{"id":1422,"date":"2016-12-14T11:36:10","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T19:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/stem-cell-therapy-gives-paralyzed-man-second-chance-at-independence\/"},"modified":"2023-11-26T08:19:10","modified_gmt":"2023-11-26T16:19:10","slug":"stem-cell-therapy-gives-paralyzed-man-second-chance-at-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/stem-cell-therapy-gives-paralyzed-man-second-chance-at-independence\/","title":{"rendered":"Stem Cell Therapy Gives Paralyzed Man Second Chance at Independence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\n\n \n Press Release<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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Stem Cell Therapy Gives Paralyzed Man Second Chance at Independence<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
\n \n December 14, 2016<\/span>\n <\/div>\n \n \n
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A clinical trial through Keck Medicine of USC offers hope after a devastating car accident.<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n \n \n \n\n<\/div>\n \n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\r\n\r\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Four days after<\/span>\u00a0undergoing major surgery, 21-year-old Kris Boesen picked up a smartphone and sent a text. It was the first message that he had sent in months.<\/h3>\n

But what was truly remarkable was that a man who was once almost completely paralyzed was holding a phone at all.
\nIt hadn\u2019t always been like this. One night in March changed Boesen\u2019s life. He was driving along a winding stretch of wet road in Maricopa, California, when his white Nissan 350Z fishtailed out of control. The sports car careened into a curb, a tree and then a telephone pole, breaking Boesen\u2019s neck. After the accident, Boesen could only move his left arm up and down, and his hands were stuck in a clenched position. He couldn\u2019t hold a fork to feed himself or use his arms to operate a wheelchair. He couldn\u2019t use his legs, either.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was basically just existing,\u201d Boesen says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t really living my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boesen\u2019s neurosurgeon at the local hospital, who fused his neck bones right after the accident, recognized that Boesen might be a candidate for a new treatment being offered through a clinical trial at Keck Medicine of USC. The surgeon contacted neurologist\u00a0Charles Liu,<\/a>\u00a0director of the\u00a0USC Neurorestoration Center<\/a>. Liu\u2019s procedure is part of a clinical trial sponsored by the\u00a0California Institute for Regenerative Medicine<\/a>\u00a0through\u00a0Asterias Biotherapeutics<\/a>, and involving five other clinical sites, with a goal of helping people with spinal cord injuries gain independence.
\nStem cells, or \u201cblank slate\u201d cells, have the potential to become several kinds of cells in the body. These cells could, in theory, help replace or repair damaged tissues \u2014 and after years of lab research, doctors have started to test that theory with patients in clinical trials.
\nSpeaking with Boesen\u2019s family, Liu carefully outlined the operation, which would involve injecting stem cells directly into the young man\u2019s spinal cord. The surgery was meant to demonstrate that the procedure was safe, and the physicians hoped Boesen would gain more movement, as well. As Liu explained, it could make the difference between being almost fully paralyzed or being able to use his arms and hands to control a wheelchair or phone.
\nBut Liu also outlined the risks. Boe\u00adsen might lose what little arm movement he had. There was also the possibility that the stem cells could form a tumor.
\nThe family waited until Boesen could breathe and speak on his own, so he could weigh the risks and decide whether he wanted to give his consent. A few weeks after the accident, doctors removed his ventilator, and his father told Boesen about the trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cHeck, yeah,\u201d he responded. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a pen propped in his hand, he signed his consent with an X.
\nThe stem cells Liu had to offer are called oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. Oligodendrocytes make the crucial insulating material, called myelin, that surrounds the wire-like sections of the body\u2019s nerve cells. Scientists believe that the stem cells not only repair the damaged insulation, but also invite blood vessels back into the injury site. Plus, they release factors that help nourish nerves, potentially reviving nerves that were nearly dead. Asterias Biotherapeutics, based in Silicon Valley, grows the therapeutic cells in a lab.
\nLiu had to time the surgery just right. In the first weeks after the accident, swelling and inflammation in Boesen\u2019s spinal cord wouldn\u2019t allow the stem cells to survive. After about a month, scar tissue filling the spinal cord would interfere with the cells\u2019 effects.
