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Breakthrough 'Living Medication' Shows Promise in Treating Osteoporosis
Confirmed
In Short: A new treatment using modified stem cells has shown significant bone-strengthening effects in a small trial, potentially offering a 'living medication' for osteoporosis.
A groundbreaking treatment using modified stem cells has shown promising results in a small trial, potentially offering a new approach to treating osteoporosis. According to reports, a team from the University of Murcia has reported a 94% reduction in fractures among 10 women with advanced osteoporosis after a single infusion of glycocalyx-edited stem cells. The study, published in the journal Cell, marks the first time glycocalyx-edited mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been tested in humans for osteoporosis.
The trial involved ten women aged 51 to 72 with advanced osteoporosis, each receiving a single intravenous infusion of their own modified cells. The results were striking: the patients experienced a significant reduction in fractures and measurable bone regrowth over the following two years. Additionally, bone metabolism biomarkers showed signs of a bone-strengthening effect, and body imaging revealed improvements in the density of spongy trabecular bone.
While there's no cure for osteoporosis, scientists say they may have found a kind of "living medication" for the disease. The true scale of osteoporosis is difficult to fathom, with the progressive bone-weakening disease estimated to affect as many as 500 million people worldwide, triggering up to 37 million fragility fractures a year. That's a bone breaking in someone's body every single second.
What's confirmed
- Bone biopsies at approximately 120 days post-infusion showed increased bone tissue area in 7 of the 10 patients.
What's still developing
- Researchers added a sugar molecule called sialylated Lewis X to the cell surface, functioning essentially as a postal code that routes the cells toward bone marrow tissue.
- When grown outside the body and reinfused intravenously, however, these cells are poor navigators and rarely find their way back to bone marrow.
- However, MSCs, which can be found in bone marrow (as well as other parts of the body), are the precursors to osteoblasts, cells that create and repair bone.
- In theory, this makes MSCs a promising candidate for bone-strengthening therapies to treat osteoporosis, but once MSCs are cultured outside the body and then returned intravenously, their lack of a surface molecule called Sialylated Lewis X (sLeX) hampers their ability to find the bone marrow.