stem cell transplant

Investing in stem cell and gene therapy treatments for HIV

/ Esteban Cortez / 1 Comment

A recent article in Nature shared the news about a 53-year-old man in Germany who was declared free of HIV after receiving virus-resistant cells. 

The man—referred to as the “Düsseldorf patient”—was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and underwent a stem cell transplant in 2013 that replaced his bone marrow cells with HIV-resistant stem cells from a donor.  

In the five years following the procedure, virologist Björn-Erik Jensen and his team at Düsseldorf University Hospital in Germany continued to monitor the patient. They continued to find immune cells that reacted to HIV in his body, which suggested that his body was not clear of the virus. 

In 2018, the patient stopped taking antiretroviral therapy (ART), a treatment for HIV that reduces a person’s viral load to an undetectable level. His body has remained HIV-free since then, indicating that the stem cell transplant worked.  

Similar stem cell treatments have been used to treat others living with HIV, including a patient in 2007 and another patient in 2019. 

The article in Nature states that the procedure is unlikely to be used widely in its current form due to the associated risks, including the chance that an individual will reject a donor’s marrow.  

Scientists continue to test stem cells as a treatment for HIV, including methods in which cells are taken from a person’s own body and genetically modified, eliminating the need for donor cells. 

CIRM’s Commitment to Investing in Treatments for HIV

The news of the Düsseldorf patient shows the importance of continued stem cell and gene therapy research to find treatments for HIV.  

At the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), we have invested more than $85 million in the search for stem cell and gene therapy treatments for HIV/AIDS, ranging from basic Discovery research to clinical trials.  

Recent CIRM investments include a study at UC Davis health, in which researchers take a patient’s own white blood cells, called T-cells, and modify them so that they can identify and target HIV cells to control the virus without medication. 

CIRM also funded a clinical trial at UCSF to develop a functional cure for HIV/AIDS. In the trial, the team takes a patient’s blood and extracts T cells, a type of immune cell. The T cells are then genetically modified to express two different chimeric antigen receptors (CAR), which enable the newly-created duoCAR-T cells to recognize and destroy HIV infected cells. The modified T cells are then reintroduced back into the patient. 

The goal of this one-time therapy is to act as a long-term control of HIV with patients no longer needing to take ART, in effect a form of HIV cure.  This approach would also address the needs of those who are not able to respond to current approaches, which is estimated to be 50% of those affected by HIV globally. 

Last year, researchers in the UCSF trial shared that they had dosed the first patient in the trial testing their anti-HIV duoCAR-T cell therapy. You can read the announcement here.  

There are approximately 38 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS. And each year there are an estimated 1.5 million new cases. The vast majority of those living with HIV do not have access to the life-saving antiretroviral medications that can keep the virus under control. People who do have access to the medications face long-term complications from them including heart disease, bone, liver and kidney problems, and changes in metabolism. 

To learn more about CIRM’s commitment and investments in finding treatments for HIV, visit our website. 

Stem cell transplant in utero offers potential treatment for congenital diseases

/ Yimy Villa / 2 Comments
Dr. Tippi Mackenzie, UCSF
Image Credit: UCSF

Each year, around 24,000 women in the US lose a pregnancy. One reason for this unfortunate occurrence are metabolic disorders, one of which is known as Sly syndrome and is caused by a single genetic mutation. In Sly syndrome, the body’s cells lack an enzyme necessary for proper cell function. Many fetuses with this condition die before birth but those that survive are treated with regular injections of the lacking enzyme. Unfortunately, patients can eventually develop an immune response to these injections and it cannot enter the brain after birth.

However, a team of researchers at UCSF are looking at exploring a potential treatment that could be delivered in-utero. In a CIRM supported study, Dr. Tippi Mackenzie and Dr. Quoc-Hung Nguyen transplanted blood-forming stem cells from normal mice into fetal mice carrying the genetic mutation for Sly syndrome. The researchers were most interested to see whether these cells could reach the brain, and whether they would change into cells called microglia, immune cells that originate from blood-forming stem cells. In a normally developing fetus, once matured, microglia produce and store the necessary enzyme, as well as regulate the immune environment of the brain.

Stem cells transplanted in utero (green) engrafted into fetal mouse brain tissue. 
Image credit: Q-H Nguyen/MacKenzie lab.

