Cave paintings from Libya: evidence humans communicated through visual images long before they created text
There’s a large body of research that shows that many people learn better through visuals. Studies show that much of the sensory cortex in our brain is devoted to vision so our brains use images rather than text to make sense of things.
That’s why we think it just makes sense to use visuals, as much as we can, when trying to help people understand advances in stem cell research. That’s precisely what our colleagues at U.C. San Diego are doing with a new show called “Stem Cell Science with Alysson Muotri”.
Alysson is a CIRM grantee
who is doing some exciting work in developing a deeper understanding of autism.
He’s also a really good communicator who can distill complex ideas down into
easy to understand language.
The show features Alysson,
plus other scientists at UCSD who are working hard to move the most promising
research out of the lab and into clinical trials in people. Appropriately the
first show in the series follows that path, exploring
how discoveries made using tiny Zebrafish could hopefully lead to stem cell
therapies targeting blood diseases like leukemia. This first show also highlights
the important role that CIRM’s Alpha Stem Cell Clinic Network will play in
bringing those therapies to patients.
You can find a sneak preview of the show on YouTube. The series proper will be broadcast on California local cable via the UCTV channel at 8:00 pm on Thursdays starting July 8, 2019.
And if you really
have a lot of time on your hands you can check out the more
than 300 videos CIRM has produced on every aspect of stem cell research
from cures for fatal diseases to questions to ask before taking part in a
clinical trial.
For years researchers have struggled to create human blood stem cells in the lab. They have done it several times with animal models, but the human kind? Well, that’s proved a bit trickier. Now a CIRM-funded team at UC San Diego (UCSD) think they have cracked the code. And that would be great news for anyone who may ever need a bone marrow transplant.
Why are blood stem cells important? Well, they help create our red and white blood cells and platelets, critical elements in carrying oxygen to all our organs and fighting infections. They have also become one of the most important weapons we have to combat deadly diseases like leukemia and lymphoma. Unfortunately, today we depend on finding a perfect or near-perfect match to make bone marrow transplants as safe and effective as possible and without a perfect match many patients miss out. That’s why this news is so exciting.
Researchers at UCSD found that the process of creating new blood stem cells depends on the action of three molecules, not two as was previously thought.
Zebrafish
Here’s where it gets
a bit complicated but stick with me. The team worked with zebrafish, which use
the same method to create blood stem cells as people do but also have the
advantage of being translucent, so you can watch what’s going on inside them as
it happens. They noticed that a molecule
called Wnt9a touches down on a receptor called Fzd9b and brings along with it
something called the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). It’s the
interaction of these three together that turns a stem cell into a blood cell.
In a news release, Stephanie Grainger, the first author of the
study published in Nature Cell Biology, said this discovery could help lead to new
ways to grow the cells in the lab.
“Previous attempts to develop blood stem cells in a
laboratory dish have failed, and that may be in part because they didn’t take
the interaction between EGFR and Wnt into account.”
If this new approach helps the team generate blood stem cells in the lab these could be used to create off-the-shelf blood stem cells, instead of bone marrow transplants, to treat people battling leukemia and/or lymphoma.
Dr. Michael Milyavsky (left) and his research student Muhammad Yassin (right). Image courtesy of Tel Aviv University.
Every three minutes, one person in the United States is diagnosed with a blood cancer, which amounts to over 175,000 people every year. Every nine minutes, one person in the United States dies from a blood cancer, which is over 58,000 people every year. These eye opening statistics from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society demonstrate why almost one in ten cancer deaths in 2018 were blood cancer related.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a blood cancer is any type of cancer that begins in blood forming tissue, such as those found in the bone marrow. One example of a blood cancer is leukemia, which results in the production of abnormal blood cells. Chemotherapy and radiation are used to wipe out these cells, but the blood cancer can sometimes return, something known as a relapse.
What enables the return of a blood cancer such as leukemia ? The answer lies in the properties of cancer stem cells, which have the ability to multiply and proliferate and can resist the effects of certain types of chemotherapy and radiation. Researchers at Tel Aviv University are looking to decrease the rate of relapse in blood cancer by targeting a specific type of cancer stem cell known as a leukemic stem cell, which are often found to be the most malignant.
