Autism is not a disease that can be cured with medication. Instead, it is a condition where the individual requires support, care, and understanding of others. So, in this month dedicated to Autism, let’s take some time to understand it and sensitize ourselves to the needs of autistic individuals.

What Is Autism?

Autism Spectrum Disorder or ASD is a blanket term used to describe patients with various neurodevelopmental problems. The symptoms of this condition start appearing right from the early days of a baby’s life. Sometimes, as early as 12 months of age. These children have difficulty in interacting socially and communicating and may also display repetitive behaviour.

In some cases, the patients are entirely dependent on their caregivers to perform day-to-day functions, while others may function independently. Hence, parents need to identify the symptoms of Autism in their children and start early intervention to overcome some of its challenges.

What Causes Autism?

While the cause for Autism is still not fully known, many experts believe that the following reasons can be responsible for the condition:

• Genetics
• Viral infection during pregnancy
• It runs in the family
• Low birth weight of the baby
• Imbalance of metabolism
• Prolonged exposure to environmental toxins

Several other factors are being studied to understand the exact reason for Autism in children.

What Are The Symptoms Of ASD?

Most children with ASD start displaying the symptoms right from infancy. However, there are also cases where the symptoms show up later on in their childhood.

The symptoms of this disorder are divided into 2 broad categories, and they are as follows:

Communication and Social Interaction Problems

• The child may have difficulty maintaining a conversation, expressing their emotions or feelings, etc.
• The child will have trouble making eye contact or understanding non-verbal communication like hugging.
• The child may find it challenging to make friends or other relationships with peers or family members.
• The child will have delayed speech development.
• The child may prefer to play alone rather than with other children.

Restricted or Repetitive Pattern or Behaviour Problems

• The child may exhibit repetitive movements, actions, or speech patterns.
• The child may get agitated if his/her routine is changed or broken.
• The child may react negatively to loud noises or bright lights, or other specific sensory information.
• The child will exhibit unusual behaviour like lining up toys or keeping them in a particular way.

Some Other Characteristics That A Child With Autism Spectrum Disorder May Exhibit Are:

• Flapping hands, rocking the body back and forth, or spinning in circles.
• Aggression or tantrums when things don’t go their way.
• Limited attention span.
• Talking in limited words or not using gestures.
• Getting agitated easily.
• Not responding to their name or mommy’s voice.

How Can Autism Be Treated?

Although there is no cure for ASD, several therapies ease the symptoms and improve quality of life.

• Speech therapy to improve your child’s communication skills
• Behavioural therapy to improve their social skills and manage their aggression
• Physical therapy to improve their motor skills and co-ordination
• Meditation therapy to help them relax and stay calm
• Occupational therapy to improve their day-to-day living by teaching them basics like brushing their teeth, toilet training, dressing, etc.

While these therapies aim to make the Autistic child more independent, the treatment for the condition involves high vitamin supplements, chelation therapy to remove any metals in their body, melatonin medication to improve sleep quality, etc. The doctor administers these treatments after carefully studying the patient’s condition and history. As the field of medical science progresses, the treatment options for Autism will also hopefully increase. Presently, researchers are studying the Stem cell banking benefits to cure Autism. However, it is too early to see any concrete results.

Let’s stay positive and focus on giving the autistic child all the love, care and support needed to have a happy life.

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Autism is a type of developmental disorder which includes disability in interaction and development of language. It is detected in the children at an early age and is persisted towards adulthood. However, it mainly affects the ability to communicate and to interact with others. Doctors mostly diagnose autism on the basis of social communication and repetitive behaviours of autism patients. In addition, they assess the severity of the symptoms. The level of severity of autism shows the extent of support the person with autism will need.

According to a report of the CDC, it has been determined that 1 in 59 children has been diagnosed with autism¹. Boys are 4 times more diagnosed with autism as compared to girls. The percentage is 1 in 37 boys and 1 in 151 of girls are diagnosed with autism

A person suffering from autism is different from other people of their age. They give more concentration upon certain things, did not make any eye contact and withdraw themselves from social activities. Their pattern of behaviour affects daily activities and they need a lot more support than normal people.

