Engineered stem-cell therapy shows bone-rebuilding effect in small osteoporosis trial
A phase 1 trial of glycocalyx-edited mesenchymal stem cells in 10 women with severe osteoporosis found the treatment safe and linked to a 94% drop in fracture rate.
What to know
- Phase 1 trial in 10 women with advanced osteoporosis tested MSCs edited to better target bone marrow, delivered via IV infusion.
- Primary safety endpoint was met with no treatment-related adverse events over about six years of follow-up.
- Fracture incidence reportedly fell from 8 events/year pre-infusion to 0.5 events/year post-infusion, a 94% reduction, alongside biomarker and biopsy evidence of new bone growth.
- This is a small, early-stage safety trial, not yet evidence of efficacy in a larger controlled population; osteoporosis affects an estimated 500 million people worldwide.
“However, strikingly… the results also reveal a durable reduction in the incidence of fragility fractures accompanied by increased serum levels of bone neoformation biomarkers, coupled with radiographic and histomorphometric evidence of an osteorestorative effect within trabecular bone.”
Researchers, University of Murcia study authors · Cell (via ScienceAlert) ↗ · Sep 14
José M. Moraleda First author, hematologistUniversity of Murcia research team Study investigators
How it unfolded 2 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlespostscomments
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Story circulates on Reddit and Mastodon
The ScienceAlert report was reposted to r/science and picked up by a Mastodon science aggregator account, drawing early attention but little substantive discussion.
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-The true scale of osteoporosis is difficult to fathom. The progressive bone-weakening disease is estimated to affect as many as 500 million people worldwide, triggering up to 37 million fragility fractures a year. That's a bone breaking in someone's body every single second. While there's no cure for the condition, scientists say they may have…
2 more of the top 3 · 3 posts in this stretch
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# osteoporosis "'Living Medication' May Have Restored Bone Strength in 10 Patients With Advanced Osteoporosis (. . .) While there's no cure for the condition, scientists say they may have found a kind of 'living medication' for the disease. In a first-in-human phase 1 trial reported in Cell, researchers gave patients with advanced osteoporosis a…
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ScienceAlert publicizes the trial's fracture-reduction findings
ScienceAlert's coverage highlights the drop in fracture incidence from 8 events/year pre-infusion to 0.5 events/year post-infusion, along with biomarker and biopsy evidence of new bone formation, framing the therapy as a possible 'living medication.'
“the fracture incidence decreased from 8 events/year to 0.5 events/year – a 94 percent reduction in fragility fractures…”
— Study authors -
background
Cell study reports modified stem cells rebuilt bone in osteoporosis patients — A first-in-human phase 1 trial published in Cell describes giving 10 women aged 51–72 with advanced osteoporosis an intravenous infusion of their own mesenchymal stem/stromal cells, edited to express sialylated Lewis X so they home to bone marrow; the treatment showed no treatment-related adverse events and was linked to a 94% reduction in fragility fractures over roughly six years of follow-up.
Also covered reported alongside — the timeline has no entry for these yet
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first by GIGAZINE, 8d ago · also ScienceAlert
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