Provoking Our Inner Stem Cells

7/17/09

Fate Therapeutics, a startup based in La Jolla, CA, aims to harness the body’s ability to heal itself by developing drugs that stimulate resident stem cells. Rather than developing cell transplants to replace diseased or damaged tissue, which is the focus of a great deal of stem-cell research, Fate is searching for molecules that can control the behavior of adult stem cells in different parts of the body. The two-year-old company began its first clinical trial in May of a novel molecule that could make cord-blood transplants more effective by enhancing the activity of the stem cells that create the blood and the immune system.

The human body is full of adult stem cells–small populations of tissue-specific stem cells that are capable only of developing into the cells of their resident tissue, and whose job is to help maintain and repair that tissue. While they lack the flexible fate of embryo-derived stem cells, adult stem cells come in a variety of flavors, including those capable of making liver cells and immune and blood cells, among others. Fate Therapeutics believes that, with a little pharmaceutical prompting, these cells can be nudged to repair tissue and organ systems, or even fight back against cancer.

Read the full article at http://www.technologyreview.com/business/23017/