diabetes

Treatments, cures and clinical trials: an in-person update on CIRM’s progress

/ Kevin McCormack / 2 Comments

Patients and Patient Advocates are at the heart of everything we do at CIRM. That’s why we are holding three free public events in the next few months focused on updating you on the stem cell research we are funding, and our plans for the future.

Right now we have 33 projects that we have funded in clinical trials. Those range from heart disease and stroke, to cancer, diabetes, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), two different forms of vision loss, spinal cord injury and HIV/AIDS. We have also helped cure dozens of children battling deadly immune disorders. But as far as we are concerned we are only just getting started.

Over the course of the next few years, we have a goal of adding dozens more clinical trials to that list, and creating a pipeline of promising therapies for a wide range of diseases and disorders.

That’s why we are holding these free public events – something we try and do every year. We want to let you know what we are doing, what we are funding, how that research is progressing, and to get your thoughts on how we can improve, what else we can do to help meet the needs of the Patient Advocate community. Your voice is important in helping shape everything we do.

The first event is at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco on Wednesday, September 6th from noon till 1pm. The doors open at 11am for registration and a light lunch.

Gladstone Institutes

Here’s a link to an Eventbrite page that has all the information about the event, including how you can RSVP to let us know you are coming.

We are fortunate to be joined by two great scientists, and speakers – as well as being CIRM grantees-  from the Gladstone Institutes, Dr. Deepak Srivastava and Dr. Steve Finkbeiner.

Dr. Srivastava is working on regenerating heart muscle after it has been damaged. This research could not only help people recover from a heart attack, but the same principles might also enable us to regenerate other organs damaged by disease. Dr. Finkbeiner is a pioneer in diseases of the brain and has done ground breaking work in both Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s disease.

We have two other free public events coming up in October. The first is at UC Davis in Sacramento on October 10th (noon till 1pm) and the second at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles on October 30th (noon till 1pm). We will have more details on these events in the coming weeks.

We look forward to seeing you at one of these events and please feel free to share this information with anyone you think might be interested in attending.

Stem cell stories that caught our eye: skin grafts fight diabetes, reprogramming the immune system, and Asterias expands spinal cord injury trial sites

/ Karen Ring / Leave a comment

Here are the stem cell stories that caught our eye this week.

Skin grafts fight diabetes and obesity.

An interesting new gene therapy strategy for fighting type 1 diabetes and obesity surfaced this week. Scientists from the University of Chicago made genetically engineered skin grafts that secrete a peptide hormone called glucagon-liked peptide-1 (GLP-1). This peptide is released by cells in the intestine and can lower blood sugar levels by stimulating pancreatic islet cells to secrete insulin (a hormone that promotes the absorption of glucose from the blood).

The study, which was published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, used CRISPR gene editing technology to introduce a mutation to the GLP-1 gene in mouse and human skin stem cells. This mutation stabilized the GLP-1 peptide, allowing it to hang around in the blood for longer. The team matured these stem cells into skin grafts that secreted the GLP-1 into the bloodstream of mice when treated with a drug called doxycycline.

When fed a high-fat diet, mice with a skin graft (left), genetically altered to secrete GLP-1 in response to the antibiotic doxycycline, gained less weight than normal mice (right). (Image source: Wu Laboratory, the University of Chicago)

On a normal diet, mice that received the skin graft saw a rise in their insulin levels and a decrease in their blood glucose levels, proving that the gene therapy was working. On a high fat diet, mice with the skin graft became obese, but when they were treated with doxycycline, GLP-1 secreted from their grafts reduced the amount of weight gain. So not only does their engineered skin graft technology look like a promising new strategy to treat type 1 diabetes patients, it also could be used to control obesity. The beauty of the technology is in its simplicity.

An article in Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News that covered this research explained that Xiaoyang Wu, the senior author on the study, and his team “worked with skin because it is a large organ and easily accessible. The cells multiply quickly and are easily transplanted. And, transplanted cells can be removed, if needed. “Skin is such a beautiful system,” Wu says, noting that its features make it a perfect medium for testing gene therapies.”

Wu concluded that, “This kind of therapy could be potentially effective for many metabolic disorders.” According to GenBio, Wu’s team “is now testing the gene-therapy technique in combination with other medications.” They also hope that a similar strategy could be used to treat patients that can’t make certain proteins like in the blood clotting disorder hemophilia.

How to reprogram your immune system (Kevin McCormack)

When your immune system goes wrong it can cause all manner of problems, from type 1 diabetes to multiple sclerosis and cancer. That’s because an overactive immune system causes the body to attack its own tissues, while an underactive one leaves the body vulnerable to outside threats such as viruses. That’s why scientists have long sought ways to correct those immune dysfunctions.

Now researchers at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco think they have found a way to reprogram specific cells in the immune system and restore a sense of health and balance to the body. Their findings are published in the journal Nature.

The researchers identified a drug that targets effector T cells, which get our immune system to defend us against outside threats, and turns them into regulatory T cells, which control our immune system and stops it from attacking our own body.

Why would turning one kind of T cell into another be helpful? Well, in some autoimmune diseases, the effector T cells become overly active and attack healthy tissues and organs, damaging and even destroying them. By converting them to regulatory T cells you can prevent that happening.

