Impact

The area of stem cell therapeutics is expected to lead to treatment of diseases with no current effective treatment options as well as contribute to tissue-engineering of new tissues or organs for replacement purposes.

Promising disease areas for MSC applications currently include

• cardiovascular applications, e.g, repair after myocardial infarction
• inflammatory conditions such as Graft vs Host and Crohn's disease and
• arthritis and other orthopaedic problems.

A key issue for the application of MSCs to these and other conditions is the lack of a consistent process for the generation of clearly-characterised MSCs in industrial quantities. This is the core issue which PurStem is addressing.

The particular interest of consortium members is in arthritis and bone repair.

Osteoarthritis is a disease associated with ageing and is the most common of the rheumatic diseases. PurStem will enable the translation of promising stem cell therapies in this area to treatment of joint injuries that contribute to development of osteoarthritis as well as potential therapies that prevent progression of disease. These novel regenerative therapies will result in reducing the economic and social costs of the disease to the European Community. In 2005 the European League against Rheumatism (EULAR) estimated that approx. 100 million people in Europe suffer from rheumatic diseases, accounting for half of all chronic conditions in persons aged over 65 (www.boneandjointdecade.org ) with the quality of life of about 7.5% of the European population severely and permanently diminished by pain and functional impairment (Badley & Tennant, 1993 Ann. Rheum. Dis. 52:6-13). Economically, the current estimated cost of 200 billion Euro per year is set to increase as the European population ages.

Problems with repair of bone as a result of trauma, cancer or other causes also exert a heavy burden on the European community with a potential patient population of over 3 million in the area of bone reconstruction.

The primary social benefits from PurStem will accrue from improvements in treatment options in these and other areas which will result in improved quality of life of patients, reduction in the economic burden associated with chronic disease and cost savings, reproducible treatments and lower risk of results dispersion and uncertainties.