Posted on 03/22/2005 3:31:47 PM PST by billorites
Australian scientists have found that stem cells taken from adults could have the same life-saving potential as those taken from embryos, a discovery that could potentially end the contentious debate over embryonic research.
The results from the four-year project, at Australia's Griffith University in Queensland, show that adult stem cells harvested from the nose can be grown into virtually any kind of cell in the human body.
Until now it has been thought that adult stem cells could only develop into different cell types of their own tissue, unlike embryonic stem cells which can turn into any body cell type.
Griffith University researcher Professor Alan Mackay-Sim said the study showed that olfactory stem cells could develop into heart cells, liver cells, kidney cells, muscle cells, brain cells and nerve cells. In addition the olfactory stem cells did not have the problems of rejection or forming tumors as is common with embryonic stem cells.
"Our experiments have shown adult stem cells isolated from the olfactory mucosa have the ability to develop into many different cell types if they are given the right chemical or cellular environment, Professor Mackay-Sim said, in research published on the Internet.
"These adult olfactory stem cells appear to have the same ability as embryonic stem cells in giving rise to many different cell types but have the advantage that they can be obtained from all individuals, even older people who might be most in need of stem cell therapies. Stem cells obtained and transplanted into the same person would not be rejected by the immune system," he said.
Professor Mackay-Sim said olfactory stem cells can be taken from small pieces of tissue taken from the nose under local anaesthetic, and are relatively easy to grow and multiply in the lab.
"We can multiply them from small samples...
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
btt
*snort*
Ping!
The "debate" isn't going to end. It's a smokescreen to promote and normalize abortion.
And as we all know, abortion is a big money maker for the medical profession.
BTTT & thanks for the ping.
On CNN.com no less, who would have thunk it?
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Adult stem cells are great for most clinical practices but they tell us precious little about most complex diseases. Studying an adult stem cell is like trying to decipher the history of Germany by looking at its automobiles. We'll need more than a few cells to solve the problem.
I am currently doing research in this field. I'm not much a credible source being that my one and only project is far from complete. It may be possible to generate a computer graphical model for most stages of cell growth, from as early as the blastula stage (perhaps earlier). Unfortunately this doesn’t work all that well as it stands, the instruments are not very accurate and many of them don't have integrated screening. Although it would be extremely difficult to map out all the differential markers and cytokines as they occur in a developing human, we may be able to predict and demarcate them using a precise mathematical formula. It may end up being a type of equilibrium matrix equation. To give you an idea of what I have seen so far, we can locate such things as the contact surfaces of the ECM (Extra cellular matrix), integrins, E-cadherin in Epithelial cells, detect the secretion of protease (causes the breakdown of the basal membrane), find patterns in collagen bindings, and a few dozen other things.
The problem is that we can’t relate many of these external activities to each other or relate external activities to internal activities, we have to choose what to look for: the formulas used have very similar experimental roles to that of the standard wave/particle model of quantum mechanics only with more definitive variables. I am struggling with this immensely but what harm can it do to try? If this emerges soon, the use of embryonic stem cells would be rendered completely unnessecary and this otherwise expensive procedure would become accessible to all scientists. This may be a shot in the dark but those patients aren't getting any younger.
Thank you for the post. Have scientists come to accept that form and function must coordinate/interact in order for a being to grow to full scale?
Yes, cell growth is dependent on a wide variety of proteins and differentiation markers found in the cellular environment. Even other cells affect what one cell will do. They affect everything from frequency of cell divisions to density, orientation, and migration. By studying micro-patterning across the substrate (surface of cell growth/ other cells in standard culture) changes in orientation and migration can be predicted. The rest is far more subtle. The process of cell maturity is incredibly sensitive to this environment. A few extra additions to the substrate and it becomes a neuronal cell, a few less and it becomes a muscle cell or any of a multitude of things. Sometimes they transdifferentiate, change from something like a muscle cell into a neuronal cell. There is widespread agreement that transdifferentiation of this sort is dependent on more than just the differentiating cell in question. As a body begins to reach full scale, fewer and fewer of these transdifferentiations occur. Cells replace their own type and density all the time but form and function become relatively constant. A splash in a puddle has a far greater affect on the changes of the whole than a splash of equal magnitude in a lake.
By studying the cell lines the President allowed for federal funding in research, do you feel science will grasp the mechanism and process by which cells differentiate in the stem cell cascade, then apply that to learn how to 'back up' MAPCs and bring them forward as specific tissue donor cells?
The current federally funded embryonic stem cell lines have minimal therapeutic value in terms of offering records of cell growth and development. Although it may be possible to avoid destroying the embryos (that's what I'm working on) we still need ESC lines of a sort in order to "watch" the early stages of natural development. I'm also building a device which could possibly identify the degrees of plasticity inherent in all the cells of a body so that the markers can be located through Risk-OPEX translation (don't bother looking it up the technique it's brand new and incomplete). The problem with the current lines is that most of the past stored fertility clinic embryos are contaminated with mouse feeder cells and bovine serums. Only about 11-15 of the 78 are of any use. I've only had access to one of the uncontaminated ones for about 4 months. Most of the time I just use other peoples' data and manipulate it in order to make sense of it. This will not do.
MAPCs could be very useful for producing specific tissue donor cells. They are a way to avoid the lethal teratomas associated with their embryonic predecessors and avoid most of the immunological problems associated with semipotent stem cells. They can also be fairly easily manipulated to form only ONE tissue type rather than EVERY tissue type at once. But here's the bad news. We don't know how to choose the tissue type, not without knowledge of the proper CD-markers and proteins. We can potentially "back up" just about any pluripotent (adult) stem cell to a totipotent (embryonic stage) cell through the proper genetic signaling and nutrient/substrate baths. This would switch ON the genes for the embryonic state. But even this won't be possible until we see it working in the forward direction. Bottom line, we need to somehow study embryos. For example, the chances of 'stumbling' upon and detecting all 200 common genes associated with hematopoietic and neural stem cells and the exact one of the countless trillions of marker combinations necessary for the transdifferentiation to occur just by looking at one mature cell vitro-culture is astronomically unlikely.
Thanx again for the informative posts. I wish you 'bon chance' in your efforts.
Thank you for the support. Now it's back to the adventure :)
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