By Joe Sornberger
Stem Cells Medicine By Design - CFREF Funding Announcement
A crucial moment in time for
stem cell R&D
In an interview with the Edmonton Sun in April, Dr. James Shapiro sketched out a not-far-off future in which diabetics won’t need daily insulin injections. “We have successfully and reliably reversed diabetes in our preclinical models,” the University of Alberta researcher/clinician told his hometown paper. “This approach is new and especially exciting as it opens up a world of opportunities.” Dr. Shapiro, who was part of the team that developed the Edmonton Protocol to treat type 1 diabetes with transplanted pancreatic islets, received Health Canada’s approval earlier this year to conduct a Phase 1/2 clinical trial of a stem cell-derived islet replacement treatment for diabetes. The therapy, which he helped develop with San Diego-based ViaCyte, Inc., involves inserting a device about half the size of a credit card and loaded with pancreatic progenitor cells under the patient’s skin, where new blood vessels grow around it and the body’s immune system doesn’t try to destroy it, enabling regulation of blood glucose levels. The Edmonton trial, supported by Alberta Innovates – Health So-
lutions and JDRF, follows one ViaCyte began last year in San Diego, CA. If the device works, the impact could be transformative. According to Statistics Canada, more than 2 million Canadians have diabetes. The Canadian Diabetes Association puts the number at over 10 million when people with type 2 diabetes and those Canadians in pre-diabetes are included. News this summer of the commencement of the Canadian trial couldn’t be timelier. For the past 17 years -- since the discovery of embryonic stem cells -- the field of regenerative medicine has been long on promise, short on product. But this is changing. In many ways, Dr. Shapiro is at the same crucial moment in time as many of Canada’s elite stem cell/regenerative medicine researchers: on the verge of delivering new treatments for a number of diseases. To note a few: • Researchers at Toronto’s University Health
Network have begun a pilot study to treat patients with knee osteoarthritis using mesenchymal stem cells. • Clinical trials are in the works using a molecule called UM171 developed by Dr. Guy Sauvageau of the Université de Montréal to expand umbilical cord blood stem cells while maintaining their properties. (Currently, donated umbilical cords have too few cells to treat adult cancer patients.) • Dr. Duncan Stewart of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute leads a two-year, 100-patient study in Ottawa, Montréal and Toronto to test using genetically enhanced stem cells to rebuild heart tissue damaged by heart attacks. • Dr. Mark Freedman at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute co-leads a 40-patient trial with Dr. James J. Marriott of the University of Manitoba, called MESCAMS (for MEsenchymal Stem cell therapy for CAnadian MS patients).
October/November 2015 BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS 11
