Deirdre O’Dwyer’s eight-year-old son Evan suffers from a rare neurological disorder which means the left side of his brain has failed to develop properly. Evan, from the Commons Road, Cork, also developed severe epilepsy and autism as a result of the disorder. His mother took him to Germany last week to undergo stem-cell treatment at the XCell Centre in Dusseldorf.

However, the centre, which offers unlicensed treatments, has closed after being ordered to cease operating by German authorities.

“I am very frightened now,” said Mrs O’Dwyer, who felt the centre gave her son a “chance” by offering treatment he could not get elsewhere.

Read the full story at the Irish Independent.

Blye, along with parents Gary and Andrea McCallum and grandparents Paul and Sheila Gift, flew from Denver to Germany Feb. 1 and were scheduled to return back to Denver Tuesday, Feb. 15.

Blye underwent a stem cell treatment Thursday, Feb. 10 in Germany to help with his cerebral palsy.

Read more at The Holyoke Enterprise.

A personal doctor confirms significant improvements in an Australian Parkinson’s disease patient, 61 year-old Stan Lahovec, after his successful stem cell treatment in Düsseldorf, Germany. Lahovec is once again oil painting.

“By trade, I am an optical technician and have been working in the industry since March, 1984. But my passion is oil painting, which I had to put on hold because of my disease,” Lahovec said. “About three years ago, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Nobody in my family has the disease, so it was a complete surprise when the doctor told me the news. Most disturbing was the knowledge that there is no cure for this debilitating disease as I was told by the doctors.”

In October 2010,  Lahovec traveled to the XCell-Center where he underwent a stem cell treatment using his own stem cells.

“After only a couple of weeks, I started to get better and am still getting better by the day. At first, I was able to shave by myself. Next, I could eat without help. Now, I can drive my car and walk straight upright. I feel like a new man!” Lahovec said. “Today, I went to see my GP and he was speechless; seeing my transformation. He thinks I have improved about 80 percent. I even took my paintbrush and unfinished pictures and started to paint again; which is making me very happy.”

The treatment begins by collecting a small amount bone marrow from the patient’s hip bone using a thin needle under local anesthesia. The stem cells are then separated from the bone marrow at the XCell-Center’s EU certified cGMP laboratory (current good manufacturing process). Before the cells leave the lab, they are counted and their vitality is confirmed. The last step involves inserting a fine spinal needle between the patient’s L4 and L5 vertebrae and injecting the stem cells into the cerebrospinal fluid which flows into the brain.

The cost for Parkinson’s treatment starts at €7,995 (US$10, 690).

Contact: Click here.

But experts were quick to caution that the case does not have practical implications for the treatment of AIDS worldwide.

As it turns out, the donor for that transplant carried a rare mutation in a gene that increases immunity against the most common form of HIV. First reported in 2009, this follow-up study, published online in the journal Blood, confirms that the recipient patient is still free of both leukemia and HIV three years after the transplant.

But one expert issued strong words of caution in interpreting the finding.

“Our phones have been ringing off the hook,” said Dr. Margaret Fischl, director of the AIDS clinical research unit at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “We are having patients calling us and asking if they can stop their antiretroviral therapy — and the answer is uncategorically no.”

The theory is that if you could wipe out every infected cell you could cure HIV, Fischl said, but this is a unique case.

Read the full story at Yahoo! News.

That’s the biggest difference her mother has noticed since the St. Catherine’s (Ontario, Canada) community rallied to send the two-year-old to Germany for special bone marrow stem cell treatment.

She had trouble paying attention before. Her eyes would wander constantly. Lights attracted her attention but not her focus.

“Since we’ve been back, she’s taking time to look at things, she’s focusing a lot better, even on people’s faces,” Ashley DiMarco said.

“If she’s interested in it, it could be a toy, a person, anything, she just really takes her time to focus on what it is. She does take her breaks, but she’s doing so much better. She is much more alert.”

Avaia has spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy. She is unable to walk, talk or communicate, and eats through a feeding tube.

Her parents heard about the treatment at a private clinic, XCell Center in Dusseldorf, Germany and decided it was worth a shot, applying with physicians’ letters and other documentation.

When Avaia was accepted earlier this year, Ashley, a stay-at-home mom and John, who works at the hydro tunnel in Niagara Falls, began a whirlwind two months of fundraising in an effort to raise the $30,000 required for treatment and travel.

Through those fundraisers, including barbecues, yard sales, a McDonald’s event, concert and golf tournament in St. Catharines, Thorold and Welland, they met their goal.

“I want to say thank you to everybody who did help,” DiMarco said again this week. “Thanks to them, this is what happened and it’s already given her a better life.”

The Thorold family traveled to Germany Sept. 10, returning nine days later, and were told it would take several weeks to see any results.

