Study identifies markers to predict stem cell effectiveness for knee osteoarthritis

For the more than one in ten adults over forty who live with knee osteoarthritis, the promise of stem cell therapy has long been shadowed by an unsettling mystery: the same treatment heals some patients and leaves others unchanged, with no way to know in advance which fate awaits. A Canadian clinical trial at Toronto's Schroeder Arthritis Institute has begun to illuminate why, finding that the therapeutic power of mesenchymal stromal cells lies not in the patient's condition but in the intrinsic character of the cells themselves. By identifying distinct anti-inflammatory properties and microRN