Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

CIRM-Funded Clinical Trials Targeting the Heart, Pancreas, and Kidneys

/ Karen Ring / Leave a comment

This blog is part of our Month of CIRM series, which features our Agency’s progress towards achieving our mission to accelerate stem cell treatments to patients with unmet medical needs.

This week, we’re highlighting CIRM-funded clinical trials to address the growing interest in our rapidly expanding clinical portfolio. Today we are featuring trials in our organ systems portfolio, specifically focusing on diseases of the heart/vasculature system, the pancreas and the kidneys.

CIRM has funded a total of nine trials targeting these disease areas, and eight of these trials are currently active. Check out the infographic below for a list of our currently active trials.

For more details about all CIRM-funded clinical trials, visit our clinical trials page and read our clinical trials brochure which provides brief overviews of each trial.

Stem Cell Stories That Caught our Eye: Duchenne muscular dystrophy and short telomeres, motor neurons from skin, and students today, stem cell scientists tomorrow

/ Karen Ring / Leave a comment

Short telomeres associated with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a severe muscle wasting disease that typically affects young men. There is no cure for DMD and the average life expectancy is 26. These are troubling facts that scientists at the University of Pennsylvania are hoping to change with their recent findings in Stem Cell Reports.

Muscle stem cells with telomeres shown in red. (Credit: Penn Medicine)

The team discovered that the muscle stem cells in DMD patients have shortened telomeres, which are the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes that prevent the loss of precious genetic information during cell division. Each time a cell divides, a small section of telomere is lost. This typically isn’t a problem because telomeres are long enough to protect cells through many divisions.

But it turns out this is not the case for the telomeres in the muscle stem cells of DMD patients. Because DMD patients have weak muscles, they experience constant muscle damage and their muscle stem cells have to divide more frequently (basically non-stop) to repair and replace muscle tissue. This is bad news for the telomeres in their muscle stem cells. Foteini Mourkioti, senior author on the study, explained in a news release,

“We found that in boys with DMD, the telomeres are so short that the muscle stem cells are probably exhausted. Due to the DMD, their muscle stem cells are constantly repairing themselves, which means the telomeres are getting shorter at an accelerated rate, much earlier in life. Future therapies that prevent telomere loss and keep muscle stem cells viable might be able to slow the progress of disease and boost muscle regeneration in the patients.”

With these new insights, Mourkioti and his team believe that targeting muscle stem cells before their telomeres become too short is a good path to pursue for developing new treatments for DMD.

“We are now looking for signaling pathways that affect telomere length in muscle stem cells, so that in principle we can develop drugs to block those pathways and maintain telomere length.”

Making Motor Neurons from Skin.

Skin cells and brain cells are like apples and oranges, they look completely different and have different functions. However, in the past decade, researchers have developed methods to transform skin cells into neurons to study neurodegenerative disorders and develop new strategies to treat brain diseases.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published new findings on this topic yesterday in the journal Cell Stem Cell. In a nut shell, the team discovered that a specific combination of microRNAs (molecules involved in regulating what genes are turned on and off) and transcription factors (proteins that also regulate gene expression) can turn human skin cells into motor neurons, which are the brain cells that degenerate in neurodegenerative diseases like ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Human motor neurons made from skin. (Credit: Daniel Abernathy)

This magical cocktail of factors told the skin cells to turn off genes that make them skin and turn on genes that transformed them into motor neurons. The scientists used skin cells from healthy individuals but will soon use their method to make motor neurons from patients with ALS and other motor neuron diseases. They are also interested in generating neurons from older patients who are more advanced in their disease. Andrew Yoo, senior author on the study, explained in a news release,

“In this study, we only used skin cells from healthy adults ranging in age from early 20s to late 60s. Our research revealed how small RNA molecules can work with other cell signals called transcription factors to generate specific types of neurons, in this case motor neurons. In the future, we would like to study skin cells from patients with disorders of motor neurons. Our conversion process should model late-onset aspects of the disease using neurons derived from patients with the condition.”

This research will make it easier for other scientists to grow human motor neurons in the lab to model brain diseases and potentially develop new treatments. However, this is still early stage research and more work should be done to determine whether these transformed motor neurons are the “real deal”. A similar conclusion was shared by Julia Evangelou Strait, the author of the Washington University School of Medicine news release,

“The converted motor neurons compared favorably to normal mouse motor neurons, in terms of the genes that are turned on and off and how they function. But the scientists can’t be certain these cells are perfect matches for native human motor neurons since it’s difficult to obtain samples of cultured motor neurons from adult individuals. Future work studying neuron samples donated from patients after death is required to determine how precisely these cells mimic native human motor neurons.”

