Dr. Christopher Rogers: Stem Cells, PRP, and the Future of Orthopedic Healing

20:40there is a tendency now in the medical community for some clinics to get a little ahead of the science.

20:48Dr. Christopher Rogers:So you'll hear about stem cells from umbilical cord. You'll hear about stem cells from Wharton's jelly. You'll hear about exosomes, which we just talked about. You'll hear about V-cells. I don't know if you've heard about this, V-S-E-L-S or mu cells. Or you'll hear about peptides. We can get on that. Don't go down that road. But the treatment is getting ahead of what the clinical science would support. When I offer you a treatment, when I offer any patient a treatment, I want evidence for safety and I want evidence for efficacy in well-designed clinical trials. We don't have it with those products.

21:31Darin Olien:So there's a lot going on outside of the borders of the United States. For sure. And most of them are umbilical cord or they're some type of cell like this. Correct. And we also know without throwing anyone under the bus, there absolutely have been some tragic challenges with this stuff because of safety and everything else and again jumping steps people really want this to work of course and then as a patient you're desperate right you're in pain things are broken you're you're really wanting this to work and that's where the the pr of stem cells is is out running yes the data right um so you're saying from the umbilical cord side of it number one it's not yours.

22:22Darin Olien:It's not your cells. What inhibits the umbilical cord as of now? What does the science say? So if I get the right kind of cells, can I get the right kind of cells? And what's the plus and minus of not using your own cells? Is there any?

22:44Dr. Christopher Rogers:So I'll make a bold statement. 99.9 % of the people who may be listening to your show or who have gone out and had stem cell therapy are not receiving stem cell therapy like that like i said they are either getting the bone marrow concentrate which has some mscs in it but it's 99 not i'm not saying it's harmful there are some good there's good safety and efficacy data for bone marrow when it's done properly and also for the adipose tissue same day procedure. But for products that come from cells that are not your own, the FDA is very clear that these products cannot be marketed. Patients cannot be treated with them unless they have been proven to be safe and effective.

23:28Dr. Christopher Rogers:And that even goes for the cells from yourself. When those cells are removed from your fat tissue or bone marrow tissue and grown in culture, that whole method needs to be vetted by the FDA before it can be marketed to the public, unless you're, of course, in a clinical trial that's been approved by FDA, or if you have special compassionate use or right to try access. But there are very few companies that have even done a safety study. The company I work for, Personalized Stem Cell, is one of a handful of American companies that has conducted an FDA-approved phase 1, 2A safety study, and that's why we're allowed to offer it to select patients at this time.

24:13Dr. Christopher Rogers:But it still needs full FDA approval before it's widely available to America. Now, if you want to get high doses of stem cells from somebody else, an umbilical cord, placenta, what have you, you need to leave the United States, unfortunately, to go where the FDA has no jurisdiction. And now you're taking additional risk, which we can talk about. And you mentioned there have been cases. I'm personally aware of at least 25, 30 cases of patients becoming infected. I'm aware of people being hospitalized with sepsis. These kinds of things, they're not common, but they do occur. And it has to do, again, with the process not being regulated appropriately for safety.

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28:31Darin Olien:mm-hmm and and and listen so there people have got benefit from going outside of and and what you're saying is for the most part they're not getting a concentration of the stem cells at at the level that we're talking about but they're also getting some some you know a soup of healing like stuff. So they are getting, they could be getting some inflammatory reductions and some healing responses. But again, it's not necessarily safe all the time, nor is it the concentration of the stem cells actually acting upon the injury. Yeah. All this needs to be well studied.

29:17Dr. Christopher Rogers:And And some of the common myths you hear is that if I'm older, I'll be 62 next week. So thank you. You could say, well, your old cells are no good anymore. Well, I'm still breathing. I'm still here. I have patients who are in their 80s and even a couple in their 90s who have been treated with their own cells who get a good clinical benefit. Actually, if you look at the published literature comparing the use of your own cultured stem cells from your own fat tissue to the studies that used a donor's umbilical cord, same patient population, average age 65, severe osteoarthritis, most of these studies, that's what they're looking at.

29:57Dr. Christopher Rogers:The results are actually better when you use your own cells. Now, is that a product of the way the study was designed? I personally think your cells work better with your cells. I think your immune system will attack any foreign DNA, RNA that you inject in your body. And so the dose probably gets reduced from that. There are immune reactions that occur. People get transient elevations in temperature. They may feel sick for a day or two when they get donor stem cells. We're hearing from patients who travel overseas. But the real risk is the infection. And then, of course, the risk that you're getting a treatment that really hasn't been proven to work.

