Medicine–

Major Grant Supports Research for Vascular Disease

A large grant from the National Heart Lung Blood Institute, (NHLBI) will provide John Cooke, MD, PhD, and a team of researchers’ needed funds to develop stem cells for vascular regeneration. The research is directed towards people suffering from peripheral artery disease, PAD, which symptoms include, pain, difficulty walking, and in extreme cases gangrene.

johncooke
John Cooke, MD, PhD, with post docs (left to right) Drs. Rufaihah Jalil, Yohannes T. Ghebremariam, and Ngan Huang.
“here’s an impression by family practitioners or internists that it’s a surgical problem. But there is a lot we can do for these people,” said Cooke, professor of medicine (cardiovascular medicine). “Mainly, protect them from heart attack and stroke because if you have disease in your legs, you have disease in your heart vessels and brain vessels.” Today, people are treated aggressively with cholesterol lowering medication. Cooke, however, is interested in creating endogenous biological bypasses to improve blood flow to the limbs.

His work builds on a previous discovery by researchers who found that a differentiated somatic cell could be turned into a stem cell by over expressing the handful of genes that encode its reprogramming factors. This handful of proteins expressed by the cell can enable it to become pluripotent.

“The idea,” said Cooke “is to take skin or fat cells from a person with vascular disease, turn those cells into stem cells that we could grow, and make into vascular cells. Working with autologous cells, the immune system should not reject them. The vascular cells we derived from stem cells, they’re smart, and they know where to go.”

In animal studies at his lab, the cells were directly injected into a limb of a mouse affected with PAD.  They incorporated into the microvasculature, enhanced blood vessel growth, and blood flow. Or according to Cooke, another possibility is to place the stem cells in a type of a tube and develop a bypass, a project he is working on in parallel. His intent is to develop the cells, and make them ready for a clinical trial. Although, he is focused on the periphery, he believes that techniques, which apply to the lower extremities, might apply to other areas, like the heart.

Cooke’s group at Stanford put the proposal together with researchers at John Hopkins, who received a similar grant to work on diseases affecting blood cells.  “Together we’ll be working on blood and vascular diseases.  We should be able to leverage what they learn and they will synergistically interact with us. The two groups together will enable us to move much faster,” said Cooke.

Stanford Medicine Resources:

Footer Links: