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Club President Ann Platt opened today’s meeting by welcoming us to the first day of fall.
Ann extended a warm “thank you” to Jennifer Bennerotte and her team from the City of Edina for the wonderful video production work provided to our Club for the past 10 years. Due to the increased workload at the City of Edina, they will no longer provide those video recording services. Thank you for the great P.R. that has been provided by the video services.
Ann went on to say that on Sept. 5, the Minneapolis Star Tribune recognized one of our members, Amir Gharbi, who was featured in an article about the 22 Special Deputies in the Hennepin Sheriff’s Surface Water Patrol Unit. The Unit oversees boating law enforcement and provide boating education in the West Metro lakes and rivers area. Be sure to let the Club know if you see a news article about a Club member so it can be shared with the rest of the Club.
Helping with today’s meeting were: assisting our Club Administrator, Jennifer Garske, at the front desk was Gary Pedersen. You were warmly greeted today by Mark Jessen, Susan Johnson, Doug Johnson and Jim Platt. Matt Boockmeier provided the invocation and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and the Four-Way Test. Hugh Hadlund wrote this week’s Barker. Greg Yoch i  ntroduced our speaker and John Solberg thanked our speaker.
Before making guest and visiting Rotarian introductions, Harry Weingartner announced to the Club that he and his wife, Betty, have moved back to Edina after 18 years in Eden Prairie and are glad to be back.
Guest were as follows:
- David Clynes introduced his good friend Colton Straus and his brother, Tony Straus. The brothers have a company called One Nation Under Geese, a water fowl guidance service.
- John Flynn introduced Kim Stoner, an I.T. consultant and friend of Jody Kern, visiting for the second time.
- John also introduced Ava Lusty, a junior at Edina High School who signed up to attend this year's Camp Enterprise.
- Josh Sprague introduced Baird Johnson, who owns four Learning Rx locations.
- Mike Eckert introduced his good friend, Greg Stauffert, a retired Wells Fargo Banker.
- Ian Colville introduced Raj and Garima Jain, who live in Edina. Ian met them when he was looking for a convertible to be used for this year's Youth Exchange students in the Edina Homecoming Parade.
- Jari Hamlin, President of the Apple Valley Rotary Club, announced the Apple Valley Club's big fundraising event, which includes the raffling off of a Ford Focus. Raffle tickets were available on each table.
- Chip Cheney of the Lake Minnetonka/Excelsior Rotary Club, who commented he was not here to sell anything.
- Jeanne Zetah, President of the Eden Prairie AM Rotary Club, announced her Club's big fundraiser (a week after our Gala) Oct. 8—a wine and beer tasting event.
Ann announced that it is Harry Weingartner’s 80th Birthday tomorrow. Congratulations to you, Harry. Wishing you many more.
Ann announced that October is a very busy month, with many service project taking place, including:
- Kip Peterson told us about the 2015–2016 New Member Class Service Project. This year’s New Members Class are participating in a Special Olympics bowling event on Saturday, Oct. 8. The entire Club was invited to participate. Contact Kenny Smith to volunteer.
- Kip also announced, in Brad Beard’s absence, that the Club is going to be volunteering at Feed My Starving Children on Saturday, Oct. 15, from 9 to 11 a.m.
- Camp Enterprise is a
 large project for our Club, a three-day event where 120 high school juniors and seniors attend sessions learning about all aspects of the free enterprise system. This year's Camp E is from Oct. 27 to 29. About 100 volunteers are needed for the event, and our club is still looking for volunteers, mainly as either mentors, venture capitalists and essay readers. Contact Kip Peterson or Sam Thompson for more information or to volunteer.
- At Joe Hayes' request, Ann Platt announced the annual Leadership Ethics Seminar, “Do The Right Thing," held in conjunction with Edina High School Oct. 12. The need for volunteers ranges from moderators to table leaders and a featured speaker. The event is an ethics workshop, which helps high school students access their options with life’s gray areas.
