Finally the controversial stem cells were approved by the Food and Drugs Administration to be used to treat people whit spinal injuries, so this is how US doctors have begun the first official trial of using human embryonic stem cells, that have the potential to become in many of the different cell types found in the human body.
Geron, a biotech company located in the famous "Sillicon Valley" near San Francisco, is the company that get green light for these trials, they have spend $170m dollars on developing a stem cells (SC) treatment for spinal cord injuries. They start working whit human SC in 1999, when many predicted that some decades would be, before cell therapy would be approved for human clinical trials. Now that's a reality, but it will take some time to evaluate results, and more time and research to know if the therapy is safe and effective.
Every year 12,000 people suffer spinal cord injuries just in US, here in Mexico, through the TELETON, we know that a lot of people suffer this kind of injuries by causes like car accidents or falls.
To see more information : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11517680
It is very important to remember the bioethical implications in this kind of trials in human, remembering the unfortunate event were US doctors made human trials on Guatemalan population which included the infection of people whit sexually transmitted diseases.
Do you have any opinion???
