Marrow-Derived Stem Cells Kill Brain Tumors

Marrow-Derived Stem Cells Kill Brain Tumors

Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles have used stem cells derived from bone marrow to target brain tumor cells. The stem cells were genetically engineered to deliver a cytokine. The press release gives details:

Gliomas are brain tumors that are usually not completely removed by surgery; they have poorly defined borders and there are also sometimes colonies of additional cancerous cells. Other researchers had previously discovered that neural stem cells occurring in the brain migrated to the glial cells, and another team had been able to derive neural stem cells from bone marrow. This experiment—which was on animals—tested the bone-marrow derived stem cells to see if they performed the same ways as the neural stem cells.

The stem cells were engineered to contain a gene which produced interleukin-23, which the researchers said worked very well against the gliomas. In the animal study, 60% of the animals which were treated with stem cells carrying the cytokine were tumor-free 120 days later. Animals that received stem cells only had all died, and only 20% of those which received the cytokine alone survived.

So in this case, the stem cell is important as a delivery system of a therapy. It’s also important news because the supply of bone marrow stem cells that can be coaxed into neural stem cells is much higher than the supply of neural stem cells in the brain. I’ll be interested in seeing where else stem cells can be used as couriers.

Fetal Stem Cell Transplants Help Huntington’s

Fetal Stem Cell Transplants Help Huntington’s

A news release reports that French researchers have done a small study grafting neural cells from fetus that were electively aborted into the brains of patients with Huntington’s disease. This was a follow-up to an earlier report on the same study, which had looked at the patients after two years. At that point, three had motor and cognitive improvement and two did not. The three patients were examined again and, six years after the procedure, still had improvement. Because Huntington’s is a progressive disease (and invariably fatal), this is not a cure; the neural degeneration eventually continues. But the treatment did provide stability and was essentially remission. A story in The Independent reports that several hundred patients have received the transplant; this was the first long-term study.

The women who donated the fetal tissue were not asked to donate until they had already chosen to have an abortion.

Heart Damage and Stem Cells

Heart Damage and Stem Cells

German researchers reported yesterday that in a trial involving 114 patients, treatment with a stem cell growth stimulating hormone did not reduce the damage to the heart after a heart attack. The patients were given either the hormone cells or a placebo for five days following the heart attack. There is a short story about it on Reuters, which has been widely printed, and a New York Times story reprinted in the Houston Chronicle gives a few more details. A third source, which appears in the Kansas City Star and other papers, reports that Amit Patel, who is known for his stem cell treatments in Thailand, was not surprised that the procedure did not work. The press release on the study reports that there was a significant mobilization of the stem cells after the treatment.

Basically the deal is that this was an attempt to get the body to stimulate the production of stem cells in the bone marrow and send them to the damaged area of the heart. Researcher Robert Kloner, who was quoted in several articles, says, “I think we were all hoping there was a simple way to get stem cells to go where you want and do what you want. That didn’t happen. And this was a carefully done study.” Previous studies had suggested that stimulating the body’s own stem cell production might be effective.

This doesn’t, however, mean a death blow to stem cells in treating heart failure. The headlines all says “Stem Cell Therapy Ineffective,” or something similar. But this doesn’t having bearing on the treatments in which stem cells are injected directly into the damaged area. It does, however, mean that researchers probably need to figure out why mobilization of the stem cells was ineffective. The theory seems reasonable, so something else is going on.