Ottawa hospital gets $4.2M grant to support clinical trial for mesenchymal stem cell therapy
CBC News Posted: Apr 13, 2015
The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa have received a $4.2 million grant to support a clinical trial for stem cell therapy targeted at multiple sclerosis patients.
One Pointe-Claire man says he knows from personal experience that the treatment — mesenchymal stem cell therapy — could give someone with MS a new chance at life.
Alexandre Normandin was diagnosed eight years ago, in his third year of medical school at McGill University.
He said what started out as a little numbness on his left temple, turned out to be rapidly progressing MS.
“The way it was going, it wouldn’t be surprising, within months [or] years, to wind up in a wheelchair,” he told .CBC’s Daybreak host Mike Finnerty.
When he found out about an experimental bone marrow stem-cell transplant at the Ottawa General hospital in 2008, he didn’t hesitate to sign up.
The treatment was risky — Normandin had to go through 15 days of chemotherapy in order to completely wipe his immune system and eliminate the mutation that caused his MS.
But it worked.
Years later, Normandin runs his own medical practice.
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