Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Stem Cells for Brain Recovery: How Regenerative Medicine Is Transforming TBI Treatment | Broken Brains Podcast
In this cutting-edge episode of Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman, host Bruce Parkman sits down with Sean Berman and Kevin Ferber of American Cell Technology to explore one of the most promising frontiers in brain injury recovery: autologous stem cell therapy.
Traumatic brain injuries (TBI), PTSD, and chronic neuroinflammation continue to plague veterans, athletes, and civilians alike. This episode dives deep into the science of regenerative medicine, breaking down how your own body’s cells can be harvested and reintroduced to repair damaged brain tissue, reduce inflammation, and support long-term mental health.
You’ll learn:
- How autologous stem cells work in treating TBI and brain trauma
- The link between neuroinflammation and cognitive decline
- The process of stem cell harvesting through mini-liposuction
- The regulatory and educational challenges in mainstream adoption
- Why personalized medicine could be the key to future healing
Whether you're a healthcare provider, TBI survivor, caregiver, or advocate, this episode provides critical insight into the next generation of brain health solutions—with a focus on natural healing and long-term recovery.
👉 Be part of the movement. Follow, share, like, and subscribe to Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts to stay informed and inspired.
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is sponsored by The Mac Parkman Foundation
Support The Mac Parkman Foundation by donating today!
https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=CR24MY2GDUCZL
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Repetitive Brain Trauma
03:12 Exploring Stem Cell Medicine
06:06 Mechanisms of Stem Cell Action
08:58 Addressing Neuroinflammation and Long-Term Damage
11:59 Current Research and Applications of Stem Cells
18:05 The Future of Stem Cell Therapy
25:55 The Power of Stem Cells in Healing
27:53 Navigating FDA Regulations and Compliance
30:09 Personalized Medicine: A New Frontier
32:00 The Mini Liposuction Procedure Explained
34:25 Challenges and Pushbacks in Stem Cell Therapy
40:19 Education and Awareness in Stem Cell Treatments
https://www.mpfact.com/headsmart-app/
Website: americancelltechnology.com
https://www.americancelltechnology.com/
Sean Berman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-berman-51527978/
Kevin Ferber: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevintferber/
Join Blue Fusion and Horse Soldier Bourbon for the inaugural Special Operations Army vs. Navy Tailgate Event
Celebrate with us and support veteran wellness. Your participation helps fund The Mac Parkman Foundation's Veteran Program and Team American Freedom.
Your sponsorship ensures vital education, screening, and treatment for veteran mental health, aiming to reduce the tragedy of veteran suicide.
Enjoy food, beverages, and live music by Razor’s Edge, one of the top-perform
Produced by Security Halt Media
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken Brains with your host, bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation, where we look at the issue of repetitive brain trauma in the forms of repetitive head impacts from contact sports and repetitive blast exposure from our veteran communities, and how these small yet continuous hits are changing brains. That's resulting in the largest preventable cause of mental illness in this country. And why do we have this podcast? So we can reach out to researchers and scientists and patients and authors and hosts of other shows, so that we can bring you the most latest information on this issue, because it's not taught in any nursing, medical or psychological curricula in this country today, and that is why you need to be informed, so that you can protect those that you love or, if you know those that are suffering, you can protect them. On our show today we have another set of amazing guests from American Cell Technology, both of them dealing in the far-reaching, exploitative and emerging field of stem cell research. First is Sean Berman. He's a leading expert in stem cell research and regenerative medicine with over a decade of experience Earning his undergraduate degree from Amherst College I think that's Massachusetts University of Amherst, which is a great place to grow up and a master of science and biology from Louisiana Tech University, focusing on traumatic brain injuries and publishing research on intravenous adult adipose-derived stem cell therapy and publishing research on intravenous adult adipose-derived stem cell therapy. He's a key member of the Cell Surgical Network and collaborates with international physicians on IRB-approved stem cell therapy protocols for TBI, ptsd both very important concepts that we're going to dive into on this call with the United States Air Force and directs the Cell Surgical Conference, a CME-accredited event in his 12th year, bringing together more than 45 top experts in regenerative medicine. He's presented at national and international medical conferences and serves as a consultant for American Cell Technology, the leading personal stem cell bank in the US. With him today is Kevin Ferber, the chief operating officer at American Cell Technology, the largest personal stem cell bank in the US. He leads collaboration with top regenerative medicine practitioners, driving clinical growth and innovation in stem cell therapy. Most recently, he's launched Vital Cells, the only US newborn stem cell bank, offering access to billions of live stem cells. He has over a decade in the field and his passion began while shattering top global stem cell doctors. He's a two-time All-American football player at Amherst College and he's witnessed firsthand the power of personal stem cells in recovery and performance, fueling his mission to advance regenerative medicine.
