Stem Cells in the Philippines
Stem Cell breakthroughs are being done in the Philippines-- known as the paradise of Asia-- is the perfect place to get healthy and rejuvenated.
18/08/2024
Thank you to all the doctors and delegates for your overwhelming support of our annual convention of the Philippine Regenerative Integrative Medical Association, the medical specialty that focuses on Stem Cell Treatments and cutting edge medical advancements.
PRIMA elects new officers at Healing Revolution conference Newly elected officers of the Philippine Regenerative Integrative Medical Association (PRIMA) took their oath at The Healing Revolution' conference held at SMX
17/04/2022
08/10/2020
Liposuction: Adipose-derived Stem Cell Transplantation for Osteoarthritis For more educational videos from NYU Langone Orthopedics, visit http://www.ortholibrary.org . . . For more educational videos from NYU Langone Orthopedics, v...
17/09/2020
How to Become a Cure | Stem Cell Transplants at City of Hope What is a blood stem cell transplant? A remarkably effective treatment for leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma – and many other diseases of the blood and bo...
08/09/2020
Stem cells basics animation This stem cells animation explains about stem cell therapy. The important properties of stem cells are explained with this animation taken from university of...
Stem cells are cells with the potential to develop into many different types of cells in the body. They serve as a repair system for the body. There are two main types of stem cells: embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells.
Stem cells are different from other cells in the body in three ways:
They can divide and renew themselves over a long time
They are unspecialized, so they cannot do specific functions in the body
They have the potential to become specialized cells, such as muscle cells, blood cells, and brain cells
Doctors and scientists are excited about stem cells because they could help in many different areas of health and medical research. Studying stem cells may help explain how serious conditions such as birth defects and cancer come about. Stem cells may one day be used to make cells and tissues for therapy of many diseases. Examples include Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, spinal cord injury, heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis.
20/08/2020
Joint cartilage regrown in arthritic mice by a stem cell tweak Like most machines, the human body tends to wear out faster at the points of articulation, where decades of stress are focused. Now, researchers at Stanford have found a way to induce cartilage tissue to regenerate in joints by tweaking the stem cells there.
Adipocytes
Adipocytes are the major energy storage sites in the body, and they also have critical endocrine functions. Therefore, understanding the development and function of adipocytes - particularly in light of the obesity pandemic - is essential to understanding metabolic homeostasis. There are two general classes of adipocytes; white adipocytes - which store energy as a single large lipid droplet and have important endocrine functions, and brown adipocytes - which store energy in multiple small lipid droplets but specifically for use as fuel to generate body heat (i.e. thermogenesis). Heat production by brown adipocytes is made possible by their unique expression of mitochondrial localized uncoupling protein 1 (Ucp1). However, these classifications are oversimplified because some white adipocytes can adopt brown adipocyte characteristics (termed brite or beige adipocytes) and vice versa depending on the temperature and diet. We are interested in understanding the origins of different adipocytes and in defining the signaling and metabolic pathways that control their development, distribution, and function.
Do you do a multi-disciplinary approach in the treatments?
Yes, since most patients suffer from many types of degenerative diseases, which require an integrative approach with different specialties. We work to coordinate and provide treatments with your own stem cells, but we also use other tools of regenerative medicine, which may include hormone replacement therapy or other appropriate recommendations. For example, if a patient has a knee problem, he or she may also be referred to an orthopedic surgeon, an acupuncturist doctor, or a chiropractor, depending on the preference of the patient. Also, the patient might be recommended with the addition of hormone replacement therapy or an exercise program. Nevertheless, we believe that the stem cell therapy is the major factor in the regeneration treatment.
Why use fat instead of bone marrow?
In the previous years, a lot of work has been done to isolate the bone marrow-derived stem cells. These are also known as "mesenchymal stem cells", because they come from the mesodermal section of your body. They can differentiate into bone and cartilage, and probably all other mesodermal, as fat, connective tissue, blood vessels, muscles and nervous tissue.
Stem cells from bone marrow can be extracted and yet because they are small in number, they are usually grown or cultured in order to increase their number for future use. As it turns out, fat is also loaded with mesenchymal stem cells. Actually, there are hundreds if not thousands of times more stem cells from the fat than in the bone marrow.
While most stem cell treatment centers in the world are still using stem cells from the bone marrow, which is an older technology and yields less stem cells, we, on the other hand are using the revolutionary fat derived stem cells.
Recent technological advances now allow us to use adipose (fat) derived stem cells. Autologous stem cells of a person are easy and safe to harvest under local anesthesia and are abundant in quantities up to 2,500 times higher than seen in the bone marrow.
Nowadays, we have tools which allow us to separate the stem cells from the fat, and since most people have an adequate supply of fat and the number of stem cells is so large, it is not necessary to culture cells over a period of several days and can then be used immediately.
What are the tools of regenerative medicine?
Traditionally, we have used various drugs and hormones to reduce diseases and help the body repair itself. For example, hormone replacement therapy has, in many cases, demonstrated its ability to help more optimally the immune system and help us to repair diseased tissue or injury. Genetic research is an evolving field where we will eventually learn and use resources more specifically to treat defects of genes responsible for the degenerative disease. Stem cell therapy is another area that is rapidly evolving and exciting which has already shown promising results in the treatment of many major degenerative diseases.
