There is a major educational development for health care providers. On May 28, a first stem cell medicine continuing education course launched internationally in six languages to educate the world. The course is open access to all and free of charge.
Clinicians, nurses, and medical students can access the free, online course on stem cell-medicine developed by the Education Committee of the International Society of Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) with international stem cell experts and accredited and produced by Harvard Medical School.
Stem Cell Medicine: From Scientific Research to Patient Care is an essential educational resource for clinicians, scientists, healthcare providers, those in the nursing fields, medical students, and even the general public, seeking the most trusted and reliable stem cell information.
The course is critical to educate providers on the rapidly evolving stem cell medicine but in turn also to protect patients from the potential physical and financial harms associated with the growing popularity of unproven ‘stem cell tourism’ clinics.
“As a practicing physician, I often hear questions from my patients that reference false claims made by clinics marketing unproven stem cell ‘therapies’ here and abroad,” said course co-leader Dr. Jaime Imitola of UConn School of Medicine and vice-chair of the ISSCR Education Committee. “Our goal is to provide physicians worldwide with trusted and reliable information on stem cells and their applications in a CE format by authoritative sources. This will help clinicians and students guide their patients more effectively and ensure patients are making informed decisions about their health.”
Imitola adds, “This is the first time that stem cell medicine is clearly defined and that we have a course on it. This is an important paradigm shift in medical education, including for clinical practitioners. This course is an introduction to the stem cell field and its potential use in clinical care as we prepare for the future of health care which will soon fully integrate stem cells into patient care given the numerous late phase clinical trials by respected institutions around the world. Stem cell medicine is here to stay and soon stem cell therapy will be established so we need to educate all providers on this promising frontier of medicine,” says Imitola of UConn.
“Dr. Imitola’s work as vice-chair of the ISSCR Education Committee exemplifies the power of collaborative leadership and how it has led to new and exceptional educational opportunities with lasting impact on our field,” said ISSCR President Valentina Greco, professor of Genetics and Cell Biology at Yale University. “Dr. Imitola, in partnership with Dr. Piddini, who chairs the committee, ISSCR team member Dr. Prutton and the whole Education Committee, have worked tirelessly to make the continuing education course on Stem Cell Medicine a reality. Their work is rooted in their collective deep belief of the critical role that education plays in the stem cell field, and the need to present current information in ways that bridge experts across different specialties for the benefit of patients.”
Dangers of Stem Cell Tourism
Imitola, professor of Neurology and vice-chair of research in the Division of Multiple Sclerosis and Translational Neuroimmunology at UConn School of Medicine trained at Harvard Medical School as a stem cell-scientist and has devoted his career to the clinical translation of stem cell research to MS care and education. He established pioneering work on migration of neural stem cells to inflammation and currently studies the impact of the inflammatory environment in neurodegeneration and repair both in the laboratory dish and clinic in MS patients using advanced 3D stem cell cultures or organoids. The scientific knowledge gained can be applied to variety of neurological diseases like brain tumors and was published in PNAS. He has also significantly researched stem cell tourism and its negative impact, since MS patient are often the target of the unproven therapy from ‘stem cell clinics’.”
According to Imitola, around the world during the last 15 years there has been an explosion in stem cell clinics. He has also researched in-depth stem cell clinics exploiting patients in search of hope and cures – and calls it a “state of emergency.”
“The translation of stem cells to patients is very complex and needs real, rigorous scientific research to move to the bedside,” says Imitola. “Stem cell tourism clinics are increasing under the disguise of ‘stem cell’ care – but they are not using stem cells. Plus, whatever cells or unproven therapies they are offering patients for high cost are not being rigorously studied,” stresses Imitola.
“Stem cell clinics are taking ill patients desperately searching for hope for a ride. We need providers, residents and medical students to help their patients avoid exploitation from stem cell tourism clinics. This is an urgent matter; we need to educate providers so they can have evidence-based medical conversations with their patients and be protective of patients,” he says.
As chief of the Division of Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology and director of the Comprehensive MS Center at UConn Health and a neurologist he is motivated to work in this area because he has seen first-hand the negative experience of patients pursuing stem cell tourism clinics. “In our MS Center we have seen the devastating consequences of MS patients receiving unproven therapy, by patients travelling abroad with a great financial impact to them that are desperate for a cure with no benefit, and this is especially hard in our patients with limited resources and medical educational background that we serve,” says Imitola. This was one of his motivations to work in this global ISSCR initiative since 2022.
In 2015 his team published a peer-reviewed perspective in JAMA Neurology raising awareness of the growing issue to begin to educate physicians in his field of neurology and how to help combat it, and a decade later legitimate stem cell products are under investigations and still not formally available to use in the neurology clinic yet, but there are hundreds of stem cell clinics offering unproven cell products. In 2019, he established the MS Program at UConn Health and in 2020, he launched a North America survey after several patients had complications of injections in the spine in stem cell tourism clinics. The survey found patients in the U.S. reported complications from their stem cell clinic “treatments” abroad and in the U.S. Also, most physicians surveyed said they didn’t understand the topic of stem cells and saw a course on stem cells as a necessary tool. The findings were published in Annals of Neurology and this educational project is part of UConn’s mission to educate, research, and provide care and solutions to real-world problems in our community, says Imitola.
“These survey results were a clear alarm that we needed to improve physician education and training in stem cell medicine and teaming with my colleagues at ISSCR and dozens of experts around the world that shared the same concern, we saw that as a tremendous unmet need at the bedside,” shared Imitola. “Now, we have more advanced clinical trials that will place pressure on clinicians to be trained and increase their fund of knowledge to provide information and develop communication skills to talk about stem cell medicine to patients.”
Fast forward to 2025, the comprehensive ISSCR Continuing Education course offers seven modules on the fundamentals of stem cell biology, methodologies and considerations for cell therapy product design and clinical trials, and the rise of unproven stem cell clinics and stem cell tourism. It aims to equip medical students, nurses, and practicing clinicians with tools and strategies for effective patient communication, ensuring that information shared is accurate and impactful.
Development of the course and its materials took Imitola and members of the education committee and collaborating international stem cell scientists from across all five continents two years to create. It will be followed by disease-specific stem cell medicine courses later in 2025.
Also, all courses also offer AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ and American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) contact hours, allowing physicians and nurses to use the earned credits to fulfill their continuing education requirements.
International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), with nearly 5,000 members from more than 80 countries, is the preeminent global, cross-disciplinary, science-based organization dedicated to stem cell research and its translation to the clinic. The ISSCR mission is to promote excellence in stem cell science and applications to human health. Patients and others can learn more from ISSCR at AboutStemCells.org.
