The EuroSTEMCELL consortium brings together sixteen partners, integrating a broad range of disciplines and combining the expertise of the best laboratories in Europe. The centers involved are all international leaders in their respective fields, and collectively provide the skills and technologies necessary for groundbreaking stem cell research. The collaborative activities of the consortium are laying the groundwork for taking stem cell technology to the clinic in the form of well characterized cell lines and a solid pre-clinical skills and knowledge base.
EuroStemCell, the European Consortium for Stem Cell Research, most recently has produced promising results for treating the debilitating and often fatal genetic disorder of muscular dystrophy (MD). Researchers from the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan, Italy, led by Dr. Giulio Cossu, have been studying the most common form of the disease, known as Duchenne muscular dystrophy. They discovered that the mesoangioblast muscle stem cell, present in the walls of blood vessels, produced encouraging results when injected in mice. They took mesoangioblast stem cells from the blood vessels of dogs with the mutation, corrected it using gene therapy, and re-injected the modified stem cells.
They also repeated the procedure with cells from healthy dogs, using drugs to prevent immune rejection. Both treatment procedures resulted in the increased production of dystrophin, though the injection of the donor stem cells yielded the most encouraging results.
EuroStemCell, which published this educational DVD, has dedicated considerable resources to public outreach.
In their experiment, researchers found that stem cells successfully established themselves in the host tissue, allowing for the production of dystrophin, offsetting the effects of muscular dystrophy. The injected stem cells not only produced dystrophin in the affected leg, but in other areas of the body as well, including respiratory muscles, leading researchers to believe that they are on the right track to finding an effective treatment for MD sufferers.
EuroStemCell’s research program is organized into eight work packages on specific areas of stem cell research, supported by six flagship projects that span the work package areas. Five work packages focus on the fundamental biology of stem cells.
The focus of the Identification and Isolation of Stem Cells work packages is to identify, isolate and undertake comparative characterization of stem cells for tissues of major clinical importance: neural stem cells for brain repair; mesodermal stem cells for giving rise to blood cells and muscular tissue; epithelial stem cells for skin replacement and for generation of thymus and other epithelial organs.
The purpose of the third work package, Lineage Analysis and Differentiation Potential, is to determine the normal routes a stem cell takes when differentiating into specialized cells and contributing to tissues. Analyzing these lineages will highlight the intermediate cell types generated by stem cells, as well as their locations, migratory routes and cellular environments in normal individuals. This is an important source of information for the isolation, culture and differentiation of stem cells in the laboratory, and is therefore crucial if stem cells are to be used for stem cell regenerative therapies and drug discovery.
The Self-renewal and Up-Scaling work package aims to analyze the factors that control stem cell self-renewal (the ability of a stem cell to make copies of itself indefinitely) and use this information to define the conditions and procedures that will be required for the generation of expanded and clinically acceptable resources for cell therapies. The Control of Differentiation work package aims to develop tools that allow the reproducible generation of stem cell populations capable of efficient and directed differentiation into all specialized cell types necessary for tissue repair.
A sixth work package, Applications in Neurological Disease, will test the ability of transplanted stem cells and cell lines, generated in work packages one, three, and four, and derived from endogenous neural stem cells, to differentiate into thera-peutically relevant cell types for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease, stroke and myelin diseases using animal models.
Work package seven, Applications in Muscle Repair and Neuromuscular Disease, will test the ability of stem cells and cell lines, generated in the other work packages, for their capacity to contribute to skeletal muscle, using mouse models for muscular dystrophy. The goal of an eighth work package, Epidermal Repair, is to use animal models to improve the techniques for grafting cultured epidermis and optimize the conditions for recreating hair follicles, sweat and sebaceous glands in the skin of human burns victims.
FLAGSHIP PROJECTS
The Generation of Antibodies for Stem Cell Identification project seeks to widen the range of antibodies available in stem cell community and characterize their utility for identifying sub-populations of cells during differentiation. The project will take advantage of existing efforts among partner institutions to generate antibodies and apply them to the stem cell research.
The Development of a Prototype European Stem Cell Database and Stem Cell Registry project will establish a stem cell database (Stem DB) containing a wide range of information about stem cells—from basic biology to clinical applications. The data will be derived from new findings generated by the EuroStemCell consortium and existing published data.
A third flagship project, the Forum for Ethics and Societal Issues Related to Stem Cell Research, will consider a range of topical issues relating to stem cell research. The work will be presented in a series of workshops, involving participants from both EuroStemCell and the EU Framework 5 Euro-Stem ethics project. The workshops will not only identify and analyze issues but also come up with suggestions as to how they are to be handled and relate these proposals to current regulations in various countries where the research is carried out.
The Stem Cell Bioinformatics project will facilitate comparative analysis of the stem cell molecular profiling data generated in the other EuroStemCell work packages, and foster bioinformatics collaborations among different participating groups. A Clinical Roadmap project aims to generate a statement on the steps necessary in developing clinical applications from stem cells. Clinicians, basic scientists, bio-industry representatives and ethicists will be engaged in this process through a series of workshops focused on neurological, neuromuscu-lar and skin disorders
The final flagship project involves public engagement and outreach to create a climate of open and informed debate, as it is important that practicing scientists are encouraged to participate in outreach activities, and are equipped with the necessary skill sets. EuroStemCell has dedicated considerable resources to developing a provocative, forward looking public engagement and outreach program.