Students Today, Scientists Tomorrow.

What did you want to be when you were growing up? For Benjamin Nittayo, a senior at Cal State University Los Angeles, it was being a scientist researching a cure for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a form of blood cancer that took his father’s life. Nittayo is making his dream into a reality by participating in a summer research internship through the Eugene and Ruth Roberts Summer Student Academy at the City of Hope in Duarte California.

Nittayo has spent the past two summers doing cancer research with scientists at the Beckman Research Institute at City of Hope and hopes to get a PhD in immunology to pursue his dream of curing AML. He explained in a City of Hope news release,

“I want to carry his memory on through my work. Being in this summer student program helped me do that. It influenced the kind of research I want to get into as a scientist and it connected me to my dad. I want to continue the research I was able to start here so other people won’t have to go through what I went through. I don’t wish that on anybody.”

The Roberts Academy also hosts high school students who are interested in getting their first experience working in a lab. Some of these students are part of CIRM’s high school educational program Summer Program to Accelerate Regenerative Medicine Knowledge or SPARK. The goal of SPARK is to train the next generation of stem cell scientists in California by giving them hands-on training in stem cell research at leading institutes in the state.

This year, the City of Hope hosted the Annual SPARK meeting where students from the seven different SPARK programs presented their summer research and learned about advances in stem cell therapies from City of Hope scientists.

Ashley Anderson, a student at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, had the honor of giving the City of Hope SPARK student talk. She shared her work on Canavan’s disease, a progressive genetic disorder that damages the brain’s nerve cells during infancy and can cause problems with movement and muscle weakness.

Under the guidance of her mentor Yanhong Shi, Ph.D., who is a Professor of Developmental and Stem Cell Biology at City of Hope, Ashley used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from patients with Canavan’s to generate different types of brain cells affected by the disease. Ashley helped develop a protocol to make large quantities of neural progenitor cells from these iPSCs which the lab hopes to eventually use in clinical trials to treat Canavan patients.

Ashley has always been intrigued by science, but thanks to SPARK and the Roberts Academy, she was finally able to gain actual experience doing science.

“I was looking for an internship in biosciences where I could apply my interest in science more hands-on. Science is more than reading a textbook, you need to practice it. That’s what SPARK has done for me. Being at City of Hope and being a part of SPARK was amazing. I learned so much from Dr. Shi. It’s great to physically be in a lab and make things happen.”

You can read more about Ashley’s research and those of other City of Hope SPARK students here. You can also find out more about the educational programs we fund on our website and on our blog (here and here).

Family, faith and funding from CIRM inspire one patient to plan for his future

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

Caleb Sizemore speaks to the CIRM Board at the June 2017 ICOC meeting.

Having been to many conferences and meetings over the years I have found there is a really simple way to gauge if someone is a good speaker, if they have the attention of people in the room. You just look around and see how many people are on their phones or laptops, checking their email or the latest sports scores.

By that standard Caleb Sizemore is a spellbinding speaker.

Last month Caleb spoke to the CIRM Board about his experiences in a CIRM-funded clinical trial for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. As he talked no one in the room was on their phone. Laptops were closed. All eyes and ears were on him.

To say his talk was both deeply moving and inspiring is an understatement. I could go into more detail but it’s so much more powerful to hear it from  Caleb himself. His words are a reminder to everyone at CIRM why we do this work, and why we have to continue to do all that we can to live up to our mission statement and accelerate stem cell treatments to patients with unmet medical needs.

Video produced by Todd Dubnicoff/CIRM

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CIRM-funded life-saving stem cell therapy gets nod of approval from FDA

/ Kevin McCormack / 1 Comment

Cured_AR_2016_coverIf you have read our 2016 Annual Report (and if you haven’t you should, it’s brilliant) or just seen the cover you’ll know that it features very prominently a young girl named Evie Padilla Vaccaro.

Evie was born with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency or SCID – also known as “bubble baby disease”; we’ve written about it here. SCID is a rare but deadly immune disorder which leaves children unable to fight off simple infections. Many children with SCID die in the first few years of life.

Fortunately for Evie and her family, Dr. Don Kohn and his team at UCLA, working with a UK-based company called Orchard Therapeutics Ltd., have developed a treatment called OTL-101. This involves taking the patient’s own blood stem cells, genetically modifying them to correct the SCID mutation, and then returning the cells to the patient. Those modified cells create a new blood supply, and repair the child’s immune system.