Now two months later, Ashley DiMarco said she’s seeing improvements.

Read the full article at The Welland Tribune.

But for the Ghellis, they’re improvements that have always seemed out of reach until a recent trip to Germany.

Jona Ghelli, a Holliston (Mass.) 16-year-old, has cerebral palsy and microcephaly, resulting in significant cognitive and physical impairments. She also suffers from a seizure disorder.

Jona and her parents, Joanne and Paul, got back a few weeks ago from Dussledorf, Germany, where Jona underwent stem cell treatment at the XCell Center.

Although life has since returned to its normal pace in the Ghelli household, Joanne Ghelli said she is still thrilled with the results of the treatment.

“Jona’s doing great,” she said. “We saw improvements almost immediately.”

During the procedure, adult stem cells were taken from Jona’s hip bone and sent to a lab before being injected back into her spine.

Joanne Ghelli said the first hint that the treatment had a level of success came only hours after Jona underwent the procedure.

Read the full article at The MetroWest Daily News.

“Dalton is amazing,” Nikki said. “He keeps improving more and more every day — the journey was worth it and I will do it again when I think the time is right.”

Nikki said she has been on Dalton’s journey for the past year and a half. When she first learned of the experimental stem cell treatment offered in Germany, she began making plans to save and raise money to help her son.

Dalton has cerebral palsy, and each day is a struggle for him. His smile is big, and his mother melts with love every time she looks at her young son. Nikki has been devoted to her son’s needs since he was first diagnosed.

Life began too early for this young boy. He was born nine weeks premature on April 6, 2006. Nikki said her pregnancy was normal, but after birth, Dalton suffered a grade-one brain bleed. At the age of 6 months, his mother began to notice he wasn’t doing what a baby should be doing. At the age of 18 months, he was diagnosed with periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), a form of cerebral palsy. Essentially, he is trapped inside his own body.

“I wanted to do what any mother would do for her child — improve his quality of life,” Nikki said.

Read the full article at JournalStandard.com.

Their four-year-old daughter Lauren, known to all as Lolly, is severely disabled. She cannot walk and she cannot talk; she is visually impaired – or cortically blind to give it the correct medical term – and unable to hold her head up.

Lolly was born a perfectly healthy baby but in April 2008, just after her second birthday, she was struck down by a virus that nearly killed her.

Her heart became enlarged, then she suffered a stroke and finally severe brain damage when her heart stopped pumping for 25 minutes before doctors brought her back from the dead.

In all she spent 16 months in hospitals in Bristol before finally being stable enough to be allowed to return to the family home in Swindon.

Understandably, Sarah and Tristan will try anything – pay anything – to help their daughter get even a little of her old life back.

So after seeing an item on the news about stem cell research, Sarah, 34, a pharmacist, began her own inquiries.

She soon discovered official, clinical trials won’t use children. The XCell-Center, the largest private stem cell clinic of its kind in Europe, was the obvious, perhaps only, option.

Read full article. Click here.

First, stem cells are immature cells that renew themselves for long periods through cell division.

Also, under certain  conditions, they can be “tricked” chemically to become cells that do special things, like become the beating cells of the heart muscle or the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas.

Doctors around the world are already using stem cells to treat diseases. No one is really sure if the treatments are safe and effective (by scientific standards). But many desperately ill and disabled patients travel many miles and spend many thousands of dollars to obtain these treatments.

This book of prayers is for those patients. But it is also for all patients now and in the future who seek relief from their diseases and disabilities through stem cell-based therapeutics.

Each day, people all over the world are moved to worship and adore God, and to acknowledge that they are dependent upon God.

The Gospels mention many times that Jesus himself often withdrew to quiet, desolate places to pray.

As St. Augustine once wrote, “He wishes our desires to be expressed in prayers so that we may be able to receive what he is ready to give.”

This Treasury of Prayers has four inspiring sections:

● Prayers Before Stem Cell Treatment (Contemplation and Decision);

● Prayers While at the Hospital or Clinic;

● Prayers for Patients with Specific Diseases, Conditions and Disabilities

● Scriptural Readings for the Spiritual Comfort of Stem Cell Patients.

To purchase at Amazon.com, click here.

For more information about “And I Shall Be Healed,” click here.

But before the Sarnia family can travel to the XCell-Centre in Düsseldorf, Germany to undergo the procedure, they need to raise $25,000.

Olivia Brown is the couple’s only child. Her identical twin was lost in utero two months before she was born.

Shared blood vessels sent Olivia into shock and she was diagnosed with spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy at 18 months.

The condition limits mobility in all four limbs and makes her largely incapable of speech. Olivia has problems eating, drinking, swallowing and needs constant supervision. (from the Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, Observer)

Read full article.