In addition, some cancers can hijack regulatory T cells and suppress the immune system, allowing the disease to spread. By turning those cells into effector T cells, you can boost the immune system and give it the strength to fight back and, hopefully, kill the cancer.

In a news release, Gladstone Senior Investigator Sheng Ding, the lead scientists on the study, said their findings could have several applications:

“Our findings could have a significant impact on the treatment of autoimmune diseases, as well as on stem cell and immuno-oncology therapies.” 

Gladstone scientists Sheng Ding (right) and Tao Xu (left) discovered how to reprogram cells in our immune system. (Gladstone Institutes)

CIRM-funded spinal cord injury trial expands clinical sites

We have another update from CIRM’s clinical trial front. Asterias Biotherapeutics, which is testing a stem cell treatment for complete cervical (neck) spinal cord injury, is expanding its clinical sites for its CIRM-funded SCiStar Phase 1/2a trial. The company is currently treating patients at six sites in the US, and will be expanding to include two additional sites at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia and the UC San Diego Medical Center, which is part of the UCSD Health CIRM Alpha Stem Cell Clinic.

In a company news release, Ed Wirth, Chief Medical Officer of Asterias said,

Ed Wirth

“We are excited about the clinical site openings at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and UC San Diego Health. These sites provide additional geographical reach and previous experience with spinal cord injury trials to our SCiStar study. We have recently reported completion of enrollment in four out of five cohorts in our SCiStar study so we hope these institutions will also participate in a future, larger study of AST-OPC1.”

The news release also gave a recap of the trial’s positive (but still preliminary) results this year and their plans for completing trial enrollment.

“In June 2017, Asterias reported 9 month data from the AIS-A 10 million cell cohort that showed improvements in arm, hand and finger function observed at 3-months and 6-months following administration of AST-OPC1 were confirmed and in some patients further increased at 9-months. The company intends to complete enrollment of the entire SCiStar study later this year, with multiple safety and efficacy readouts anticipated during the remainder of 2017 and 2018.”

Creating partnerships to help get stem cell therapies over the finish line

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment
Lewis, Clark, Sacagawea

Lewis & Clark & Sacagawea:

Trying to go it alone is never easy. Imagine how far Lewis would have got without Clark, or the two of them without Sacagawea. Would Batman have succeeded without Robin; Mickey without Minnie Mouse? Having a partner whose skills and expertise complements yours just makes things easier.

That’s why some recent news about two CIRM-funded companies running clinical trials was so encouraging.

Viacyte Gore

First ViaCyte, which is developing an implantable device to help people with type 1 diabetes, announced a collaborative research agreement with W. L. Gore & Associates, a global materials science company. On every level it seems like a natural fit.

ViaCyte has developed a way of maturing embryonic stem cells into an early form of the cells that produce insulin. They then insert those cells into a permeable device that can be implanted under the skin. Inside the device, the cells mature into insulin-producing cells. While ViaCyte has experience developing the cells, Gore has experience in the research, development and manufacturing of implantable devices.

Gore-tex-fabricWhat they hope to do is develop a kind of high-tech version of what Gore already does with its Gore-Tex fabrics. Gore-Tex keeps the rain out but allows your skin to breathe. To treat diabetes they need a device that keeps the immune system out, so it won’t attack the cells inside, but allows those cells to secrete insulin into the body.

As Edward Gunzel, Technical Leader for Gore PharmBIO Products, said in a news release, each side brings experience and expertise that complements the other:

“We have a proven track record of developing and commercializing innovative new materials and products to address challenging implantable medical device applications and solving difficult problems for biologics manufacturers.  Gore and ViaCyte began exploring a collaboration in 2016 with early encouraging progress leading to this agreement, and it was clear to us that teaming up with ViaCyte provided a synergistic opportunity for both companies.  We look forward to working with ViaCyte to develop novel implantable delivery technologies for cell therapies.”

AMD2

How macular degeneration destroys central vision

Then last week Regenerative Patch Technologies (RPT), which is running a CIRM-funded clinical trial targeting age-related macular degeneration (AMD), announced an investment from Santen Pharmaceutical, a Japanese company specializing in ophthalmology research and treatment.

The investment will help with the development of RPT’s therapy for AMD, a condition that affects millions of people around the world. It’s caused by the deterioration of the macula, the central portion of the retina which is responsible for our ability to focus, read, drive a car and see objects like faces in fine details.

RPE

RPT is using embryonic stem cells to produce the support cells, or RPE cells, needed to replace those lost in AMD. Because these cells exist in a thin sheet in the back of the eye, the company is assembling these sheets in the lab by growing the RPE cells on synthetic scaffolds. These sheets are then surgically implanted into the eye.

In a news release, RPT’s co-founder Dennis Clegg says partnerships like this are essential for small companies like RPT:

“The ability to partner with a global leader in ophthalmology like Santen is very exciting. Such a strong partnership will greatly accelerate RPT’s ability to develop our product safely and effectively.”

These partnerships are not just good news for those involved, they are encouraging for the field as a whole. When big companies like Gore and Santen are willing to invest their own money in a project it suggests growing confidence in the likelihood that this work will be successful, and that it will be profitable.

As the current blockbuster movie ‘Beauty and the Beast’ is proving; with the right partner you can not only make magic, you can also make a lot of money. For potential investors those are both wonderfully attractive qualities. We’re hoping these two new partnerships will help RPT and ViaCyte advance their research. And that these are just the first of many more to come.

