MDFc19

MDFc19 is an acronym for Mesenchymal Derived Factor Complex Nineteen, and abbreviated at time to MDFc19, where the 19 refers to the clinically defined and tested version of the complex. It is an active ingredient complex derived from Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells.
Understanding the role of Mesenchymal Stem Cells
There are many types of human adult stem cells located in all of our organs that provide a variety of functions in maintaining, replacing, and healing the multitude of different cell types in the human body. One of the most important types of Adult Stem Cells is the Human Mesenchymal Stem Cell or MSC for short. It circulates in the blood and is located in all of our tissues. Normally it waits in a restful state until stimulated by signals resulting from damage or changes in the body from different types of diseases or disorders. Upon this proper signaling, the Human Adult MSC’s begin to multiply and release different signals to bring in other inflammatory and immune cells to aid in the battle. The MSC’s can also differentiate or change into many different types of cells important to the structure and function of the body. They can differentiate into bone, cartilage, skeletal muscle, tendons, heart muscle, and fat cells. In addition to these cell types, MSC’s can also develop into all of the different types of blood cells as well as the blood vessels.
It is also important to understand what the MSC’s are not able to do. They cannot make skin, nerve, or brain cells and are not able to make the different organs in the body such as liver and kidneys. Most importantly, the MSC’s are definitely not the same as Human Embryonic Stem Cells (ESC’s) that are the cause of a great deal of controversy. Human ESC’s can be produced in the test tube from human eggs that are fertilized in vitro by human sperm that can then grow into small spherical structures (blastula) that contain a small number of undifferentiated ESC’s. Only if these blastula are successfully implanted into the uterus, can the undifferentiated ESC’s then differentiate into a human fetus that is capable of growing into a fully developed human. If ESC’s are implanted directly into adult tissue, they form tumors. MSC’s cannot form fetuses or tumors when implanted into the body. MSC’s are limited in their differentiation only to the formation of the tissues shown in the table above and then only under very specific conditions and signals.
Human Clinical Trials Injecting Adult Human MSC’s for Treating Diseases and Disorders
Currently, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has approved over 290 clinical trials taking viable adult human MSC’s from donors and permitting their injection into humans suffering from a large variety of diseases and disorders. One of these approved studies is injecting human MSC’s into the veins of people with recent heart attacks and finding that those receiving the MSC injections have a 50% reduction in permanent damage and function of the heart after the attack compared to those that only received saline injections. Injecting these Adult Human MSC’s from one donor into humans with different diseases without using immunosuppression is possible due to the fact that these unique stem cells do not express human transplant antigens on their surfaces. Thus, the recipient’s immune system does not recognize them as foreign and accepts them as their own cells. After injection these MSC’s go about their business of recognizing damaged tissues and attempting to repair them. While it may be possible that the injected MSC’s can differentiate into the cells needed to replace the damaged ones, the effectiveness of this MSC differentiation during repair is not entirely clear. But it is certainly well accepted that the injected MSC’s release an impressive amount of different types of bioactive molecules that can clearly be aiding the repair and recovery of the different types of tissue damage. These bioactive substances released by MSC’s while they are expanding and responding to the tissue damage include a variety of cytokines, anti-oxidants, pro-angiogenic factors, and growth factors. In addition, they release substances that limit stress responses and reduce signals that cause the damaged cells to go into controlled cell death or apoptosis. The summation of this varied MSC response to damaged and diseased tissues through the release of such a variety of “healing” substances stimulates researchers to try to discover and identify these agents that may eventually be utilized as specific drugs. Until that happens, the MSC’s will continue to be implanted into patients in ongoing clinical trials.
Discovery and History (MDFc-19) and its role in Skin Care
Dr. Scharp postulated that when rapidly growing adult human MSC’s in the laboratory, one may simultaneously stimulate the formation and release of a number of these so far un-identified critical factors into the culture media used to grow the MSC’s. Thus, the concept of MDFc-19 was developed and tested as the basis to provide these important compounds as a critical supplement for skin care. Adult human MSC’s were grown in a proprietary medium at Scharp Technologies. Under controlled conditions, the MSC’s were removed, and the conditioned medium is combined into lots containing equal quantities of the growth condition variables. This conditioned medium is then added to skin care formulations. Safety testing was completed without evidence of toxicity. A number of different trials in patients have also been completed, demonstrating a clear response on small winkles, skin thickness, UV light damage, hyperpigmentation, age related changes, and other parameters. To determine that the cause of these clinical results are due to the MSC released factors, a number of tests are in progress in the laboratories of Scharp Technologies in Irvine, CA. These tests include growing human dermal cells and skin cells in different media including the conditioned medium, MDFc-19, and appropriate control media to determine their effect on these cells and their products. They also include growing human dermal stem cells and skin stem cells in MDFc-19 and control media to determine direct effects on these stem cells of the skin. A collaborative research program is underway with Evan Snyder, MD, PhD, of the Sanford Consortium of Regenerative Medicine at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in La Jolla, CA to identify the markers and genes involved in the MSC’s while producing the un-identified components of MDFc-19. The final goal is to isolate and purify the most potent of the active components of MDFc-19.

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