Dr. Michael Milyavsky and his team at Tel Aviv University have developed a biosensor that is able to isolate, label, and target specific genes found in luekemic stem cells. Their findings were published on January 31, 2019 in Leukemia.
“The major reason for the dismal survival rate in blood cancers is the inherent resistance of leukemic stem cells to therapy, but only a minor fraction of leukemic cells have high regenerative potential, and it is this regeneration that results in disease relapse. A lack of tools to specifically isolate leukemic stem cells has precluded the comprehensive study and specific targeting of these stem cells until now.”
In addition to isolating and labeling leukemic stem cells, Dr. Milyavsky and his team were able to demonstrate that the leukemic stem cells labeled by their biosensor were sensitive to an inexpensive cancer drug, highlighting the potential this technology has in creating more patient-specific treatment options.
In the article, Dr. Milyavsky said:
” Using this sensor, we can perform personalized medicine oriented to drug screens by barcoding a patient’s own leukemia cells to find the best combination of drugs that will be able to target both leukemia in bulk as well as leukemia stem cells inside it.”
The researchers are now investigating genes that are active in leukemic stem cells in the hope finding other druggable targets.
CIRM has funded two clinical trials that also use a more targeted approach for cancer treatment. One of these trials uses an antibody to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and the other trial uses a different antibody to treat acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
3D illustration of an antibody binding to a designated target. Illustration created by Audra Geras.
A variety of diseases can be traced to a simple root cause: problems in the bone marrow. The bone marrow contains specialized stem cells known as hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that give rise to different types of blood cells. As mentioned in a previous blog about Sickle Cell Disease (SCD), one problem that can occur is the production of “sickle like” red blood cells. In blood cancers like leukemia, there is an uncontrollable production of abnormal white blood cells. Another condition, known as myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), are a group of cancers in which immature blood cells in the bone marrow do not mature and therefore do not become healthy blood cells.
For diseases that originate in the bone marrow, one treatment involves introducing healthy HSCs from a donor or gene therapy. However, before this type of treatment can take place, all of the problematic HSCs must be eliminated from the patient’s body. This process, known as pre-treatment, involves a combination of chemotherapy and radiation, which can be extremely toxic and life threatening. There are some patients whose condition has progressed to the point where their bodies are not strong enough to withstand pre-treatment. Additionally, there are long-term side effects that chemotherapy and radiation can have on infant children that are discussed in a previous blog about pediatric brain cancer.
Could there be a targeted, non-toxic approach to eliminating unwanted HSCs that can be used in combination with stem cell therapies? Researchers at Stanford say yes and have very promising results to back up their claim.
Dr. Judith Shizuru and her team at Stanford University have developed an antibody that can eliminate problematic blood forming stem cells safely and efficiently. The antibody is able to identify a protein on HSCs and bind to it. Once it is bound, the protein is unable to function, effectively removing the problematic blood forming stem cells.
Dr. Shizuru is the senior author of a study published online on February 11th, 2019 in Blood that was conducted in mice and focused on MDS. The results were very promising, demonstrating that the antibody successfully depleted human MDS cells and aided transplantation of normal human HSCs in the MDS mouse model.
This proof of concept holds promise for MDS as well as other disease conditions. In a public release from Stanford Medicine, Dr. Shizuru is quoted as saying, “A treatment that specifically targets only blood-forming stem cells would allow us to potentially cure people with diseases as varied as sickle cell disease, thalassemia, autoimmune disorders and other blood disorders…We are very hopeful that this body of research is going to have a positive impact on patients by allowing better depletion of diseased cells and engraftment of healthy cells.”
The research mentioned was partially funded by us at CIRM. Additionally, we recently awarded a $3.7 million dollar grant to use the same antibody in a human clinical trial for the so-called “bubble baby disease”, which is also known as severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). You can read more about that award on a previous blog post linked here.
Of the many different kinds of cancer that affect humans, leukemia is the most common in young people. As with many types cancer, doctors mostly turn to chemotherapy to treat patients. Chemotherapy, however, comes with its own share of issues, primarily severe side effects and the constant threat of disease recurrence.
