The Future and Challenges of Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapy

Posted by beauty33 on April 20th, 2021

Abstract: Scientists believe that stem cells have unlimited potential, and almost all medical chronic diseases can be solved by stem cells. However, the related research is impeded by some universal obstacles. This article will review the future and challenges of pluripotent stem cell therapy.

With the continuous deepening of research in the field of stem cells by researchers around the world, cell therapy based on pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) has shown great potential in human disease intervention, beauty and anti-aging, tissue engineering and other fields, bringing subversion to the biomedical research.

Cell therapy based on PSCs is exceedingly promising

Stem cells are a group of primitive cells with unlimited self-renewal replication and multidirectional differentiation potential in the human body. Since they were discovered in the 1960s, scientists around the world have achieved many important results in the field of stem cell research, which has become one of the most popular research directions in the current biomedical research field, with more than 5,000 related clinical studies registered on ClinicalTrial.gov.

So far, many remarkable results have been achieved in the field of stem cell research. Among them, stem cell therapy is the most prominent. Globally, there have been more than one million cases of stem cell transplants. Cell, tissue and organ transplantation has become an important medical treatment method recognized by the World Health Organization (WTO). In addition, stem cells have also shown great research and application value in the three fields of life sciences, new drug trials and disease research, and are widely used in the fields of medical regenerative cell therapy and drug screening.

There are still some challenges in stem cell therapy research

The emergence of stem cell therapy has brought new ideas to some diseases that cannot be cured by traditional medical methods. With the in-depth research of scientists, stem cell therapy is transforming into clinical practice. However, it is well known that the research is not always going flawlessly, and there are still some problems such as tumorigenicity, immunogenicity and heterogeneity in clinical trials.

1. Tumorigenicity

PSCs have the potential for unlimited proliferation, differentiation and regeneration. It is this biological characteristic that determines its effectiveness in the research of human disease intervention. But at the same time, this characteristic is also a risk factor—if the cells continue to proliferate after transplantation, it will lead to tumor formation.

2. Immunogenicity

Immune rejection has always been a key issue in the research process of cell therapy. The emergence of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) may provide new opportunities to solve this problem. However, up to now, the immunogenicity of autologous iPSCs is still controversial; some researchers have recently proposed that new mutations in mitochondria may serve as a potential source of new epitopes for autologous iPSCs. However, the immunogenicity of autologous iPSCs has not been supported by other research results.

3. Heterogeneity

PSCs have two main biological characteristics: proliferation and multidirectional differentiation. This indicates that each pluripotent stem cell line is not exactly the same as another cell line. Each cell line is different in morphology, growth curve, gene expression, and tendency to differentiate into a variety of different cell lines. Heterogeneity may become an obstacle to downstream applications, including cell therapy.

In summary, pluripotent stem cell therapy has immeasurable application value in the intervention of many human diseases. Although due to some obstacles, it is not possible to achieve large-scale clinical popularization at present, scientific researchers are sparing no effort to solve these obstacles.

“In recent years, in the field of stem cell therapy research, many encouraging research results have emerged, and the development and application of pluripotent stem cell therapy technology is advancing steadily,” as introduced by an expert at Creative Biolabs, a biotechnology company focusing on high-quality products and services in the field of stem cell therapy development, “it’s believed that in the near future, stem cell therapy will eventually become a new technology that will help improve the treatment of patients around the world and achieve clinicalization.”