StemCell Therapy

By The Canton Repository Editorial Board

There's a lot of excitement aboutOhio State University.

That's not unusual at this time of year. After all, the Buckeyes are getting closer to kicking off the 2017 football season.

But, as exciting as their games are each week, what they've got going on pales in comparison to what some researchers are doing at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center.

In a historic breakthrough, they're helping to save lives, cell by cell. They've successfully turned skin cells into the types of cells the body might need.

What does that mean? The Columbus Dispatch broke it downin a story published last week: "... a technology that has limitless potential, from regenerating a wounded limb to repairing a brain after stroke to healing a damaged heart."

The ramifications are boundless, as is our joy at this breakthrough.

The work started small, building blood vessels to help regenerate limbs in mouse legs within seven to 14 days. Once officials at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., expressed interest, the work took on a grander scale, the Dispatch reported. The leg-healing process was duplicated in pigs. It's clear the technology can help troops in the field, but researchers reported that it must begin within 72 hours of injury to be successful.

The process seems so simple. Twenty-six researchers in the fields of engineering, science and medicine worked together to develop the technology that involved placing a square chip about the size of a fingernail on the skin, adding a drop containing a genetic code. It then was zapped with an energy source. Researchers told the Dispatchthe genetic material changes depending on the type of regeneration that is needed.

"It's like a syringe that's the chip but then what you load in the syringe is your cargo," Chandan Sen, director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine and Cell-Based Therapies at Wexner Medical Center, told the Dispatch. "Based on what you intend the cells to be, the cargo will change. So, if you want a vasculogenic (blood vessel) cell, the code would be different than if you wanted a neuro cell, and so on and so forth."

The mind reels when you think of the ways in which such technology could be used. Ohio State carefully worked on this project, with funding from private sources because of the high risk of failure, and is preparing to seek approvalfrom the Food and Drug Administration to try it out on humans.

The good news on this project extends to Ohio's economy, because a Columbus company is manufacturing the chips, and it already has drawn interest from a Taiwan-based company. L. James Lee, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at OSU and another of the leading researchers on the project, said the team is looking toprove feasibility within a year.

It's wonderful to see such thoughtful and valuable projects accomplished in Ohio, and for the state to benefit furtherfrom the idea. Ohio is home to a wealth of premier medical institutions, and this is another way the state is shining brightly in a field with tremendous growth potential.

Congratulations to the team at Ohio State. You're champions to us!

Go here to read the rest:
Editorial: Cell regeneration work a boon to Ohio, health care - Canton Repository

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