Although it sounds far-fetched, to offer new holistic therapy, Macro Food Tech Co has been working on research that aims to rejuvenate old cells while improving immune functions by developing functional food that can be used to encourage stem cells in the human body.

Joining with universities locally and internationally, the idea is not only to find how to nurture and augment the stem cells in the body, but also to feed, foster and rapidly multiply the stem cells outside the body before introducing them back to a specific organ.

"In this research we decided to work with blood cells and adult stem cells that come from bone marrow, not embryonic cells. The use of this type of stem cell will help us eliminate the problem of new cells being unable to co-exist with the existing cells in a recipient's body," said Somchai Boonchuen, research and development director of Macro Food Tech.

Adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells found among differentiated cells in a tissue or organ. They can renew themselves, and can differentiate to yield the major specialised cell types of the tissue or organ. The primary roles of adult stem cells in a living organism are to maintain and repair the tissue in which they are found.

Scientists in many laboratories are trying to find ways to grow adult stem cells in cell cultures and manipulate them to generate specific cell types so they can be used to treat injury or disease. Some examples of potential treatments include replacing the dopamine-producing cells in the brains of Parkinson's patients, developing insulin producing cells for type I diabetes, and repairing heart muscle damaged by a heart attack with cardiac muscle cells.

To create a new functional food to deal directly with stem cells, Somchai said that the company has used its brainchild polysaccharidepeptides (PSP) -created from different types of cereal grains that are now used to improve body functionality and health - in research to proliferate the stem cells.

PSP contains phytochemical, which is composed of carbohydrates, crude protein and essential minerals that are mechanically hydrolysed. The company has employed biotechnology to mechanically hydrolyse the selected strains and fractions of grains under controlled temperatures and pressure to formulate these all-natural functional food products.

"We have different lines of PSP and each line is to work on a specific purpose. For example, while the first line is designed for general health, the second is created to deal with human neurones and the third is for organ tissues," Somchai said.

As a subsidiary of Cereal Tech, a producer of natural food products, Macro Food Tech has access to top quality strains of cereal grains and various bio-active ingredients, since the parent company has already conducted its own research and development.

Somchai said that the new PSP line used in research is specifically designed to stimulate and augment stem cells both inside and outside the body. The research covers the creation of supplements for patients to consume to generally stimulate the growth of stem cells in organs all over the body as well as the development of special nutrition to feed stem cells derived from blood and bone marrow in the laboratory.

In the development of supplements, scientists in the initial step tested the supplement themselves for about two weeks. Before the trial, their blood was tested to determine the number of stem cells to be compared with the number after the body has been fed with the new supplement. It was found that the number of stem cells in the scientists' blood increased by a factor of twelve.

While working on the development of the supplement, Somchai said that the company worked with one of the top stem-cell scientists in the United States to conduct preliminary research to develop special nutrition to feed stem cells in laboratory conditions outside the body.

In this research, adult stem cells derived from blood or bone marrow are induced into specific cells of specific organs that need repair, and the patient is then fed with a diet developed using PSP as an additive to other standard nutrients.

 The aim of the research is not only to see if the food can successfully increase the number of stem cells but also test the possibility of introducing the cells back into the body. The research is focusing on the creation of cardiac stem cells.

Somchai said that the development would be tested with animals first and a clinical trial should commence next year.

suchalee@nationgroup.com

Suchalee Pongprasert

The Nation