Understanding stem cells and its potential application in research and therapy

Panel speakers

With the aim to share knowledge on the different types of stem cells and their potential applications in research and therapy, UTAR Centre for Stem Cell Research (CSCR) and Majlis Kanser Nasional (MAKNA) jointly organised a webinar titled “Stem Cells: From Bench to Clinic" on 8 January 2021.  The webinar which was hosted at Microsoft Teams saw more than 100 participants comprising of post-graduate students and researchers who are working in the stem cell field.

CSCR Chairperson Prof Dr Alan Ong Han Kiat welcomed the participants and speakers, “I’m delighted to have with us our esteemed speakers in sharing knowledge and expertise to our participants. At the same time, I would also like to thank all of you for joining us today and wish all of you a fruitful session from this webinar.”

Prof Chua explaining the tumour organoids derived from human prostate cancer

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China Prof Chua Chee Wai presented on the “Application of the organoid technology in the study of prostate stem cell and cancer biology” during the webinar. He said, “One of the major obstacles in the study of prostate luminal progenitors and cancer cells is the lacking of in vitro assay for luminal progenitors and cancer cells because these cells are difficult to culture. Therefore, prostate cancer research is restricted by a handful of established cell lines, thus hampering the study of tumour heterogeneity, drug responses and stromal-epithelial interactions. The ideal in vitro culture system should carry three characteristics, which are long term maintenance and propagation of luminal population, the ability to preserve androgen responsiveness and AR signalling and the capability to integrate different stromal components.” He spoke about luminal features of the prostate, novel organoid culture assay, serial regression and regeneration and other related topics.

Dr Teoh sharing her knowledge on cell-based therapy

The second sharing session was presented by FMHS Dr Teoh Hoon Koon who spoke on “Mesenchymal stem cells: Application in cell and gene therapy”. She shared about mesenchymal stem cells, therapeutic properties, mechanism of action, MSC-based therapy, genetically modified MSC and the challenges of MSC-based therapy. “MSC have distinct characteristics that make them an attractive candidate in cell-based therapy for the treatment of human diseases. They are easy to isolate and cultured in the lab and produced in a large scale for clinical usage. MSC also has the homing ability to the site of tissue or organ damage while exhibiting little or low immunogenicity. Moreover, MSC secretes bioactive substances that regulate the local cellular responses to injury. Some of the challenges of MSC-based therapy in the clinical application are the heterogeneity of MSC, side effect from administration of exogenous MSC, short survival of administered MSC and pro-tumour activity,” said Dr Teoh.

Dr Wong speaking on the synergistic effects of BMMSC and revascularisation

The webinar was followed by a presentation by Cytopeutics Sdn Bhd Malaysia Dr Wong Chee Yin on “Current development of stem cell therapy in Malaysia: A perspective from a private company”. He gave an introduction on Cytopeutics Sdn Bhd which conducted research on Mesenchymal stem cells for more than 10 years and spoke on MSC treatment for heart disease, clinical trial on autologous BM-MSCs treatment for chronic severe dilated cardiomyopathy, MSC treatment for critical limb ischemia, acute stroke and intervertebral disc disease as well as the difference between autologous and allogenic. He said, “The current treatment procedure for heart disease are angioplasty and bypass, however, there are limitations to these two procedures. These procedures can only supply the blood back to ischemic regions but do not regenerate heart tissues. Autologous need time to culture, and some patients may not be suitable for BMA or tissue extraction for MSC isolation and the elderly person has lower potency MSC while allogenic can be found off the shelf and, can find a fit and better donor.”

Tai presenting the iPSC clinical trials since 2014

Cytopeutics Sdn Bhd Malaysia Tai Li Hui shared on “iPSC technology: Their role in regenerative medicine” where she introduced induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), differentiation of potential of iPSC and iPSC clinical trials. “The two key characteristics of iPSC are self-renewal capacity and it is differentiated into specialised cell types of endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm. iPSC has shown great application in four major fields known as regenerative medicine and cell-based therapy, disease modelling, drug discovery and human developmental biology. The challenges in iPSC application are such as derivation of clinical-grade iPSC and iPSC-derived therapeutic cell products, genomic instability, the risk of potential tumorigenicity, immune rejection complication, phenotypic heterogeneity of the therapeutic cell products and large cohort of iPSC line for polygenic and sporadic disease aetiology,” said Tai.

Dr Erica explaining the reprogramming cells

Majlis Kanser Nasional Malaysia Senior Scientific Officer Dr Erica Choon Pei Feng presented on “Cancer-derived iPSC as cancer model: An overview” during the last sharing. She spoke about iPSC, cancer cells reprogramming, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, glioblastoma-derived iPSC, non-small cell lung cancer, chronic myeloid leukaemia, osteosarcoma and other related topics. She said, “The advancement of reprogramming of cancer cells opened an enormous opportunity to study tumour development and progression as well as drug therapy development. Gene expression and functional data suggested that the involvement of GAADD45G in OS development and progression that remains to be elucidated. Further study involving overexpression of GADD45G in OS and other cancer cells may provide more important information on the role of GADD45G in OS, as well as to study the progression of OS from OS-iPSC to differentiation into terminal osteoblast and to elucidate the aberrations in oncogenes expression during OS development.”