uOttawa News

OTTAWA, December 5, 2012  —  For Ottawa scientist and neonatologist Dr. Bernard Thébaud, even publishing a major paper reporting five significant discoveries still doesn't seem quite enough— he is determined to apply his laboratory breakthroughs in neonatal intensive care units (NICU). In an article just published in the journal Thorax, Thébaud and his colleagues propose a therapy that would use stem cells from umbilical cords to treat a disease previously thought to be untreatable, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, or BPD.

"BPD is a lung disease described 45 years ago, on which we have made zero progress. And now, with these cord-derived stem cells, there is a true potential for a major breakthrough," says Thébaud, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and the CHEO Research Institute, a neonatologist at CHEO and the Ottawa Hospital, and a professor in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Ottawa.

"I am confident that we have the talent and the tools here at CHEO and OHRI to find a treatment for BPD. These findings published today are helping us get there," continues Thébaud.

BPD affects approximately 10,000 very premature newborns in Canada and the U.S. every year. The lungs of these infants are not developed enough to sustain them, so they must receive oxygen through a breathing machine. However, this combination of mechanical ventilation and oxygen damages the lungs and stops their development. In addition, longer NICU stays for these extremely premature babies affect the normal development of other parts of the body, including the retina, the kidneys and the brain.

In the Thorax article, Thébaud's team shares significant findings of experiments with newborn rats given oxygen through a ventilator. The lung development of a newborn rat mimics that of a premature baby born at 24 weeks. The five major findings reported are:

1.       Stem cells called mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) from a human umbilical cord (not the blood) had a protective effect on the lungs when injected into the lungs as they were put on oxygen.
2.       MSCs had a reparative effect when injected two weeks after being on oxygen.
3.       When conditioned media — a cell-free substance produced by MSCs —were administered instead of MSCs, they were found to have the same protective and reparative effects as the stem cells.
4.       When examined after six months (the equivalent of 40 human years), treated animals had better exercise performance and persistent benefit in lung structure.
5.       MSCs did not adversely affect the long-term health of normal rats. One of the concerns about stem cells is that by promoting cell growth, they may cause cancerous growth. To address this question, Thébaud gave MSCs to a control group that was not treated with oxygen. When examined after six months, these animals were normal and healthy.

Within two years, Thébaud would like to conduct a pilot study with 20 human patients to show that this stem-cell therapy is feasible and safe, and in four years he wants to embark on a randomized controlled trial. These steps all reflect his deep desire to help the BPD-affected babies he sees in the NICU.  He is confident a treatment will be developed.

"It's going to happen here in Ottawa, but for babies worldwide," says Thébaud.

The full article, "Short-term, long-term and paracrine effect of human umbilical cord-derived stem cells in lung injury prevention and repair in experimental bronchopulmonary dysplasia," was first published online by Thorax on December 4. This work was a collaborative project with a group in Milan, Italy.

Funding for this study was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Maternal-Fetal Neonatal Training Program sponsored by CIHR's Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health, Alberta Innovates Health Solutions (formerly the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research), the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation, the 6FP EU Project – THERCORD and the 7FP EU Project – CASCADE and REBORNE.

INFORMATION:

Néomie Duval
Media Relations Officer
University of Ottawa
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Cell.: 613-863-7221
neomie.duval@uOttawa.ca

Paddy Moore
Manager, Communications and Public Relations
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Office: 613-798-5555 (73687)
Cell.: 613-323-5680
padmoore@ohri.ca

Adrienne Vienneau
Director, Communications and Public Relations
Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Research Institute
Office: 613-737-7600 (4144)
Cell.: 613-513-8437
avienneau@cheo.on.ca