Nanotechnology Research in Stem Cell Therapy

Nanotechnology Research in Stem Cell Therapy

The news-medical.net site printed an article today discussing research being done by scientists in the UK on tissue engineering. The goal is to deliver genes to stem cells within the body in order to get the stem cells active. They are working particularly with bone and cartilage. The scientists have developed “scaffolds” that coat the nanoscopic gene delivery systems.

What is a nanoscopic gene delivery system? It’s a very tiny way of moving a gene from one cell to another. A natural form of a gene delivery system would be a virus. The specific nanoscopic system the British researchers are using is not discussed. After a little bit of hunting I found the abstract for the grant supporting this research (through the BBSRC, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council):

Abstract:
The future of tissue regeneration will depend, in large part, on procedures to isolate, expand and differentiate specific cell lineages. We propose to isolate adult human mesenchymal stem cells, expand these cells using innovative fibre scaffold/bioreactor technology, characterise the proteome of our stem cells and manipulate the selected lineages to form functional bone tissue. Reproducible selection protocols combined with phenotypic characterisation and robust cell expansion protocols would facilitate the treatment and the diagnosis of a range of inherited and degenerative musculoskeletal diseases which proteomic analysis will provide new markers for further identification and selection of mesenchymal lineages. Controlled expansion and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells, as proposed, offer significant healthcare opportunities. (Joint with BBS/B/1728X).

The estimated end date of the research is 8/31/07, so it’s still early yet. Obviously getting the body’s own stem cells to kick into action without needing stem cells from another source would solve a host of problems, though the delivery system might well generate others.