With the increased survival in advanced human societies, the number of individuals with disabilities including mental disabilities is increasing all around the globe. Alzheimer’s disease, one of the leading indications leading to mental disability in aging individuals, is adversely affecting increasing numbers of individuals and concerned family members.

Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in a family member sends chills in related persons because of its immense socio-economic impact in addition to the feeling of helplessness to alleviate the situation. While talking with family members of suffering individuals, the very first inkling physicians and scientists come across is the feeling regarding taking care of the loved ones which is further exacerbated by the answers to the question about the causative pathology and therapeutic intervention.

Alzheimer’s disease, involving parts of the brain that control thought, memory, and languages, is the most common type of dementia which is a progressive disease in nature beginning with mild memory loss and progressively leading to loss of the ability to continue a conversation and respond to the environment; thereby, seriously affecting a person’s ability to conduct daily activities.

The symptoms of the disease usually appear after age 60, rarely in younger people. It may appear, though the risk increases with age which is evident by the fact that the number of people living with the disease doubles every 5 years beyond age 65. Over 6 million Americans were living with Alzheimer’s disease and, unfortunately, the number is projected to nearly triple to 14 million people by 2060. A number of factors like systemic inflammation, chemical exposure, and lifestyle, in addition to advancing age are suspected to contribute to the etiology but have not been understood well. Accordingly, it is difficult to invent therapeutic intervention or decide its line of action for treating such individuals.

Current medications (at present) include the cholinesterase inhibitor or glutamate regulator or orexin receptor inhibitor or recently approved drug by the FDA Aducanumab, an amyloid beta-directed monoclonal antibody that reduce its buildup aggregated forms of Amyloid beta (Aβ) found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease also has shown some success. However, these therapeutic interventions have an extremely focused attack on the pathways leading to the disease, and therefore, can only delay its progression.

Stem cells which are well known to reduce systemic inflammation and differentiating in any cell type of the body including the neural cells have shown very promising results in Alzheimer’s cases also. Since these cells can act in a number of ways like inhibiting systemic inflammation or differentiating in needed cell types, therapeutic interventions using these regenerative therapies could offer hope for treating the disease.

Seeing a member of the family in such a dire condition is very heartaching to concerned family members and imposes seriously challenging questions to manage it.

The book “Truth, Lies and Alzheimer’s: Its Secret Faces” by Lisa Skinner and Douglas W. Collins provides an immensely helpful guideline for family members of such patients in diagnosing the condition in time and coping with it.

The book provides a number of incidences regarding how the family members can notice changes in loved ones, upcoming challenges, and a variety of ways to cope with them. At some point in our life, almost all of us are likely to come across a scenario like this. This book provides an excellent guideline to deal with the emerging challenges caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

Transplanted embryonic stem cells successfully survive, proliferate, and migrate to damaged regions of the mouse brain

Anand S Srivastava ¹, Steve Shenouda, Rangnath Mishra, Ewa CarrierAffiliations expand

• PMID: 16574752
• DOI: 10.1634/stemcells.2005-0531

Abstract

An understanding of feasibility of implanting embryonic stem cells (ESCs), their behavior of migration in response to lesions induced in brain tissues, and the mechanism of their in vivo differentiation into neighboring neural cells is essential for developing and refining ESC transplantation strategies for repairing damages in the nervous system, as well as for understanding the molecular mechanism underlying neurogenesis. We hypothesized that damaged neural tissues offer a niche to which injected ESCs can migrate and differentiate into the neural cells. We inflicted damage in the murine (C57BL/6) brain by injecting phosphate-buffered saline into the left frontal and right caudal regions and confirmed neural damage by histochemistry. Enhanced yellow fluorescent protein-expressing ESCs were injected into the nondamaged left caudal portion of the brain. Using immunohistochemistry and fluorescent microscopy, we observed migration of ESCs from the injection site (left caudal) to the damaged site (right caudal and left frontal). Survival of the injected ESCs was confirmed by the real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis of stemness genes such as Oct4, Sox2, and FGF4. The portions of the damaged neural tissues containing ESCs demonstrated a fourfold increase in expression of these genes after 1 week of injection in comparison with the noninjected ESC murine brain, suggesting proliferation. An increased level of platelet-derived growth factor receptor demonstrated that ESCs responded to damaged neural tissues, migrated to the damaged site of the brain, and proliferated. These results demonstrate that undifferentiated ESCs migrate to the damaged regions of brain tissue, engraft, and proliferate. Thus, damaged brain tissue provides a niche that attracts ESCs to migrate and proliferate.

Dr. Anand S Srivastava, MS, PhD

Founder and Chairman: Global Institute of Stem Cell Therapy and Research

Dr. Anand Srivastava has been associated with leading universities and research institutions of USA. In affiliation with University of    California San Diego Medical College (UCSD), University of California Irvine Medical College (UCI), Salk Research Institute, San Diego,    Burnham Institute For Medical Research, San Diego, University of California Los Angeles Medical College (UCLA), USA has helped develop several research programs and has an extensive research experience in the field of Stem cell which is documented by several publications in revered scientific journals.

Dr. Srivastava is Chairman and Cofounder of California based Global Institute of Stem Cell Therapy and Research (GIOSTAR) headquartered in San Diego, California, (U.S.A.). The company was formed with the vision to provide stem cell-based therapy to aid those suffering from degenerative or genetic diseases around the world such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Autism, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Stroke, Spinal Cord Injuries, Paralysis, Blood Related Diseases, are supported by leading scientists with the pioneering publications in stem cell biology. The Company’s primary focus is to discover and develop a cure for human diseases with the state-of-the-art unique stem cell-based therapies and products. The Regenerative Medicine provides promise for treatments of diseases previously regarded as incurable.

Dr. Srivastava’s research work has been presented in various national and international scientific meetings and conferences in India, Japan, Germany and USA. He has over 50 peer-reviewed   scientific papers published in leading publications. 

• 2020 Dr. Anand Srivastava, Ph.D. received an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Society of American Asian Scientists in Cancer Research (SAASCR) for 2020 alongside top nine Cancer Researchers of America
• 2014 Awarded with “USA Congressional Award” for his contribution in the field of Stem Cell Science. USA.
• 2013 Awarded with “Asian Heritage Award” for his contribution in the field of Stem Cell Science. USA.
• 2003 Awarded with “NIMA (National Integrated Medical Association) Outstanding    Scientist” award from NIMA, India.
• 2003 Awarded with “Excellent Scientist Award” from Bharat Vikas Parisad, India for  continuous excellent performance in the life science research.
• 2002 “Best Scientist Award” for excellent contribution in the field of life science           research from Kayastha Maha Sabha, Varanasi, India.