Japanese team conducts world’s first transplant of iPS cells
Mar 29, 2017 1:00:43 GMT
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Post by imz72 on Mar 29, 2017 1:00:43 GMT
Japanese team conducts world’s first transplant of iPS cells
KOBE – A team led by government-affiliated research institute Riken said Tuesday that it carried out the world’s first surgery to transplant into a patient retina cells created from donor iPS cells.
By using a stockpile of induced pluripotent stem cells at Kyoto University, not iPS cells made from the patient’s own mature cells, the team, including Kobe City Medical Center General Hospital, have reduced the time and costs necessary for the procedure.
With the surgery, Japan’s regenerative medicine utilizing iPS cells has entered a new phase, according to pundits.
The patient in his 60s, who lives in Hyogo Prefecture, had been suffering from exudative age-related macular degeneration, an intractable eye disease that could lead to blindness.
The surgery was conducted at the hospital in Kobe, the capital of Hyogo, by Yasuo Kurimoto, head of the hospital’s department of ophthalmology, and others.
Kurimoto told a news conference that the surgery was completed without complications.
Masayo Takahashi, a researcher at Riken who heads the team, said it will take a few years to determine if the operation was a success.
Following an observation period of one year after the operation, the patient will receive follow-up checks for three additional years.
For the surgery, iPS cells derived from people who have immunological types that have a lower risk of causing rejection were used. The Riken Center for Developmental Biology, or CDB, transformed the iPS cells into retinal pigment epithelial cells, which were then injected into the retina of the patient.
In September 2014, the CDB-led team including Takahashi, in a similar operation on a woman with the same eye disease, successfully transplanted for the first time retina cells made from iPS cells, but which were taken from the same patient.
The first case took some 10 months before the patient received the transplant and cost nearly ¥100 million. Following the operation, the team decided it was better to use retinal cells derived from donated iPS cells.
Upon receiving health ministry approval in February this year, the team picked five people aged between 50 and 85 from applicants with exudative age-related macular degeneration to take part in the trial.
Through the use of the stockpiled iPS cells, the surgery time will be shortened to about one month and costs will be lowered to under ¥20 million per patient. A similar surgery is also planned to take place at Osaka University Hospital.
www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/03/28/national/science-health/japanese-team-conducts-worlds-first-transplant-ips-cells/#.WNsF_TvyuXY
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Japanese man is first to receive 'reprogrammed' stem cells from another person
World-first transplant to treat macular degeneration could augur rise of iPS cell banks
David Cyranoski
28 March 2017
On 28 March, a Japanese man in his 60s became the first person to receive cells derived from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that had been donated by another person.
The surgery is expected to set the path for more applications of iPS cell technology, which offers the versatility of embryonic stem cells without the latter’s ethical taint. Banks of iPS cells from diverse donors could make stem cell transplants more convenient to perform, while slashing costs.
iPS cells are created by removing mature cells from an individual (from their skin, for example), reprogramming these cells back to an embryonic state, and then coaxing them to become a cell type useful for treating a disease.
In the recent procedure, performed on a man from Hyogo prefecture, skin cells from an anonymous donor were reprogrammed and then turned into a type of retinal cell that was transplanted onto the retina of the patient who suffers from age-related macular degeneration. Doctors hope the cells will stop progression of the disease, which can lead to blindness.
In a procedure performed in September 2014 at the Kobe City Medical Center General Hospital, a Japanese woman received retinal cells derived from iPS cells. They were taken from her own skin, though, and then reprogrammed. Such cells prepared for a second patient were found to contain genetic abnormalities and never implanted.
The team decided to redesign the study based on new regulations, and no other participants were recruited to the clinical study. In February 2017, the team reported that the one patient had fared well. The introduced cells remained intact and vision had not declined as would usually be expected with macular degeneration.
In today’s procedure — performed at the same hospital and by the same surgeon Yasuo Kurimoto — doctors used iPS cells that had been taken from a donor’s skin cells, reprogrammed and banked. Japan’s health ministry approved the study, which plans to enroll 5 patients, on 1 February.
Using a donor's iPS cells does not offer an exact genetic match, raising the prospect of immune rejection. But Shinya Yamanaka, the Nobel Prize-winning stem-cell scientist who pioneered iPS cells, has contended that banked cells should be a close enough match for most applications.
Yamanaka is establishing an iPS cell bank, which depends on matching donors to recipients via three genes that code for human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) — proteins on the cell surface that are involved in triggering immune reactions. His iPS Cell Stock for Regenerative Medicine currently has cell lines from just one donor. But by March 2018, they hope to create 5-10 HLA-characterized iPS cell lines, which should match 30%-50% of Japan’s population.
Use of these ready-made cells has advantages for offering stem cell transplants across an entire population, says Masayo Takahashi, an ophthalmologist at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology who devised the iPS cell protocol deployed in today’s transplant. The cells are available immediately — versus several months’ wait for a patient’s own cells — and are much cheaper. Cells from patients, who tend to be elderly, might have also accumulated genetic defects that could increase the risk of the procedure.