The researchers found that the stem cells were able to engraft in the brain, liver, kidney, and other organs. Furthermore, these stem cells were able to eventually turn into the appropriate cell type needed to produce the enzyme in each of the organs.

In a press release, Dr. Mackenzie talks about the impact that this potential treatment could have.

“This group of vulnerable patients has been relatively ignored in the fetal surgery world. We know these patients could potentially benefit from a number of medical therapies. So this is our first foray into treating one of those diseases.”

In the same press release, Dr. Nguyen talks about the impact of the results from this study.

“These exciting findings are just the tip of the iceberg. They open up a whole new approach to treating a range of diseases. At the same time, there’s also a lot of work to do to optimize the treatment for humans.”

The next step for Dr. Mackenzie is to apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to launch a clinical trial of enzyme replacement therapy that will ultimately enroll patients with Sly syndrome and related metabolic disorders.

This approach is similar to a CIRM funded trial conducted by Dr. Mackenzie that involves a blood stem cell transplant in utero.

The full results to this study were published in Science Translational Medicine.

Transplanted stem cells used to grow fully functional lungs in mice

/ Yimy Villa / Leave a comment
Illustration of a human lung

According to organ donation statistics from the Health Resources & Services Administration, over 113,000 men, women, and children are on the national transplant waiting list as of July 2019. Another person is added to the waiting list every 10 minutes and 20 people die each day waiting for a transplant.

As these statistics highlight, there is a tremendous need for obtaining viable organs for people that are in need of a transplant. It is because of this, that scientists and researchers are exploring ways of using stem cells to potentially grow fully functional organs.

Dr. Hiromitsu Nakauchi, Stanford University

In a CIRM-supported study, Dr. Hiromitsu Nakauchi at Stanford University, in collaboration with Dr. Wellington Cardoso at Columbia University, were able to grow fully functional lungs in mouse embryos using transplanted stem cells. The full study, published in Nature Medicine, suggests that it may be possible to grow human lungs in animals and use them for patients in dire need of transplants or to study new lung treatments.

In the study, the researchers took stem cells and implanted them into modified mouse embryos that either lacked the stem cells necessary to form a lung or were not able to produce enough cells to make a lung. It was found that the implanted stem cells formed fully functional lungs that allowed the mice to live well into adulthood. Additionally, there were no signs of the mouse’s body rejecting the lung tissue composed of donor stem cells.

In a press release, Dr. Cardoso expressed optimism for the study and the potential the results hold:

“Millions of people worldwide who suffer from incurable lung diseases die without treatment due to the limited supply of donor lungs for transplantation. Our study shows that it may eventually be possible to develop new strategies for generating human lungs in animals for transplantation as an alternative to waiting for donor lungs.”

Stem cell treatment restores man’s sight in right eye after 25 years

/ Yimy Villa / Leave a comment
James O’Brien, recipient of a stem cell treatment that restored the vision in his right eye

At 18 years old, there are several life-changing moments that young people look forward to. For some, it involves graduating from high school, starting college, and being able to cast a vote in an election. For others, this momentous occasion symbolizes the official start of adulthood.

For James O’ Brien, this milestone was marked by a rather unfortunate event where ammonia was thrown at his face in a random attack. As a result of this incident, the surface of his right eye was burned and he was left completely blind in his right eye.

Fast forward 25 years and thanks to an experimental stem cell treatment, James is able to see out of his right eye for the first time since the attack.

“Being able to see with both eyes – it’s a small thing that means the world. Basically I went from near-blindness in that eye to being able to see everything.” said O’Brien in a news release from Daily Heralds.

Dr. Sajjad Ahmad and a team of surgeons at the Moorfields Eye Hospital in London removed healthy stem cells from O’Brien’s left eye and grew these cells in a lab for months. After an adequate number of healthy stem cells from O’Briens left eye were grown, the surgeons then cut the scar tissue in his right eye and replaced it with the healthy stem cells.

They then waited a year after the procedure for the cells to settle down before inserting a cornea – which plays a key role in vision and focuses light – from a deceased donor.

“This is going to have a huge impact. A lot of these patients are young men so it affects their work, their lives, those around them. It’s not just the vision that drops, it’s the pain.” said Dr. Ahmad in the news release previously mentioned.

The procedure used took over 20 years to develop and Dr. Ahmad hopes to continue to develop the procedure for patients that have been blinded in both eyes by chemicals or have lost their vision through degenerative conditions.