30:35Dr. Christopher Rogers:right that's that could be a complete waste of your time and money yeah the

30:38Darin Olien:safety thing of the things like the chain of custody of where the stem cells are being handled proliferated all of that stuff you're right you're losing track of that stuff then yeah and that's where some people have almost died on the table and it's right crazy crazy events so let's talk about why I was able to do it and why other patients of yours is able and talk about the FDA right to try. Okay. And the, and the, the, the, the, the road that you've traveled to get here, Bob Harmon. Yes. And all of that stuff. Let's, let's talk about how you've gotten here and how you're able to do effective, safe data and maybe where the road is going to continue to go.

31:28Dr. Christopher Rogers:Right. So as you know, I'm a medical director for a company called personalized stem cells the ceo and founder of that company robert harman bob harman a veterinarian and pioneer in stem cell therapy who in 2002 started a company called vet stem so he's a veterinarian so he treated his horse he treated several other horses and then expanded to treating dogs and cats and including exotic animals at the san indigo zoo wild animal park and sea world uh so 20 plus years of history treating at least 30 000 animals not not little rodents in a you know at a university lab but actual patients veterinary patients you know dogs cats horses etc with true diseases over 60 different diseases they've studied and treated wow so and all the time bob is being asked by the owners of the pets hey when or we can have stem cells for us humans.

32:26Dr. Christopher Rogers:And so Bob started the company. I joined him soon after that, along with many others. And we founded this company, Personalized Stem Cells. We used the data and experience, the 20 years of data that we had with the animal research of using stem cell therapy to submit to FDA to get approval to do a human study, a safety study. So we enrolled 40 patients into our clinical trial. These were all patients with severe knee osteoarthritis. And we've now followed these patients for four years. At two and a half years, we basically determined that almost 80 % of them were still happy with the single treatment they had received.

33:06Dr. Christopher Rogers:They had not received repeat treatment. So that was one of just a handful of scientific papers that had been published using stem cells manufactured in this way, in the proper setting. our lab is in San Diego. And when you visit that lab, you'll quickly realize it's state of the art. And 60 % of the effort is spent towards following standard protocols for which FDA is supervising the process. And so this assures safety of the product. It assures that the cell count is known. So unlike our bone marrow or same day fat procedures, we know the dose and it's tested. for sterility. So with this, we then learned that we can apply to treat select patients.

33:59Dr. Christopher Rogers:So if we have a patient, for example, who wants to be in our clinical trials, but for whatever reason does not qualify, we can submit application to FDA for what's called compassionate use or expanded access. So with that safety data, we are allowed as a company to treat select patients with their approval or in the case of patients who have what's called a severely debilitating condition. So in your case, severe knee osteoarthritis debilitated in your function, you have access through a congressionally passed law passed in 2018 to be treated with drugs that are not yet FDA approved, but at least have gone through those safety studies.

34:39Yeah.

34:40Darin Olien:So you're able to here in the United States because listen the fact that I'm just even sitting here without being in pain is proof positive that my back and like that was like huge for me PRP broke severe pain cycle and then the stem cells it's it's like it's been a miracle for me and so because of the safety the 20 years and the safety and efficacy that you've been now on for a while this right to try so what's the next step what's the next step to get it into a wider population this absolutely has to become

35:27Dr. Christopher Rogers:standard of care to get there the next step is to enroll patients in a placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial because that's what's required to satisfy FDA requirements to then proceed to what's called a phase three study. Once you satisfy phase three and show safety and efficacy, then you can submit for an approval by FDA. Now you are an FDA approved drug. Now your physician can become trained in the use of culture expanded stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells to use for those medical conditions which are not responding to standard care. And it will, I mean, our early signal is showing that certainly for knee osteoarthritis and not just our studies, by the way, there are studies from around the world.

36:19Dr. Christopher Rogers:I refer patients to a nice paper that was published last year by COP, C-O-P-P, and it's a meta-analysis of all the randomized clinical trials on the use of mesenchymal stem cells for knee arthritis, basically showing that it's effective, it's safe, and it's regenerating cartilage in most of those clinical trials are showing evidence of that. So if we can reduce the need for joint replacement, meniscus repair, ACL reconstruction, this will be a huge tool for physicians to be able to offer to their patients. So that's where we have to get to.