Speaker 1:Gentlemen, welcome to our show today and we look forward to having an amazing conversation with both of you on this emerging and really cool topic. I mean, we're going to learn all about this stuff, gentlemen, so looking forward to the chat today. So let's just start off with, you know, stem cell medicine. So what's this all about? A lot of our listeners are, like me, you know, very uninformed in the concept. We know it's emerging. We know that it's being utilized in a lot of areas to treat, you know, to treat degenerative diseases, to treat joint conditions. You know how does it affect brains?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it is an emerging field, but it's really based off, you know, ancient dogma, ancient techniques. We wouldn't be here today if stem cells weren't around. Stem cells are the way that our bodies have recovered from injury for millennia. That's how evolution made us. The only problem is that as we get older, we run out of stem cells and we need more to heal naturally. And when we don't have enough stem cells around, we end up healing with white blood cells which form scar tissue, whereas stem cells will actually form the natural, normal tissue that should be there. So we're just looking at ways to repurpose stem cells and take them from one part of the body and put them in other parts of the body so that we can get better healing.
Speaker 2:So your brain has stem cells in it and when you were first you know people were in medical school 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago they thought you were born with the total number of cells that you're ever going to have in your brain and never get any more, and it's only going to whittle away from there. But the more that we've learned, you find out the brain's actually very plastic and it can recover from injury. I mean, it's very, very resilient. But if we're able to add a boatload more stem cells after injury, then maybe we can have some kind of expedited and enhanced recovery injury, then maybe we can have some kind of expedited and enhanced recovery, get back to normal faster, better, and get people back on the playing field, back to work, back to school, as opposed to just sitting around and waiting in a dark room to hope for recovery. Does that give you a little idea of what stem cells are capable of doing?
Speaker 1:yeah, just a little bit, I'd say. The issue is how do we get them into the brain? So the brain is a you know a closed system. It's, uh, surrounded by, you know cerebral fluid. It has a number of you know protective barriers to getting, you know, you know anything into the actual brain itself. So what are the modalities you're using to get the stem cells into the brain?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. The really cool thing about stem cells is that they have an ability it's called chemotaxis. Basically, there's a chemical signal and the cells will home to that chemical signal, so they'll travel naturally to sites of inflammation. Now when you get a concussion or a brain injury, the brain is displaced beyond the cerebral spinal fluid. It crashes into the bony structure that's called our skull and that protective barrier known as a blood-brain barrier is absolutely disrupted. I mean, that thing is torn to shreds.
Speaker 2:Now what's funny is that the blood-brain barrier and the neurovasculature will actually recover fairly quickly. But it's the neurons that sit within the blood-brain barrier, within the parenchyma they're called astrocytes that basically block the blood vessels from seeping into the brain. Those neurons take a really really long time to recover. So a problem is created when you get a concussion, While the blood-brain barrier heals really quick, the neurons are still distressed and they can take a long time to recover. While they're distressed and taking a long time to recover, they emit signals to the neurovasculature and those signals are distress calls. So they're calling for stem cells, they're calling for an immune response, and when you're young you have a lot of stem cells flowing throughout your blood naturally, your circulatory system naturally, so you'll get a more natural recovery.
Speaker 2:But as we age, where we get a lot of concussions back to back to back, it creates a cyclical cascade of ongoing distress calls where these neurons are calling for help. Macrophages and neutrophils are chewing through the blood-brain barrier that's already healed, reopening it, trying to go help the neurons. And it's this ongoing cycle. So, God forbid, you're exposed to multiple concussions or multiple subconcussive injuries, whether that be through something like football, where people are banging heads repeatedly, over and over and over again, or in our military. Blast exposure can cause concussion, and these, you know, our brave military men and women and veterans are training with explosive devices regularly. Automatic weapons, launching, jet engines all this stuff can cause head trauma and more often than not, unfortunately, it goes undiagnosed. So we really got to look at things a whole lot differently.
Speaker 1:So when we talk about stem cells because this is amazing, I mean honestly. I mean we're the biggest problem that we know of with healing the brain and with mental illness is that all of the modalities for mental illness just numb the brain right, they're pharmaceutical interventions, they're therapies. So anything that can help heal the brain is of enormous interest to the community that we serve, absolutely. So when those calls go out, so is that directing the body to? You know, one of my questions is how do the stem cells know which part of the brain? Is they just merely flooding the brain, or are they attracted through those distress calls to the particular section of the head, the other side of the head, and then you've got the bruising and inflammation on both sides of those. So you've got the physical injuries, then you've got the neuroinflammation, injuries that occur at the same time. So how do these stem cells know where to go?
