People who do not suffer from any disability often take for granted the ability to freely move limbs. However, the loss of such an ability is devastating, and those to whom it happens to find life is never the same again. At least, that is the case without treatment. The good news is, paralysis may have the hope of treatment after all, in the form of stem cells. [Read more…]
Landmark Stem Cell Clinical Trial Testing Escalating Doses of AST-OPC1 (Oligodendrocyte Progenitors)
Below is a press release from Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC), a site in the AST-OPC1 SCiSTAR Phase 1/2a clinical trial in complete cervical spinal cord injury, which is being sponsored by BioTime, Inc. (NYSE MKT: BTX) subsidiary Asterias Biotherapeutics (NYSE MKT: AST).
The clinical trial will test the safety of three varying doses of AST-OPC1, which are oligodendrocyte progenitors that have the capacity to differentiate into a variety of brain cells. The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) also released a blog post about the procedure conducted at SCVMC.
The SCiSTAR study being run by Asterias Biotherapeutics is funded in part by a $14.3 million grant from CIRM. [Read more…]
