Free Republic

The Laura Dominguez StoryIf there was ever a woman on a mission, it’s Laura Dominguez.  Doctors once told her she’d never walk again.  And while she’s not ready to run a marathon, she’s already proving them wrong, with the best yet to come.   An oil spill on a San Antonio freeway is blamed for the car crash that sent Laura and her brother directly into a retaining wall one summer afternoon in 2001.  Laura was just 16 years old at the time and the crash left her completely paralyzed from the neck down.  Surgeons say she suffered what’s known as...

Australian scientists have discovered that stem cells found in the back of a patient's nose can produce the chemical which is missing in people with Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's disease occurs when the brain cells that produce the chemical dopamine stop working.  Without dopamine, nerve cells cannot function, leading to muscle problems. Researchers from Griffith University and the University of Queensland harvested adult stem cells from the noses of Parkinson's disease patients.  They found that once the nose cells were cultured and infused into animals with Parkinson's disease, the cells began to produce dopamine.  Professor Peter Silburn from the University of...

SYDNEY, Australia, June 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - New research on stem-cell therapy shows scientists have found that the cure for Parkinson's disease may lie right under one's nose - or rather, in it. Researchers from Griffith University have published a study in the journal Stem Cells that has found adult stem-cells harvested from the noses of Parkinson's patients developed into dopamine-producing brain cells upon being transplanted into the brain of a lab rat. Professor Alan Mackay-Sim said researchers simulated Parkinson's symptoms in rats by creating lesions on one side of the rat's brain to imitate the damage Parkinson's disease wreaks...

Old paint cans, dry cleaner solvents, new car smell and other toxic chemicals you might catch a whiff of do more than warn you of danger — they can kill the cells in your nose that raise the alarm. Johns Hopkins University researchers identified a backup supply of stem cells that can repair the most severe damage to nerves responsible for the sense of smell. These “reservists” normally lie around and do nothing, but when neighboring cells die, they jump into action. A report on the discovery is available on Nature Neuroscience’s Web site. “We’re particularly interested in the nerve...

(Following is excerpted from near the end of a lengthy human interest story, I apologize for all the editing to capture the key points) ...Dr. Lima's procedure, called olfactory mucosa transplantation, differs dramatically from what generates the most heat in the debate, embryonic stem cell research. Lima's process uses adult stem cells taken from the patients themselves.(snip) ...I had a senator up there screaming at me," she says(snip)...."I was foolish enough to stand in front of the senators and say using a person's own stem cells is safer," she says. Peduzzi-Nelson testified "the most profitable, not the best, treatment for...

Australian scientists have found that stem cells taken from adults could have the same life-saving potential as those taken from embryos, a discovery that could potentially end the contentious debate over embryonic research. The results from the four-year project, at Australia's Griffith University in Queensland, show that adult stem cells harvested from the nose can be grown into virtually any kind of cell in the human body. Until now it has been thought that adult stem cells could only develop into different cell types of their own tissue, unlike embryonic stem cells which can turn into any body cell type....

  Home | News     Adult stem cells help paralysed 18 year old to walk A paralysed 18 year old, Jacki Rabon, who was injured in a car accident in August 2003, is now able to walk with braces six months after being treated with her own nasal adult stem cells. The operation took place at Hospital Egaz Moniz in Lisbon in October 2005 and involved taking olfactory tissue from the upper nasal cavity and transplanting the cells into the patient. The Portuguese neurologist and adult stem cell pioneer, Dr Carlos Lima, who treated her and whose surgery...

Erica Nader, who was paralyzed in a 2001 auto accident, is taking her first steps all over again. Jason Feasel, whose spinal cord was crushed in a motorcycle accident, is able to walk 300 feet using a specialized walker. Cortney Hoffman, a quadriplegic, the result of a 2002 rollover accident, is able to stand-up in the parallel bars. What do all three spinal cord injury patients have in common? They all underwent an experimental stem cell surgery in Portugal performed by Dr. Carlos Lima. Dr. Lima, a neuropathologist at Hospital de Egas Moniz in Portugal, will visit the Detroit Medical...

Jacki Rabon, 18, is walking with braces on a parallel bar six months after undergoing adult stem cell surgery to repair a spinal cord injury that left her paralyzed. Her story is a testament to the healing potential of adult stem cell research. Photo by Becki Rabon WAVERLY, Ill. (BP)--Jacki Rabon was riding with some friends in the back of an SUV in August 2003 when she was thrown out of the vehicle as it veered off the road. She skidded a few feet and landed near a ditch, and her life was suddenly changed. “Right away, I knew...

A jump into a swimming pool in 2003 changed Travis Robinson's life forever. Somewhere between a belly flop and a tuck, Robinson, then 17, hit the pool in such a way that he injured his spinal cord. He now is paralyzed from the neck down. But in January, he hopes another moment will change his life: surgery. Robinson will fly to Portugal to get a breakthrough surgery at the Hospital Egas Moniz. In the procedure, the scar tissue that surrounds his spinal cord will be removed. Doctors will take tissue that contains stem cells from his sinuses and implant it...

DOCTORS IN RUSSIA PROVE STEM CELLS CAN BE USED IN TREATING SPINE INJURIES MOSCOW, December 6 (RIA Novosti) - It has been widely believed until recently that nerve cells cannot reproduce themselves, especially those of the spinal cord. But doctors at the Neurology Clinic of Russia's Blokhin Oncology Research Center have now challenged this belief by performing six successful surgical operations on patients with spine injuries. The patients, thought before the surgery to be bedridden for the rest of their lives, are now learning to walk again, the Trud newspaper reports. It was Andrei Bryukhovetsky, Director General of the Neurology...

A world of patients with spinal cord injuries is watching Erica Nader.     HOW YOU CAN HELP The Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, in Detroit, has established a scholarship fund to pay for rehabilitation therapy for people with spinal cord injuries. This year, it will fund two, one-year scholarships from $60,000 raised through a benefit hosted last year by Erica Nader, the first American to undergo stem cell surgery in Portugal for a spinal cord injury. Contributions can be sent to: Scholarship Fund, Center for Spinal Cord Injury Recovery, Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, Development Office, 261 Mack Ave., Detroit 48201....