Doug and Stephen in a panel discussion

Rachel Hammerman is saying that a hallmark of this event is the ability of the audience to ask questions.

Woman asks if new scarring is a problem in other kinds of stem cell transplantations, like umbilical cells . . . he says he doesn't know, that maybe Wise will address that.


Wise gets up and takes the microphone to say that umbilical cells have not
scarred . . . he says that he and Stephen have a difference over the use of the word "scar" to talk about something that is not fibroblasts. . . (he can comment here later if I have that wrong.)

What I take from this is that there's some quite intense scientific disagreement.

Ahem.

Question about decorin . . what is it? what's it used for?

Stephen says that it's been around for a long time, but it hasn't been a stable molecule. There have been about 150 papers published about it this year. (Okay, I'll look these up later and read them.) We do know that it's well tolerated by the body and seems to somehow almost fool the body into thinking that the injury is smaller than it is. It's made by Integra Life Sciences and their partners.

. . .

For Doug: couldn't hear her. Doug is saying that SMA is a disease in which babies are born without any connection between the spinal cord and the neurons. The adult counterpart of that is polio or west nile virus. The first approach is going to be SMA, followed by west nile virus.

For Doug: Is there an animal model of transverse myelitis? Yes, and we've done that. We've made an animal model that very closely replicates the disease. The efficacy studies show modest gains, and the more we study them, the more learn about why it's not the "home run" we were hoping for. We're going forward.

Timeframe? Depends on funding for the company (California Stem Cell). The big pharmas are not yet interested in these biotech startups. Preclinical and toxicology studies are not done. We have to do the mundane, boring, oh-so-critical work. We're talking about $3 million . . . he asks Wise to comment.

Wise says $3 to $6 million. He's currently doing it in 2 countries for under $6 million.

Missed another question . . Stephen is talking about diffuse scarring and staining for protoglycans.

Question about scar tissue and untethering . . . Doug is saying that the gliotic area is inhibitory towards differentiation. (My thought -- Wise has some ground to stand on when he says that it's not helpful to use the word "scar" because it makes people visualize the thing that forms on the skin after a cut. It's not that.) Doug still talking about how we can use sophisticated neurobiology to alter the molecular environment in ways that Stephen's lab and others have shown is necessary.

Same woman, asking about muscle memory and using the FES bike. She's been using it for 2.5 years, and is at 49% stim for a ten mile ride. Doug says, "It's really cool that you got from being a passive participant to being a more than half do-it-yourself."

Says that we've known for a long time (40 years) that as you use muscles, your motor neurons adapt. What we don't know is why? That's what we're looking at now.

Question: I was at the last neuroscience meeting and understood about half of what was said . . what I want to know is, what's the hold up on clinical trials?

They don't take it, because Naomi Kleitman gets up to say she's going to address that right after lunch . . .

Bruce asks about induced pluripotent cells -- tell us what that is.

Doug explains that you can take a skin cell of your own forearm and dial it back to become an embryonic stem cell with your own DNA. He says that the danger we're in right now is that we could make the perfect the enemy of the good . .. we have lots of cells to work with, and this one is 10 years away from clinical applications. That skin cell has had a long life already, and asking it to go back to the beginning and become a stem cell is . . . well, a little scary.

Stephen says that it's a fantastic technology. But the real trick is not just in making them, but in controlling what they turn into.