Symposium on stem cells

Sandeep Moudgal - Chennai

On the second anniversary of its founding, Nichi-in Centre for Regenerative Medicine (NCRM) held its second symposium on regenerative medicine with the topic of presentation being stem cell research and its clinical studies. Graced by the presence of the Honourable Kazuo Minagawa, Council General of Japan, Chennai and Dr K M Cherian along with Yoshio Morozumi, Chairman, Nichi-In, Japan, the symposium saw presentations on various advantages of stem cell treatment in the field of medicine. It also saw the inaugural of the Fujio Cup, a quiz on stem cell and regenerative medicine for doctors and life sciences students from across the country.

Sunita Saxena from the ICMR, New Delhi and Dr Sujatha Mohanty, AIIMS, New Delhi, moderated the presentations during the symposium on the basic research, translational work and clinical study. Speakers from various top-notch hospitals demonstrated the use of stem cell therapy as an alternative to orthodox allopathic or traditional medicine fields as varied as dentistry to spinal cord injury to liver cirrhosis.

Liver cirrhosis is one of the widely spread diseases in India and across the world, due to excessive alcohol consumption and hepatitis C. Lifeline Hospitals, Chennai claim to be the first in collaboration with NCRM to have treated 25 patients suffering from liver cirrhosis. Dr Shanti, from Lifeline Hospitals, was one of the presenters who touched on the advantages of stem cell therapy for this disease. While she mentioned that the options for treating liver cirrhosis are limited, there is a chance to control the disease by stem cell therapy. The therapy increases the rapid response of heptocytes to liver disease. "But there are certain unanswered questions, like, can stem cell therapy be considered as a long term answer to the disease? Will there be a need for re-treatment of patients? Can the therapy be taken on its face value for therapeutic value?" asked Shanti. The hospital took the case study of 14 patients suffering from liver cirrhosis with the ratio of 11 males and seven females and administered stem cell therapy. There was a follow up that was done on the patients.

The results of the case study yielded encouraging signs along with the various papers that have been published in the west citing the advantages of stem cell therapy for the disease. Nevertheless, Shanti believed that it needs a long way to go before stem cell therapy can be considered a alternative to liver transplant. Cases like these were discussed in the symposium, of stem cell therapy being the answer for curing burn wounds to management of oral pre-malignant conditions. And from tissue engineering based therapy for articular cartilage defects to cardiovascular diseases. It was strongly portrayed at the symposium that Stem Cell therapy usage has been considered as opening of a new window for last stage cases and for "No Hope" patients.

Although, there are ethical questions that still need to be answered, most symposium participants agreed that regenerative medicine and in particular stem cell therapy, was a more economically viable option for a nation with over a billion people. Towards the end of the symposium, Dr K M Cherian, Frontier Lifeline Hospital reminded the audience of the potential and to embryo this technique of treatment by more institutions. Honourable Kazuo Minagawa, the Council General of Japan, Chennai, in his parting remarks told that NCRM can be considered as an extension of the relationship between the two countries, India and Japan. Earlier in the day, Prof S P Thayagarajan inaugurated the symposium and was followed by the Fujio Cup quiz named after, Dr Fujio Takayama, a devoted physician and renowned obstetrics and gynaecology specialist on stem cells and regenerative medicine. Young doctors, K Ananth, and P Senthil Velanth from the Kilpauk Medical College, Chennai won the quiz among the 75 teams that participated in the competition.