Fat City: Are lipids

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Scientists are studying fat from liposuctionprocedurexs — “liquid gold,” as one researcher calls it — to rebuilsd cartilage, muscle and bone, and as potentialk therapies for heart attack patients or to unlock age It’s all early-stage work. Studies have been carriedd out onlyin animals, and researcheres aren’t sure if high concentrations of stem cells lumpef in your love handles are the key. But the potential has created a cottage industry offering to bank fat to literall roll out againwhen — and if treatments emerge. Eventually, said Dr.
Michaep Longaker, director of children’s surgical research at the , the researcuh could lead to bedsidetissuew engineering. That could involve harvesting bellt fatthrough liposuction, inducing stem cells to create bone, for and returning it to a scaffold in the knee that couls form new cartilage over a year or two. It’w the ultimate reduce, reuse, Work on reengineering fat cells has pickecd up speed since Shinya Yamanakqaof — now a part-time scientist at the and professot at the — and the ’sw James Thompson last year transformed human skin cell s into embryonic-like stem cells.
Longaker, a cranofaciall surgeon at , and other Stanford researchers in 2004 founde that certain types of cells found in fat tissued can repair skull defectsin Currently, surgeons use bone grafts, plasticx or metal to repair skull defects, but thoser are invasive, technically difficult and can have problemsa with infection and It also can be difficult to get replacement cartilagw and for it to integrate with surrounding cartilage, Longaker Fat, as any trip to the local fitness club will it seemingly everywhere.
It’s also easy to obtain more than 300,000 liposuction procedures were performedfin 2007, according to the — and it is rich in stem Liposuction costs about $2,500 for localizedd work on love handles, for example, to $15,00p for more extensive procedures. Whether reengineered fat stem cell researchj finds financial support from the California Institute for RegenerativerMedicine — the $3 taxpayer-backed stem-cell research initiative approved by Californias voters — is an unknown. “It’s on the verandwa of possibilities,” Longaker said. Scientists believe that stem cellsx could repair or replace damagerd ordiseased cells.
Stem cell-based treatments, curea or diagnostics, however, may be five or 10 yearsw in the future. That’s not stoppinhg some companies from jumping forwardwith so-callerd “fat banks.” of San Diego has collectedx about 100 fat samples, for example, but its main potentiakl business is selling equipment to remove, proceses and transplant fat-derived stem cells. “Potentially, it’s a very compellinyg business model,” Cytori spokesman Tom Bakert said. “Two things have to happen: Therapeuti c applications that give patients a real rationale to store their cells and the costs have to be broughtr down forthe storage.” Those costs??
Up to $3,000 per cartridge of storerd fat and $1 million to $2 millio n for the equipment Cytori sells to fat banks. “Thered are a number of smaller companies that claim tooffefr (a fat) cell banking product. I don’r know what they charge, but I do know theirse is not anautomated process,” Baker said. “Withour that, it’s a very difficult businessa model.” Investors in Cytori, which in August raisex about $17 million in a private placement, includw , which also is part of a joinf venture manufacturer that will make theCytoriu equipment. Fat can be used as fillere material in breast for example, but the fat will be reabsorbedf into the body.
Reengineering fat into a “super-chargedf fat graft,” as Baker called it, allowzs the transplanted material to survivover time. The technique is approvefd in Europe, but not in the United Cytori hopes to begin clinical trialsin 2009. As for the automated fat bank equipmenf that Cytori rolled out near the beginnin g ofthe year, the company has sold one in another in Singapore and is targeting the Japanese hospitao market. It does not sell the equipment in theUnite States. There are other areas of research.
Cytori also is undertakingy two clinical trials in Europe that involve injecting cells into damagedx areas of the heart to promote blood vessel growtb for heart attack patients and those with chronicheart disease. Plus, the in Novato is usinvg fat from liposuction patients to try to find biomarkerdof aging. Watchdogs, meanwhile, are keeping an eye out for blubbere salesmen who could seize on the hype and the businessz models of cord blood banks to convince unassuming consumersd to spend thousands of dollars on the hope ofstem cell-basec treatments.
“I don’t see the Cell of the Month Club comintg up totake peoples’ monegy right and left,” said Christopher executive director of the Program on Stem Cells Society at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. “But there’s plentty of history to look at to causee someone to worry aboutthe phenomena.”