There comes a pivotal point in every experiment where you say “ok, now we are going to see if this really works.” We may be at that point in the clinical trial we are funding to see if stem cells can help people with spinal cord injuries.

Today Asterias Biotherapeutics announced they have given the first patient in the clinical trial the highest dose of 20 million cells. The therapy was administered at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC) in San Jose, California where Jake Javier – a young man who was treated at an earlier stage of the trial – was treated. You can read Jake’s story here.

The goal of the trial is to test the safety of transplanting three escalating doses of AST-OPC1 cells. These are a form of cell called oligodendrocyte progenitors, which are capable of becoming several different kinds of nerve cells, some of which play a supporting role and help protect nerve cells in the central nervous system – the area damaged in spinal cord injury.

In a news release, Dr. Edward Wirth, Asterias’ Chief Medical Officer, says this could be a crucial phase in the trial:

“We have been very encouraged by the early clinical efficacy and safety data for AST-OPC1, and we now look forward to evaluating the 20 million cell dose in complete cervical spinal cord injury patients. Based on extensive pre-clinical research, this is in the dosing range where we would expect to see optimal clinical improvement in these patients.”

To be eligible, individuals have to have experienced a severe neck injury in the last 30 days, one that has left them with no sensation or movement below the level of their injury, and that means they have typically lost all lower limb function and most hand and arm function.

In the first phase individuals were given 2 million cells. This was primarily to make sure that this approach was safe and wouldn’t cause any problems for the patients. The second phase boosted that dose to ten million cells. That was thought to be about half the therapeutic dose but it seemed to help all those enrolled. By 90 days after the transplant all five patients treated with ten million cells had shown some level of recovery of at least one motor level, meaning they had regained some use of their arms and/or hands on at least one side of their body. Two of the patients experienced an improvement of two motor levels. Perhaps the most impressive was Kris Boesen, who regained movement and strength in both his arms and hands. He says he is even experiencing some movement in his legs.

All this is, of course, tremendously encouraging, but we also have to sound a note of caution. Sometimes individuals experience spontaneous recovery after an accident like this. The fact that all five patients in the 10 million cell group did well suggests that this may be more than just a coincidence. That’s why this next group, the 20 million cell cohort, is so important.

As Steve McKenna, Chief of the Trauma Center at SCVMC, says; if we are truly going to see an improvement in people’s condition because of the stem cell transplant, this is when we would expect to see it:

“The early efficacy results presented in September from the 10 million cell AIS-A cohort were quite encouraging, and we’re looking forward to seeing if those meaningful functional improvements are maintained through six months and beyond. We are also looking forward to seeing the results in patients from the higher 20 million cell AST-OPC1 dose, as well as results in the first AIS-B patients.”

For more information about the Asterias clinical trial, including locations and eligibility requirements, go here: www.clinicaltrials.gov, using Identifier NCT02302157, and at the SCiStar Study Website (www.SCiStar-study.com).

We can never talk about this clinical trial without paying tribute to a tremendous patient advocate and a great champion of stem cell research, Roman Reed. He’s the driving force behind the Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act which helped fund the pioneering research of Dr. Hans Keirstead that laid the groundwork for this clinical trial.