Stem cells help build bones, could one day treat osteoporosis

A team of researchers at the University California, Davis have published work showing a way of stimulating the body’s stem cells to build more bone. In mice with a version of osteoporosis, the approach resulted in animals with bulkier bones in the leg and spine, and those bones were also stronger compared to those of their untreated labmates.

A press release from UC Davis described the health risk of osteoporosis:

Osteoporosis is a major public health problem for 44 million Americans. One in two women will suffer a fracture due to osteoporosis in their lifetime. Although effective medications are available to help prevent fracture risk, including alendronate, their use is limited by potential harmful effects of long-term use.

The major causes for osteoporosis in women include estrogen deficiency, aging and steroid excess from treatment of chronic inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. Generally, the osteoporosis generated by these metabolic conditions results from change in the bone remodeling cycle that weakens the bone's architecture and increases fracture risk.

The team’s approach involves injecting a molecule into the mice that essentially has two hands. One hand grabs mesenchymal stem cells in bone marrow. The other hand grabs onto bone. Once the mesenchymal stem cells find themselves in the neighborhood of bone, they release factors that drive bone regeneration. The work was published on February 4 in Nature Medicine.

The release goes on to quote Jan Nolta, director of the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures:

"These results are very promising for translating into human therapy. We have shown this potential therapy is effective in rodents, and our goal now is to move it into clinical trials."

This team is well known to CIRM. They recently received a $110,000 planning grant to solidify components of a team to apply for a Disease Team Therapy Development Award, worth up to $20 million. (You can see all recipients here.)

The Disease Teams are unusual awards, in that they require groups to apply as teams consisting of basic researchers, clinicians, and people who understand the steps involved in bringing a good idea to the clinic. The process of taking a good idea like this one, then carrying out all the testing required by the FDA to show that it is safe for clinical trials can take years—decades even.

Our team approach speeds that process by getting all the key players collaborating from the beginning, and by funding the entire process rather than requiring researchers to pause to apply for new funding. The goal is for the disease teams to be ready for clinical trials or in early stage clinical trials in four years.

Applications for the full disease team awards are in. They’ll be reviewed by our Grants Working Group in April. Those scientists—all of whom are from outside California—will make funding recommendations to the governing board, which will vote on which awards to fund in June.

A.A.