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New treatment option for lupus patients in the works
The Lupus Foundation is trying to help the sickest lupus patients here in the Houston area with a promising new stem-cell therapy.
HOUSTON - The Lupus Foundation is trying to help the sickest lupus patients here in the Houston area with a promising new stem-cell therapy.
They're teaming-up with another foundation in hopes of delivering a promising new treatment option, but they need our community's help to make it happen.
Hope BioSciences is a state-of-the-art, one-of-a-kind facility, in Sugar Land, Texas.
"We started about eight years ago. We are an adult stem cell research company, and we are using the cells that we manufacture here for a variety of different conditions," says Donna Chang, the President of the Hope Biosciences Research Foundation & the CEO of Hope Biosciences.
She goes on to explain that the facility is a one-stop shop!
"We are able to not only make the treatment, but just like bench to bedside, make it and deliver it right downstairs in our infusion suite," states Chang. They've really taken the patient's comfort in mind, as well. The infusion room overlooks a peaceful setting with a lake, and Chang says patients often sit and watch the ducks or even take a stroll outside.
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Hope BioSciences Research Foundation is working with the Lupus Foundation of the Texas Gulf Coast to raise funds for the FDA-authorized clinical trial for lupus patients.
"This is a Houston company. These are Texas lupus warriors who will have direct impact from this opportunity. I can't think of a better way to say, go big or go home in Texas than actually finding a cure for a disease that no one else has been able to cure," says Anne Marie Blacketer, the CEO of Lupus Foundation of the Texas Gulf Coast.
The plan is to offer treatment to 15 patients, known as "Lupus Warriors", patients who have tried every treatment available without success. The chronic autoimmune disease often varies in symptoms for each person, but often robs their quality of life. Nichelle Lewis has suffered from undiagnosed lupus most of her life, starting with extreme fatigue and swollen joints when she was a teenager.
"Then at 31, I had a stroke. After having a baby, I had a stroke, and at that point is when they tested me with an ANA blood test and determined that I had lupus," says Nichelle.
There are few treatments Nichelle can handle because of that stroke. Nichelle is a lawyer. Her symptoms have been devastating for her job, and she’s been able to only work part-time. She believes it has also robbed her from experiencing true motherhood, as she seldom feels well. She says it would be a dream come true if she qualifies for the clinical trial because she says she found out it almost immediately took away pain from another patient who got to be treated with it.
"There's nothing manufactured, or lab created. It's using T-cells from our own body and that's encouraging, that I can fix myself. I'm just amazed at how that can happen and so I'm so looking forward to the benefits of the days of no pain, no joint swelling, to be able to run around with my 11-year-old. I'm so looking forward to those days," states Nichelle.
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What they hope to do at Hope Biosciences starts with extracting one tablespoon of fatty tissue from the patients.
"From there, we're going to isolate just the stem cells. And for our trial, we are studying mesenchymal stem cells, and from those, we will take those out and then create the appropriate quantity. So just like any medicine, you need the proper quantity to create the efficacy that we're looking for," explains Chang.
Then the patients would receive eight infusions of their own cells, which equals 200 million cells, over the course of about a year.
"That's a key because we're not going to put in a foreign entity into the Lupus Warrior body that might reject it. So, with this collaboration, Hope Bio is the only place that can actually replicate your own human cells fast enough to use your own cells as a treatment plan," says Blacketer.
Researchers at Hope Bio say the first lupus patient to try it went into remission, which helped get the FDA's stamp of approval to continue studying it. Chang says they're the only ones in the world studying this type of treatment.
"It is definitely a step forward in the field of lupus research. Our bodies have the ability to regulate its own immune system, and that is essentially the problem here, and so these cells given in high doses can regulate the immune system. So, we are incredibly hopeful for what's to come," says Chang.
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To pull this off for local patients, they need to raise $1 million.
"That may seem like a lot of money, but if we ask ourselves, what does it do, and what is it worth? Sometimes people want to have an impact that changes the landscape. This will change the landscape. We need something better than chasing the symptoms and trying to fix the symptoms, we want to fix the cause and that's where stem cells can make all the difference in the world," states Blacketer.
If you'd like to learn more about it, or you're able to donate to their cause, you can head to: https://www.lupus.org/texasgulfcoast
For more info visit https://www.hope.bio/clinical-trials