 Terry Stevens, a member of the Youth Exchange Committee, gave a little background on the Rotary Youth Exchange program, started in the early 1970s, providing student exchange opportunities all over the world for students, ages 15 to 18. Terry reminded us we have two inbound students in Edina this year and two outbound students. He asked Club members to sign up to entertain the students—giving them a flavor for this area of the world—by inviting them to a play, dinner, going to your lake place or other options you think of. Contact someone on the Youth Exchange Committee to plan an event with our YE students Justine or Claudio. Members of the committee include Terry, Ian Colville, Heather Hansen, Mike Kallas, Deirdre Kvale, Chrysanne Manoles and Sonja Tengdin. Edina Morningside Rotary Club's Jenn Glass is the Youth Exchange Officer for the second year.
Greg Yoch introduced today’s speaker, Dr. Jonathan Finnoff, director of the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center in downtown Minneapolis, who spoke about “Regenerative Medicine: Treatments for Osteoarthritis." He is also a team physician for the Timberwolves and Lynx basketball teams and one of the head team physicians for the U.S. Ski and Snow Board teams. He is also a member of the Board of Governors for American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
Dr. Finnoff began his remarks by indicating that Mayo Clinic has been around for 150 years and is the quality benchmark for research, clinical practice and education as verified by U.S. News, which indicates Mayo Clinic as the No. 1 hospital in the country. The Sports Medicine Center has existed since 1990. With 26 years of experience, the clinic is the largest sports medicine clinic in the country.
Mayo Clinic’s first venture outside of Rochester was the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center located in downtown Minneapolis, next to the Target Center (where Block “E” used to be located), partnering with the Lynx and Timberwolves and as such, provide their medical care and sports performance services. While the goal is to set a very high bar for excellence in service, anyone can access the clinic’s care.
Prior to Dr. Finnoff joining the Mayo Clinic Minneapolis, he had worked at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester for five years, then moved to Lake Tahoe, where he lived for 3 years. He had worked with the U.S. Ski Team. A common patient was a 32-year-old professional athlete, still making a living by making skiing movies around the world. He recounted a female patient who had multiple impact injuries, various surgeries and was in constant pain. When she contacted Dr. Finnoff, they talked about regenerative treatment options that may be available.
Regenerative medicine uses multiple, different specialties and used different bio-materials including stem cells, scaffolds and different things, to try and either regenerate tissue or replace tissue or improve function of a non-functional tissue.
Most research is currently being done in bio-scaffolds, to try and create a new type of cartilage or identifying optimal cell sources, finding stem cells that can become new cells and growth factors.
In sports medicine there are two primary regenerative products: platelet rich plasma and stem cells.
Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP)
In this regenerative product, blood is taken, spun in a centrifuge and concentrate platelets. The concentration of platelets can vary, as well as the other things that are in it, such as white blood cells (involved in infection fighting but also inflammation) or red blood cells (that carry oxygen, but can also be somewhat caustic to joints and other tissue).
- The PRP is pulled from the “buffy coat," the thin middle layer of the centrifuged blood sample.
- PRP is then administered via an ultra-sound image-guided needle injection into the target tissue.
- PRP is used to treat a variety of problems, including tendon problems (tennis elbow), muscle injuries and in particular osteoarthritis.
- Osteoarthritic environment in the knee promotes breaking down the knee and blocks the body’s ability to regenerate the knee tissues.
- The objective is to inject platelets, which can be a vehicle to deliver anti-inflammatory and growth factors to inhibit the inflammatory environment and regenerate tissue. Experience has indicated that this can be done successfully.
- There are two types of PRP, the difference is one has a higher concentration of white blood cells than the other.
- PRP with lower white cell count is used in the treatment of osteoarthritis because of the reduced tendency for inflammation and more regeneration.
Research and trials have proven that PRP therapy works better than other traditional treatment methods including the injection of lubricating agents into the effected joint. The benefits of PRP treatment lasts about 12 months, decreasing inflammation and promoting tissue regrowth. However, over time, the body overwhelms the PRP and treatment is required again. It is deemed healthier and provide better outcomes than other traditional treatment options. It is also one of the first treatments that tried to address the root cause of the problem instead of simply treating symptoms.
