From treating diseases like diabetes and liver disfunction to restoring vision in an injured eye, stem cell promises to revolutionise healthcare
Today researchers understand that stem cells have the potential to
treat serious degenerative diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s,
muscular dystrophy and myocardial infarctions that are widely prevalent
across the world. Often, people have family members or friends who are
facing serious ailments and are left helpless as treatment options are
limited. Stem cell therapy is looked upon as a potential alternative to
the available treatment options.
Stem cells are unspecialised cells that have two defining properties: the ability to differentiate into other cells and to self-regenerate. Differentiation is defined as the ability to develop into other cell types while self-regeneration is when stem cells divide to produce additional stem cells. Therefore, stem cells can potentially be used to treat diseases like diabetes, liver dysfunction, myocardial infarction, spinal cord injuries, stroke, corneal reconstruction, wounds and even be used for cosmetic applications.
For example, a school bus driver from Delhi lost his vision in one eye while trying to save children on board from a bomb blast. Multiple doctors concluded that there was no hope to recover from this situation since the cornea in his eye had been destroyed. As a last resort he was treated by a stem cell therapist who managed to regenerate his cornea from the driver’s own adult stem cells. Today, 20 per cent vision has been restored to his damaged eye.
While stem cells can be found in multiple organs, the most commonly known sources are bone marrow and umbilical cord blood (which is often discarded during birth). However, dental pulp stem cells have certain key advantages in comparison to stem cells from other sources such as they can be cultured and doubled more efficiently. In addition to this, attaining stem cells from teeth is a noninvasive procedure with minimal recovery time.
With the advent of stem cell therapy in recent times this picture is likely to change as they have the potential to cure these degenerative diseases. Trillions of dollars are being spent globally on stem cell research for past decade and the results have been very encouraging and promising. Already there are success stories published for treatment of diabetes, heart ailments, muscular dystrophy, renal failure, etc. The estimated stem cell market in India by 2015 is $40 million. World market at that time will be $64 billion.
Dental stem cells are being studied as a way to help treat a number of medical diseases and conditions. Adult stem cells from teeth have been used to successfully grow jawbone and treat periodontal disease in people. Other potential diseases which can be treated via adult stem cells include diabetes, spinal cord injury, motor-neuron, stroke, heart attacks, liver disease, cornea repair, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s.
Dental pulp stem cell banking can be done from the milk teeth of children in the age group of 5-12 years. Teens that are undergoing orthodontic procedures such as getting braces have the opportunity to bank their premolars that are often extracted during this procedure. Adults have the opportunity to bank their dental pulp stem cells via wisdom teeth.
The Dental Stem cell banking process is fairly simple one. The customer simply needs to contact a clinic, pay the fees and choose a clinic to complete the tooth collection procedure. During the procedure the tooth and a blood sample is collected and kept in the dental sampling kit with details of the customer marked on it. The next step is isolation – the dental pulp, containing the stem cells would be isolated by breaking open the tooth and processed as per the set protocols. The processed dental pulp would be tested for sterility and quality control (assessment of the viability of the stem cells). After that comes cryopreservation, a process in which the processed dental pulp, rich in stem cells, is preserved by gradual cooling. The processed dental pulp is frozen by keeping the levy at a temperature of —196 degree celsius in liquid nitrogen.
The processed vital dental pulp is frozen and stored, with appropriate tagging of relevant details, using cryopreservation technology to maintain their viability for retrieval in future. The last step is the receipt of the sample certificate — after the sample is cryopreserved, a certificate of banking will be sent to the client, which must be preserved for future records.
Today banking stem cells is essential and convenient and is like having a weapon in the armory that can protect you and your loved ones. zz
(The writer is the MD & CEO
of Stemade Biotech, a firm that
banks dental stem cells in India)
Stem cells are unspecialised cells that have two defining properties: the ability to differentiate into other cells and to self-regenerate. Differentiation is defined as the ability to develop into other cell types while self-regeneration is when stem cells divide to produce additional stem cells. Therefore, stem cells can potentially be used to treat diseases like diabetes, liver dysfunction, myocardial infarction, spinal cord injuries, stroke, corneal reconstruction, wounds and even be used for cosmetic applications.
For example, a school bus driver from Delhi lost his vision in one eye while trying to save children on board from a bomb blast. Multiple doctors concluded that there was no hope to recover from this situation since the cornea in his eye had been destroyed. As a last resort he was treated by a stem cell therapist who managed to regenerate his cornea from the driver’s own adult stem cells. Today, 20 per cent vision has been restored to his damaged eye.
While stem cells can be found in multiple organs, the most commonly known sources are bone marrow and umbilical cord blood (which is often discarded during birth). However, dental pulp stem cells have certain key advantages in comparison to stem cells from other sources such as they can be cultured and doubled more efficiently. In addition to this, attaining stem cells from teeth is a noninvasive procedure with minimal recovery time.
With the advent of stem cell therapy in recent times this picture is likely to change as they have the potential to cure these degenerative diseases. Trillions of dollars are being spent globally on stem cell research for past decade and the results have been very encouraging and promising. Already there are success stories published for treatment of diabetes, heart ailments, muscular dystrophy, renal failure, etc. The estimated stem cell market in India by 2015 is $40 million. World market at that time will be $64 billion.
Dental stem cells are being studied as a way to help treat a number of medical diseases and conditions. Adult stem cells from teeth have been used to successfully grow jawbone and treat periodontal disease in people. Other potential diseases which can be treated via adult stem cells include diabetes, spinal cord injury, motor-neuron, stroke, heart attacks, liver disease, cornea repair, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s.
Dental pulp stem cell banking can be done from the milk teeth of children in the age group of 5-12 years. Teens that are undergoing orthodontic procedures such as getting braces have the opportunity to bank their premolars that are often extracted during this procedure. Adults have the opportunity to bank their dental pulp stem cells via wisdom teeth.
The Dental Stem cell banking process is fairly simple one. The customer simply needs to contact a clinic, pay the fees and choose a clinic to complete the tooth collection procedure. During the procedure the tooth and a blood sample is collected and kept in the dental sampling kit with details of the customer marked on it. The next step is isolation – the dental pulp, containing the stem cells would be isolated by breaking open the tooth and processed as per the set protocols. The processed dental pulp would be tested for sterility and quality control (assessment of the viability of the stem cells). After that comes cryopreservation, a process in which the processed dental pulp, rich in stem cells, is preserved by gradual cooling. The processed dental pulp is frozen by keeping the levy at a temperature of —196 degree celsius in liquid nitrogen.
The processed vital dental pulp is frozen and stored, with appropriate tagging of relevant details, using cryopreservation technology to maintain their viability for retrieval in future. The last step is the receipt of the sample certificate — after the sample is cryopreserved, a certificate of banking will be sent to the client, which must be preserved for future records.
Today banking stem cells is essential and convenient and is like having a weapon in the armory that can protect you and your loved ones. zz
(The writer is the MD & CEO
of Stemade Biotech, a firm that
banks dental stem cells in India)