Stem Cell Research

Stem Cells, Bioscaffolds, and Articular Cartilage Repair

Interesting look at an approach to creating and repairing cartilage from the Trinity College Dublin. Following the first video is a second that provides a broad and historical perspective on the development of cartilage repair. The second video is provided by a private company but the interviewee is Prof. Christoph Erggelet, an orthopaedic surgeon in Zurich/Switzerland affiliated with the Department for Orthopeadic Surgery and Traumatology, University Medical Center, University of Freiburg/Germany.

 

 

 

Stem Cell Procedure Could End Need For Hip Replacements

The new procedure involves extracting stem cells from the bone marrow of patients in need of hip repair due to osteonecrosis, where poor blood supply causes significant bone damage.

These cells are mixed with cleaned, crushed bone from another patient who has had their own hip replaced and used to fill the hole made by surgeons after dead and damaged tissue has been removed from the joint.

“Although this work is still ongoing, several patients who have had the procedure have reacted very well and, if we get the results we are hoping for, these patients won’t need to have their hip joints replaced – they should be fixed completely,” said Doug Dunlop, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Southampton General Hospital.

“By using stem cells to send out chemical signals to blood vessels," said Professor Richard Oreffo, a specialist in musculoskeletal science at the University of Southampton, "we hope the body will continue to create new vessels in the hip which supply enough nutrients to maintain bone strength.”

Adapted from the University of Southhampton announcement.

New Method Of Directing Stem Cells To Increase Bone Formation And Strength Developed

Directing stem cells to travel and adhere to the surface of bone for bone formation has been among the elusive goals in regenerative medicine. 

This new method enhances bone growth by using a unique hybrid molecule, LLP2A-alendronate. When injected into the bloodstream LLP2A-alendronate directs the body's stem cells to travel to the surface of bones. Once there the stem cells differentiate into bone-forming cells and synthesize proteins to enhance bone growth.

"There are many stem cells, even in elderly people, but they do not readily migrate to bone," said Wei Yao M.D., Assistant Professor, Center for Aging, UC Davis. "Finding a molecule that attaches to stem cells and guides them to the targets we need is a real breakthrough."

Neurosurgeons Use Adult Mesenchymal Stem Cells From Bone Marrow To Grow Neck Vertebrae

Removal of the cervical disc relieves pain by eliminating friction or compression between the vertebrae. Spinal fusion is used following surgery for degenerative disc disease, where the cusioning cartilage has worn away, leaving bone to rub agains bone and herniated discs, where the discs pinch or compress nerves.

Here, researchers used a new stem cell therapy to promote the growth of bone tissue following the removal of cervical discs -- the cushions between the bones in the neck -- to relieve chronic, debilitating pain.

Researchers Find Solution to Cell Death Problem Vexing Stem Cell Research

Human pluripotent stem (hPS) cells can generate any given cell type in the adult human body, which is why they are of interest to stem cell scientists working on finding stem cell therapies for spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease, burns, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and other ailments.

Before hPS cell technologies can be translated into clinical applications, however, some obstacles must first be overcome.

One such obstacle frustrating stem cell researchers is “cell death” that the major types of hPS cells, including human embryonic stem cells and human induced pluripotent stem cells, mysteriously undergo when cultured as single cells, rendering them less suitable for research.

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside now show that a molecular motor, called “nonmuscle myosin II” (NMII), which exists naturally inside each hPS cell and controls various cellular functions, triggers the death of hPS cells when they are broken down to single cells.

While many details of how exactly NMII works remain unknown, a wide consensus among researchers is that NMII induces a contraction of the main internal components of the cells, eventually resulting in cell death.

Cultured Autologous Stem Cell Therapy: Medical Procedure Or Drug?

The FDA’s ability to regulate the use of adult stem cells could be decided in court now that the agency is seeking an injunction to stop a Colorado medical practice from marketing its cultured cell product that regenerates bone and cartilage. Regenerative Sciences offers an autologous product known as Regenexx, made from a patient’s bone marrow or synovial fluid and blood. The materials are manufactured into a cultured cell product that is reinfused into the patient. The clinic contends that Regenexx is a medical procedure that uses patients’ own stem cells, but the FDA argues that it is an adulterated and misbranded drug.

Regenerative Sciences began culturing stem cells in 2005 and has treated roughly 500 patients using this method in the past several years.

"We have no problem with the agency or how it conducts its business but we think they're wrong on this one," said Dr. Christopher Centeno, Regenerative Sciences Medical Director. "Clearly for many of our patients this is going to limit their treatment options."

