Stem Cell Research

Cardiopoietic (Cardiogenically instructed) Stem Cells Shown To Improve Heart Health For Patients Suffering From Heart Failure

"This study helps us move beyond the science fiction notion of stem cell research, providing clinical evidence for a new approach in cardiovascular regenerative medicine, said Andre Terzic, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine.

In the international stem cell trial, every patient in the stem cell treatment group improved. Heart pumping function improved in each patient within six months following cardiopoietic stem cell treatment. In addition, patients experienced improved fitness and were able to walk longer distances than before stem cell therapy. This is the first application in patients of lineage-guided stem cells for targeted regeneration of a failing organ.

The multi-center, randomized Cardiopoietic stem cell therapy in heart failure (C-CURE) trial involved heart failure patients from Belgium, Switzerland and Serbia. Patients in the control group received standard care for heart failure in accordance with established guidelines. Patients in the cell therapy arm received, in addition to standard care, cardiopoietic stem cells — a first-in-class biotherapeutic. In this process, bone marrow was harvested from the top of the patient's hip, and isolated stem cells were treated with a protein cocktail to replicate natural cues of heart development. Derived cardiopoietic stem cells were then injected into the patient's heart.

Adapted from the Mayo Clinic announcement. Read further here.

 

Stem Cell Therapy Shown to Recruit Body's Own Stem Cells That Mature Then Into Heart Cells

The same research team demonstrated that stem cell therapy reduces scarring and regenerates healthy tissue after a heart attack in a 2012 clinical trial. Now they have found that the stem cell technique boosts production of existing adult heart cells (cardiomyocytes) and spurs recruitment of existing stem cells that mature into heart cells.

“We’re finding that the effect of stem cell therapy is indirect. It stimulates proliferation of dormant surviving host heart tissue, and it attracts stem cells already in the heart. The resultant new heart muscle is functional and durable, but the transplanted stem cells themselves do not last long,” said Eduardo Marbán, MD, PhD, director of the Cedar-Sinai Heart Institute.

The investigational therapy turns on genes that bolster cell production from both sources – existing heart cells and existing stem cells – essentially boosting the heart’s normal means of cell replacement and its natural responses to injury. The injection of stem cells also improves heart structure and function.

Adapted from the Cedars-Sinai announcement. Read further here.

Cardiac Stem Sells From Babies Superior To Adult Stem Cells In Regenerative Ability

New research has found that cardiac stem cells (CSCs) from newborns have a three-fold ability to restore heart function to nearly normal levels compared with adult CSCs. Further, in animal models of heart attack, hearts treated with neonatal stem cells pumped stronger than those given adult cells.

To conduct the study, researchers obtained a small amount of heart tissue during normal cardiac surgery from 43 neonates and 13 adults. The cells were expanded in a growth medium yielding millions of cells. The researchers developed a consistent way to isolate and grow neonatal stem cells from as little as 20 milligrams of heart tissue. Adult and neonate stem cell activity was observed both in the laboratory and in animal models. In addition, the animal models were compared to controls that were not given the stem cells. 

"The surprising finding is that the cells from neonates are extremely regenerative and perform better than adult stem cells," said, Sunjay Kaushal, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director, pediatric cardiac surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center. "We are extremely excited and hopeful that this new cell-based therapy can play an important role in the treatment of children with congenital heart disease, many of whom don't have other options."

Dr. Kaushal says it is not clear why the neonatal stem cells performed so well. One explanation hinges on sheer numbers: there are many more stem cells in a baby's heart than in the adult heart. Another explanation: neonate-derived cells release more growth factors that trigger blood vessel development and/or preservation than adult cells.

Adapted from the University of Maryland School of Medicine announcement.

Blood Vessels Made From Skin Cells Reprogrammed Through Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Stage

Researchers in England have made the first artificial functioning blood vessel outside of the body by reprogramming stem cells from human skin. The researchers also saw the cells develop into a blood vessel inside the body for the first time.

Stem cell therapy to treat heart disease is already being carried out in the clinic using bone marrow cells, however, the long-term effectiveness at the moment is minimal and some types of stem cells have the potential to become a tumour after they are introduced into the body.