It had been seen in our previous blog of “Autologous Cord Blood Stem Cells – a Promise for Autism Spectrum Disorder” that there are no such medicines which can cure autism. However, stem cells that are stored at the time of birth can help in treating autism.

The Panama Stem Cell Institute is now providing stem cell therapies by the help of Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs)harvested from the Umbilical Cord (UC) tissue. The MSCs taken from the umbilical cord tissue can be safely transplanted into the patients without matching the HLA of the donor and recipient. The Panama Institute of stem cell therapy consisting of clinics and laboratory, each of them is licensed by Medical authorities of Panama and the regulations are maintained according to international standards.

Dr. Neil Riordan of the Panama Stem Cell Institute said that 47 patients with autism were selected for the clinical trials and most of them showed improvement in speech, behaviour, able to do their daily works and have improved awareness as well as social interaction. Researchers at the Panama Stem Cell Institute had successfully treated the patients suffering from autism.

If any child is suffering from autism then stem cells of their own or any siblings can treat the disease. Hence it is advisable for the parents that bank your baby’s stem cells today and it can help in curing diseases of your baby or any other family members including both the parents. For details information, you can check on our website or call at our toll-free number.

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2^nd April is recognized every year as the World Autism Awareness Day by United Nations in order to spread awareness about the disorder throughout the world.

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects the communication and behavior of the individual. This disorder may occur at any age, it is mostly diagnosed in the initial years of the baby and persists into adulthood. Due to absence of any medical test like a blood test, diagnosing ASD can be difficult. Observing a child’s behavior and development is the only way to diagnose and is sometimes detected at 18 months to 2yrs of age¹. However, many children do not receive the final diagnosis they need for therapeutic intervention.

Characterized by the presence of restricted interests and repetitive behaviors, affected individuals encounter social problems mainly facing difficulty in communicating and interacting with people, and is much more common than many people think. 1 in 160 children² has an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As inferred from a CDC study in 8yr old Asians, the prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder, was found to be 1.35 in every 100 children^1,3, with an occurrence of about 4 times more among boys than among girls¹. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that all children be screened for autism³.

Currently there are no medications available that can cure ASD or treat the core symptoms. According to reports by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Research Council², behavior and communication approaches like Behavioral analysis, Occupational therapy, Speech therapy, Sensory Integration therapy are some of the currently employed treatments that help children with ASD are those that provide structure, direction, and organization for the child in addition to family participation. The goal of treating an autistic individual is to maximize your child’s ability to function by reducing autism spectrum disorder symptoms and supporting development and learning.

However, several clinical trials⁴ are being carried out worldwide in renowned institutes like Duke University and Sutter Institute for Medical Research (SIMR) using cord blood⁵, giving hope to many families to relieve the symptoms of autistic patients to a certain extent and allow them to be as independent as much as possible. Autologous cord blood stem cells, banked at the time of birth, when used for transplant are not only seen to be safe⁵ for the patient but also showed significant improvements in children behavior in measurables like social communication skills⁶, vocabulary and children attention to social stimuli³. The paracrine activity⁷, i.e. the ability to release bioactive molecules that quickly traffic to the site of inflammation along with the immunomodulatory properties⁷ of umbilical cord stem cells make them a promising treatment option in future.

Banking one’s newborn’s cord blood stem cells at the time of birth can be best security one can provide to both the baby and family members, if needed in future. These stem cells are the 100% match for the baby and the best possible genetically close sample available for the family members.

To know more about cord blood stem cell banking, call us at 1800 121 6200 and book your presentation today.

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Meet Alysson Muotri, an autism researcher and a professor at UC San Diego. His research mostly revolves around autism and how stem cell therapy impacts the brain development. His study is based on pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), collected from people with autism. The researchers in his team are using the stem cells to model the condition in a lab dish. His team is trying to point out the affected cells and at the same time, invent a potential drug to cure the disorder.

When asked about his research about autism, Dr. Muotri expressed his frustration about no available models to understand the disorder at the first place. His team is involved in making a mini brain, because he thinks less accessibility to the human brain is the main reason that there is no proper tool or model to treat autism.