The clinic takes stem cells from patients, grows them in a lab to create greater numbers, then reinjects them in the area of an injury to speed healing. The FDA believes by "culturing" these stem cells, the facility is manufacturing a drug without the proper licenses.

'Culturing' would indeed seem to be the rub.  The FDA has not challenged the use of Platelet Rich Plasma, which involves using an FDA approved medical device to concentrate autologous platelets and growth factors (cytokines) that stimulate bone and soft tissue healing.

By 'culturing' autologous bone marrow derived stem cells and 'growth factors' in the laboratory and then returning the result of the culturing to the patient, Regenerative Sciences has confronted the FDA definition of what constitutes a 'drug.' Now, it seems, a court will decide.

The court's decision could affect at least two of our Stem Cell Sector companies: Aastrom Biosciences and Opexa Therapeutics, both of which separate and culture autologous mesenchymal stem cells for use in patient therapy.

Adapted from the KWGN Denver story.

Implantable Bone-Like Material From Stem Cells: One Step Closer To Therapeutic Application

A lot of research is underway in an attempt to create bone-like materials, derived from stem cells, to implant into patients who have damaged or fractured bones, or who have had parts of diseased bones removed. The idea is that, ultimately, these bone-like materials could be inserted into cavities so that real bone could meld with it and repair the bone.

Researchers have found they can grow small ‘nodules’ of what appears to be bone-like material in the laboratory from different types of bone cells and stem cells. However, the need to thoroughly explore and understand the in-depth chemical properties and structure of the bone-like materials being grown is alive and well.

Imperial College London researchers have compared the ‘bone-like’ material grown from three different commonly used clinically relevant cell types and have discovered significant differences between the quality of bone-like material that these can form.

Veterinary Stem Cell Applications: A Glimpse of Our Stem Cell Future

As we posted on May 18 of this year, the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine has opened a new Regenerative Medicine Laboratory which will provide a state-of-the art facility for processing, culturing and storing stem cells collected from a horse’s own blood or bone marrow.  The equipment being used is being provided by our Stem Cell Sector company, Thermogenesis (KOOL).

Two companies, both of them privately owned, one in England, the other in San Diego, California, have already made significant progress in the veterinary regenerative medicine arena where stem cell therapies have become common practive.

New tissue Scaffold Stimulates Mesenchymal Stem Cells to Regrow Cartilage and Bone

Cartilage damage accrues from both trauma and normal wear and tear, often culminating in osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease that affects about half of the population by age 65.

There are currently a few different ways to treat cartilage injuries, including stimulating the bone marrow to release stem cells by drilling a hole through the cartilage into the bone; transplanting cartilage and the underlying bone from another, less highly loaded part of the joint; or removing cartilage cells from the body, stimulating them to grow in the lab and re-implanting them.

Mesenchymal Stem Cells Combined With Nanotube Scaffold In New Method To Accelerate Bone Growth

Several Sector Companies are working in Mesenchymal stem cells.  In fact, Prochymal by Osiris Therapeutics will probably be the first stem cell therapeutic application to gain FDA approval. 

Recentlyl, engineers at the University of California at San Diego have come up with a way to help accelerate bone growth through the use of nanotubes and mesenchymal stem cells, a finding that could lead to quicker and better recovery for patients who undergo orthopedic surgery.

UC San Diego bioengineers and material science experts used a nano-bio technology method of placing mesenchymal stem cells on top of very thin titanium oxide nanotubes in order to control the conversion paths, called differentiation, into osteoblasts or bone building cells.

Geron Recieves FDA Approval To Begin World's First Human Clinical Trial of An Embryonic Stem Cell-Based Therapy

This is Monday after the Friday morning announcement of the first Phase I trial of an embryonic stem cell therapy.  At this writing Geron's market cap ($645M) is now greater than that of Osiris Therapeutics ($619M).  Osiris is in Phase III trials with Prochymal (not for spinal cord repair), a mesenchymal stem cell therapeutic application derived from adult bone marrow stem cells.  Everything points to Osiris obtaining approval to market Prochymal by the end of 2010.  Prochymal will in all probability be the first stem cell therapeutic application approved for market distribution.

Geron's market cap totaled $415 million at close of market on Thursday.  This morning it hit $650 million before ending the day around $645M.  This $230 million or so increase in market cap is the direct result of the FDA acceptance of the idea (based on the largest investigational drug application - 22,000 pages - ever submitted) that embryonic stem cells are safe enough to test in a small number of human beings (8 to 10 people is the test size).

Australia Approves Mesoblast Stem Cell Osteoarthritis Clinical Trial

Mesoblast, an Australian company, has received Australian Institutional ethics approval to begin the first human adult stem cell trial to test a treatment for prevention of knee osteoarthritis after an acute traumatic knee injury.

