“Latest Stem Cells News”

SANUWAVE Inc., an emerging medical technology company focused on the development and commercialization of non-invasive, biological response activating devices in the regenerative medicine area, reported that scientific findings titled “Extracorporeal Shock Wave Stimulation of Osteoprogenitor Cells” were presented at the 2009 International Bone-Tissue-Engineering Congress (“Bone-Tec”) in Hannover, Germany, which was held October 9-11, 2009.

Dr. Myron Spector, PhD, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery (Biomaterials) at Harvard Medical School, Director of Orthopaedic Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Director of Tissue Engineering at VA Boston Healthcare System, was an invited guest speaker at the Conference. The Bone–Tec Congress featured an international scientific forum to discuss progresses in modern bone tissue regeneration and extended a worldwide network to exchange findings on the latest developments.

Dr. Spector’s team employed SANUWAVE’s Pulsed Acoustic Cellular Expression (PACE™) technology in preclinical research to create autogenous sources of stem cells for bone tissue engineering. Results support the proposition that PACE™ could be employed as a non-invasive technique to cause proliferation and thickening of the cambium layer of the femur’s periosteum for the subsequent intraoperative harvesting of progenitor stem cells days later for bone or cartilage regeneration.

PACE™ stimulated a dramatic proliferation and thickening (up to 10 fold) of osteoprogenitor stem cells, precursors to bone and cartilage cells, in the cambium layer of the periosteum in the femur of the adult rats within 4 days. Neovascularization and new bone formation within the thickened periosteum were also evident after 4 days.

Dr. Spector said, “This research has shown great potential. Through more study, this technology could further advance tissue engineering autologous transplant techniques towards clinical applications such as bone reconstruction and cartilage defect repair.” (…)

from http://www.sanuwave.com

According to a recent article in Lancet magazine, the first “engineered” transplant in the world was a success. For the first time, a trachea was “tailored” to the patient before being implanted. 30 year old Colombian Claudia Castillo who suffered damage to her trachea due to tuberculosis was the patient in an operation that was particularly interesting for Italy, since the operation was performed in June by an international medical team led by Paolo Macchiarini, the head of Thoracic Surgery at the Clinic de Barcelona, in collaboration with specialists from the Milan General Hospital, and the Universities of Bristol and .

During the transplant, her own stem cells were implanted into the donor trachea in order to avoid using traditional anti-rejection therapy based on immunosuppressant drugs. In order to allow the patient’s immune system to accept the trachea without having to use anti-rejection therapies, doctors resorted to a tissue engineering technique. The result was a sort of hybrid organ between the donor and the patient. Basically, the donor’s organ was used, but it was cleaned of its own cells which were then substituted with stem cells from the patient. This allowed doctors to perform the transplant without using immunosuppressants. The therapy used was only tested on pigs and is still in its experimental phases.

Pier Paolo Parnigotto with Mariateresa Conconi

After a trachea transplant that was not rejected, performed in Barcelona by Italian surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, soon other organs and biotech tissues will be reconstructed in the lab thanks to a technique developed by the University of Padova. Bones, livers, the esophagus, pancreases, and muscles will be next, in research that will possibly take place in the Veneto. According to Pierpaolo Parnigotto, 61 year old professor of anatomy, who together with Maria Teresa Conconi carried out tissue engineering research for 15 years in the development of biotech organ grafts that will not be rejected in the recipient: “Our technique consists of removing an organ from a cadaver, and removing residual cells and DNA, leaving only a framework that resembles a white sponge.

Stem cells can thrive in segments of well-vascularized tissue temporarily removed from laboratory animals, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Once the cells have nestled into the tissue’s nooks and crannies, the so-called “bioscaffold” can then be seamlessly reconnected to the animal’s circulatory system.

The new technique neatly sidesteps a fundamental stumbling block in tissue engineering: the inability to generate solid organs from stem cells in the absence of a reliable supply of blood to the interior of the developing structure.

“Efforts to use tissue engineering to generate whole organs have largely failed,” said Geoffrey Gurtner, MD, associate professor of surgery, “primarily due to the lack of available blood vessels. Now we’ve essentially hijacked an existing structure to overcome this problem.” The key, the researchers discovered, is to keep the tissue adequately supplied with oxygen and nutrients while outside of the body.

In the near future, the researchers believe that the stem cells in the tissue could be induced to become an internal, living factory of healthy, specialized cells churning out proteins missing in people with conditions such as hemophilia or diabetes. In the long run, they hope to encourage the cells to become entire transplantable organs such as livers or pancreases.