FSU researchers hope to make breakthrough in stroke treatment through cell therapy

When it comes to incidents of stroke and the impact it can have on lives, the numbers are sobering.

Someone has a stroke every 40 seconds. Every four minutes, someone dies of stroke, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The overwhelming majority of all strokes, or about 87 percent, CDC records show, are ischemic strokes, which occur when blood flow to the brain is blocked.

What’s critical to any chance of survival of a stroke, referred to as an attack of the brain, is getting treatment as soon as possible.

And, while the best-known immediate treatment is through drugs that can help dissolve a blood clot, or emergency surgery in dire circumstances, two researchers at Florida State University are busily moving forward in trying to identify an extension of that treatment through the use of cells.

Samuel Grant, associate professor of chemical and biomedical engineering, is director of the MRI user program at the MagLab on campus; Teng Ma is a professor and chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering.

The two have at their disposal the powerful MRI machine located at the College of Medicine, as well as instruments at the Mag Lab to help further their studies.

Last August, the two faculty members were awarded a $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. Their previous work had been supported by the American Heart Association and the Florida Department of Health’s biomedical research division.

Researchers targeting ways to break up blood clots, which can lead to a stroke

The two researchers are looking at ways to treat stroke victims in addition to the most common method of administering drugs that break up the blood clots,which lead to a stroke.

Drugs are only effective if the patient gets to an emergency room as soon as possible after experiencing a stroke. Their research is focused on cell therapy, which requires them to examine the benefits of using mesenchymal stem cells found in the body’s bone marrow and belly fat.

“Our long-term goal is to develop cell therapy technology for stroke treatment,” Ma said. “Specifically, we will develop technology that allows us to produce therapeutically competent cells as well as the ability to monitor their fate in the brain. The knowledge gained will help establish cell therapy as a viable technology in stroke treatment.”

The goal of the research

The goal is to determine how to pretreat these cells and transplant them into the brain.

“We are trying to deal with strokes outside the five-hour window of treatment, where surgical intervention or pharmaceuticals try to restore blood flow,” Grant said of the critical period of saving stroke victims from long-term effects. “Outside of that window, current techniques can do more harm than good.”

Time is critical when addressing stroke victims, in much the same way it is in treating heart attack victims, Ma said.

“We use the stem cells to repair the tissue (around the brain),” Ma said. “We will be able to visualize, using the high-field MRI, where these cells go and how long they will be able to stay in the brain and how much they can repair the tissue.”

Ma said others also are experimenting with stem cells as a treatment for stroke victims, but results are incomplete.

In their research, the professors will try to answer:

How to produce large quantities of potent stem cells

Determining the fate of the cells once they have been transplanted.

“Looking into how we can better prepare the cells so they will be more effective as a treatment,” Grant said.

That would allow for advancements in producing the cells as a pharmaceutical treatment, Ma said.

“It would be a post-five-hour treatment,” he said, after surgery or after medications. “The surgeries and drugs only remove the blockage. The stem cell therapy is for the possibility of repairing and recovering at-risk tissue.

“Once you inject these cells, the cells will secrete different molecules that will help tissue to regenerate.”

Watch it: Teng Ma and Samuel Grant on cell therapy as stroke treatment

Recovery: Stroke survivor Floyd Garrett on his recovery

Front lines: Local doctors on the front lines of treating stroke

It still would be important to remove the blood clot, if at all possible.

“You remove the clot and then you add the cells to regenerate the tissue around the brain,” Ma said, explaining the procedure will help the patient recover much faster and regain lost functions associated with the stroke.

“We want the stem-cell-based therapy to become a mainstay in stroke treatment,” Ma said.

How the research is conducted

To conduct their study, the researchers get “purified” cells from Tulane University that have originated with blood marrow donors.

The cell culture work is done in Ma’s lab at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the imaging work is done at the Mag Lab, Grant said.

“Using live cells is a new technology,” Ma said.

What’s critical is determining how to make the cells in large enough quantities to move to the clinical application phase of the research.

Grant is focusing on analyzing the cells to determine how long they stay active once they are injected and what they once that’s done.

Ma is developing techniques to produce enough cells for use in clinical studies.

“Research will tell us which cells perform the best so we can optimize the cells before they are introduced into the patient,” Grant said.

Contact senior writer Byron Dobson at bdobson@tallahassee.com or on Twitter @byrondobson.

About this series

May is National Stroke Awareness Month. Throughout the month, the Democrat will be spotlighting stories on survivors, treatment, research and prevention in conjunction with our sponsor Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare.