Professor Dimitrios Karussis, Senior Neurologist at the Hadassah Medical Center, and Professor Shimon Slavin, former head of Hadassah’s Bone Marrow Transplantation Unit and founder of the International Center for Cell Therapy and Cancer (ICTC) at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, have received the “International Adult Stem Cell Research and Therapeutic Treatments Award 2008″ from the Worldwide Center for Adult Stem Cell Education (WCASCE).

This first award of its kind recognizes the professors’ achievements in adult stem cell clinical work and therapeutic treatments. WCASCE, based in Dallas, Texas, with offices in Washington, D.C. and Bangkok, Thailand seeks to promote knowledge about the potential of adult stem cells for diagnosing, treating, curing, and preventing disease.

According to Donald Margolis, WCASCE Chairman and Founder, “Profs. Slavin and Karussis are the first in the world to try to help multiple sclerosis and amyotropic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients by injecting their spinal fluid with large numbers of adult stem cells (mesenchymal stromal stem cells), taken from their bone marrow and multiplied in culture. Some of the patients’ conditions have improved or stabilized in Phase I and II clinical trials.”

“Israel,” says Margolis, “should be recognized for being in the vanguard of adult stem cell innovations.”