ESD 13:39:31 03-07-2021
LN1338ES.105
105 HEALTH CARE - RESEARCH - STEM CELLS

International Research Team in Varna Will Work on
Use of Stem Cells in Fighting Cancer,
Degenerative and Autoimmune Diseases


Varna, on the Black Sea, July 3 (Mila Edreva of BTA) - An international research team is being set up at the Medical University in Varna to work on potential application of stem cells in fighting cancer, autoimmune and degenerative diseases. Prof. Anton Tonchev, who heads the Research Institute with the Medical University, told BTA that it is an international project, TranStem, funded by the EU under the Horizon 2020 programme.

The team will be headed by Prof. Manlio Vinciguerra, Principal Investigator at the International Clinical Research Center in Brno, the Czech Republic, and European Research Area (ERA) Chair in Translational Stem Cell Biology.

Stem cells are extremely important because they can be re-programmed and a stem cell can be made to turn into a different type of a mature cell, Prof. Tonchev says. "They are like children: they need to develop, be trained and then join society and play a certain role there," he explains.

Stem cells have wide application in some areas: malignant blood diseases is one field where stems cells are used on a daily basis. In other areas, however, including the brain, research is only at an experimental stage.

The Varna team will work both in the area of regenerative medicine and recovery of damaged organs, and in the area of cancer stem cells.

Prof. Tonchev explains that cancer stem cells are blamed for the recurrence of cancer. Sometimes a patient is declared cancer-free but then the cancer returns and the reason is that cancer stem cells remain in the body and are capable of restoring the entire tumour. Finding these cells at the time when cancer is first established, is of vital importance and that requires molecular tests, he adds.

The brain also has stem cells which are capable of dividing and producing neurons or other cells, and researchers are trying to boost these cells or transplant new ones, to help deal with the damage caused by degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, and strokes, says Prof. Tonchev.

His team will also focus on tumours which affect exactly the brain stem cells: they start to divide uncontrollably and are to blame for some of the most malignant tumours, the professor says.

A Translational Stem Cell Biology Laboratory will start operating with the Varna Medical University in 2022. The equipment will be provided on funding from the same project. A bioprinter is already being put together for the future lab. It will print cells and arrange them three-dimensionally in various shapes to create biological frames where cells can then be planted and form tree-dimensional connections as in a living organism.

Asked when that research will have practical benefit for patients, Prof. Tonchev says that the research on heart and liver regeneration has already reached quite an advanced stage, and so has research on retinal regeneration. In the field of central nervous system regeneration, however, things are purely experimental. ME/LN/