Stem Cells
Stem Cells are cells that can differentiate into different types of tissue.
- There are two types of stem cells: embryonic, present when you are born or in utero and can become any cell; and adult cells, which have more limited use but still can become some different cell types.
- Stem cells have various effects possible. They can differentiate into the target tissue and start to make new tissue. They also secrete factors which attract other stem cells to the site where they are placed (they recruit other stem cells) and also release factors which decrease inflammation.
- For orthopedic purposes stem cells are derived from either bone marrow or fat. The FDA has ruled fat stem cells are not useable for orthopedic care, thus bone marrow is the remaining, allowed choice.
- Bone marrow is primarily harvested via a drill from hip region. It is then treated with a centrifugation process similar to that used with PRP, it then gets into different layers. In the same layers that have a large quantity of platelets also contain a high concentration of stem cells (the result has lots of growth factors and lots of seeds that grow the new tissue).
- Injecting stem cells into a knee slows the degeneration process and makes the cartilage healthier than it was prior to the injection and also suppresses inflammation. In various trials it has also been noted that the injections did not cause any adverse events.
- It has been found that stem cells harvested from like areas have better results regenerating the targeted cells (i.e. bone marrow stem cells do a better job of regenerating knee cartilage).
- There have been and are various studies done combining stem cell injections with surgery, but many fewer studies with injections alone. One injection-only study, conducted by Dr. Cintino, took bone marrow stem cells, which were then cultured and then injected into the effected knee. He found the cartilage thickness was greater. Four other studies have found that the injection/bone marrow stem cell therapy significantly reduced pain and improved joint function and quality of life post stem cell injection.
Dr. Finnoff, stressed that when considering the use of stem cell therapy, that it is very, very early and promising, but because of its newness there is no long-term outcome evidence available. He went on to say that of 2,000 patients treated with bone marrow derived stem cells over a 12-year time period, none of the patients had adverse reactions (no cancers, or other significant complications).
Looking towards the future, there is more focus on clinical studies. Mayo Clinic is looking at funding to study and compare PRP vs. stem cell treatment vs. saline in the treatment of osteoarthritis (randomized, double blind, placebo control trials), the highest level of evidence for stem cells. Other studies are being conducted where adipose derived stem cells, culturing them and expanding them, giving them some factors that help them differentiate into cartilage and injecting those into knees. Lastly, Mayo Clinic is doing a study in which a viral vector has a gene placed in it, which is then injected into the patient, where it goes to the target tissue and splices the gene into the patients DNA causing the reversal of arthritis. To say the least, it is unbelievable what is being done at Mayo Clinic in terms of research.
 In conclusion, regenerative medicine is a very exciting area of medicine where we are starting to harness our body’s own ability to heal itself. This is a new frontier in medicine.
John Solberg thanked Dr. Finnoff for his presentation and noted that a donation will be made in his name to Edina Give & Go.
Ann Platt encouraged everyone to register for the Gala, which is Saturday, Oct. 1. There will be no meeting next week, Sept. 29. In honor of today’s speaker, the meeting was concluded with a quote from Dr. William Mayo, “It is a great thing to make a scientific discoveries of rare value, but is even greater to be willing to share these discoveries and to encourage other workers in the same field of scientific research.”
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Our New York State of Mind Edina Rotary Foundation Fundraiser & Gala is a short three days away and everything is in place. Get ready to have a great time with fellow Rotarians and guests. Here are a few highlights and things you’ll need to know:
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We are still looking for volunteers for 2016 Camp Enterprise and need help from Rotarians! We specifically need mentors, VCs and essay readers. Contact 
Edina Rotary Foundation Fundraiser & Gala
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There is no Rotary Club of Edina meeting this Thursday, Sept. 29. The next regular meeting is Oct. 6 at the Edina Country Club.