The European Union, with partners from France, Italy, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Ireland and the Netherlands has launched a €9.2 million Euro-funded research project, called ADIPOA, to find a cure for osteoarthritis. The disease affects more than 70 million EU citizens – 400, 000 of them in Ireland. The most common form of human arthritis, it is characterized by the degeneration of cartilage in joints.
The ADIPOA research team is trying to learn how adipose-derived stem cells, injected into diseased joints, can activate the regeneration of cartilage. Fat derived stem cells have become a favored alternative to bone-marrow-derived stem cells because the tissue is easily available through minimally invasive surgical procedures and it is available in large quantities so that doctors can harvest a lot of stem cells at one time. The team has just completed its Phase 1 clinical trial.
Professor Frank Barry, Scientific Director of the Regenerative Medicine Institute at Galway, is a partner in the ADIPOA project. Barry reported, “Until now there were just two possible outcomes for suffers of this progressive and debilitating disease – joint replacement surgery or life-long pain management. From the clinical trials conducted so far, we have seen the first signs of finding a cure .Using the patient’s own stem cells we have been able to treat their diseased joints and relieve their suffering and burden of pain. Whilst we are still in the early stages of clinical trials the results so far are extremely positive such that the use of stem cell therapy for osteoarthritis could become a reality for patients within the next 5 years.”
The projects’ EU funding is under the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Program for Research & Technological Development.
