Kunlin Jin, Ph.D., and a team of international researchers joined forces to fight COVID-19 using what they know best – stem cells. Dr. Jin has over two decades of personal stem cell research-based knowledge. The rest of the team had varying degrees of background with the subject but were all eager and driven to save lives. Since part of the group was at The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, and the rest in China, they collaborated via the messaging app We Chat.
Up until the pandemic began in Wuhan, China, Dr. Jin spent most of his time working at the HSC Institute for Healthy Aging with graduate students on stem cell therapies to fight strokes. But then, when the entire world started looking for ways to fight the coronavirus, he focused all his attention on that using stem cells as a method to fight off the fast-spreading disease instead.
His team began testing immediately. Motivated by a sense of urgency, they worked in real-time because the outbreak “posed great threats to global public health.”
They took a small cohort of seven severely ill patients and transplanted ACE2-mesenchymal stem cells into their bodies. They aimed to know whether the stem cells could be used as a treatment to boost a person’s immune system to ward off coronavirus pneumonia. All the patients who received the transplant recovered and were discharged from the hospital within two weeks. The study has been published in Aging and Disease.
Dr. Jin said:
I am proud to be part of the team I work with to fight COVID-19. Our study showed that intravenous infusion of clinical-grade human mesenchymal stem cells is a safe and efficient approach for treating patients with COVID-19 pneumonia, including in elderly patients displaying severe pneumonia.
The experimental treatment took place in Beijing, China, and involved stem cells being injected intravenously into the bloodstream of seven patients at YouAn Hospital. There were three additional patients involved who received a placebo. The study began on January 30th, 2020.
The patients who received the stem cells faired well and were sent home within 14 days. The patients who received the placebo were not so fortunate. One of them became severely ill, the other had Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), and the third died.
When some people become infected by a coronavirus it causes a virus-induced cytokine storm. Meaning, their immune system becomes so overwhelmed trying to fight off the virus that it results in fluids filling the lungs and internal tissue damage.
David P. Siderovski, Ph.D., Professor and Chair Pharmacology & Neuroscience in HSC’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, said:
This is thought to be one of the main reasons why the COVID-19 pneumonia actually kills an individual – this storm of activity trying to fight the virus.
No specific drugs or vaccines are available to cure the patients with COVID-19 infection. Hence, there is a large unmet need for a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19 infected patients, especially severe cases. Additionally, finding antivirals for patients with COVID-19 is a difficult task.
When HIV broke in the 1980s, we scrambled to make AZT (azidothymidine). There is a desperate need for anything – anything experimental, anything that could be tried off the shelf to address COVID-19 pneumonia.
For now, stem cells can’t be used to fight coronavirus in the United States. First, a clinical trial has to take place, and then the results would have to get approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But, Dr. Jin has continued testing in China and hopes the international effort of their team will bring about more promising results. Next, they plan to conduct a longer-term study with more patients.