Evie was treated with OTL-101 when she was a few months old. She is cured. And she isn’t the only one. To date more than 40 children have been treated with this method. All have survived and are doing well.

Orchard Therapeutics

 FDA acknowledgement

Because of that success the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted OTL-101 Rare Pediatric Disease Designation. This status is given to a treatment that targets a serious or life-threatening disease that affects less than 200,000 people, most of whom are under 18 years of age.

The importance of the Rare Pediatric Disease Designation is that it gives the company certain incentives for the therapy’s development, including priority review by the FDA. That means if it continues to show it is safe and effective it may have a faster route to being made more widely available to children in need.

In a news release Anne Dupraz, PhD, Orchard’s Chief Regulatory Officer, welcomed the decision:

“Together with Orphan Drug and Breakthrough Therapy Designations, this additional designation is another important development step for the OTL-101 clinical program. It reflects the potential of this gene therapy treatment to address the significant unmet medical need of children with ADA-SCID and eligibility for a Pediatric Disease Priority Review voucher at time of approval.”

Creating a trend

This is the second time in less than two weeks that a CIRM-funded therapy has been awarded Rare Pediatric Disease designation. Earlier this month Capricor Therapeutics was given that status for its treatment for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

Two other CIRM-funded clinical trials – Humacyte and jCyte – have been given Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy Designation (RMAT) by the FDA. This makes them eligible for earlier and faster interactions with the FDA, and also means they may be able to apply for priority review and faster approval.

All these are encouraging signs for a couple of reasons. It suggests that the therapies are showing real promise in clinical trials. And it shows that the FDA is taking steps to encourage those therapies to advance as quickly – and safely of course – as possible.

Credit where credit is due

In the past we have been actively critical of the FDA’s sluggish pace in moving stem cell therapies out of the lab and into clinical trials where they can be tested in people. So when the FDA does show signs of changing the way it works it’s appropriate that that we are actively supportive.

Getting these designations is, of course, no guarantee the therapies will ultimately prove to be successful. But if they are, creating faster pathways means they can get to patients, the people who really need them, at a much faster pace.

 

 

 

 

 

Stem cell stories that caught our eye: update on Capricor’s heart attack trial; lithium on the brain; and how stem cells do math

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

Capricor ALLSTARToday our partners Capricor Therapeutics announced that its stem cell therapy for patients who have experienced a large heart attack is unlikely to meet one of its key goals, namely reducing the scar size in the heart 12 months after treatment.

The news came after analyzing results from patients at the halfway point of the trial, six months after their treatment in the Phase 2 ALLSTAR clinical trial which CIRM was funding. They found that there was no significant difference in the reduction in scarring on the heart for patients treated with donor heart-derived stem cells, compared to patients given a placebo.

Obviously this is disappointing news for everyone involved, but we know that not all clinical trials are going to be successful. CIRM supported this research because it clearly addressed an unmet medical need and because an earlier Phase 1 study had showed promise in helping prevent decline in heart function after a heart attack.

Yet even with this failure to repeat that promise in this trial,  we learned valuable lessons.

In a news release, Dr. Tim Henry, Director of the Division of Interventional Technologies in the Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and a Co-Principal Investigator on the trial said:

“We are encouraged to see reductions in left ventricular volume measures in the CAP-1002 treated patients, an important indicator of reverse remodeling of the heart. These findings support the biological activity of CAP-1002.”

Capricor still has a clinical trial using CAP-1002 to treat boys and young men developing heart failure due to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD).

Lithium gives up its mood stabilizing secrets

As far back as the late 1800s, doctors have recognized that lithium can help people with mood disorders. For decades, this inexpensive drug has been an effective first line of treatment for bipolar disorder, a condition that causes extreme mood swings. And yet, scientists have never had a good handle on how it works. That is, until this week.

evan snyder

Evan Snyder

Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a research team at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute have identified the molecular basis of the lithium’s benefit to bipolar patients.  Team lead Dr. Evan Snyder explained in a press release why his group’s discovery is so important for patients:

“Lithium has been used to treat bipolar disorder for generations, but up until now our lack of knowledge about why the therapy does or does not work for a particular patient led to unnecessary dosing and delayed finding an effective treatment. Further, its side effects are intolerable for many patients, limiting its use and creating an urgent need for more targeted drugs with minimal risks.”

The study, funded in part by CIRM, attempted to understand lithium’s beneficial effects by comparing cells from patient who respond to those who don’t (only about a third of patients are responders). Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) were generated from both groups of patients and then the cells were specialized into nerve cells that play a role in bipolar disorder. The team took an unbiased approach by looking for differences in proteins between the two sets of cells.

