Neuralstem Announces First Patient Treated in ALS Stem Cell Trial
ROCKVILLE, Md., Jan. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Neuralstem, Inc. (NYSE Amex: CUR) announced that the first ALS patient was treated with its spinal cord stem cells yesterday at the Emory ALS Center at Emory University, in Atlanta, GA. A total of up to 18 patients is planned to be treated in this first U.S. clinical trial to evaluate human neural stem cells for the treatment of ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease). ALS affects roughly 30,000 people in the U.S., with about 5,600 new diagnoses per year, according to the ALS Association.
“The treatment of the first patient with our spinal cord stem cells represents a significant milestone for the Company,” said Neuralstem President and CEO, Richard Garr.
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Stem cell trial for ALS treatment gets FDA OK
From ChicagoTribune.com
A University of Michigan neurologist is the principal investigator for the first human clinical trial of a stem cell treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Dr. Eva Feldman has worked with a team of neurologists to develop the protocol for injecting neural stem into patients’ spinal cords. The cells are patented by Neuralstem Inc., a Rockville, Md.-based biotech company.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Neuralstem’s plan to test the safety of the treatment for the fatal, untreatable neurodegenerative disorder commonly called Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
The initial phase to determine the safety of the treatment is to take place at Emory University in Atlanta.
Researchers plan trial for Lou Gehrig’s disease therapy
By Brooke Adams, The Salt Lake Tribune
The mice at the top of a column of stacked plastic bins at Q Therapeutics are shivering so hard they seem to be jumping.
Their nonstop shivering and seizures are caused by a genetic defect that robs the mice of the crucial myelin sheath that surrounds nerve cells and helps them send signals. Because of the defect, the mice are soon paralyzed and die prematurely.
It is a related problem — loss of this myelin sheath — that in humans causes the progressive loss of function in multiple sclerosis and several other diseases that can cause paralysis in humans.
And that’s why what has happened to the mice is so promising: After being treated with an adult stem cell therapy developed at Q Therapeutics, they are no longer shivering.
The product, called Q-Cells, also may be applicable to such neurodegenerative diseases as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS — better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Now, the National Institutes of Health have awarded a $5 million grant to Q Therapeutics, the University of Utah’s Cell Therapy Facility and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, which as a team has had success in animal models of ALS.
The funding will help support work needed to get permission from the Food and Drug Administration to start human clinical trials at Johns Hopkins. If efforts to raise additional funds are successful, those trials would begin next year.
“This type of therapy can bring about a major change in modern health care,” said Deborah Eppstein, CEO of Q Therapeutics. “It’s not just a little step. It’s a pole vault change, a going to the moon change.”
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