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why in hell are these amazing break thoughs in russia, east asia and no one is reported it on the news.
Not sure exactly what you're asking here. On the news where? Here? Why should this be on the news here when there are no clinics offering this form of therapy in North America? Tell me, what would be the point?
Europeans and East Asians were using low level laser light therapy to treat hair loss for many years now and the only time this hit the news in North America was when this form of therapy finally arrived here.
why in hell are these amazing break thoughs in russia, east asia and no one is reported it on the news.Not sure exactly what you're asking here. On the news where? Here? Why should this be on the news here when there are no clinics offering this form of therapy in North America? Tell me, what would be the point?
Europeans and East Asians were using low level laser light therapy to treat hair loss for many years now and the only time this hit the news in North America was when this form of therapy finally arrived here.
maybe your right, makes sense
i really wonder how big a effect stem cells when it hits. i mean people now just think its a social issue about embroyic stem cells and religion, but i really dont think people understand that its regenerative medicine. i dont really think if people know about regenerative medicine.
although the pictures are impressive, there is still evidence of scarring.i am confused...are scientists predicting that stem cells can IMPROVE skin or totally RESTORE it - like to the way it was when we were children?!?!
yea i would like to know that aswell lol ... i hope this is not another treatment taht just improves the APPEARANCE but instead actually reverses the damage ... this is what i am confused about with stem cells
although the pictures are impressive, there is still evidence of scarring.i am confused...are scientists predicting that stem cells can IMPROVE skin or totally RESTORE it - like to the way it was when we were children?!?!
two of the pictures show complete restored skin, theres only one that shows little evidence of scarring. but look at the guys temples they seem to be completing restored.
if you got rid of the second picture you would think this would show complete healing powers. but the worst scaring was in the second photo so i think he needs to do it again to heal the rest. plus i dont think there was enough stem cells to cover such a large area on his face which made him not heal completely.
US allows use of embryonic stem cells
By Andrew Jack in London
Published: January 23 2009 08:13 | Last updated: January 23 2009 08:13
US regulators have approved the first use of embryonic stem cells in humans.
The move raises the prospect of a groundbreaking approach to medical treatment that had been blocked since 2001 by George W. Bush as president. Just two days after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, who opposed his predecessoras ban on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, the Food & Drug Administration authorised Geron, a US biotech company, to begin clinical trials for patients with severe spinal cord injuries.
While commercial and academic researchers have begun to use adult stem cells to treat patients, Geron, based in Menlo Park, California, has moved furthest and fastest in the field of embryonic stem cells, which scientists believe have far greater potential in treatment because they can evolve into any cell in the body.
The FDA decision paves the way for Geron to start trials in patients to test the safety of its product, called GRNOPC1, after which it will need fresh regulatory approvals to show efficacy before potential commercialisation within as little as three years.
Thomas Okarma, president and chief executive of Geron said: aoeThis is the dawn of a new era. This goes beyond pills and scalpels to achieve a new level of healing.a He said there could be setbacks. Geron would need to recruit at least eight patients, and follow their progress for at least a year but aoeif we can turn a quadriplegic into someone who can walk with a cane, this will go fast-track like lightninga.
Mr Okarma said there were considerable challenges for regulators in ensuring safety in the fledgling field of embryonic stem-cell treatment. The chief executive was not aware of any political interference in the decision of the FDA, which had respected a series of deadlines since the company first sought approval in March.
But he criticised the aoecrazya period following President Bushas ban on federal funding, which he said left Geron isolated in supporting embryonic stem-cell research while many other researchers had followed financial support to study less promising uses of adult stems. aoeThis is a triumph of private innovation over public inertia,a he said, stressing that Geron had invested $200m since 1995 in the field, and that the new administration needed to draw up more ambitious plans than simply permitting federal funding.
Mr Okarma said Geron could achieve important economies of scale designed to ensure that the price of the new treatment would be aoereasonablea. The chief executive said he was keen to license its technology to other developers of stem cells to treat a variety of different treatments.
Timeline
there are so many positive things in this article! the fact that it could be available in as little as three years, that the cost shouldn't be too high, and that the results could be profound.
i only hope that the embryonic stem cells will do what we HOPE they'll do with our skin - make it perfect! 
so after commenting on the article, i went on to do my own research and my heart sank. here are excerpts from the article from washintonpost.com that doesn't seem to help us scar sufferers:
"Okarma said the injections must be given early after the injury, before scar tissue has developed that would prevent the cells from growing, but after the initial swelling has subsided."
