Blog | HemaCare

Because many people with Lyme disease do not fully recover with antibiotics alone, many are seeking stem cell treatments as an option.

Lyme disease is transmitted by the bite of blacklegged ticks (deer tick, Ixodes scapularis) infected with Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria. A number of debilitating and long-lasting symptoms can include the development of a distinctive skin rash (erythema migrans), fever, fatigue, muscle pain, and headaches. Due to the nonspecific and diverse symptoms, Lyme disease is often misdiagnosed and can progress to serious conditions of the heart, nervous, and musculoskeletal systems.

Studying the biological processes that lead to the development of heart disease is essential in the study of preventive and therapeutic approaches to combat the illness.

One in every four deaths in the US is due to heart disease, and the most common type is coronary heart disease caused by arteriosclerosis, a hardening and thickening of the arteries. Studying the biological processes that lead to the development of arterial disease is essential in the study of preventive and therapeutic approaches to combat cardiovascular disease. In vitro methods important for studying disease mechanisms are challenging because explanted endothelial cells can lose their distinctive characteristics.

New research shows the potential regenerative power of hematopoietic stem cells in ALS and may be a feasible treatment approach in the future.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurological disease characterized by the progressive destruction of motor neurons, leading to disability and later death. There is no cure for the disease, and the only FDA-approved treatment (riluzole) adds only an additional few months of life to patients with ALS. Many factors are associated with the development of ALS, yet the exact causes of ALS development remain poorly understood.

There is promising research that shows adult stem cells may advance the treatment of rheumatic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. 

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that can develop into any type of specialized cell, and are broadly divided into embryonic and adult stems cells. A current and well known application of stem cells includes the use of hematopoietic stem cells for bone marrow cancers. Stems cells are studied for their utility in treating a variety of diseases, particularly to treat organ damage and conditions involving a dysfunctional immune system. 

A new study showed that a cell-cycle regulator combination can induce cardiomyocyte proliferation and cell survival.

Myocardial infarction (MI or heart attack) is a result of decreased blood flow to heart tissue and heart tissue damage. The challenges in recovery from MI is due to the limited ability of regenerative processes within heart. The discovery of stem cells present in adult heart tissue has led to extensive research regarding their use for cardiac cell therapy. Some favorable effects of cardiac stem cell transplantation in injured cardiac tissue has been observed, but this may be due to processes unrelated to the growth of new cardiomyocytes.