36:57Darin Olien:Now, what's the most exciting thing that you find with the stem cells and some of the studies? I mean, obviously, you live and breathe this, right? I can tell every time it gets so fun to get treatment from you too because the environment of the office, your excitement around it, like that is also good because it's like the patient like me, for example, I love being there, like that's important. And also I feel safe. Like I feel in all of the things that you've done to do that. Plus, you know, Dr. Robert Kurchkoff, a good friend of ours, you know, she's a badass herself. And so she recommended you.

37:42Darin Olien:And so all of that is created a hell of an environment. So for you, what's exciting? Because you're constantly reading. what are you finding is the most exciting around the stem cell two two areas i would say i mean

38:00Dr. Christopher Rogers:the thing that gets me out of bed every morning is knowing that there is too much suffering in this world physically that we can do something about right so knee osteoarthritis low back pain those are the two biggest disablers in the world right very likely amenable to treatment with mesenchymal stem cells. We're already, we're already seen that in our patients, in studies from around the world, we're already seen that at the same time, an extremely safe treatment. When done properly, the safety is excellent. So to have a treatment that is both safe and highly effective for conditions that significantly impact quality of life.

38:43Dr. Christopher Rogers:Like I know you like to travel. I know you're physically active. I'm the same. I like to hike. I like to travel. My patients are all the same. They want to get back to golfing and pickleball and triathletes. And many of them are professional athletes. So their living depends on being fit and healthy to be able to not just alleviate their symptoms with medicines or cortisone injection to actually heal the injury. like when i when i see some of these tendons a year later i have a uh golfer who's on the champions tour who had a full thickness rotator cuff tendon tear and uh i told him you need surgery because that's standard care you need to have that tendon repaired he says i don't want surgery so he says i want prp i said well prp is not going to be powerful enough for that high grade of a tendon injury so we injected his own fat cells into that tendon and two months later he won a tournament his pain is completely gone and then i saw him in the office just he stopped by to say hi a year later and i said hey can i take a look pull out the ultrasound machine look at that tendon the thing was 90 healed you just don't see that with the current standard of care so the excitement that i have is that we can alleviate a lot of suffering and then the other part is the nerd inside of me just loves learning how nature works like the fact that there's this thing called the stem cell out there that's keeping us alive and healthy to me is just exciting yeah

40:08Darin Olien:there's the cool thing is like you said before these patients like we all have them they're in our body today and they're not going away it's just a matter of finding them and proliferating them and doing it safe which is great because you've given several examples of old older patients in their 80s and all of a sudden sprinting in the parking lot even though they probably shouldn't straight away.

40:32Dr. Christopher Rogers:Retired orthopedic surgeon who's done 20 ,000 plus joint replacements who I treated. Yeah. And then, like you said, he sprints out of the office. Literally. Yeah. He was sore that night, to be fair. But he did, over the course of two months, essentially get rid of his knee pain and hip pain and back pain. And here we are, two years at least, I've done nothing else for him, and he's still doing very well.

40:53Darin Olien:Yeah. The fact that an orthopedic surgeon who's used to doing the car mechanic approach to these pain joints and is not doing that for himself.

41:07Dr. Christopher Rogers:He's very knowledgeable. Matter of fact, he was one of our investigators in our clinical trial. So he understands regenerative medicine. But yes, nice validation when you have orthopedic surgeons who understand how this works. I'm not here to say that we're gonna replace orthopedic surgery because there's definitely a need for that. I'm just suggesting that we might be able to either augment how surgery is done, make patients heal better after their surgery, or in some cases, avoid the surgery altogether.

41:33Darin Olien:Yeah. You know, as you're a part of this emerging medicine and healing, what would you say to people so that they don't fall victim to this? Because listen, it is exciting. Yeah. and it is you can flip this around and the regular patient has no idea the difference between this stem cell or that stem cell or yeah what would you say to them so that they don't because again like you're desperate when you're in pain how how would you tell them to approach their injury or a way to do that so that they don't fall victim to$20 ,000 of something that they hope works.

42:23Dr. Christopher Rogers:There are some key things to look for, and it wouldn't be any different than what you would look for if you were having a plumber come to your house to work on your leaky sink. They should be licensed. You're not going to have the electrician come out and fix your leaky sink. You're not going to have me be your cardiologist. I'm not a cardiologist. I'm not going to do your knee replacement. I'm not an orthopedic surgeon. So you want to find someone who's staying in their lane. I have looked at the websites that you're talking about overseas, and they say, come get your stem cell therapy, and we treat everything from Alzheimer's and autism to Zika.

