The plain-English version on top.
Every entry has two definitions. The top one is the one we use in conversation with patients, the version you'd hear in a consult, in language you'd use to a friend. The bottom one (in the grey box) is the technical definition you'd find in a regulatory document or a textbook, included for the patients, physicians, and journalists who want to cross-reference.
The "See also" line at the foot of each entry points to the article in the Learn library where the term is used in context. The colored topic chip on the left tells you which silo it belongs to: biology, manufacturing, regulatory, clinical, or cost.
Some of these terms have technical meanings that diverge from how they're used in advertising. We use the technical meaning. When a clinic markets "stem cells" but does not specify cell type, count, or viability. we treat that as advertising language, not biology. The biology is what's in the grey boxes.
Try a different word, or clear the search to see all 36 entries.
Cells that come from someone else, not from you. Our cells are allogeneic, donor-derived: umbilical cord most often, with adult donor bone marrow for orthopedic and structural cases. The donor and recipient are different people.
Medication that puts you to sleep or numbs you for a procedure. For our IV infusion, you are awake the entire time no anesthesia required. We mention it here because we treat in a hospital where anesthesia is on the same floor in case of an emergency, which is different from a freestanding clinic.
Cells that come from you, processed, and given back to you. Autologous treatments are the U.S. wellness-clinic standard for "stem cell" therapy: bone marrow aspirate, adipose SVF, PRP. We do not use autologous cells; ours are allogeneic.
A specific manufacturing run of cells, with a unique number. If something goes wrong on Patient 47, we can trace it to the same lot every other patient that week got their cells from. The lot number is on your Certificate of Analysis.
A drug made from a living source cells, blood, antibodies, rather than from chemical synthesis. Our cells are a biologic. Vaccines, insulin, and monoclonal antibodies are also biologics. Regulated more heavily than small-molecule drugs.
A one-page document that comes with your specific lot of cells. It lists the cell count, viability, sterility-test result, and seven other release tests, each signed off by the QA director at the lab. Available on request through your case coordinator. If a clinic has no CoA process at all, ask why.
"Current Good Manufacturing Practice." A set of legally-enforced rules for how drugs (including cell therapies) must be made: clean rooms, trained staff, signed batch records, every step documented. Same rules in the U.S., Mexico, EU, and most of the world. This is the standard our cells are made to.
Mexico's equivalent of the FDA. Stands for Comisión Federal para la Protección contra Riesgos Sanitarios. COFEPRIS licenses Hospital Angeles, the physician team's laboratory, and the regenerative medicine program, and inspects them. Equivalent to the FDA in structure, with different specific rules.
Freezing cells so they can be stored and shipped. Cells are frozen in a special solution (which keeps ice crystals from forming inside them) at −196 °C in liquid nitrogen. They're thawed within an hour of infusion and tested before going into you.
A signaling molecule that cells release to communicate with the immune system. Most of what our cells do happens through cytokines they don't graft into your tissue, they release these signals that calm down inflammation and tell your own cells to repair.
A toxic component of certain bacteria that can cause fever and shock if it gets into your bloodstream, even if the bacteria themselves have been killed. Every lot of our cells is tested for endotoxin at release, and the level has to be below a hard threshold.
A tiny membrane-bound vesicle that cells release, packed with signaling cargo. Exosomes are not cells they're subcellular particles. Some U.S. wellness clinics market "exosome IVs" as an alternative to stem cells. We don't offer them. The biology is real but the products are not the same thing.
The U.S. federal regulator for drugs, biologics, and medical devices. Our cell product is not FDA-approved for U.S. import for the indications we treat. That's the legal reason we're in Mexico, not California. The cells themselves are characterized to the same biology standards a U.S. lab would use.
The instrument that counts the cells in your lot. It passes the cells one at a time through a laser and a detector and counts every one of them, millions per minute. The "200 million viable cells" number on your CoA comes from this machine.
The FDA's term for cells and tissues used as medical products: sperm, eggs, corneas, bone-marrow grafts, SVF. There's a "low-regulation" tier (§361) for minimally-processed tissue used in obvious ways, and a "biologic-drug" tier (§351) for everything else. Most U.S. "stem cell" clinics are operating in the §361 tier. Our cells would be §351.
An FDA term meaning "using a tissue for the job it was originally doing." Bone graft → bone repair = homologous. Fat-derived cells → joint repair = not homologous. Most "stem cell" indications fail this test, which is why the FDA has been issuing warning letters to U.S. clinics.
The FDA permission a company needs before they can give a new drug or cell therapy to humans in the U.S., even in a clinical trial. INDs take years and tens of millions of dollars. Most clinical MSC programs in the U.S. are stuck at the IND stage.
The legal and ethical process of making sure you understand what you're agreeing to before a medical procedure: risks, alternatives, what's known and what isn't. Ours is a 14-page document reviewed with you by a physician (not a coordinator) the day before infusion.