Partnering with the best to help find cures for rare diseases

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

As a state agency we focus most of our efforts and nearly all our money on California. That’s what we were set up to do. But that doesn’t mean we don’t also look outside the borders of California to try and find the best research, and the most promising therapies, to help people in need.

Today’s meeting of the CIRM Board was the first time we have had a chance to partner with one of the leading research facilities in the country focusing on children and rare diseases; St. Jude Children’s Researech Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

a4da990e3de7a2112ee875fc784deeafSt. Jude is getting $11.9 million to run a Phase I/II clinical trial for x-linked severe combined immunodeficiency disorder (SCID), a catastrophic condition where children are born without a functioning immune system. Because they are unable to fight off infections, many children born with SCID die in the first few years of life.

St. Jude is teaming up with researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to genetically modify the patient’s own blood stem cells, hopefully creating a new blood system and repairing the damaged immune system. St. Jude came up with the method of doing this, UCSF will treat the patients. Having that California component to the clinical trial is what makes it possible for us to fund this work.

This is the first time CIRM has funded work with St. Jude and reflects our commitment to moving the most promising research into clinical trials in people, regardless of whether that work originates inside or outside California.

The Board also voted to fund researchers at Cedars-Sinai to run a clinical trial on ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Like SCID, ALS is a rare disease. As Randy Mills, our President and CEO, said in a news release:

CIRM CEO and President, Randy Mills.

CIRM CEO and President, Randy Mills.

“While making a funding decision at CIRM we don’t just look at how many people are affected by a disease, we also look at the severity of the disease on the individual and the potential for impacting other diseases. While the number of patients afflicted by these two diseases may be small, their need is great. Additionally, the potential to use these approaches in treating other disease is very real. The underlying technology used in treating SCID, for example, has potential application in other areas such as sickle cell disease and HIV/AIDS.”

We have written several blogs about the research that cured children with SCID.

The Board also approved funding for a clinical trial to develop a treatment for type 1 diabetes (T1D). This is an autoimmune disease that affects around 1.25 million Americans, and millions more around the globe.

T1D is where the body’s own immune system attacks the cells that produce insulin, which is needed to control blood sugar levels. If left untreated it can result in serious, even life-threatening, complications such as vision loss, kidney damage and heart attacks.

Researchers at Caladrius Biosciences will take cells, called regulatory T cells (Tregs), from the patient’s own immune system, expand the number of those cells in the lab and enhance them to make them more effective at preventing the autoimmune attack on the insulin-producing cells.

The focus is on newly-diagnosed adolescents because studies show that at the time of diagnosis T1D patients usually have around 20 percent of their insulin-producing cells still intact. It’s hoped by intervening early the therapy can protect those cells and reduce the need for patients to rely on insulin injections.

David J. Mazzo, Ph.D., CEO of Caladrius Biosciences, says this is hopeful news for people with type 1 diabetes:

David Mazzo

David Mazzo

“We firmly believe that this therapy has the potential to improve the lives of people with T1D and this grant helps us advance our Phase 2 clinical study with the goal of determining the potential for CLBS03 to be an effective therapy in this important indication.”

 

Related Links:

Don’t Sugar Coat it: A Patient’s Perspective on Type 1 Diabetes

/ Karen Ring / 1 Comment
John Welsh

John Welsh

“In the weeks leading up to my diagnosis, I remember making and drinking Kool-Aid at the rate of about a gallon per day, and getting up to pee and drink Kool-Aid several times a night. The exhaustion and constant thirst and the weight loss were pretty scary. Insulin saved my life, and it’s been saving my life every day for the past 40 years.” – John Welsh

 

In honor of diabetes awareness month, we are featuring a patient perspective on what it’s like to live with type 1 diabetes (T1D) and what the future of stem cell research holds in terms of a cure.

T1D is a chronic disease that destroys the insulin producing cells in your pancreas, making it very difficult for your body to maintain the proper levels of sugar in your blood. There is no cure for T1D and patients take daily shots of insulin and closely monitor their blood sugar to stay healthy and alive.

Stem cell research offers an alternative strategy for treating T1D patients by potentially replacing their lost insulin producing cells. We’ve written blogs about ongoing stem cell research for diabetes on the Stem Cellar (here) but we haven’t focused on the patient side of T1D. So today, I’m introducing you to John Welsh, a man whose has lived with T1D since 1976.

John Welsh is a MD/PhD scientist and currently works at a company called Dexcom, which make a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) device for diabetes patients. He is also an enrolled patient in CIRM-funded stem cell clinical trial (also funded by JDRF) for T1D sponsored by the company ViaCyte. The trial is testing a device containing stem cell-derived pancreatic cells that’s placed under the skin to act as a transplanted pancreas. You can learn more about it here.

I reached out to John to see if he wanted to share his story about living with diabetes. He was not only willing but enthusiastic to speak with me. As you will read later, one of John’s passions is a “good story”. And he sure told me a good one. So before you read on, I recommend grabbing some coffee or tea, going to a quiet room, and taking the time to enjoy his interview.

Q: Describe your career path and your current job.

