Things like this are pretty good reminders that using our own stem cells can be very potent in healing ourselves. Three patients who were blind in one eye were recently part of a study. Researchers extracted stem cells from their working eyes and cultured them in contact lenses for about ten days. They gave them to the patients and within ten days to two weeks, the stem cells began to recolonize and repair the cornea.
By now, most people have read stories about how to “grow your own organs” using stem cells is just a breakthrough away. Despite the hype, this breakthrough has been elusive. A new report published in the March 2009 issue of The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) brings bioengineered organs a step closer, as scientists from Stanford and New York University Langone Medical Center describe how they were able to use a “scaffolding” material extracted from the groin area of mice on which stem cells from blood, fat, and bone marrow grew. This advance clears two major hurdles to bioengineered replacement organs, namely a matrix on which stem cells can form a 3-dimensional organ and transplant rejection.
A successful transplant of a human windpipe has been completed using the patient’s own stem cells to fashion the organ. It helped to prevent its rejection by her immune system and is almost indistinguishable from adjacent normal bronchi. The transplant operation was performed Claudia Castillo, 30, in June in Barcelona, Spain. Two months after the surgery, tests have proved positive, as they all are at the better end of results for a young woman.
The Bristol University statement said a segment of trachea, roughly three inches long, was taken from a 51-year-old donor who had died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Using a new technique developed in Padua University, the trachea was stripped of its donor’s cells over a six-week period “so that no donor cells remained,” the statement said.
At the same time, at Bristol University, stem cells removed from Ms. Castillo’s bone marrow, were grown into “a large population” and used to “seed” the donated windpipe using a new technique developed in Milan to incubate cells.
Four days after the seeding, the graft was used to replace Ms. Castillo’s damaged windpipe.
Normally after transplants there is a high risk of rejection because the recipient’s immune system reacts against the foreign organ. Most transplant patients, thus, use immunosuppressant drugs to prevent rejection.
“The patient has not developed antibodies to her graft, despite not taking any immunosuppressive drugs,” the statement from Bristol University said.
This is a very exciting development that could lead to many more breakthroughs as Martin Birchall, a professor at the university, said the transplant showed “the very real potential for adult stem cells and tissue engineering to radically improve their ability to treat patients with serious diseases. We believe this success has proved that we are on the verge of a new age in surgical care.”
More Information: New York Times, BBC News
Well, this is a really whopper of a story regarding stem cell research. The Washington Post reports:
Scientists are reporting today that they have overcome a major obstacle to using a promising alternative to embryonic stem cells, bolstering the prospects for bypassing the political and ethical tempest that has embroiled hopes for a new generation of medical treatments.
The researchers said they found a safe way to coax adult cells to regress into an embryonic state, alleviating what had been the most worrisome uncertainty about developing the cells into potential cures.
[...]
Scientists last year shook up the scientific and political landscape by discovering how to manipulate the genes of adult cells to revert them into the equivalent of embryonic cells — entities dubbed “induced pluripotent stem” or “iPS” cells — which could then be transformed into any type of cell in the body. Subsequent work has found that the cells can alleviate symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and sickle cell anemia in mice.
But the first iPS cells were created by ferrying four genes into the DNA of adult cells using retroviruses, which can cause cancer in animals. There was also concern because the viruses integrated their genes into the cells’ DNA in the course of transforming them. In the new work, Hochedlinger and his colleagues used a different type of virus, known as an adenovirus, which does not integrate its genes into a cell’s DNA and therefore is believed to be harmless, to ferry the same four transformative genes into the DNA of mouse skin and liver cells.
A group of Japanese scientists are saying they have created human stem cells from tissue taken from the discarded wisdom teeth of a 10-year-old girl.
They believe that their work could lead to another alternative to human embryos as a source for therapeutic stem cells. The researchers say that it will be at least five years before practical medical applications result from the findings.
-via BBC News
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