Stem cell therapy treatment has emerged as a potential cure for some types of cancer, with leukemia patients being among the first groups of patients to receive this type of treatment. While exciting because of the possibility of a complete cure, stem cell therapy comes with its own challenges. Let’s take a closer look.
Leukemia is characterized by abnormal white blood cells (also known as the many different types of cells that make up our immune system) that are produced at high levels. Stem cell therapy is such an appealing treatment option because it involves replacing the patient’s aberrant blood stem cells with healthy ones from a donor, which provides the possibility of complete and permanent remission for the patient.
Unfortunately, in approximately half of patients who receive this therapy, the donor cells (which turn into immune cells), can also destroy the patients healthy tissue (i.e. liver, skin etc…), because the transplanted blood stem cells recognize patient’s tissue as foreign. While doctors try to lessen this type of response (also known as graft versus host disease (GVHD)), by suppressing the patient’s immune system, this procedure lessens the effectiveness of the stem cell therapy itself.
Now scientists at the University of Zurich have made an important discovery – published in the journal Science Translational Medicine – that could mitigate this potentially fatal response in patients. They found that a molecule called GM-CSF, is a critical mediator of the severity of GVHD. Using a mouse model, they showed that if the donor cells were unable to produce GM-CSF, then mice fared significantly better both in terms of less damage to tissues normally affected by GVHD, such as the skin, and overall survival.
While exciting, the scientists were concerned about narrowing in on this molecule as a potential target to lessen GVHD, because GM-CSF, an important molecule in the immune system, might also be important for ensuring that the donor immune cells do their jobs properly. Reassuringly, the researchers found that blocking GM-CSF’s function had no effect on the ability of the donor cells to exert their anti-cancer effect. This was surprising because previously the ability of donor cells to cause GVHD, versus protect patients from the development of cancer was thought to occur via the same biological mechanisms.
Most excitingly, however, was that finding that high levels of GM-CSF are also observed in patient samples, and that the levels of GM-CSF correlate to the severity of GVHD. Dr. Burkhard Becher and his colleagues, the authors of this study, now want to run a clinical trial to determine whether blocking GM-CSF blocks GVHD in humans like it does in mice. In a press release, Dr. Becher states the importance of these findings:
“If we can stop the graft-versus-host response while preserving the anti-cancer effect, this procedure can be employed much more successfully and with fewer risks to the patient. This therapeutic strategy holds particular promise for patients with the poorest prognosis and highest risk of fatality.”
Mesenchymal stem cells grown on a surface with specialized mechanical properties. Image courtesy of Krystyn Van Vliet at MIT.
Blood cancers, such as leukemia and lymphoma, are projected to be responsible for 10% of all new cancer diagnoses this year. These types of cancers are often treated by killing the patient’s bone marrow (the site of blood cell manufacturing), with a treatment called irradiation. While effective for ridding the body of cancerous cells, this treatment also kills healthy blood cells. Therefore, for a time after the treatment, patients are particularly vulnerable to infections, because the cellular components of the immune system are down for the count.
Now scientists at MIT have devised a method to make blood cells regenerate faster and minimize the window for opportunistic infections.
Using multipotent stem cells (stem cells that are able to become multiple cell types) grown on a new and specialized surface that mimics bone marrow, the investigators changed the stem cells into different types of blood cells. When transplanted into mice that had undergone irradiation, they found that the mice recovered much more quickly compared to mice given stem cells grown on a more traditional plastic surface that does not resemble bone marrow as well.
This finding, published in the journal Stem Cell Research and Therapy, is particularly revolutionary, because it is the first time researchers have observed that mechanical properties can affect how the cells differentiate and behave.
The lead author of the study attributes the decreased recovery time to the type of stem cell that was given to mice compared to what humans are normally given after irradiation. Humans are given a stem cell that is only able to become different types of blood cells. The mice in this study, however, were give a stem cell that can become many different types of cells such as muscle, bone and cartilage, suggesting that these cells somehow changed the bone marrow environment to promote a more efficient recovery. They attributed a large part of this phenomenon to a secreted protein call ostepontin, which has previously been describe in activating the cells of the immune system.
