I’m still waiting to see my first TV commercial on exosomes, umbilical cord cell injections for aging, or PRP. It’s got to be coming one of these days. Part of the problem is that I don’t really have time to watch TV most days. Maybe it’ll be an ad on the New York Times (NYT) website?
When is there enough trial data to call something a cure?
There’s also still buzz about the exciting Vertex results last week on a small group of patients with a severe form of Type 1 diabetes. This might be getting in the weeds, but it’s interesting to me how media coverage can vary so much on a finding like this. For example, the NYT just outright said in its headline of coverage of this early trial result that some patients were cured, despite the limited follow-up time of the study so far. I see that as a misstep. Most media were more appropriately cautious.
Some patients might be cured this way, but we just don’t know yet.
This has been one of those crazy weeks as a professor where I’ve had way too many things to do. Too meetings to attend. This might be the first week in a long time that I haven’t had time to do a single post on The Niche except this one.
I still haven’t had time to read the first research paper I suggest reading in this post (below) on infusions of senescence-resistant mesenchymal cells and aging. It’s one of those million-panel figures that might take forever to read.
Recent regenerative medicine papers including on exosomes
- Senescence-resistant human mesenchymal progenitor cells counter aging in primates, Cell. This mega-paper, really 2-3 papers in one, tested the idea that senescence-resistant mesenchymal cells with stabilized FOXO3 might impact primate aging. The MSCs were gene-edited to stabilize FOXO3 and then infused in monkeys of different ages. The take-home here is that the cellular infusions, and even just infusions of exosomes from the cells, reportedly had strong anti-aging properties.
- In vivo self-renewal and expansion of quiescent stem cells from a non-human primate, Nat. Comm.
- Toward equitable regenerative medicine: a health equity research framework for emerging regenerative treatments, Regenerative Medicine.
- Engrafted nitrergic neurons derived from hPSCs improve gut dysmotility in mice, Nature. Cool work. The importance of the enteric nervous system is under-appreciated.
Other research & news
- Recent FDA warning letter on biologics.
- Nerve-to-cancer transfer of mitochondria during cancer metastasis, Nature. Here’s another article I want to fully read. Maybe a good one for a Sunday night. Cancer cells have all kinds of nasty tricks like stealing mitochondria from nerves, along with attracting nerves and interfacing with them.