74: The Future of Medicine May Not Be Medication - How Stem Cells and Regenerative Therapy Are Changing Healing with Dr. Karolynn Halpert

Today we are having a unique and exciting, inspiring conversation with Dr. Carolyn Halpert of the BioXcellerator program in Columbia. And this is a fascinating research treatment facility that specializes in stem cell treatments. So honestly, a lot of people that are out of options for traditional treatments in medicine in the States look to stem cell therapy. And it's a fascinating conversation because I know in America we have extraordinary healthcare, but we don't have access to the best of the best stem cells and stem cell treatment protocols, et cetera. So we are going to do a deep dive into stem cells, how they work, what they are, what they can be used for, what they're using them for at BioXcellerator. And why their program is honestly extremely unique. So this was such an inspiring conversation for me. I'm excited to share it with you. And Dr. Carolyn Halpert is the physician that specializes in regenerative medicine at BioXcellerator. She start— she helped to develop and launch their program, to design their protocols, and she's just a wealth of knowledge. So let's dig in.

Carolyn Halpert, thank you so much for being here today. I'm really, really excited to just chat about BioXcellerator. I've actually been familiar with you and your work for roughly about a year now, maybe a little bit more, and am fascinated and just excited at what you all are building and creating. So I'm I'm really excited to share it with my audience today. I'm a little curious, tell us a little bit about you and also how you ended up in the world of regenerative medicine.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Nice, nice to see you again. So yeah, my, I'm an emergency physician. That's my background. I was working as the emergency director in a trauma center here in Medellín, Colombia. And I got the opportunity to completely change a field and come to regenerative medicine, which now I have been in this field for 10 years, learning and studying and working at BioXcellerator. So that's actually my background. I'm coming from ER, if I say BioXcellerator I started the clinic with Eric Stoffers, the CEO. We're both partners of the company. The clinic is located in Medellín, Colombia. And we're not only a clinic, we are actually like a platform that integrates our research center, that we have a research group, that we have good clinical practice certification by INVIMA, that is our regulator. We have the clinic. And we also have the lab that is BioXtech, that is where we manufacture our own product. So it's like the integration of these three main areas, what I have been working for the last 10 years.

I love it.

So those are like coming from ER and then going to regenerative medicine. Those couldn't be more opposite where you're like treating acutely sick, injured you know, something just happened to, hey, let's rebuild your health, your lifespan, your healthspan from the ground up with all of this work. So I love the bioxcellerator model, and I want to dig into a little bit on that later because I get questions about stem cells and stem cell clinics and all of these things quite often. But I want you to just go back to sort of the foundation and the baseline or the basics, and tell people what regenerative medicine is, maybe for someone who isn't familiar with that concept.

Yeah, so regenerative medicine is actually a very new specialty. It has been around only for, what, 15, 20 years, and it's growing very fast. So it's pretty new when you compare it with the traditional specialties. Um, regenerative medicine, it's using the ability of the body to to heal. So our body has an amazing ability to heal, and it's just restoring that balance or stimulating those pathways that we can push our own body to create new tissue, to regenerate, to work on fibrosis, to stimulate new functional tissue. So basically, it's using different, let's say, products, biological products, for example, PRP, products that are coming from the body of the patient. So PRP, exosomes, secretomes, stem cells. You can get stem cells from the fat, from the bone marrow, or from the perinatal tissues. And getting like all the properties, curative, regenerative, stimulating properties to induce in our body regenerative processes. So basically that's regenerative medicine. It's using our own knowledge of our body to stimulate that knowledge to come back, to regenerate ourselves. Yeah.

And just even to tack on to that, I think just really our bodies, our physiology is breaking down in real time every day. That's sort of aging, that's disease, that's from the moment we're born, we kind of slowly break down our, our entirety. And what regenerative medicine does is we try to outpace that breakdown and either make it neutral or, hey, let's make a little bit of way. Let's get healthier. And I'm a huge advocate for that and see that in lifestyle, but certainly in stem cells. I love that exosomes are also having a moment right now. Um, I'd love for you to share with people what exosomes are and what stem cells are.

