence status.
In addition to Trounson, other California and CIRM-connected researchers are speaking at the conference in the Qatar center, which just opened in December. They include David Baltimore, Nobel Laureate and a former director of the stem cell agency. A company Baltimore co-founded, Calimmune, of Tucson, Az., is sharing in a $20 million CIRM grant. Other CIRM grant recipients or representatives of recipient companies appearing at the conference are Irv Weissman of Stanford; Deepak Srivastava of the Gladstone Institute, and Ann Tsukamoto Weissman of Stem Cells Inc. of Newark, Ca.
Social activities at the conference include sand dune "bashing" in off-road vehicles, camel tracking along with a look at their "robot jockeys" and a visit to the original Arabic Oryx farm.
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
The state of California plans to sell $2 billion in bonds next Thursday, but the California stem cell agency, which is entirely dependent on state borrowing, will have to wait until later this spring to see more cash.
J.T. Thomas, chairman of the stem cell agency, said he expected to see CIRM benefit from the next bond sale in April. The agency currently has sufficient funds to operate until about June, plus an arrangement with the state for continued funding if a timely bond sale is not completed.
The $3 billion stem cell agency was created in 2004 through a ballot initiative that authorized its funding through the sale of state bonds over a 10-year period. The interest on the bonds raises the total cost of the agency to taxpayers to about $6 billion. Likewise, the cost of a $20 million grant is actually more like $40 million.
Financially beleaguered California's interest costs have sharply increased in recent years as the state has borrowed $53.8 billion from 2007 to 2010. This year, interest costs will come to about $5.4 billion, nearly 6 percent of the state budget. Nine years ago, it was $2.1 billion or 2.9 percent, according a piece by Randall Jensen (no relation to this writer) of the Bond Buyer newspaper.
The expense of borrowing shrinks the amount of state money available for public schools, helping the medically indigent and other state purposes.
Next Thursday's bond sale will go to refinance debt at lower rates. This year, Gov. Jerry Brown and state Treasurer Bill Lockyer plan to sell only $5.2 billion in general obligation bonds, roughly one-fourth of what the state issued in 2009.
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
Jason Bell
BONITA SPRINGS Jimmy and Jennifer Bell were scrambling to save their 5-year-old-son, Jason, last fall.
Shell-shocked with a diagnosis that their youngest child had primary pulmonary hypertension, a rare lung disorder, they decided to take a chance. If not, a heart-lung transplant would be their son's only chance.
They put their trust in a Southwest Florida cardiologist, Dr. Zannos Grekos, more than 1,000 miles from their Texas home. They learned Grekos performs an experimental stem cell therapy that possibly could help. That's despite a lack of clinical studies and scientific papers.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn't approved stem cell therapy despite a buzz of optimism of its potential for repairing damaged tissue.
"I was willing to do anything to give my son a fighting chance," said Jimmy Bell, 43, who owns a landscaping company in Keller, a suburb of Fort Worth. "When you are given no other option, you've got to try something."
The treatment would involve a trip to Bonita Springs where Grekos has his practice, Regenocyte; a trip to the Dominican Republic where the treatment would be done, and an up-front payment of $57,000.
"They looked at his medical records first. They didn't know if they could treat him," Bell said. "Once they agreed to treat him, I talked to Grekos. It was the greatest news in my life. I broke down. I just knew this was going to be the miracle to save his life."
* * * * *
The family wired the money in late October 2011 to a Regenocyte account in the Dominican Republic, according to a copy of the paid invoice furnished to the Daily News.
Read more here:
Texas family turned to Bonita stem cell doctor, but 5-year-old died before 'miracle'
Cardiac cellular therapies are undergoing global clinical trials with "encouraging early results" and these economical options will soon be available in India which could bring relief to patients who cannot afford the currently available expensive surgical treatments, says Indian American cardiac surgeon Dr Mukesh Hariawala.
Delivering a special invited plenary lecture on the "Novel Cellular Therapies for Heart Disease" at the recently concluded Healthcare India 2012 convention in New Delhi, the renowned cardiac surgeon asserted that the new developments in cardiac cellular therapies would bring down the alarming healthcare costs globally.
Dr Hariawala is internationally acclaimed as a pioneer of cardiovascular surgical techniques using Therapeutic Angiogenesis. He said Therapeutic Angiogenesis is a fast emerging science of stimulating growth of new blood vessels in the heart which acts as natural bypasses to areas lacking in blood supply.
Dr Hariawala demonstrated angiogenesis along with bypass surgery, lasers and stem cell injections as a novel "Combo Therapy."
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The laser energy acts by creating channels in the diseased heart muscle which also triggers Angiogenesis. Stem cells are then injected directly into coronary arteries feeding the diseased territory or in the stimulated lasered muscle during the open heart surgery. This option could be very helpful in Indian patients with diffused distal small caliber coronary arteries and diabetes, who are not amicable to routinely offered current interventions, he said.
Dr Hariawala acknowledged that only a combination of these four therapies could give it the "Therapeutic Threshold Power" and bring about optimum results and relief of patients symptoms. Standalone, each of these therapies is weak to treat a large muscular pumping organ like the heart.
Stem cells have a therapeutic role and hold enormous promise for the future as they are harvested from the patient's own tissues. Currently, adult stem cell extraction is done from one's own hip bone and patients do not have to worry about rejection phenomenon occurring as they are native cells unlike transplanted from another donor. In the future, stem cell banks could proliferate allowing donors to freeze and store cells for family members who could be treated for many diseases, he added.
