Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

Mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSCs) have the unique ability to attenuate the immune system and therefore are being developed as a promising cellular therapeutic to treat diverse immune and inflammatory disorders such as septic shock, multiple sclerosis and heart attacks. The efficacy or potency of MSCs is variable and the lack of highly specific MSC markers to measure its potency remains an impediment to developing this promising cellular therapeutic. To address this problem, our multidisciplinary team of outstanding biosystem engineers, stem cell biologists and system biologists will elucidate a comprehensive set of markers that can be used to reproducibly and prospectively assess the immune regulatory functions of MSCs. The resulting set of biomarkers will significantly contribute to the development of this promising cellular therapeutic. Sensitive tests to detect the resulting biomarkers can feasibly be performed using standard lab or hospital diagnostic equipment. We will work with our clinical and industrial collaborators to improve the identification of potent MSC cell lots, design highly controlled manufacturing processes to produce clinical-grade MSCs and predict the efficacy of the clinical cell dose with the goal of developing MSC-derived cellular therapeutics to treat Canadians afflicted with diverse immune and inflammatory medical conditions, some of which have no cure.