Austin clinic to bank adult stem cells

WEST LAKE HILLS, Texas (KXAN) - On track to have ten centers in its adult stem cell collection network nationwide by the end of the year, NeoStem came one step closer Thursday by opening a center in West Lake Hills. Stem cell therapy is nothing new to the doctors at Westlake Orthopaedics though.

"It's gone from a total nascency to absolutely moving forward at light speed for everyday applications,” said Dr. Scott Spann, the clinic’s founder.

Spann took stem cells from bone marrow because of its proximity to the bone injuries and problems on which he worked. But taking stem cells from bone marrow can be a painful and repetitive process, something his new partner NeoStem wanted to avoid.

"You and I normally have 5,000,000 circulating stem cells,” said Dr. Robin Smith, NeoStem CEO. “That's not enough to repair, if you have severe damage. It's enough that when we go to bed at night after we work out, it's enough to go to our muscles and places that need small repairs."

Smith also realized the stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood at birth are few and only last so long, so she decided to invest in a way to squeeze more out of what comes later in life.

NeoStem uses a drug to make your bone marrow produce many more adult stem cells. Doctors can take those cells from your blood, and the marrow re-makes the cells overnight.

"There are 2,700 clinical trials looking to use stem cells for regenerative medicine outside of cancers and anemia like heart disease, MS, lupus, macular degeneration, wounds, orthopaedic injuries, cosmetics, skin,” Smith explained.

What is collected could be used for more than one treatment. Smith said, on average, it costs $7,500 to collect the cells, then $750 dollars a year to freeze them in storage centers.

"If I had cancer tomorrow,” she continued, “and I need new bone marrow, FedEx would send my cells to the bone marrow transplant site to give me new bone marrow."

Spann doubted his West Lake Hills practice would remain the only one in the Austin area using NeoStem's technology.

"If the demand's high enough, then certainly we'll do our very best to accommodate that," he said.

NeoStem said the side effects of the drug used on the marrow are minimal. It is already often used in cancer treatments. Even the U.S. Department of Defense is jumping on board, asking NeoStem to research its methods on war wounds.