JW: I went to college at UC Santa Cruz and majored in biochemistry and molecular biology. I then went into the medical scientist training program (combined MD/PhD program) at UC San Diego followed by research positions in cell biology and cancer biology at UC San Francisco and Novartis. I’ve been a medical writer specializing in medical devices for type 1 diabetes since 2009. At Dexcom, I help study the benefits of CGM and get the message out to healthcare professionals.

Q: How has diabetes affected your life and what obstacles do you deal with because of diabetes?

JW: I found out I had T1D at the age of 13, and it’s been a part of my life for 40 years. It’s been a big deal in terms of what I’m not allowed to do and figuring out what would be challenging if I tried. On the other hand, having diabetes is a great motivator on a lot of levels personally, educationally and professionally. Having this disease made me want to learn everything I could about the endocrine system. From there, my interests turned to biology – molecular biology in particular – and understanding how molecules in cells work.

The challenge of having diabetes also motivated me to do things that I might not have thought about otherwise – most importantly, a career that combined science and medicine. Having to stay close to my insulin and insulin-delivery paraphernalia (early on, syringes; nowadays, the pump and glucose monitor) meant that I couldn’t do as many ridiculous adventures as I might have otherwise.

Q: Did your diagnosis motivate you to pursue a scientific career?

JW: Absolutely. If I hadn’t gotten diabetes, I probably would have gone into something like engineering. But my parents were both healthcare professionals, so a career in medicine seemed plausible. The medical scientist MD/PhD training program at UC San Diego was really cool, but very competitive. Having first-hand experience with this disease may have given me an inside track with the admissions process, and that imperative – to understand the disease and how best to manage it – has been a great motivator.

There’s also a nice social aspect to being surrounded by people whose lives are affected by T1D.

Q: Describe your treatment regimen for T1D?

JW: I travel around with two things stuck on my belly, a Medtronic pump and a Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) sensor. The first is an infusion port that can deliver insulin into my body. The port lasts for about three days after which you have to take it out. The port that lives under the skin surface is nine millimeters long and it’s about as thick as a mechanical pencil lead. The port is connected to a tube and the tube is connected to a pump, which has a reservoir with fast-acting insulin in it.

The insulin pump is pretty magical. It’s conceptually very simple, but it transforms the way a lot of people take insulin. You program it so that throughout the day, it squirts in a tiny bit of basal insulin at the low rate that you want. If you’re just cruising through your day, you get an infusion of insulin at a low basal rate. At mealtimes, you can give yourself an extra squirt of insulin like what happens with normal people’s pancreas. Or if you happen to notice that you have a high sugar level, you can program a correction bolus which will help to bring it back to towards the normal range. The sensor continuously interrogates the glucose concentration in under my skin. If something goes off the rails, it will beep at me.

dexcom_g4_platinum_man

Dexcom continuous glucose monitor.

As good as these devices are, they’re not a cure, they’re not perfect, and they’re not cheap, so one of my concerns as a physician and as a patient is making these transformative devices better and more widely available to people with the disease.

Q: What are the negative side effects associated with your insulin pump and sensor?

JW:  If you have an insulin pump, you carry it everywhere because it’s stuck onto you. The pump is on you for three days and it does get itchy. It’s expensive and a bit uncomfortable. And when I take my shirt off, it’s obvious that I have certain devices stuck on me.  This is a big disincentive for some of my type 1 friends, especially those who like to wear clothes without pockets. And every once-in-a-while, the pump will malfunction and you need a backup plan for getting insulin when it breaks.

On the other hand, the continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) is wonderful especially for moms and dads whose kids have T1D. CGM lets parents essentially spy on their kids. You can be on the sidelines watching your kid play soccer and you get a push notification on your phone saying that the glucose concentration is low, or is heading in that direction. The best-case scenario is that this technology helps people avoid dangerous and potentially catastrophic low blood sugars.

Q: Was the decision easy or hard to enroll in the ViaCyte trial?

JW: It was easy! I was very excited to learn about the ViaCyte trial and equally pleased to sign up for it. When I found out about it from a friend, I wanted to sign up for it right away. I went to clinicaltrials.gov and contacted the study coordinator at UC San Diego. They did a screening interview over the phone, and then they brought me in for screening lab work. After I was selected to be in the trial, they implanted a couple of larger devices (about the size of a credit card) under the skin of my lower back, and smaller devices (about the size of a postage stamp) in my arm and lower back to serve as “sentinels” that were taken out after two or three months.

ViaCyte device

ViaCyte device

I’m patient number seven in the safety part of this trial. They put the cell replacement therapy device in me without any pre-medication or immunosuppression. They tested this device first in diabetic mice and found that the stem cells in the device differentiated into insulin producing cells, much like the ones that usually live in the mouse pancreas. They then translated this technology from animal models to human trials and are hoping for the same type of result.

I had the device transplanted in March of 2015, and the plan is for in the final explant procedure to take place next year at the two-year anniversary. Once they take the device out, they will look at the cells under the microscope to see if they are alive and whether they turned into pancreatic cells that secrete insulin.

It’s been no trouble at all having this implant. I do clinic visits regularly where they do a meal challenge and monitor my blood sugar. My experience being a subject in this clinical study has been terrific. I met some wonderful people and I feel like I’m helping the community and advancing the science.

Q: Do you think that stem cell-derived therapies will be a solution for curing diabetes?