The team zeroed in on a protein called CRMP2 that was much less functional in the cells from the lithium-responsive patients. When lithium was added to these cells the disruption in CRMP2’s activity was fixed. Now that the team has identified the molecular location of lithium’s effects, they can now search for new drugs that do the same thing more effectively and with fewer side effects.

The stem cell: a biological calculator?

math

Can stem cells do math?

Stem cells are pretty amazing critters but can they do math? The answer appears to be yes according to a fascinating study published this week in PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Stem cells, like all cells, process information from the outside through different receptors that stick out from the cells’ outer membranes like a satellite TV dish. Protein growth factors bind those receptors which trigger a domino effect of protein activity inside the cell, called cell signaling, that transfers the initial receptor signal from one protein to another. Ultimately that cascade leads to the accumulation of specific proteins in the nucleus where they either turn on or off specific genes.

Intuition would tell you that the amount of gene activity in response to the cell signaling should correspond to the amount of protein that gets into the nucleus. And that’s been the prevailing view of scientists. But the current study by a Caltech research team debunks this idea. Using real-time video microscopy filming, the team captured cell signaling in individual cells; in this case they used an immature muscle cell called a myoblast.

goentoro20170508

Behavior of cells over time after they have received a Tgf-beta signal. The brightness of the nuclei (circled in red) indicates how much Smad protein is present. This brightness varies from cell to cell, but the ratio of brightness after the signal to before the signal is about the same. Image: Goentoro lab, CalTech.

To their surprise the same amount of growth factor given to different myoblasts cells led to the accumulation of very different amounts of a protein called Smad3 in the cells’ nuclei, as much as a 40-fold difference across the cells. But after some number crunching, they discovered that dividing the amount of Smad3 after growth factor stimulation by the Smad3 amount before growth stimulation was similar in all the cells.

As team lead Dr. Lea Goentoro mentions in a press release, this result has some very important implications for studying human disease:

“Prior to this work, researchers trying to characterize the properties of a tumor might take a slice from it and measure the total amount of Smad in cells. Our results show that to understand these cells one must instead measure the change in Smad over time.”

Capricor reports positive results on CIRM-funded stem cell trial for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

/ Karen Ring / 2 Comments

Capricor Therapeutics, a Los Angeles-based company, published an update about its CIRM-funded clinical trial for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a devastating degenerative muscle disease that significantly reduces life expectancy.

The company reported positive results from their Phase I/II HOPE trial that’s testing the safety of their cardiosphere stem cell-based therapy called CAP-1002. The trial had 25 patients, 13 of which received the cells and 12 who received normal treatment. No serious adverse effects were observed suggesting that the treatment is “generally safe” thus far.

Patients given a single dose of CAP-1002 showed improvements “in certain measures of cardiac and upper limb function” after six months. They also experienced a reduction of cardiac scar tissue and a thickening of the heart’s left ventricle wall, which is typically thinned in DMD patients.

Capricor shared more details on their six-month trial results in a webcast this week, and you can read about them in this blog by Rare Disease Report.

Leading cause of death for DMD patients

DMD is a severe form of muscular dystrophy caused by a recessive genetic mutation in the dystrophin gene on the X chromosome. Consequently, men are much more likely to get the disease than women. Symptoms of DMD start with muscle weakness as early as four years of age, which then leads to deterioration of both skeletal and heart muscle. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in DMD patients – a fact that Capricor hopes to change with its clinical trial.

Capricor’s CEO, Dr. Linda Marbán, commented in a press release that the trial’s results support the findings of other researchers.

“These initial positive clinical results build upon a large body of preclinical data which illustrate CAP-1002’s potential to broadly improve the condition of those afflicted by DMD, as they show that cardiosphere-derived cells exert salutary effects on cardiac and skeletal muscle.”

Also quoted in the press release was Pat Furlong, DMD patient advocate and CEO of Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy.

Pat Furlong

“I’m excited to see these data, especially given the advanced nature of the patients in the HOPE trial. It is also gratifying to see the field of cell therapy making progress after more than two decades in development. It is our hope that CAP-1002 will have broad potential to improve the lives of patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.”

Pat recently spoke at the 2nd Annual CIRM Alpha Stem Cell Clinics meeting about her heartbreaking experience of losing two sons to DMD, both at a very young age. You can watch her speech below. We also featured her story and her inspiring efforts to promote DMD awareness in our 2016 Annual Report.

What to HOPE for next?