In a press release, Dr. Viola Vogel, a scientist not related to study, puts the significance of these findings in a larger context:
“Illustrating how mechanopriming of mesenchymal stem cells can be exploited to improve on hematopoietic recovery is of huge medical significance. It also sheds light onto how to utilize their approach to perhaps take advantage of other cell subpopulations for therapeutic applications in the future.”
Dr. Krystyn Van Vliet, explains the potential to expand these findings beyond the scope of just blood cancer treatment:
“You could imagine that by changing their culture environment, including their mechanical environment, MSCs could be used for administration to target several other diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and others.”
I am embarrassed to admit that I have never been to the Inland Empire in California, the area that extends from San Bernardino to Riverside counties. That’s about to change. On Monday, April 16th CIRM is taking a road trip to UC Riverside, and we’re inviting you to join us.
We are holding a special, free, public event at UC Riverside to talk about the work that CIRM does and to highlight the progress being made in stem cell research. We have funded 45 clinical trials in a wide range of conditions from stroke and cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, vision loss, diabetes and sickle cell disease to name just a few. And will talk about how we plan on funding many more clinical trials in the years to come.
We’ll be joined by colleagues from both UC Riverside, and City of Hope, talking about the research they are doing from developing new imaging techniques to see what is happening inside the brain with diseases like Alzheimer’s, to using a patient’s own cells and immune system to attack deadly brain cancers.
It promises to be a fascinating event and of course we want to hear from you, our supporters, friends and patient advocates. We are leaving plenty of time for questions, so we can hear what’s on your mind.
So, join us at UC Riverside on Monday, April 16th from 12.30pm to 2pm. The doors open at 11am so you can enjoy a poster session (highlighting some of the research at UCR) and a light lunch before the event. Parking will be available on site.
Visit the Eventbrite page we have created for all the information you’ll need about the event, including a chance to RSVP and book your place.
The event is free so feel free to share this with anyone and everyone you think might be interested in joining us.
When the immune system comes up as a topic in everyday conversation, it’s usually related to fighting off a cold or flu. While our immune cells certainly do detect and neutralize invading bacteria and viruses, they also play a critical role in killing abnormal, cancerous cells from within our bodies.
“Don’t Eat Me” Signal 101 A white blood cell called a macrophage (macro = “big”; phage = “eater”) is part of the so-called innate immune system and acts as a first line of defense by patrolling our organs and gobbling up infected as well as cancerous cells (see macrophages in action in the cool video below).
Unfortunately, cancer cells possess the ability to cloak themselves and escape a macrophage’s engulfing grasp. Nearly all cancer cells carry a protein called CD47 on their surface. When CD47 binds to a protein called SIRPalpha on the surface of macrophages, a “don’t eat me” signal is triggered and the macrophage ignores the cancer cell.
Stanford researcher Irv Weissman and his team discovered this “don’t eat me” signal several years ago and showed that adding an antibody protein that binds tightly to CD47 interferes with the CD47/SIRPalpha signal. As a result, the anti-CD47 antibody deactivates the cancer cell’s “don’t eat me” signal and restores the macrophage’s ability to detect and kill the cancer cells.
CD47 protein on surface of cancer cells triggers “don’t eat me signal” which can be blocked with anti-CD47 antibody. Image: Acrobiosystems
Because CD47 is found on the surface of most cancer cells, this anti-CD47 antibody represents an exciting new strategy for targeting cancer stem cells – the cells thought to maintain cancer growth and cause tumor relapse – in a wide variety of cancers. In fact, CIRM has provided funding for three clinical trials, one sponsored by Stanford University and two by Forty-Seven Inc. (a company that was spun out of Stanford), that are testing anti-CD47 therapy for the treatment of the blood cancer acute myeloid leukemia (AML), as well as colon cancer and other solid tumors.
“Reaching Clinical Trials” does not equal “The Research is Done” Although these clinical trials are underway, the Weissman team continues to seek new insights related to blocking the CD47 “don’t eat me” signal. They observed that although anti-CD47 led to increased macrophage-induced killing of most cancer cell samples tested, some were resistant to anti-CD47 and remained cloaked from macrophages. And even the cancer cells that did respond to the antibody varied widely in the amount of increased killing by macrophages.