Yeah, so, but first of all, let me go back to something that what you were saying. I want to complement with what you were saying. So regenerative medicine, when we put it in the space of longevity, it's something that it's super interesting that evidence is growing super fast right now because now we know, we know that, uh, what you were saying, that we go declining over years and that, that is because of low chronic inflammation. How we eat. So you were saying our lifestyle, how we eat, how we sleep, uh, if we have all our, the time our cortisol super high, that's causing low chronic inflammation. That low chronic inflammation is affecting our own capacity of regeneration. So actually, going into the longevity part, stem cells are able to modulate the immune system and to downregulate that low chronic inflammation. So to make like a better environment for the body to be working better and properly. And that's actually slowing down aging and it's slowing down chronic diseases. So from coming from the ER, that was— I was in acute, Now being in really helping people to do lifestyle changes, to educate people that is the way that we behave and how we live and what we eat that is affecting us. So it's not only stem cells, it's that we have to do all of this optimization in our systems, in our body, like really hack our bodies and complement or, or enforce with stem cell therapy. So going back to your question, so stem cells A stem cell is a cell that has the capability to secrete a lot of anti-inflammatory cytokines to modulate the immune system. They work because of what they secrete. They work because of the paracrine effect. So all this signaling is activating a lot of pathways in our body, telling our body to decrease inflammation, to modulate the immune system, to stimulate regeneration. And the exosomes are vesicles that are coming from the inside of the, of the stem cell. So when we are culturing the cells and we're growing the cells, all the cells are releasing all these vesicles and exosomes to the culture media. Then we get all this culture media, we put them into a specific process to isolate and concentrate the exosomes. So, and the exosomes work because of releasing all of these signals also. So I'm guessing that you're going to ask like, okay, what's the difference between stem cells and exosomes? So when do we use stem cells and when do we use exosomes? Or what is the indication? And I like to explain it that, for example, let's say that we're going to be putting stem cells in a knee. And when we put the stem cells, they're able to sense the microenvironment and change their cargo. They are alive, they can sense, and then they can start producing exactly what that knee needs because of the signaling that is in the knee, the cells, the markers, the cytokines. So it will be very specific. For that knee. Instead, if you're putting exosomes, it's already a vesicle, it's not alive, it already has a determined cargo. So if we put it in the knee, it's not going to be so specific for that knee because it's already bringing a specific cargo that is not going to be changing because of the microenvironment. So what we do here at BioXcellerator is that we actually combine. When we were treating patients only with stem cells, we were having amazing results. Then when we started combining stem cells and exosomes at the same time, we started seeing amazing results, much better. So patients with stem cells, you can wait up to— you have to wait up to 6, 6 weeks, 8 weeks to start seeing results. With stem cells and exosomes, you start seeing results immediately after the procedure because first exosomes start working, and they work up until 6 weeks. And then that's at 6 weeks to 8 weeks and more, the exosomes, the stem cells are starting to work. So it complements very good because at the beginning with exosomes, we're starting to have a very fast mechanism of action and see results. And then it's with the stem cells that start acting later and that they keep working up until 12 or 18 months. So that we're covering from the very beginning up to 18 months, all that stimulation of regeneration. So we do the combination and we have seen that our results, our patients are having better results and we're collecting better data.

I love it. And I want to talk for a few minutes about bioXcellerator in particular, because my people generally know I'm very interested in stem cells. I'm a big believer in stem cells. One of the most common questions that I get is, why would I go out of the country to get stem cells and not just simply go somewhere in America? Because people are programmed to think, hey, in America we have the best access to health and healthcare. And to a, to a degree, like when it comes to cancer treatment, trauma, all of those things are true. What America doesn't do incredibly well is regenerative medicine, longevity, to make us healthy. We just sort of fix problems really well. I'd love for you to speak on, you know, the comparison of accessibility and what people can obtain in a place like Medellín, Colombia versus Nevada in America, like middle of the USA.

