“This kind of tissue engineering approach has huge potential for the identification of new drugs for many devastating diseases,” said Dr. Bill Stanford."A research team led by Dr. Bill Stanford has discovered a new class of drugs that may be effective in treating lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM). This rare disease is characterized by abnormal cell growth in the lungs which can lead to severe breathing problems.
MD-PhD student Dr. Adam Pietrobon and other members of the team used stem cells, a spongy gel (developed by collaborator Dr. Molly Shoichet) and other materials to develop a unique 3D model of LAM cells growing in lung tissue.
After screening more than 800 drugs in this model, they found that histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors, which are currently approved for the treatment of certain cancers, can selectively kill LAM cells and stop their invasiveness.
“This kind of tissue engineering approach has huge potential for the identification of new drugs for many devastating diseases,” said Dr. Bill Stanford, senior scientist at The Ottawa Hospital, professor at the University of Ottawa and Canada Research Chair, Integrative Stem Cell Biology.
The team has also seen success in one animal model and if that holds up in other models, they could move into clinical trials.
See Advanced Science for details.
Authors: Adam Pietrobon, Julien Yockell-Lelièvre, Nicole Melong, Laura J. Smith, Sean P. Delaney, Nadine Azzam, Chang Xue, Nishanth Merwin, Eric Lian, Alberto Camacho-Magallanes, Carole Doré, Gabriel Musso, Lisa M. Julian, Arnold S. Kristof, Roger Y. Tam, Jason N. Berman, Molly S. Shoichet, and William L. Stanford.
Funding: Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Canada Research Chairs, LAM Foundation. All research at The Ottawa Hospital is also enabled by generous donors to The Ottawa Hospital Foundation.
Core resources: Bioinformatics, Human Pluripotent Stem Cells, High Content Imaging, StemCore
The Ottawa Hospital is a leading academic health, research and learning hospital proudly affiliated with the University of Ottawa.
