BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc. (OTCBB: BCLI) announced that the prestigious Experimental Neurology Journal, published an article indicating that preclinical studies using cells that underwent treatment with Brainstorm’s NurOwn(TM) technology show promise in an animal model of Huntington’s disease. The article was published by leading scientists including Professor Eldad
Melamed (pictured) and Professor Offen of the Tel Aviv University.
In these studies, bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells secreting neurotrophic factors (MSC-NTF), from patients with Huntington’s disease, were transplanted into the animal model of this disease and showed therapeutic improvement.
“The findings from this study demonstrate that stem cells derived from patients with a neurodegenerative disease, which are processed using BrainStorm’s NurOwn(TM) technology, may alleviate neurotoxic signs, in a similar way to cells derived from healthy donors. This is an important development for the company, as it confirms that autologous transplantation may be beneficial for such additional therapeutic indications,” said Dr. Adrian Harel, BrainStorm’s CEO.
“These findings provide support once again that BrainStorm’s MSC-NTF secreting cells have the potential to become a platform that in the future will provide treatment for various neuro-degenerative diseases,” says Chaim Lebovits, President of BrainStorm. “This study follows previously published pre-clinical studies that demonstrated improvement in animal models of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and neural damage such as optic nerve transection and sciatic nerve injury. Therefore, BrainStorm will consider focusing on a new indication in the near future, in addition to the ongoing Clinical Trials in ALS.”
BrainStrom is currently conducting a Phase I/II Human Clinical Trial for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease at the Hadassah Medical center. Initial results from the clinical trial (which is designed mainly to test the safety of the treatment), that were announced last week, have shown that the Brainstorm’s NurOwn(TM) therapy is safe and does not show any significant treatment-related adverse events and have also shown certain signs of beneficial clinical effects.
To read the Article entitled ‘Mesenchymal stem cells induced to secrete neurotrophic factors attenuate quinolinic acid toxicity: A potential therapy for Huntington’s disease’ by Sadan et al. please go to:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014488612000295