Latvian Stem Cell Meeting Success

The University of Latvia hosted an international conference entitled “Stem Cells and Cell Therapy” on November 2nd, 2007. StemCellPatents.com sent a representative to observe the meeting.

Meeting organizer Dr Janis Ancans provided an overview of the state of the art in stem cell research, followed by data describing characterization of dermal, adipose, and bone marrow derived stem cell populations studied in his laboratory.

Treatment of urinary incontinence using autologous stem cells was discussed by Celogos founder Dr Christian Pinset. This presentation provided examples of stem cell therapy companies identifying unique niche indications and rapidly translating basic research findings into clinical trials. Celogos is current performing Phase II clinical trials for the urinary incontinence indication and will be moving into anal sphincter incontinence studies in the future. The very interesting thing about Dr Pinset’s talk was that data was providing showing localization of injected cells (preclinical models), as well as data from ongoing clinical studies.

Dr. Mike Haider, President and CEO of BioE, described the current state of the art in cord blood technologies, as well as discussing the company’s first US clinical product, a medical device for non-centrifugal separation of cord blood. During development of this device, Dr. Haider’s team coincidentally discovered a previously unknown stem cell population that is currently available for research purposes.

Latvia cardiologist Dr. Andrejs Erglis gave an overview of the current state of the art regarding advances in adult stem cell therapies for use in heart failure.
Medistem technologies (mdsm.ob) provided updates on its novel therapeutic platforms addressing regeneration, angiogenesis, and tolerogenesis.

In a highly exciting discussion entitled “Stem cell technologies for treatment of diabetes”, Prof. Valdis Pirags discussed the first use of cell therapy for diabetes by Latvian investigators years before such advances were made in the West. Dr. Pirags also overviewed plans for formation of a GMP/GTP facility in Riga with the initial purpose of generating islets for allo-transplantation.

New findings regarding mesenchymal stem cell mediated immune modulation, including lack of recipient mesenchymal stem cells in transplanted organs were discussed in a talk entitled “Isolation and clinical application of mesenchymal stem cells” by Dr. Martin J. Hoogduijn, Researcher, Erasmus Medical Center (The Netherlands)

Dr. Stephen Minger, Director of the Stem Cell Biology Laboratory, King's College, London (United Kingdom) provided thoughtful discussions on advances of stem cell therapy for development of dopaminergic neurons for treatment of Parkinson’s disease.