Stem Cells and Multiple Sclerosis

What is Multiple Sclerosis?

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is referred to as a chronic disease that attacks the central nervous system. This condition is as a result of an immune mediated attack which means that the system dedicated towards keeping your body healthy mistakenly attacks vital parts of your body that are essential to your everyday function. It is known to affect the brain, optic nerves, and spinal cord.

Can stem cells help to treat multiple sclerosis?

Although there are presently no known treatments that can significantly target the abnormal immune response in Multiple sclerosis (MS), current medical procedures such as copaxone, interferon, or immune suppressants all act in a non-specific manner by blocking immune responses against the myelin sheath. While these approaches are known to useful in reducing the severity of the disease, they do not repair the damage caused to the nervous system tissue that has already occurred – therefore they cannot cure multiple sclerosis.

However, our mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are known to have immune regulatory properties which can help stop the immune system from attacking the myelin sheath any further.

Also, mesenchymal stem cells may also be potentially helpful in remyelination i.e. the re-generation of the myelin sheath of the affected neurons. Currently, the University of Cambridge is conducting formal clinical studies using mesenchymal stem cells for treatment of MS.

Through the effective administration of umbilical cord tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells, we have successfully recorded huge improvements in the lives of multiple sclerosis patients being treated in our facilities.