At a press conference after the procedure, Takahashi said the surgery had gone well but that success could not be declared without monitoring the fate of the introduced cells. She plans to make no further announcements about patient progress until all five procedures are finished. “We are at the beginning,” she says.
www.nature.com/news/japanese-man-is-first-to-receive-reprogrammed-stem-cells-from-another-person-1.21730
KOBE – A team led by government-affiliated research institute Riken said Tuesday that it carried out the world’s first surgery to transplant into a patient retina cells created from donor iPS cells.
By using a stockpile of induced pluripotent stem cells at Kyoto University, not iPS cells made from the patient’s own mature cells, the team, including Kobe City Medical Center General Hospital, have reduced the time and costs necessary for the procedure.
With the surgery, Japan’s regenerative medicine utilizing iPS cells has entered a new phase, according to pundits.
The patient in his 60s, who lives in Hyogo Prefecture, had been suffering from exudative age-related macular degeneration, an intractable eye disease that could lead to blindness.
The surgery was conducted at the hospital in Kobe, the capital of Hyogo, by Yasuo Kurimoto, head of the hospital’s department of ophthalmology, and others.
Kurimoto told a news conference that the surgery was completed without complications.
Masayo Takahashi, a researcher at Riken who heads the team, said it will take a few years to determine if the operation was a success.
Following an observation period of one year after the operation, the patient will receive follow-up checks for three additional years.
For the surgery, iPS cells derived from people who have immunological types that have a lower risk of causing rejection were used. The Riken Center for Developmental Biology, or CDB, transformed the iPS cells into retinal pigment epithelial cells, which were then injected into the retina of the patient.
In September 2014, the CDB-led team including Takahashi, in a similar operation on a woman with the same eye disease, successfully transplanted for the first time retina cells made from iPS cells, but which were taken from the same patient.
The first case took some 10 months before the patient received the transplant and cost nearly ¥100 million. Following the operation, the team decided it was better to use retinal cells derived from donated iPS cells.
Upon receiving health ministry approval in February this year, the team picked five people aged between 50 and 85 from applicants with exudative age-related macular degeneration to take part in the trial.
Through the use of the stockpiled iPS cells, the surgery time will be shortened to about one month and costs will be lowered to under ¥20 million per patient. A similar surgery is also planned to take place at Osaka University Hospital.
www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/03/28/national/science-health/japanese-team-conducts-worlds-first-transplant-ips-cells/#.WNsF_TvyuXY
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Japanese man is first to receive 'reprogrammed' stem cells from another person
World-first transplant to treat macular degeneration could augur rise of iPS cell banks
David Cyranoski
28 March 2017
On 28 March, a Japanese man in his 60s became the first person to receive cells derived from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that had been donated by another person.
The surgery is expected to set the path for more applications of iPS cell technology, which offers the versatility of embryonic stem cells without the latter’s ethical taint. Banks of iPS cells from diverse donors could make stem cell transplants more convenient to perform, while slashing costs.
iPS cells are created by removing mature cells from an individual (from their skin, for example), reprogramming these cells back to an embryonic state, and then coaxing them to become a cell type useful for treating a disease.
In the recent procedure, performed on a man from Hyogo prefecture, skin cells from an anonymous donor were reprogrammed and then turned into a type of retinal cell that was transplanted onto the retina of the patient who suffers from age-related macular degeneration. Doctors hope the cells will stop progression of the disease, which can lead to blindness.
In a procedure performed in September 2014 at the Kobe City Medical Center General Hospital, a Japanese woman received retinal cells derived from iPS cells. They were taken from her own skin, though, and then reprogrammed. Such cells prepared for a second patient were found to contain genetic abnormalities and never implanted.
The team decided to redesign the study based on new regulations, and no other participants were recruited to the clinical study. In February 2017, the team reported that the one patient had fared well. The introduced cells remained intact and vision had not declined as would usually be expected with macular degeneration.
In today’s procedure — performed at the same hospital and by the same surgeon Yasuo Kurimoto — doctors used iPS cells that had been taken from a donor’s skin cells, reprogrammed and banked. Japan’s health ministry approved the study, which plans to enroll 5 patients, on 1 February.
Using a donor's iPS cells does not offer an exact genetic match, raising the prospect of immune rejection. But Shinya Yamanaka, the Nobel Prize-winning stem-cell scientist who pioneered iPS cells, has contended that banked cells should be a close enough match for most applications.
Yamanaka is establishing an iPS cell bank, which depends on matching donors to recipients via three genes that code for human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) — proteins on the cell surface that are involved in triggering immune reactions. His iPS Cell Stock for Regenerative Medicine currently has cell lines from just one donor. But by March 2018, they hope to create 5-10 HLA-characterized iPS cell lines, which should match 30%-50% of Japan’s population.
Use of these ready-made cells has advantages for offering stem cell transplants across an entire population, says Masayo Takahashi, an ophthalmologist at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology who devised the iPS cell protocol deployed in today’s transplant. The cells are available immediately — versus several months’ wait for a patient’s own cells — and are much cheaper. Cells from patients, who tend to be elderly, might have also accumulated genetic defects that could increase the risk of the procedure.
At a press conference after the procedure, Takahashi said the surgery had gone well but that success could not be declared without monitoring the fate of the introduced cells. She plans to make no further announcements about patient progress until all five procedures are finished. “We are at the beginning,” she says.
www.nature.com/news/japanese-man-is-first-to-receive-reprogrammed-stem-cells-from-another-person-1.21730