CIRM has funded three clinical trials in vision loss to date. Two of these trials are being conducted by Dr. Henry Klassen for an eye condition known as retinitis pigmentosa and have shown promising results. The third trial is being conducted by Dr. Mark Humayun for another eye condition known as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) which has also shown promising results.

See video below for a news segment of James O’Brien on BBC News:

Scientists repair spinal cord injuries in monkeys using human stem cells

/ Karen Ring / 2 Comments

Human neuronal stem cells extend axons (green). (Image UCSD)

An exciting development for spinal cord injury research was published this week in the journal Nature Medicine. Scientists from the University of San Diego School of Medicine transplanted human neural progenitor cells (NPCs) into rhesus monkeys that had spinal cord injuries. These cells, which are capable of turning into other cells in the brain, survived and robustly developed into nerve cells that improved the monkeys’ use of their hands and arms.

The scientists grafted 20 million human NPCs derived from embryonic stem cells into two-week-old spinal cord lesions in the monkeys. These stem cells were delivered with growth factors to improve their survival and growth. The monkeys were also treated with immunosuppressive drugs to prevent their immune system from rejecting the human cells.

After nine months, they discovered that the NPCs had developed into nerve cells within the injury site that extended past the injury into healthy tissue. These nerve extensions are called axons, which allow nerves to transmit electrical signals and instructions to other brain cells. During spinal cord injury, nerve cells and their axon extensions are damaged. Scientists have found it difficult to regenerate these damaged cells because of the inhibitory growth environment created at the injury site. You can compare it to the build-up of scar tissue after a heart attack. The heart has difficulty regenerating healthy heart muscle, which is instead replaced by fibrous scar tissue.

Excitingly, the UCSD team was able to overcome this hurdle in their current study. When they transplanted human NPCs with growth factors into the monkeys, they found that the cells were not affected by the inhibitory environment of the injury and were able to robustly develop into nerve cells and send out axon extensions.

Large numbers of human axons (green) emerge from a lesion/graft sites. Many axons travel along the interface (indicated by arrows) between spinal cord white matter (nerve fibers covered with myelin) and spinal cord gray matter (nerves without the whitish myelin sheathing). Image courtesy of Mark Tuszynski, UC San Diego School of Medicine.

The senior scientist on the study, Dr. Mark Tuszynski, explained how their findings in a large animal model are a huge step forward for the field in a UCSD Health news release:

“While there was real progress in research using small animal models, there were also enormous uncertainties that we felt could only be addressed by progressing to models more like humans before we conduct trials with people. We discovered that the grafting methods used with rodents didn’t work in larger, non-human primates. There were critical issues of scale, immunosuppression, timing and other features of methodology that had to be altered or invented. Had we attempted human transplantation without prior large animal testing, there would have been substantial risk of clinical trial failure, not because neural stem cells failed to reach their biological potential but because of things we did not know in terms of grafting and supporting the grafted cells.”

Dr. Tuszynski is a CIRM-grantee whose earlier research involved optimizing stem cell treatments for rodent models of spinal cord injury. We’ve blogged about that research previously on the Stem Cellar here and here.

Tuszynski recently was awarded a CIRM discovery stage research grant to develop a candidate human neural stem cell line that is optimized to repair the injured spinal cord and can be used in human clinical trials. He expressed cautious optimism about the future of this treatment for spinal cord injury patients emphasizing the need for patience and more research before arriving at clinical trials:

“We seem to have overcome some major barriers, including the inhibitory nature of adult myelin against axon growth. Our work has taught us that stem cells will take a long time to mature after transplantation to an injury site, and that patience will be required when moving to humans. Still, the growth we observe from these cells is remarkable — and unlike anything I thought possible even ten years ago. There is clearly significant potential here that we hope will benefit humans with spinal cord injury.”

Related Links:

Stem cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease shows promise in monkeys

/ Karen Ring / 1 Comment

Tremors, muscle stiffness, shuffling, slow movement, loss of balance. These are all symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD), a neurodegenerative disorder that progressively destroys the dopamine-producing neurons in the brain that control movement.

While there is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, there are drugs like Levodopa and procedures like deep brain stimulation that alleviate or improve some Parkinsonian symptoms. What they don’t do, however, is slow or reverse disease progression.