\nIn early April, a month after his accident, Boesen was wheeled into an operating room at\u00a0Keck Medical Center of USC<\/a>. Liu and a surgical team opened the back of Boesen\u2019s neck, cut a nick in the tough membrane surrounding his spinal cord, and slid in a needle. The anesthesiologist stopped Boesen\u2019s breathing, so the motion of his lungs wouldn\u2019t move his spinal cord. Liu held his breath too, as he slowly squeezed 10 million stem cells\u2014thick, like toothpaste\u2014out of the syringe. Then the team waited, watched and hoped.
\nLiu and his colleagues aren\u2019t alone in their high hopes for stem cell medicine. Across USC\u2019s campuses, nearly 100 scientists, doctors and engineers investigating stem cell therapies are part of the USC Stem Cell initiative. \u201cThis is to bring people together who are working in the area of stem cells,\u201d explains\u00a0Andy McMahon<\/a>, who leads the initiative. \u201cIt takes all sorts of people,\u201d he adds, pointing to the contribution that tissue engineers, developmental biologists, geneticists, clinicians and others can all make to the effort.
\nSome initiative members are working out the basic biology of stem cells; others are applying that knowledge in the clinic. USC researchers have, collectively, pulled in millions of dollars in grants from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
\nThe heart of the effort is at the\u00a0Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC<\/a>, directed by McMahon, which offers the tools that keep research projects humming. USC scientists might use its\u00a0Chang Stem Cell Engineering Facility<\/a>\u00a0to turn a patient\u2019s skin cells into stem cells so they can replicate the person\u2019s disease with cells growing in a dish, or correct disease-causing mutations. They might then take those dishes to the\u00a0Choi Family Therapeutic Screening Facility<\/a>\u00a0to test how different drugs affect the cells. USC\u2019s stem cell research center also has facilities to look at cells under the microscope, sort them based on their characteristics and change their DNA.
\nFor Boesen, being part of the clinical trial was life-changing. Within months he could lift weights, write his name, operate a motorized wheelchair and feed himself. Boesen\u2019s natural recovery process and rehabilitation could have contributed to the improvement, but his recovery has differed significantly from what doctors normally see during treatment for this type of injury, Liu says.
\nLike anyone steeped in science, Liu is wary of getting too enthusiastic about early results. He\u2019s also careful not to predict the path of Boesen\u2019s progress. The treatment probably won\u2019t reverse an injury so that people like Boesen can walk again, but it\u2019s realistic to hope that a small amount of repair in the spine could translate to big benefits in terms of arm movement.
\n

\"Kris
A car accident left Kris Boesen paralyzed. Experimental stem cell surgery gave him a chance to regain mobility in his arms and hands. (Photo\/Greg Iger)<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nBoesen is now back at home with his parents in Bakersfield, planning for the future. He wants to return to his career as an insurance broker and live a more independent life. \u201cAll of this wouldn\u2019t have been possible without the stem cells,\u201d Boesen says.
\nThe study isn\u2019t over, and the treatment is not yet ready to become a standard therapy. But with promising results from Boesen, as well as others in the trial at different sites, the researchers now plan to double the dose, to 20 million stem cells. They\u2019ll also be treating people with less-severe spinal injuries, who would have been too risky to include in the initial tests for safety because they have more function to lose.
\nMcMahon, who is chair of the\u00a0Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine<\/a>, predicts that stem cell treatments could reach many patients within the next decade. USC already has laid the groundwork for clinical trials exploring stem-cell-based treatments for HIV\/AIDS, Alzheimer\u2019s disease, the dry form of age-related macular degeneration, osteoarthritis in the knee and immune system damage due to chemotherapy. Because the therapies would replace damaged tissue with new, healthy tissue, treatments would provide true cures, he says.
\nAnd in the far future, Ben-Youssef speculates, the right set of cells and the right techniques might help spinal injury patients even more than they helped Boesen.
\nAfter all, when Ben-Youssef and Liu were in medical school, they learned that there was no way to fix the spinal cord\u2014once the nerves were damaged, that was supposed to be it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know,\u201d Ben-Youssef says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":1423,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[80,108,17],"class_list":["post-1422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-release","tag-neurology","tag-neurosurgery","tag-stem-cell"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStem Cell Therapy Gives Paralyzed Man Second Chance at Independence<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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