People who have experienced significant muscle damage have new hope thanks to Evolved.Bio, a startup that has developed innovative technology that can regenerate muscle tissue in a highly effective way.
Other biotech companies use natural or synthetic materials along with cells to create in vitro-grown tissue replacements, building blocks that can be implanted into the human body. But a patient's body might register these as foreign objects, leading to medical complications or interference with the body's natural healing process.
Evolved.Bio's method for making in-vitro tissue circumvents that problem, increasing positive outcomes for patients. The paper, "Anchored Cell Sheet Engineering: A Novel Scaffold-Free Platform for in vitro Modeling," was published in Advanced Functional Materials.
MS Patients See Encouraging Results From Injectable Stem Cell Therapy Trial
The very early-stage cohort only involved 15 patients, but their observed drop in disease progression is promising nonetheless.
By Adrianna Nine November 30, 2023 https://www.extremetech.com/science/ms- ... rapy-trial
Researchers in Italy and the United Kingdom have devised a potential method of multiple sclerosis (MS) treatment using injectable stem cells. Though the therapy is still in very early stages of testing, a small trial involving 15 MS patients has yielded optimistic results.
A collaborative effort between the University of Cambridge, the University of Milan Bicocca, and Hospital Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, the treatment is aimed at rebuilding central nervous system (CNS) tissues damaged by MS. A hallmark of MS is the corruption of macrophages, or immune cells that ingest foreign material to prevent or mitigate the spread of disease. As MS becomes more severe, macrophages begin attacking the patient’s CNS, resulting in nerve cell damage, inflammation, and the formation of impulse-blocking scar tissue, called sclerosis.
This experimental treatment leverages stem cells to repair some of that damage. After researchers program stem cells to become brain stem cells, they inject the material into the CNS, where the cells can proliferate and abate existing gaps. This method proved effective during a previous trial involving mice, thus enabling the team to move cautiously into human trials.
Mortality related to end stage liver disease is ranked as the 12th most common cause of death in the U.S. Liver transplantation remains the only treatment for end stage liver disease, but there is a critical shortage of organ donors, necessitating a dire need for new forms of treatment.
New research from Boston Medical Center and Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine's Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM) found evidence that a novel stem cell treatment using mRNA technology encapsulated into nanoparticles (LNP) that were successfully used to produce the COVID-19 vaccines, may boost the natural repair mechanism of the liver to regress the diseased tissue caused by either an acute or chronic liver injury.
Published in Cell Stem Cell, researchers identified a specific receptor present in the stem cells that can be recognized and activated by the ligand-protein called vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA).
Researchers at UCL and UCLH have successfully completed the first trial of a therapy designed to restore hearing loss. The REGAIN trial, the results of which were published in Nature Communications, was the first study of a treatment aimed at restoring lost hearing, focusing on a drug with the technical name gamma-secretase inhibitor LY3056480.
The researchers found that while the therapy did not restore hearing across the group of adults with mild to moderate hearing loss, a deeper analysis of the data showed changes in various hearing tests in some patients, suggesting the drug has some activity in the inner ear.
These so-called efficacy signals call for further development of LY3056480—using the learnings from this trial.
Trial participants were aged between 18 and 80, hailed from the UK, Germany, and Greece, and had mild to moderate hearing loss. 15 patients took part in the phase 1 trial, which showed the treatment was safe and well tolerated, and 44 patients took part in the phase 2a trial designed to establish if the drug worked.
Researchers develop shortcut to generate brain stem cells for age-related disease research https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-03- ... cells.html
by The University of Hong Kong
Credit: Nucleic Acids Research (2023). DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkad597
A research team from the School of Biomedical Sciences, LKS Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed), has achieved a breakthrough in stem cell research, offering tools that can be used for patients who require highly personalized care.
The team has developed an innovative method to transform blood and skin cells into neural stem cells, overcoming the limitations of current stem cell research techniques while opening up new possibilities for studying and working toward treatments for age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
The findings are published in Science Advances and Nucleic Acids Research.
The human body consists of approximately 200 different cell types, each playing a critical role in maintaining overall health. However, accessing and analyzing certain cell types, such as neurons located deep within the brain, have been challenging.
Losing a large amount of soft tissue from an injury or cancer may require reconstructive surgery. These surgeries typically rely on a structural framework that holds cells or tissues together made from hydrogels or other biomaterials that provide support for new blood vessels to grow. But when these frameworks are made from bulk hydrogels, they have several limitations that can result in slow and disorganized blood vessel growth, leading to poor patient outcomes.
To overcome these limitations, researchers at The Pennsylvania State University have developed a new synergistic approach that combines a new framework (scaffold) made from granular hydrogels with a surgical technique called micropuncture. Their preclinical method, published in the journal Small, could rapidly grow organized blood vessels in live rats.
"The researchers' hybrid approach to revascularization represents a significant advance in the field of tissue engineering and regeneration. This technique could be applied to a variety of blood-vessel conditions found in cardiovascular disease, such as coronary heart disease, the most common type of heart disease in the U.S.," said Tuba Fehr, Ph.D., program director in the NIBIB Division of Discovery Science and Technology.
Drinking milk helps your bones grow big and strong, but what if direct exposure to light could help, too? Now, researchers from Japan report that lighting up bone tissue could help treat bone disease.
In a study published last month in Scientific Reports, researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) have revealed that a treatment approach based on light could help activate bones to repair themselves.
Bones are constantly being remodeled through the action of osteoclasts, which break down bone tissue, and osteoblasts, which create new bone tissue. Both cell types develop from immature precursor cells, and controlling their activity is a promising approach for treating bone growth disorders.
A Mayo Clinic study shows stem cells derived from patients' own fat are safe and may improve sensation and movement after traumatic spinal cord injuries. The findings from the Phase I clinical trial appear in Nature Communications. The results of this early research offer insights into the potential of cell therapy for people living with spinal cord injuries and paralysis for whom options to improve function are extremely limited.
In the study of 10 adults, the research team noted seven participants demonstrated improvements based on the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale. Improvements included increased sensation when tested with pinprick and light touch, increased strength in muscle motor groups, and recovery of voluntary anal contraction, which aids in bowel function.
