About Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs)
MSCs are multi-potent cells that have displayed the following abilities.
Ability to divide to form bone, cartilage, muscle, fat and other tissues such as neural tissue, pancreatic tissue under induction;
Return to the site of the injury and assist in the repair;
Improve anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive properties.
More than 300 clinical trials are ongoing worldwide to uncover the medical potential of MSCs. Thus far, encouraging results have been published. MSCs have also been used in combination with HSCs as a dual therapy to promote faster engraftment of HSCs and to reduce immune system complications.
MSC clinical trials performed worldwide
| Diseases | Names of Universities or Research Institutions |
|---|---|
| Stroke | University Hospital, Grenoble, France |
| Spinal cord injury | Chinese University of Hong Kong Cairo University, Egypt |
| Multiple sclerosis | Spain-Carlos Health Institute University of Cambridge, United Kingdom Cleveland Clinic, United States |
| Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis | Hadassah Medical Organization, Israel |
| Parkinson‘s disease | Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre, India |
| Multiple system atrophy | Yonsei University, South Korea |
| Liver disease | Cytori Therapeutics, United States |
| Diabetic foot ulcer | Third Military Medical University, China Washington DC Veterans Medical Centre, United States Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany |
| Diabetes | Fuzhou General Hospital, China Uppsala University, Sweden |
Reports on MSC applications
MSC and Skeletal Repair
Treatment for knee cartilage damage was conducted by NUH Orthopaedic Surgery of Singapore, Dr Kevin Lee.
Since 2006, 35 patients with worn knee cartilage underwent injection of autologous ex-vivo expanded MSCs from bone marrow
Patients were reported to have improvements in quality of life such as regaining ability to climb stairs and reduction of pain.
Co-Transplantation of MSCs and HSCs
In 2002, Sydney Scott was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia at 13 weeks.
Baby Sydney was treated with chemotherapy followed by cord blood and MSC co-transplantation – world’s first.
MSC thought to have enabled blood stem cell engraftment
Baby Sydney was relapse free and medication free at the time of report.
Source: University of Minnesota, Paediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Center
MSCs in Heart Attack
69 heart attack patients were treated.
Following angioplasty, doctor directly injected patients’ damaged heart site with MSC harvested from patients’ own bone marrow.
Results showed significant improvements in patients’ left ventricular function.
Source: Chen SL et al. Improvement of cardiac function after transplantation of autologous bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells in patients with acute myocardial infarction. Chinese Medical Journal 2004 117(0): 1443-1448.