7/24/2009

Correction To Earlier Release From Jewish Hospital And University Of Louisville

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In today's announcement regarding the use of stem cells in the treatment of heart failure, we failed to make a critical distinction. Louisville researchers and physicians have performed the world’s first phase-one FDA-approved clinical trial using “c-kit-positive” adult cardiac stem cells to treat heart disease. The clinical trial is being conducted by a team of University of Louisville physicians at Jewish Hospital, in collaboration with Dr. Piero Anversa and his team at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Following the press conference Roberto Bolli, Jewish Hospital Heart and Lung Institute Distinguished Chair in Cardiology and Director of UofL’s Institute for Molecular Cardiology, stated, “Another clinical trial is being conducted at another facility.  The difference between what we have done and what another institute nationally has done is that, we have injected a pure population of stem cells, the c-kit-positive cells.  The other institution injected cardiosphere-derived cells, which are a mixture of primitive and partially differentiated cells, complicating the recognition of the actual therapeutic cell. Our study involves a specific, well-characterized population of undifferentiated cells: the c-kit-positive cardiac stem cells are self-renewing, clonogenic and multipotent, which are the fundamental properties of stem cells.”

This is a small, but distinct difference than the procedure performed last month in California.

We regret any misunderstanding or confusion.