The randomised, placebo-controlled, Phase 2 clinical trial design will evaluate whether Mesoblast's allogenic adult stem cell product, RepliCart, can slow or prevent the development of knee osteoarthritis after reconstruction of a ruptured Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL).

Regenerative Medicine And Stem Cells, A Summary

Cell sources used to rebuild damaged tissues are the major issue in the development of regenerative medicine.  Three sources of cells can be tapped for transplant: differentiated tissues (refers to a technique developed at Harvard and posted here in August 2008, a better approach to the production of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells), adult stem cells (ASCs) and derivatives of embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Adult stem cells regenerate epithelia, brain tissue, muscle, blood and bone. They have also been found in other tissues that normally scar after injury, such as myocardium, spinal cord and retinal tissues.

Stem Cell Research Progress: New Bone That Blends Into Softer Tissue

“Every organ in our body is made up of complex, heterogeneous structures, so the ability to engineer tissues that more closely mimic these natural architectures is a critical challenge for the next wave of tissue engineering,” said Jennifer Phillips, now a postdoctoral research fellow in developmental biology at Emory University.

Ms. Phillips is talking about regenerative medicine. One regenerative challenge has been to keep stem cells positioned so as to create or repair injured organs or tissue in the right place and with the correct orientation. This requires some sort of 'scaffold.' Another challenge is to build the regenerated tissue in a way that causes the transition between heterogeneous organ or tissue parts to exactly mimic that of the 'natural' organ or tissue. The new Georgia Tech developments address this issue.

Veterinary Orthopedics: Stem Cells From Bone Marrow Or Fat Best? Either? Both?

The performance horse market may decide. Which is more clinically effective?  Which is more economic, easier to extract, yields greater quanties of effective cells? The answer, perhaps only that there is no difference, will impact at least one of our sector companies, perhaps more than one.

 "It's very exciting (field) and incredibly promising," says researcher Lisa Fortier of Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine. "Not only for horses. Researchers are exploring the potential of stem cells in human orthopedics also, and if the approach works in the equine world, it will probably work in the human one. Two-legged patients have only a fraction of the joint stress. "A horse is essentially walking around on your middle finger," Fortier says.

Transplanted Adult Stem Cells Observed Mending Fractures

Kicking stem cells into repair mode is one of the objectives of a new branch of medicine called regenerative medicine. With a little prodding, a type of stem cells found in human bone marrow – mesenchymal stem cells – can turn into bone, cartilage, fat, muscle and blood vessel cells.

During normal fracture healing, stem cells migrate to the site of the break, forming the cartilage and bone needed to fuse the broken bones back together. But in more than 600,000 Americans a year, this process does not occur as it should and these bones stay broken. The result can be long periods of immobilization, pain, bone deformities and even death.

Activating An Enzyme In Adult Stem Cells Spurs Bone Growth

In animals, ‘adult’ mesenchymal stem cells (multipotent stem cells that can develop into a variety of cells in the body, but not just any cell in the body) have already been used successfully to grow fresh bone. Bone formation using human adult stem cells, e.g. from bone marrow, has been less successful.  Now it turns out that activating the enzyme protein kinase A (PKA) prior to implantation produces a dramatic improvement in ‘in vivo’ bone growth according to research done at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

Orthopaedics: U.S. Army To Research Stem Cell Solutions For Lost Limbs

    The most immediate promise, according to General Eric Schoomaker, Army Surgeon General, will be the ability to provide greater structure and function for amputees with partially functional limbs who have lost muscle mass or large areas of skin.

    Wake Forest University, the University of Pittsburgh, Rutgers University and the Cleveland Clinic will conduct research with the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research to develop and conduct clinical trials over the next five years in the area of tissue engineering.  The idea was prompted by a presentation made by Anthony Atala of Wake Forest, a pediatric urologist and regenerative medicine researcher.

Stem Cell Scaffold: Clinical Trials For Traumatic Bone and Cartilage Injuries Within Two Years?

    Hip fractures kill 12,000 elderly people in the UK each year and the University of Edinburgh believes it has the answer.  Dr. Brendon Noble, of the University's MRC Centre for Regenerative medicine says, "This is a novel approach in terms of treating damaged bones and cartilage.  The aim is to translate the knowledge we have gained from bone biology studies into tangible treatments."

    Conditions required to encourage undifferentiated stem cells (stem cells that haven't decided what they want to be when they grow up yet) taken from a patient's bone marrow to change into bone and cartilage cells in the laboratory have been known to researchers for about a decade.  Encouraging them to grow in the right place in the human body has been an altogether different problem.