<
https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/body-and-mind/lab-grown-blood-stem-cells-could-replace-bone-marrow-transplants/>
"A new method could soon produce personalised blood stem cells to improve
transplant outcomes for people with blood diseases, such as leukaemia and bone
marrow disorders.
Researchers from Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in Australia have
developed a way to turn human cells, like hair, skin, or blood cells, into
haematopoietic stem cells.
Making stem cells from a patient’s own cells may one day eliminate the risk of
significant illness or death associated with transplanting mismatched donor
cells.
In their new study published in
Nature Biotechnology, the scientists show the
haematopoietic stem cells can be successfully transplanted in mouse models.
Haematopoietic stem cells found within the bone marrow can produce any type of
blood cell, from the white blood cells of the immune system to the
oxygen-carrying red blood cells, and the platelets responsible for blood
clotting.
“The ability to take any cell from a patient, reprogram it into a stem cell and
then turn these into specifically matched blood cells for transplantation will
have a massive impact on these vulnerable patients’ lives,” says Elizabeth Ng,
lead author of the study and Group Leader of the Blood Development Laboratory
at MCRI.
“We have developed a workflow that has created transplantable blood stem cells
that closely mirror those in the human embryo. Importantly, these human cells
can be created at the scale and purity required for clinical use.”
The researchers first unravelled how blood stem cells form in human embryonic
development so they could recreate the conditions in a dish in the laboratory.
Their method involves taking human cells and re-programming them using an
already well-understood process into pluripotent stem cells – which have the
capacity to differentiate into any cell of the body.
The next step, taking pluripotent stem cells and providing the correct
environment and signals to make them change into haematopoietic stem cells (and
not the myriad other potential cells) had been the difficult part to crack."
Via
Fix the News:
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Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
