“Latest Stem Cells News”

Cellular therapy with stem cells is revolutionizing the focus of treatment of many serious diseases. Replacing the cells of damaged tissue with other new cells from the same patient is already a reality. This is the basis of cellular therapy and regenerative medicine, the latest great advance in biomedicine.

In this line, Hospital Clínic, Barcelona is exploring an innovative cellular therapy that uses stem cells to treat Crohn’s disease, a chronic genetic disease that affects 1% of the population in Spain and which has considerable impact on the quality of life of the patients. The procedure is based on an autologous bone-marrow transplant (when patients receive a transplant of their own stem cells) and now constitutes a treatment option to cure an intestinal disease that sometimes does not successfully respond to drugs and requires highly complex surgery that does not provide a cure.

With this therapy, in an average follow-up period of 6 years, 80% of transplant patients are in a phase of total remission of the disease and the remaining 20% have shown considerable improvement following the transplant, and are now responding favorably to drugs.

Dr. Julián Panés and Dr. Elena Ricart over the Gastroenterology Department of Hospital Clínic, Barcelona are the driving force behind this therapy in Spain and began to implement regenerative cellular therapy in patients with Crohn’s disease in August 2008. To date, a total of 6 patients are benefiting from this new treatment, of whom 3 have already completed the process and are in the follow-up face, and a further 3 are at different stages of therapy. The transplant requires several weeks of admission to hospital before patients receive their own cells.

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Bone marrow stromal cells [BMSCs; also known as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)] effectively suppress inflammatory responses in acute graft-versus-host disease in humans and in a number of disease models in mice. Many of the studies concluded that BMSC-driven immunomodulation is mediated by the suppression of proinflammatory Th1 responses while rebalancing the Th1/Th2 ratio toward Th2.

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Sir Martin Evans

Stem cells could aid in treating muscular sclerosis. Animal experiments have demonstrated that it is possible to stop the aggressive, chronic inflammatory response against the myelin sheath that covers nerve cells, whose destruction leads to the devastating effects of the disease, said Giancarlo Comi, the head of the Experimental Neurology Institute of the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University. A three-day meeting, which began in Stresa, on the most recent progress regarding stem cells was opened by Nobel Prize winner Martin Evans and also included some of the most important experts on the subject in the country.

Comi specified that these cells are able to act against multiple sclerosis in two ways: not only are they able to stop inflammation, but they are also aggregate in the locations in which they are acting, keeping the entire area under control.

“It was thought that stem cells were only able to repair tissues, but it has been observed that they also act on the immune system.” The neurologist also cited work by Milan researcher Gianvito Martino, which “has completed the preliminary phase and is now ready for the first clinical study on the applications of stem cells against multiple sclerosis. A study will also be done to establish the doses that can guarantee successful treatment without causing any damage on patients with serious spinal injuries. This study will provide us with information on efficiency, which will be the focus of another study that will begin at the end of the year.”

The conference in Stresa gathered the top researchers in Italy in the stem cell field, with experts on neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases, assisted reproduction, leukemia, and lymphoma.

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