Background of MSCs

MSC are multi-potent cells that have displayed the following abilities:

• Able to divide to form bone, cartilage, muscle, fat and other tissues such as neural tissue, pancreatic tissue under induction;
• Home to site of injury and assist in repair;
• Enhance anti-inflammatory and immunosuppression.

More than 300 clinical trials are ongoing worldwide to uncover the medical potential of MSCs. Thus far, encouraging results have been published. MSCs have also been used in combination with HSCs as a dual therapy to promote faster engraftment of HSCs and to reduce immune system complications.

MSC Clinical Trials – Global Institutions

Diseases	Names of Universities or Research Institutions
Stroke	University Hospital, Grenoble, France
Spinal Cord Injury	Chinese University of Hong Kong Cairo University, Egypt
Multiple Sclerosis	Spain-Carlos Health Institute University of Cambridge, United Kingdom Cleveland Clinic, United States
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis	Hadassah Medical Organization, Israel
Parkinson‘s Disease	Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre, India
Multiple System Atrophy	Yonsei University, South Korea
Liver Disease	Cytori Therapeutics, United States
Diabetic Foot Ulcer	Third Military Medical University, China Washington DC Veterans Medical Centre, United States Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Diabetes	Fuzhou General Hospital, China Uppsala University, Sweden

MSC Application Reports

MSC and Skeletal Repair

• Treatment for knee cartilage damage was conducted by NUH Orthopaedic Surgery of Singapore, Dr Kevin Lee;
• Since 2006, 35 patients with worn knee cartilage underwent injection of autologous ex-vivo expanded MSCs from bone marrow;
• Patients were reported to have improvements in quality of life such as regaining ability to climb stairs and reduction of pain.

Co-Transplantation of MSCs and HSCs

• In 2002, Sydney Scott was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia at 13 weeks;
• Baby Sydney was treated with chemotherapy followed by cord blood and MSC co-transplantation – world’s first;
• MSC thought to have enabled blood stem cell engraftment;
• Baby Sydney was relapse free and medication free at the time of report.

Source: University of Minnesota, Paediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Center


MSCs in Heart Attack

• 69 heart attack patients were treated;
• Following angioplasty, doctor directly injected patients’ damaged heart site with MSC harvested from patients’ own bone marrow;
• Results showed significant improvements in patients’ left ventricular function.

Source: Chen SL et al. Improvement of cardiac function after transplantation of autologous bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells in patients with acute myocardial infarction. Chinese Medical Journal 2004 117(0): 1443-1448.