SOURCE, ISOLATION, AND CHARACTERIZATION OF ASCS
There are mainly two types of adipose tissue: white adipose tissue and brown adipose tissue. They are morphologically and functionally different. Brown adipose tissue much less abundant than white adipose tissue, but can be found in the neck, mediastinum, and interscapular areas in neonates. However, brown adipose tissue undergoes a morphologic transformation with aging. The appearance of brown adipose tissue is literally brown. Brown adipocytes are multilocular and retain small lipid vacuoles compared to white adipocytes. Vascularization is obvious because brown adipose tissue requires much more oxygen consumption compared to other tissues. Brown adipocytes have no known correlation with insulin resistance. The main function of brown adipose tissue is thermogenesis[12,13]. Brown adipose tissue contains a large number of mitochondria and expresses uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1). UCP1 is a brown adipose tissue-specific marker, not expressed within white adipose tissue. UCP1 is expressed in the inner membrane of mitochondria, mainly regulated by adrenergic signaling through sympathetic innervations, and this signaling is responsible for thermogenesis[12,13]. Brown adipose tissue is activated by thyroid hormone, cold temperatures, thiazolidinediones, and activated brown adipose tissue is inversely correlated with body mass index, adipose tissue mass and insulin resistance.
White adipose tissue is found throughout the body, representatively in subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue. The appearance of white adipose tissue is yellow or ivory. White adipocytes are unilocular and contain large lipid vacuoles. White adipose tissue function is to store excess energy in the form of triglycerides, and its hyperplasia causes obesity and dysfunction of metabolic pathways as insulin resistance. UCP1 is not expressed in white adipocytes but the isoform UCP2 is expressed in parts of white adipocytes.
Recently, beige adipocytes have been discovered within white adipose tissue, especially inguinal white adipose tissue[14]. Beige adipocytes have the characteristics of both brown and white adipocytes. Beige adipocytes contain both unilocular large and multiple small lipid vacuoles. Its function is adaptive thermogenesis. In response to cold temperature exposure, beige cells transform into cells which have brown adipose tissue-like characteristics, such as UCP1 expression and small lipid vacuoles[15]. It is still controversial whether the beige adipocytes arise through the transdifferentiation of white adipocytes or by de novo adipogenesis from a subgroup of precursor cells[16,17].
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are adult stem cells that were originally identified in bone marrow as multi-potent cells[1,2]. Stem cells are characterized by their self-renewal ability and multi-potency. Bone marrow-derived stem cells are most broadly studied for therapeutic potentials since their discovery in the 1960s[1]. After the discovery of bone marrow-derived MSCs, MSCs have been isolated from nearly every tissue in the body[3], for example, adipose tissue[4], umbilical cord blood[5], peripheral blood[6], dental pulp[7], dermis[8], and amniotic fluid[9], and even in tumors[10]. Adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) were first identified as MSCs in adipose tissue in 2001[11], and since then adipose tissue has been studied as a cell source for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. There are multiple terms for stem cells derived from adipose tissue, for example, preadipocytes, adipose-derived stromal cells, processed lipoaspirated cells, adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells, adipose-derived adult stem cells. In 2004, the consensus was reached the term as ASCs.
There are several types of adipose tissue, with subcutaneous as the most clinically relevant source. ASCs can be isolated from subcutaneous adipose tissue of the abdomen, thigh, and arm. Because adipose tissue is typically abundant in the human body, ASCs can potentially be isolated in high numbers. The multi-lineage capacity of ASCs offers the potential to repair, maintain or enhance various tissues. This review article will focus on source, isolation, and characterization of ASCs, secretion of growth factors from ASCs, in vitro and in vivo differentiation ability of ASCs, and the potential clinical application.
What is the stem cell technology about?
Stem Cell Treatment and Regenerative Medicine is using fat-derived stem cells for clinical research and transplantation, which is very different from the early research on stem cells which has traditionally been associated with the controversial use of fetal stem cells. Our focus is on non-fetal adult mesenchymal stem cells, which are present in the blood of a person, bone marrow, and fat. Harvesting stem cells and the isolation techniques are based on well researched technology. This breakthrough technology allows patients to safely receive their own autologous stem cells in large quantities. All the procedures are minimally-invasive and performed under local anesthesia. Patients who are looking for non-surgical alternatives to their degenerative diseases can choose to fill out our application forms to determine if they are candidates. Britannia is proud to be a center of excellence in the state of the art and emerging field of regenerative medicine.
Photoactivation of Adult-derived Adipose (Fat) Stem Cells
Adult Stem Cells (ASCs), by definition, are unspecialized or undifferentiated cells that not only retain their ability to divide mitotically while still maintaining their undifferentiated state but also, given the right conditions, have the ability to differentiate into different types of cells including cells of different germ-origin – an ability referred to as transdifferentiation or plasticity.1,2 In vitro, the conditions under which transdifferentiation occurs can be brought about by modifying the culture medium in which the cells are cultured. In vivo, the same changes are seen when the ASCs are transplanted into a tissue environment different to their own tissue-of origin. Though the exact mechanism of this transdifferentiation of ASCs is still under debate, this ability of ASCs along with their ability to self-renew is of great interest in the field of Regenerative Medicine as a therapeutic tool in being able to regenerate and replace dying, damaged or diseased tissue. Clinically, however, there are a few criteria that ASCs need to fulfill before they can be viewed as a viable option in Regenerative Medicine. These are as follows:3
1 Abundance in numbers (millions to billions of cells)
2 Ease of harvest (through minimally invasive procedures)
3 Ability to differentiate into multiple cell types (which can be regulated and reproduced in vitro)
4 Safe to transplant to a different site of the autologous host or even an allogenic host.
5 No conflict with current Good Manufacturing Principles (during procurement, culture or transplantation
Multiple Sclerosis Treatment using Stem Cells
Wheelchair-bound Man Walks after Stem Cell Treatment
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