US doctors have begun the first tests of human embryonic stem cells in patients, treating a man with spinal cord injuries in a landmark trial of the controversial process, the Geron Corporation said Monday.
The patient began the pioneering treatment Friday with Geron's GRNOPC1 human embryonic stem cells at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia, a spokeswoman for the hospital told AFP.She declined, however, to give more details, citing patient privacy.
The patient began the pioneering treatment Friday with Geron's GRNOPC1 human embryonic stem cells at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia, a spokeswoman for the hospital told AFP.She declined, however, to give more details, citing patient privacy.
Preclinical studies of GRNOPC1 found human embryonic stem cells significantly improved locomotor activity of animals with spinal cord injuries when injected seven days after the injury.
Participants in the human trials must be newly injured and receive a one-time injection of about two million GRNOPC1 cells, seven to 14 days after sustaining their injury.
David Apple, Shepherd Center's medical director, said the clinical trial, which seeks to establish whether GRNOPC1 is safe and tolerated in humans, was a key step forward in the search for a cure to paralysis after spinal cord injury.
The Phase I trial -- expected to last two years and involve an estimated 10 patients -- comes just 11 years after Geron began working with human embryonic stem cells in 1999, when "many predicted that it would be a number of decades before a cell therapy would be approved for human clinical trials," Geron's president and chief executive Thomas Okarma said in a statement.
"Initiating the GRNOPC1 clinical trial is a milestone for the field of human embryonic stem cell-based therapies," Okarma said
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