Stem cell paper reports advance

Michael Miller

A UC Irvine research paper, scheduled for publication today, may mark

a vital step in the search for a cure for spinal-cord injuries.

Hans Keirstead, a professor at UCI’s Reeve-Irvine Research Center,

said the 11-page report marks the first published evidence that

oligodendrocytes, or myelin-creating cells, can be used to restore

motor skills in patients with spinal-cord injuries. Keirstead and six

colleagues -- Gabriel Nistor, Giovanna Bernal, Minodora Totoiu, Frank

Cloutier, Kelly Sharp and Oswald Steward -- are expected to publish

an article on their findings today in the Journal of Neuroscience.

“Hopefully, this is strong evidence that stem cell therapies are

ones that should be followed up on,” said Maura Hofstadter, director

of education and scientific liaison for the Reeve-Irvine Research

Center. “These cells do seem to have the promise we’ve been talking

about the last couple of years.”

Keirstead can still remember the moment years ago when his team

reached a breakthrough. The professor was sitting in his office when

two assistants burst through the door with news about the center’s

ongoing experiment on rats. The message on their lips was only five

words: “We can break the code.”

Keirstead and a team of colleagues at the Reeve-Irvine Research

Center had been investigating methods of curing spinal-cord injuries

through stem cell injections. The researchers had injected human

embryonic stem cells into rats with spinal-cord injuries, then placed

them in cages with other rats that had not received the treatment.

The goal of the experiment was to figure out which rats had been

injected and which had not -- a difference the scientists could tell

only by observing behavior.

Keirstead’s assistants had news for him: Some of the rats in the

cages were walking consistently.

“We had some spinal-cord-injured patients who were touring the

lab, and I put the cages in front of them,” Keirstead said. “I said,

‘Can you tell which ones are treated?’ They were literally reduced to

tears.”

Keirstead and Hofstadter readily admit that treatment of human

spinal-cord injuries may be a ways off. But their research on

animals, they say, may point in a valuable direction.

The research group began its stem cell experiment in 2000. The

researchers work under a grant funded by the Geron Corporation, which

provides the stem cells, and the university.

At the start of the experiment, researchers injected two groups of

rats with human embryonic stem cells. The first group, whose injuries

were one week old, showed significant gains in motor skills; the

second group, who had been injured for 10 months, had little

improvement. Keirstead reached the conclusion that by the time a

spinal cord injury reaches the late, or chronic, stage, the scar

tissue around the wound prevents myelin from growing.

Now, he said, his team is investigating chronic injuries.

“This study is important in that it identifies demyelination,”

Keirstead said. “I was one of the leaders in identifying myelin as a

therapeutic target, and this paper really validates it. It says that

myelin is really important in spinal cord injury, that it has a real

logical benefit.”