Tissue engineering is a multidisciplinary science that applies principles from engineering to the biological sciences to create replacement tissues from their cellular components (1). Resulting neotissues can repair or replace native tissues that are diseased, damaged, or congenitally absent. One technique that has come into widespread use is based on seeding cells onto a three-dimensional (3D) biodegradable scaffold that functions as a cell-delivery vehicle (2). Cells attach to the scaffold, which then provides space for neotissue formation and can serve…
Personalized Medicine
T-Cell Suspension Culture in a 24-Well Microbioreactor
Cell therapy promises revolutionary new therapeutic treatments for cancer and other serious diseases and injuries. For example, T-cell therapy response rates of >50% and durable complete response rates of 20% have been reported in patients with metastatic melanoma who had failed other therapies (1). In another example, sustained remissions of up to a year were achieved among a small group of advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients upon treatment with autologous T-cells expressing an anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (2). Numerous other…
Characterization of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells
Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) are a self-renewing population of adherent, multipotent progenitor cells that can differentiate into several lineages. The current definition of MSCs includes adherence to standard tissue culture plastic ware, expression of various surface antigens, and multilineage in vitro differentiation potential (osteogenic, chondrogenic, and adipogenic). hMSCs hold great promise as therapeutic agents because of their potential ability to replace damaged tissue and their immunomodulatory properties. Consequently, many clinical trials using hMSCs are currently under way in a…
Advocating an Evolution
In a 2006 report, the US Department of Health and Human Services hailed regenerative medicine as “the vanguard of 21st century healthcare” and “the first truly interdisciplinary field that utilizes and brings together nearly every field in science” (1). To fuel support for regulatory, legislative, and reimbursement initiatives in this new therapeutic class, a small group of scientists, life science business executives, patient advocates, and other experts formed the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM, http://alliancerm.org). Starting with 17 charter members,…