Yeah, so in the United States, you're able to get osteofraction, stem cells from fat, from bone marrow. So you extract, you centrifuge, you do a very initial simple process, you concentrate, and you apply it back again. Because what it is allowed is that it has to be autologous, so from the same patient, and that it cannot be manipulated. And they consider— the FDA considers manipulation when you are taking those cells to culturing, to expansion. They consider that that's already a type of manipulation, which is It's just continuing the biological process of the cell to continue growing. We're not doing any changes at the cell. So they call it, the FDA call it, that what is approved to be done in the States is minimal manipulation and it has to be autologous. So what you're able to get in the States is fat extraction, bone marrow extraction, concentration, application. And that the problem with that is that my cells have my age. Myself has been exposed to my way of living. So how I eat— I'm very healthy, but imagine a diabetic patient, an obese patient, a patient that has a big super metabolic syndrome going on, and we're going to be working with those cells. Those cells are less potent, are less functional. They don't grow as fast as they grow and they multiply as they grow with healthy younger cells. So there's a big difference between How is the health of that patient that we are extracting those cells? And if that patient is not really very healthy, it's not going to be— it's actually— it can actually cause more inflammation instead of going— modulating inflammation, it can actually stimulate— it can be inflammatory, those cells. So when you're doing that vascular fraction, you have a mixture of cells that is not only mesenchymal stem cells, it's a mixture of many cells. And of mesenchymal stem cells, there's only a 10% So you're putting a very low number of mesenchymal stem cells in this type of applications that is non-manipulated autologous type of stem cell therapy. Instead, because of our regulation in Colombia, it's different. And it's not only in Colombia, in Mexico, in Panama, and many other Central and South American countries, we have a more flexible regulation. So we are able to extract cells from the adipose, from the bone marrow, or from the perinatal tissues, take them to the lab, expand them, culture them, put them in specific conditions to increase the functionality and the potency of the cytokines that is going to be releasing, of all of the secretome that is going to be releasing. So we're able to take them into big number of cells. So us, for example, when we are applying stem cells, it's pure mesenchymal stem cells. And it's not only 10%, it's like millions. 10% more or less is like 500 stem cells in the autologous. But when you're comparing with the culture, we're having up to 50 million, 100 million, 200 million, 300 million of pure mesenchymal stem cells that have been cultured in specific conditions to make them very potent and very functional. Not all the cells are the same and how you gather or you collect the cell or how you culture the cell, you're actually having a very different product with any small changes in the process. So you can have very high quality cells or very low quality cells, and that's going to— then you're going to see the clinical results, better results or lower results.

Yeah, I'm just going to say it back to you too, in like plain old English language. That I've kind of picked up on from my patients in terms of their level of knowledge on this. Essentially, in America, you can only harvest your own stem cells and then put them back in. Okay. The problem with that is, just like you said, number one, quality. The other problem is, look, like, as we age, we lose stem cells every year, every decade. We have less and less available. So, you know, for someone like me who's 43 or 44, I don't even know at the moment, but You know, my stem cells, there's not a whole lot of them left anymore. So I'm going to go through this whole procedure, get them put back in, and there's not a lot of them. And compare that to— and I'm not saying go anywhere, don't go to any place in like Mexico or Colombia or wherever— but there are a few distinct, very good places. BioXcellerator is one of, in my opinion, the most unique in the world and very, very high caliber. And you go and you get many more stem cells at a much higher quality, meaning they just are able to do more and do more impact. And the other one of the incredible things about bioXcellerator that I have never seen anywhere else is that you all have specialists in all these different departments that actually perform these procedures. So let's say someone wants to go and improve cognitive function, or maybe they have an issue with their brain. Well, the stem cells or exosomes that they get are actually put in to a very high access point, like in some cases in the spinal cord or intrathecal, by a neurosurgeon, as opposed to everyone simply getting an IV of these stem cells. I'd love for you to take us through what that looks like, because I think it's incredibly unique and incredibly powerful to impact these people exactly where they need it.

