Researchers Regenerate Cornea, Successfully Grow Tissue from Stem Cells

A team of Boston researchers has identified a way to leverage limbal stem cells in order to regenerate human corneal tissue—One of the first examples of developing tissue from an adult-derived human stem cell.  The research, a collaboration between Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Boston Children’s Hospital, the VA Boston Healthcare System and Brigham Women’s Hospital, provides hope for those with eye-damaging injuries or diseases. 

The loss of limbal stem cells, which help maintain and restore corneal tissue, is one of the leading causes of blindness. 

It’s long been known that limbal stem cells have powerful regenerative potential, but the issue has been locating these stem cells.  The breakthrough came when Markus Frank, M.D. and Natasha Frank, M.D., co-senior investigators on the study, discovered the existence of ABCB5 molecules in limbal stem cells as well as their role in the maintenance and survival of the cell.  Scientists were then able to leverage the ABCB5 molecule as a marker for these cells and more easily identify them.  

The Frank team then put this theory to the test on two groups of mice--A group with fully functioning limbal cells and those without.  Using the presence of the ABCB5 molecule, researchers were able to locate and then extract these cells from donor tissue and transplant them into the corneal tissue of one of the groups.  They found that this group of mice was able to re-generate fully functioning corneas.  

The control group was divided in two with half the mice being given limbal cells that were ABCB5 negative and half receiving no limbal cells.  Both of these groups failed to repair the damaged tissue.  This helped to confirm ABCB5 molecule status as being responsible for the regenerative properties of these stem cells.  

“ABCB5 allows limbal cells to survive, protecting them from apoptosis [programmed cell death],” said Markus Frank.  “The mouse model allowed us for the first time to understand the role of ABCB5 in normal development, and should be very important to the field in general,” added Natash Frank. 

What’s next for the team?  Said Frank in a Fox News interview, “For the first step, we’re really working towards an autologous graft in patients who are blind in one eye.  And then the second step, we’d really work towards using donor derived cells to transplant in a similar manner that may require immune suppression – but it may not.” 

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Stem Cells Loaded with Herpes Being Used to Kill Brain Tumors

This post was contributed by @MikeMadarasz of the Institute of International Research

In a breakthrough discovery, researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have found that stem cells loaded in the herpes virus can effectively kill cancerous cells in brain tumors.  The study showed a marked improvement in the survival rate of mice with Glioblastoma Multiforme, one of the most common forms of cancer, when treated with these virus-loaded stem cells. 

Similar approaches using cancer-killing viruses have been utilized before in phase 1 and 2 clinical trials on brain tumors, but have experienced minimal success.  The biggest hurdle?  Keeping the herpes virus at the tumor site long enough before leaving the brain through cerebrospinal fluid.  To combat this, the Harvard team looked to mesenchymal stem cells, a type of stem cell that according to Harvard, is popular in drug delivery vehicles for the minimal immune responses it triggers.  The virus was loaded into these stem cells and injected into Glioblastoma tumors developed in mice.

Using multiple imaging markers, the team was able to watch the virus make its way through first layer of brain tumor cells and ultimately into all of the cells. 

Said Khalid Shah, MS, PhD, lead author of the study, “We know that 70-75 percent of glioblastoma patients undergo surgery for tumor debulking, and we have previously shown that MSCs encapsulated in biocompatible gels can be used as therapeutic agents in a mouse model that mimics this debulking.”  He added, “So, we loaded MSCs with oncolytic herpes virus and encapsulated these cells in biocompatible gels and applied the gels directly onto the adjacent tissue after debulking. We then compared the efficacy of virus-loaded, encapsulated MSCs versus direct injection of the virus into the cavity of the debulked tumors.”

Shah’s team was able to observe that the gel kept the stem cells alive longer and allowed them kill any cells not removed during the debulking.  This ultimately resulted in a higher survival rate for the mice. 

You can find the Harvard report here.

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University of Michigan secures adult stem cell lines

According to The Detroit News, The University of Michigan has secured three new adult stem cell lines donated from the skin of adults with bipolar disorder, as well as two more lines of genetically normal cells from a tissue back. These will join the three lines of embryotic cells UM already has to study hemophilia, and Marie-Charcot-Tooth disease and a control line of genetically normal cells. These studies, coming from universities, form the basis for dozens of cell therapies that are moving to the clinic. At the Cell Therapy Commercialization Summit, Brock Reeve, Executive Director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, will discuss how cell therapy products are moving from the bench to the boardroom.

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