-clearly, this wouldn't apply to us with scars, as what we are trying to get rid of IS scar tissue and the injuries we had are no longer fresh.
"The treatment is not expected to restore full function to patients, but the researchers hope to see modest gains. "Any return of bladder or bowel function, a return of sensation, or a return of lower extremity locomotion would be a very exciting finding," Okarma said."
"Of the millions of people dealing with paralysis in our nation, they are all delighted with subtle increases in function," Kiernan said. "We eat, drink, sleep getting people out of wheelchairs, but the reality of the world we are in is if people get bowel function, some sexual function, some ability for movement, that is a wonderful outcome."
-so many people see stem cells as the holy grail to fix and restore our bodies back to initial perfection. although i hope this is true, researchers as of now, are pretty much saying that isn't the case. they are looking for small improvements. i am so SICK of talking about improvements. I WANT MY SKIN BACK - back to the way it was before it was injured!!!
Please Bulgarian Dermatologist, give me some hope after this article!
There is hope,my friends.I found the origin of the pictures.They are from a clinic in Beijing.I have also talked with the doctors there on the phone.If in fact the things they had told me was true then we CAN restore our skin back to ALMOST the way it was before the scarring.I was so excited at first and thought to myself...WOW,finally this is the solution to all our pain and suffering.But from what they were telling me,their scar repair treatment is actually Isolagen which some members here had tried.Some reported success I think.
Check out the site and you'll see there are doctors in the USA that are involved with the clinic..Does anyone know if those doctors offer Isolagen or something similar?Should I be concerned about the risks of having this treatment in China,a country with a poor record of safety issues?
so after commenting on the article, i went on to do my own research and my heart sank. here are excerpts from the article from washintonpost.com that doesn't seem to help us scar sufferers:"Okarma said the injections must be given early after the injury, before scar tissue has developed that would prevent the cells from growing, but after the initial swelling has subsided."
-clearly, this wouldn't apply to us with scars, as what we are trying to get rid of IS scar tissue and the injuries we had are no longer fresh.
"The treatment is not expected to restore full function to patients, but the researchers hope to see modest gains. "Any return of bladder or bowel function, a return of sensation, or a return of lower extremity locomotion would be a very exciting finding," Okarma said."
"Of the millions of people dealing with paralysis in our nation, they are all delighted with subtle increases in function," Kiernan said. "We eat, drink, sleep getting people out of wheelchairs, but the reality of the world we are in is if people get bowel function, some sexual function, some ability for movement, that is a wonderful outcome."
-so many people see stem cells as the holy grail to fix and restore our bodies back to initial perfection. although i hope this is true, researchers as of now, are pretty much saying that isn't the case. they are looking for small improvements. i am so SICK of talking about improvements. I WANT MY SKIN BACK - back to the way it was before it was injured!!!
Please Bulgarian Dermatologist, give me some hope after this article!
Well first of all, don't get too excited or saddened by articles that either demonstrate best case scenarios or worst case scenarios. Journalists are not the best people to talk to when discussing something like stem cells. Second of all, you were reading an article about the use of stem cells for the treatment of paralysis, not acne scars. Nonetheless you seem to feel that, since a quoted scientist is stating he is unsure whether stem cells can completely heal a severed spine then this would also mean that stem cells can't help your scarring. The truth is, a spinal cord injury is very different and a vastly more complex injury than a hypotrophic acne scar. So don't let your heart sink to the ground. Third, there are already many studies which do in fact demonstrate that spinal cord injuries (even old ones) can be treated (to a degree never before thought possible) with the use of pluripotent stem cells.
Look at the studies I posted on the previous page. You can also do some more research and see that stem cells that are for example injected into damaged hearts have apparently done some scar tissue remodelling. They have also been used to reboot entire immune systems, helped heal damaged intestinal mucosa from Crohn's and Ulcertaive Colitis, etc...
BTW, researchers recently managed to create totally undifferentiated stem cells from normal skin cells. They basically reprogrammed these cells to go back to the way they were inside of a first trimester foetus, when all tissue types/organs were being generated. The significance of this is that very soon we will likely not need to use embryo derived stem cells in order to treat various conditions, such as paralysis, lupus, etc... This is a good thing, not only because it would allow people to avoid potential moral hazards, but also because stem cells taken from a foetus can cause an immunological reaction in your body, be it minute or systemic. In essence, a patient will soon be able to have some tissue taken from his/her body and have that tissue turned into pluripotent stem cells that are autologous and thereby completely safe for him/her to use.
