If you can build new living tissue to be implanted in patients, then why not also give it the capacity to perform additional useful tasks? This is a technology platform with some potential: “combining gene therapy with tissue engineering could avoid the need for frequent injections of recombinant drugs. Patients who rely on recombinant, protein-based drugs must often endure frequent injections, often several times a week, or intravenous therapy. Researchers [have demonstrated] the possibility that blood vessels, made from genetically engineered cells, could secrete the drug on demand directly into the bloodstream. … Such drugs are currently made in bioreactors by engineered cells, and are very expensive to make in large amounts. … The paradigm shift here is, ‘why don’t we instruct your own cells to be the factory?’ … [Researchers] provide proof-of-concept, reversing anemia in mice with engineered vessels secreting erythropoietin (EPO). … The researchers created the drug-secreting vessels by isolating endothelial colony-forming cells from human blood and inserting a gene instructing the cells to produce EPO. They then added mesenchymal stem cells, suspended the cells in a gel, and injected this mixture into the mice, just under the skin. The cells spontaneously formed networks of blood vessels, lined with the engineered endothelial cells. Within a week, the vessels hooked up with the animals’ own vessels, releasing EPO into the bloodstream. Tests showed that the drug circulated throughout the body and reversed anemia in the mice.”

Link: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/engineered-drug-secreting-blood-vessels-reverse-anemia-in-mice-2011-11-15

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