Patient had a new piece of her own heart attached to her old one.
We often report on scientific and medical breakthroughs that have the potential to change the world, but more often than not, they seem to just disappear. You may even remember back in 2006, when Shinya Yamanaka announced that he had converted mature skin cells into pluripotent stem cells, cells which are capable of taking on any function. These induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells even won Yamanaka the Nobel Prize in 2012.
But after that, not much came of it outside of research labs, until 29 September, when the world’s first commercialized iPS treatment, ReHeart, took place at Osaka Police Hospital. ReHeart was developed by Osaka University Professor Emeritus Yoshiki Sawa and his biotech startup Cuorips and involves creating a sheet of heart muscle cells from iPS cells and applying it to the heart of a patient suffering from severe heart disease.
▼ ReHeart muscle sheets and a model of a functioning heart made from 200 million iPS cells were on display at the Osaka Expo last year.
The treatment was approved by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare with the condition that its efficacy is verified in the next seven years. Having been tested on eight people in the past, the first general patient was a woman in her 50s who suffered from severe heart failure after having a heart attack. The surgery took about 50 minutes, and no problems were reported.
Sawa acknowledged that 20 years was a long wait for the practical application of this medical discovery, but even that was only achieved through the hard work of medical professionals as well as the support of private companies and the government. He hopes things will be able to move forward more quickly from this point onward.
Readers of the news, however, expressed a great deal of impatience in online comments, especially when it comes to potential iPS treatments for their own personal afflictions.
“That’s great and all, but how about making some hair! HAIR!!!”
“We’ll need to create tooth, hair, and kidney regeneration next.”
“It’s only gotten this far?”
“When will we see the regeneration of optic nerve bundles and retinas?”
“I would like to have two more arms.”
“I wish they could make something that cures cold sores instantly.”
“I wish they had sheets of brain cells too.”
“Dr. Yamanaka… It’s time… to talk about hair.”
“Baldness isn’t life-threatening, so it’s on the back burner.”
Though iPS cells do have the potential to restore hair growth, the cost would probably be astronomical. Estimates for ReHeart are upwards of 15 million yen (US$96,000), but Japan’s national healthcare systems would only require a patient to pay about 30 percent of that, with further reductions made based on their age and income.
However, ReHeart is simply a sheet of uniform heart muscle cells, whereas recreating even a single hair follicle is considerably more complex, with multiple different types of cells working in unison. Also, since it’s not a life-threatening condition, insurance won’t cover hair-growth therapy, requiring the patient to pay the full amount. Needless to say, anyone seeking new hair this way will have to pay an arm and a leg, and then pay again for a new arm and leg generated by iPS cells.
On the bright side, another treatment that was approved alongside ReHeart was Amchepry, dopaminergic neural progenitor cells created from iPS cells and used to help restore motor function to patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease.
Seeing effective treatments for these two illnesses that inflict pain and suffering on millions of people around the world is encouraging, and better late than never.
Source: YTV News, Itai News, Cell & Gene Therapy Review
Top image: Pakutaso
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