New research on stem cell patches is exciting. However, more broadly, “stem cell patches” can mean very different things. What I’m talking about here are the types of patches that can repair holes or other problems with tissues. This is a powerful regenerative approach.
In contrast, I’m not a fan of the type of stem cell patches that are like bandaids. Once on the skin, these purportedly activate endogenous stem cells.
Stem cell patches
Transplantation of human pluripotent stem cell-derived retinal sheet in a primate model of macular hole, Stem Cell Reports. Cellular sheets can act like stem cell patches in a variety of tissues. These sheets also have other applications. For instance, retinal sheets might be used to reverse changes due to macular degeneration. In that case, sheets of RPE cells, made from iPS cells, might be inserted into the eye. Research is ongoing in many areas including for heart repair.
More recommended reads
- Helicase-assisted continuous editing for programmable mutagenesis of endogenous genomes, Science.
- Towards stem cell therapies for hearing loss: awareness and perspectives of Australian audiologists and their patients, Regenerative Medicine. I’ve written an overview of the idea of stem cell therapy for hearing loss or deafness so check that out too. I’ve had two readers of The Niche ask me about this area in the past year.
- Astellas unveils new Japan site for cell therapy research arm Universal Cells, transferring 12 roles overseas, Fierce Biotech. The Niche has covered Universal Cells before.
- Maryland biotech gets green light for stem cell-derived therapy for diabetes, aiming to compete with Vertex, Endpoints. This piece is about Seraxis. It sounds like they recently got an IND cleared for their autologous approach. While I see Vertex as the clear leader these days (it acquired ViaCyte and Semma), it’s better for patients in the long run to have multiple players in a space.
- Doctor who provided ineffective stem cell therapies disciplined 6 years after investigation began, CBS2. This story is about chiropractor Jill Howe. This case shows how slowly things sometimes move after issues first arise.
Blast from the past
I Hate Your Paper: Dr. No and the Editors that are ruining peer review. Anyone who has submitted papers or grants for review has had at least a few bad experiences. Some reviewers, perhaps because of anonymity, feel free to go to town on other scientists’ papers or grant proposals. They ask for unreasonable things, maybe years of additional work. I don’t know for sure how editors really view such extremes, but they most often do not seem to confront such reviewers. In this piece from 14 years ago, I wrote about a hypothetical Dr. No who was not a fair reviewer. Some scientists refer to such a reviewer as “reviewer #3.”