Steinbrook: What will the results of stem-cell research mean for human health?

Collins: My crystal ball is just as cloudy as everyone else’s. However, the developments in understanding stem cells and how they could potentially be brought to bear for a whole host of medical problems are some of the more exciting things that have happened in the last decade. In terms of therapeutics, we are just so early on. The one clinical trial approved by the Food and Drug Administration — for spinal cord injury — is currently on hold.

The clinical trial put on hold by the FDA uses embryonic stem cells.

New stem cell studies at the University of Maryland Dental School demonstrate that surgeons could one day routinely use strong, moldable, and injectable pastes to regenerate needed bone tissue to repair broken bones, fractures, genetic defects, even combat bone wounds. . . The Dental School presentation showed that human stem cells seeded in a tissue engineering scaffolding exhibited “excellent attachment and osteogenic differentiation,” which is the process of laying down new bone material.

The researchers said the new findings buoy hopes that an injectable paste of stem cells will be available one day to fill any shape of cavity from bone defects, breaks or wounds by regenerating needed bone tissue. In test tube studies, stem cells from bone marrow, when placed into an injectable scaffold of calcium phosphate and chitosan, started growing and forming minerals needed for new bone tissue.

Using an animal model, the researchers showed that this non-invasive procedure increased myocytes, or heart cells, by two-fold and reduced cardiac tissue injury by 60 percent.

The therapy also improved function of the left ventricle, the primary pumping chamber of the heart, by 40 percent and reduced fibrosis, the hardening of the heart lining that impairs its ability to contract, by up to 50 percent.

“The stem cells were able to change from the conjunctival phenotype to a corneal phenotype after we put them onto the cornea … that’s the beauty of stem cells.”

HT: Wesley J. Smith, whose blog, Secondhand Smoke, is now at First Things.

The findings are an important step toward helping people who experience vision loss and blindness as a result of age-related macular degeneration and hereditary retinal degeneration, the university said in a news release.