Yeah. So let's say that we have a neurologic patient. That patient is going to be evaluated by the neurologist, is going to be evaluated by the neuropsychologist, and is going to be the procedure done by a neurosurgeon. So yeah, we go very specialized and with specialists. They are the ones that do all of our procedures. And that and many others, for example, last year we opened gynecology service, we opened infertility, we opened ear, mouth, and throat, and those are being done by the specialists. And when we decide to open a new specialty is because we are doing a systematic review or synthesis of evidence to see what is out there. And if we start seeing that there is reported safety and efficacy. We start studying the condition, the specialty, and if we see that is a very good result, we start deciding like, okay, let's create the protocol, let's create the guide, and let's identify what conditions have enough evidence for us to treat. And that's how we decide to be opening new specialties and all of them done by the specialist. As you said, it's a big difference because I don't think no one is doing stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine that way. So for example, when we have kids with cerebral palsy or autism, they are being evaluated by the neuropediatrician. And all of this is because we are collecting a lot of data. We want data to be very high quality data. So before and after, we're doing scores and scales and specific evaluation that a general practitioner is not— doesn't have the experience to do it. It's better if the specialist is running all the scores or the scales and collecting all that data so that then we can compare the before and after of our results. So we have been collecting data already for 5 years for more than 14 different specialties. We have urology, sports medicine, orthopedia, internal medicine, In internal medicine, we're seeing basically autoimmune conditions as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. In neurosurgery, we're not only seeing spinal cord, but also stroke patients, and we're seeing concussion patients or chronic encephalopathy. We're also seeing degenerative neurologic conditions. And as you say, we can go very invasive because of the specialists doing the procedure. So we go intrathecal. We can go intratesticular, intrauterus, intraovarian, periovarian. So we can actually access any tissue we want to access and go very invasive.

That's so cool.

I want to talk a little bit about thyroid and then, like, hormones, women's health applications. But I'm curious, before we go into that section of the conversation, What are some really interesting and cool things or patterns that you're seeing throughout the last 5 years, or just even like a case study, something that's been really fascinating or encouraging? I know people love to hear those real-life stories.

Yeah. So right now I can remember of— we have many stories, but I can remember of Dustin, and he will be very happy that I mentioned his name. So that is one of my favorite patients because he came to us with a spinal cord injury, very high, C3, C4, complete section. They called us pretty at the very beginning of his injury. So we were able to get him here at 4 months after the injury. He was in ICU. He was connected, ventilator, tubes, and all of that. And we needed to get that the doctors in the States to get him stable to be able to travel. And they were able to get that done in 4 months. And then he traveled to us and we were able to start the intrathecal applications of very high dose of stem cells 4 times every 3 months. So when he came to the clinic, he was completely no movement at all from the neck down. And he was in his big chair strapped, strapped because he just didn't have balance. He didn't have anything at all. And as he last application, 1 year of therapy with us, coming every 3 months and a lot of physical therapy, he's able to move his hands. So before he was moving his chair with the stick, and now he's able to move his chair by himself. And he's able—

like a rolling chair, not an electric chair?

No, not an electric. He rolls and he feeds himself and he's able to carry his daughter because what he says, all I want is to be able to carry my daughter again. And with that, it will be a very successful treatment. So he was not only being able to carry his daughter, he's able to feed himself, he's able to have independency, he's able to have a better quality of life. And that was like a wow for me because Coming from the ER in the traditional medicine, I agreed with what the doctors, neurosurgeons were saying. You are never going to move. Yeah. Anything at all from the neck down. And when I said, okay, we have nothing to lose. Let's go. Let's do it. Let's see what, how much we can recover. And when I'm, I'm seeing this amazing recovery, many, I start questioning, I start questioning many things that they taught us in the university that it's impossible. No, it's not impossible. Yeah, we just saw it with Dustin and many others. We have a patient that also very high injury, but it was incomplete. He came in not being able to move from the neck down in the wheelchair and he's walking. And this one is because he was incomplete injury. So he's walking with the support. I don't remember how you call them in English, but to be helping that his walk to walk. And it was one year of therapy. A patient that was going to be there in a wheelchair forever, all his life, is walking again. So those are stories that really touch our heart. And I have one last one. It's a little kid.

Yeah, tell me.

He's autism.

And I'm probably going to cry. I'm already like tearing up with Derek's story. That honestly makes me so emotional. So Okay, let's do it. I'm ready.

So, uh, this little kid is severe autism. No connection, no interaction, no communication, no eye contact with the mom. And she went to Panama. She saw results. They only do IV. Then she came to us. We do IV and intrathecal. All of our protocols have IV and something else. And in autism, we have IV and intrathecal. And from the very first application, the mom started sending us videos of the kid talking.

Oh my God.