This new research demonstrates that a new type of partial stem cell developed from fibroblasts (skin cells) can be reprogrammed into vascular cells before going into the body, which have no risk turning into tumours.

Transplanted Heart Muscle Cells, Derived From Embryonic Stem Cells, Electrically Couple And Beat In Sync With The Heart's Own Muscle

“These results provide strong evidence that human cardiac muscle cell grafts meet physiological criteria for true heart regeneration," said Dr. Michael Laflamme, University of Washington associate professor of pathology and member of the UW Center for Cardiovascular Biology and the Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine.. "This supports the continued development of human embryonic stem cell-based heart therapies for both mechanical and electrical repair of the heart.”

In this study, the guinea pigs’ hearts had an injury to the left ventricle, the thick walled lower chamber in the heart that pumps oxygenated blood to the body. The injury left a scar and thinned the ventricle, which showed both reduced pump function and greater susceptibility to arrhythmias. Injured hearts that received the human cardiac muscle cell grafts showed partial re-muscularization of the scarred left ventricle.

“We showed a couple years ago that transplanting human embryonic stem cell-derived heart muscle cells improves the pumping activity of injured hearts,” said Dr. Laflamme,  “In this recent study we show that the transplantation of these cells also reduces the incidence of arrhythmias [heart rhythm disturbances].”

$20 Million CIRM Grant Issued To Implant Cells Derived From Human Embryonic Stem Cells Into Human Heart

Grants targeting a solution for heart disease have become a major theme with the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine as demonstrated by recent support for several potential stem cell or regenerative therapies. The most recent is for the use of embryonic stem cells.

"This will be the first time anyone has implanted cells derived from human embryonic stem cells into a human heart," said Robert Robbins MD, professor and chair of cardiothoracic surgery and director of Stanford's Cardiovascular Institute. "We're excited to assess this potential treatment for patients who currently have very few options other than heart transplant."

Substantial research is currently taking place in stem cell and regenerative medicine for heart related issues in both private stem cell companies and universities. See recent posts here, (UCLA), here (Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute), here (Johns Hopkins).

"This is really a multidisciplinary, multi-institute grant," said Stanford cardiologist Joseph Wu, MD, PhD. "We are collaborating with researchers from Gladstone, UCSF, UCLA, UCSD and the City of Hope. If our project is successful, we will then recruit patients who have been placed on a left ventricular assist device while they await a heart transplant. This will allow us to inject the cells at the time we implant the LVAD, and to assess their engraftment and cell fate when the patient's native heart is removed at the time of subsequent heart transplant."

Here Joseph Wu discusses the approach that will be taken in the Stanford study:

 

Adapted from the Stanford School of Medicine announcement.

Heart Muscle Cells Made By Embryonic Blood Vessels That Produce Blood Stem Cells

"It was absolutely unbelievable," said Dr. Hanna Mikkola, associate professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology in the UCLA Life Sciences Division.. "These findings went beyond anything that we could have imagined. The microenvironment in the embryonic vasculature that normally gives rise to blood cells can generate cardiac cells when only one factor, Scl, is removed, essentially converting a hematopoietic organ into a cardiogenic organ."

In other words, the lack of a single transcription factor — a type of gene that controls cell fate by regulating other genes — allows precursor cells in the endothelium that normally generate blood stem cells and blood progenitor cells in blood-forming tissues to become something else entirely: beating cardiomyocytes, or heart muscle cells. The finding is important because it suggests that the endothelium can serve as a source of heart muscle cells.

The findings were so surprising, in fact, that Mikkola and her team did not want to believe the results until all

Video: Researchers Watch In Real Time As Stem Cells Regenerate Tissue

Using a sophisticated imaging technique, researchers also demonstrated that mice lacking a certain type of cell do not regrow hair. The same technique could shed light on how stem cells interact with other cells and trigger repairs in a variety of other organs, including lung and heart tissue.

“This tells us a lot about how the tissue regeneration process works,” said Valentina Greco, assistant professor of genetics and of dermatology at the Yale Stem Cell Center.

