"Regenerative medicine technology", represented by stem cell technology, is the "third medical revolution" following pharmaceutical and surgical treatment. Stem cells can differentiate and form any tissue in the body and can self-replicate to produce more stem cells, making them a key area of focus on the international medical frontier in recent years.
Such advanced scientific research is in fact right beside us.
Good news!Another stem cell project filedOn October 20, 2021, the project "Prospective, Randomized, Controlled Clinical Study of Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cell Injection in the Treatment of Diabetic Foot Wounds", submitted by President Jin Peisheng and his team at the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, successfully passed the National Health Commission's filing review. This is the first stem cell therapy research project for diabetic foot approved nationwide. All preparatory work is now in place, and 60 diabetic foot subjects are planned to be recruited to receive umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell therapy free of charge.
01Stimulating tissue cell regeneration and accelerating wound healing — promising in conquering diabetic footIn recent years, numerous research reports have been published on the use of stem cell transplantation for the treatment of diseases such as cerebral ischemia, myocardial infarction, and liver cirrhosis, and the favorable therapeutic outcomes have attracted considerable patient attention. For most people, however, umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells remain an unfamiliar term. So what are umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells, and what do they have to do with ordinary people?
Each of us develops from a fertilized egg of about 0.5 mm into a complex human body composed of approximately 60 trillion cells of more than 200 types. About 150 million red blood cells die in our body every day, and 30,000 skin cells die every minute. In adults, bone is renewed every 7 to 10 years. All of this requires stem cells to differentiate into new cells to replenish the loss. It can be said that our growth, development, and metabolism can proceed normally only because of the existence of stem cells.
Stem cells are even more significant in the treatment of disease. Birth, aging, illness, and death are natural laws of life. Disease often begins, under the action of specific causes, with damage to a single organ and gradually extends to multi-organ pathology, leading to multi-organ failure or loss of function. The essence of stem cell therapy is to provide seed cells to damaged organs, enhance the body's repair capacity, improve the local microenvironment, and accelerate tissue healing. Many diseases for which there is currently no effective treatment may, in the future, be addressed through stem cell therapy.
The stem cell therapy research project for diabetic foot submitted by the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University this time involves injecting patients with umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells. These are mesenchymal stem cells isolated and cultured from neonatal umbilical cord tissue, and their abundant source, ease of acquisition, large cell numbers, low contamination risk, low immunogenicity, strong proliferative capacity, and absence of ethical restrictions make them one of the most ideal sources of stem cells today.
Dr. Li Qiang from the Department of Plastic Surgery at the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University explains that umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells are neonatal stem cells with strong secretory function. They produce a wide range of growth factors, cytokines, exosomes, and other molecules, enhance the body's anti-free-radical capacity, promote angiogenesis and cell proliferation and differentiation, suppress inflammatory responses, regulate cell adhesion and migration, and stimulate tissue cell regeneration, thereby accelerating wound healing and tissue remodeling.
Prior to filing, the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University had conducted thorough preclinical research, verifying the efficacy and safety of umbilical cord stem cells from multiple angles to safeguard the health of trial subjects.
02Successfully passed the National Health Commission filing review
President Jin Peisheng explained that stem cell technology is the most promising and potential biotechnology of this century. The 21st century will be a century of life sciences and technologies represented by biotechnology, and is most likely to bring new breakthroughs in the medical field.
Precisely for this reason, stem cell research has gone beyond the realm of pure basic research, rising to the strategic level of national development and becoming a major scientific issue closely watched by governments around the world. To compete for this strategic high ground, governments have invested heavily and provided strong policy support, hoping to be the first to master the key technologies of stem cell therapy and to create enormous economic and social benefits.
According to Zhang Aijun, director of the Department of Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery at the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, China currently has more than 100 million diabetic patients, of whom 15% develop poor lower-limb blood supply and impaired wound healing due to high-glucose-induced vascular and nerve damage, ultimately leading to diabetic foot. Diabetic foot has now become a serious threat to public health in China, with a total of more than 15 million patients. According to statistics, somewhere in the world a patient undergoes amputation due to diabetic foot every 30 seconds.
It is reported that China's basic research in stem cells leads the world, but lags behind the United States and Europe in terms of translation and clinical application. In March 2016, the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the State Food and Drug Administration jointly established the Expert Committee on Stem Cell Clinical Research and launched the filing process for stem cell clinical research. To date, China has 111 institutions and 101 projects filed for stem cell clinical research.