Interacting, making eye contact with the mom, making jokes. So we were like, wow, wow. And we're really seeing how we're changing people's lives. And how we were making it better and how this kid and the mom are going to have a better life. And the mom is so happy and she sends us videos all the time of any, any progress the kid does. She sends us videos. And of course, we share it with all my team here. I have a team of 70 people. So each time that we get a story back of a life we changed, We just celebrate, just we're so happy for them. And like that, I have many stories, right?

Yeah, that's just so incredible. So my daughter is— she has autism. She has a rare genetic disorder that leads to like intellectual disability and recently epilepsy, autism, and it's regressive. And, you know, the dream of every mother with an autistic nonverbal child is to like hear their child speak. So what an incredible gift to give these people and just hope. And my initial curiosity with stem cell treatment came from autism before I had a daughter with autism, but I was just very curious. And, um, and I've seen so many parents' stories of children with autism that find so much relief and improvement that I can only imagine how incredibly rewarding that is for you and your team. And the one other thing I wanted to say too, going back to like Derek's story, so people can tease out some of that, you know, spinal cord injury information. When I first started practicing as a PA, I actually did neurosurgery for the first 3 years, and I did a lot of spine. So this is something I'm really familiar with. And when someone has a complete dissection, a complete break in their spinal cord, the hope in America in standard of care is zero, that they'll be paralyzed from whatever level that is down. And it's incredibly— it's just impossible to treat even if you stabilize their bone structure. Their spinal cord, really, it's hard to make any kind of a recovery. So that's incredible too that you guys were able to see that just so, so powerful. So thank you for your work in that. I would love for you to talk with us a little bit about how you all are using regenerative medicine, stem cells or exosomes in women's health across like fertility, ovarian function, or even times of hormonal transition.

Yeah, so that one is like the most important and the one that I'm more interested in. 48. I'm starting with all my perimenopause symptoms, and we start noticing like we get tired faster, we don't recover as fast as before, we're less resilient, and, and we start seeing all of this declines, memory, concentration, and all this mental fog. I got lost in a parking lot. I just didn't find my car. I thought I was getting Alzheimer's, and no, it was my hormones. All changing. So I study— I, I, last year I just study and study and study hormones and perimenopause and menopause and what can stem cells do in this area. And I found a lot of evidence that shows like, when we're having all this hormone changes, we start actually having more low chronic inflammation. And we're not able to address inflammation as before. So it stops starts getting there and causing a lot of issues. So yeah, there's a lot of good evidence that supports working with stem cells to help the body with all these changes to maintain or sustain the ability to maintain balance, basically on controlling, modulating the immune system and controlling the low chronic inflammation. But if we go more specific, for local applications. There's a lot of evidence of applying intraovarian and periovarian stem cells that is going to be like helping that they don't continue decreasing their function that fast so that we don't have this early ovarian dysfunction. Or if we're already having some of this function in our ovaries, that at least we can slow it down or make it that it, that it doesn't disappear this fast. But like, okay, Give me 3 more or 5 more years of feeling normal because we start just not feeling normal at all. Something's wrong, like something's going on and that's not easy. So we go IV, that helps a lot and we go intravarian and periovarian and we have not still got results because we have only treated like since I just opened this new service last year and we just created this new protocol last year. So we have only treated 4 patients and we have to collect the data. We did hormones at the beginning. We're going to be doing hormones at the end, a lot of scores and scales to see objective results. But what we get as a report of a subjective information from the patient is that they're feeling better, that they have decreased their anxiety. That they're sleeping better, that they have better energy levels. And we are receiving the same information from this for patients. But I need data to be able to tell you, okay, it worked, it didn't work. I need to wait up until 6 months and 12 months that we collect all that data. But with what they're saying, we're helping, we're helping them go through all these hormonal changes. Easier to navigate it easier, and it's lowering inflammation.

Exactly. That's exactly what I was going to say. Like, one of the hallmarks in research that I think flies under the radar, even with thyroid conditions like autoimmune thyroid conditions like Hashimoto's, for example, the incidence increases around these hormonal changes, especially perimenopausal, later menopause, because as our estrogen drops, our inflammation directly increases. We're more vulnerable for these autoimmune conditions. So I love the idea of blunting that effect because not only does it help protect people's thyroids, but, you know, when your risk for Hashimoto's increases, your risk for every other autoimmune disease increases as well too. So, you know, the root cause is all the same. So being able to protect these women and aid them in that regard during this vulnerable time is incredibly, incredibly powerful. And then I have one other question. I'm curious, have you guys done any work for vaginal lining thickening, um, protecting women from vaginal atrophy? Because that's one of the most devastating experiences, especially for married women later in life, because they haven't incredibly, you know, painful intercourse that's hard to unwind. So I'm curious if you've seen anything in that regard.

