VSELs – State of the Art Regen Med or Fairy Dust?
By Chris Centeno, MD There has been a two-decade-long debate in Regenerative Medicine concerning tiny stem cells. I had largely forgotten about these Very Small Embryonic Like (VSEL) stem cells until a patient came into the clinic claiming that he had been treated with them. So what is this and why should we care? Let’s dig in. What Are VSELs? The idea behind Very Small Embryonic Like (VSEL) stem cells is that they are small and like embryonic stem cells, they can differentiate into many different cell types. They are supposed to be produced largely in the bone marrow but can mobilize from there into the blood under certain circumstances. VSELs were discovered by a professor at the University of Louisville and in humans, they are about the size of a red blood cell (7 nm) (1). I was first introduced to the concept of these cells way back in about 2008 because the company I was consulting for (Neostem) had a contract to work on VSEL research with the lead researcher in this area, Dr. Rat...