International Stem Cell
Corporation (OTCQB: ISCO) is the company behind a powerful new stem cell
technology called parthenogenesis, which promises to significantly advance the
field of regenerative medicine by addressing the problem of immune-rejection.
Derived from unfertilized eggs, the company’s human parthenogenetic stem cells
(hPSCs) are pluripotent, meaning that they have the potential to become
virtually any cell in the human body.
The first pluripotent stem cells
to be studied for the purposes of regenerative medicine were embryonic stem
cells (ESCs), which were taken from donated human embryos. While these cells
could offer considerable healing potential, they also present a number of
ethical concerns, because their production involves the destruction of a human
embryo. ISCO’s hPSCs avoid these ethical issues while retaining many of the
inherent advantages of ESCs.
One of the key factors limiting
the advancement of regenerative medicine in the past has been the issue of
immune-rejection. ESCs, much like transplanted organs, come with a high
probability of rejection. This means that, after injection, the host’s immune
system attacks the stem cells in an effort to prevent infection. When
unfertilized human eggs undergo parthenogenesis, however, they inherit a
duplicate set of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes, which greatly decrease
the risk of immune-rejection. According to the company’s preclinical data, a
relatively small number of hPSCs could be sufficient to provide ‘immune
matched’ cells to a large percentage of the global population.
ISCO’s developmental pipeline
includes a collection of hPSC-based treatments targeting severe diseases of the
central nervous system, the liver and the eye. The company’s most advanced
product candidate is for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, which affects an
estimated 10 million people worldwide and as many as one million in the United
States alone. In preclinical studies, rodent and non-human primate subjects
have shown measurable improvement in Parkinson’s disease symptoms and an
increase in brain dopamine levels following the intracranial administration of
hPSCs.
Last month, ISCO announced that it
had entered into a master clinical research agreement with the Florey Institute
of Neuroscience and Mental Health of Australia, one of the world’s leading
brain research centers, to conduct a phase I/IIa clinical trial of hPSCs in
Parkinson’s disease patients. Under the terms of this agreement, ISCO will work
with the Florey to conduct these studies at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
“We recently received
authorization to initiate Phase I/IIa and now we are moving forward toward
formal engagement of the clinical site to conduct this study,” Russell Kern,
PhD, executive vice president and chief scientific officer at ISCO, stated in a
news release. “We expect to enroll all patients into the clinical trial in Q1
2016 and provide interim results in October 2016.”
For more information, visit
www.internationalstemcell.com
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