42:59Dr. Christopher Rogers:That is not the practice of medicine. The practice of medicine is challenging, and there's specialties for a reason. So if you have an orthopedic issue, a knee issue, a back issue, shoulder issue, you're going to seek out perhaps an orthopedic surgeon who has learned about regenerative medicine, learned about PRP and stem cell therapy. I'm board certified and what's called physical medicine, which is essentially non-surgical orthopedic care. Some pain management physicians are trained to do this as well, but you're not going to find an ER physician or an internal medicine doctor who's going to really have the knowledge they need because the single most important factor is that you have an intelligent conversation with your physician about the pros and cons of all your options.

43:49Dr. Christopher Rogers:You know, I have patients who seek me out and they say, I want stem cells for my hip. And we have the conversation. I look at their MRI and their x-ray and examine them. And I determine that their best route is actually to have hip replacement because the hip's just so far gone. It'll be a waste of their time and money to even consider stem cell therapy. That's not true for most patients, but there are some patients where that's the case. So you need someone who understands the space. So find someone who's board certified, preferably fellowship trained. That's more advanced training. It'd be nice if they're inclined towards academics.

44:24Dr. Christopher Rogers:So they may lecture. We have medical conferences around the country. I'm involved in many of those. They may publish clinical papers. They may do scientific research. You know, you want to find that person who's striving for excellence. That's the first thing. so diagnosis accuracy is key and somebody who can manage that diagnosis second would be asking these questions about dosage when you do platelet-rich plasma how many cells are you putting in my joint and how are you determining that are you tracking your outcomes i actually have a database i've we've got 30 000 patients in our database so we track we've been tracking our outcomes for years so i can tell you how does a wrist joint do or how does a thumb do or how does an ankle do with a different treatment protocol um and any any clinic can do this uh and then um the administration of the cells matters so in your case we used ultrasound guidance always when you're injecting a tendon or a joint you're using image guidance so you can see for comfort for safety for efficacy if you're in the spine you're using extra i was talking to a doctor and i won't name the country but it wasn't the us i was talking to a country and he was injecting the spine with umbilical cord stem cells great um i asked him how did you you know what methods did you use did not use x-ray guidance to get into the spine just blind injection there's no way the standard of care is to use image guidance so there's that to look for and then finally make sure they're not offering things that are technically illegal if they're offering you Wharton's jelly no thank you umbilical cord blood no thank you exosomes no thank you these are regulated by the FDA go to the FDA website you'll read all about it you have to use your own

46:13Darin Olien:cells I mean that's huge those are some good takeaways hopefully that people can like kind of get through some of the the noise and and there's so much noise yeah you know and And, you know, weirdly, I've been kind of lightly connected to stem cells for so long. And I know enough to see red flags of it must make you nuts in one respect. It's putting it mildly. Because you're following a safe and conservative approach of data and science, which is good. But there is just, I mean, Utah has less regulation. And so there's a lot, I don't know what's going on there, but there's some, I guess, a little more activity, pun intended.

47:28Darin Olien:So when you see, you know, I think even now, like social media and the net. Okay, everybody, are you ready to upgrade your operating system? I know I am. I'm always game to do that. Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. That's what we're doing over at Super Life Patreon. This isn't just behind-the-scenes membership. It's a global experiment in conscious living that I am connected to, committed with, in every cell of my body. Each week, you'll get exclusive access to deeper podcast conversations, extended interviews, voice notes from the road of me personally, personal reflections, behind-the-scenes footage, community wellness challenges, and even surprise drop-ins that I no longer do on social media because I don't really dig it anymore.

48:28Darin Olien:We're talking decentralized healing, reclaiming sovereignty, ancient wisdom meets future tech, and a tribe of people with you walking the path. If you love this podcast, the Patreon is where we go deeper, get more real, and reclaim our power together. Join us at patreon.com forward slash Darren Olean. That's Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com forward slash Darren Olin, D-A-R-I-N-O-L-I-E-N. Join the movement, support the mission. Let's rise together. You know how many times a stem cell doctor, the cutting edge stem cell doctor, has reached out to me to be on a podcast? You know, and it's like, and it undercuts your work.