JW: T1D is a great target for stem cell therapy – the premise makes a lot of sense — so it’s logical that it’s one of the first ones to enter clinical trials. I definitely think that stem cells could offer a cure for T1D. Even 30 years ago, scientists knew that we needed to generate insulin producing cells somehow, protect them from immunological rejection, and package them up and put them somewhere in the body to act like a normal pancreas. The concept is still a good concept but the devil is in the implementation. That’s why clinical trials like the one CIRM is funding are important to figure these details out and advance the science.

Q: What is your opinion about the importance of stem cell research and advancing stem cell therapies into clinical trials?

JW: Understanding how cells determine their fate is tremendously important. I think that there’s going to be plenty of payoffs for stem cell research in the near term and more so in the intermediate and long term. Stem cell research has my full support, and it’s fun to speculate on how it might address other unmet medical needs. The more we learn about stem cell biology the better.

Q: What advice do you have for other patients dealing with diabetes or who are recently diagnosed?

JW: Don’t give up, don’t be ashamed or discouraged, and gather as much data as you can. Make sure you know where the fast-acting carbohydrates are!

Q: What are you passionate about?

JW: I love a good story, and I’m a fan of biological puzzles. It’s great having a front-row seat in the world of diabetes research, and I want to stick around long enough to celebrate a cure.

Related links:

From Pig Parts to Stem Cells: Scientist Douglas Melton Wins Ogawa-Yamanaka Prize for Work on Diabetes

/ Karen Ring / Leave a comment

Since the 1920s, insulin injections have remained the best solution for managing type 1 diabetes. Patients with this disease do not make enough insulin – a hormone that regulates the sugar levels in your blood – because the insulin-producing cells, or beta cells, in their pancreas are destroyed.

Back then, it took two tons of pig parts to make eight ounces of insulin, which was enough to treat 10,000 diabetic patients for six months. Biotech and pharmaceutical companies have since developed different types of human insulin treatments that include fast and long acting versions of the hormone. It’s estimated that $22 billion will be spent on developing insulin products for patients this year and that costs will rise to $32 billion in the year 2019.

These costs are necessary to keep insulin-dependent diabetes patients alive and healthy, but what if there was a different, potentially simpler solution to manage diabetes? One that looks to insulin-producing beta cells as the solution rather than daily hormone shots?

Douglas Melton Receives Stem Cell Prize for Work on Diabetes

Harvard scientist Douglas Melton envisions a world where one day, insulin-dependent diabetic patients are given stem cell transplants rather than shots to manage their diabetes. In the 90s, Melton’s son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Motivated by his son’s diagnosis, Melton dedicated the focus of his research on understanding how beta cells develop from stem cells in the body and also in a cell culture dish.

Almost 30 years later, Melton has made huge strides towards understanding the biology of beta cell development and has generated methods to “reprogram” or coax pluripotent stem cells into human beta cells.

Melton was honored for his important contributions to stem cell and diabetes research at the second annual Ogawa-Yamanaka Stem Cell Prize ceremony last week at the Gladstone Institutes. This award recognizes outstanding scientists that are translating stem cell research from the lab to clinical trials in patients.

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Deepak Srivastava, director of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, explained why Melton was selected as this year’s prize winner:

Deepak Srivastava, Gladstone Institutes

Deepak Srivastava, Gladstone Institutes

“Doug’s research on genetic markers expressed during pancreas development have led to a reliable way to reprogram stem cells into human beta cells. His work provides the foundation for the ultimate goal of transplantable, patient-specific beta cells.”

 

Making Beta Cells for Patients

During the awards ceremony, Melton discussed his latest work on generating beta cells from human stem cells and how this technology could transform the way insulin-dependent patients are treated.

Douglas Melton, Harvard University.

Douglas Melton, Harvard University.

“I don’t mean to say that this [insulin treatment] isn’t a good idea. That’s keeping these people alive and in good health,” said Melton during his lecture. “What I want to talk about is a different approach. Rather than making more and better insulins and providing them by different medical devices, why not go back to nature’s solution which is the beta cells that makes the insulin?”

Melton first described his initial research on making pancreatic beta cells from embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells in a culture dish. He described the power of this system for not only modeling diabetes, but also screening for potential drugs, and testing new therapies in animal models.

He also mentioned how he and his colleagues are developing methods to manufacture large amounts of human beta cells derived from pluripotent stem cells for use in patients. They are able to culture stem cells in large spinning flasks that accelerate the growth and development of pluripotent stem cells into billions of human beta cells.

Challenges and Future of Stem-Cell Derived Diabetes Treatments

Melton expressed a positive outlook for the future of stem cell-derived treatments for insulin-dependent diabetes, but he also mentioned two major challenges. The first is the need for better control over the methods that make beta cells from stem cells. These methods could be more efficient and generate higher numbers of beta cells (beta cells make up 16% of stem cell-derived cells using their current culturing methods). The second is preventing an autoimmune attack after transplanting the stem-cell derived beta cells into patients.

Melton and other scientists are already working on improving techniques to make more beta cells from stem cells. As for preventing transplanted beta cells from being attacked by the patient’s immune system, Melton described two possibilities: using an encapsulation device or biological protection to mask the transplanted cells from an attack.

img_0771

He mentioned a CIRM-funded clinical trial by ViaCyte, which is testing an encapsulation device that is placed under the skin. The device contains embryonic stem cell-derived pancreatic progenitor cells that develop into beta cells that secrete insulin into the blood stream. The device also prevents the immune system from attacking and killing the beta cells.

