Cascia's cellular therapeutics are all based on autologous human mesenchymal stem cells.  Autologous means that the cells are harvested from the same patient that will receive the cell treatment.  We exclusively use adult stem cells from the patient or an identical sibling.  None of our therapeutics use fetal or embryonic tissues, and our preparations contain no animal-derived material.

The primary source of stem cells in the human body is the bone marrow compartment.  Bone marrow is found in the cancellous bone, the sponge-like material in the center of bones, and the most abundant source of bone marrow in the human body is found in the long bones, such as the femur or tibia, or in the large flat bones such as the pelvis.  Typically bone marrow is obtained by inserting a biopsy needle into the ilium, the large bone in the pelvis, and aspirating a quantity of marrow into a syringe which is transferred to a processing laboratory.  True stem cells are an exceeding rare cell type, typically accounting for fewer than 1 out of a million cells in bone marrow, so the processing techniques used to isolate the cells for therapeutic use are critical. 

Unique abilities

Stem cells exhibit two unique abilities that other cells do not have:

1. They have the potential to develop into any type of human tissue, and

2. Stem cells can self-replicate an unlimited number of times

The human body’s ability to repair itself after an episode of disease or injury is a direct result of action of stem cells. The capacity for self-healing is limited however, and when there are too few stem cells in the injured tissue the regeneration process will be incomplete.

Stem cells can repair any type of mesenchymal tissue in the body after completing a multi-stage differentiation process during which a transformation will occur from stem cell to progenitor cell to precursor and finally to mature tissue. While there are some biological differences between stem and progenitor cells the terms are often used interchangeably. In medicine, most “stem cell” therapies are really progenitor cell-based therapeutics, but this is an important distinction. 

Once a cell has partially differentiated into a progenitor cell, it has limited ability to de-differentiate backwards to a true stem cell.  For example, if a patient is administered myoblastic progenitor cells, the cellular phenotype that will differentiate into muscle tissue, those cells might be able to dedifferentiate from skeletal muscle in order to repair smooth muscle tissue, but they cannot dedifferentiate enough to repair bones.  It is vital to administer the least differentiated cell types, and all the required cell types, to achieve healing. 

Cells have a natural tendency to differentiate, and it is extremely difficult to prevent premature differentiation during a cell culture process.  Tissue regeneration products based on culture cells have proven ineffective because while these products contain an abundant number of mature cells, they lack the early stage populations necessary to create blood vessels and connective tissues.  Our proprietary process depletes later stage cells and allows the cells to self-replicate without undergoing differentiation, all without an ex vivo culture process.

Stem Cell Therapeutics