Scientists are still trying to figure out what causes Parkinson’s patients to lose dopaminergic neurons, and when they do, they hope to stop the disease in its early stages before it can cause the debilitating symptoms mentioned above. In the meantime, some researchers see hope for treating Parkinson’s in the form of stem cell therapies that can replace the brain cells that are damaged or lost due to the disease.

Dopaminergic neurons derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. (Xianmin Zeng, Buck Institute)

Promising results in monkeys

This week, a team of Japanese scientists reported in the journal Nature that they treated monkeys with Parkinson’s-like symptoms by transplanting dopaminergic neurons made from human stem cells into their brains. To prevent the monkeys from rejecting the human cells, they were treated with immunosuppressive drugs. These transplanted neurons survived for more than two years without causing negative side effects, like tumor growth, and also improved PD symptoms, making it easier for the monkeys to move around.

The neurons were made from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are stem cells that can become any cell type in the body and are made by transforming mature human cells, like skin, back to an embryonic-like state. The scientists transplanted neurons made from the iPSCs of healthy people and PD patients into the monkeys and saw that both types of neurons survived and functioned properly by producing dopamine in the monkey brains.

Experts in the field spoke to the importance of these findings in an interview with Nature News. Anders Bjorklund, a neuroscientist at Lund University in Sweden, said “it’s addressing a set of critical issues that need to be investigated before one can, with confidence, move to using the cells in humans,” while Lorenz Studer, a stem-cell scientist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, said that “there are still issues to work out, such as the number of cells needed in each transplant procedure. But the latest study is ‘a sign that we are ready to move forward.’”

Next stop, human trials

Jun Takahashi

Looking ahead, Jun Takahashi, the senior author on the study, explained that his team hopes to launch a clinical trial testing this iPSC-based therapy by the end of 2018. Instead of developing personalized iPSC therapies for individual PD patients, which can be time consuming and costly, Takahashi plans to make special donor iPSC lines (called human leukocyte antigen or HLA-homozygous iPSCs) that are immunologically compatible with a larger population of patients.

In a separate study published at the same time in Nature Communications, Takahashi and colleagues showed that transplanting neurons derived from immune-matched monkey iPSCs improved their survival and dampened the immune response.

The Nature News article does a great job highlighting the findings and significance of both studies and also mentions other research projects using stem cells to treat PD in clinical trials.

“Earlier this year, Chinese researchers began a Parkinson’s trial that used a different approach: giving patients neural-precursor cells made from embryonic stem cells, which are intended to develop into mature dopamine-producing neurons. A year earlier, in a separate trial, patients in Australia received similar cells. But some researchers have expressed concerns that the immature transplanted cells could develop tumour-causing mutations.

Meanwhile, researchers who are part of a Parkinson’s stem-cell therapy consortium called GForce-PD, of which Takahashi’s team is a member, are set to bring still other approaches to the clinic. Teams in the United States, Sweden and the United Kingdom are all planning trials to transplant dopamine-producing neurons made from embryonic stem cells into humans. Previously established lines of embryonic stem cells have the benefit that they are well studied and can be grown in large quantities, and so all trial participants can receive a standardized treatment.”

You can read more coverage on these research studies in STATnews, The San Diego Union Tribune, and Scientific American.

For a list of projects CIRM is funding on Parkinson’s disease, visit our website.

Stem cell treatment helps puppies born with spina bifida walk again

/ Karen Ring / Leave a comment

Just when you thought puppies couldn’t get any cuter, this video appears in your twitter feed.

These adorable English bulldog puppies are named Darla and Spanky, and they were born with a birth defect called spina bifida where the bones and tissue surrounding the spinal cord fail to fuse completely. Spina bifida occurs in 1500-2000 children in the US each year and can cause serious problems such as paralysis and issues with walking, cognition, and bladder or bowel control. Dogs born with this condition usually cannot use their hind legs, and as a sad consequence, are typically put down at a young age.

Cutting edge research from UC Davis is now giving these unfortunate puppies hope. Diana Farmer, a fetal surgeon at UC Davis Health, and scientists from the university’s Veterinary Institute for Regenerative Cures have developed a combination surgery and stem cell transplant, using placenta-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (PMSCs), to treat puppies with spina bifida. Because prenatal screening for spina bifida is not done in dogs, Darla and Spanky received the treatment when they were ten weeks old.

