Many medical researchers believe that stem cell treatments have the potential to change the face of human disease and alleviate suffering. The ability of stem cells to self-renew and give rise to subsequent generations that can differentiate offers a large potential to culture tissues that can replace diseased and damaged tissues in the body, without the risk of rejection.
Dr. Landis says that he and his co-workers have been conducting tissue-engineering research with bovine models to assess the feasibility of stem cells to heal wounds in bones, cartilage and tendons.
"We may apply the adult stem cells directly to a wound in some instances. We do this by growing the cells under culture conditions to develop an extracellular matrix, which creates a supportive environment for the cells. We collect both cell and extracellular material and apply the combination to a system in which a defect has been artificially created in a bone. We then monitor changes in the defect over time following cell/matrix treatment.
"In monitoring, we analyze the expression of certain genes and the secretion of certain proteins, comparing them to normal bone tissue and to bones that have no cell/matrix application," Dr. Landis says.
"We examine our system over time to see if there’s any new tissue growth to heal the defect," he says.
"We include multiple sets of experiments that have the same or different tissue defects, and we want to compare the studies to determine whether normal tissue develops to overcome the created wounds.
"At present, some of our results show cellular materials that we expect are being produced in our systems. That’s the kind of success we have at the moment," Dr. Landis says.
Adult stem cells may have a greater role in wound healing in the future, according to William J. Landis, Ph.D., Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy, Rootstown, Ohio