49:20Dr. Christopher Rogers:It may, it may. It may. The patients who I see, I have to say, are very well-informed. They're very, like you, they're educated. We read papers together, scientific papers. I mean, this is the scientific method. It's slow. It's exciting, but it's slowly exciting. There's not a lot of hype. You know, if I stand on the podium and present the results of my clinical paper, my peers take me to task if I have flaws in my methodology or if they have questions, they ask me. That's the scientific method. We should be critical. We should rely on the data to tell us what's safe, what's effective, also what's cost-effective.

50:01Dr. Christopher Rogers:There are cases where the less expensive treatment is the more appropriate treatment for the patient because it's cost-effective. But, yes, it does drive me nuts fundamentally because I value my profession. I've always wanted to be a physician since I was 13. I have a lot of respect for my peers who are pursuing excellence, whether it's research or teaching. And to see some healthcare providers abuse the privilege, the trust that patients put into them. In some cases, just being naive. They don't know. They're not at that point in their learning curve where they know the truth. the doctor doesn't know the doctor correct yeah so they're not lying to the patient they just they just they're they're understanding you know maybe a rep from some company who's bottling umbilical cord cells goes to the doctor shows up buys them lunch and then says hey you can offer this to your patients and the doctor gets excited because they want to help patients but it's the doctor's responsibility to understand what's safe what's effective how to administer the care appropriately and by the way what's legal and what's not legal like that's all on the doctor to know that and there are many cases where the doctor does know that um our our academies are very vocal and we educate each other all the time about what's appropriate what's not appropriate and so there's really no reason for a true regenerative medicine expert to not know what's what's legal and what's not legal and to to take advantage of a patient's trust um does bother me you know if you look at you know yeah you have to follow the the protocols and safety

51:45Darin Olien:and things take time and you know if you look at five to ten years what does that look like to you what what what yeah what are you you know if you're still kicking ass and and treating people What do you see as this stem cell thing evolves?

52:08Dr. Christopher Rogers:I think our company, Personalized Stem Cells, will be, if not the first, one of the first to get a FDA approval for a stem cell therapy, specifically in orthopedic indications. That's our lane. We haven't even talked about all the other possible uses of stem cells. I'm deliberately not talking about them because even though I'm familiar with the use for neurodegenerative disease, diabetes, heart disease, you name it. That's one of the other very exciting things about stem cell therapies. When done properly, there are many things, many medical conditions, which may be amenable to this kind of product, this treatment.

52:45Dr. Christopher Rogers:However, that's not my lane.

52:46Darin Olien:So my lane - But each one of those lanes takes a high level of scrutiny and science as well.

52:53Dr. Christopher Rogers:And millions of dollars of research. I mean, I don't think people understand. Again, you know, it may take us$10 million to do a phase two study of 200 patients. Half will get or a third will get placebo. The other two thirds will be treated. And that's the kind of science that needs to be done to meet that high bar that allows the FDA to approve a product for use in the marketplace. And yeah, getting ahead of the FDA is just is not wise and not fair to patients, especially when there isn't data to support that it is helpful.

53:27Darin Olien:Yeah, so five to ten years, you know.

53:30Dr. Christopher Rogers:We'll have an FDA-approved product. Like I said, we need to keep training. We are training physicians how to diagnose and treat using cell therapy, orthobiologics, not just cultured stem cells but PRP and others. The other thing I think that you've done and I've done is today, any person who has an extra couple of tablespoons of fat on them can have that fat collected by a plastic surgeon or by me or a physician trained in doing mini liposuction type procedure. And in that two tablespoons of fat, it's about a million stem cells. Those stem cells then go to our licensed lab and culture expanded and grown to tens of millions and then bottled for potential future use and having that having that first aid kit that's preserved in hibernation at your current age and health level 5 10 15 years from now is huge you know people bank their children's umbilical cord yeah uh cells they rarely get used fortunately because for a child to be able to use their umbilical cord they have to have you know horrible disease leukemia lymphoma something that's been FDA, a condition for which their cells have been approved to be used for.

54:52Dr. Christopher Rogers:So, but that's the feature. That's the feature to bank, bank yourselves while you're young, while you're healthy, train physicians how to use these cells to treat disease.

55:01Darin Olien:And that can be done now. It's happening now. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the cool thing is because, you know, if you can identify and get the right and it's the procedure is nothing, right? The lipoaspiration. You've had it done. I've had it done. It's super easy. and now my stem cells are safely banked. So like the Swiss army life of the ability to heal is there and it's not lost because again, it was like, oh, I gotta get my umbilical cord or my child's umbilical cord. But in truth, the stem cells can be - It's the same cell. The same cell.

