Thursday, May 5, 2016

Basic Information About Cell Therapy

By Raymond Young


Research on a global scale has been motivated by the many health conditions that the world is now plagued with. Due to continuous research, cell therapy and many other promising treatment options have been discovered. The names cellular therapy and cytotherapy also refer to this treatment option. Cytotherapy requires cellular materials from animals or human beings to be injected into patients. The materials injected are normally whole living cells.

There are two broad classifications of cellular therapy. One bases on legitimate, conventional medicine while the other one bases on alternative medicine. The version that bases on conventional medicine is very safe and has been used many times. On the other hand, the one based on alternative medicine is dangerous and uses unconfirmed theories. It involves injecting patients with animal cells for the purpose of treating diseases.

The first instance involving the use of cytotherapy dates back in the nineteenth century. The first attempt was made by someone named Charles Brown by injecting animal testicle extracts. Charles was trying to stop the occurrence of effects of aging. Paul Niehans is considered the inventor of cytotherapy because of the experiments he carried out. Paul had patients whom he injected with extracts from calf embryo. He later made many unverified claims of having cured many cancer patients with this method.

Researchers discovered when recipient animals are pre-inoculated with donor cells prior to organ transplant it prevented organ rejection. This discovery was made in 1953 and in 1968, the first bone marrow transplant to be successful was achieved. The transplant was done in Minnesota.

Bone marrow transplants have been found to be successful in the treatment of different medical conditions. For example, it can successfully treat damaged knee cartilage. Development of many forms of treatments is viewed to be highly dependent on cytotherapy. The high prospects for growth in the future make this field to receive a lot of support from mainstream medicine.

There are many types of cell therapies. The common examples are alogeneic, human embrynic stem cells, neutral, mesenchymal, and hematopoietic stem cell therapies. In the allogeneic variety, the recipient and the donor are two different people. Unmatched allogenic therapies are viewed to bear the potential of forming the basis for off-the-shelf products. That is the reason why this variety of cytotherapy is of great importance in the field of pharmacy.

Research in human embryonic stem cells has attracted a lot of controversy in the public. Some countries have banned it totally while others regulate it very closely. The belief that these cells may have many therapeutic applications is the reasons some countries still support research in this direction. Research indicates that these cells can find use in the treatment of chronic diseases like diabetes and Parkinson disease.

This field still has a very short history and there is a lot of research work in progress. Many medical trials have been conducted and results achieved have been mixed or total failures. There is a still a long way to go before achieving any concrete results even though it is very promising. A lot of heavy investments have been made by many organizations into research in this field.




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