We do applications in all the, the walls of the vagina— anterior, posterior, lateral— and we go injecting exosomes and stem cells. Both, we always use the combination for all of, all of us, our procedures. And, and what patients are describing is that less dryness. So I get less atrophy. We're not going to know if we do a biopsy, but Even with what they are describing about what they're feeling is that, as you said, less pain, intercourse, less dryness. So yeah, it has very good results also in these applications. And it's not only the local application, it's our approach of also putting IV when we're doing all this hormone, trying to help with all this hormone disbalance. So, and also something that we I think that it's probably how this could work also, is that patients that are taking hormone replacement therapy, after we do stem cells, they start like having a better answer to the medication. Why? I don't know. But with the medication that they're taking, it's as if something changed, something improved, because they have— they start having like a more balanced hormonal, uh, replacement. They start like, instead of having to increase doses, they can decrease it. And, and with all that, what they're feeling, and of all the symptoms that change with each minimal variant variation of hormones, they're more stable. So there has to be something that is maybe lowering the inflammation that then the body is answering better to all this replacement, right?

Yeah, lowering that resistance. And I think in part to lowering compensation. Sometimes, you know, we literally use hormone replacement therapy thyroid and we're compensating for some other underlying issue that stem cells are probably lifting some of that resistance and just able to work so much better. That is so interesting. Tell me, with fertility, is that part of the patients that you've just started? There's only a few. I'm curious what you're seeing in the literature and what you're hoping to see in clinical practice.

So in the literature, what we found, that, that's why we decided to, okay, let's, let's open infertility, is that the rate of success of an in vitro fertilization increase when you prepare the patient stem cells before implantation, before getting the ovocyte. So the protocol in infertility, it's applying to the ovaries, applying to the uterus, making that uterus a better environment for the implantation. But even before, getting from the ovarian— stimulating the ovarian to release better oocytes. So it's a, it's a combination of both therapies of fertility with stem cells. That combination is showing that it's amazing because it's just increasing the rates of success. And, and right now it's being recommended for the patients that have tried already 2 and 3 times, uh, and they, and they didn't work in vitro, and then with the 4th one they, they get it. And it's— there is like the indication of the evidence, but if it was for me, I would just go like to the very beginning. Why I want to go through one failure, two failures, and all the emotional things of a failure when you're really trying to get pregnant. If we can avoid that to patients, that would be a better— we will be improving the couple, the relationship, the emotions of both of the couple, of the patient, because you know that it's destroying when, when you don't get pregnant and you're trying to get pregnant. So if we can increase that rate of success of an in vitro from the very beginning, I will go for it. And it's just preparing the ovarian to get the ovocyte and preparing the uterus for the implantation. So that's where a lot of evidence is, and we have not treated our first patient yet, because here we will have to be doing a lot of coordination with the fertility clinic and with us. And that's— and we haven't had any experience yet, but I'm really looking forward to be helping these patients to get pregnant.

Wow. I mean, the emotional toll, like even the physical toll of all of those hormones, how they make you feel physically, psychologically, emotionally. It is a huge, huge undertaking for these women. So what a gift to be able to prepare for success. And I think honestly, even I would imagine the recovery, and I know you can't speak to this yet, but I would imagine from a clinical perspective, the recovery of going through all of that and then having the support of stem cells in the middle of it is probably so much better than simply moving through the hormone process. Process, you know, because we're just laying that foundation of security and inflammatory reduction and everything going through. So incredible. I want to move a little bit to thyroid and just pick your brain. So, you know, we are a functional medicine practice that specializes in complex thyroid disorders. We're kind of like people's last resort, and we're also a place that people come to that have a more holistic they're invested in their lifestyle, and a lot of people don't want to take medication. And the reality is, with thyroid conditions, most thyroid conditions come from a loss of true thyroid function that, you know, even if we reverse Hashimoto's, you don't grow back that thyroid tissue that you've lost. And people say, well, how can I grow it back? How can I reduce my medication? How could I potentially get off my medication? And my theory is one of the only ways ways to be able to do that would be stem cells. You know, I think stem cells create an opportunity where, hey, the lost function we must— we once had might actually be able to, in part, or in some cases perhaps fully, be reversed. I'm curious if you're seeing, one, any patients yet for Hashimoto's or hypothyroidism or thyroid issues in general, and what you've seen either in clinical practice or in the literature?

