The biotechnology company InGeneron will test its patented Transpose RT system in a clinical study that examined the ability of regenerative cells from a patient’s own fat to enhance cartilage healing after knee surgery.
Qualified patients are being recruited through the Fondren Orthopedic Group in Houston. According to the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, over 4 million knee arthroscopies are performed worldwide each year. Damaged knee cartilage is very difficult to treat and can lead to chronic pain and long-term disability.
Robert Burke, who is serving as the principal investigator of this clinical study, is an orthopedic surgeon with the Fondren Orthopedic Group in Houston. Burke thinks that stem cells taken from a patient’s own fat may enhance cartilage healing. He studied adding patient-derived regenerative cells to the knee during arthroscopic surgery for particular patients, and compared them to patients who had arthroscopic surgery without added fat-derived stem cells.
Arthroscopic surgery is a common procedure is commonly used to treat damaged cartilage, and the patients who had received arthroscopic surgery were randomly chose to either receive fat-derived stem cells or not receive them. Burke, will then monitor these patients for the next 12 months after surgery to determine if the added cells improved cartilage healing.
According to Burke, “Articular cartilage, the smooth surface covering the joints at the ends of bones, has no good way of healing on its own. The body doesn’t create enough new cartilage of the same type to repair the damage.” Better treatments would use various techniques to help the body make new cartilage.
“Stem cells and other regenerative cells that we can obtain fat have the potential to do that,” said Burke. Such regenerative cells can divide and mature to form several types of cells and tissues. and are found in multiple places in the body. Fat that lies just below the skin is one of the easiest places to obtain stem cells.
The InGeneron Transpose RT System uses a small amount of fat, which is removed and processed to separate out the regenerative cells. The separated adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells are then immediately placed into the area of damaged cartilage during knee surgery. Once in the knee, these cells may divide to make new cartilage cells.
This kind of biological activity has been seen in laboratory studies and veterinary medicine. However, Burke’s study will be one of the first to test the technology in humans for treating cartilage damage. Like other types of stem cell-based therapies, the treatment is not currently licensed for human use in the United States but it is registered in Europe, Mexico, and other countries. Following the Texas Medical Board’s rules about the use of stem cells for treatment, this study is under the supervision of the research review board at Texas Orthopedic Hospital, where all of the patients will undergo surgeries.
This is a two-year study.
Beyond the Dish 