Recent Patents on Regenerative Medicine - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2011

Regenerative medicine is a powerful interdisciplinary tool that allows novel therapeutic approaches to be developed for diseases with no effective treatment, and its potential has been substantially enhanced by recent advances. We review the latest strategies, patented and/or under clinical trial, for the development of therapies based on the formation of new bone and cartilaginous tissue from stem cells to replace injured, d Read More

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are genetically stable with unlimited expansion ability and unrestricted plasticity, proffering a pluripotent reservoir for in vitro derivation of a large supply of disease-targeted human somatic cells that are restricted to the lineage in need of repair. There is a large healthcare need to develop hESC-based therapeutic solutions to provide optimal regeneration and reconstruction treatment o Read More

Scarring remains a large market with as yet no prescription medication to reduce or prevent scarring. Studies have indicated that early human fetuses can heal cutaneous wounds with perfect regeneration and a number of theories have been proposed for this regenerative phenotype. These theories and variations between fetal and adult wound healing have been studied and a number have been patented as future po Read More

Red blood cells are, by far, the most abundant cells in the blood; they have a critical role providing the oxygen and carrying away carbon dioxide. Transfusions save lives but red blood cells supply is more and more difficult. Therefore the idea of mimicking in vitro the in vivo red blood cell production comes up. This review focuses on the latest patents which have explored the potential of ex vivo manufacturing of red blood Read More

The most recent advances in biotechnology have transformed regenerative medicine from a mere promise to a therapeutic reality for a wide range of diseases. Gene therapy, understood as the introduction of nucleic acids within altered cells, is designed to improve or cure patients with a disease and is presented as an essential tool for the progress of this novel type of therapy. There are already controlled clinical trials on Read More

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) are being considered as one of the most potential regimens for regenerative therapy in various disease states and last several decades of research helped us to understand them better regarding the regenerative capabilities of HSC. HSC can be isolated from different sources such as peripheral blood, bone marrow and cord blood. Rigorous scientific investigations on cell surface marker, biolog Read More

The cornea is the clear front of the eye and it is covered by an epithelium which is renewed by stem cells located at its periphery, in a region known as the limbus. These so-named limbal stem cells can become deficient due to hereditary or acquired causes resulting in the painful and blinding disease of limbal stem cell deficiency. The treatment of limbal stem cell deficiency includes the transplantation of healthy limbal tissue o Read More

The recent patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent databases, and are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue. The patents are categorized in fast emerging areas of regenerative medicine e.g. stem cells, human embryonic stem, gene therapy, tissue engineering, regenerative biomolecules, use of biomaterials for treating disease and injury, and tissue/ organ regeneration relate Read More