Doctor claims stem cells may help Wu

A doctor yesterday said that stem-cell therapy may be capable of enabling first lady Wu Shu-chen (吳淑珍), paralyzed from the waist down for almost 17 years, to walk again.

"Stem-cell therapy could help repair the damaged neurons in adults' central nervous system. It seems to be the treatment that could most likely help the first lady in the future," Dr. Chiang Yung-hsiao (蔣永孝) said yesterday.

Chiang, director of the spinal cord division at the Tri-Service General Hospital (三軍總醫院), has carried out laboratory research on rats for six years. His research found that neural stem cells could be cultured outside animal bodies and generate new-born neurons once injected into the rats' brains.

Following the experiments on rats, Chiang and his team extracted stem cells from human brains and miscarried human embryos to culture them outside of the body, where they found that the stem cells were able to reproduce under laboratory conditions.

Chiang said stem cells could be injected into a human spinal cord to let them develop into new healthy neurons.

Stem cells are the progenitor cells from which all other cells develop and can be found in blood from the umbilical cords, embryos, spinal cords and brains. Studies have shown that stem cells are useful in curing a number of diseases, growing organs and killing viruses.

"However, stem cells extracted from the cords of newborn babies are expected to have more potential because they are fresh and young," Chiang said at a seminar organized by Baby Bank (聯臍帶血銀行) to discuss the medical applications of stem cells.

"The belief that no new neurons could be produced in the adult central nervous system and that cultured neural cells have a short life span has been challenged," he said.

But Chiang stressed that since no clinical tests have been carried out, stem-cell therapy is still in an experimenting stage.

Baby Bank is one of the three local companies that "banks" stem cells by freezing newborn babies' cells extracted from umbilical cords. The stored stem cells could be defrosted in case the babies or their blood relatives need to undergo stem-cell therapy in the future.

As first daughter Chen Hsing-yu (陳幸妤) is expected to give birth in October, doctors have suggested she could help the first lady recover from her illness by using the baby's stem cells extracted from the umbilical cord.

"The baby's stem cells from the cord are an ideal source for the first lady's stem-cell therapy because the chance of rejection is low among blood relatives," Chiang said.

According to local media, although the first lady is grateful for doctors' suggestions, her family doctors have said that they would not try for any new medical treatment without fully examining the risk involved.

Wu, paralyzed from the waist down after being hit by a truck, has been in a wheelchair since 1985.