With funding from a CIRM preclinical development award, Farmer has done similar surgeries in lambs that are still in the womb. A UC Davis news release provided historical background on Farmer’s work on spina bifida,

“Farmer pioneered the use of surgery prior to birth to improve brain development in children with spina bifida. She later showed that prenatal surgery combined with human placenta-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (PMSCs), held in place with a cellular scaffold, helped research lambs born with the disorder walk without noticeable disability.”

As you can see from the video, the surgeries were a success. Darla and Spanky are now able to live up to their full puppy potential and will live happily ever after with their adoptive family in New Mexico.

Looking forward, Farmer and her team would like to treat more dogs with spina bifida so they can improve another negative consequence of spina bifida called incontinence, or an uncontrollable bladder. The UC Davis release explained that, “while Darla and Spanky are very mobile and doing well on their feet, they still require diapers.” (Side note: this video proves that puppies can make anything look cute, even dirty diapers.)

Additionally, the team is hoping to receive regulatory approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to launch a clinical trial testing this therapy in humans. If this stem cell treatment proves to be both safe and effective in clinical trials, it could potentially prevent spina bifida from ever happening in animals and in humans.

English Bulldog undergoing spina bifida surgery at UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. (Gregory Urquiaga/UC Davis)

Stories that caught our eye: stem cell transplants help put MS in remission; unlocking the cause of autism; and a day to discover what stem cells are all about

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

multiple-sclerosis

Motor neurons

Stem cell transplants help put MS in remission: A combination of high dose immunosuppressive therapy and transplant of a person’s own blood stem cells seems to be a powerful tool in helping people with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) go into sustained remission.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disorder where the body’s own immune system attacks the brain and spinal cord, causing a wide variety of symptoms including overwhelming fatigue, blurred vision and mobility problems. RRMS is the most common form of MS, affecting up to 85 percent of people, and is characterized by attacks followed by periods of remission.

The HALT-MS trial, which was sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), took the patient’s own blood stem cells, gave the individual chemotherapy to deplete their immune system, then returned the blood stem cells to the patient. The stem cells created a new blood supply and seemed to help repair the immune system.

Five years after the treatment, most of the patients were still in remission, despite not taking any medications for MS. Some people even recovered some mobility or other capabilities that they had lost due to the disease.

In a news release, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of NIAID, said anything that holds the disease at bay and helps people avoid taking medications is important:

“These extended findings suggest that one-time treatment with HDIT/HCT may be substantially more effective than long-term treatment with the best available medications for people with a certain type of MS. These encouraging results support the development of a large, randomized trial to directly compare HDIT/HCT to standard of care for this often-debilitating disease.”

scripps-campus

Scripps Research Institute

Using stem cells to model brain development disorders. (Karen Ring) CIRM-funded scientists from the Scripps Research Institute are interested in understanding how the brain develops and what goes wrong to cause intellectual disabilities like Fragile X syndrome, a genetic disease that is a common cause of autism spectrum disorder.

Because studying developmental disorders in humans is very difficult, the Scripps team turned to stem cell models for answers. This week, in the journal Brain, they published a breakthrough in our understanding of the early stages of brain development. They took induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), made from cells from Fragile X syndrome patients, and turned these cells into brain cells called neurons in a cell culture dish.

They noticed an obvious difference between Fragile X patient iPSCs and healthy iPSCs: the patient stem cells took longer to develop into neurons, a result that suggests a similar delay in fetal brain development. The neurons from Fragile X patients also had difficulty forming synaptic connections, which are bridges that allow for information to pass from one neuron to another.

Scripps Research professor Jeanne Loring said that their findings could help to identify new drug therapies to treat Fragile X syndrome. She explained in a press release;

“We’re the first to see that these changes happen very early in brain development. This may be the only way we’ll be able to identify possible drug treatments to minimize the effects of the disorder.”

Looking ahead, Loring and her team will apply their stem cell model to other developmental diseases. She said, “Now we have the tools to ask the questions to advance people’s health.”

A Day to Discover What Stem Cells Are All about.  (Karen Ring) Everyone is familiar with the word stem cells, but do they really know what these cells are and what they are capable of? Scientists are finding creative ways to educate the public and students about the power of stem cells and stem cell research. A great example is the University of Southern California (USC), which is hosting a Stem Cell Day of Discovery to educate middle and high school students and their families about stem cell research.

