StemCell Therapy

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Kidney failure is the Rodney Dangerfield of diseases, it really doesnt get the respect it deserves. An estimated 660,000 Americans suffer from kidney failure and around 47,000 people die from it every year. Thats more than die from breast or prostate cancer. But now a new study has identified a promising stem cell candidate that could help in finding a way to help repair damaged kidneys.

Kidneys are the bodys waste disposal system, filtering our blood and cleaning out all the waste products. Our kidneys have a limited ability to help repair themselves but if someone suffers from chronic kidney disease then their kidneys are slowly overwhelmed and that leads to end stage renal disease. At that point the patients options are limited to dialysis or an organ transplant.

Survivors hold out hope

Italian researchers had identified some cells in the kidneys that showed a regenerative ability. These cells, which were characterized by the expression of a molecule called CD133, were able to survive injury and create different types of kidney cells.

Researchers at the University of Torino in Italy decided to take these findings further and explore precisely how CD133 worked and if they could take advantage of that and use it to help repair damaged kidneys.

In their findings, published in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine, the researchers began by working with a chemotherapy drug called cisplatin, which is used against a broad range of cancers but is also known to cause damage to kidneys in around one third of all patients. The team found that CD133 was an important factor in helping those damaged kidneys recover. They also found that CD133 prevents aging of kidney progenitor cells, the kind of cell needed to help create new cells to repair the kidneys in future.

Hope for further research

The finding opens up a number of possible lines of research, including exploring whether infusions of CD133 could help patients whose kidneys are no longer able to produce enough of the molecule to help repair damage.

In an interview in DD News, Dr. Anthony Atala, Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine praised the research:

This is an interesting and novel finding. Because the work identifies mechanisms potentially involved in the repair of tissue after injury, it suggests the possibility of new therapies for tissue repair and regeneration.

CIRM is funding several projects targeting kidney disease including four clinical trials for kidney failure. These are all late-stage kidney failure problems so if the CD133 research lives up to its promise it might be able to help people at an earlier stage of disease.

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Stem cell study holds out promise for kidney disease | The ...

This entry was posted on April 15, 2019 at 11:49 am and is filed under Stem Cell kidney Failure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |