THE THERAPEUTIC POTENTIAL OF STIMULATING ENDOGENOUS STEM CELL MOBILIZATION

The past few years have seen extensive interest in treatment of various diseases with adult stem cells (ASC). This paper will not discuss umbilical cord or adipose tissue derived stem cells, but rather peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC). We will demonstrate that one of the natural roles of stem cells is to participate in tissue repair both due to injury or degenerative disease. We will review the mechanisms involved with stem cell release and activation and present two new natural triggers for this release and possible differentiation. The clinical relevance of mobilizing endogenous bone marrow derived stem cells would be to increase the number migrating into damaged organs, becoming affective cells and contributing to tissue repair. This approach overcomes the problems of growing autologous stem cell cultures and their implantation. It also may release other progenitor cells that appears to be playing a vital role in organ regeneration. We present examples of tissue repair using these new modalities. Part of this paper was first presented at the international conference of acupuncture and electrotherapeutics held at Columbia University Oct. 2013. Since then the field has exploded and we will try to include some of the most relevant discoveries.