The event is this Saturday at the USC Health Sciences Campus and will feature science talks, lab tours, hands-on experiments, stem cell lab video games, and a resource fair. It’s a wonderful opportunity for families to engage in science and also to expose young students to science in a fun and engaging way.

Interest in Stem Cell Day has been so high that the event has already sold out. But don’t worry, there will be another stem cell day next year. And for those of you who don’t live in Southern California, mark your calendars for the 2017 Stem Cell Awareness Day on Wednesday, October 11th. There will be stem cell education events all over California and in other parts of the country during that week in honor of this important day.

 

 

Good news from Asterias’ CIRM-funded spinal cord injury trial

/ Karen Ring / 5 Comments

This week in the stem cell field, all eyes are on Asterias Biotherapeutics, a California-based company that’s testing a stem cell based-therapy in a CIRM-funded clinical trial for spinal cord injury patients. The company launched its Phase 1/2a clinical trial back in 2014 with the goal of determining the safety of the therapy and the optimal dose of AST-OPC1 cells to transplant into patients.

astopc1AST-OPC1 cells are oligodendrocyte progenitor cells derived from embryonic stem cells. These are cells located in the brain and spinal cord that develop into support cells that help nerve cells function and communicate with each other.

Asterias is transplanting AST-OPC1 cells into patients that have recently suffered from severe spinal cord injuries in their neck. This type of injury leaves patients paralyzed without any feeling from their neck down. By transplanting cells that can help the nerve cells at the injury site reform their connections, Asterias hopes that their treatment will allow patients to regain some form of movement and feeling.

And it seems that their hope is turning into reality. Yesterday, Asterias reported in a news release that five patients who received a dose of 10 million cells showed improvements in their ability to move after six months after their treatment. All five patients improved one level on the motor function scale, while one patient improved by two levels. A total of six patients received the 10 million cell dose, but so far only five of them have completed the six-month follow-up study, three of which have completed the nine-month follow-up study.

We’ve profiled two of these six patients previously on the Stem Cellar. Kris Boesen was the first patient treated with 10 million cells and has experienced the most improvement. He has regained the use of his hands and arms and can now feed himself and lift weights. Local high school student, Jake Javier, was the fifth patient in this part of the trial, and you can read about his story here.

Kris Boesen, CIRM spinal cord injury clinical trial patient.

Kris Boesen, CIRM spinal cord injury clinical trial patient.

jake_javier_stories_of_hope

Jake Javier and his Mom

The lead investigator on this trial, Dr. Richard Fessler, explained the remarkable progress that these patients have made since their treatment:

“With these patients, we are seeing what we believe are meaningful improvements in their ability to use their arms, hands and fingers at six months and nine months following AST-OPC1 administration. Recovery of upper extremity motor function is critically important to patients with complete cervical spinal cord injuries, since this can dramatically improve quality of life and their ability to live independently.”

Asterias will continue to monitor these patients for changes or improvements in movement and will give an update when these patients have passed the 12-month mark since their transplant. However, these encouraging preliminary results have prompted the company to look ahead towards advancing their treatment down the regulatory approval pathway, out of clinical trials and into patients.

Asterias CEO, Steve Cartt, commented,

Steve Cartt, CEO of Asterias Biotherapeutics

Steve Cartt, CEO of Asterias Biotherapeutics

“These results to date are quite encouraging, and we look forward to initiating discussions with the FDA in mid-2017 to begin to determine the most appropriate clinical and regulatory path forward for this innovative therapy.”

 

Talking with the US FDA will likely mean that Asterias will need to show further proof that their stem cell-based therapy actually improves movement in patients, rather than the patients spontaneously regaining movement (which has been observed in patients before). FierceBiotech made this point in a piece they published yesterday on this trial.

“Those discussions with FDA could lead to a more rigorous examination of the effect of AST-OPC1. Some patients with spinal injury experience spontaneous recovery. Asterias has put together matched historical data it claims show “a meaningful difference in the motor function recovery seen to date in patients treated with the 10 million cell dose of AST-OPC1.” But the jury will remain out until Asterias pushes ahead with plans to run a randomized controlled trial.”

In the meantime, Asterias is testing a higher dose of 20 million AST-OPC1 cells in a separate group of spinal cord injury patients. They believe this number is the optimal dose of cells for achieving the highest motor improvement in patients.

