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Alan Tyndall is Professor and Head of the Department of Rheumatology, located in both the University Hospital and Felix Platter Spital, Basel since 1991. Post graduate training was in Sydney and London (MRC, Northwick Park) concerning intense immunosuppression of autoimmune disease. His main research interest concerns the use of adult stem cells in the immunomodulation of autoimmune diseases, in particular scleroderma. His group has published over 70 peer reviewed articles and 10 book chapters on this theme.
The first such patient was successfully transplanted in Basel in 1996 together with the Hematology Clinic, and since then over 1,000 patients have been treated internationally with 7 prospective, controlled trials running for various autoimmune diseases. He chairs the safety committees of the three NIH sponsored trials in this field. He was the first chairman of the EBMT Autoimmune Disease Working Party for 6 years and currently chairs the EULAR Standing Committee for International Studies Including Therapeutics (ESCISIT) and is a founding member and secretary of the EULAR Scleroderma Trials and Research (EUSTAR) group. Innovative therapies are a major goal of both these groups. In the past several years Alan Tyndall has also been studying the potential therapeutic use of mesenchymal stem cells in the immunomodulation of severe autoimmune disease, together with colleagues from other disciplines (neurology , hematology , tissue engineering). His group has recently demonstrated that MSC expanded from the bone marrow of autoimmune disease patients show in vitro immunosuppressive, antiproliferative and differentiation properties similar to healthy MSC. In addition, this property is shared by differentiated stromal cells such as chondrocytes and fibroblasts. Given the apparently low acute toxicity of MSC infused intravenously, this opens a potential new autologous cellular therapy for critically ill patients with severe autoimmune disease.
The indisciplinary nature of this work and the established networks locally and internationally make the current climate in Basel ideal for this translational development.
For further details, see www.felixplatterspital.ch
Selected original publications
- Farge D, Passweg J, van Laar JM, Marjanovic Z, Besenthal C, Finke J, et al. (2004). Autologous stem cell transplantation in the treatment of systemic sclerosis: report from the EBMT/EULAR Registry. Ann Rheum Dis. 63:974-81.
- Bocelli-Tyndall C, Bracci L, Spagnoli G, Braccini A, Bouchenaki M, Ceredig R, et al. (2007). Bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells (BM-MSCs) from healthy donors and auto-immune disease patients reduce the proliferation of autologous- and allogeneic-stimulated lymphocytes in vitro. Rheumatology 46:403-8.
- Bocelli-Tyndall C, Barbero A, Candrian C, Ceredig R, Tyndall A, Martin I. (2006). Human articular chondrocytes suppress in vitro proliferation of anti-CD3 activated peripheral blood mononuclear cells. J Cell Physiol. 209:732-4.
- Larghero J, Farge D, Braccini A, Lecourt S, Scherberich A, Fois E, et al. (2007). Phenotypical and functional characteristics of in vitro expanded bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells from systemic sclerosis patients. Ann Rheum Dis. 67:443-49.
- Tyndall A. and Uccelli A. (2009). Multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells for autoimmune diseases: teaching new dogs old tricks. Bone Marrow Transplant. 43:821-8.
Selected review articles
- Tyndall A, Walker UA, Cope A, Dazzi F, De Bari C, Fibbe W, et al. (2007) Immunomodulatory properties of mesenchymal stem cells: a review based on an interdisciplinary meeting held at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology Division, London, UK, 31 October 2005. Arthritis Res Ther. 9:301.
- Tyndall A. and LeBlanc K. (2006). Stem cells and rheumatology: update on adult stem cell therapy in autoimmune diseases. Arthritis Rheum. 55:521-5.
- Tyndall A. and Gratwohl A. Adult stem cell transplantation in autoimmune disease. (2009). Curr Opin Hematol. 16:285-91.
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