In our laboratory, we are using hMSCs harvested from bone marrow as well as from adipose tissue. The advantage to adipose-derived MSCs is the ease of harvesting patient-specific MSCs. During surgery for resection of the brain tumor, the surgeon also takes a small fat graft from the patient. These MSCs can then be cultured and transduced to express various proteins, such as IL-12. Ideally, in future therapies, the genetically modified MSCs would be injected intra-arterially through the carotid artery, and the MSCs would migrate to the site of glioma and induce an anti-tumor immune response.
hMSC: Human mesenchymal stem cell; MSC: Mesenchymal stem cell.