Harvard-trained Dr Hariawala's studies have been published in several scientific surgical journals and medical text books.
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Angiogenesis and Stem Cell Therapy Key to Treating Heart Patients: Dr Mukesh Hariawala
Stem cell therapy is poised to become the next big thing in the treatment of major diseases. Even those extracted from dental pulp can be preserved for future use
Watching his five-year-old pull at his loose tooth, dad Shekar remembered something he had read in a dental clinic. Stem cells from teeth, called dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) could be preserved and retrieved to treat his son if he had a major ailment in future. Stemade, a private company, would arrange to collect DPSCs through its Smile Clinics and store them in state-of-the-art labs in several cities across the country. His thought: Stem cell technology is the next big step in medical treatment. Banking SCs is medical bio-insurance for his kid.
Stem cell therapy didn't jump out of a box yesterday. We've heard of it being used in treating leukaemia. Patients with spinal cord injury have spent huge sums on it hoping to get up and walk. Some ask: If a house lizard can grow back its tail, why can't we get our systems to re-start with a million multiplying stem cells?
Kinds of cells
The best cells for banking are embryonic cells which are programmed to develop and grow. But harvesting these is banned. Ethical issues, you know. Adult SCs beyond the embryonic stage are classified as haematopoietic (from umbilical cord blood and bone marrow) and mesenchymal (tissues and organs). While haematopoietic cells are used in the treatment of blood-related diseases such as haemophilia, blood cancer and skin troubles, tissue cells are tried on all problems other than these. HSCs are collected only from the umbilical cord and bone marrow. Tissue cells are taken from many body sources such as bone marrow, placenta, menstrual blood, cornea, outer layer of the heart, liposuction waste and teeth pulp.
Among these DPSCs are perhaps the best option, says Shailesh Gadre, MD, Stemade Biotech. We all lose our milk teeth and cell extraction here is almost painless. As for the permanent teeth, we can harvest the pulp when people have to lose them for orthodontic (cosmetic) reasons, as when braces are fixed or teeth are extracted because of poor positioning. Of course, they need to be free of caries and other dental infections.
But as we age, our cells age too, so DPSCs are best extracted and preserved when we're very young, when the cells are virile and robust. DPSCs have extraordinary doubling properties that give them a huge advantage over other stem cells, says Dr. Julian Deepak, Medical Advisor, Stemade. They are derived from the same source as nerve cells, with the same capacity as neuron cells, making them a better option for treating Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and muscular dystrophy. Work is on to see their effectiveness in curing diabetes.
Back to the kid's tooth. After the dad's call, a dentist from Stemade will check if Milan's tooth is free of disease. At a Smile Clinic he will extract it and take a blood sample. The dentist will then place the tooth in a specially-designed vial of antibiotic solution. The vial will be packed in ice-gel to keep the temperature low during transport. At their lab (which I visited) in suburban Chennai, a visual inspection is done, the tooth is flooded with anti-bacterial solution and broken open. The pulp is extracted, divided into parts for quality control and sterility (aerobic/anaerobic) tests. The processing is done in zero-contamination conditions and the cells are put in 5 different vials and placed in the vapour phase of liquid nitrogen for cryo-preservation. It is complete, patented technology. The cells are stored in raw format and can be retrieved when needed. Shekar gets a certificate and a CR Management number which will be part of his son's medical records.
These are your own (autologous) cells and will need no matching should you need them for treatment of tissue-and-organ-related diseases such as spinal cord/bone/liver/cartilage regeneration, diabetes, eye-care, etc., says Shailesh. Adds Dr. Julian, Now for most diseases we just do maintenance therapy. With their regenerative property, stem cells will cure diseases in the future.
Fine, but for a few details. One, is the banking fee? Yes, you have to pay for the banking facility, but we can help you with EMIs, says Shailesh. Subsidies are given to the poor as part of CSR. We want to reach as many households as possible. Others are the right to will it and fool-proof identification of the cells. We may store DPSCs at six and may need them at sixty.
Read more from the original source:
It's not pulp fiction
Jason Bell
BONITA SPRINGS Jimmy and Jennifer Bell were scrambling to save their 5-year-old-son, Jason, last fall.
Shell-shocked with a diagnosis that their youngest child had primary pulmonary hypertension, a rare lung disorder, they decided to take a chance. If not, a heart-lung transplant would be their son's only chance.
They put their trust in a Southwest Florida cardiologist, Dr. Zannos Grekos, more than 1,000 miles from their Texas home. They learned Grekos performs an experimental stem cell therapy that possibly could help. That's despite a lack of clinical studies and scientific papers.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn't approved stem cell therapy despite a buzz of optimism of its potential for repairing damaged tissue.
"I was willing to do anything to give my son a fighting chance," said Jimmy Bell, 43, who owns a landscaping company in Keller, a suburb of Fort Worth. "When you are given no other option, you've got to try something."
The treatment would involve a trip to Bonita Springs where Grekos has his practice, Regenocyte; a trip to the Dominican Republic where the treatment would be done, and an up-front payment of $57,000.
"They looked at his medical records first. They didn't know if they could treat him," Bell said. "Once they agreed to treat him, I talked to Grekos. It was the greatest news in my life. I broke down. I just knew this was going to be the miracle to save his life."
* * * * *
The family wired the money in late October 2011 to a Regenocyte account in the Dominican Republic, according to a copy of the paid invoice furnished to the Daily News.
See the original post here:
Texas family turned to Bonita stem cell doctor, but 5-year-old died before 'miracle'
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