Melton also discussed a biological approach to protecting transplanted beta cells. In collaboration with Dan Anderson at MIT, they coated stem cell-derived beta cells in a biomaterial called alginate, which comes from seaweed. They injected alginate microcapsule-containing beta cells into diabetic mice and were able control their blood sugar levels.

At the end of his talk, Melton concluded that he believes that beta cell transplantation in an immunoprotective device containing stem cell-derived cells will have the most benefit for diabetes patients.

Gladstone Youtube video of Douglas Melton’s lecture at the Ogawa-Yamanaka Prize lecture.

Related Links:

 

CIRM Board targets diabetes and kidney disease with big stem cell research awards

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

diabetes2

A recent study  estimated there may be more than 500 million people worldwide who have diabetes. That’s an astounding figure and makes diabetes one of the largest chronic disease epidemics in human history.

One of the most serious consequences of untreated or uncontrolled diabetes is kidney damage. That can lead to fatigue, weakness, confusion, kidney failure and even death. So two decisions taken by the CIRM Board today were good news for anyone already suffering from either diabetes or kidney disease. Or both.

The Board awarded almost $10 million to Humacyte to run a Phase 3 clinical trial of an artificial vein needed by people undergoing hemodialysis – that’s the most common form of dialysis for people with kidney damage. Hemodialysis helps clean out impurities and toxins from the blood. Without it waste will build up in the kidneys with devastating consequences.

The artificial vein is a kind of bioengineered blood vessel. It is implanted in the individual’s arm and, during dialysis, is connected to a machine to move the blood out of the body, through a filter, and then back into the body. The current synthetic version of the vein is effective but is prone to clotting and infections, and has to be removed regularly. All this puts the patient at risk.

Humacyte’s version – called a human acellular vessel or HAV – uses human cells from donated aortas that are then seeded onto a biodegradable scaffold and grown in the lab to form the artificial vein. When fully developed the structure is then “washed” to remove all the cellular tissue, leaving just a collagen tube. That is then implanted in the patient, and their own stem cells grow onto it, essentially turning it into their own tissue.

In earlier studies Humacyte’s HAV was shown to be safer and last longer than current versions. As our President and CEO, Randy Mills, said in a news release, that’s clearly good news for patients:

“This approach has the potential to dramatically improve our ability to care for people with kidney disease. Being able to reduce infections and clotting, and increase the quality of care the hemodialysis patients get could have a significant impact on not just the quality of their life but also the length of it.”

There are currently almost half a million Americans with kidney disease who are on dialysis. Having something that makes life easier, and hopefully safer, for them is a big plus.

The Humacyte trial is looking to enroll around 350 patients at three sites in California; Sacramento, Long Beach and Irvine.

While not all people with diabetes are on dialysis, they all need help maintaining healthy blood sugar levels, particularly people with type 1 diabetes. That’s where the $3.9 million awarded to ViaCyte comes in.

We’re already funding a clinical trial with ViaCyte  using an implantable delivery system containing stem cell-derived cells that is designed to measure blood flow, detect when blood sugar is low, then secrete insulin to restore it to a healthy level.

This new program uses a similar device, called a PEC-Direct. Unlike the current clinical trial version, the PEC-Direct allows the patient’s blood vessels to directly connect, or vasularize, with the cells inside it. ViaCyte believes this will allow for a more robust engraftment of the stem cell-derived cells inside it and that those cells will be better able to produce the insulin the body needs.

Because it allows direct vascularization it means that people who get the delivery system  will also need to get chronic immune suppression to stop their body’s immune system attacking it. For that reason it will be used to treat patients with type 1 diabetes that are at high risk for acute complications such as severe hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) events associated with hypoglycemia unawareness syndrome.

In a news release Paul Laikind, Ph.D., President and CEO of ViaCyte, said this approach could help patients most at risk.

“This high-risk patient population is the same population that would be eligible for cadaver islet transplants, a procedure that can be highly effective but suffers from a severe lack of donor material. We believe PEC-Direct could overcome the limitations of islet transplant by providing an unlimited supply of cells, manufactured under cGMP conditions, and a safer, more optimal route of administration.”

The Board also approved more than $13.6 million in awards under our Discovery program. You can see the winners here.

 

Stem cells from “love-handles” could help diabetes patients

/ Karen Ring / 1 Comment

Love handles usually get a bad rap, but this week, a study from Switzerland claims that stem cells taken from the fat tissue of “love handles” could one day benefit diabetes patients.

An islet of a mouse pancreas containing beta cells shown in green. (wikipedia)

An islet of a mouse pancreas containing beta cells shown in green. (wikipedia)

The study, which was published in Nature Communications, generated the much coveted insulin-secreting pancreatic beta cells from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) in a dish. When exposed to glucose (sugar), beta cells secrete the hormone insulin, which can tell muscle and fat tissue to absorb excess glucose if there is too much around. Without these important cells, your body wouldn’t be able to regulate the sugar levels in your blood, and you would be at high risk for getting diabetes.

Diabetic patients can take daily shots of insulin to manage their disease, but scientists are looking to stem cells for a more permanent solution. Their goal is to make bonafide beta cells from human pluripotent stem cells in a dish that behave exactly the same as ones living in a normal human pancreas. Current methods to make beta cells from stem cells are complex, too often yield inconsistent results and generate multiple other cell types.