2017 will bring more results and hopefully more good news about Asterias’ clinical trial for spinal cord injury. And as always, we’ll keep you informed with any updates on our Stem Cellar Blog.

Avalanches of exciting new stem cell research at the Keystone Symposia near Lake Tahoe

/ Samantha Yammine / Leave a comment

From January 8th to 13th, nearly 300 scientists and trainees from around the world ascended the mountains near Lake Tahoe to attend the joint Keystone Symposia on Neurogenesis and Stem Cells at the Resort at Squaw Creek. With record-high snowfall in the area (almost five feet!), attendees had to stay inside to stay warm and dry, and even when we lost power on the third day on the mountain there was no shortage of great science to keep us entertained.

Boy did it snow at the Keystone Conference in Tahoe!

Boy did it snow at the Keystone Conference in Tahoe!

One of the great sessions at the meeting was a workshop chaired by CIRM’s Senior Science Officer, Dr. Kent Fitzgerald, called, “Bridging and Understanding of Basic Science to Enable/Predict Clinical Outcome.” This workshop featured updates from the scientists in charge of three labs currently conducting clinical trials funded and supported by CIRM.

Regenerating injured connections in the spinal cord with neural stem cells

Mark Tuszynski, UCSD

Mark Tuszynski, UCSD

The first was a stunning talk by Dr. Mark from UCSD who is investigating how neural stem cells can help outcomes for those with spinal cord injury. The spinal cord contains nerves that connect your brain to the rest of your body so you can sense and move around in your environment, but in cases of severe injury, these connections are cut and the signal is lost. The most severe of these injuries is a complete transection, which is when all connections have been cut at a given spot, meaning no signal can pass through, just like how no cars could get through if a section of the Golden Gate Bridge was missing. His lab works in animal models of complete spinal cord transections since it is the most challenging to repair.

As Dr. Tuszynski put it, “the adult central nervous system does not spontaneously regenerate [after injury], which is surprising given that it does have its own set of stem cells present throughout.” Their approach to tackle this problem is to put in new stem cells with special growth factors and supportive components to let this process occur.

Just as most patients wouldn’t be able to come in for treatment right away after injury, they don’t start their tests until two weeks after the injury. After that, they inject neural stem cells from either the mouse, rat, or human spinal cord at the injury site and then wait a bit to see if any new connections form. Their group has shown very dramatic increases in both the number of new connections that regenerate from the injury site and extend much further than previous efforts have shown. These connections conduct electrochemical messages as normal neurons do, and over a year later they see no functional decline or tumors forming, which is often a concern when transplanting stem cells that normally like to divide a lot.

While very exciting, he cautions, “this research shows a major opportunity in neural repair that deserves proper study and the best clinical chance to succeed”. He says it requires thorough testing in multiple animal models before going into humans to avoid a case where “a clinical trial fails, not because the biology is wrong, but because the methods need tweaking.”

Everyone needs support – even dying cells

The second great talk was by Dr. Clive Svendsen of Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute on how stem cells might help provide healthy support cells to rescue dying neurons in the brains of patients with neurodegenerative diseases like Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson’s. Some ALS cases are hereditary and would be candidates for a treatment using gene editing techniques. However, around 90 percent of ALS cases are “sporadic” meaning there is no known genetic cause. Dr. Svendsen explained how in these cases, a stem cell-based approach to at least fix the cellular cause of the disease, would be the best option.

While neurons often capture all the attention in the brain, since they are the cells that actually send messages that underlie our thoughts and behaviors, the Svendsen lab spends a great deal of time thinking about another type of cell that they think will be a powerhouse in the clinic: astrocytes. Astrocytes are often labeled as the support cells of the brain as they are crucial for maintaining a balance of chemicals to keep neurons healthy and functioning. So Dr. Svendsen reasoned that perhaps astrocytes might unlock a new route to treating neurodegenerative diseases where neurons are unhealthy and losing function.

ALS is a devastating disease that starts with early muscle twitches and leads to complete paralysis and death usually within four years, due to the rapid degeneration of motor neurons that are important for movement all over the body. Svendsen’s team found that by getting astrocytes to secrete a special growth factor, called “GDNF”, they could improve the survival of the neurons that normally die in their model of ALS by five to six times.

