Huge strides are being made in pediatric care at the University of Saskatchewan, thanks to one professor who found a passion in helping others. Earlier this year, USask Department of Psychiatry Assistant Professor Dr. Tyler Wenzel was selected as a Rising Star Awardee by Canada’s Stem Cell Network, for their impact on the field of regenerative medicine.
A former high school science teacher, Dr. Wenzel says they believe this award will show the world that Saskatchewan is a driving force for healthcare.
“We have now people who know, oh, Saskatchewan, we’re not just an agricultural center,” explains Dr. Wenzel. “We also have great hospitals with great physicians… and we are developing cool things here for the benefits of Saskatchewan.”
Dr. Wenzel is currently focused on rare pediatric diseases, specifically a more accessible cure for X-linked Adrenoleukodystrophy, a rare and potentially fatal disease with a treatment plan currently unavailable in the province.
“Anywhere between now until you’re 80 years old at any point you might have your brain completely break down within two years, so they have to kind and come in. Get routine MRIs to do brain imaging to start seeing if this person will ever start developing that deterioration of the brain,” said Dr. Wenzel. “(And) if you do start seeing the deterioration, in Saskatchewan the patient has to be referred to Manitoba or Alberta currently to get treatment because we don’t have the facilities or the capacity to do the transplants here.”
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Using stem cell transplants, Dr. Wenzel is looking into ways to cure this brain disease without risky treatments for children like chemotherapy, radiation or bone marrow transplants.
“What we’re working on is a way to, in Saskatchewan, that our patients won’t need to go through that chemotherapy and radiation, and we will be able to do a transplant here to pretty much stop that disease from ever arising in your life, or at least the brain deterioration part,” says Dr. Wenzel.
The Stem Cell Network says preliminary data shows Dr. Wenzel’s method of using stem cell transplants causes disease markers to disappear. It has led to Dr. Wenzel to explore if this method will make symptoms disappear as well.
“If successful, it could mean bypassing traditional treatments for more than a dozen pediatric brain diseases, which typically involve chemo or radiation followed by bone marrow transplant (risky, complex, and painful),” the Stem Cell Network said via email.
Dr. Wenzel tells Global News that if all their research continues to go smoothly, patients could start receiving treatment in Saskatchewan within a decade.
“There’s a lot of quality control that we have to make sure is ready to go, but 10 years in the grand scheme of things is such a short amount of time,” adds Dr. Wenzel.
Until then, Dr. Wenzel is calling on anyone who has X-linked Adrenoleukodystrophy or has ever had a stem cell transplant to reach out to the lab, so they can discuss and learn more about their experience as a patient.
“We’ve had patients with this disease donate to us skin biopsies so that we can prove that our therapeutic works on their skin biopsy,” explains Dr. Wenzel. “(And) if we prove that, that’s just one step closer to saying, ‘hey, Health Canada, it works in this chunk of skin tissue — Can we use it in humans?’”
This is only the beginning, as Dr. Wenzel and several other stem cell researchers lead the force in building the biomedical team and facilities at USask. As capacity grows, Dr. Wenzel and their colleagues have the potential to develop powerful regenerative therapies that could cure or manage more diseases.
“I would often see kids get sick. I’ve seen kids no longer come to school because they got so sick and so I’ve kind of always had that passion with child health in mind,” said Dr. Wenzel.
Watch the video above for an inside look of Dr. Wenzel’s lab.
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