A photograph of a cell's chromosomes. We karyotype every batch to confirm the cells still have the normal 46 human chromosomes, in the normal arrangement, after manufacturing. A karyotype change would be a stop-the-line event.
The test for endotoxin. The reagent comes from horseshoe-crab blood, which clots in the presence of bacterial endotoxin even at incredibly low concentrations. It's how we know the IV bag isn't going to give you a fever.
The cell type we use. MSCs are a kind of adult stem cell: not embryonic, not pluripotent: that lives in your bone marrow, fat, umbilical cord, and other connective tissues. They release the cytokines that calm inflammation and signal repair. The official term is "stromal cell" (rather than "stem cell") because they don't make every tissue type. they make stromal tissues plus signaling.
The original frozen "seed" stock of cells, made once from a single donor cord, characterized exhaustively, and used to seed every subsequent working bank. One donor → one MCB → many lots → many patients. If anything ever looks off in a lot, we go back to the MCB to confirm the starting material was fine.
An FDA term meaning "the tissue still does what it did in the donor." Centrifuging blood = minimal. Culturing cells, expanding them, freezing them, and re-thawing them = not minimal. Most U.S. wellness clinics are bound by this rule. Our cells fail this test (because we culture them). which is why we cannot operate in the U.S.
A tiny bacterium with no cell wall. It's the most common contaminant of cell-culture labs because it slips through normal sterile-filtration. Every batch is tested for mycoplasma at release. A positive result discards the lot.
"Signaling to your neighbors." This is the primary mechanism of action for our cells. They don't graft. They don't become you. They circulate, settle in inflamed tissue, release signaling molecules into the local environment, and a few weeks later most of them are gone, but the signals they sent have changed how nearby cells behave.
How many times the cells have been split and re-plated since the original sample. Each round of expansion = +1 passage. Lower is better. Old, high-passage cells (P10+) start to lose their signaling potency and accumulate chromosomal changes.
A test that measures whether the cells actually do what they're supposed to do not just whether they're alive. Cell count and viability tell you the cells exist. The potency assay tells you they work. For MSCs, the assay measures whether they suppress T-cell activation in a dish.
A concentrated preparation of your own platelets, made by spinning your blood in a centrifuge. PRP is autologous, FDA-tolerated under §361, and commonly used by orthopedists. It is not the same thing as a stem cell therapy, though it is sometimes marketed alongside one.
"Able to become any cell type in the body." Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent. Our cells are not pluripotent they're multipotent, which is one tier down. This matters because pluripotent cells carry tumor-formation risk that multipotent cells do not.
The set of tests every lot of cells must pass before it can be released for human use. We run eight: sterility, mycoplasma, endotoxin, identity, viability, potency, karyotype, trace impurities. Each one has a hard threshold; any single failure discards the lot.
A clinical trial in which patients are randomly assigned to the treatment or to a control (often placebo). RCTs are the gold standard of clinical evidence because they neutralize bias in who gets which treatment. The phase-2 and phase-3 MSC literature has a small number of RCTs and a much larger number of registry / single-arm studies.
The FDA's "low-regulation" tier for human tissue products. To qualify, the tissue must be minimally manipulated, used homologously, not combined with a drug, and have no systemic effect (or be autologous). Most U.S. "stem cell" clinics operate here. Our cells do not qualify and would require §351 biologic-drug approval.
The release test that asks: "is anything alive in this bag besides our cells?" We sample the final product, incubate the sample in growth medium for 14 days, and check for bacterial or fungal growth. Any growth → the lot is destroyed.
A cell mixture obtained by digesting fat tissue. Contains a few MSCs alongside many other cell types. SVF is autologous, minimally-processed, and §361-eligible in the U.S. so many U.S. wellness clinics offer it. It is not the same product as a characterized, expanded UC-MSC infusion.
Residual amounts of reagents used during cell manufacturing (culture-medium components, growth factors, the cryoprotectant DMSO) that have to be measured at release and kept below safe thresholds. The final product is mostly cells in saline, but trace amounts of every reagent that ever touched them have to be characterized.
The capacity of a cell to form a tumor. MSCs are not tumorigenic in any of the published data we work from the global registry of allogeneic MSC infusions (now ~1.5M doses) shows no cell-derived tumor formation. We test for it anyway at the master cell bank stage because we'd rather over-test than miss it.
A mesenchymal stromal cell isolated from the umbilical cord, specifically from Wharton's jelly, the gel-like tissue inside the cord. This is the source of our cells. Cords are donated after term healthy births, with consent from the mother, and would otherwise be discarded.
The percentage of cells in a lot that are actually alive when you measure them. Our release threshold is ≥95%, anything lower and the lot is discarded. Live cells take up a dye called 7-AAD; dead cells let it cross the membrane. The instrument counts both.
The clear, gel-like connective tissue inside the umbilical cord. It cushions the blood vessels that run between mother and baby. It's the tissue our umbilical-cord cells come from Wharton's jelly is rich in MSCs and is the standard source for cGMP UC-MSC programs. Named after the 17th-century English physician Thomas Wharton.