Speaker 2:The easy answer is that they're a hell of a lot smarter than we are, and that's through that chemotaxis.
Speaker 1:That's a good one. Give me the crayon answers.
Speaker 2:It's their ability to hone the signs of inflammation. Now, the reason I'm so confident in this and I know it is because my graduate research was basically we took an animal model. We gave it a left frontal cortex injury this was induced by a blast and then we took stem cells that we had tagged with fluorescent markers, gave them via IV infusion and we were able to directly track them right to the site of injury in the brain, which was the left frontal cortex. So again, they're a lot smarter than we are. So if you were to slip and fall, you're able to hit your head and it got displaced beyond the cerebral spinal fluid that it sits in. You're going to have injury all over.
Speaker 2:Again, the cells are a lot smarter than we are. That's how you recover naturally, and all we're trying to do is put more stem cells into circulation so that you can expedite the recovery process, so that you can outnumber the white blood cells that you have with stem cells, so you have the hope of recovering with light tissue as opposed to scar tissue. Scar tissue is fine. It's like putting duct tape on a uh you know on a hole in your wall. It's not drywall and it's not what you want, but it'll. It'll mask the hole, but that that wall is not going to have the structure, structural function that you intend for it, which is duct tape. You actually have to repair it, naturally. Um, and that's what we're trying to do with stem cells.
Speaker 3:And Bruce, to kind of go back to your question of why would the cells? Where do they go? Do we flood the brain with cells? The mesenchymal stem cells that Sean's referring to. Their number one properties are anti-inflammatory by nature and hone in on those sites of inflammation. So, as you know better than us in the TBI and the concussive world, you're really getting that inflammation response of the brain.
Speaker 3:And so in Sean's study that he's referencing, just even giving cells IV and we see this at the clinical level the cells will flow to those sites of inflammation and help repair the body more naturally. So the sooner you can get these cells in treatment could be better, because you want to get it as soon as it is inflamed. So, going back to Sean's point, how do you beat scar tissue? How do you beat recovery methods that are more like a Band-Aid or a duct tape versus regenerative therapy, critical to getting these cells at point of care for as soon as you can, so they can do what they're most capable of doing of regenerating and helping heal the body naturally, calming those sites of inflammation.
Speaker 1:I mean, look, I mean, neuroinflammation is a huge problem, you know, in our community, right, as you both know, and you've mentioned it several times, and addressing this issue is key. Now, is it possible that we can identify people that don't have an injury? They've already been exposed to subcussive trauma for years. They probably had concussions when they were young playing contact sports. Now they're struggling with mental illness. They really don't have. What they have is a damaged brain that was damaged over years and now has progressed through just age or whatever. Is there a method by which you could introduce stem cells where they're not really dealing with the injury per se, but the actual aspect, issues that you know that emerge when you have long-term toxic? You know all that cytocline, all that imbalance of chemicals that are known to cause this toxic environment causing the neuroinflammation. Is there a path for stem cells to address this without having an injury?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I think that what you have to look at is no, I don't think anybody wants to treat inflammation. Inflammation is secondary to an injury. You want to treat the injury, the injury that gives off or results in inflammation, right? So it's just like a beacon, it's a light, it's a signal. It's not the actual problem. The actual problem is going to be unique in many of these cases, right? So what you want to do is you want to fix the root cause, the root injury, and that's exactly what stem cells do. That's how the body is recovered naturally for millennia, long before you and I were ever even you know, thoughts or considerations, right? If there weren't stem cells, we wouldn't have been here in the first place, yeah, but millennia, millennia ago.
Speaker 2:So if we can treat, the root cause and the root end.
Speaker 1:Okay, but my point is millennia, millennia ago we never had football, we never had hockey, we never had these long-term exposures to blast or repetitive head impacts. So my question is and I think you've answered it, I just want to clarify that is that in some of the cases that we're coming across like veterans that were exposed to blast but they've been out of the Army for five or six years, right so the injury, it could be that there is a damaged brain. It hasn't been damaged recently, it was damaged in the back, so you probably have scar tissue. You definitely got a ton of neuroinflammation that's continuing to go. You know they've gone on, but we have to heal the brain. Is there any? Would stem cells help that? Like an older injury like that? You know that's scarred up, or would stem cells have? Do they have a regenerative approach where they can create new neurons, new pathways, new axons that can help stimulate? You know additional, you know brain, you know tissue or assistant functionality?
