Sana Biotechnology highlights publication in Nature Biotechnology

Sana Biotechnology highlighted that Nature Biotechnology has published a paper titled “Young glial progenitor cells competitively replace aged and diseased human glia in the adult chimeric mouse brain.” This paper showed that when healthy wild-type, pluripotent stem cell-derived glial progenitor cells – the cells that give rise to the glial support cells of the brain – were transplanted into adult mice that had been neonatally transplanted with mutant Huntingtin-expressing hGPCs, the healthy cells outcompeted and eliminated the diseased glia, ultimately repopulating the brain with the healthy transplanted cells. “It is remarkable to see that healthy human glial cells can engraft and function in vivo, and succeed in outcompeting resident glial cells, thereby eradicating the diseased cells from the brain of the mice,” said Steve Harr, Sana‘s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We have designed SC379 as a potential glial cell replacement therapy, and these findings support its possible application in a large number of neurological indications, such as secondary progressive multiple sclerosis and the childhood myelin disorders like Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, as well as Huntington’s disease and other diseases of glial cells. Our goal is to begin clinical testing of SC379 as early as 2025.”