Wednesday’s sessions of the annual ASEMV 2019 meeting at Asilomar,in Pacific Grove, California, featured multiple exciting presentations. Among the 19 talks of the day, we will focus on five of particular interest. Luis Rodriguez-Borlado, PhD, of Capricor Therapeutics, delivered as presentation titled “Extracellular Vesicles from Cardiosphere-Derived Cells (CDCs) Are Taken Up by Muscle Stem Cells and Increase Exercise Capability in a Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Model.” Dr. Rodriguez-Borlada introduced his discussion by stating that Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients infused with CDCs showed an improvement in PUL (pullulanase) activity, skeletal muscle activity, and a reduction in myocardial scarring when compared to placebo-treated patients. He noted that there is wide acceptance that most of the therapeutic effects observed in cell therapies using non-engrafting cells are caused by paracrine factors secreted by the delivered cells. In the current work, Dr. Rodriguez-Borlado said his group observed significant improvement in exercise capability in mdx mice (DMD model mice) treated wit CDC-EVs when compared with control-treated mice. EVs from immortal CDCs also showed immunomodulatory capabilities on macrophages and improved exercise capability in mdx mice, opening the possibility of developing consistent, robust, and affordable manufacturing process for producing clinical-grade EVs. Julia Saugstad, PhD, Oregon Health & Science University, presented work by a collaborative group and the presentation was titled “Establishing the Contributions of Extracellular miRNAs to Alzheimer’s Disease.” As background, Dr. Saugstad said that Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, and fifth-leading cause of death in those age 65 and older.Login Or Register To Read Full Story