Industry updates with Dusko Ilic: September 2021

Written by Dusko ILIC

Read highlights from the latest installment of Dusko Ilic’s industry news, which discuss the latest developments and news in regenerative medicine and stem cell research, and are published every month in Regenerative Medicine.

Every month, Dusko comments on regenerative medicine industry news of note. Read the full update for September 2021 in Regenerative Medicine here >>>

Find previous updates here>>

What happened this month that you were expecting?

Bring back woolly mammoths

Harvard scientist George Church, a pioneer of both DNA sequencing and gene editing, has been talking in the press for more than a decade about the possibility of bringing the extinct woolly mammoth back to life. It’s been the subject of magazine articles, books, and, of course, a TEDx talk.

Now, it is the focus of a company. This had to happen, sooner or later. Church and his colleagues announced that Colossal (MA, USA), a start-up focused on “de-extinction,” had raised US$15 million for a project that involves CRISPR technology to genetically reengineer Asian elephants to be more like mammoths. What’s being proposed is actually a hybrid created using a gene-editing tool known as CRISPR-Cas9 to splice bits of DNA recovered from frozen mammoth specimens into that of an Asian elephant, the mammoth’s closest living relative. The resulting animal — known as a “mammophant” — would look, and presumably behave, much like a woolly mammoth.

Mammoths once scraped away layers of snow so that cold air could reach the soil and maintain the permafrost. After they disappeared, the accumulated snow, with its insulating properties, meant the permafrost began to warm, releasing greenhouse gases, Church and others contend. They argue that returning mammoths — or at least hybrids that would fill the same ecological niche — to the Arctic could reverse that trend. Really??? I have to say that I fully agree with Love Dalén, a professor in evolutionary genetics at the Stockholm-based Centre for Palaeogenetics, who said:

“I personally do not think that this will have any impact, any measurable impact, on the rate of climate change in the future, even if it were to succeed,” he told to NPR. “There is virtually no evidence in support of the hypothesis that trampling of a very large number of mammoths would have any impact on climate change, and it could equally well, in my view, have a negative effect on temperatures.”

What happened that surprised you this month?

Study protocol for transplantation of iPSC-derived neural stem/progenitor cells grafts in spinal cord injury

A group of investigators spanning several centers have published a study protocol of a first-in-human clinical trial of transplantation of iPSC-derived neural stem/progenitor cells in subacute complete spinal cord injury. In the new trial, a total of 2 × 106 cells will be transplanted into the injured spinal cord parenchyma 14-28 days post-injury. The number of cells injected mimics Geron’s Phase I clinical trial. However, we know that it did not work. Asterias’ SCISTAR study has demonstrated that doses that showed any effect were up to 10-folds higher. This is not very encouraging for the trial participants receiving starting dose.

If we only read about one story this month, what should it be?

Avoiding immunosuppression

Although OneLegacy (CA, USA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving lives through organ, eye, and tissue donation in seven counties in Southern California, the story is worth of attention because of a very cool approach that seemingly works.

A OneLegacy Foundation funded clinical trial at UCLA Health (CA, USA) has announced its first two successful kidney transplants with the potential for no immunosuppressive drugs, a feat that will open the door for safer, more effective organ transplants.

Traditional transplants see the new organ as an invader and signal an attack, but through UCLA Health’s clinical trial, surgeons transplant the organ, and then a few days later, an infusion of the donor’s stem cells, to prime the recipient to accept the new organ as its own, freeing transplant patients from a lifetime of harsh immunosuppressive drugs.

Read the full industry update for September 2021 >>>

Dr Dusko Ilic

Dusko Ilic is a Senior Lecturer in stem cell science, coordinator of the cross-divisional postgraduate program in stem cells and regenerative medicine, and Head of the Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Core Facility at King’s College London (London, UK). He is also Head of the Assisted Conception Unit’s Human Embryonic Laboratories at Guy’s Hospital (London, UK). He is also a member of the editorial board of the journal Regenerative Medicine, where he writes the Industry Report, a regular feature compiling information from non-academic institutions in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine.