As we have been discussing, biomarkers are important to help us understand and treat Autism. Cell-El Ltd is dedicated to finding the biomarkers that we need with greater precision and accuracy. Well ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, families affected by ASD have known the pain of economic and social isolation, and now face even greater challenges. Despite the ongoing challenge of COVID-19, Cell-El Ltd remains single-minded in our efforts and focused on advancing our research.
We are initiating a new blog to share more with you about what we are all about and where we see things heading. We also really want to hear from you about your greatest challenges and concerns relating to ASD testing and therapies.
In some ways, we are just beginning to understand the underlying biology of ASD. At the same time we are living in exciting times, with increasing promise for ASD therapies including among them, Autologous Mesenchymal Stem Cell (MSC) Therapy, Microbiota Transplant Therapy or MTT also known as FMT (Fecal Microbiota Transplantation), Medical Cannabis and others.
While medical centers around the world explore a range of treatments for individuals with ASD, our focus is to first understand exactly what is biologically dysfunctional prior to treatment, to confirm what they actually treated, and what has changed.
Moreover, there is currently no reliable laboratory test to confirm the diagnosis. When an individual is diagnosed with ASD, the diagnosis is made primarily on the basis of behavioral symptoms alone – literally checking boxes of stereotypical ASD behaviors – a time consuming and expensive process, little changed over the last 40 years.
Here at Cell-El Ltd we are focused on developing critical diagnostic tools – based on key markers in blood, stool and urine unique to ASD and providing a precise, scientific basis for ASD diagnosis. We trust that this will reduce the delay and uncertainty associated with diagnosis of ASD, and can possibly serve as a basis for validating and/or developing effective medical treatments.
Cell-El Ltd is also interested in better ways to validate ASD treatments, i.e., to test a child both prior to a specific treatment as well as post-treatment to better understand both the condition and the effects of the treatment on a biomedical level.
We trust that this understanding may enable doctors both to diagnose Autism at an earlier age and intervene at the core level of the condition in a much more effective way.
Help Us Help You
Better diagnostics for ASD based on laboratory-measured objective biomarkers can possibly enable researchers and clinicians to provide more precise and personalized treatment. You too can make a difference in the lives of children with ASD and their families by joining the Cell-El study. Cell-El is recruiting for two of our study cohorts. We are recruiting mothers, and their infants aged 10-19 months who have not been diagnosed with ASD but who have a sibling diagnosed with ASD. Cell-El is also recruiting children diagnosed with ASD between the ages of 2-18 years old whose parents are planning to take them privately to a clinic offering Stem Cell treatment for ASD.
Please contact Leah at [email protected] or fill out the form to find out about eligibility to participate in our diagnostic study and please help spread the word about the Cell-El study. Sharing our study will enable our important biomarker diagnostic tool to be integrated into autism treatment as quickly as possible.