Do you know about the nitty-gritty of stem cells and its banking?

Many of you don’t know what Multiple Sclerosis really is and how it affects the patients. Sclerosis means scar tissue. Multiple Sclerosis is a serious health condition that occurs mainly between 35 and 50. According to scientists, Multiple Sclerosis is caused by a number of reasons such as viral or bacterial infections, genetic predisposition, and environmental factors. It’s more common in colder countries and the countries in the Northern hemisphere. Multiple Sclerosis affects women more than men.

The nervous cells in the spinal cord and the brain are linked through cellular extensions. Every cell has a cellular extension at one end, which is called axon. The formation of axon is pretty much similar to an electrical wire. And there is a layer of fat, called myelin, protecting the axon, just like the protective plastic cover of an electrical wire. These axons are responsible for passing neural signals from one cell to another. In Multiple Sclerosis, the immune cells of the patients attack the protective layer as well as attack the cells that create myelin. This leads to demyelination and then gradual damage of the axon, which causes multiple scar tissues.

The demyelination has different symptoms for different patients. Some common symptoms are pain, fatigue, blurred vision, muscle stiffness, difficulties in movement, and lack of brain-based skills including problem-solving skills and memory. So far there is no cure for Multiple Sclerosis. The available treatments include drugs to control the progression of the disease and treat the symptoms. But they cannot repair the tissues. Now the question remains could stem cells be the answer to cure Multiple Sclerosis?Let’s find out.

Stem cells have the ability to regenerate themselves and transform into different cell types. This unique feature makes them helpful to treat various diseases where cells need to be replaced. For Multiple Sclerosis, stem cells could provide the ideal treatment to replace the affected cells, as opined by the scientists. So, currently, there are two approaches adopted by the researchers. One, the researchers are trying to modulate the immune system of the patients, so it cannot attack the nerve cells. Two, researchers are focusing on creating the oligodendrocytes by utilizing stem cells to repair the affected nervous tissue. Haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) or the blood cells are the most common stem cells that are used in various clinical trials. These stem cells are derived from the bone marrow.

Transplants involving HSCs to treat Multiple Sclerosis were first conducted in 1990. Even though the recent trials for treating Multiple Sclerosis showed great promise, but there are some side effects that are hard to ignore. In nine cases, the patients even died. However, most of these deaths took place before 2000, when transplant procedure was quite different from now.

Today’s process has been fine-tuned by the scientists, so the process remains safer for the patients. This is the reason that an informed decision has to be made before choosing stem cell treatment for Multiple Sclerosis. At this moment, many trials are underway to find out a proper cure for Multiple Sclerosis with stem cells. However, a number of large level researches are needed to come to an effective and safe transplant procedure.

To know more on the latest in stem cells, log on to www.cordlifeindia.com.

Cordlife, the oldest and largest network of stem cell banks in Asia Pacific, serves the needs of the mother and child. Since 2001, Cordlife aspires to deliver the highest of quality standards in service and product offerings to their clients. With state-of-the-art-laboratories located in 6 different countries across South East Asia (Singapore, India, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Hong Kong), and strategic brand presence in China, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar, Cordlife is able to offer the most advanced processing and cryopreservation technologies for both cord blood and cord tissue stem cells. Cordlife laboratories have been accredited by FACT (Singapore), AABB (Singapore, India and Hong Kong) and CAP (India and Hong Kong) in addition to other requisite licenses and certifications like DCGI, ISO, WHO-GMP and US-FDA. Cordlife India singularly offers a storage capacity of 150,000 cord blood units with a provision to scale up as and when required.

Having been in the forefront of the stem cell banking industry for more than a decade, Cordlife has adhered to its values of integrity, honesty and pursuit of excellence, for which they have been recognized by Forbes as one of the Top 200 ‘Best Under a Billion’ Companies in Asia (2015) and also been titled as the Most Transparent Company by SIAS Investors, Singapore (2013) and Asia Pacific ‘Stem Cell Bank of the Year’ by Frost and Sullivan (2016).