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the project led by Professor Emma Frow, researching of stem cell clinics focused on stem cell applications, adherence to FDA guidelines, and characterization of information available and physician credentials. Regenerative medicine clinics commonly offered stem cell therapy, but introduced platelet rich plasma (PRP) and prolotherapy as regenerative therapies.
PRP and Prolotherapy

the project led by Professor Emma Frow, researching of stem cell clinics focused on stem cell applications, adherence to FDA guidelines, and characterization of information available and physician credentials. Regenerative medicine clinics commonly offered stem cell therapy, but introduced platelet rich plasma (PRP) and prolotherapy as regenerative therapies.
PRP and Prolotherapy are individual treatments that were even suggested and used in combination with stem cell therapies. Prolotherapy predates PRP as a chemical irritant therapy originally used to sclerose tissues. Prolotherapy is meant to stimulate platelet derived growth factors release to improve tissue healing response. Prolotherapy shows negligible efficacy improvements over corticosteroids, but may have underlying side effects from being an irritant. PRP is a more modern therapy for improved healing. Speculations state initial use was in an open heart surgery to improve healing post-surgery. PRP is created via centrifugation of patient blood to isolate growth factors by removing serum and other biological components to increase platelet concentration. PRP is comparable to corticosteroid injections in efficacy, but as an autologous application, there are no side effects making it more advantageous. Growth factors induce healing response and reduce inflammation. Growth factors stimulate cell growth, proliferation, differentiation, and stimulate cellular response mechanism such as angiogenesis and mitogenesis. The growth factor stimulation of PRP and prolotherapy both assist stem cell proliferation. Additional research is needed to determine differential capacity to ensure multipotent stem cells regenerate the correct cell type from the increased differential capacity offered by growth factor recruitment. The application of combination therapy for stem cells is unsubstantiated and applications violate FDA ‘minimal manipulation’ guidelines.
ContributorsKrum, Logan (Author) / Frow, Emma (Thesis director) / Brafman, David (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
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Description
Several debilitating neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, and spinal cord injury, are characterized by the damage or loss of neuronal cell types in the central nervous system (CNS). Human neural progenitor cells (hNPCs) derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) can proliferate extensively and differentiate into the various

Several debilitating neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, and spinal cord injury, are characterized by the damage or loss of neuronal cell types in the central nervous system (CNS). Human neural progenitor cells (hNPCs) derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) can proliferate extensively and differentiate into the various neuronal subtypes and supporting cells that comprise the CNS. As such, hNPCs have tremendous potential for disease modeling, drug screening, and regenerative medicine applications. However, the use hNPCs for the study and treatment of neurological diseases requires the development of defined, robust, and scalable methods for their expansion and neuronal differentiation. To that end a rational design process was used to develop a vitronectin-derived peptide (VDP)-based substrate to support the growth and neuronal differentiation of hNPCs in conventional two-dimensional (2-D) culture and large-scale microcarrier (MC)-based suspension culture. Compared to hNPCs cultured on ECMP-based substrates, hNPCs grown on VDP-coated surfaces displayed similar morphologies, growth rates, and high expression levels of hNPC multipotency markers. Furthermore, VDP surfaces supported the directed differentiation of hNPCs to neurons at similar levels to cells differentiated on ECMP substrates. Here it has been demonstrated that VDP is a robust growth and differentiation matrix, as demonstrated by its ability to support the expansions and neuronal differentiation of hNPCs derived from three hESC (H9, HUES9, and HSF4) and one hiPSC (RiPSC) cell lines. Finally, it has been shown that VDP allows for the expansion or neuronal differentiation of hNPCs to quantities (>1010) necessary for drug screening or regenerative medicine purposes. In the future, the use of VDP as a defined culture substrate will significantly advance the clinical application of hNPCs and their derivatives as it will enable the large-scale expansion and neuronal differentiation of hNPCs in quantities necessary for disease modeling, drug screening, and regenerative medicine applications.
ContributorsVarun, Divya (Author) / Brafman, David (Thesis advisor) / Nikkhah, Mehdi (Committee member) / Stabenfeldt, Sarah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016