NEW FRONTIER

A NEW FRONTIER

Dedicated community volunteer Bobbie Nau is quick to share her strong love for the people and city of Houston. She also loves the medical services that Houston provides. “Research is such an important part of the Texas Medical Center and the future growth of our city,” says Nau.

This led to her willingness to generously fund the Houston Methodist Orthopedic Cellular Therapy Research Fund in the Ann Kimball and John W. Johnson Center for Cellular Therapeutics. The fund’s mission is to support the development of cellular therapeutic research for Houston Methodist Orthopedics & Sports Medicine. Nau’s generous gift was a response to the matching fund initiative established by Ann and Johnny Johnson to create a cell therapy center at Houston Methodist. The matching opportunity appealed to Nau, because it doubles the impact of her gift. It also allows her and other benefactors to support any of the five participating Houston Methodist Centers of Excellence: Cancer Center, DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, J.C. Walter Jr. Transplant Center, Neurological Institute, and Orthopedics & Sports Medicine.

With applications for almost every major disease, cell therapy is one of the most promising areas of research in modern medicine, including orthopedics. For example, osteoarthritis affects 3 million Americans every year, and potential cell therapies using a patient’s own cells to rejuvenate cartilage tissue could treat and even prevent the development of arthritis. “Harvesting and activating a patient’s own cells is the next frontier in orthopedic research and treatment,” says Dr. Patrick McCulloch, the John S. Dunn Chair in Orthopedic Surgery and the vice chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery & Sports Medicine at Houston Methodist. Translating an orthopedic cellular therapy from the research laboratory to the patient’s bedside requires turning lab discoveries into clinical-grade doses, and that necessitates having a specialized facility. In the past, Houston Methodist researchers had to use the cell therapy lab at a neighboring institution, adding significant time and expense to projects.

“My hope is Houston Methodist will become a global destination for life-changing orthopedic cell therapies,” says Dr. Kevin Varner, the chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Houston Methodist and assistant professor of Clinical Orthopedic Surgery. “This is a unique opportunity to not only practice medicine but also to lead medicine.” This new frontier for orthopedics also offers promise for possible restorative treatments for patients with autoimmune arthritis. Additionally, cell therapy has the potential to create alternatives for joint replacements and may one day provide new ways to enhance bone regeneration. As the mother of two daughters, Nau says this resonates with her. Women are more than three times as likely as men to have knee joint replacement and more typically experience osteoporosis and other forms of bone loss. “These are issues that all women are facing or know someone who is facing,” says Nau. “Men, of course, are also impacted. We will all need orthopedics at some point of our lives.”