He said, “As a neuroscientist studying autism, I was frustrated with the lack of a good experimental model to understand autism. All the previous models (animal, postmortem brain tissues, etc.) have serious experimental limitations. The inaccessibility of the human brain has blocked the progress of research on ASD for a long time. Cellular reprogramming allows us to transform easy-access cell types (such as skin, blood, dental pulp, etc.) into brain cells or even “mini-brains” in the lab.”

He also briefed about how this process works. As they will be able to capture the genome of the affected person, it will be easy for them to track early phases of his/her neurodevelopment. He elaborately explained the process, as he said, “This is crucial to study neurodevelopment disorders, such as ASD, because of the strong genetic factor underlying the pathology [the cause of a disease]. By comparing “mini-brains” between an ASD and neurotypical [non-ASD] groups, we can find anatomical and functional differences that might explain the clinical symptoms.”
While talking about his model, he mentioned that his team mainly uses genome editing techniques and reprogramming stem cells. The reprogramming stem cells are used to create organoids or mini brains. And the genome editing techniques help in generating 3D organoid models. These organoids grow into the mature brains in the lab. The process is quite similar to that of fetal brain, so the researchers can track the structure and development over time.

About this new model, he said, “This new model brings something novel to the table: the ability to experimentally test specific hypotheses in a human background. For example, we can ask if a specific genetic variant is causal for an autistic individual. Thus, we can edit the genome of that autistic individual, fixing target mutations in these mini-brains and check if now the fixed mini-brains will develop any abnormalities seen in ASD.”

He is, currently, running a clinical trial involving IGF-1, or insulin growth factor-1. He is very hopeful that a drug will soon be discovered to treat autism. He said, “I am a big enthusiastic fan of personalized treatments for ASD. While we continue to search for a treatment that could help a large fraction of ASD people, we also recognized that some cases might be easier than others depending on their genetic profile.”

With that, he assures that his team is also working on a tool to diagnosis autism. This would certainly help parents and doctors to initiate treatments and therapies at an early stage, even before the symptoms start to appear.

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We all know that autism cannot be cured. But Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development researchers have found a way to alleviate the symptoms of autism, thereby offering a better life for children with the condition. And the key to this therapy lies within their own umbilical cord blood stem cells.

The researchers at the Duke conducted a study to find out if the symptoms of autism can be lowered down in degree by infusing blood, derived from their own umbilical cord. They have published their findings in April 2017 and since then it has all the media attention.

The trial involved 25 children between 2 and 6. Geraldine Dawson, director of the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development confirmed that all the children have displayed improvement in terms of the autistic symptoms. Dawson mentioned, “We measured the children’s social and communication abilities using various tests and parent questionnaires. We found that the infusion was safe and many children showed improvements in their social and language skills.”¹

In this study, the children received stem cells from their own umbilical cord blood. After the infusion, their improvements were being monitored thoroughly. The doctors found that the infusion was completely safe for the children. After one year, these children were called for another round of tests in order to measure their further improvements.

Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, the professor in the department of pediatrics, said that the process is entirely new to them. Dawson said that the study is still at its nascent stage, as they don’t have any standard comparison factor to compare the effectiveness of the therapy for autism, as there was no control group of autistic children involved in the study to compare the results. Dawson added, “Because there was no comparison group in this study, we don’t yet know whether the improvements we observed were because of the cord blood. As much as we’re hopeful that this is helping, we don’t want to prematurely make claims that haven’t been confirmed.”²

After the successful Phase I, the team is ready to start with Phase II trial, which is expected to be completed in two years. Unlike the Phase I, the second Phase will include a blind control group, where children will get a placebo infusion. Moreover, the Phase II will involve 165 children with autism.

Dawson said that the children will be divided into two groups. One group will receive umbilical cord blood stem cells and another group will receive a placebo. The groups will be switched after six months and the children will receive the opposite therapy. This will enable to researchers to find out the effectiveness of stem cell therapy for autism. Kurtzberg added, “There is a remodeling of certain abnormal brain connections [by the microglia], which then results in decreasing symptoms of autism.”³

Though the first trial showed immense improvements in the children, the team is still hesitant to call it a full-proof therapy for treating autism symptoms.  They will be able to answer all the unanswered questions after the comparative Phase II. Kurtzberg added, “At the conclusion of [the Phase II] study, we’ll be able to answer the question about whether cells are effective.”⁴ 

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What is autism? What makes autistic people different from others? What causes autism? There are hundreds of questions in people’s mind when it comes to this condition. What is it actually?