55:35Dr. Christopher Rogers:It's the same cell. Yes, a little bit older. Yes, it's been exposed to a couple of glasses of wine and maybe a couple of chocolate cakes over the year, but it's still highly functional. and those cells will remain in cryopreservation for decades and still remain viable for use later on. And then going, oh my God, 10 years, who knows what we'll have. We may be able to genetically modify these cells to be specifically targeted for Parkinson's disease or for diabetes or for knee arthritis, what have you. We'll let the smart people at the major institutions figure that out.

56:09Darin Olien:Yeah, so I mean, back in the day, this was over a decade ago, i think already uh when i met dr henry young and then the um dr neil spite was the md out of north carolina um and they were going down the road and i don't know where they're at now because i haven't talked to them in a long time but they talked about some of the stuff and and where where are we at with systemic use because because if you take this idea that the stem cells are intelligent right and you systemically give your body billions right like say we put it in the blood live forever right yeah well it will track down the activation side of of what the body needs where have you watched that and where where are we at with that do you think that that's coming

57:05Dr. Christopher Rogers:So again, the use has exceeded the rate of scientific advancement. So for example, we know there are people who travel overseas and get an infusion of 100 million whatever umbilical cord cells. Or maybe it's their own cells. Maybe they've banked their cells overseas. Whether or not that promotes longevity, that's going to take a 30 or 40 year clinical trial to know the answer to that question. However, there are early signals that it may be beneficial. For example, there are studies where patients in clinical trials here in the US will have cells administered intravenously. In some cases, their own cells.

57:49Dr. Christopher Rogers:In other cases, it's from a donor. And you can see changes in the immune status. You can see changes in the inflammation markers in the blood. They're transient. They may only last three to six months, but you can envision a future where you, every six months, you get your cells infused and you just maintain this homeostasis in your immune system that inhibits potential development of autoimmune disease. Who knows? This has to be further studied. I'm not saying we're there now, but there are for sure, for sure, there's evidence that these cells do modulate your immune system when they're infused intravenously.

58:27Dr. Christopher Rogers:Now, what they don't do, what I've heard some people say, is you infuse them intravenously, and they're going to find their way to your arthritic knee and go to work on the knee. And then they're, oh, by the way, they're also going to go to your rotator cuff on the other side. That does not happen. But they do release molecules in the bloodstream that may diffuse into those tissues. So again, it's an area of interest that we have at personalized stem cells. We actually did a study. So you remember this little thing happened in early 2020. called a pandemic. And our CEO, Bob Harmon said, Chris, I want you to go learn everything there is to know about COVID.

59:06Dr. Christopher Rogers:Well, I'm a orthopedic, you know, doctor, I'm not a pulmonologist, critical care pulmonologist. So, but fortunately we had access to critical care pulmonologists. We had access to stem cell researchers in Asia who were a few months ahead of us with the pandemic. and they were already beginning to study the effects of intravenous stem cells, in this case for a donor. They didn't have time to collect the cells and grow them. So we submitted to FDA to get an approval. We had a cell line. We had stem cells from a donor already screened and being used in other research uses. So we submitted to FDA to use those cells in an FDA-approved clinical trial.

59:48Dr. Christopher Rogers:And we partnered with a UC San Francisco hospital in Fresno with a critical care pulmonologist and treated a number of patients who were severely ill, had severe COVID. Many of them had failed multiple other treatments. Many of them were intubated. Happy to report every single patient survived, went home without oxygen. So why did it work? Well, as you know, there was this thing called a cytokine storm. When your body was exposed to this virus, your immune system would react to this new foreign object with an overreaction that would cause severe lung damage as well as other peripheral vascular issues.

1:00:30Dr. Christopher Rogers:And the stem cells had the ability to mediate that and moderate it. And so we published the paper suggesting why stem cells might be useful for COVID. And then we got the approval from the FDA to run the clinical trial. Another company ran the trial for us and we had good outcomes. So there will be use for intravenous use of stem cells for a host of different conditions, not the least of which viral pneumonia.

1:00:55Darin Olien:Wow. That's cool. I had no idea. Yeah. Let's touch on the cancer side of things because cancer is opportunistic. It's angiogenic. It really wants to proliferate. So if you're feeding the body full of the wrong situation or stem cells, how does the body differentiate and how does the cancer potentially differentiate between using those stem cells for its own benefit?

