Tag louisville Archives – Advance Stem Cell …

Posted on October 31st, 2013 Krystal Deutsch

The University of Louisvilles Suzanne Ildstad is shown with research coordinator Thomas Miller. Ildstad, her company Regenerex, UofL and Novartis recently signed a global licensing pact to develop her facilitating cell therapy that could make

UofL enters licensing agreement to develop stem cell therapy

LOUISVILLE, Ky., Oct. 30, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ The University of Louisville today announced that researcher Dr. Suzanne Ildstad, representing Regenerex LLC, has entered into a license and research collaboration agreement with Novartis to provide access to stem cell technology that has the potential to help transplant patients avoid taking anti-rejection medicine for life and could serve as a platform for treatment of other diseases.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20131030/DC07303)

The University of Louisville and Regenerex LLC announced the research collaboration agreement which will significantly enhance the universitys Institute for Cellular Therapeutics ability to carry out cutting edge research related to the Facilitating Cell, a novel cell discovered by Ildstad, a professor of surgery and director of the institute at UofL as well as CEO of Regenerex. Underpinning this collaboration is an exclusive global licensing and research collaboration agreement between Regenerex and Novartis.

Ildstad published results in a March 2012 Science Translational Medicine demonstrating the efficacy of this process, known as Facilitating Cell Therapy, or FCRx which is currently undergoing Phase II trials. Five of eight kidney transplant patients were able to stop taking about a dozen pills a day to suppress their immune systems. It was the first study of its kind where the donor and recipient did not have to be biologically related and did not have to be immunologically matched.

In a standard kidney transplant, the donor agrees to donate a kidney. In the approach being studied, the individual is asked to donate part of their immune system as well. The process begins about one month before the kidney transplant, when bone marrow stem cells are collected from the blood of the kidney donor using a process called apheresis. The donor cells are then processed, where they are enriched for developing facilitating cells believed to help transplants succeed. During the same time period, the recipient undergoes pre-transplant conditioning, which includes radiation and chemotherapy to suppress the bone marrow so the donors stem cells have more space to grow in the recipients body.

One day after the kidney is transplanted into the recipient, the donor stem cells engraft in the marrow of the recipient and give rise to other specialized blood cells, like immune cells. The goal is to create an environment where two bone marrow systems co-exist and function in one person. Following transplantation, the recipient takes anti-rejection drugs which are decreased over time with the goal to stop a year after the transplant.

In 1998, Ildstad was one of the first recruits to the University of Louisville under the Commonwealths Bucks for Brains initiative, advanced by former Gov. Paul Patton. As the Jewish Hospital Distinguished Chair in Transplantation Research, Ildstad brought a team of 25 families from Philadelphia to join the University of Louisville. In the following years the team has continued to examine the facilitating cell (FCRx) platform technology for the treatment of kidney transplant recipients as well as considering its potential for the treatment of red blood cell disorders, inherited metabolic storage disorders of childhood, and autoimmune disorders.

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