 

Greco and her team focused on stem cell behavior in the hair follicle of the mouse. The accessibility of the hair follicle allowed real-time and non-invasive imaging through a technology called 2-photon intravital microscopy.

Previously Unknown Stem Cell Is Real Culprit Behind Hardened Arteries

The guilty party is not the smooth muscle cells within blood vessel walls, which for decades were thought to combine with cholesterol and fat that can clog arteries. Instead, says new research, a previously unknown type of stem cell — a multipotent vascular stem cell — is to blame.

“For the first time, we have shown evidence that vascular diseases are actually a kind of stem cell disease,” said principal investigator Song Li, professor of bioengineering and a researcher at the University of California Berkeley Stem Cell Center. “This work should revolutionize therapies for vascular diseases because we now know that stem cells rather than smooth muscle cells are the correct therapeutic target.”

The buildup of artery-blocking plaque has been thought to stem from the body’s immune response to vessel damage caused by low-density lipoproteins, the bad cholesterol many people try to eliminate from their diets. Such damage attracts legions of white blood cells and can spur the formation of fibrous scar tissue that accumulates within the vessel, narrowing the blood flow.

Phase II Study Finds Bone Marrow Stem Cells Improve Heart Function (Video)

In the context of a number of somewhat confusing recent research reports and trials involving bone marrow derived stem cells and heart therapy, a comparatively large phase II clinical trial has found that stem cells derived from heart failure patients own bone marrow and injected into their hearts improved the function of the left ventricle, the heart's pumping chamber.

Mayo Clinic cardiologist Dr. Robert Simari, chairman of the Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Research Network (CCTRN), the network of five academic centers and associated satellite sites that conducted the study talks about the results in the following video:

 

Cardiac Stem Cells Outperform bone Marrow Stem Cells In Treating Heart Attacks

New research suggests that human fetal cardiac-derived c-kit+ stem cells (CSCs) can be 30 times more potent than bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for treating a heart attack. 

As both of these cell types are currently in clinical trials, these results are significant because they are the first direct comparison of their therapeutic capability in vivo, the researchers say.

Researchers conducted the study using mice models with induced acute myocardial infarction. The mice then received human fetal CSCs or either an equivalent (low dose) or ~30-fold greater number (high dose) of MSCs.

Researchers Find Newborn Heart Muscle Can Regenerate Itself

In a promising science-fiction-meets-real-world juxtaposition, researchers have discovered that the mammalian newborn heart can heal itself completely.

Working with mice researchers found that a portion of the heart removed during the first week after birth grew back wholly and correctly – as if nothing had happened.

“We found that the heart of newborn mammals can fix itself; it just forgets how as it gets older," said Dr. Hesham Sadek, assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. "The challenge now is to find a way to remind the adult heart how to fix itself again.”

Biopolymer Microthread Scaffolds Support In Vivo Transplanted Mesenchymal Stem Cell Growth

A research team has demonstrated the feasibility of a novel technology that a surgeon could use to deliver stem cells to targeted areas of the body to repair diseased or damaged tissue, including cardiac muscle damaged by a heart attack.

The technique involves bundling biopolymer microthreads into biological sutures and seeding the sutures with stem cells. The team has shown that the adult bone-marrow-derived stem cells will multiply while attached to the threads and retain their ability to differentiate and grow into other cell types.

Research was lead by Glenn Gaudette, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Worcester PPolytechnic Institute. Gaudette's lab is focused on cardiac function, exploring ways to heal damaged heart muscle and to develop cell-based methods to treat cardiac arrhythmias. Much of this work uses human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs), which come from the bone marrow and can grow into a range of other tissues in the body, including muscle, bone, and fat. Studies by Gaudette and others have shown that when hMSCs are delivered to damaged hearts, they moderately improve cardiac function. A major challenge in these studies, however, is getting sufficient numbers of the hMSCs to engraft into the damaged heart tissue. Prior methods of injecting the cells into the bloodstream, or directly into the heart muscle, have yielded low results, with 15 percent or less of the cells injected actually surviving and attaching to the heart muscle. Most of the hMSCs delivered by injection are washed away by the bloodstream.

