"According to our findings, it is feasible to perform a bone marrow harvest and then infuse the cells in a wide range of stroke patients," Savitz said. "Well-designed randomized clinical trials are needed to further assess safety and efficacy of this novel approach to enhance stroke recovery."

The study was supported with grants from the National Institutes of Health (R21HD06098, T32NS04712), and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (N01-HB037163).


UTHealth co-authors on the paper were Muhammad E. Haque, PhD.; Mohammad H. Rahbar, PhD; Hongjian Zhu, PhD; Paul Rowan, PhD; Harinder S. Juneja, MD; Susan Alderman, PhD, MSEd, RN; Andrew D. Barreto, MD, MS; Arvind Bambhroliya, MBBS, MS; Khader Hasan, PhD; Jaroslaw Aronowski, MD, PhD; and Charles S. Cox Jr., MD. James C. Grotta, MD, director of stroke research at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, was also a co-author. Researchers from Harvard Medical School, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, and Baylor College of Medicine were also co-authors.

Over the past decade, Savitz has researched both autologous stem cells and allogeneic stem cell products. He conducted and published early preclinical studies on MultiStem, a human bone marrow stem cell product, and has just enrolled the first UTHealth patient in a Phase III clinical trial of the product.

Savitz is also lead investigator of a Phase IIB study investigating a stem cell therapy injected directly into the brain to treat stroke disability. The trial, called PISCES III, is a Phase IIB, randomized, placebo-controlled, multicenter study enrolling a total of 110 eligible ischemic stroke patients, age 35 to 75, who are experiencing persistent disability six to 12 months post-stroke.

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