Athersys says cell therapy benefits organ transplant

Earlier today, Athersys announced that an international team of researchers has published study results in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine demonstrating that Multipotent Adult Progenitor Cells, MAPCTM, increase the long-term survival of organ transplants in instances when the cell donor is not related to the patient or the organ donor, and also appear to alleviate the need for long-term immune suppression. The preclinical research, conducted using a standard heart transplant model, also demonstrated that the transplanted organ retained its immunologically privileged state during a subsequent transplantation procedure into a naïve recipient, illustrating the durability of the effect. The risk of rejection and the requirement for long-term immunosuppression are key challenges in donor organ transplantations, which could be addressed by administering the clinical MAPC product, MultiStem, to transplant patients. Shares of Athersys are up 2% in late-morning trading.