The trial is a year-long study and Capricor will report 12-month results at the end of 2017. In the meantime, Dr. Marbán and her team have plans to talk with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about the regulatory options for getting CAP-1002 approved and on the market for DMD patients. She explained,

Linda Marban, CEO of Capricor Therapeutics

“We have submitted an FDA meeting request to discuss these results as well as next steps in our development of CAP-1002 for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which includes our plan to begin a clinical trial of intravenously-administered CAP-1002 in the latter half of this year. We believe the interim HOPE results may enable us to pursue one of the FDA’s Expedited Programs for Serious Conditions, and we will apply for either or both of the Breakthrough Therapy and Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designations for CAP-1002.”

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Stem Cell Stories That Caught Our Eye: Free Patient Advocate Event in San Diego, and new clues on how to fix muscular dystrophy and Huntington’s disease

/ Kevin McCormack / 1 Comment

UCSD Patient Advocate mtg instagram

Stem cell research is advancing so fast that it’s sometimes hard to keep up. That’s one of the reasons we have our Friday roundup, to let you know about some fascinating research that came across our desk during the week that you might otherwise have missed.

Of course, another way to keep up with the latest in stem cell research is to join us for our free Patient Advocate Event at UC San Diego next Thursday, April 20th from 12-1pm.  We are going to talk about the progress being made in stem cell research, the problems we still face and need help in overcoming, and the prospects for the future.

We have four great speakers:

  • Catriona Jamieson, Director of the CIRM UC San Diego Alpha Stem Cell Clinic and an expert on cancers of the blood
  • Jonathan Thomas, PhD, JD, Chair of CIRM’s Board
  • Jennifer Briggs Braswell, Executive Director of the Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center
  • David Higgins, Patient Advocate for Parkinson’s on the CIRM Board

We will give updates on the exciting work taking place at UCSD and the work that CIRM is funding. We have also set aside some time to get your thoughts on how we can improve the way we work and, of course, answer your questions.

What: Stem Cell Therapies and You: A Special Patient Advocate Event

When: Thursday, April 20th 12-1pm

Where: The Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, 2880 Torrey Pines Scenic Drive, La Jolla, CA 92037

Why: Because the people of California have a right to know how their money is helping change the face of regenerative medicine

Who: This event is FREE and open to everyone.

We have set up an EventBrite page for you to RSVP and let us know if you are coming. And, of course, feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested.

This is the first of a series of similar Patient Advocate Update meetings we plan on holding around California this year. We’ll have news on other locations and dates shortly.

 

Fixing a mutation that causes muscular dystrophy (Karen Ring)

It’s easy to take things for granted. Take your muscles for instance. How often do you think about them? (Don’t answer this if you’re a body builder). Daily? Monthly? I honestly don’t think much about my muscles unless I’ve injured them or if they’re sore from working out.

duchennes-cardiomyocytes-body

Heart muscle cells (green) that don’t have dystrophin protein (Photo; UT Southwestern)

But there are people in this world who think about their muscles or their lack of them every day. They are patients with a muscle wasting disease called Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). It’s the most common type of muscular dystrophy, and it affects mainly young boys – causing their muscles to progressively weaken to the point where they cannot walk or breathe on their own.

DMD is caused by mutations in the dystrophin gene. These mutations prevent muscle cells from making dystrophin protein, which is essential for maintaining muscle structure. Scientists are using gene editing technologies to find and fix these mutations in hopes of curing patients of DMD.

Last year, we blogged about a few of these studies where different teams of scientists corrected dystrophin mutations using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology in human cells and in mice with DMD. One of these teams has recently followed up with a new study that builds upon these earlier findings.

Scientists from UT Southwestern are using an alternative form of the CRISPR gene editing complex to fix dystrophin mutations in both human cells and mice. This alternative CRISPR complex makes use of a different cutting enzyme, Cpf1, in place of the more traditionally used Cas9 protein. It’s a smaller protein that the scientists say can get into muscle cells more easily. Cpf1 also differs from Cas9 in what DNA nucleotide sequences it recognizes and latches onto, making it a new tool in the gene editing toolbox for scientists targeting DMD mutations.

gene-edited-cardiomyocytes-body.jpg

Gene-edited heart muscle cells (green) that now express dystrophin protein (Photo: UT Southwestern)

Using CRISPR/Cpf1, the scientists corrected the most commonly found dystrophin mutation in human induced pluripotent stem cells derived from DMD patients. They matured these corrected stem cells into heart muscle cells in the lab and found that they expressed the dystrophin protein and functioned like normal heart cells in a dish. CRISPR/Cpf1 also corrected mutations in DMD mice, which rescued dystrophin expression in their muscle tissues and some of the muscle wasting symptoms caused by the disease.

