University of Minnesota launches stem cell trial against severe COVID-19 - Minneapolis Star Tribune

The immune system overreaction to COVID-19 has become a key target for therapeutic research, including a new trial at the University of Minnesota using stem cells to try to suppress the body’s response to infection and repair the damage it causes.

U researchers have been planning from the start to study the potential therapeutic benefits of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) against severe COVID-19.

Food and Drug Administration to test the stem cell therapy in patients who have already been hospitalized for COVID-19 and placed on ventilators due to respiratory distress.

The NK study is more preventive, enrolling patients who have not yet suffered respiratory distress during their COVID-19 hospitalizations but appear at risk.

A COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines team formed by the National Institutes of Health has reviewed evidence for using mesenchymal stem cells to treat this hyperimmune response but does not recommend them outside of clinical trials.

Mesenchymal stem cells are promising for COVID-19 because they gravitate toward the lung tissue that is inflamed by the immune response to the virus and because they target all types of cytokines, said Dr.

The stem cells seem to have a suppressive effect for only 48 hours, so the U trial will provide patients with three infusions during the critical week in which they first suffer respiratory distress.

The end-value of this stem cell therapy could depend on the development of other preventive therapies for COVID-19 or a vaccine, but Wagner said it could end up as a vital treatment option in this pandemic and for other causes of severe respiratory distress.