Reinventing Cell Therapy And Biomaterials

Article preview from IN VIVO - January, 2013

A profound redefinition of the role of many cell types and biomaterials in regenerative medicine is under way as researchers have moved away from the notion that cells introduced into the body will integrate and become functioning tissue.

Reinventing Cell Therapy And Biomaterials

Article preview from IN VIVO - January, 2013

When Shire PLC created Shire Regenerative Medicine Inc. around the purchase of Advanced BioHealing Inc. (ABH) in 2011, it became the first major pharmaceutical or device company in some time to dedicate significant new resources to the regenerative medicine/cell therapy space. [See Deal] The field has been undergoing an evolution, gradually moving away from the notion of introducing cells into the body that would integrate and create new replacement tissue, directly restoring function, and toward using cells or biologics as a means of signaling the body to recruit new cells to the area to be treated.

There’s now a more nuanced notion around how to use cells – stem cells or other cell types like endothelial cells or fibroblasts – to help do the repair work of regenerative medicine. It’s perhaps not even necessary to deliver the cells themselves, instead using a growth factor embedded on a biomaterial or delivered mechanically to get the local environment (a site of injury or disease) to understand what’s going on and basically restore or reinvent the desired biological effect.

“We are discovering, both in preclinical model systems and also observation of early clinical studies, that what we thought scaffolds might do is perhaps not what they are doing, and what cells might do, is clearly not what we thought they’d be doing,” says Andrew Carr, MD, an orthopedic specialist at the University of Oxford. “It seems there is a significant component to the direction of travel here, which is understanding that the cells that we put in don’t end up being the cells that regenerate or replenish the tissue. If they have a role, it’s more like the conductor of an orchestra rather than the actual members of the orchestra.”

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