Because the dystrophin gene is one of the longest genes in our genome, it has more locations where DMD-causing mutations could occur. The scientists behind this study believe that CRISPR/Cpf1 offers a more flexible tool for targeting different dystrophin mutations and could potentially be used to develop an effective gene therapy for DMD.

Senior author on the study, Dr. Eric Olson, provided this conclusion about their research in a news release by EurekAlert:

“CRISPR-Cpf1 gene-editing can be applied to a vast number of mutations in the dystrophin gene. Our goal is to permanently correct the underlying genetic causes of this terrible disease, and this research brings us closer to realizing that end.”

 

A cellular traffic jam is the culprit behind Huntington’s disease (Todd Dubnicoff)

Back in the 1983, the scientific community cheered the first ever mapping of a genetic disease to a specific area on a human chromosome which led to the isolation of the disease gene in 1993. That disease was Huntington’s, an inherited neurodegenerative disorder that typically strikes in a person’s thirties and leads to death about 10 to 15 years later. Because no effective therapy existed for the disease, this discovery of Huntingtin, as the gene was named, was seen as a critical step toward a better understand of Huntington’s and an eventual cure.

But flash forward to 2017 and researchers are still foggy on how mutations in the Huntingtin gene cause Huntington’s. New research, funded in part by CIRM, promises to clear some things up. The report, published this week in Neuron, establishes a connection between mutant Huntingtin and its impact on the transport of cell components between the nucleus and cytoplasm.

Roundup Picture1

The pores in the nuclear envelope allows proteins and molecules to pass between a cell’s nucleus and it’s cytoplasm. Image: Blausen.com staff (2014).

To function smoothly, a cell must be able to transport proteins and molecules in and out of the nucleus through holes called nuclear pores. The research team – a collaboration of scientists from Johns Hopkins University, the University of Florida and UC Irvine – found that in nerve cells, the mutant Huntingtin protein clumps up and plays havoc on the nuclear pore structure which leads to cell death. The study was performed in fly and mouse models of HD, in human HD brain samples as well as HD patient nerve cells derived with the induced pluripotent stem cell technique – all with this same finding.

Roundup Picture2

Huntington’s disease is caused by the loss of a nerve cells called medium spiny neurons. Image: Wikimedia commons

By artificially producing more of the proteins that make up the nuclear pores, the damaging effects caused by the mutant Huntingtin protein were reduced. Similar results were seen using drugs that help stabilize the nuclear pore structure. The implications of these results did not escape George Yohrling, a senior director at the Huntington’s Disease Society of America, who was not involved in the study. Yohrling told Baltimore Sun reporter Meredith Cohn:

“This is very exciting research because we didn’t know what mutant genes or proteins were doing in the body, and this points to new areas to target research. Scientists, biotech companies and pharmaceutical companies could capitalize on this and maybe develop therapies for this biological process”,

It’s important to temper that excitement with a reality check on how much work is still needed before the thought of clinical trials can begin. Researchers still don’t understand why the mutant protein only affects a specific type of nerve cells and it’s far from clear if these drugs would work or be safe to use in the context of the human brain.

Still, each new insight is one step in the march toward a cure.

Raising awareness about Rare Disease Day

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

rare-disease-day-logo

One of the goals we set ourselves at CIRM in our 2016 Strategic Plan was to fund 50 new clinical trials over the next five years, including ten rare or orphan diseases. Since then we have funded 13 new clinical trials including four targeting rare diseases (retinitis pigmentosa, severe combined immunodeficiency, ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy). It’s a good start but clearly, with almost 7,000 rare diseases, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There is still so much work to do.

And all around the world people are doing that work. Today we have asked Emily Walsh, the Community Outreach Director at the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance,  to write about the efforts underway to raise awareness about rare diseases, and to raise funds for research to develop new treatments for them.

“February 28th marks the annual worldwide event for Rare Disease Day. This is a day dedicated to raising awareness for rare diseases that affect people all over the world. The campaign works to target the general public as well as policy makers in hopes of bringing attention to diseases that receive little attention and funding. For the year 2017 it was decided that the focus would fall on “research,” with the slogan, “With research, possibilities are limitless.”

Getting involved for Rare Disease Day means taking this message and spreading it far and wide. Awareness for rare diseases is extremely important, especially among researchers, universities, students, companies, policy makers, and clinicians. It has long been known that the best advocates for rare diseases are the patients themselves. They use their specific perspectives to raise their voice, share their story, and shed light on the areas where additional funding and research are most necessary.

