People often ask me what is the most promising new cell therapy and while it is difficult to choose just one, I often highlight the promise of stem cells for diabetes.
Here in the U.S., early data from diabetes clinical trials by Vertex look encouraging. Other teams worldwide are also working in this space and their work is promising too. This week we had some new preliminary reports that are also exciting. I’ve included a graphic of the different approaches in this space.
Let’s start our weekly reads with the new diabetes clinical work. Before we get into it, a big good news story this week was the FDA prevailing in the long legal battle over whether it can regulate adipose cells as drug. I also have another blast from the past post at the bottom on human cloning.
More good news on stem cells for diabetes
Stem cells reverse woman’s diabetes — a world first, Nature. This news story covers two new research papers and discusses work by Vertex (a la ViaCyte and Semma, which it acquired). In the new research, one team reported “that they had successfully transplanted insulin-producing islets into the liver of a 59-year-old man with type 2 diabetes.” The type 2 diabetes element here is unusual as much of this research globally has focused on type 1 diabetes. Here are the two papers:
- Transplantation of chemically induced pluripotent stem-cell-derived islets under abdominal anterior rectus sheath in a type 1 diabetes patient, Cell.
- Treating a type 2 diabetic patient with impaired pancreatic islet function by personalized endoderm stem cell-derived islet tissue, Cell Discovery.
These clinical studies use autologous iPS cells, which is great to see. Hongkui Deng developed the chemical reprogramming approach in the first study.
Panda stem cells
Generation and characterization of giant panda induced pluripotent stem cells, Sci Advances. The team made panda iPS cells. The effort took a lot of work as they had to develop a customized media. This adds to the growing list of endangered or vulnerable species for which we now have iPS cells, which could be used to generate more animals in the future. Earlier researchers led by Jeanne Loring produced rhino iPS cells.
More recommended reads
- The new frontier of luxury travel is a $44,000 course of stem cells and a longevity club stocked with IV stations, Fortune. This practice is likely a big waste of money in my view and, of course, has risks. The price is way above what most people are paying for unproven stem cells in the U.S. and elsewhere these days.
- I missed this earlier in the year as Century Therapeutics acquired Clade Therapeutics. I wrote in 2021 about how Clade Therapeutics was working to develop universal cells to treat various kinds of cancer.
- Discovery of an embryonically derived bipotent population of endothelial-macrophage progenitor cells in postnatal aorta, Nat. Comm.
Blast from the past: human cloning
Check out this post from 2013. Deja you: human cloning generally legal in the US. While there are now a few state laws that ban human cloning, most do not. There is still no federal law. Overall in 2024, human cloning remains generally legal in the US and most other countries. Technological hurdles still exist, but someone could try it.
On the legality of cloning…if FDA is right in its assertion of jurisdiction over human eggs that have undergone somatic cell nuclear transfer, anyone doing it would be distributing an unapproved drug (or biologic – actually, both). I think that would be illegal although whether or not FDA would take action against it is uncertain, as we’ve seen with stem cell clinics.. OTOH, the politics of going after cloning are a lot different from the politics of going after stem cell “treatments”.
Of course, even legal action by FDA against a human cloner would likely be retroactive – someone would already have transferred an SCNT embryo into a uterus for possible implantation and pregnancy. And the penalties are small. OTOH, licensed professionals (docs) or facilities (clinics) would also have to worry about their licenses.
That first “if” has gotten bigger, however, after the death of the Chevron doctrine’s requirement that courts give (a lot of) deference to agency views of statutes that they have to implement. I still think it would a “brave” court that would say, “no, no one has jurisdiction over regulating human reproductive cloning.”
BTW, one of my own favorite pieces was in Stat in 2020, asking why no one is talking about human cloning. https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/21/human-reproductive-cloning-curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-night-time/ Around 2000 lots of people said they wanted to make babies this way; since Mitalipov showed human embryos could be cloned in 2013, all has been quiet. I still don’t have a good answer.