Now then, I have not been discussing embryonic stem cells and/or the newly reprogrammed stem cells. I have been discussing the use of adult mesenchymal stem cells derived from adipose tissue. I have also not been discussing the type of scar tissue present in spinal cords and/or say a variety of diseases where there is a build-up of fibrous tissues. On the contrary, I have been discussing acne scars, which you'll all agree are generally hypotrophic, meaning they represent visible depressions on the skin's surface.
The amount of fibrous tissue tethering the skin and basically keeping it in a depressed state is actually relatively minimal. Also for the treatment of these depressions, we acne scar sufferers are intent on getting the skin to become flat or levelled with the surrounding skin. So in a way, we are less concerned with the scar tissue beneath the skin's surface, as long as the skin surface is smooth. This is why people report success with fillers, particularly those who have rolling scars and boxscars.
I'd like you to think of mesenchymal stem cell injections as going a step (more like a leap) further than fillers. Not only do the stem cells have the ability to fill in the depression, but they also have the ability to secrete important growth factors that stimulate surrounding cells to behave a certain way. This contributes to some tissue remodelling, including scar tissue. Furthermore the mesenchymal stem cells can differentiate into a variety of cells that makeup our skin's internal structure, including fibroblasts that can for example make collagen. Stem cells also contribute to increased adipose tissue growth in the hypodermis and further accelerate angiogenesis (increased vascularity). All of this contributes to healthier, better nourished, thicker and indeed more beautiful skin.
So there really is no point for you to be saddened by the way information is presented by one particular journalist. And as stated above, you should also not be directly comparing the histological conditionalities of an acne scar with the histological conditionalities of a severed and scarred spine.
BTW, there are already experiments which have demonstrated the use of stem cells to treat spinal cord injuries. What the US company Geron is doing is not NEW news in some other parts of the world. You can also look through the animal model experiments which have demonstrated succes in treating all kinds of diseases previously thought incurable.
So there is reason to be optimistic, in particular because we are currently also learning more about which growth factors and genes contribute to scar formation and likewise scarless healing. Couple these fields of research and technological development with the use of stem cells to treat various diseases and conditions, and soon enough some great things will start happening. All the ingredients are in place to really get regenerative medicine off the ground the way the semiconductor/computer industry began to boom in the 1980s/1990s. Things are starting to happen faster and faster, and there are literally new discoveries made in the stem cell reseach sphere on a daily basis.
All the best,
BRD
There is hope,my friends.I found the origin of the pictures.They are from a clinic in Beijing.I have also talked with the doctors there on the phone.If in fact the things they had told me was true then we CAN restore our skin back to ALMOST the way it was before the scarring.I was so excited at first and thought to myself...WOW,finally this is the solution to all our pain and suffering.But from what they were telling me,their scar repair treatment is actually Isolagen which some members here had tried.Some reported success I think.Check out the site and you'll see there are doctors in the USA that are involved with the clinic..Does anyone know if those doctors offer Isolagen or something similar?Should I be concerned about the risks of having this treatment in China,a country with a poor record of safety issues?
I also looked at the clinic's information and I do not see any mention of Isolagen. The information I have received states that the particular pictures represent the use mesenchymal stem cells according to the technology used by the two Japanese Clinics shown below. I made a phone call and was told that "" were used, which means stem cells. If this is indeed the case and I was given the correct information, then the stem cells were recombined with adipose tissue before reinjection:
1) http://www.saisei-iryou.com/english/cellantiaging/
2) http://www.cellport.jp/english/cal/
Read through those two links for more information.
I am going to post some videos that demonstrate the power of stem cells. These videos are not about acne scars, but they will show you that stem cells have the capability to heal and regenerate tissues like nothing else ever utilized before in the medical field.
A CNN report about a blind girl who went to China to get stem cell treatments:
---
Another report about a little girl going for stem cell treatments in China:
---(Video showing her BEFORE the treatment)
---(Video showing the same girl AFTER the treatment:
Stem cells used to treat paralysis:
--- (Rodent experiment)
--- (Human patient gets treatment in India)
B.D. if it were you which one of these clinics in Japan would you go to? I looked at the treatment prices and they are comparable to what the doctors in the US are charging for multiple laser treatments (that only seem to give a 50% improvement at best) Also, do you think subcision preformed a couple of times before this kind of treatment may increase the potential positive results? Thanks for answering my questions and all of the others as well.
can you give a list of any places you know of that are using/offering this procedure around the world?