Speaker 2:It's a great question. The short answer to that is I don't know, but the other answer to that is most likely yes. Now everybody loves uh, everyone loves neurons. The reason is they photograph really well. It's like why everyone loves hot skinny models they photograph really really well it doesn't.
Speaker 2:That doesn't mean we should ignore all the other cells in the brain. Right, there's a lot of supportive microglial tissue that's around there and, like I said earlier, when you have a neuron that's damaged, it's sending signals to the circulatory system asking for help and those distress calls cause basically your neutrophils and macrophages to come in and bust through everything. And when I say bust through everything, those are all those supporting microglial cells. If we can make that environment better, which I think we can with mesenchymal stem cells, then absolutely there's a huge hope for using these cells to advance neurologic injury years after the fact. Kevin alluded to it earlier. The best time to take care of this stuff is in the acute phase. Stem cells cannot reverse scar tissue, so they won't do that. But there's an ongoing problem with a lot of this neuroinflammatory, neurodegenerative conditions and absolutely you're going to want to get cells in there so that they can start repairing those microglial cells and neurovasculature efficiently and effectively to create a better environment for your neurons.
Speaker 1:And you brought up a good point because, you know, honestly, the neurons are still crying for help, right, because that's what's keeping the inflammation in place. The body keeps responding to these continuous calls, but not with the right resources, right? It's like, hey, I want tanks, I'm going to send you infantrymen, right, they need stem cells, right? So you know, amazing. So where are we at in research right now? So, stem cells, of course, have been out for, you know, a while. We've heard about them there. You know, there's a rapid growing acceptance, I guess, in certain situations vice others, in regards to the brain and healing the brain. Where are we at with the application of stem cells? Are we actively using them right now in any trials? Or where is the research on this issue right now, because it sounds to me like it's something that we really need to focus on.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. There's a lot of ongoing work right now using stem cells, but I think one of the most important things that we need to touch on is what kind of stem cells you ultimately use so you could put stem cells. But I think one of the most important things that we need to touch on is what kind of stem cells you ultimately use so you could put stem cells directly into the ventricle of the brain. I've been involved in research that's done that and it was actually fairly effective. The problem is, you have to drill a hole in your head in order to do that, and a lot of people say you know, I want to take it easy before I actually like go all in on this and see if I can get a result. I know right. So one of the most effective ways to get cells to the brain or to any injury actually is via IV infusion. I mean, it's non-invasive whatsoever and the cells naturally home to sites of inflammation. Now, one of the biggest problems is that people have, you know, been confused about what source of cells is best to use, and people are out there saying, hey, you want to use these, the youngest cells possible, so you should pull from umbilical cord stem cells. Well, those are cells that don't contain your own DNA. So if I give them IV, my immune system is going to get rid of those cells within a 24 to 72 hour period. What does that mean? That means there's no chance for those cells to get to my brain and actually do anything good, and that's a best case scenario. So ultimately it's just taxing my immune system. If you really want cells to stick around and do something, when you give them IV, you're going to need your own stem cells with your own DNA. Why your body will not reject those cells. Great, that means these stem cells.
Speaker 2:You used a military example earlier. Let's call them special forces. They're not just tanks that are blowing things up and coming in. They're coming in with precision. They can give off the appropriate signal, they can differentiate into functional tissue, they can transfer healthy mitochondria. They can do a whole lot to repair neurologic damage. But if they're foreign DNA from somebody else I mean you don't even know if they're male or female cells then they're going to get expelled out of your body. There's going to be no chance for them to do anything good.
Speaker 2:So you got to use your own cells with your own DNA and everyone says well, I'm this age, I'm that age, you know, how are my cells any good? How am I going to know? And it depends on where you pull these cells from. All the cells in your body are all different ages and they age differently based on how you use them. Some cells, like the, the ones on your skin, turn over almost weekly, so they're constantly working. That's why people's skin looks bad as they age right.
Speaker 2:There are other cells, like your bone marrow stem cells, your platelets and red blood cells, turn over every eight days. So every eight days the stem cells in your bone marrow are making new cells we prefer to pull from adipose tissue or fat. A fat cell has a lifespan of eight to 10 years, so that means as an 80-year-old, it's possible that your fat-derived stem cells have only worked eight times in their life, not every eight days. So that's huge. That means we have access to your own cells, your own personal DNA, that are really young, healthy and robust. We can take those and then Kevin can tell you about what he does with them. In American cell technology there's a huge potential to use these cells for good, to make people better, and naturally with your own DNA, I mean this is absolutely the cutting edge. This is the future of medicine and it's all based on the evolutionary process.
