There’s a new paper in mice that suggests a novel approach to stimulate regeneration.
Cartilage regeneration
Here’s the Science paper: Inhibition of 15-hydroxy prostaglandin dehydrogenase promotes cartilage regeneration. And here’s some coverage of the cartilage regeneration research from Stanford. Cartilage regeneration still makes good sense though in theory. It’s relatively easy to grow at least some cartilage cells in the lab. In principle, it might be possible to spark regeneration of cartilage in vivo too.
More recommended reads
- Aspen Neuroscience Announces $115 Million Series C Financing to Accelerate Personalized Cell Therapy Programs, PR. This is good news. Multiple teams recently published encouraging data on stem cells for Parkinson’s.
- Tripotent Lgr5 stem cells in the posterior tongue generate lingual, taste, and salivary gland lineages, Nat. Comm.
- Blocking ferroptosis to expand human HSCs, NCB. What is ferroptosis? It’s a type of iron-dependent cell death.
- The Indian regulatory framework and the surge of unproven stem cell therapies—a call for diagnosis, Journal of Law and the Biosciences.
- Targeting RhoA nuclear mechanoactivity rejuvenates aged hematopoietic stem cells, Nat. Aging.
More on rare diseases
- She Was Born Without an Immune System. Gene Therapy Saved Her Life, NYT.
- Boy with rare condition amazes doctors after world-first gene therapy, originally BBC. This is about a boy with Hunter syndrome or MPSII.
I also wrote last week about some advances in rare disease therapy development.
Blast from the past
Pros & cons of dead celebrity genomics. Seriously, why are we sequencing these dead folks? In some cases the researchers aren’t really 100% sure they even have material from the right dead celebrity. The most recent case was sequencing of blood supposedly from Hitler.
I’ve been told that there is a difference between the condition of arthritis and arthritic pain. Some folks can have a great deal of degenerative cartilage conditions and not even know about it. Others can lose only a little cartilage and feel the pain 24/7. I’ve never had stem cell treatments. Only PRP for what started out as torn meniscus in both knees. I’ve never been told by my medical care providers that stem cells would regrow my cartilage. PRP, hyaluronic acid injections and prolotherapy have worked very well for me without having to regrow cartilage. Occasional boosters are needed now and then. It beats surgery except insurance won’t pay for PRP. And PRP can get expensive.