These results suggested that alternate processes may exist that allow some cancers to evade macrophages even when the CD47 “don’t eat me” signal is blocked. In a report published this week in Nature Immunology, the researchers report the identification of a second, independent “don’t eat me” signal, which may lead to more precise methods to disarm a cancer’s evasiveness.
To track down this alternate “don’t eat me” signal, they looked for, but didn’t find, correlations between specific types of cancer cells and the cancer’s resistance to anti-CD47 treatment. So instead they analyzed surface proteins found on the various cancer cell samples and found that cancer cells that had high levels of MHC (Major Histocompatibility Complex) class I proteins were more likely to be resistant to anti-CD47 antibodies.
A Second “Don’t Eat Me” Signal MHC class I proteins help another arm of the immune system, the adaptive immune response, detect what’s going inside a cell. They are found on nearly all cells and display, at the cell surface, bits of proteins sampled from inside the cell. If cells of the adaptive immune response, such as T or B cells, recognize one of those protein bits as abnormal or foreign, efficient killing mechanisms are kicked into high gear to destroy those cells.
But in the case of cancers cells, the MHC class I protein are harnessed as a “don’t eat me” signal by binding to a protein called LILRB1 on macrophages. When either the MHC class I proteins or LILRB1 were blocked, the “don’t eat me” signal was lifted and restored the macrophages’ ability to kill the cancer cells both in petri dish samples as well as in mice that carried human cancers.
Graduate student and co-lead author Amira Barkal described in a press release the impact of blocking both “don’t eat me” signals at the same time:
Amira Barkal
“Simultaneously blocking both these pathways in mice resulted in the infiltration of the tumor with many types of immune cells and significantly promoted tumor clearance, resulting in smaller tumors overall. We are excited about the possibility of a double- or perhaps even triple-pronged therapy in humans in which we combine multiple blockades to cancer growth.”
The Big Picture for Cancer Immunotherapies Because MHC protein class I proteins play an important role in stimulating immune cells called T cells to kill cancer cells as part of the adaptive immune response, the level of MHC protein on an individual patient’s cancer cells could serve as an indicator, or “biomarker”, for what type of cancer therapy to pursue. The big picture implications of this idea are captured in the press release:
“Understanding the balance between adaptive and innate immunity is important in cancer immunotherapy. For example, it’s not uncommon for human cancer cells to reduce the levels of MHC class 1 on their surfaces to escape destruction by T cells. People with these types of tumors may be poor candidates for cancer immunotherapies meant to stimulate T cell activity against the cancer. But these cells may then be particularly vulnerable to anti-CD47 treatment, the researchers believe. Conversely, cancer cells with robust MHC class 1 on their surfaces may be less susceptible to anti-CD47.”
Bone marrow transplant: Photo courtesy FierceBiotech
Some medical therapies have been around for so long that we naturally assume we understand how they work. That’s not always the case. Take aspirin for example. It’s been used for more than 4,000 years to treat pain and inflammation but it was only in the 1970’s that we really learned how it works.
The same is now true for bone marrow transplants. Thanks to some skilled research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
Bone marrow transplants have been used for decades to help treat deadly blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma. The first successful bone marrow transplant was in the late 1950’s, involving identical twins, one of whom had leukemia. Because the twins shared the same genetic make-up the transplant avoided potentially fatal problems like graft-vs-host-disease, where the transplanted cells attack the person getting them. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that doctors were able to perform transplants involving people who were not related or who did not share the same genetic make-up.
In a bone marrow or blood stem cell transplant, doctors use radiation or chemotherapy to destroy the bone marrow in a patient with, say, leukemia. Then cancer-free donor blood stem cells are transplanted into the patient to help create a new blood system, and rebuild their immune system.
Surprise findings
In the study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the researchers were able to isolate a specific kind of stem cell that helps repair and rebuild the blood and immune system.
The team found that a small subset of blood stem cells, characterized by having one of three different kinds of protein on their surface – CD34 positive, CD45RA negative and CD90 positive – did all the work.
In a news release Dr. Hans-Peter Kiem, a senior author on the study, says some of their initial assumptions about how bone marrow transplants work were wrong:
“These findings came as a surprise; we had thought that there were multiple types of blood stem cells that take on different roles in rebuilding a blood and immune system. This population does it all.”
