Lead Inventors:
Michael R. Rosen,
Richard B. Robinson,
Peter R. Brink,
Ira S. Cohen
Heart Disease Treatment Limited ~
Myocardial infarction affects more than 500,000 patients in the United States each year. Conventional therapy was limited by insufficient endogenous cardiac regeneration to compensate for cardiomyocytes death. New therapy such as tissue engineering of functional cardiac patches represents a potential way to replace the damaged myocardium; however it will mostly remain a theoretical prospect unless the requirements for providing a high number of therapeutic cells can be met. Recent breakthrough in embryonic stem cell research may offer alternative cell sources; however these cells may generate immunogenic or tumorigenic problems, as well as ethical dilemmas.
This technology provides a method to derive cardiogenic cells from fibroblasts to help regenerate or repair diseased or damaged heart tissue.
Heart Disease Therapy Creates Cardiogenic Cells to Repair Damaged Heart Tissue ~
This technology comprises a method:
• Generating a culture of fibroblasts from a cardiac or non cardiac tissue sample
• Culturing of the fibroblasts in a suitable culture vessel containing cell culture medium and biochemical agents for a time sufficient to allow the dedifferentiation and proliferation
• Yielding a population of cardiogenic cells and delivering these cardiogenic cells to the heart
The transplantation result showed the delivery of these cardiogenic cells can improve cardiac function.
Applications:
• The technology can be used a potential method to generate large scale of patient specific cardiogenic cells for cardiac therapy.
• The technology can also be used an in vitro cell model studying cardiac differentiation.
Advantages:
• This technique provides a simple and non controversial method to derive therapeutic cardiogenic cells from a small sample of a patient’s fibroblasts, which could not be achieved by other existing methods
• This technology offers precise control over cells proliferation, dedifferentiation and re-differentiation
Patent Status: Patent Pending
Licensing Status: Available for Licensing and Sponsored Research Support