Turning fat tissue into pancreatic cells

The Switzerland study developed a novel method for making beta cells from iPS cells that is efficient and gives more consistent results. The iPS cells were genetically reprogrammed from mesenchymal stem cells that had been extracted from the fat tissue of a 50-year old woman. To create insulin-secreting beta cells, the group developed a synthetic control network that directed the iPS cells step by step down the path towards becoming pancreatic beta cells.

The synthetic control network coordinated the expression of genes called transcription factors that are important for pancreatic development. The network could be thought of as an orchestra. At the start of a symphony, the conductor signals to different instrument groups to begin and then directs the tempo and sound of the performance, making sure each instrument plays at the right time.

In the case of this study, the synthetic gene network coordinates expression of three pancreatic transcription factors: Ngn2, Pdx1, and MafA. When the expression of these genes was coordinated in a precise way that mimicked natural beta cell development, the pancreatic progenitor cells developed into functioning beta-like cells that secreted insulin in the presence of glucose.

The diagram shows the dynamics of the most important growth factors during differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cell to beta-like cells. Credit: ETH Zurich

The diagram shows the dynamics of the most important transcription factors during differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cell to beta-like cells. Credit: ETH Zurich

Pros of love handle-derived beta cells

This technology has advantages over current stem cell-derived beta cell generating methods, which typically use combinations of genetic reprogramming factors, chemicals, or proteins. Senior author on the study, Martin Fussenegger, explained in a news release that his study’s method has more control over the timing of pancreatic gene expression and as a result is more efficient, having the ability to turn three out of four fat stem cells into functioning beta cells.

Another benefit to this technology is the potential for making personalized stem cell treatments for diabetes sufferers. Patient-specific beta cells derived from iPS cells can be transplanted without fear of immune rejection (it’s what’s called an autologous stem cell therapy). Some diabetes patients have received pancreatic tissue transplants from donors, but they have to take immunosuppressive drugs and even then, there is no guarantee that the transplant will survive and work properly for an extended period of time.

Fussenegger commented:

“With our beta cells, there would likely be no need for this action, since we can make them using endogenous cell material taken from the patient’s own body. This is why our work is of such interest in the treatment of diabetes.”

More work to do

While these findings are definitely exciting, there is still a long road ahead. The authors found that their beta cells did not perform at the same level as natural beta cells. When exposed to glucose, the stem cell-derived beta cells failed to secrete the same amount of insulin. So it sounds like the group needs to do some tweaking with their method in order to generate more mature beta cells.

Lastly, it’s definitely worth looking at the big picture. This study was done in a culture dish, and the beta cells they generated were not tested in animals or humans. Such transplantation experiments are necessary to determine whether love-handle derived beta cells will be an appropriate and effective treatment for diabetes patients.

A CIRM funded team at San Diego-based company ViaCyte seems to have successfully gotten around the issue of maturing beta cells from stem cells and is already testing their therapy in clinical trials. Their study involves transplanting so-called pancreatic progenitor cells (derived from embryonic stem cells) that are only part way down the path to becoming beta cells. They transplant these cells in an encapsulated medical device placed under the skin where they receive natural cues from the surrounding tissue that direct their growth into mature beta cells. Several patients have been transplanted with these cells in a CIRM funded Phase 1/2 clinical trial, but no data have been released as yet.

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Rare disease underdogs come out on top at CIRM Board meeting

/ Kevin McCormack / 1 Comment

 

It seems like an oxymoron but one in ten Americans has a rare disease. With more than 7,000 known rare diseases it’s easy to see how each one could affect thousands of individuals and still be considered a rare or orphan condition.

Only 5% of rare diseases have FDA approved therapies

rare disease

(Source: Sermo)

People with rare diseases, and their families, consider themselves the underdogs of the medical world because they often have difficulty getting a proper diagnosis (most physicians have never come across many of these diseases and so don’t know how to identify them), and even when they do get a diagnosis they have limited treatment options, and those options they do have are often very expensive.  It’s no wonder these patients and their families feel isolated and alone.

Rare diseases affect more people than HIV and Cancer combined

Hopefully some will feel less isolated after yesterday’s CIRM Board meeting when several rare diseases were among the big winners, getting funding to tackle conditions such as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, Severe Combined Immunodeficiency or SCID, Canavan disease, Tay-Sachs and Sandhoff disease. These all won awards under our Translation Research Program except for the SCID program which is a pre-clinical stage project.

As CIRM Board Chair Jonathan Thomas said in our news release, these awards have one purpose:

“The goal of our Translation program is to support the most promising stem cell-based projects and to help them accelerate that research out of the lab and into the real world, such as a clinical trial where they can be tested in people. The projects that our Board approved today are a great example of work that takes innovative approaches to developing new therapies for a wide variety of diseases.”

These awards are all for early-stage research projects, ones we hope will be successful and eventually move into clinical trials. One project approved yesterday is already in a clinical trial. Capricor Therapeutics was awarded $3.4 million to complete a combined Phase 1/2 clinical trial treating heart failure associated with Duchenne muscular dystrophy with its cardiosphere stem cell technology.  This same Capricor technology is being used in an ongoing CIRM-funded trial which aims to heal the scarring that occurs after a heart attack.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a genetic disorder that is marked by progressive muscle degeneration and weakness. The symptoms usually start in early childhood, between ages 3 and 5, and the vast majority of cases are in boys. As the disease progresses it leads to heart failure, which typically leads to death before age 40.

