BioE Stem Cell Featured in Experimental Hematology Review Article about Potential of Cord Blood Stem Cells

BioE®, Inc. has announced a review article published in the December 2007 issue (Vol. 35, Issue 12) of the journal Experimental Hematology features its Multi-Lineage Progenitor Cell™ (MLPC™) as a cord blood stem cell with potential for therapeutic and cell regeneration applications.

Dan Collins, Ph.D., executive vice president and chief scientific officer for BioE, contributed to the paper with leading physicians and researchers from Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia University Medical Center.

Specifically, the review’s authors cite the MLPC’s controlled and extensive differentiation capabilities; genetic stability and lack of teratoma formation; and ability to develop pure clonal cell lines as key characteristics that define the stem cell’s high utility compared to embryonic stem cells and adult-source stem cells.

“BioE's MLPC stem cell shows great promise as a critical cord blood stem cell that in the future could be utilized to regenerate a variety of tissues including cardiac, skin, nervous, pancreatic (insulin producing) among others,” said senior author Mitchell S. Cairo, M.D., chief, Blood & Marrow Transplantation at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and professor of pediatrics, medicine and pathology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

“As stem cell research continues to advance on many fronts, cord blood stem cells — including the MLPC — likely will provide researchers a viable source of cells to help repair numerous tissues within the body in the near term. Compared to embryonic and adult stem cells, cord blood stem cells are widely available, and their immaturity and flexibility should produce larger quantities of homogeneous tissues or cells for transplantation and help minimize rejection of generated tissue when transplanted into a mismatched host.”

While cord blood stem cells were once considered functionally limited, the review’s authors discuss a voluminous body of research demonstrating their ability to differentiate into non-blood-related cells and tissue lineages. For example, research shows the cord blood-derived MLPC stem cell has the ability to turn into cells representative of the three different embryonic germinal layers, including liver and pancreatic precursor cells, terminally differentiated liver cells, lung cells, fat cells, cartilage cells, bone cells, skeletal muscle, blood vessels, neural stem cells and nerve cells.

“The MLPC is an attractive cord blood stem cell for many researchers due to its significant differentiation capabilities, easy accessibility and ability to maintain genetic stability through 80 doublings,” Dr. Collins said. “The clonally derived cells can be expanded into therapeutically relevant numbers of cells, thus providing a pure population of identically behaving cells.”