American Renaisscience: Bioengineering stem cells for targeted drug delivery
The field of stem cell research promises to deliver truly amazing medical breakthroughs in the coming decades. However, the fundamental research needed must first provide the proof-of-principle necessary for private industry to take note. That is happening according to a recent article published in the journal Blood. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard‘s Stem Cell Institute, in collaboration with MIT and Mass General have successfully reprogrammed a type of connective tissue stem cell line, known as mesenchymal stem cells, to produce specific surface proteins and the anti-inflammatory molecule interleukin-10.
To accomplish this, researchers injected a modified form of messenger RNA, the blueprint for protein synthesis in cells. The modified stem cells were injected into mice. Once in the mouse bloodstream, the stem cells successfully targeted sites of inflammation and reduced swelling.
This approach is promising because it targets the site in need of therapeutics and can deliver the needed drug at a level high enough to provide results. This approach is attracting attention from large pharmaceutical companies because of the capability to target the disease site itself.
Reference
Oren Levy, Weian Zhao, Luke J. Mortensen, Sarah LeBlanc, Kyle Tsang, Moyu Fu, Joseph A. Phillips, Vinay Sagar, Priya Anandakumaran, Jessica Ngai, Cheryl H. Cui, Peter Eimon, Matthew Angel, Charles P. Lin, Mehmet Fatih Yanik, & Jeffrey M. Karp (2013). mRNA-engineered mesenchymal stem cells for targeted delivery of interleukin-10 to sites of inflammation Blood DOI: 10.1182/blood-2013-04-495119
Related articles
- A New Blog Series: Time for an American Renaisscience (mhrussel.wordpress.com)
- Stem cells engineered to become targeted drug factories (sciencedaily.com)
