ABC Radio AM

Interview with Professor Silviu Itescu

3 June 2005

AM PRESENTER – Tony Eastley :

Doctors for AFL star and Richmond forward Nathan Brown are considering radical stem cell treatment to help him recover from a badly broken leg.

Professor of Medicine at Melbourne University Silviu Itescu has pioneered the therapy, which involves taking stem cells from bone marrow, growing them in a lab and then injecting them into the wound to grow new bone or muscle tissue.

He's also suggested that other athletes consider harvesting stem cells while they're fit and healthy to use in emergency situations. It's futuristic stuff, but as Lynn Bell reports, the stem cell therapy is already undergoing clinical trials in New South Wales .

[ Excerpt from Channel Nine football commentary ]

EDDIE McGUIRE – FOOTBALL COMMENTATOR :

Nathan Brown, a smother was it? Oh …

COMMENTATORS :

(In unison) Oh …

McGUIRE :

Oh no.

MALE COMMENTATOR :

Oh no.

McGUIRE :

That is not at all …

GARRY LYON – FOOTBALL COMMENTATOR :

That is just as bad as it gets.

[ End of excerpt ]

REPORTER :

Nathan Brown snapped two of the major bones in his right leg in a horrible collision during last week's game.

[ Excerpt from Channel Nine football commentary ]

McGUIRE :

Shocking news tonight: Nathan Brown has suffered a badly broken leg and will miss the rest of the season.

[ End of excerpt ]

REPORTER :

Professor of Medicine Silviu Itescu from the University of Melbourne and Columbia University in New York says injuries heal when stem cells in the body create new tissue. But he believes it's now possible to speed up that process by harvesting stem cells, growing them in a laboratory and putting them back into the damaged area.

SILVIU ITESCU :

Under a small local anaesthetic, you take a tiny amount of bone marrow from the particular patient, you then take that tube into the lab, purify the very rare type of stem cells that are present there with sophisticated technology that pulls out these cells, and then grow up the cells in a special facility over about a four to six week period. Then the process would be that these cells would be locally injected into the site where you want to get repair of tissue.

REPORTER :

It's cutting edge science that's being trialled in humans for the first time at a hospital in Newcastle. Professor Itescu says a group of patients with heart disease are undergoing treatment with the stem cell procedure.

ITESCU :

We're also in the process over the next few weeks, hopefully, to obtain permission from one of the major university-based hospitals to begin an orthopaedic clinical trial in patients who have the exact same type of fracture injuries as Nathan Brown has, except that the fractures that these patients will have will not have healed of their own accord over a period of at least three months.

REPORTER :

Professor Itescu is now discussing the treatment with Nathan Brown's orthopaedic surgeon. He says the technique has many applications, and other athletes may be able to create a bank of stem cells to speed up their own recovery in the case of a serious injury to tendon, cartilage, bone or muscle.

ITESCU :

Any of those type of injuries can potentially be career ending. And I think it's a very interesting idea to potentially bank your stem cells, have them available at the time of the acute surgical trauma for potentially direct injection.

REPORTER :

Professor Itescu is the founder of Australia n biotech company Mesoblast, which is developing the treatment, and he says, in the future, one person's stem cells may also be able to help many other patients.

ITESCU :

In our view, this is a whole new way of approaching degenerative disease, which affects many, many patients. Patients with bone disease, with arthritis and cartilage disease of the knee, with diseases of the discs, the disease of heart and muscle and arteries, and instead of palliative care, which currently is the only way that we can help people with drugs, this is really a regenerative therapy using your own cells and tissues.

REPORTER :

But Nathan Brown is thinking about a much more immediate timeframe. He says he'll be on crutches for the next six weeks. He won't be able to run for the next four months, but he will be back in form for round one of next year's AFL season.

PRESENTER :

Good news for some Richmond supporters. Lynn Bell with that report.

END OF SEGMENT

For further information, please call:

Julie Meldrum
Mesoblast Limited
0419 228 128
julie.meldrum@mesoblast.com

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