MidTown
rawlings and cleveland clinic team up for sports research
The Associated Press outlines a new collaboration between the Cleveland Clinic and helmet-maker Rawlings to conduct research on concussions and other sports-related head and neck injuries that could include measuring the impact on the brain.
Doctors and scientists from the clinic's Neurological Institute and its Spine Research Laboratory will use equipment manufactured and donated by Rawlings to do research on helmets and other protective accessories used in both baseball and football. They will measure the equipment's ability to minimize impacts and will seek ways to assess the amount of injury to the brain, both initially and over time.
The Cleveland Clinic research team is led by Spine Research Laboratory director Lars Gilbertson, who says "concussion has become a signature injury of sports in this new millennium." The studies will try to determine the effects of single and multiple impacts to the heads of athletes and how to reduce those injuries through protective equipment.
Read the entire article here.
Doctors and scientists from the clinic's Neurological Institute and its Spine Research Laboratory will use equipment manufactured and donated by Rawlings to do research on helmets and other protective accessories used in both baseball and football. They will measure the equipment's ability to minimize impacts and will seek ways to assess the amount of injury to the brain, both initially and over time.
The Cleveland Clinic research team is led by Spine Research Laboratory director Lars Gilbertson, who says "concussion has become a signature injury of sports in this new millennium." The studies will try to determine the effects of single and multiple impacts to the heads of athletes and how to reduce those injuries through protective equipment.
Read the entire article here.
stem-cell therapy from athersys shows promise in brain injuries and heart attacks
The October issue of the journal Experimental Neurology reports
on a study showing that MultiStem, a patented adult stem cell therapy
product from Cleveland-based biopharmaceutical firm Athersys Inc., mitigated the damage of traumatic brain injuries in lab experiments.
MultiStem uses multipotent adult progenitor cells, or MAPC, which "are obtained from the bone marrow or other tissue sources of healthy, consenting adult donors," according to an Athersys release. In an abstract of the study, the researchers explain, "Traumatic brain injury causes … an increase in circulating immune cells leading to increased blood brain barrier permeability. The intravenous injection of MAPC preserves … the integrity of the blood brain barrier."
As an unrelated 2007 Science Daily article explained, "The cells that make up the blood-brain barrier help the brain and immune system communicate. … Changes to the blood-brain barrier could give important clues about injuries to the central nervous system and the growth of tumors."
MultiStem appears to be an unusually versatile therapy. The same week that the Experimental Neurology report was released,
Athersys presented findings from clinical trials with heart attack patients at Transvascular Cardiovascular Therapeutics Conference in Washington, D.C. That ongoing work involves Dr. Marc Penn, Director of Cardiovascular Cell Therapy at the Cleveland Clinic. Athersys CEO Gil Van Bokkelen notes that while the recent trials were designed primarily to test safety, "we also saw clear and compelling signs that patients were experiencing improvement in heart function."
Van Bokkelen says Athersys and its many partners, including Pfizer, are excited about the potential of MultiStem as a "very powerful multifactor delivery system" that can treat a wide variety of patients.
Source: Athersys
Writer: Frank W. Lewis
MultiStem uses multipotent adult progenitor cells, or MAPC, which "are obtained from the bone marrow or other tissue sources of healthy, consenting adult donors," according to an Athersys release. In an abstract of the study, the researchers explain, "Traumatic brain injury causes … an increase in circulating immune cells leading to increased blood brain barrier permeability. The intravenous injection of MAPC preserves … the integrity of the blood brain barrier."
As an unrelated 2007 Science Daily article explained, "The cells that make up the blood-brain barrier help the brain and immune system communicate. … Changes to the blood-brain barrier could give important clues about injuries to the central nervous system and the growth of tumors."
MultiStem appears to be an unusually versatile therapy. The same week that the Experimental Neurology report was released,
Athersys presented findings from clinical trials with heart attack patients at Transvascular Cardiovascular Therapeutics Conference in Washington, D.C. That ongoing work involves Dr. Marc Penn, Director of Cardiovascular Cell Therapy at the Cleveland Clinic. Athersys CEO Gil Van Bokkelen notes that while the recent trials were designed primarily to test safety, "we also saw clear and compelling signs that patients were experiencing improvement in heart function."
Van Bokkelen says Athersys and its many partners, including Pfizer, are excited about the potential of MultiStem as a "very powerful multifactor delivery system" that can treat a wide variety of patients.
Source: Athersys
Writer: Frank W. Lewis