OSAKA (EFE).— A group of researchers from Osaka University (Japan) created regenerative patches to treat heart failure using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), an effort that is endorsed by the scientific journal “Nature.”
These are the first sheets of cardiomyocytes (cardiac muscle cells) derived from allogeneic iPS cells (taken from different individuals of the same species), designed to treat humans and whose commercialization is being worked on by Yoshiki Sawa, professor emeritus of the Japanese university and who said that the patches would be on the market “in about three years.”
The breakthrough is significant in itself for the medical field, and even more so for Japan, a country with a shortage of organ donors that would become the first in the world to bring this regenerative heart technology to market, if it is approved for use.
PorMedTec is the Japanese company from Meiji University responsible, together with the American company eGenesis, for creating modified pigs for organ transplants to humans. In 2023, only 3% of people who needed a transplant (of any organ) were able to receive one.
Sawa leads a group of scientists who could ensure that within three years hospitals have this innovative resource to treat patients whose hearts do not pump as they should, which would constitute an alternative to transplants and the implantation of ventricular assist devices.
Sheets of iPS cardiomyocytes are capable of treating ischemic cardiomyopathy (narrowing of the arteries that supply blood to the heart, causing the walls of this organ to become thinner and unable to pump properly) and have already been successfully tested on eight Japanese patients, says Sawa.
These results were described as “promising” by the journal “Nature” in an article in August 2022.
Arranged on culture plates and in flasks, the professor showed off two patches during a visit to his laboratory in Osaka, Japan, by the international press, on the occasion of the World Expo that the city will host in 2025, where an “iPS heart” will be on display.
Still limited to beating in test rooms, once the knowledge of the scientists behind them is transferred beyond the laboratory, the slides could save the lives of people who die while waiting for an available heart for transplant.
The technology used, iPSCs, represents a new type of pluripotent stem cell first generated in mice in 2006 and a potentially important resource for applications in regenerative medicine, according to the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application at Kyoto University (CiRA).
iPSCs, which are derived from adult cells, can differentiate into any type of cell in the body and proliferate indefinitely in culture. They were first developed by Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka, who was part of the research group responsible for the project at its inception.
Yamanaka was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine for demonstrating that “mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.”
That same year, together with his team, he demonstrated the efficacy of the method in pigs, which led to the start of a clinical trial led by Sawa, which used sheets of myoblasts (precursor cells of muscle fibers) for severe heart failure.
In 2017, the group of scientists formed a publicly traded company under the name CUORiPS, which was selected in 2023 to be established in Silicon Valley (California) as part of the business center of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
In 2020, the firm conducted its second clinical study demonstrating the efficacy of iPS cardiomyocyte sheets against ischemic cardiomyopathy, according to Sawa, who is confident of prompt approval of the patches by the Japanese government.
“We must complete (the approval) to save patients,” the researcher believes.
Developing iPS cells that reproduce heartbeats takes three months, but two weeks are enough to obtain the sheets. Sawa believes that treatment with the patches would cost around 15 million yen (86,520 euros) for each of the three patches needed per patient, although the Japanese government would be responsible for setting the price.
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2024-09-02 05:53:15
