Stem cells therapy for regenerative medicine: Principles of present and future practice

Stem cells therapy for regenerative medicine: Principles of present and future practice. Andrades, J. , Becerra, J. , Muñoz-Chápuli, R. , Martínez, S. , Raya, Á. , García-Sancho, J. and Moraleda, J. (2014); Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering, 7, 49-57. doi: 10.4236/jbise.2014.72008.

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The use of stem cells as a therapeutic tool for a number of ischemic, inflam-matory, autoimmune, metabolic and degenerative dis-eases represents one of the more promising areas of bio-medical research; however, after more than 15 years of an exponential increase in basic knowledge, the promise to translate all those findings to clinical practice has not been achieved. There is only one cell therapy product that has obtained market authorization in the EU, and despite several hundred of phase I-II clinical trials there is almost a complete lack of robust efficacy data from phase III trials.

Salvador Martinez’s group (University of Alicante) has analyze the effect that bone marrow and adipose mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) grafts exert in a chronic demyelination and Friedrich ataxia mice models. As a result, oligodendrocyte progenitors were detected sur- rounding the graft in experimental demyelinating brain models, as well as increasing of dorsal root ganglia cells survival in vitro Friedrich ataxia cellular and animal models. This potential therapeutic effect was due to a selective production of trophic factors by the MSCs.