Group photo (front seated from left) guest
speaker Don Margolis and Ragil Ratnam of Pure Growth Asia. (Standing from
left) Antony Brown, Chartering Executive of Light House navigation, Elfi
Seitz, executive editor of Pattaya Blatt, Allan Riddel, Linda Reay Amazon
Colours and General Manager Eric Hallin.
Elfi Seitz
The South African Chamber of Commerce offered a glimpse into the
world of stem-cell therapy at a seminar in Bangkok.
Don Margolis from Repair Stem Cells Institute in the United States was the
featured speaker at the Aug. 20 workshop at the Rembrandt Hotel & Towers,
lecturing on the “facts and fiction” about stem cells.
Margolis stated that stem-cell therapy might become the healing method of
the future. Meanwhile, major successes have already been made with cancer or
problems with the heart, the lungs, the vocal cords, brain, kidneys, and
blood. Unfortunately, there are no significant successes in liver disease or
bone disease. In this therapy stem cells are used and for many years is the
treatment of choice for various types of cancers, such as leukemia. Either
endogenous hematopoietic stem cells or those of a donor (postnatal tissue)
can be used for adoptive cell transfer.
These multipotent blood stem cells, of which colonies of both white as well
as red blood cells were cultivated, had already been discovered in 1963 by
the Canadian scientists James Till, Ernest McCulloch and Lou Siminovitch.
Some years before the first bone marrow transplant was performed in 1957.
Since the 1990s, many more kinds of stem cells were discovered, isolated and
characterized. To date, however, is not sufficiently clear how the different
types of stem cells are connected and which biological potential they have.
In recent years new discoveries have been made in this area and new and
promising fields in medical research have been opened. It is also possible
to use stem cells from unborn animals (prenatal tissue), such as sheep, as
is done in Germany for the last 70 years. For this, however, the embryo may
only be a certain age, because the stem cells usually have a lower rate of
division and a more limited differentiation potential. It’s also possible to
get stem cells from the umbilical cord or bone marrow. Embryonic stem cells
are pluripotent, whilst adult stem cells probably have a more limited
differentiation potential.
Research work is currently still trying to answer fundamental questions like
how these stem cells can be induced into certain cell types to replace
damaged tissue in order to replace damaged tissue (cell replacement
therapy). Other issues include the migration behavior (migration of the
cells to a specific location after successful transplantation) or the
formation of cell-protective factors (cytokines, growth factors), which are
supposed to preserve existing functional tissue from further decline or even
regenerate it (regenerative medicine).
In recent years embryonic stem cells have raised many ethical as well as
scientific concerns (embryonic stem cells). Although they can be
differentiated in almost all body cells (and thus would be universally
applicable), for the time being their use is limited. This is due to their
high rate of cell division, which is desirable for the propagation of the
cells, but at the same time constitutes an increased risk for the
development of malignant tumors.
Still, more than 300 Parkinson’s patients have been treated with some
success worldwide.
Stem cells from the uterine fluid were isolated just recently. They are
mostly cells of epithelial origin that are shed during the development of
the fetus. They can be obtained directly from the amniotic fluid and be
propagated in vitro.
Currently, in only a few cases a transplant of stem cells is performed.
These therapies have been tried for many years, even decades, in controlled
clinical trials, and are only used when they proved to be effective and the
benefit outweighs the possible side effects.
Many patients, who are inflicted with severe, fatal diseases hope for a
successful treatment in private hospitals, which promise healing with often
risky types of application (eg injection into the brain – with often grave
results) of scientifically undefined stem cells. Most of these clinics are
located in countries with less strict rules concerning experimental
therapies for humans (as in China, the Ukraine, Turkey and also in
Thailand), but also in Western Europe (eg. the Netherlands).
However, as Margolis pointed out during the lecture, the stem cell treatment
might have no affect in as many as one of three people. To protect patients
from rogue, potentially damaging stem cell treatments or to inform about
these, the International Society for Stem Cell Research has created a
patient brochure.
