Fight Aging!

Stem cell research will produce knowledge and technologies essential to future rejuvenation treatments: understanding exactly why stem cell populations decline in activity with age; producing unlimited immune cells to order; growing replacement tissues and undamaged stem cells of all types, perfectly matched to the patient; and more. Unlike most of the other foundation technologies needed to create rejuvenation of the old, applications of stem cell research need little in the way of a helping hand from philanthropic organizations like the SENS Research Foundation. Work on stem cells is broad, very well funded, and energetic field - all that is really needed at this point is the occasional reminder that researchers should be focused on the effects of aging on stem cells if they want to produce effective treatments for age-related disease.

There is too much of interest going on in stem cell research, regenerative medicine, and tissue engineering to do more than point out highlights and representative snapshots here and there. What were amazing advances ten years ago occur every week nowadays in laboratories around the world: growing tissues for specific organs; isolating and learning how to work with specific populations of stem cells that support one organ or another; spurring great feats of regeneration; transplanting stem cells cultured from the patient for therapeutic benefit.

Here are a few recent examples of new work in the field, collectively illustrative of where things stand: for each quoted below, dozens more passed by largely unremarked in the past months. It is a busy time in the life sciences, and these are the opening years of a transformative era.

Belgian clinic repairs bones with novel technique

The ground-breaking technique of Saint Luc's centre for tissue and cellular therapy is to remove a sugar cube sized piece of fatty tissue from the patient, a less invasive process than pushing a needle into the pelvis and with a stem cell concentration they say is some 500 times higher. The stem cells are then isolated and used to grow bone in the laboratory. Unlike some technologies, they are also not attached to a solid and separate 'scaffold'. "It is complete bone tissue that we recreate in the bottle and therefore when we do transplants in a bone defect or a bone hole...you have a higher chance of bone formation." The new material in a lab dish resembles more plasticine than bone, but can be molded to fill a fracture, rather like a dentist's filling in a tooth, hardening in the body.

Stem Cell Replacement for Frequent Age-Related Blindness

About four and a half million people in Germany suffer from age-related macular degeneration (AMD). It is associated with a gradual loss of visual acuity and the ability to read or drive a car can be lost. The center of the field of vision is blurry, as if covered by a veil. This is caused by damage to a cell layer under the retina, known as the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). It coordinates the metabolism and function of the sensory cells in the eye. Inflammatory processes in this layer are associated with AMD and "metabolic waste" is less efficiently recycled. To date, there is no cure for AMD; treatments can only relieve the symptoms.

[Scientists] have now tested a new method in rabbits by which the damaged RPE cells in AMD may be replaced. The researchers implanted different RPEs which were obtained, among others, from stem cells from adult human donors. After four days, the researchers used tomographic methods to check whether the replacement cells had integrated into the surrounding cell layers. "The implanted cells were alive. That is a clear indication that they have joined with the surrounding cells." After one week, the implanted cell layer was still stable. Even after four weeks, tissue examinations showed that the transplant was intact.

Harvard scientists control cells following transplantation, from the inside out

[Scientists] can now engineer cells that are more easily controlled following transplantation, potentially making cell therapies, hundreds of which are currently in clinical trials across the United States, more functional and efficient.

"Regardless of where the cell is in the body, it's going to be receiving its cues from the inside. This is a completely different strategy than the current method of placing cells onto drug-doped microcarriers or scaffolds, which is limiting because the cells need to remain in close proximity to those materials in order to function. Also these types of materials are too large to be infused into the bloodstream."

Cells are relatively simple to control in a Petri dish. The right molecules or drugs, if internalized by a cell, can change its behavior; such as inducing a stem cell to differentiate or correcting a defect in a cancer cell. This level of control is lost after transplantation as cells typically behave according to environmental cues in the recipient's body. [The new] strategy, dubbed particle engineering, corrects this problem by turning cells into pre-programmable units. The internalized particles stably remain inside the transplanted cell and tell it exactly how to act, whether the cell is needed to release anti-inflammatory factors or regenerate lost tissue.