Stem Cells Now Fighting Lou Gehrig’s Disease
A Georgia resident is the first patient to receive stem cells injected into his upper spinal cord to fight Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS. The man, Richard Grosjean, is the first to receive treatment in an ongoing study approved by the FDA and sponsored by Emory University. The disease has left Mr. Grosjean with left-side weakness and troubled speech.
The lead doctors in the study are Dr. Jonathan Glass and Dr. Nicholas Boulis, both with Emory, and Dr. Eva Feldman of the University of Michigan.
ALS is a crippling and deadly disease, but its cause is unknown. Brain and spinal cord nerve cells die, paralyzing victims and making them unable to breathe.
Mr. Grosjean underwent a four-hour operation in which he received five neck injections. Each injection contained 100,000 cells supplied from Neuralstem, a biotech company in Maryland. The company has developed a procedure to grow millions of motor neuron cells from the spinal cord of an aborted eight-week-old fetus. These stem cells are not embryonic cells, which are harvested much earlier in fetal development. Embryonic stem cells have been used by Geron Inc, which has injected them into patients with spinal cord injuries.
The Neuralstem-supplied cells came from the spinal cord of the fetus. These neural stem cells are precursors to nerve cells. The hope is that the injected cells will safely reconnect the neural pathways destroyed by ALS, allowing patients to regain motor control and the ability to breathe. The first step in this program is to prove that these cells are safe to use and won’t be rejected by the patient’s body. Preliminary data from twelve patients have indicated that, so far, the treatment appears to be safe.
Spinal cord injections are inherently dangerous because they can cause severe injury. The needle has to be precisely placed, which is a challenge because a patient moves has he breathes. To overcome this problem, Dr. Boulis invented a spinal rig that moves as the patient breathes. The rig contains a tiny needle to inject the stem cells. Boulis tested this apparatus on pigs before progressing to humans.
Mr. Grosjean was the first patient to have the rig attached to the neck rather than the much flatter surface of the lower back. Boulis attached the rig on one side to the spine, and on the other side to the patient’s skull. Injections take place after exposing the spinal cord, and must proceed slowly to minimize damage and spillage.
Two more patients are slated to have similar injections in the near future, and researchers are cautiously optimistic that this treatment will yield promising results.