Speaker 3:Sorry but if I could touch on the research side of things we were saying on stem cell therapy and neurological conditions, the neurological condition is not going to be healed overnight by potential of one treatment and we see this in clinical trials where people are going to need repeat treatments of their cells. So let's take Sean's comment on using autologous your own cells or your own DNA that will stay in your system to help repair itself. How are people able to do those studies? And it's a lot harder to do so if you're using your own cells. You need to have a bank or consortium of your own cells. Sean didn't touch upon it as much, but we can get stem cells in the adipose. I think.
Speaker 3:Irb studies say around 1 million mesenchymal stem cells per cc of fat. Let's say a tablespoon of fat is 20 cc, so you can get 20 million cells per treatment. But how many times is a TBI patient or con you're going to come back for these repeat uh mini lipo polls to get enough cells? So a lot of the research is using an allergenic donor cell and so it's almost uncomparable if you're going out of the country and hearing about these people getting foreign cells with foreign DNA and trying to quantify the results, because we we see it in research itself is that you're not getting um your cells or your own DNA that's going to stay within the body.
Speaker 1:Okay, I mean, this is fascinating. So, number one, you can use my fat, which I don't need anywhere anyway, to go ahead and create a cell-syn bank for my body, my body. We can make sure that the cells have DNA, because the source of these cells, of course, you know, you hear there's a lot of consternation about, you know, possibly using, you know, embryos and stuff like that, and that was, you know, one of the concerns that you know, some of you know these people might have. So it sounds like we're actually harvesting these cells from you know, you're not ripping into the bone and pulling out bone marrow, you're actually using fat and and and order to create these cells. And then you, you're get up, you get an account like a like, a like a like at the stem cell bank, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can, I can walk you through that a little bit and I think that's a big, um big market gap interest.
Speaker 3:And, uh know, us citizens do not know they have access to personal autologous stem cell therapy within the US.
Speaker 3:A lot of people are going out of the country for donor allergenic cells an inferior service offering when they can stay here in their backyard.
Speaker 3:To your point, bruce, you can send in a tablespoon of fat to our lab at American Cell Technology and from that one tablespoon of fat we can isolate the stem cells in the FDA-registered, inspect environment, clean environment, processed by our highly skilled lab techs, and we can culture, expand and let these cells naturally self-replicate. And so, going back to needing multiple treatments, we can then cryopreserve those cells in time, so if you're 30, 40 year old cells, we can use them when you're 50, 60 years old and then, through our partnered physicians, you could get your cells back to utilize them. And now you can actually quantify the amount of live cells that you have, that you're getting per treatment, and you can get on a program based on what your physician recommends on how often you should be getting your cells, whether it be focusing more on TBI and concussions or we have physicians working on other injuries or autoimmune conditions and some other really fascinating conditions that we don't, that traditional medicine cannot heal potentially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's a great point. And so it sounds like, while we might be focused on brain injuries, there could be other ancillary conditions that are treated at the same time. But we could have you know. We know that this is also a possible cause of Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases that can come out. So there's, what about those types of diseases? Are there any research showing improvements in those areas as well? Because, as we deal with older populations of RBE and RHI patients, these are conditions that do start emerging.
Speaker 2:That was a good question. A company I work with, cell Surgical Network, tracks all patient outcomes and has done so for a five-year period, and we've done this since 2012. So this is unpublished data, so take it with a grain of salt, but it's on hundreds of patients. We follow up with our multiple sclerosis patients with a 29-point questionnaire looking at their symptom scores and outcomes. After getting an IV infusion of stem cells, we see symptoms of multiple sclerosis decreased by 52% over a two-year period. That's amazing, so it's pretty significant. Again, these cells are a lot smarter than we are. If we can reintroduce them to a circulatory system, they're basically on a highway to go find inflammation throughout the body and they'll go where it's needed Again, a lot smarter than we are. We work with some amazing doctors and they can drop a needle with cells directly to any spot in the body with pinpoint precision. But if you can't and you can just access a vein, you have a pretty remarkable opportunity to engage in some pretty good healing.