To see how you can help support the Rare Disease Day efforts this year, click here.

Groups like the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance and the Mesothelioma Group are adding their voices to the cause to raise awareness about mesothelioma cancer, a rare form of cancer caused by exposure and inhalation of airborne asbestos fibers

Rare diseases affect 300 million people worldwide, but only 5% of them have an FDA approved treatment or cure. Malignant mesothelioma is among the 95 percent that doesn’t have a treatment or cure.

Asbestos has been used throughout history in building materials because of its fire retardant properties. Having a home with asbestos insulation, ceiling tiles, and roof shingles meant that the house was safer. However, it was found that once asbestos crumbled and became powder-like, the tiny fibers could become airborne and be inhaled and lodge themselves in lung tissue causing mesothelioma. The late stage discovery of mesothelioma is often what causes it to have such a high mortality rate. Symptoms can have a very sudden onset, even though the person may have been exposed decades prior.

Right now, treatment for mesothelioma includes the usual combination of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, but researchers are looking at other approaches to see if they can be more effective or can help in conjunction with the standard methods. For example one drug, Defactinib, has shown some promise in inhibiting the growth and spread of cancer stem cells – these are stem cells that can evade chemotherapy and cause patients to relapse.”

Some people might ask why spend limited resources on something that affects so few people. But the lessons we learn in developing treatments for a rare disease can often lead us to treatments for diseases that affect many millions of people.

But numbers aside, there is no hierarchy of need, no scale to say the suffering of people with Huntington’s disease is any greater or less than that of people with Alzheimer’s. We are not in the business of making value judgements about who has the greatest need. We are in the business of accelerating treatments to patients with unmet medical needs. And those suffering from rare disease are very clearly  people in need.

 

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Stem Cells Profile in Courage: Pat Furlong, Patient Advocate

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment
pat-furlong

Pat Furlong: Photo by Colin McGuire – http://www.colinmcguire.com

One of the true joys for me in helping put together this year’s Annual Report was getting to know the patients and patient advocates that we profiled in the report. These are some extraordinary individuals and the short profiles we posted only touch the surface of just how extraordinary.

So, over the next few weeks we are going to feature four of these people at greater length, allowing them, in their own words, to talk about what makes them tic, and how they keep going in the face of what is often heartbreak and tragedy.

We begin with Pat Furlong, a Patient Advocate and the Founding President and CEO of Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD), the largest nonprofit organization in the United States solely focused on Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

DMD is the most common fatal, genetic childhood disorder, which affects approximately 1 out of every 3,500 boys each year worldwide. It’s a progressive muscle disorder that leads to loss of muscle function, meaning you lose your ability to walk, to use your arms, and ultimately to breathe. And because the heart is a muscle, that is often seriously affected. There is no cure, and treatment options are limited. At the time her sons were diagnosed life expectancy was in the teens.

Pat’s story:

“When my sons, Chris and Pat were diagnosed with DMD, at the ages of 4 and 6, there was nothing available for them. Doctors cared about them but they didn’t have the tools they needed, or the National Institutes of Health the money it needed to do research.

Doctors were faced with diagnosing a disease and saying “there’s nothing we can do”. And then parents like me, coming to them hearing there was nothing they could do, no hope, no help. When your son is diagnosed with something like this you are told go home and love them.

When I asked questions, I was often ignored or dismissed by some doctors.

When my sons were diagnosed with DMD I would drop them off at school and go walking and that would help me deal with the anger.

For me staying in this is to be able to say to Chris and Pat in the universe, when you were here I tried my very best and when you were gone I continued to try my best so that others would have advantages that you didn’t receive.

I haven’t stood back and said I can’t go on.

The family is all scarred, we all suffered this loss. It’s much more apparent when we are together, there are empty chairs, emptiness. If we go to a family gathering we wish Chris and Pat were here, could be married. Now there’s my husband and our two daughters. We have a granddaughter, who is wonderful, but still we are incomplete and we will live with that forever.

I am trained as a nurse and I find DMD equal parts fascinating disease, heartbreaking and painful. I try to emphasize the fascinating so I can keep going. There are frustrations; lack of money, the slow process of regulatory approval, but I have an incredible team of very smart people and we are passionate about change so that helps keep us going.

Your only interest can’t be DMD, it can’t be. For me it’s certainly a priority, but it’s not my only interest. I love to go to an art museum and see how creative people work. I love Cirque du Soleil because they do things with their muscles I can’t imagine. Going outside and seeing these things makes the world better.

