Scientific breakthrough in Cincinnati could help battle cancer, ulcers

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Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

"Up until now, there's been no good way to study stomach diseases in humans," said James Wells, director of the Pluripotent Stem Cell Facility at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Barrett J. Brunsman

Staff reporter- Cincinnati Business Courier

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Scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center are the first in the world to figure out how to use stem cells to generate human stomach tissue in a petri dish.

The breakthrough is important because it will enable researchers to study the very early stages of diseases such as stomach cancer and peptic ulcers, as well as some of the underpinnings of obesity-related diabetes. That, in turn, could help identify ways to prevent such diseases, including the possibility of developing new drugs.

"Up until now, there's been no good way to study stomach diseases in humans," said James Wells, director of the Pluripotent Stem Cell Facility at Cincinnati Children's.

"We're already testing the ability of these human tissues to, for example, plug up holes that are made experimentally in the stomach of a mouse," Wells said. "And early results look promising that these might be able to be used in grafts, maybe to patch holes that are caused by peptic ulcer disease."

The scientists at the hospital in Avondale used human pluripotent stem cells, which can transform into any cell type in the body, to grow a miniature version of the stomach. The so-called gastric organoid was about 1/10th of an inch in diameter.

"The different cells and their structure and arrangement in our stomach tissues in a dish were virtually identical to that we would find in the stomach normally," Wells said.

In collaboration with researcher Yana Zavros at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Corryville, the scientists at Cincinnati Children's used the laboratory-generated mini-stomachs to study infection by H. pylori bacteria, a major cause of peptic ulcers and stomach cancer.

Brunsman covers Procter & Gamble Co. and health care.