Panel, Conference Presentation
Four Ways Stem Cells Will Change the Face of Medicine
- CIRM's $2.2 billion over a decade of funding is expected to yield significant research data and results within the "next few years," with a goal to sustain operations for "many years" despite a potential $3 billion fund exhaustion in "three years" if alternative funding is not secured.
- Scientists anticipate that in the "coming years," embryonic stem cells will advance toward curing degenerative diseases and creating transplantable organs, with specific clinical trials for embryonic stem cell-based pancreas tissue in Type 1 diabetes expected "in the next years" and retinal treatments or ALS neural stem cell trials occurring by "2020 or so."
- Gene therapy and cell modification techniques are projected to become a "gold standard" for immune and blood disorders like sickle cell disease, with strategies utilizing patient-specific stem cells estimated to reach phase one trials in "five to six years."
- Industry timelines suggest that if disease modeling drugs require clinical trials, the market entry may take "five to ten years," while the long-term outlook anticipates transformative advancements, including potential in-vivo aging deceleration, over the next "10 to 15 years."
- Regulatory progress for an HIV cure is underway with FDA submissions targeted for "later in the year," though current project funding expires on April 30, and a preclinical development award is needed to reach an IND filing.
- Researchers plan to screen thousands of drugs simultaneously to reverse disease courses in conditions like Alzheimer's, with hopes that cell therapies will become affordable and widely accessible similar to the cost reduction trends seen in genome mapping.
- Risks include a critical funding cliff where CIRM's resources may run out in "three years" before proof of concept is reached, potentially causing infrastructure collapse, alongside a bottleneck in early-stage work caused by diminished NIH funding.
- Future objectives include exploiting adult stem cells for tissue regeneration in myocardial infarctions, strokes, wound healing, and balding, while the Calico company aims to dramatically increase human lifespan magnitudes with strategies likely announced "at some point in the near future."