1:01:26Dr. Christopher Rogers:That's a great question. Yeah, that was my earliest concern, even with PRP, platelet-rich plasma, because we're thinking, hmm, these cells are manufacturing growth factors that are stimulating cells to divide and to grow. and like you say, to create new blood vessels and all the things that a tumor would love. And in animal models, in rodent studies, or even in the Petri dish, you can see that indeed these growth factors do cause cancer cell proliferation. Fortunately, the human body is infinitely more complex than a Petri dish and infinitely more complex, perhaps even than a mouse. And so in every clinical trial that I've ever read where stem cells were infused intravenously or injected into a joint or injected into a tendon, there's no increased incidence of cancer in those patients.

1:02:17Dr. Christopher Rogers:And some of the studies go out 15 years. Wow. One of the most impressive was a study where women with breast cancer had undergone mastectomy and they had scarred chest tissue and they were hoping to have a plastic surgeon modify that tissue. And so the procedure involved a fat transplant, we'll call it, and augmented with the patient's own culture-expanded stem cells to help that tissue be viable and heal better. And there was no increased incidence in breast cancer recurrence rate. So there's one example where we showed safety, where not me, but those scientists showed safety. So my belief is that it's very unlikely that we will see increased incidence of cancer with using your own stem cells for sure and the data so far is bearing that out wow you were talking like one study you brought up

1:03:15Darin Olien:a while back was because i love it when you tell these fun stories of how powerful this potentially could be and you're talking about an acl that was i think it was fully torn yes and there was stem cells injected in it and and it's not you know there's a the body is fluid right it's in the capsules it's like everything else so but we think of it as cadaver like we think of it as just this thing but it's a soup of all kinds of activities so what is that tell us that study where a focus i blew my ac all before So when I hear things like that, I'm like, wow, that's incredible. Tell us about that.

1:04:00Dr. Christopher Rogers:Something I would not have expected, right? So I've treated thousands of partially torn tendons, partially torn ligaments. And when you look on MRI and when you look on ultrasound, the structure is largely intact, but there's a defect. And when you inject cells, like yours, right? Yes. And so you see that defect, you can inject under guidance into that defect. and the cells can have a healing effect. And over time, you see that defect get smaller and smaller and smaller. It takes longer than any of us want. It may take six months for that to heal, but it does heal. Whereas in the past, you would just live with it the rest of your life.

1:04:36Dr. Christopher Rogers:So that's part of the excitement for me as a physician to actually help patients to heal. It's pretty remarkable. But in cases where the structure is completely disrupted, my training, my years of working with orthopedic surgeons would have said, let's just sew that back together. And in many cases, that's the right thing to do. But Chris Centeno, who I don't know if you've heard of him, another physiatrist who was the first in the US to use bone marrow cells, so not cultured cells, but to use bone marrow aspirate concentrate, has published a very convincing paper where patients with complete separation of their ACL were able to completely heal that ACL.

1:05:19Darin Olien:It would come back together and heal.

1:05:22Dr. Christopher Rogers:It may be just unique to that ligament because it is somewhat encapsulated. And so there's a way for tissue and fluids and cells to communicate with each other. But those results were unexpected. And again, that was with a very low dose. It's not even a stem cell product. It's your bone marrow. So these are the frontiers that my colleagues are exploring. I mean, I'm not the only doctor doing research. Obviously, we have hundreds of colleagues who are doing amazing work and showing evidence of regeneration of cartilage, regeneration of tendon, regeneration of ligament, bone, you know, bones that have trouble healing sometimes.

1:06:03Dr. Christopher Rogers:So to me, the exciting thing is we're in our infancy. You know, the stem cell was discovered in the late 80s. That's still considered early. And yet the results have been quite good. Like in our study, you know, 80 % of patients two and a half years later are still satisfied with the progress they made with their their severe knee osteoarthritis so you know what does the future hold you can only imagine yeah and and the cool thing is it's the

1:06:29Darin Olien:when you have a high level of pain yeah it's really hard to function yeah god dang like i i I like, again, I had 30 years of a back injury. I had, you know, blown ACL and reconciled. I mean, I don't know if I told you, I dislocated this thing. Yeah, I think I told you because I was like 27 years old. So I was out of college, but I didn't have insurance and I couldn't get the surgery right away. So I was, of course, active and I dislocated and pop it back in. It was just a lot of damage. Yes, yeah. And then 1998 had the surgery and we can see. And the cool thing about, you know, again, the procedure with you is like you and I are both looking at the screen.

