Chaophya Hospital, in collaboration with a leading biotechnology firm, TheraVitae, is now
offerring state-of-the-art cell therapy for end-stage ischemic heart patients for the first time
in Asia. Using autologous cell therapy, circulating adult stemcells harvested from the patient's own blood, the cells are separated from other blood cells and greatly expanded in
number in the laboratory using GMP manufacturing standards.
  Approximately one week later these cells, called angiogenic progenitor cells or APC's for
short, are re-infused back into the blood vessels supplying blood flow to the heart muscle.
The injected cells migrate out of the blood vessel's lumen and take hold in the ischemic muscle region where they stimulate the formation of new blood vessels to bring more blood flow to the needy heart muscle fibers.
 In addition to being precursor cells for blood vessels, some of the APC's are known to also morph into cardiac muscle cells, fuse with heart muscle fibers and seecrete cytokines, molecules that provide the homing signals to recruit other cells and molecules to help rejuvenate the function of heart muscle. In this case, the APC's transfused are expected to turn into or stimulate the formation of new blood vessels.