Stem cell breakthrough holds potential to treat organ disease, HKU team develops new method eliminating risk of rejection Options

[Mid-Night_Sun]

Stem cell breakthrough holds potential to treat organ disease
HKU team develops new method eliminating risk of rejection
Ada Lee
Jan 14, 2011
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A Hong Kong university says it has developed a method that could potentially lead to treatment of diseased organs using a patient's stem cells.

The advance could see the end of long queues, frustrations and health risks of organ transplants and the use of embryonic stem cells.

A medical team at the University of Hong Kong found an enzyme that avoids the need to use animal tissue to culture stem cells.The university claims it is the first in the world to do this. Using adult stem cells in research and therapy is less controversial than using embryonic stem cells because destruction of an embryo is not involved.

At a press conference yesterday, the university's cardiology team - Professor Tse Hung-fat, Dr David Siu Chung-wah and Dr Lian Qizhou - described the method as a major breakthrough in stem-cell induction, in which the cells multiply and are differentiated for specific functions.

The enzyme can prolong the survival of the induced stem cells, allowing them to stay active until reprogramming is completed, without depending on another animal cell or serum. The team said it used the enzyme to successfully induce various types of cells to become stem cells that develop into vessel and heart muscle cells.

Stem cells, which can be found in many tissues, such as skin, can be turned into pluripotent stem cells, which can develop into any cell and be used to repair damaged organs. Treatment of diseased organs involves transplants, the use of human embryonic stem cells, or the use of adult human stem cells. Embryonic stem cells can become any other type of tissue or organ cell. Adult human stem cells require animal cells and serums to do the same.

But Professor Kenneth Lee Ka-ho, deputy chief professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, played down the announcement, saying that the method was "of very low efficiency".

And he warned of a danger. "The stem cells could turn into anything in your body," Lee said. "If they turn into some pieces of bones in your heart, that could only make the matter worse.

"Actually now we don't even need stem cells to generate other cells. The latest technology allows us to generate heart cells by directly putting genes in skin cells. I am sceptical how much longer we would look into stem cells," Lee said.

Tse, of the research team, said he expected the method to undergo clinical testing within two years.

Tse said the team would need a germ-free laboratory and more resources in its research before its discovery could apply to humans. They have not decided which kind of patients would be the first to try out the new treatment.

Human-induced stem cells would be a more reliable option than using the cells in cord blood, Siu said.

"If you haven't reserved your cord blood at birth, then you lost the chance," he said, "but we only need some of your skin cells, so it could be applied to everybody."

Lian, who successfully treated leg ulcers in mice by injecting blood vessel cells created from the new method, said such treatments could also be a more effective than bone marrow transplants, as the cells were not vulnerable to the age and diseases of the donors.

The team started the research in the middle of 2008, a year after Japanese scientists successfully generated pluripotent stem cells in a laboratory. It generated its first batch of human stem cells after two weeks.

Now it plans to focus on how to develop an even easier way to get the cells from hair, saliva or blood.

Hospital Authority figures show there were 1,732 patients waiting for organ transplants in public hospitals as of the end of last year - 1,621 in need of a donated kidney. A total of 534 organs were donated in the past three years; only 81 were kidneys.

Stem cells are a controversial issue among religious groups, mainly because they often involve the use of discarded human embryos.

US President Barack Obama allowed public money to fund embryonic stem cell research in 2009. But a year later, it was overturned by a court as it involved illegal destruction of human embryos. Three months ago, a patient in the US, the first in the country, was treated with human embryonic stem cells.



http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menui...Kong&s=News

This post has been edited by Mid-Night_Sun: Jan 13 2011, 04:33 PM