WIKIMEDIA, DOC. RNDR. JOSEF REISCHIG, CSC.Duke University is launching a $41 million stem-cell trial to explore “the use of umbilical cord blood cells to treat autism, stroke, cerebral palsy, and related brain disorders,” according to a press release. While a small, preliminary study involving 20 children is already underway, a prominent scientist in the field is criticizing the trial.
“I think it would be marvelous if this trial worked, but it really seems more like a ‘Hail Mary pass’ than a rational therapy,” Arnold Kriegstein, director of the Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of California, San Francisco, told the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative.
The project, led by Duke’s Joanne Kurtzberg, is based on her research showing that cord blood cells can reduce the signs of brain damage in children with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy and stimulate neural connectivity in animal models. “The whole program has enormous potential,” she said in the release.
A different stem cell trial for autism has been underway since 2012. “We hope to demonstrate to people [whether] this is worth pursuing or not,” ...
