UCI to test paralysis therapy

A paralysis treatment developed by UCI neuroscientist Hans Keirstead will be the first stem cell treatment tested in humans, the university announced Friday.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the therapy after it restored the ability to walk for rats paralyzed by severe spinal cord injuries. Aside from being a first in the stem cell field, the treatment is a first in the spinal cord injury field.

Right now, only one therapy exists for the type of paralysis that Keirstead’s method will treat — methylprednisolone — and it’s questionable whether it gets any results at all, Keirstead said.

So what are the chances that the results of the scientist’s treatment in lab rats will carry over to humans? Very good, Keirstead believes.

It would be quite a feat if the first patients in the clinical trials got up out of their wheelchairs and walked, according to Keirstead, but he is confident that it will be able to restore at least some motion.

The high likelihood of results hasn’t dampened the excitement for the researcher.

“If we can restore the ability of a quadriplegic to move his thumb, I would be dancing around,” Keirstead said.

The clinical trials will be run by Palo Alto-based Geron Corp.

Company officials have not yet announced when they will start or what medical centers will participate, but it could be as early as this summer, according to company spokesman David Schull.

It is too early to say what the cost of the treatment will be, according to Geron Corp. The trials will be offered at no cost at centers throughout the U.S.

Although the rodents didn’t experience any unacceptable side effects and none are expected in human patients, you never know what might turn up after testing, said Karen Riley, an FDA spokeswoman.

“Before we clear a human trial we require adequate safety information to weigh the risks of a treatment against the potential benefits,” Riley said.

Electrical impulses that travel from the brain through the central nervous system, of which the spine is part, tell muscles when to contract, creating motion. When electrical conduction is interrupted, motion is limited.

The way the treatment works is the embryonic stem cells are injected into the body and they become spinal cord cells, filling in for those that have been stripped away due to injury. The new cells allow electrical conduction to resume throughout the central nervous system, thus curing paralysis.

“It’s a real first for the spinal cord field and for stem cell research in general,” Keirstead said.

His particular method is only effective in a tight time window. The patients have to get the treatment after their initial swelling has gone down, but before their body tries to repair itself by creating scar tissue.

The trials will be for patients who injured themselves one to two weeks before they get the treatment.

Although his method will soon be tested on patients, Keirstead hasn’t stopped tinkering with the science in his lab, he said.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.