"The ability to generate blood stem cells in the laboratory may one day make it possible to treat patients in need of bone marrow transplants using their own cells. The advance is the latest in a rapidly advancing field in which embryo models are created from stem cells without the need for eggs or sperm, opening a window on the earliest stages of human development."
"It was an exciting moment when the blood-red colour appeared in the dish it was visible even to the naked eye, said Dr Jitesh Neupane, a researcher at the University of Cambridge's Gurdon Institute and first author of the study. He and his colleagues are using the model system to understand the earliest developmental stages of heart and blood development."
Embryo-like structures grown from human stem cells reproduce early heart development and generate blood, including blood stem cells. The system forms self-organising structures that drive differentiation into various cell types without using eggs, sperm, or added protein cocktails. Blood stem cells produced in the laboratory could enable patient-matched bone marrow transplants by deriving blood from any cell of the body. The model offers ways to study early human blood and immune development, screen drugs, and model disorders such as leukaemia. Producing blood compatible with a patient's immune system could advance regenerative therapies to repair and regenerate damaged tissues.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]