Autism is a mental condition that remains present from the early childhood days and lasts for a lifetime. It’s characterized by minor to major difficulties in social interaction and framing language abstract concepts. And the critical part is, it’s incurable. However, a new study shows that stem cell therapy may show great improvement in children with autism.

It’s the story of Gracie Gregory, one of the 25 autistic children who participated in the study at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina involving stem cells to tone down the issues associated with autism. The idea behind the research was to find out if a transfusion of the self-umbilical cord blood with the rare stem cells can cure autism or at least reduce the severity.

Gracie was diagnosed with autism at the age of 2. When Gracie’s mother first came to know about the research, she immediately enrolled her without knowing what to expect and what not to expect. Such was the difficulty; they were facing with their autistic child. There was a time when Gracie’s sister, Ryleigh was afraid of her because of her unmanageable behavior like hitting and kicking. But now that very Ryleigh thinks Gracie is “very sweet and kind.” And it only became possible after the stem cell therapy.

Gracie was on the mild to moderate scale of autism. During the trial, Gracie, then 5, started with the same symptoms like kicking, spitting, screaming and even hitting her therapists. It was almost impossible to make her sit at one place.

The results were beyond what Gracie’s parents were expecting! Her parents recollects how difficult their life was back then when managing her would take 75% of their daily life and now after the therapy she only consumes 10% of their daily time. When asked about rating her improvement on a scale of 1 to 10, her parents proudly rated 8/9.

She now attends regular school, plays with her sister, and enjoys life to the fullest, something that her parent would never have thought of.

According to her father, “We will say we don’t think it’s cured her. You still see some of the small idiosyncrasies that she does have. But again, I think it’s supercharged her learning curve. It’s pushed her to do things she normally wouldn’t do.” Her mother added, “She got better, and we’re just thankful for that — whether it be the stem cells or not. We’re just thankful for what changes have happened”.

Two thirds of the children, involved in the study showed great improvement. This is the results of the first phase of the study and a broader second level trail is on its way, which promises a long-term treatment for autistic children.

Skeptics are still saying that no matter what autism cannot be cured and there are quite a few unanswered questions that need to be addressed before going gaga over it. Even researchers at Duke acknowledge that the study is at a very early stage and still there is a long way to go. But for families like Gregorys, it’s a life-changing experience.

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For long now, doctors and scientists studying autism and autism spectrum disorders have debated the merits of using stem cells to cure the brain disorder. There have also been attempts in the West to study the effects of one’s own stem cells banked at birth in the generation of viable neurons in the brain.

For instance, an FDA-approved study was conducted in California, USA in 2012, where a group of autistic children (whose disorder was not hereditary or the result of blunt trauma) were infused with their own cord blood cells. The end goal was to map the specific development of these children in correcting deficits of speech, behaviour and language. According to the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 88 children in the US are autistic. However, the results of the study were said to be inconclusive.

Stem cell therapy for autism is, on paper, a feasible treatment approach for a disorder that has no cure till date. Doctors opine that stem cells may not just help fire neural activity in the brain – thus helping the child improve its condition – but also help generate working neural connection. Stem cells are also being used to help find the underlying causes of the disorder. Thus far, science has been able to conclude that genetics and immunological factors may play a role in the development of autism spectrum disorders in children. The rationale for using stem cell therapy for autism is that stem cells derived from cord blood may help in eliminating immune problems in autistic children.

An extremely promising development in understanding what causes certain autism spectrum disorders is the development of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from autistic persons. It transpires that iPSCs are capable of transforming from ordinary cells into neurons. The major breakthrough in this finding is that these iPSCs can be cultured in a laboratory. These iPSCs may hold the key to specific alterations that take place in the brain of a foetus, which later develop into autism spectrum disorders after age 2.

Researchers at University of California, San Diego are now examining a new frontier in stem cell therapy for autism: whether human neural connections can be built to mimic some of the interactions taking place in the human brain; the rationale driving this research stems from advances in human tissue engineering.

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