Human Stem Cell Use: Adult or Tissue Stem Cell


Prostaglandin pathway regulation of self-renwal in hematopoietic and leukemia stem cells

Leukemias are cancers of the blood cells that result from corruption of the normal controls that regulate blood-forming stem cells. They are serious causes of illness and death, and are particularly devastating in children and the elderly. Despite substantial advances in treatment of leukemia, a significant proportion of cases are unresponsive to current therapy. Since […]

Stem Cell Mechanisms Governing Discrete Waves of Gliogenesis in the Childhood Brain

White matter is the infrastructure of the brain, providing conduits for communication between neural regions. White matter continues to mature from birth until early adulthood, particularly in regions of brain critical for higher cognitive functions. However, the precise timing of white matter maturation in the various neural circuits is not well described, and the mechanisms […]

Allogeneic Cardiac-Derived Stem Cells for Patients Following a Myocardial Infarction

The proposed research will demonstrate both safety and efficacy of a heart-derived stem cell product in patients who have experienced a heart attack either recently or in the past by conducting a mid-stage clinical trial. A prior early-stage trial showed that the product can repair damaged portions of the heart after a heart attack in […]

Genetic Re-programming of Stem Cells to Fight Cancer

Science has made great progress in the treatment of certain cancers with targeted and combination therapies, yet prolonged remissions or cures are rare because most cancer therapies only inhibit cell growth and/or reduce such growth but do not stop the cancer. The study investigators propose to develop an Investigational New Drug (IND) and fully enroll […]

Combination Therapy to Enhance Antisense Mediated Exon Skipping for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the most common muscular dystrophy and one of the most common fatal genetic disorders. Approximately one in every 3,500 boys worldwide is affected with DMD. Extrapolating from population based studies, there are over 15,000 people currently living with DMD in the US. DMD is a devastating and incurable muscle-wasting disease […]

Retinal progenitor cells for treatment of retinitis pigmentosa

The targeted disease is retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a severe form of blindness that often runs in families, but other times arises spontaneously from genetic errors. This disease is not overly common, yet represents an attainable near term target for stem cell therapy for a number of reasons: 1) RP destroys the light detecting cells of […]

Progenitor Cells Secreting GDNF for the Treatment of ALS

This project aims to use a powerful combined neural progenitor cell and growth factor approach to treat patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease). ALS is a devastating disease for which there is no treatment or cure. Progression from early muscle twitches to complete paralysis and death usually happens within 4 years. […]

Restoration of memory in Alzheimer’s disease: a new paradigm using neural stem cell therapy

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the leading cause of dementia, results in profound loss of memory and cognitive function, and ultimately death. In the US, someone develops AD every 69 seconds and there are over 5 million individuals suffering from AD, including approximately 600,000 Californians. Current treatments do not alter the disease course. The absence of effective […]

A monoclonal antibody that depletes blood stem cells and enables chemotherapy free transplants

Successful stem cell therapy requires the replacement of diseased or dysfunctional stem cells with healthy ones. These healthy stem cells can come from either a donor or can be stem cells that are modified by gene therapy techniques. One important step in this process of repair and replacement is to eliminate the existing diseased cells […]

Phase I study of IM Injection of VEGF-Producing MSC for the Treatment of Critical Limb Ischemia

Critical limb ischemia (CLI) represents a significant unmet medical need without any approved medical therapies for patients who fail surgical or angioplasty procedures to restore blood flow to the lower leg. CLI affects 2 million people in the U.S. and is associated with an increased risk of leg amputation and death. Amputation rates in patients […]