To address the delivery problem, Gaudette teamed up with George Pins, associate professor of biomedical engineering at WPI, who has developed the biopolymer microthread technology as a "scaffold" or a temporary structure to use in various applications of wound-healing and cellular therapy. The microthreads, which are about the thickness of a human hair, are made of fibrin, a protein that helps blood clot. The threads can be engineered to have different tensile strengths and to dissolve at different rates once implanted so they can be fine-tuned for a variety of uses. Pins is exploring the use of threads to produce replacement tendons and ligaments. Ray Page, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at WPI, leads a team using the microthreads as a platform for fibroblasts to induce skeletal muscle regeneration.

In the current study the team developed protocols to seed hMSCs on small bundles of the fibrin microthreads. Once the stem cells attached to the threads, they were cultured for five days and the data showed the cells began to multiply until the two-centimeter-long threads were virtually covered, with nearly 10,000 cells hMSCs on each one (the photo at right shows the cells on a single microthread; the cells in green are in the process of dividing). After the seeding and growing process, Gaudette's team attached the microthreads to a surgical needle and drew them through a collagen gel made to simulate human tissue. When the threads were drawn through the gel, the vast majority of the stem cells remained alive and attached to threads, suggesting they could be sutured into human tissue.

Gaudette's team also examined the hMSCs that had grown on the threads to see if they remained multipotent, meaning they retain the ability to grow into other types of cells. They removed the hMSCs from the threads and cultured them via established protocols known to prompt hMSCs to differentiate into fat cells and bones cells. In both cases, the cells taken from the microthreads began to differentiate along the pathways that lead to fat and bone tissue. "It appears that the cells we grew on the threads behave the same way we would expect mesenchymal stem cells would in vivo," Gaudette said. "So we believe these results are proof-of-principle—that we can now deliver these cells anywhere a surgeon can place a suture. That's exciting."

Adapted from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute announcement.

First U.S. Trial Of Bone-Marrow Stem Cell Therapy For Heart Attack Proves Safe

The first randomized, placebo-controlled U.S. clinical trial to assess the use of bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells (BMC) in patients after a ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI; severe heart attack) demonstrated a strong safety profile for this cell therapy, based on phase I results.

In this single-center trial, the researchers enrolled 40 patients with STEMI, randomizing them in a 3:1 ratio to 100 million autologous BMCs versus placebo, administered three to ten days following successful primary angioplasty and stenting of the left anterior descending coronary artery. Importantly, the researchers elected to deliver cells by an intracoronary infusion as opposed to the stop-flow technique that had been used in all preceding trials. All patients received an identical number of cells.

"The use of adult stem cells, derived from the patient's own bone marrow, presents a potential new type of therapy to benefit individuals after they suffer a heart attack," said principal investigator Jay H. Traverse, MD, cardiologist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, Minn. "Also, these types of stem cells do not possess any of the ethical concerns of embryonic stem cell research."

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.

Stem Cell Solutions: Endothelial Stem Cells, Suggested Source Of Stem Cell Therapies, Not Always What They Seem

In a result that has implications for future clinical trials, researchers have found that conventional methods for isolating mononuclear cells from blood in order to grow endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) do not result in a pure cell sample.  Turns out they can be contaminated with markers from platelets.

Endothelial progenitor cells are a type of stem cell that have been studied for the past decade. They originate in the bone marrow and circulate in the blood. When they receive the correct signals, they are able to develop into endothelial cells, which form the lining of our blood vessels. EPCs have been suggested as a source of stem cell-based therapies to contribute to the repair of heart tissue.

Dr Manuel Mayr, from the Cardiovascular Research Division at King’s College London was aided by his research team at the College's British Heart Foundation Center of Research (BHF).  The team collected blood samples from human volunteers then isolated mononuclear cells in order to grow EPCs. They then used proteomics to examine the characteristics of these cells.

"Surprisingly, we found that conventional isolation methods used by scientists and doctors do not result in a pure cell sample," said Mayr, "because they are also contaminated with markers from another type of blood cell called platelets."

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Repair Heart In Mayo Clinic Study

A great deal of work is being done to come up with a method of reverting adult stem cells to an embryonic-like state without making them inherently dangerous in the process. Of course after the adult cells are returned to an embryonic-like state they have to be coaxed into becoming the type of cell that is necessary in the particular regenerative medicine application.