The Capricor clinical trial hopes to treat that aspect of DMD, one that currently has no effective treatment.

As our President and CEO Randy Mills said in our news release:

Randy Mills, Stem Cell Agency President & CEO

Randy Mills, Stem Cell Agency President & CEO

“There can be nothing worse than for a parent to watch their child slowly lose a fight against a deadly disease. Many of the programs we are funding today are focused on helping find treatments for diseases that affect children, often in infancy. Because many of these diseases are rare there are limited treatment options for them, which makes it all the more important for CIRM to focus on targeting these unmet medical needs.”

Speaking on Rare Disease Day (you can read our blog about that here) Massachusetts Senator Karen Spilka said that “Rare diseases impact over 30 Million patients and caregivers in the United States alone.”

Hopefully the steps that the CIRM Board took yesterday will ultimately help ease the struggles of some of those families.

Stem cell stories that caught our eye: sexual identity of organs, upping the game of muscle stem cells, mini guts produce insulin

/ Don Gibbons / 1 Comment

Here are some stem cell stories that caught our eye this past week. Some are groundbreaking science, others are of personal interest to us, and still others are just fun.

A new sexual identity crisis—in our organs. With the transition from Mr. to Ms. Jenner and other transsexual news this year, it seems inevitable that a research paper would come out suggesting we may all have some mosaic sexual identity. A team in the U.K. found that the stem cells that develop our organs can have varying sexual identities and that can impact the function of the organ.

The organ in question in this case, intestines in fruit flies, is smaller in males than in females. By turning on and off certain genes the researchers at the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Science Centre found that making stem cells in the gut more masculine reduced their ability to multiply and produced smaller intestines. They also found that female intestines were more prone to tumors, just as many diseases are more common in one sex than the other.

In an interview with Medical News Today, Bruno Hudry, the first author on the paper, which is published in Nature, talked about the likelihood that we all have some adult cells in us with genes of the opposite sex.

 “This study shows that there is a wider spectrum than just two sexes. You can be chromosomally, hormonally or phenotypically female but still having some specific adult stem cells (here the stem cells of the intestine) acting like male. So it is hard to say if someone is “really” male or female. Some people are simply a mosaic of male and female cells within a phenotypically ‘male’ or ‘female’ body.”

Hurdry speculated that if the results are duplicated in humans it could provide a window into other sex-linked differences in diseases and could be a matching factor added to the standard protocol for blood and organ donations.

 

Reprogramming stomach to produce insulin.  The stem cells in our gut show an efficiency not seen in most of our organs. They produce a new lining for our stomach and intestine every few days. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the insulin-producing cells in our pancreas rank poorly in self renewal. So, what if you could get some of those vigorous gut stem cells to make insulin producing beta cells? Turns out you can and they can produce enough insulin to allow a diabetic mouse to survive.

mini stomach

A mini-gut with insulin-producing cells (red) and stem cells (green).

A team at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute manipulated three genes known to be associated with beta cell development and tested the ability of many different tissues—from tail to snout—to produce beta cells. A portion of the stomach near the intestine, which naturally produces other hormones, easily reprogrammed into insulin producing cells. More important, if the first batch of those cells was destroyed by the team, the remaining stem cells in the tissue quickly regenerated more beta cells. Since a misbehaving immune system causes type 1 diabetes, this renewal ability could be key to preventing a return of the disease after a transplant of these cells.

In the lab the researchers pushed the tissue from the pylorous region of the stomach to self-organize into mini-stomachs along with the three genetic factors that drive beta cell production.  When transplanted under the skin of mice that had previously had their beta cells destroyed, the mice survived. The genetic manipulations used in this research could not be used in people, but the team is working on a system that could.

 “What is potentially really great about this approach is that one can biopsy from an individual person, grow the cells in vitro and reprogram them to beta cells, and then transplant them to create a patient-specific therapy,” said Qiao Zhou, the senior author. “That’s what we’re working on now. We’re very excited.”

Medicalxpress ran a story about the work published in Cell Stem Cell.

 

muscle stem cells

Muscle stem cells generate new muscle (green) in a mouse.

Better way to build muscle.  Stem cells behave differently depending on what environment they find themselves in, but they are not passive about their environment. They can actively change it. A CIRM-funded team at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) found that fetal muscle stem cells and adult muscle stem cells make very different changes in the micro-environment around them.

Fetal muscle stem cells become very good at generating large quantities of new muscle, while the adult stem cells take the role of maintaining themselves for emergencies. As a result, when major repair is needed like in muscular dystrophies and aging, they easily get overwhelmed. So the SBP team looked for ways to make the adult stem cells behave more like their fetal predecessors.

 “We found that fetal MuSCs remodel their microenvironment by secreting specific proteins, and then examined whether that same microenvironment can encourage adult MuSCs to more efficiently generate new muscle. It does, which means that how adult MuSCs normally support muscle growth is not an intrinsic characteristic, but can be changed,” said Matthew Tierney, first author of the study in an institute press release distributed by Newswise.

The results point to paths for developing therapies for a number of muscle wasting conditions.