Speaker 3:And Bruce. To Sean's point, the only way this industry moves forward in the United States is through research and documentation, and so we hope, when talking to yourself, wes, such as wide network of TBI and we would love to work with veterans or others that have suffered to start documenting this with the follow-ups, and collect the real data so that you can present it next time on your show, so that people are aware that this is out there and something they can utilize as a tool in their tool chest, potentially help them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, we're always interested in helping put together, you know, grants and programs to help, you know promising modalities like this become more. You know, systematically available Right, and that's you know it's a huge issue for this population. Right, and that's you know it's a huge issue for this population. Now it sounds like you can actually get this done in the States. This is this is. You would be on the show if it wasn't legit, right? So instead of flying overseas and you know, and getting your stuff done there, you know you do have you know FDA approvals or whatever in place to to go ahead and conduct these procedures on patients within the United States.
Speaker 2:So this stuff isn't FDA approved. It's compliant with FDA regulations. And what's interesting and unique is that some people like to say that stem cells are a drug. The reason that that is is because typically, when stem cell research started, it started with embryonic stem cells. So you'd have to take the embryo and you'd have to work with those cells. You'd work them in a lab and they'd be always foreign DNA because you took them from an embryo so that human didn't get born and you'd give them to other people. And that's the typical pharmaceutical model, where you have a uniform product, you make a lot of it and you distribute it to a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Well, this process is entirely different because every single cell line is unique to whoever sent in their cells your cells are for you, kevin's cells are for Kevin, my cells are for me, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Right, so it's a much more individualized process and when you look at the, you know medicine and whatnot. There's not a lot of people that want to invest in personalized medicine unless they can own or patent that process. There's nothing to own or patent. You can't patent a naturally occurring product and your cells and you and you know who you are is naturally occurring. So, while it's not necessarily the best business model, I think it's by far and away the best medical model and medical solution, because it's something that's been worked on for millennia, like I keep alluding to, as opposed to, you know, some brand new chemical that's just going to intervene and mask the symptoms or, you know, maybe get some repair. But this is a natural way that you're supposed to heal and all we're doing is adding a significant amount more of these stem cells back into circulation to help expedite the healing process.
Speaker 3:Talk about getting it here in the US versus internationally.
Speaker 3:It's just, it's completely different service offering.
Speaker 3:When you're going internationally, most likely not using your own cell.
Speaker 3:If you are using a same day procedure to get some of your cells, then often getting a lot of those donor cells which can be going through IV and can be taxing your immune system and maybe not sticking around as long, as Sean mentioned.
Speaker 3:So the biggest difference that you can do here is you can work with a practitioner in the US that can do a mini-lipo procedure. They can give you a same-day stem cell treatment where you could get some cells back that day and if they were utilizing our bank and American Cell Technology, it'd take us eight weeks to grow out those cells and then you'd have access to those cells throughout your life hopefully, and then you could actually stay in the US and get repeat treatments of your own stem cells with your practitioner via IV infusion. And so that is what's critical when tracking these results, because not often are people going to go abroad to continue to get these donor cells over and over again. So now you can start using your own cells, your own DNA, in the US. You do have access to many practitioners that are doing this right here on our home turf.
Speaker 1:I mean this is. I mean we do know that personalized medicine is the forefront of the future. I mean, you know, obviously you know farmer wants to take your procedure and put it in a little pill and give it away for like $250 a pill or whatever their issue is. So I can imagine there's a lot of pushback to it and personalized medicine, like I said, is important. So I do see there's a lot of value in this in the future. As you know, obviously, if DNA is an issue and you know gender is an issue, whatever, I mean nothing's going to work better than you know stuff.
Speaker 1:You know that's been cells that have been harvested from your body. So for the typical patient, it sounds like I mean, you can literally go to a doctor. They can extract these cells and then re-inject them in a part of your body. What do they have to do to the cells? I mean, obviously you just can't pull fat and stick it somewhere. Maybe they can. How do they extract the cells in order to re-inject them in a more concentrated dose in the right part of the body that needs it?
Speaker 2:so good question. Uh, well, first of all, it turns out that your adipose tissue is absolutely loaded with stem cells and, um, you don't need that much fat tissue. Uh, despite some people wanting to donate lots of fat tissue, you don't need that much just about a tablespoon to get a significant quantity of stem cells. Uh, the procedure is wildly easy. I joke it's harder to get my hair cut sometimes than it is to get this mini liposuction. It's 15 minutes. You're wide awake, you lay down on your belly and you know I've got selfies of me getting it done, but yeah, it's virtually painless. You get about that much fat out and the doctors in the clinic can actually separate the stem cells from the fat tissue. So they get rid of the fat tissue and adipocytes and they can just isolate a number of different stem or progenitor cells. So in a typical harvest you could get 50 to 75 million stem cells and you can give them back right away that same day.