Tracking the cells
The team performed bone-marrow transplants on monkeys and then followed those animals over the next seven years, observing what happened as the donor cells grew and multiplied.
They tracked hundreds of thousands of cells in the blood and found that, even though the cells with those three proteins on the surface made up just five percent of the total blood supply, they were responsible for rebuilding the entire blood and immune system.
Study co-author Dr. Jennifer Adair said they saw evidence of this rebuilding within 10 days of the transplant:
“Our ability to track individual blood cells that developed after transplant was critical to demonstrating that these really are stem cells.”
Hope for the future
It’s an important finding because it could help researchers develop new ways of delivering bone marrow transplants that are both safer and more effective. Every year some 3,000 people die because they cannot find a matching donor. Knowing which stem cells are specifically responsible for an effective transplant could help researchers come up with ways to get around that problem.
Although this work was done in monkeys, the scientists say humans have similar kinds of stem cells that appear to act in the same way. Proving that’s the case will obviously be the next step in this research.
Thomas Kipps, MD, PhD: Photo courtesy UC San Diego
Confusion is not a state of mind that we usually seek out. Being bewildered is bad enough when it happens naturally, so why would anyone actively pursue it? But now some researchers are doing just that, using confusion to not just block a deadly blood cancer, but to kill it.
Today the CIRM Board approved an investment of $18.29 million to Dr. Thomas Kipps and his team at UC San Diego to use a one-two combination approach that we hope will kill Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL).
This approach combines two therapies, cirmtuzumab (a monoclonal antibody developed with CIRM funding, hence the name) and Ibrutinib, a drug that has already been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for patients with CLL.
As Dr. Maria Millan, our interim President and CEO, said in a news release, the need for a new treatment is great.
“Every year around 20,000 Americans are diagnosed with CLL. For those who have run out of treatment options, the only alternative is a bone marrow transplant. Since CLL afflicts individuals in their 70’s who often have additional medical problems, bone marrow transplantation carries a higher risk of life threatening complications. The combination approach of cirmtuzumab and Ibrutinib seeks to offer a less invasive and more effective alternative for these patients.”
Ibrutinib blocks signaling pathways that leukemia cells need to survive. Disrupting these pathways confuses the leukemia cell, leading to its death. But even with this approach there are cancer stem cells that are able to evade Ibrutinib. These lie dormant during the therapy but come to life later, creating more leukemia cells and causing the cancer to spread and the patient to relapse. That’s where cirmtuzumab comes in. It works by blocking a protein on the surface of the cancer stem cells that the cancer needs to spread.
It’s hoped this one-two punch combination will kill all the cancer cells, increasing the number of patients who go into complete remission and improve their long-term cancer control.
In an interview with OncLive, a website focused on cancer professionals, Tom Kipps said Ibrutinib has another advantage for patients:
“The patients are responding well to treatment. It doesn’t seem like you have to worry about stopping therapy, because you’re not accumulating a lot of toxicity as you would with chemotherapy. If you administered chemotherapy on and on for months and months and years and years, chances are the patient wouldn’t tolerate that very well.”
The CIRM Board also approved $5 million for Angiocrine Bioscience Inc. to carry out a Phase 1 clinical trial testing a new way of using cord blood to help people battling deadly blood disorders.
The standard approach for this kind of problem is a bone marrow transplant from a matched donor, usually a family member. But many patients don’t have a potential donor and so they often have to rely on a cord blood transplant as an alternative, to help rebuild and repair their blood and immune systems. However, too often a single cord blood donation does not have enough cells to treat an adult patient.
Angiocrine has developed a product that could help get around that problem. AB-110 is made up of cord blood-derived hematopoietic stem cells (these give rise to all the other types of blood cell) and genetically engineered endothelial cells – the kind of cell that lines the insides of blood vessels.
This combination enables the researchers to take cord blood cells and greatly expand them in number. Expanding the number of cells could also expand the number of patients who could get these potentially life-saving cord blood transplants.
These two new projects now bring the number of clinical trials funded by CIRM to 35. You can read about the other 33 here.
The Stem Cellar 