About a month ago a Mayo Clinic study, one that delivered embryonic stem cells to mouse embryos in the earliest stages of development, found that the resulting mice demonstrated a capacity to recover from cardiac injury in adulthood.  According to Mayo this study provides the first evidence that preventive regenerative medicine can successfully be used to treat myocardial infarction through prophylactic intervention.

Mayo researchers injected mouse embryos with embryonic stem cells that had been used to successfully treat ischemic heart disease following heart attack. The resulting animals incorporated between five and 20 percent of labeled stem cell-derived tissue. They were born with no apparent abnormalities, and the tested and control groups had similar overall baseline cardiac disease risk profiles. They also demonstrated similar cardiac performance during the one year follow-up.

Now, In a proof-of-concept study, Mayo researchers have demonstrated that induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can be used to treat heart disease. In this study, researchers reprogrammed ordinary fibroblasts, cells that contribute to scars such as those resulting from a heart attack, converting them into stem cells that fix heart damage caused by infarction.

Medicine's New Toolbox: MIT's View Of Induced Pluripotency's Future

"The past two years have been nothing short of a revolution," says John Dimos, a senior scientist at iZumi Bio. "These cells didn't really exist two years ago. This is all brand-new technology, and it's opening up the potential for brand-new science." The company John is with, Izumi Bio, plans to take advantage of that potential by developing a bank of iPS cells from patients with various diseases and using the cells to screen candidates for drug development.

As a postdoc at Harvard, John Dimos built a cellular model of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - Lou Gherig's Disease), making it possible to study a neurodegenerative disease outside an animal for the first time. He and his colleagues collected skin cells from an 82-year-old woman with ALS, reprogrammed them into iPS cells, and directed the cells to differentiate into motor neurons that were genetically identical to the donor's defective cells. "It was the first paper to show that you can use a stem cell to see disease pathology in a petri dish," says Douglas Melton, codirector of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. "That means you can now study diseases in petri dishes and not in people. That's huge."

Pluristem Therapeutics Receives European Regulatory Approval for Placental-Derived Stem Cell Clinical Trial

A recent study by Children's Hospital Oakland suggests the placenta contains the same quality stem cells as cord blood but in much larger numbers.  The primary problem with cord blood has been the relatively small harvest of stem cells for use in transplants. 

Pluristem Therapeutics, one of our Sector Companies, specializes in therapies derived using placental derived stem cells.  Now, the European Union, has approved the Company’s Clinical Trial Application (CTA) and granted approval to begin clinical trials with its placental-derived adherent stromal cell product, termed PLX-PAD, for the treatment of critical limb ischemia (CLI), the end-stage of peripheral artery disease (PAD). In addition, Pluristem has already received approval from the Ethics Committee and, as previously announced, the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) had cleared the Company’s Investigational New Drug (IND) application to initiate a similar trial in the United States. Both approvals of the CTA and IND clear the way for the world’s “first-in-man” clinical trial using PLX-PAD.

Pluristem’s placental-derived stem cells are expanded using the company’s proprietary 3D PluriX™ technology. PLX-PAD is an off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all product that needs no tissue matching prior to being administered to patients. In these phase I trials, to be conducted at multiple locations in the US and Germany, PLX-PAD will be administered to patients considered "late stage" that have not responded to traditional medical or surgical interventions.

In the US alone, it is estimated that 8-12 million people suffer from critical limb ischemia associated with PAD. Several Sector Companies are researching and testing applications for critical limb ischemia.

Adapted from the Pluristem Therapeutics announcement.

Perspectives On The Cytori Therapeutics Cardiovascular Preclinical Study: Use Of Adipose Stem Cells In Heart Attack Model

Press releases from Stem Cell Sector Companies serve the purpose of raising awareness in both the medical and investing communities.  Stem Cell research, the development of regenerative medicine, and the evolution of commercialized applications are all moving forward.  As with any human endeavor, the forward moves are not always smooth.  Sometimes commercialized applications can actually precede research results.  Such has been the case with our Sector Companies that manufacture and sell medical devices. 

