{"id":849215,"date":"2026-09-16T01:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T01:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/849215\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T01:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T01:10:11","slug":"living-medication-may-have-restored-bone-strength-in-10-patients-with-advanced-osteoporosis-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/849215\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Living Medication’ May Have Restored Bone Strength in 10 Patients With Advanced Osteoporosis : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

The true scale of osteoporosis<\/a> is difficult to fathom.<\/p>\n

The progressive bone-weakening disease<\/a> is estimated to affect as many as 500 million people<\/a> worldwide, triggering up to 37 million fragility fractures a year.<\/p>\n

That’s a bone breaking in someone’s body every single second.<\/p>\n

While there’s no cure for the condition, scientists say they may have found a kind of “living medication”<\/a> for the disease.<\/p>\n

In a first-in-human phase 1 trial<\/a> reported in Cell<\/a>, researchers gave patients with advanced osteoporosis a modified version of their own mesenchymal stem\/stromal cells<\/a> (MSCs), and it showed significant bone-strengthening effects.<\/p>\n

While the trial’s primary aim was to investigate the safety of this experimental treatment, the researchers say their findings demonstrate much more.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“The results show that this treatment approach has an excellent safety profile and is feasible,” researchers explain in the new paper<\/a>, led by first author and hematologist Jos\u00e9 M. Moraleda from the University of Murcia in Spain.<\/p>\n

“However, strikingly\u2026 the results also reveal a durable reduction in the incidence of fragility fractures accompanied by increased serum levels of bone neoformation biomarkers, coupled with radiographic and histomorphometric evidence of an osteorestorative effect within trabecular bone.”<\/p>\n

Mesenchymal stem\/stromal cells are a form of stem cell<\/a>, but whereas embryonic stem cells<\/a> and induced pluripotent stem cells<\/a> ( iPSCs<\/a>) can generate almost any cell type, MSCs are only multipotent \u2013 not pluripotent \u2013 meaning they’re more limited in the kinds of cells they can become.<\/p>\n

However, MSCs, which can be found in bone marrow (as well as other parts of the body), are the precursors to osteoblasts<\/a>, cells that create and repair bone.<\/p>\n

In theory, this makes MSCs a promising candidate for bone-strengthening therapies to treat osteoporosis, but once MSCs are cultured outside the body and then returned intravenously, their lack of a surface molecule called Sialylated Lewis X (sLeX)<\/a> hampers their ability to find the bone marrow.<\/p>\n

“In preclinical models, this deficit is correctable by MSC glycocalyx editing to enforce sialylated Lewis X (sLeX) expression, thereby programming osteotropism,” the researchers explain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Questions still remained, though, as to whether the same MSC modifications worked, and were safe, in human patients.<\/p>\n

\"ScientistsA graphical summary of the trial and its findings. (Moraleda et al., Cell, 2026)<\/p>\n

In a small trial involving 10 women with advanced osteoporosis aged between 51\u201372, the researchers extracted bone marrow from each participant’s hip.<\/p>\n

Their MSCs were then isolated and cultured, before being modified with a glycocalyx<\/a> tweak, designed to improve the MSCs’ ability to return to the bone marrow after being reintroduced to the bloodstream.<\/p>\n

The edited MSCs were then delivered back to the participants via an intravenous infusion, and the participants were then monitored for approximately six years of follow-up in total.<\/p>\n

The results showed, in terms of the primary safety measures, that the experimental treatment was well tolerated by the participants, with no treatment-related adverse events occurring.<\/p>\n

Even more promising was that the participants exhibited a dramatic drop in bone fractures stemming from their osteoporosis.<\/p>\n

“Though subjects in this study were clinically at ‘very high risk’ for recurrent fragility fractures, the refracture incidence dropped precipitously,” the authors note<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Specifically, in comparing the time span of 2 years pre-infusion to 2 years post-infusion, the fracture incidence decreased from 8 events\/year to 0.5 events\/year \u2013 a 94 percent reduction in fragility fractures.”<\/p>\n

In addition, bone tissue biopsies taken 120 days after the MSC infusion showed a significant increase in average bone tissue area (BTA) for seven of the 10 patients.<\/p>\n

\"Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n

Bone metabolism biomarkers also showed signs of a bone-strengthening effect, and body imaging revealed improvements in the density of spongy trabecular bone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Collectively, the results suggest that the administered Fuc-autoBM-MSCs mediate an osteoregenerative effect predominantly within trabecular bone,” the researchers write<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“This is a critical issue given that trabecular bone is far more metabolically active than cortical bone, and, accordingly, osteoporosis predominantly disintegrates trabecular bone early in the disease, with a later erosion of cortical bone.”<\/p>\n

Given this was primarily a safety trial and not a randomized experiment with a control group, the researchers say it will fall to future studies to investigate further what’s going on here, and to more formally measure the effects that might be happening.<\/p>\n

Related: Rare Genetic Disorder Leaves Bones Unable to Harden \u2013 And Many Patients Don’t Even Know They Have It<\/a><\/p>\n

The researchers also acknowledge that theirs is only a small study, with a lack of diversity in the patients involved, and they suggest that larger studies are needed, with a broader diversity of participants, and involving more study sites.<\/p>\n

But while we have to be cautious in interpreting their results, it certainly looks like something beneficial happened to the women in this trial, and a better understanding could ultimately help improve the lives of millions of people.<\/p>\n

As far as the researchers are concerned, it could be the beginning of a paradigm shift in how we deal with this disease.<\/p>\n

“Precision glycocalyx editing effectuates MSC-based therapy to reverse osteoporosis, thus potentially shifting therapeutic strategies for this disease from pharmacologic approaches to regenerative medicine,” the authors write<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The findings are reported in Cell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was fact-checked by Fiona MacDonald<\/a> and edited by Fiona MacDonald<\/a>. While we pride ourselves on our process, we are only human. If you spot a mistake, please let us know<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The true scale of osteoporosis is difficult to fathom. The progressive bone-weakening disease is estimated to affect as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[97,1352],"class_list":["post-849215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-msft-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}