Suddenly it's all going right for stem cells

Nuala Moran, News Editor

Castillo is the recipient of the first organ to be fashioned in part from her own stem cells. She shows no sign of immune rejection four months after the windpipe was implanted in place of the original, which was damaged by tuberculosis.

The new windpipe was formed from a donated organ that was treated to remove donor’s cells, leaving a scaffold onto which Castillo’s own stem cells were seeded and cultured. The process involved a collaboration between surgeons and researchers in Spain, Italy and the UK.

Martin Birchall of Bristol University, where the tissue engineering was carried out, said this success will open the door to a range of immune-compatible bioengineered organs, and within two decades such transplants will be a common form of surgery.

This then, is a fantastic advert for the regenerative powers of stem cells.

Despite Castillo’s miraculous recovery, much more remains to be done before such replacements are routine, and before stem cells are regularly used to replace damaged cells in situ, as opposed to being used to grow immune-compatible organs outside the body.

However, we are now witnessing many of the previous barriers falling. First, big pharma is acknowledging stem cells and regenerative medicine is a field in which it needs to invest.

There was already an understanding that stem cells are important tools in drug discovery, as evidenced by GlaxoSmithKline’s $15 million collaboration with the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, announced in June. But last week the world’s biggest pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, announced it is investing $100 million to set up regenerative medicine units in the two Cambridges (UK and Massachusetts).

Other pharma companies, including Roche, Novartis, and Johnson & Johnson have let it be known they have made some investments in stem cells, but Pfizer is the first pharma giant to put its name to an in-house research programme.

In the same week the UK passed an act further extending its stem cell and therapeutic cloning rules. No doubt the liberal regime has strengthened the research base, attracting scientists to come to the country to carry out research and now leading Pfizer to invest in the UK.

But stem cell research is about to get its biggest boost of all time, when President Elect Barack Obama delivers on his pledge to lift restrictions on federal funding of stem cell research, and the US starts to apply its research might in earnest.

At the same time as drawing grant money into the field, this will remove the political constraints that have made venture capitalists and big pharma nervous about investing in stem cells, transforming the commercial prospects, and forcing the regulators to help companies get products into clinical trials.

Following her operation Castillo has gone from being unable to walk up a flight of stairs, to dancing through to the dawn in a club in Ibiza. Stem cells research and regenerative medicine has been hobbled for want of funding, let’s hope it too is now on the verge of a big night out.