Cardiogenesis, Athersys, Thermogenesis, Bioheart, Cytori Therapeutics, are all companies hoping that research and eventual clinical test results will make the devices they manufacture more in demand in the medical market place.  At times what information is released to the press is expressed in ways to suggest greater results are at hand than might actually be the case.  For the investing public, these announcements always pose a challenge.  Reported results or advances must be placed in a context, something not always easy to do.

Most recently, on May 28th, Cytori Therapeutics (CYTX) issued a press release titled, "Cytori Reports Publication of Cardiovascular Preclinical Study; Adipose Stem & Regenerative Cells Improve Function in Heart Attack Model."

Scientists Identify Key Factors in Heart Cell Creation

For the first time key genetic factors that drive the process of generating new heart cells have been identified by Benoit Bruneau, Ph.D. and his research team at the Gladstone Institute. The team found that a combination of three genes could do the trick. This is the first time any combination of factors has been found to activate cardiac differentiation in mammalian cells or tissues.

"The heart has very little regenerative capacity after it has been damaged," said Dr. Bruneau. "With heart disease the leading cause of death in the Western world, this is a significant first step in understanding how we might create new cells to repair a damaged heart."

Bioheart, Inc. And Cytori Therapeutics: The Difference Is In The Business Plan

Bioheart, Inc. and Cytori Therapeutics are included in our small cap sector companies.  Both extract and create a broth of stem and other autologus, adipose derived, regenerative cells (here, as in the medical devices the companies are relying upon, there are proprietary differences) which can be reintroduced to the patient for therapeutic use.  While Cytori (perhaps because of its early partnership with Olympus) has pressed for regulatory approval and market introduction in Europe and Japan, Bioheart has been attempting to gain approvals in the U.S. and European markets.  Bioheart has a market value of 11 million; Cytori's market value is 111 million.

Tests of Novel Stem Cells Show Robust Repair of Injured Heart Muscle

The various physical maladies that affect the human heart are the subject of a great deal of stem cell research.  Several of our sector companies are trying therapies using a variety of stem cells from a variety of sources.  The race is on to see which works best.  But, at this stage, no one is even sure exactly what it is the stem cells are doing when they arrive in the vicinity of the damage they are sent to repair,  That said, improvement has been shown for several types of damage.  Not the perfect cure as yet, but definitely improved function.

The latest candidate stem cells are called myoendothelial cells, so named by Johnny Huard and Bruno Péault at the University of Pittsburgh's McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine.  Adult human muscle tissue harbors a population of these unusual progenitor cells that can regenerate skeletal muscle more effectively than other known muscle progenitor cells.

Osiris And The First Stem Cell Research FDA Breakthrough

The day one of our stem cell sector companies gains FDA approval for a directly applied therapy the result may well be the same for stem cells as that famous day in 1906 was for football. Saint Louis University's Bradbury Robinson tossed the first forward pass to teammate Jack Schneider and created the modern game. For stem cells that day may not be far away.  Our money is on Osiris Therapeutics to be the first to gain FDA approval. Osiris's Prochymal has a good chance to be the stem cell arena's first forward pass.

Cord Blood Stem Cells Grown Into Heart Valves

According to the March of Dimes, heart defects are among the most common birth defects and are the leading cause of birth-related deaths. In the United States alone, about 35,000 infants (1 out of every 125) are born each year with heart defects. Among the most common congenital heart problems are heart valve defects, where the heart valve either does not close normally or is narrowed or blocked, so blood can’t flow smoothly.

Now, German scientists are hopeful that within five to seven years, they will be able to fashion a new heart valve for children born with heart valve defects that would grow as the child develops using stem cells collected at birth from the child’s own umbilical cord blood. 

Primary Differentiation Gene Found For Heart Repair From Stem Cells

The gene that locks mouse embryonic stem cells into becoming heart parts and navigates them to the area where the heart forms has been isolated by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Researchers are now trying to determine whether stem cells exposed to this gene (known as Mesp1) can help fix damaged mouse hearts.

