This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Sorry guys, this was way to cool to just post under the stem cell section. Plus the headline gave me a good laugh on a Friday morning!

Snorting Stem Cells
Snorting can deliver cells to the brain, research shows
Posted September 22, 2009
Content created by National Science Foundation

By Deane Morrison

If you had a brain malady that could be treated with stem cells, how would you like them delivered—by having surgeons cut open your skull to implant the cells, or by snorting them like a nasal decongestant?

Not really a hard choice, is it?

A University of Minnesota researcher has taken the first step toward making this kind of medical delivery service a reality by showing that when stem cells suspended in fluid are snorted, they rapidly migrate into the brain. William Frey, an adjunct professor of pharmaceutics, and his colleagues in Tuebingen, Germany, describe their work in a recent article in the European Journal of Cell Biology.

The method holds promise for delivering not only stem cells, but other therapeutic cells or drugs that can’t easily penetrate the blood-brain barrier.

The researchers had mice sniff tiny droplets containing adult stem cells from rats. An hour later, rat stem cells were clearly visible in the mice’s brains. To make sure the ability to penetrate the brain wasn’t limited just to those cells, they also had rats snort a second type of cells, from human brain tumors. These cells also penetrated the brain within an hour.

“We proved you could noninvasively deliver stem cells to the brain from the nose,” says Frey, who collaborated with principal investigator Lusine Danielyan of the University Hospital of Tuebingen and others. “We’ve shown these cells reach the brain intact.”

Frey and his co-inventors have filed a patent on their stem cell delivery technology.

Sounds like something from Bob and Teds excellent adventure.

Besides stem cell have not even been proven to help people with MS, much less this.

That would be cool though if we could actually get our bodies to accept stem cell like this!!

Isn't part of the problem that there is great difficulty in getting stem cells to the right places within the brain? Also approval hasn't been given yet for for trials which involve the necessary surgery to do this?

Since this technique would circumvent these problems I welcome it! If this method of delivery does indeed work then research will progress at a faster pace and it will become clear in time whether stem cells may, or may not, help us..

Nope, it's great news.

Most people who snort "medication" ahh... don't exactly wait for approval... just release some "product" on the market, and you'll have your trial up and away!