Damaged heart rebuilt with heart stem cells from children with congenital heart disease

Feb 2 2011

A new study, revealing that heart stem cells from children with congenital heart disease were able to rebuild the damaged heart in the laboratory, could provide a new outlet for Emerging Healthcare Solutions' (Pink Sheets: EHSI) NASA bioreactor.

“It takes millions of cells to regenerate a working organ”

Sunjay Kaushal, MD, PhD, surgeon in the Division of Cardiovascular Thoracic Surgery at Children's Memorial Hospital and assistant professor of surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, headed the study. It appears in the February issue of the medical journal Circulation, and prompts a potential therapy option that sidesteps the need for a heart transplant in children born with defects.

Cells were obtained from patients ranging in age from a few days after birth to 13 years who were undergoing routine congenital cardiac surgery. The study found that the implanted cardiac stem cells are functional and have the potential for use in repairing the damaged heart. EHSI President and CEO Cindy Morrissey said on Monday that the company's NASA bioreactor could be useful in creating the healthy stem cell cultures necessary to stage clinical trials of similar procedures.

"It takes millions of cells to regenerate a working organ," Morrissey said. "These types of procedures, where large numbers of stem cells are needed for the therapy, are exactly the kind of projects perfectly suited to our NASA bioreactor's capabilities."

EHSI's Intrifuge Rotary Cell Culture System^TM is a rotating-wall bioreactor originally designed by NASA to facilitate the growth of human cells in simulated weightlessness. Cell cultures—including cardiac stem cells—grown inside the bioreactor look and function much closer to human cells grown within the body than cell cultures grown in Petri dishes, which are essentially flat.

Last December, EHSI acquired a license to use the bioreactor to expand (or multiply) stem cell cultures in Germany, China, Panama and elsewhere around the globe. Stem cell expansion is essential to the research planned by EHSI's biotech subsidiary, CelulasGenetica, including its current endeavor to develop a revolutionary new cure for liver disease known as the Rutherford Procedure. It could also prove essential to childhood cardiac therapeutics made possible by this recent study.

Emerging Healthcare Solutions is taking a worldwide approach to developing new stem cell treatments. Earlier this month, EHSI acquired CelulasGenetica, a Central American leader in stem-cell technology acquisition and development. In November, Morrissey established EHSI business offices in Frankfurt, Germany, and Warsaw, Poland. Those offices will allow the company to maintain long-term relationships with some of the world's foremost stem-cell researchers and entrepreneurs based in Central and Western Europe.

EHSI invests in technology developed to compete in the stem-cell research industry alongside Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NASDAQ:TEVA); Allergan, Inc. (NYSE:AGN); Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALXN); and Forest Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:FRX).