"Finding out how to program an embryonic stem cell to, say, create or repair a human heart, is like playing a Mozart requiem on a piano with 5,000 keys when you have no music and have never heard the sound."  I don't remember who said that, but whomever it was should get the blue ribbon for embryonic stem cell research metaphor.  It pretty well encapsulates the difficulty in determining the process by which an embryonic stem cell differentiates into a cell with a particular function in the body.

Heart: Skin Cells Reprogrammed Into Functioning Heart Cells

UCLA researchers have differentiated stem cells induced from adult mouse skin cells into the three types of cardiovascular cells necessary to repair heart and blood vessels.  The next step for Dr. Robb MacLellan's team will be an attempt to recreate the same process with human cells.

This work is important because embryonic stem cells injected directly into the heart in animal models create tumors in many cases.  Why? Because the cells differentiate not only into cardiac cells but into other cells found in the human body as well, including cancer cells.

Heart: Fully Functioning Heart Cells Grown From Heart Stem Cells

    "We've got complete control of this process, and that's unique," said principal investigator Prof. Pieter Doevendans.  "We're able to make heart muscle cells in unprecedented quantities.  On top of that, The laboratory grown heart cells are all the same.  This is good news in terms of treatment, as well as for scientific research and testing of potentially new drugs."

    Using material left after open-heart operations, researchers at University Medical Center Utrecht and the Hubrecht Institute have isolated heart stem cells and reproduced them without a growth medium that includes other heart muscle cells such as from newborn mice.  The cells grow into fully developed heart muscle cells that contract rhythmically, respond to electrical activity, and react to adrenaline.

    Using this technique, stem cells from the hearts of patients with genetic heart defects can be grown into heart muscle cells in the lab and studied to find out what causes the condition.  Lab grown heart muscle cells can also be used to test new drugs which could speed the pace of development and transition into clinical trials.

    Read the entire UMC Utrecht announcement here.  Comments?

   

Heart Disease: Drug Treated Stem Cells Repair Heart Damage

    Researchers at the UT Southwestern Medical Center have accomplished a first.  They've used drug-treated blood stem cells to repair heart damage in a mouse.  To do it they had to screen 147,000 molecules to find one that could transform human blood stem cells into a form resembling immature heart cells. 

    "The clinical potential is enormous," said Dr. Jay Schneider, assistant professor of internal medicine and senior author of the study. "Despite medical advances in treating and preventing heart attacks, once the heart is damaged it cannot repair itself."

Heart Disease: Can Stem Cells Improve Circulation in Damaged Coronary Arteries?

    The Massachusetts General Hospital Heart Center plans to find out. Blockage of the coronary arteries leading to the heart due to cholesterol plaque and blood clots impairs blood flow and oxygen supply. We're all aware of the resulting heart disease, chest pain, heart attacks and even sudden death that can occur.

    The MGH trial is to determine whether a patient's autologous (patient's own) stem cells can improve circulation in a heart damaged by inadequate blood flow resulting in life extension and improved quality of life.  Doulas Drachman, MD, an interventional cardiologist at Mass Gen's Heart Center and lead investigator with Kenneth Rosenfield, MD, says,

Heart: Prochymal Demonstrates Safety and Improvement in Heart Attack Victims

Osiris Therapeutics, reporting one year interim results of its Phase I trial on Prochymal for treatment of heart attack patients, announced that a "53 patient, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial has successfully shown Prochymal for the treatment of heart attack patients is safe and results in statistically significant improvement in heart function."  As a result, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the initiation of a Phase II trial. "The data further suggest that the greater the cardiac damage, the greater the potential benefit from Prochymal," said Dr. Joshua Hare, M.D., lead investigator for the Prochymal cardiac study.

Stem Cell Digest Comment:  Prochymal, "a patented formulation of adult stem cells," is apparently a potential solution Osiris is planning for several diseases.  It is "currently in Phase III clinical trials for the treatment of Graft vs. Host Disease and Crohn's Disease.  It is also in a Phase II trial for type 1 diabetes."  Additionally, Osiris has received a "$224.7 million contract for the development and stockpile of Prochymal by the Defense Department for the treatment of acute radiation syndrome."

    Read the Osiris Therapeutics announcement.