Speaker 2:But what's really really cool is you could take another small sample and send it to Kevin. Kevin takes it in his lab at American Cell Technology and puts them in a condition where the stem cells will just naturally self-replicate. And the whole point to all this is it's all a completely natural process. They're not being pushed down any pathways. Nothing's being done to the cells to change your relevant biological characteristics. It's all your cells, from your own body, your own DNA, and in the replication process typical labs want to, you know, push them down a fancy pathway, make them turn into some kind of cells, because they can patent that process and, you know, own it and block people out of their lane. But maybe that's not the best solution medically. So again, let them self-replicate naturally. You can get a huge number of cells and then clinically they're very easy to deploy and give back repeatedly over time.
Speaker 1:What's the primary pushback to this?
Speaker 1:You know, procedure, I mean it sounds amazing. Go to a doctor's office. They can pull some fat, you know, spin it, you know, separate it in a centrifuge or whatever it is, and then re-inject it. I mean, it sounds like it's not surgery, right, you're not going under, you're not. You know, whatever it could be an IV injection it could be, you know it could be a. It sounds like you've got well, number one, the procedure, dialed in. And then, you know, it sounds like from Kevin's perspective. Now, you know, I can harvest my cells in my 20s and keep getting those young cells for the rest of my life. I become an old, damaged old man.
Speaker 1:So what is the pushback from the industry right now, you know, is it the business model? I mean, it sounds like this is something that could be very affordable to, you know, anybody in the country that might have some resource. I mean, right now, for psychedelics, you pay 500 bucks to get a ketamine treat, right, you, you know, you, you know you're going to pay a thousand dollars to go on an ayahuasca ceremony. You know all these things have costs that people are already paying. Hbot therapy, whatever it is. So what? What is the pushback to the your to this? Why is this not available now? What is the pushback to this? Why is this not available now?
Speaker 3:And then what are the costs associated with it, so our audience can understand that, I think.
Speaker 2:Sean and I will have two different views on pushbacks. Let me go find my tinfoil hat.
Speaker 3:first, the initial pushback I would say is lack of education in Bruce and really that is. Folks hear the word stem cells and think all of it's the same. So if you're not educated in understanding the benefits of autologous your own stem cells and knowing that you want to have a certain amount of live or mesenchymal stem cells that come from your own DNA, you might equivalent that to an amniotic fluid that has no live cells and they'll call it stem cell therapy. And so if patients aren't educated on their different options and the benefits of those options, they may see their own stem cells as worse from an amniotic fluid donor. I'll call it growth factor tissue and they're completely different service offerings and what they can do and the benefits. So I think the biggest thing is education, understanding and having these conversations of knowing the benefits of using your own cells with your own DNA and how that can be beneficial for repeat treatments and the safety of it. Shocking of his background on maybe more of his pushback differentially and then we can go into cost too associated.
Speaker 2:Bruce, I'm going to absolutely agree with Kevin. You know, when I first got into stem cell research, everyone thought that stem cells were from embryonic sources, and embryonic sources actually are. There's a moral and ethical issue with them, but they're actually not safe. They can form teratomas and tumors. So that's, you know, nothing that we want to do. We want to make situations better, not worse.
Speaker 2:Ultimately, people found that your own body had stem cells in it, and these stem cells are called adult stem cells. So even if they're from umbilical cord tissue, which is from a baby, those are still adult stem cells. And umbilical cord, till you know, the day you die, there are stem cells floating around in the body. And these stem cells are actually a lot safer. One, they have the potential to have your own DNA and two, they don't form cancer, which is fantastic. So they give us the ability to make things better.
Speaker 2:But then, going back to education, is people think, hey, I have a problem. That's why I'm coming to see my doctor. How could it be that my own body could help me solve this issue? And that's why I'm coming to see my doctor. How could it be that my own body could help me solve this issue? And that's where the education game begins. And people will try and go pull an allergenic or somebody's donor tissue to use to support their recovery, and that's just not the safest way to go about things.
Speaker 2:Despite whatever your age is, despite whatever your ailment is, you have essentially the power within. That sounds pretty corny, but it's true, and your stem cells and your fat are one great source. They're easily accessible and they're generally fairly young and robust. So, again, it's just an education game, and the more that we're able to communicate with people and get this out there, the more the amazing doctors that we work with are able to, you know, perform and advance the research that we're doing. You always want to do something that's incredibly safe, and when it's as effective as it is, that's when it gets wildly exciting. I mean, I feel like with our job, we're showing up to job sites with power tools and everyone else has a screwdriver and a hammer, and I love solving problems, and these stem cells give us an ability to solve medical problems that have gone on for way too long with no decent solution and why, in the educational space, are we not seeing in who we're working with?
