By Ahmedh Aaqil Rifky
Modern society has always seen many challenges when it comes to healthcare. Many unsuspecting individuals become victims of many chronic conditions every year. It is a widespread problem. While many of the diseases and conditions that we know of today like diabetes, Heart disease and cancers do have modern lifestyles to blame, we are still yet to come up with a viable and widely-accessible solution. After many attempts at potentially solving these major problems, stem cell therapies have taken a spotlight and are beginning to give us hope to have a solution to these conditions one day.
To fully appreciate the sheer potential that this technology can provide, it is very important to look at the basics of stem cells. Stem cells are undifferentiated from each other.
Given correct signals, they can specialize for a specific function. For example, they can become the heart cells, skin cells or even bone.
Stem cell therapy aims to exploit this characteristic of these types of cells and regrow new cells to replace damaged or deteriorated cells. It builds on the fact that these conditions would have otherwise had to be treated using complicated surgical procedures. The problem arises when the average person might not have sufficient funds or infrastructure in the local communities.
The state that stem cell therapies are in right now is truly remarkable. In 1998 when Thomson and Gearheart made their breakthrough in isolating and growing human stem cells in a lab . Their initial goal was to grow cells and reinvigorate damaged and deteriorated tissue. Modern developments are much closer to making their dream a reality. In 2014, Dieter Egli and Young Gie were able to extract embryonic stem cells using therapeutic cloning. This has become a major area of stem cells; where it is used as a way of treating tissue. Following this there are several companies and researchers trying to build onto stem cells, finding new ways to achieve the dream of Thomson and Gearhart.
One key area of focus that stem cell therapy might be able to help in the field of vascular diseases. Vascular diseases are those diseases that relate to the heart. They may be present in the heart or more commonly outside the heart. It covers many diseases like pulmonary embolisms, Carotid artery disease and critical limb-threatening ischemia and many others. It is the cause of 1 of 4 deaths worldwide, affecting a large portion of the ageing and diabetic populations. At its current state, the annual cost of such blood vessel 3 diseases is almost $320 Billion in the UnitedStates.
An Israeli Biotechnology company, BioGenCell is exploring the possibility of using Stem Cell therapy as a way of making a mass-market solution to Vascular disease.
What they believe can be the solution is using the stem cells to create a natural bypass around clots to restore tissue function. The current solution of using bypass surgeries is very expensive, costing nearly $120 000 . This is very taxing to insurance companies and to common people, especially those who do not have insurance. This new method will prevent disabilities that are caused by vascular diseases and extend the quality of life of the individual.
The New procedure builds upon one we already have today. The first step is to extract stem cells. Because stem cells are the basis of all the cells in the body, they are present almost everywhere. However, the concentrations and density of stem cells vary drastically around the body. For example, the bone marrow has far more stem cells than the blood. It is for this reason that current procedures extract the stem cells from the bone marrow. Although the patient is given anaesthesia before extraction, the procedure is still quite painful. In addition to that, the process is very expensive and can cost up to $300 000. It is for this reason that BioGenCell is focusing on extracting it from the blood, although concentrations are low. Blood samples being the source of cells make it harmless, low cost and very easily accessible. They have developed a simple method to remove as much of the stem cell from blood as possible. First, the immune cells are removed and then they are given a protein coat that will keep them tolerant and prevent them from multiplying. Then the killing cells are removed from the blood sample and the stem cells are extracted. Then a co-culture is made between the immune cells and the stem cells to make them become therapeutic cells- basically, cells that will heal the aforementioned damaged tissues and 6 cells. This process is very efficient and can happen fully in only 24 hours.
To put all of this in its simplest sense; any medication can be made for any vascular diseases that are personalized in only one day. This is revolutionary to health care.
The procedure has respectable evidence from laboratory testing with mice. One of the blood vessels was cut and then the mice were given stem cell therapy. In only 2 weeks, the mice regrow their arteries that were fully functional as they were before. BioGenCell is now focusing on putting this therapy into clinical trials to ensure that it helps humans too. There is a lot of confidence in its success.
The confidence seen in this technology is backed up by years of successes and breakthroughs seen in the field of regenerative medicine itself. One prime example of this was seen in May 2008, when a woman's trachea was healed using stem cells. This 30-year-old woman was suffering from a failing airway due to her severe case of Tuberculosis. Stem cells collected from the women’s bone marrow allow the building of cartilage to allow for successful transplant of her trachea. This was a prime example of the potential of stem cell therapies and majorly interested surgeons and medical researchers. This case was undeniably revolutionary to stem cell therapies. However since then, there have been even more breakthroughs.
A much more recent example was seen in Bangkok, Thailand where a 5 year old boy was given bone marrow from his 7- year old sister to treat his thalassemia, a condition where the patient has less hemoglobin in the blood.
What makes this stem cell therapy so outstanding is that it was conducted while the sister was infected with Covid-19 and the stem cells collected were found to be free of the virus . This truly remarkable case builds onto why stem cell therapies will become a more mainstream method to cure a wide variety of diseases in the future.
BioGenCell is currently focusing on treating critical limb ischemia - a condition where a clot in a blood vessel in an external limb nearly kills the limb. It has been a major reason for amputation and affects over a million patients a year. The healing will involve creating the aforementioned natural bypass. It has been selected as it is a model disease for most vascular diseases.
Stem cell therapies undeniably hold a path when it comes to the future of healthcare. But with all of these benefits, there are certain pressing matters for concern. One of the main ones is the sheer number of stem cell researches happening.
While this may not be seen as a concern at first glance, unregulated stem cell researches pose a very real risk of society misunderstanding stem cells.
Stem cell therapies, when not carried out properly risk the patient of developing cancers. Daniel Kota put it best when he compared stem cells to kids in his TEDx talk at Brookings; he stated that when kids are not given the right conditions to grow up, it increases the chance of them going astray . Like any other medical treatment, stem cell therapies have to be approached with care and a thorough understanding of it.
The breakthroughs by the medical community really shed lots of light onto Stem cell therapies being used as a way to cure many conditions. It is important that companies like BioGenCell come up with new methodologies to make treatment for such widespread conditions more accessible to the common individual to the benefits of healthcare both for them, and their communities.
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References:
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