I am interested in the expression of art, to see how people dress, to see how people are creative, I love creativity, I think the human spirit is pretty amazing and the creativity around it. I think we are all pretty amazing but sometimes we don’t say it enough.

I recently saw a woman on the subway with a pair of tennis shoes that said “you are beautiful” and people around her were looking at her shoes and smiling, just because of those shoes. We forget to interact, and that was such a simple way of doing that.

bucket-feet

 

I relax by doing yoga, 90-minute hot yoga, as often as I can. I’ve also done a number of half marathons, but I’m more a walker than a runner. I find getting outside or hot yoga makes me concentrate on what I’m doing so that I can’t think of anything else. I can put it down and think about nothing and whisper prayers to my sons and say am I doing the right thing, is there something I should be doing differently? It’s my time to think about them and meditate about what they think would be important.

You need to give your mind time to cope, so it’s putting your phone down and your computer away. It’s getting rid of those interruptions. To put the phone, the computer down and get in a hot room and do yoga, or run around outside, to look at a tree and think about the changing season, the universe, the sun. It’s an incredible break for the brain to be able to rest.

I think the disease has made us kinder people and more thoughtful. When Chris died, we found a notebook he kept. In it was written “the meaning of life is a life of meaning”. I think that’s where we have all landed, what we all strive for, a life of meaning.

 

 

 

HOPE for patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy-associated heart disease

/ Karen Ring / 1 Comment

It’s an exciting week for CIRM-funded clinical trials. Yesterday, we blogged about a young man named Kris Boesen who is responding positively to a stem cell therapy in a Phase 1/2a CIRM-funded clinical trial for spinal cord injury run by Asterias Biotherapeutics. Paralyzed from the chest down after a terrible car accident, Kris now has regained some use of his arms and hands following the stem cell transplant.

screen-shot-2016-09-08-at-9-18-46-amYesterday, Capricor Therapeutics also announced news about the progress of its CIRM-funded clinical trial that’s testing the safety and efficacy of a cardiac cell therapy called CAP-1002 for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy-associated cardiomyopathy. Capricor has completed their Phase 1/2 trial enrollment of 25 patients. These patients are young boys (12 years of age or above) suffering from a build-up of scar tissue in their hearts due to DMD-associated cardiomyopathy. Reaching full enrollment is a key milestone for any clinical trial.

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is an inherited disease that attacks muscle, causing muscle tissue to become weak and degenerate. The disease mainly appears in young boys between the ages of two and three. Patients with DMD often suffer from cardiomyopathy or weakened heart muscle caused by the thickening and hardening of the heart muscle and accumulation of scar tissue. DMD-associated cardiomyopathy is one of the leading causes of patient deaths.

President and CEO of Capricor, Dr. Linda Marban, believes there’s a potential for their CAP-1002 stem cell therapy to help DMD patients suffering from cardiomyopathy. She explained in a press release:

“In DMD, scar tissue progressively aggregates in the heart, leading to a deterioration of cardiac function for which treatment options are limited. We believe CAP-1002 is the only therapeutic candidate in development for the treatment of DMD that has been clinically shown to reduce scar tissue in the damaged heart.”

The Capricor trial was approved by the CIRM Board in March 2016 and since then Capricor has worked quickly to enroll patients in its HOPE-Duchenne trial (HOPE stands for Halt cardiomyopathy progression in Duchenne).

Dr. Marban commented on the trials recent progress:

Linda Marban, CEO of Capricor Therapeutics

Linda Marban, CEO of Capricor Therapeutics

“The rate of patient enrollment into HOPE-Duchenne far surpassed our expectations, signifying the need for therapeutic options as well as the desire of the DMD community to address the heart disease that is highly prevalent in this population. We look forward to announcing top-line six-month results from HOPE-Duchenne in the first quarter of next year, in which we will report on the safety as well as the potential efficacy of CAP-1002.”

Half of the enrolled patients will receive an infusion of the CAP-1002 cardiac cell therapy while the other half will receive regular care without the infusion. Capricor will monitor all these patients to make sure that the cell therapy is well tolerated and doesn’t cause any harm. It will also look for any positive signs that the therapy is benefiting patients using a series of tests that measure changes in scar tissue and heart function.

HOPE is high for this trial to succeed as there is currently no treatment that can successfully reduce the amount of cardiac scar tissue in patients suffering from DMD-associated cardiomyopathy. The Capricor trial is in its early stages, but check in with the Stem Cellar for an update on the safety and efficacy data from this trial in early 2017.

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