Novocell in Forbes article.
Cell Factories
Robert Langreth and Matthew Herper 06.16.08
Emmanuel Baetge
Stem Cells Get Real:
Training stem cells to produce what the body is missing
Emmanuel (Ed) Baetge, chief scientific officer at San Diego biotech Novocell, may be closer than anyone else to using embryonic stem cells to cure Type 1 diabetes. His work shows the immense promise of stem cell transplants—and the huge hurdles that stand in the way of their becoming a medical reality.
Diabetic patients with the worst form of the disease must take four or more shots of insulin a day because their insulin-producing cells have been killed by a haywire immune system. Novocell’s plan is to turn embryonic stem cells into these missing insulin producers and inject them into the bodies of diabetics to put their disease into remission. Medical giants J&J and Becton Dickinson are backing the firm. It has raised $60 million to date. “We are doing something no one has done before,” Baetge says.
In February Novocell researchers stunned diabetes experts when they reported they could convert human stem cells into insulin-producing cells that staved off diabetes in mice. Novocell won’t be ready for human trials for another three years, and it must figure out how to purify its cells so that no immature ones remain that can cause tumors. It is also working on a way of encapsulating the cells so the immune system won’t reject them.
Other ailments such as spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s disease will be tougher targets for cell therapy than diabetes. Researchers don’t know how to regrow entire nerves so they make the proper connections. A more likely strategy is to use the cells as factories to make proteins or hormones the body is not making. To treat Parkinson’s, Clive Svendsen at UW-Madison has engineered fetal neurons so they churn out growth-promoting proteins that help preserve the dopamine-producing cells that die off in the disease. Evan Snyder at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, Calif. has shown in mice that stem cells may be able to supply missing enzymes to babies with Tay-Sachs disease. A human trial could begin next year.
Osiris Therapeutics, whose $430 million market value is largest among stem-cell companies, is implanting so-called mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow in patients with heart disease and Crohn’s disease. They produce anti-inflammatory proteins that may limit scar tissue after a heart attack or damage to the intestine from Crohn’s.
Martin Friedlander of the Scripps Research Institute has found blood and bone marrow stem cells that help repair damaged vessels in the eye. In China, Rutgers University neuroscientist Wise Young is testing umbilical cord cells as a treatment for spinal cord injuries. Cytori Therapeutics has a device to spot stem cells in fat it says might heal lots of body parts. The first use: breast reconstruction after lumpectomy. The device is on the market in Europe. Says Baetge, “The field is taking off.”
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