After testing this out in several animal models, the first FDA-approved trial to test whether astrocytes from fetal tissue can slow spinal motor neuron loss will begin next month! They will be injecting the precursor cells that can make these GDNF-releasing astrocytes into one leg of ALS patients. That way they can compare leg function and track whether the cells and GDNF are enough to slow the disease progression.

Dr. Svendsen shared with us how long it takes to create and test a treatment that is committed to safety and success for its patients. He says,

Clive Svendsen has been on a 15-year quest to develop an ALS therapy

Clive Svendsen 

“We filed in March 2016, submitted the improvements Oct 2016, and we’re starting our first patient in Feb 2017. [One document is over] 4500 pages… to go to the clinic is a lot of work. Without CIRM’s funding and support we wouldn’t have been able to do this. This isn’t easy. But it is doable!”

 

Improving outcomes in long-term stroke patients in unknown ways

Gary Steinberg

Gary Steinberg

The last speaker for the workshop, Dr. Gary Steinberg, a neurosurgeon at Stanford who is looking to change the lives of patients with severe limitations after having a stroke. The deficits seen after a stroke are thought to be caused by the death of neurons around the area where the stroke occurred, such that whatever functions they were involved with is now impaired. Outcomes can vary for stroke patients depending on how long it takes for them to get to the emergency department, and some people think that there might be a sweet spot for when to start rehabilitative treatments — too late and you might never see dramatic recovery.

But Dr. Steinberg has some evidence that might make those people change their mind. He thinks, “these circuits are not irreversibly damaged. We thought they were but they aren’t… we just need to continue figuring out how to resurrect them.”

He showed stunning videos from his Phase 1/2a clinical trial of several patients who had suffered from a stroke years before walking into his clinic. He tested patients before treatment and showed us videos of their difficulty to perform very basic movements like touching their nose or raising their legs. After carefully injecting into the brain some stem cells taken from donors and then modified to boost their ability to repair damage, he saw a dramatic recovery in some patients as quickly as one day later. A patient who couldn’t lift her leg was holding it up for five whole seconds. She could also touch her arm to her nose, whereas before all she could do was wiggle her thumb. One year later she is even walking, albeit slowly.

He shared another case of a 39 year-old patient who suffered a stroke didn’t want to get married because she felt she’d be embarrassed walking down the aisle, not to mention she couldn’t move her arm. After Dr. Steinberg’s trial, she was able to raise her arm above her head and walk more smoothly, and now, four years later, she is married and recently gave birth to a boy.

But while these studies are incredibly promising, especially for any stroke victims, Dr. Steinberg himself still is not sure exactly how this stem cell treatment works, and the dramatic improvements are not always consistent. He will be continuing his clinical trial to try to better understand what is going on in the injured and recovering brain so he can deliver better care to more patients in the future.

The road to safe and effective therapies using stem cells is long but promising

These were just three of many excellent presentations at the conference, and while these talks involved moving science into human patients for clinical trials, the work described truly stands on the shoulders of all the other research shared at conferences, both present and past. In fact, the reason why scientists gather at conferences is to give one another feedback and to learn from each other to better their own work.

Some of the other exciting talks that are surely laying down the framework for future clinical trials involved research on modeling mini-brains in a dish (so-called cerebral organoids). Researchers like Jürgen Knoblich at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Austria talked about the new ways we can engineer these mini-brains to be more consistent and representative of the real brain. We also heard from really fundamental biology studies trying to understand how one type of cell becomes one vs. another type using the model organism C. elegans (a microscopic, transparent worm) by Dr. Oliver Hobert of Columbia University. Dr. Austin Smith, from the University of Cambridge in the UK, shared the latest about the biology of pluripotent cells that can make any cell type, and Stanford’s Dr. Marius Wernig, one of the meeting’s organizers, told us more of what he’s learned about the road to reprogramming an ordinary skin cell directly into a neuron.

Stay up to date with the latest research on stem cells by continuing to follow this blog and if you’re reading this because you’re considering a stem cell treatment, make sure you find out what’s possible and learn about what to ask by checking out closerlookatstemcells.org.

Samantha Yammine

Samantha Yammine

Samantha Yammine is a science communicator and a PhD candidate in Dr. Derek van der Kooy’s lab at the University of Toronto. You can learn more about Sam and her research on her website.