Mechanical Manipulation of Stem Cells Promises New Treatments

New stem cell therapies may result from a novel method that McGill researchers have created for mechanically modifying stem cells, which has not yet reached its full therapeutic potential.

A new approach to treating a wide range of illnesses, including multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, glaucoma, and Type 1 diabetes, has been hailed as stem cell therapy. Controlling the sorts of cells that emerge from stem cells has proven to be far more complex than initially imagined, which is one reason why the predicted advancements have not yet materialized.

The great strength of stem cells is their ability to adapt to the body, replicate and transform themselves into other kinds of cells, whether these are brain cells, heart muscle cells, bone cells or other cell types, but that is also one of the biggest challenges of working with them.”

Allen Ehrlicher, Associate Professor, Department of Bioengineering, McGill University

Recently, a group of researchers from McGill University found that they could create precisely targeted cells that they could instruct to become either bone or fat cells by stretching, bending, and flattening the nucleus of stem cells to varying degrees.

Ehrlicher, the study's senior author and team leader, believes that this finding will probably be used initially to treat osteoporosis or bone injuries. It may also be related to dental or craniofacial repair.

However, he issues a warning: before this new knowledge of stem cell differentiation results in clinical treatments, it will probably take a decade or two. This research will be implemented into medical treatments with the support of ongoing stem cell manipulation and testing.

The next stages of the study will entail figuring out the molecular processes that underlie the various cells' ability to stretch into cells that can either become fat or bone and then apply this understanding to 3D fibre cultures.