1:07:21Darin Olien:You're showing exactly where you're going, what you're doing. You took out a bunch of inflammation in there. And then I'm seeing flaps of like some of my damage. And then you're going right into the stem cells. it's it's it's it's kind of incredible what what you know you're doing and what the capabilities are so i think the the the future is is really exciting but again the the the the debilitation of knees and back as being like the number one challenge that people are having because probably our lifestyle we're sitting on these damn chairs all the time we're in cars and we're all this weird stuff we're not squatting with our knees to our ears and anymore we're yeah we've created

1:08:15Dr. Christopher Rogers:a lifestyle that is not amenable to healing and actually is promoting injury uh and you can see some of these movement patterns uh early uh decades before symptoms actually happen so for example sitting at your computer for an hour or two there's a tendency for your shoulders to come forward, your head to come forward, that puts extra stress on your neck, your discs, that puts extra stress on your rotator cuff. You do that for 10, 20 years. It's no surprise that eventually you're going to present with symptoms. And you're right. This experience of pain and limited function, it's, it's a bummer.

1:08:50Dr. Christopher Rogers:Like I had a herniated disc, actually two herniated discs in my neck. I was on the ground for 90 days. I couldn't work. I couldn't drive. I've never been so debilitated in my life. fortunately i recovered um you know people but i yeah i do and um but yeah i'd like to see everybody get access to this high level of care this this but you know done in the right way and uh and only done when necessary not not not done when it's unnecessary if someone is listening

1:09:20Darin Olien:and they may fall into the category of ham and pain and they maybe the prp can work or they they could fall under the same category of me as as uh fda is right to try yes where can they

1:09:35Dr. Christopher Rogers:find you and thank you um so a medical director for a company called personalized stem cells so there's a website there we have a network of about 20 30 doctors from who are around the country these are all people who are at the top of their game they're researchers educators they've been physicians for more than 20 years they understand regenerative medicine those are the physicians we're working with that we've allowed access to culture expanded stem cells, which otherwise physicians do not have access to. Um, they're also our investigators for our FDA approved clinical trials. Um, so that's one, one option.

1:10:10Dr. Christopher Rogers:And then, um, of course I'm in San Diego. So if patients want to come see me, I'm at San Diego Orthobiologics Medical Group, uh, SDONG.com. and there's three physicians now that work in that practice. But we have friends all over the world. So wherever you are, feel free to reach out to me. I'm happy to connect you to quality physicians. And we try to generate educational content regularly. So we have our little YouTube channel. Every month we share information with people. So there's lots of ways to get information. I just think it's important that patients understand that there's things that we as physicians are allowed to do in the United States.

1:10:53Dr. Christopher Rogers:There are things that are not yet ready for prime time because they haven't been tested for safety, first and foremost, and then also for efficacy. But with a well-trained physician, the results are exceeding my expectations.

1:11:09Darin Olien:Yeah, so I think the big takeaways are if you have doctors giving willy-nilly exosomes and stem cells and shooting them into you like that in the United States or almost anywhere, you should.

1:11:27Dr. Christopher Rogers:Well, there are some legitimate overseas clinics. The problem is you're now outside the United States. You're not protected by FDA. You're not protected by the U.S. legal system. You're not protected by the state medical board. And frankly, you know, when I treat you, I evaluate you, determine whether or not you're even a candidate. And then we're going to have a relationship for the next year as you go through this healing journey, which you cannot really do when you travel overseas. You can't have that follow up. And so that's that's all part of it.

1:11:59Darin Olien:Well, big shout out to personalized stem cells and Dr. barb harman of course our good friend uh barbara kurchkoff and and all the people that have allowed you and inspired you yes to do your work and and i'm just i'm grateful number one uh i'm grateful for not being in pain as i sit here today as a result of the work and i'm grateful for the the the inspiration that you are also leading in this place because you're clearly passionate about this and that really does a lot. And the clinic experience is great. I love all the people working with you, and it's been a great experience. And I'm in the process of healing, so I'm stoked.

1:12:47Dr. Christopher Rogers:It's a joy to watch, and I appreciate the privilege to help you. We have so many cool people coming through our doors. They've done amazing things in their lives, and now they just want to continue to be active and pain-free, and to be part of that is, I'm grateful for that.

1:13:01Darin Olien:about so i'm gonna go sprint in the parking lot thank you doc appreciate it thank you