By Sabrina Richards – Fred Hutch Cancer Center –
Bioengineer Dr. Matthias Stephan developed a quick-foaming solution that he hopes could one day turn gene therapy into an outpatient procedure
The special properties of methylcellulose foam could make it a vehicle for bedside genetic engineering, according to a proof-of-principle study from bioengineers at Fred Hutch Cancer Center.
In the paper, recently published in Molecular Therapy Methods & Clinical Development, the team used a preclinical bone marrow model to show that the foam, combined with an already-approved method to extract and concentrate bone marrow stem cells, can efficiently deliver targeted gene therapy vectors prior to reinjection of the cells into the bone marrow.
