Dr. Joy Kong explains differences and complementary roles of stem cells and exosomes in regenerative medicine. She emphasizes that stem cells produce exosomes and provide adaptive, tailored, and sustained therapeutic effects (cells live ~1–3 months; overall stem-cell effects ~3–6 months), while manufactured exosomes offer a shorter, more limited (anti-inflammatory, BBB-penetrant) effect (~1–3 months). In her practice she often uses exosomes together with stem cells.
Questions this video answers
About 1–3 months.
About 3–6 months.
About 1–3 months.
Chapters
People have heard a lot about exosomes, and it's kind of all of a rage right now because people are saying, oh, now you can use exosomes. You don't have to use cells. The exosome is how the cells work and it's going to do everything. So on one hand, I think exosomes are a great addition to regenerative medicine and has helped a lot of people. There's quite a bit of research around it. The problem is that it's not the full picture of cell therapy, because stem cells is what is producing the exosomes. So stem cells are the mothers of exosomes. So instead of using the mother that's able to produce lots of exosomes and produce the kind of exosomes that your body actually need especially for you. And at that time, not in a petri dish, not when the cells is put in a culture medium, allowed to spew out all these exosomes without any particular stimuli, right? When we put stem cells in a human's body, the stem cells will start to secrete exosomes, depending on that body at that time, what is needed. That's the intelligence behind the cells. That's why stem cell therapy is so exciting, because the DNA has the capability to respond to the environment. So once the DNA inside the cells get into the recipient's body, it can sense the cell. You know, the cell has the apparatus to sense what is necessary. And the cells will spit out relevant exosomes. So that particular more tailored healing can happen. Whereas if you get it from a manufactured or lab source of exosomes that was made in a culture medium, then it has kind of one track mind, right? It doesn't have the ability to adapt. So that's something you need to remember when the cells live in the body. When I give somebody stem cells, the cells will live in the body three months. And during that time, the cells will continue to send out exosomes, because that's how it works, how it communicates with the recipient, right? Send out these exosomes that's more tailored to the body and continuously, not just one batch. That's why exosome therapy, usually the effect lasts for about one to three months, where stem cell therapy, it lasts for three to six months. That's in general, because the cells live for about one to three months, and this effect, which mainly are the exosomes, will produce effect for another three months or so. The other thing that we're not looking at is that the cells produce more things than just exosomes so we think, oh, the cells communicate by exosomes, but it communicates by spitting out growth factors and, you know, other signals directly outside of the cells. So it can communicate via mechanisms, more than just exosomes. And it also can spit out things like mitochondria, which is I, my favorite because mitochondria, everyone's talking about how mitochondria health is so crucial and how it declines as we age. But if I give somebody fresh new stem cells from an umbilical cord right from, from the birth tissue, then these cells have very, very early, very young mitochondria. Not contaminated, not degraded, fully vibrant. And the new cells actually can send out these mitochondria very different ways. Um, one of the ways is that the mitochondria will actually walk on this microtubule between the donor cell and the recipient cell. So the recipient cell ends up getting fresh new mitochondria that it's gonna elevate their energy. So that has been documented. So the stem cells can do so much more than exosomes. Exosomes can be helpful, which is why I use it in my practice. But I don't use it alone, I use it in conjunction with stem cells because the stem cells is going to give you the intelligence behind what kind of exosomes to give you and give you a sustained response. But the exosomes is very anti inflammatory. So if somebody has a lot of inflammation, I tend to add some exosomes. If somebody has brain condition, the exosomes are so tiny, they're nanoparticles. They can cross the blood brain barrier and get to your brain right away. The stem cells, the mesenchymal stem cells can cross a blood brain barrier, but at much less extent. So if I can give people a lot of exosomes and get across and get the signals into the brain, that's very helpful. So those are a couple of incidents that I do, you know, advocate the use of ex.