Also, curiously, why would this develop in eastern europe as opposed to western europe? Not that i know too much about it, but western europe has made incredible medical advancements using stem cell and other technologies unavailable in the US, and are undeniably richer countries...
thanks so much for this info
B.D. if it were you which one of these clinics in Japan would you go to? I looked at the treatment prices and they are comparable to what the doctors in the US are charging for multiple laser treatments (that only seem to give a 50% improvement at best) Also, do you think subcision preformed a couple of times before this kind of treatment may increase the potential positive results? Thanks for answering my questions and all of the others as well.
Hi,
I haven't visited these clinics, nor do I know the doctors there so I don't have an opinion on the quality of work performed. On the other hand, from an overview of the available information, I would say go with the Seishin Regenerative Medicine Clinic because they specifically state they use the Celution Rejuvenation therapy (stem cells + adipose tissue) to treat acne scars. On top of this, the clinic offers the patient the option to combine PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma, which is essentially processed blood that is enhanced with growth factors) with the Celution procedure. All in all, it seems like a great, albeit very expensive, all-in-one method that in my opinion is at the cutting edge of cosmetic regenerative medicine.
As for your second question (a very good question btw), my answer is yes. I feel that subcision right before the procedure would enhance the results, because stem cells tend to go where there is tissue damage. Subcision does tear up the tissue at the dermal level, which results in a host of growth factors being released there that basically tell any stem cells in the area to initiate a regenerative response. Plus the subsized area is essentially like a pocket where new tissue can build up.
All the best,
BRD
can you give a list of any places you know of that are using/offering this procedure around the world?Also, curiously, why would this develop in eastern europe as opposed to western europe? Not that i know too much about it, but western europe has made incredible medical advancements using stem cell and other technologies unavailable in the US, and are undeniably richer countries...
thanks so much for this info
Check out the info I provided above if you are looking to go do this abroad. Otherwise tell dermatologists and plastic surgeons in your country of residence and perhaps one of them will see the light and start doing this type of procedure.
As to your surprise that doctors in Eastern Europe might be doing something that doctors in Western't Europe aren't doing, even though the latter work in wealthier countries,,, the answer can be provided in the form of a question:
Why did Eastern Europe put the first man in space (Yuri Gagarin) in 1961 and continues to be exceptionally advanced in space/rocket technology despite its economic problems, while to this day the relatively prosperous Western Europe does not have a manned space program?
You see, it's not about wealth per se. Eastern Europe, like the Western half of the continent, has an educated workforce. However it also has a huge surplus of communist era scientists, doctors and engineers, many of whom lost their government subsidized jobs around the same time the Berlin Wall came crumbling down. These people have thus become an easy and cheap source of intellectual capital within the former Eastern Bloc. There is also very little regulation of biotech development and little to no opposition regarding such things as stem cell research and its clinical application. Put all these factors together and you have an environment where things can sometimes happen much faster than in an expensive, overly cautious, largely traditionalist and heavily burdened professional atmosphere on the other side of the playground.
That's not to say that Western Europe or any other place is lagging behind. Advancements in science and technology are made in all four corners of the world, which is a good thing because it drives up the competition, innovation and quality of products and services. BTW, the USA is truly the most advanced country in the biotech field because of its huge scientific base and vast financial ressources. Thus I have no doubt that in light of recent regulation changes stem cells will become the forefront focus of the North American medical community and most breakthroughs in the field of regenerative medicine will be a product of American R&D. Nonetheless, the medical community is often slow to learn and apply new technologies and that's why I'm here to get you guys to spread the message and get your doctors to open their eyes.
The point of this thread is to show you (the patient) that it's not prohibitively difficult for a physician to work with adipose derived stem cells. It's a matter of motivation and willingness to push the boundariess of what is currently possible, rather than just doing things as they were always done before... Any doctor with a good pair of hands and an eye for detail can learn how to work with stem cells. Likewise any acne scar sufferer with a "hole" in their heart and a "lightbulb" in their mind can figure out a way to tell their doctor that stem cells can be used to treat their skin problem. In other words, use your emotional pain and motivated intellect as a force that makes change happen!
All the best,
BRD
