The Department of Anatomy at the University of Malta presently houses a PhD student, Ila Tewari (one of the first international students of the department), and a Master’s student (also international) working towards improving the services which can be provided in the future for patients using stem cells.

Stem cells are cells  found naturally in the body and capable of producing many tissues upon their injury or damage. For example, had we no stem cells, the first dose of chemotherapy would wipe out our bone marrow and kill us.

Stem cells however, while repairing many cells in the body, are not able to repair all. For example, after a heart attack, the dead heart muscle is replaced by scar tissue not new muscle. Therefore, the function of the  heart deteriorates after a heart attack. Similarly,  cartilage is lost in arthritis, but replacing it, using such stem cells, holds the potential to cure joint pain.

Pluripotent stem cells (those which can produce all the bodies tissues) are not easily found in the adult or child and till a few years ago were only made  from disaggregated human embryos, causing considerable ethical concern, as well as being limited in terms of tissue matching.

In 2006, Dr Sinya Yamanaka, a Japanese medical doctor involved in stem cell research,  managed to make what he called induced pluripotent stem cells  or iPSCs, whereby using an adult cell from anyone, he could convert it to a pluripotent stem cell. Apart from removing most ethical issues, this capability to produce these cells from any donor, meant that one could theoretically make cells from the skin of each heart attack victim thus making heart cells from his/her own cells to give back to their own heart. For this research, Dr Yamanaka won both the Nobel Prize and its American equivalent, the Breakthrough Prize.

While many imperfections in Yamanaka’s original methods have been ironed out, the efficiency of the conversion is still low, resulting in the technology not having easily entered the clinic, but remaining primarily a research technique and one for the wealthy few. This low efficiency also limits research in the area.

Our labs, with Ms Tewari at the forefront, are working on improving upon this low rate of conversion and  are progressing  slowly but surely towards this goal. We hope that in the not too distant future, such cells will be available for all patients, possibly made soon after their birth and stored for all future uses throughout their lifetime.

The development of a  stem cell facility,  which can handle, grow and process such stem cells, should be a  target for the Health Ministry to look into in the near future, as, these pluripotent cells will revolutionarise the way we manage disease.

Prof. Pierre Schembri-Wismayer is a cancer and stem cell researcher at the Anatomy Department of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery. He also has an interest in biomechanics and collaborates on a regular basis with engineering colleagues.

Did you know?

• The wristwatch was invented in 1904 by Louis Cartier.

• Lobsters, like snails and spiders, have blue blood due to the presence of hemocyanin which contains copper. In contrast, vertebrates and many other animals have red blood from iron-rich hemoglobin.

• The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

• The average person walks the equivalent of three times around the world in a lifetime.

• We cut down around 27,000 trees every day to make toilet paper.

• The earth has over 80,000 species of edible plants. We only eat about 30 varieties.

For more trivia see: www.um.edu.mt/think

Sound bites

• A drug that targets the appetite control system in the brain could bring about significant weight loss in people with clinical obesity, according to new research. On average, people lost five kilos over a 12-week period after receiving weekly doses of semaglutide, a compound currently being developed as a treatment for diabetes. Most of the weight loss came from a reduction in body fat, researchers at the University of Leeds found after reviewing its effectiveness. The drug reduced food cravings, with people choosing to eat smaller meals and decreasing their preferences for foods with a higher fat content. The study also added to the scientific understanding of how drug therapy can be used to tackle obesity.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171023131955.htm

• More teens than ever are not getting enough sleep. A new study led by San Diego State University’s professor of psychology Jean Twenge finds that adolescents today are sleeping fewer hours per night than older generations. One possible reason? Young people are trading their sleep for smartphone time. Researchers found that about 40 per cent of adolescents in 2015 slept less than seven hours a night, which is 58 per cent more than in 1991 and 17 per cent more than in 2009. They further learned that the more time young people reported spending online, the less sleep they got. Teens who spent five hours a day online were 50 per cent more likely to not sleep enough than their peers who only spent an hour online each day.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171019100416.htm

To find out some more interesting science news, tune in Radju Malta on Saturday mornings at 11.05 am and listen to Radio Mocha.