Speaker 3:I guess Bruce is private practitioners that are experienced physicians that are looking for alternative treatments where traditional medicine has failed them. If you think about any kid who comes out of med school. You have to go through a hospital system to get your training and most medical school is funded by big pharma or you're shown how to treat via medication. And what happens when you come out of a US medical school? You're burdened with a ton of debt and you take on a high-paying job at a hospital and traditionally accepting insurance money. The US healthcare system is set up for you to want to use your insurance. You're paying a premium for it. You should want to use it Right now.
Speaker 3:Stem cell therapy is not covered by insurance. It's cash pay to using your own cells. So you have to have this great combination of one being willing to pay cash in a pocket to see these practitioners that have sought out stem cell therapy that they were not taught in medical school and you're not forced to go learn about stem cell therapy. It's really these curious physicians that are ultimately looking for the best results for their patients, and not all physicians are looking for that and just like any job industry.
Speaker 3:If I've been doing total knee replacements for 25 years and I'm able to bill insurance and I'm getting decent outcomes and I have a great reputation, why am I looking to push the needle and say status quo? There has to be a drive, and so we're dealing with some of the best physicians across all different specialties that are looking for alternative modalities and are really trying to heal the patient from within a more natural way. And I think we have a ton of great tailwinds as an industry because I think people are starting to wake up and starting to challenge big pharma or status quo and whatever's happened in the past handful of years, and people are really looking for natural alternatives as they start to learn more.
Speaker 1:So I think, as we close this out with RFK in office, I think now is the time, just like we're seeing interest in legislation for RHI and RBE. Time for these types of modalities are actually there Anytime you can take use your own body's resources to improve your natural health is actually a very, very compelling argument, and I want to learn more. I'd like to have you guys back on the show so as we, as we get ready to close out. Kevin, sean, you know, tell, tell our audience. How do they find you? How do they get ahold of you? What are the research or websites they should be looking at, because I think there's going to be a lot of interest in this in this modality, so you know.
Speaker 3:So tell our folks how to get ahold of you. Yeah, hopefully. I'm not sure how the show notes work, but our bank is called American Cell Technology. We're located in South Florida. That's for the adults looking to harvest their stem cells, and we can help partner with practitioners in their area. We have fantastic physicians all over the US from different modalities, depending on what you're looking for, and then separately, what we do have we didn't get into is we have a newborn stem cell banking called Vital Cells, where you can store your baby's day one stem cells at birth from their cobalt cord tissue, where we can do the same process where we isolate the day one mesenchymal stem cells and culture expandexpanding, cryopreserve those baby cells to use throughout their life. So either way, you can reach out to us. Our staff is here on normal work hours and they're happy to answer questions and can always put you directly in contact with me.
Speaker 1:Amazing Sean. It would be like what Kevin said yeah, you can find me through.
Speaker 2:Kevin, my one parting message to the people listening is if you're interested in stem cell therapy and you go see your doctor, uh, just make sure you ask them about data. I mean, if anybody's doing anything legit, they should be working with the database. They should have data that they should be able to report to you and make sure you're using your own cells. It's just the safest, healthiest way to go about things. So that would be my parting message. But there's a lot of opportunity here. It's a wildly exciting field, and brain health I mean. We know more about the moon than we do about the brain and it's time for that to change.
Speaker 1:Great closing statement and I'm all in. I'll be doing a little bit more research in this. Alex has been in touch with me and we're big proponents of anything that can help our veterans. That needs to be studied more Folks. Thank you so much for joining the call today. Another great episode, a lot to learn. Very, very exciting emerging field of science and research I think is going to help and be helpful for a large number of patients suffering from RHI and RBE To our audience.
Speaker 1:Another great podcast. Really appreciate the folks at American Cell Technologies and you stay informed. Remember, go to the website. We have the free book for parents, get on there. We've got an app, smartsafe or SmartHead, on the Apple Store and Google Store. We've got the second annual conference, the only one in the world, on repetitive brain trauma coming up in Tampa September 3rd and 4th. And don't forget our Veterans Town Halls March 28th here in Tampa there's going to be live stream talking about repetitive blast exposure and a whole bunch of other questions we didn't even get into on this call. So anyways, folks, take care of your brains, take care of your kids, stay safe, be informed and God bless. Bruce Parkman, broken Brain, signing out. Thank you.