New approach offers promise for long-term efficacy

by Kelly Lawman, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center 

Blood-contacting implantable medical devices, such as stents, heart valves, ventricular assist devices, and extracorporeal support systems, as well as vascular grafts and access catheters, are used worldwide to improve patients’ lives. However, these devices are prone to failure due to the body’s responses at the blood-material interface; clots can form and inflammatory reactions can prevent the device from performing as indicated.

Stem cell-derived, glucose-stimulated, insulin-producing cells (SC-β) are protected inside capsules engineered to be invisible to the host immune system. Photo courtesy of Omid Veiseh and Andrew Bader/Anderson/Langer Laboratory, Koch Institute at MIT

Device

The Anc80 virus delivered genes to the mouse retina that fluoresce green when expressed. Pictured here, the delivered genes

Proof-of-concept study highlights new therapeutic use of engineered human stem cells

Harvard Stem Cell Institute scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital have devised a new way to use stem cells in the fight against brain cancer. A team led by neuroscientist

Researchers experiment with single shot that slows rejection

A drug-secreting gel that holds back the immune system—developed to help treat diseases such as brain cancer, ulcerative colitis, and arthritis—has now been shown to slow hand transplant rejection, in rats, when delivered through a single shot. The success may yield a new

Stem cells loaded with cancer-killing herpes virus attack a brain tumor cell. Tumor cells in green. oHSV-loaded stem cells in red. oHSV-infected tumor cells in yellow. (Credit: Khalid Shah/MGH)

Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) scientists at

Cross-Harvard collaboration explores new possibilities for personalized medicine

Harvard scientists have merged stem cell and ‘organ-on-a-chip’ technologies to grow, for the first time, functioning human heart tissue carrying an inherited cardiovascular disease. The research appears to be a big step forward for personalized medicine, as it is working proof that

Harvard stem cell scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have pioneered a method using steroids to make mighty stem cells, increasing their usefulness for potential cell therapies. Read more about Stem cell performance enhanced with steroids

Harvard stem cells scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and MIT can now engineer cells that are more easily controlled following transplantation, potentially making cell therapies, hundreds of which are currently in clinical trials across the United States, more functional and efficient. Read more about Harvard scientists control cells following transplantation, from the inside out

A group of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers, and collaborators at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have found a way to use stem cells as drug delivery vehicles.

The researchers inserted modified strands of messenger RNA into connective tissue stem cells—called mesenchymal stem