Study, shortlisted for German award, could lead to ethical and efficient adult stem cell production at fraction of cost and time

A team of University of Malta researchers has been shortlisted for an international award after conducting breakthrough research that could see the future of adult stem cell production carried out faster and cheaper, and without ethical quandaries.

The team is made up of associate professor Pierre Schembri Wismayer, PhD candidate Ila Tewari Jasra and Maria Mifsud from the Department of Anatomy in the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery.

They have been selected as finalists for a German prize the Falling Walls Life Sciences Award that rewards the top 10 breakthroughs of the year in different scientific fields.

The team built on the Nobel Prize-winning research of Shinya Yamanaka, who in 2006 managed to generate the equivalent of an embryonic stem cell from adult fibroblasts. Yamanaka was able to take a complicated cell and revert it into a younger cell without destroying any embryos

While the process is widely used for research purposes, it is seldom applied to treatment due to the cost and time it takes to produce the stem cells, Schembri Wismayer told Times of Malta.

Stem cell treatment has a big advantage when addressing disease that sees a loss of tissue but its not used so much mostly due to efficiency issues.

While stem cells can be used to cure disease, they are most commonly adult stem cells harvested from fat and bone marrow or from embryonic cells. Apart from being ethically contentious, there is the risk of rejection since it is not the patients own cells that are being used, he explained.

Were hoping that well be able to make stem cells accessible for everyone

Apart from this, genetic modification is a lengthy process with an efficiency rate of less than one per cent. Samples must also be taken from a biopsy, which is quite painful, and requires animal cells to act as feeder cells.

As we know, wherever you have a combination of human and animal cells you also run the risk of diseases, Schembri Wismayer said.

He and Tewari Jasra were able to produce induced pluripotent stem cells with an 80 per cent efficiency rate using simple and widely available chemicals in a fraction of the time it typically takes.

By comparison, the Roslin Institute, which created Dolly the sheep, require between three to four months to create stem cells that sell in the region of 20,000.

The University of Malta researchers were able to make them far more cheaply in the span of three weeks.

Were hoping that well be able to make stem cells accessible for everyone, Schembri Wismayer said.

Potentially we could have a stem cell bank that matched anyone in the population. We could have cells made for them before they even get diseases.

As part of her PhD research, Tewari Jasra has been working on the breakthrough for close to four-and-a-half years.

Thanking the universitys knowledge transfer team, Schembri Wismayer said he hoped recognition for the research would spur on other local academics and convince institutions that there is research worth funding on the island.

I think its very important for Malta to be aware that we can do good science with very little funding, he said.

Ila didnt have a research fund; we had to beg, steal and borrow from so many different sources just for her to be able to do the research.

We are not the only people with ideas; if investment is done right we could move closer to the ideal of an often mentioned but seldom supported knowledge-based economy.

Its very exciting to see that no one is publishing anything close to what weve managed, he continues.

The response were getting is so encouraging. When you write to established journals and institutes and you hear back within a day, you start thinking you know, I actually might have something here.

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Local researchers make stem cell breakthrough - Times of Malta