Hi everyone! Hope this post meets you well! Today we will be talking about a very exciting new breakthrough in the neurology field! Recently, there has been a drug created to improve healing by guiding stem cells to a specific location. This is so exciting because it will help with the treatments for all sorts of neurological and neurodegenerative disorders.
For background information, a stem cell is a cell found in your body (bone marrow, blood vessels, embryos, etc) that has the ability to evolve into any specialized cell type through “differentiation”. Stem cells follow distress signals given by damaged tissues so that they can repair the area. This can later be used to replace tissues and cells that were damaged or missing. Stem cells have the amazing possibility of treating a variety of diseases due to their unique ability to turn into a special cell, thus causing it to be a renewable source to replace cells and tissues lost due to disease.
Scientists at the Sanford Medical Discovery Institute in San Diego created this incredible drug and was published in the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Their drug SDV1a “can lure stem cells to damaged tissue and improve treatment efficacy.” This is a huge advancement in the regenerative medicine field and will play a huge part in future stem cell therapy for neurological disorders as well as various other conditions.
In a natural environment, stem cells go wherever there is inflammation, however, due to the fact that inflammation may be harmful in the body, scientists have been searching for new methods towards stem cell therapy. This new drug has the ability to instruct stem cells to travel to a specific location and focus its repairing abilities where it is needed. Not only will this be useful in all regenerative medicine, but will especially aid stem cell therapy in disorders and conditions where inflammation’s role is not yet understood or the inflammatory signals fade.
The new drug works “by enhancing stem cell binding and minimizing inflammatory signaling -- and can be injected anywhere to lure stem cells to a specific location without causing inflammation.” This discovery was possible after decades of experimenting and researching on the scientists’ end. They tested their drug SDV1a on mice carrying a neurodegenerative condition. They received therapeutic stem cells and SDV1a, causing the toxic cells in the mice to disappear. The mice with the drug ended up with longer lives, fewer symptoms, preserved motor function, and most importantly, lack of inflammation. This took part in proving that SDV1a is efficient and will soon aid in stem cell treatments.
Researchers are still testing out the drug and working on its improvement. SDV1a is currently going through multiple experiments and has the potential to benefit the healing process of a variety of neurological disorders and multiple other conditions including brain cancer, heart disease, arthritis, etc. This is tremendous progress in the understanding of stem cells as well as treatments for regenerative medicine. SDV1a is a scientific first and major advancement in the field. It is of course still in its beginning stages\, and will not come out to the public for a while. However, this is an immense breakthrough that is sure to be a large playing factor in the future’s heightened healing process for multiple diseases.
We hope you enjoyed this incredible breakthrough in the neurology and regenerative medicine field as much as we did! More neurology blogs will be coming your way!
Stay safe,
Jasmine Wani - Vice President
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