The most fantastic scientific dream of mankind is to learn how to grow full-fledged organs to replace diseased ones. After all, there is a dramatic shortage of organs for transplantation. And some progress has already been made in this direction. Previously, we reported on obtaining kidney, heart, and liver prototypes from stem cells in the laboratory, and even successfully transplanting such organs to experimental animals for some time. However, humanity is still quite far from obtaining functionally complete organs that could be implanted into a person. After all, every organ of the human body is a complex system with blood supply and nervous regulation.
Induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS) appear to be an extremely promising initial material for the purposes of tissue engineering, for obtaining which the Japanese Shinya Yamanaka and British John Herdon were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 2012. iPS cells are adult cells that, through genetic manipulation, have been returned to a state close to an embryonic cell, but their acquisition is absolutely ethical. iPS cells can divide indefinitely and differentiate into cells of various tissues – heart, liver, kidney, muscle.
The widespread use of iPS cells in medicine currently requires thorough research on their safety, because scientists must learn how to control the behavior of these cells to prevent their possible transformation into a malignant clone. However, today the international registry of clinical trials.gov includes 65 clinical studies in which iPS cells are used in the treatment of diseases. These are diabetic retinopathy, congenital heart defects, atopic dermatitis, acute ischemic stroke, heart failure, Parkinson’s disease, etc. Dopamine-producing nerve cells obtained from iPS cells are used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, because in this disease the production of dopamine in the substantia nigra of the brain is disrupted. In other studies, IPS cells hope to reproduce cells of heart or muscle tissues, skin.
IPS cells can be obtained from any cell of an adult organism, but the results of scientific research indicate that umbilical cord blood is a particularly promising raw material for this purpose. Umbilical cord blood contains young cells of various populations that have not yet been negatively affected by the environment and lifestyle, the effects of drugs and toxins, are characterized by a high potential for reproduction and controlled differentiation, genetic stability, have longer chromosome telomeres, and are characterized by higher telomerase activity. Thus, there are reasons to believe that the possibilities of therapy using umbilical cord blood will expand significantly in the coming years. It is likely that, in addition to hematological transplantation and regenerative medicine available today, umbilical cord blood cells will also serve as a raw material for obtaining iPS cells, tissue engineering purposes and modern cancer treatment (CAR-T cells).
Source: clinicaltrials.gov, pubmed.gov