Okay, so there's not a lot of evidence with stem cells and thyroid conditions, or maybe there's not a lot of people doing a lot of research in this field because there's— or maybe they— or maybe they're treating the patients but they're not reporting their experience. What is out there is not a lot. We have accepted patients with hypothyroidism and with autoimmune thyroiditis, Hashimoto's, And what we are hoping is that at least hormone, at least that they can decrease the replacement. We haven't seen that yet, so we have to wait. But with autoimmune thyroiditis, sorry, I can say it better in Spanish. Yeah. With the autoimmune thyroiditis, thyroiditis, since it's an autoimmune reaction and cells are going to be modulating the immune system. There's— on that, there's a lot of evidence and there's pretty very good results. We have just now treated our first Hashimoto patient. But with autoimmune conditions and stem cells, it's great because it's modulating the immune system. But in the case of that the function is decreasing and there's no autoimmune-related situation, Uh, no, we have not seen a lot.

Yeah, you'll have to keep me posted because I'm so curious. We are starting an in-house clinical trial with StemRegen, who I think you're familiar with, to see if we can reduce antibodies, reduce medication, and in a separate population, see if people post-thyroidectomy potentially can regrow a little bit of thyroid tissue. Now, you know, I I know that StemRegen is a very different method and less like bang for your buck out of the gate, but still really excited. So I'll keep you posted on that.

Yeah, please. It's very interesting that someone is going to start like doing clinical trials with stem cells and thyroid conditions. I'm very curious to see the results. With the patients that we have treated, we have measured antibodies before. We're waiting to measure antibodies after anti-thyroglobulin and anti-peroxidase thyroglobulin. Those are the ones that we are measuring. We are, we're really hoping to see results. It makes complete sense to see results because of the modulation of the immune system. So I'm sure that you're going to be seeing results in your clinical trial. That's going to be opening a lot of doors for all of us. That are on this field and that are doing research in this field. And we just have to go out there and share results so that we can get to more people and help more patients.

Yeah, I completely agree. I want to transition a little bit to misconceptions around stem cells. So, you know, several years ago in the United States, there was a lot of controversy about stem cells, you know, about utilizing utilizing fetuses, etc. And I think those misconceptions persist even today. So I would love for you to speak to that misunderstanding and the stem cells that you all use at BioXcellerator. And if there's any other things around stem cells, exosomes that maybe people get confused on that you would like to set the record straight, please do.

Yeah, so that's actually a very important because, yeah, there's a misconception that they confuse— they think that stem cells, all of them are the same and that they come from the same source, which is not. You can have embryonic stem cells, you can have fetal stem cells. And embryonic stem cells is when you— a patient is going through a fertility process and, and, and they're not going to use that, that egg, and, and they donate it or whatever for research to where to do research with embryonic stem cells. Fetal stem cells may be from an abortion process. So there's ethical concerns there. And I think that they just extrapolated this to all the other types of stem cells, which there are many sources. The ones that we use at BioXcellerator is the perinatal stem cells. We get them from perinatal tissue. So actually, we get them from the umbilical cord, the tissue of the umbilical cord. So it's a newborn baby, healthy mom, healthy dad, healthy pregnancy, very strict inclusion criteria to select that umbilical cord. We get that cord and bring it to our facility, to the lab, and we start culturing pieces of that cord. So the cells start growing from that umbilical cord. Umbilical cord. So we know that the umbilical cord is a discharged tissue that doesn't have any ethical issues, that they're just throwing it away. And I said that that's gold, what you're throwing away. Just don't throw away everything that we can get from that tissue with all the regenerative properties. And also, as we were saying, there's stem cells from bone marrow and there's stem cells from fat. So there are many source of stem cells, and these two might have ethical issues, but all the others, they don't. So that's like a very big difference, and they cannot think that all the stem cells are the same because they're not.

