Weekly reads: stem cells everywhere, MSCs for MS?, nanostickers, Makary update

It was another crazy week for me with tons of grant work, but news  and research in the regenerative medicine world keep on popping up including a paper on MSCs for MS.

I’ve realized that even when I’m trying to take a short break, I often see science and signs of stem cells popping up all around.

For instance, watching Premiere League soccer, one of the British teams, Ipswich, goes by IPS on the scoreboard. So, of course, I think IPS cells.  Then there are occasional ads for MSC cruises, which must stand for “mesenchymal stromal/stem cells.” Right? Imagine a cruise where you can get infusions of MSCs. When I wrote the previous sentence I started out joking, but sadly it’s not so far-fetched these days. Stay tuned for a future post on this.

Makary so far at the FDA

Okay, on to the week’s research and news. I want to start with an update on my sense of how Makary’s doing atop the FDA. So far, it seems like he’s functioning too politically. It’s still early days, but I see zero encouraging signs.

The fact that Vinay Prasad is now CBER Director likely also reflects the political emphasis inside the agency. Let’s give these guys a chance, but with so many good people being gone from CBER and the FDA more generally, there’s more reason to worry.

MSCs for MS: more than tiny studies and hype?

Cell therapy with placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells for secondary progressive multiple sclerosis patients in a phase 1 clinical trial, Sci Reports. In this new paper, the team tested the idea of mesenchymal cells or MSCs for MS. This idea has been around for a while and is especially popular with some in the unproven stem cell clinic world. But there also have been real clinical trials. The present Iranian study was only designed to evaluate safety, but the paper is upbeat on potential efficacy. Too upbeat?

We’ve seen so many open-label (so non-blinded), non-randomized, non-controlled, small trials of this type that I feel somewhat conditioned to expect almost nothing and conclusions like “additional, stronger studies are needed”, which we basically see here too.

We also recently saw a paper on a stronger trial of MSCs for dementia. Even there, I’m still scratching my head somewhat on how plain old MSCs could possibly help Alzheimer’s or other kinds of dementia.

I should note that a different approach focused on hematopoietic stem cells, HSCT for MS, looks extremely promising for certain kinds of aggressive MS. It’s an intense procedure involving partial chemo ablation, but for some patients it appears life saving.

More physiological organoids and assembloids

Organoids are getting better and “more real” in the sense of being more like actual in vivo organs and tissues. Organoids that also incorporate or generate multiple cells and tissues are also now more often going by the name “assembloids”.

The technology to make 3D structures like the brain or cortical organoids is still in its infancy in a way. They lack important other features like blood vessels and nerves. Researchers are now increasingly resolving this kind of limitation with assembloids. In another 5-10 years these models are going to be even more amazing.

Here’s a new paper on kidney organoids. Integrating collecting systems in human kidney organoids through fusion of distal nephron to ureteric bud,Cell Stem Cell. Would you call the kidney structures in this cool paper organoids or assembloids? Does it matter? In any case, the more similar these 3D models become to real tissues, the more we’ll learn.

Other recommended reads including nanostickers

• Ultrasound-activated piezoelectric nanostickers for neural stem cell therapy of traumatic brain injury, Nat Materials. I somehow came close to loving the idea of nanostickers just after reading the title of this article even though I wasn’t 100% sure what they were. So what are nanostickers? Nanostickers are tiny objects that stick to biologics like cells. In this paper, the authors write, “Here, we describe barium titanate–reduced graphene oxide (BTO/rGO) hybrid piezoelectric nanostickers that promote NSC proliferation and differentiation. These hybrid nanostickers attach to NSC membranes, serving as long-term generators of piezoelectric potentials upon ultrasound stimulation.” Got it? I’m not a biophysicist, but briefly looking through the article made me excited about applications of this kind of approach. It seems similar to what others have called nanopatches.
• Editorial: Japan must quickly commercialize iPS-based treatment by overcoming challenges, The Mainichi. I don’t know about this one. Commercialization should only be as quick as high-quality data allow.