I totally agree. Is there anything else I haven't asked that you wish people knew about stem cells, about bioXcellerator? One thing that I did want to highlight that I just know outside of this interview about BioXcellerator is the reason you guys are in Medellín, Colombia. One, of course, it's because, you know, it doesn't have the regulations for the US, but you guys decided that location for a very specific reason involving access to medical care, medical institutions. I'd love for you to share because I thought that was pretty unique too with our audience and then anything else you feel like they should know.

Yeah. So I want to share with the audience that we are very excited and I'm very excited to see the possibility of being able to go back to the States. The regulation in the States is changing. This Maha movement and all the people that are working to push regenerative therapies, functional medicine, integrative medicine, alternative medicine, and all this experimental that are not experimental at all therapies, regulation is changing. So we're seeing a very— we're seeing a big opportunity to be able to do this stem cell therapy in the States, to take bioxcellerator. We're looking at Utah. We're thinking of opening a facility in Utah, having a bioxcellerator in Utah, because Florida, Utah, and Texas are the ones that have already started doing changes. So I'm very excited about that. About Medellín, Medellín is a city with what, 5 million habitants? And in Medellín, even though we're only 5 million, we have 10 med schools. So there's a lot of med schools, a lot of med universities here in Medellín. We have a very robust health system. We have a very advanced health system. We have a lot of specialists in a lot of specialties here because of this health ecosystem that is not only in Medellín, it's actually in Colombia, in Bogotá, in Cartagena, in Cali, in Medellín, like in the main cities. There's just a lot of universities and just a lot of doctors and a lot of specialists and the health system is very robust. Advanced technology, advanced diagnostics. So that was very interesting for Eric when he was looking, uh, what country, what city to open BioXcellerator. And Medellín, not only the health system, is the, the climate is amazing. It's all year the same. Uh, the people are amazing. Uh, Medellín has had a big transformation in the last 20 years, so We're not only doing regenerative medicine, but we are educating a lot about our country, about Medellín, and that they can have like a medical tourism experience. So we help them also get to know our culture, our city, amazing places. Colombia is beautiful. Medellín is beautiful. So once they're here, they don't want to leave and they want to come back. So that's something funny that we're seeing because a lot of Americans just want to stay, and actually they continue coming back and they end buying an apartment and they end moving to Medellín. So it's very interesting to see the growth and the transformation of Medellín.

So cool. Well, this conversation has been so insightful, delightful. I've, I've learned so many new things and I'm really, really inspired by y'all's work. Tell people where they can find out more about BioXcellerator if they wanted to consider something like this. I'd love for them to have the shortlist of what to do and where to go to find out more information.

You're gonna laugh. I don't know.

I, I feel that as like the founder of my company.

I'm in the medical side. I'm all the medicine, all the science. And I guess the— our webpage, you think? Go to our webpage or go to our Instagram, social media. Um, I wasn't ready for this question. I feel very ignorant not knowing where to tell our people to find us.

No, it's fine. And I will include your website in the show notes, of course, and your social media. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat chat with me today and for all the work that you've put into helping so many people in ways, you know, when most of them don't have other options. So that speaks volumes about you all and your mission and your work, and I appreciate it.

I know, thank you for giving me the opportunity to, to share our experience, our knowledge, and how we are helping people and changing lives. So thank you for this space to be able to share all of this. It means a lot. It means a lot to my work, to what makes me super passionate about, and what I completely believe that it's not the future, it's medicine, how it should be. And that we're not, as you say, that we're not just treating and hiding symptoms, but that we actually are doing something from the root cause or addressing things from the root cause. And that the most important thing of a message that I want people to, to keep is that how we live is how healthy we can be. So it's on— it's our responsibility to take care of ourselves and not think that a system or that a pill or that a medication or that medicine is going to be taking care of myself. So if I don't start taking care of myself, How can I expect someone else to take care of myself? So take care of what you eat, take care of how you eat, take care of, take care of stress and be like looking for everything that can increase your cortisol or everything that can increase inflammation in your body and just do the opposite. And that's simple. It's actually very simple.

It is. It is. But no one is more invested in our health than we are. So it has to start with us. I love that message.

Yep. Thank you very much.

Thank you.