U of MN researchers identify new cord blood stem cell (Potential post-stroke treatment)

Discovery suggests potential treatment for regenerating nerve tissue after stroke

Researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School have discovered a new population of cells in human umbilical cord blood that have properties of primitive stem cells.

Umbilical cord blood is generally known to contain hematopoietic stem cells that can only produce cells found in blood. The new findings, however, identify a small population of cord blood cells with the characteristics of more primitive stem cells that have the potential to produce a greater variety of cell types.

"We are excited by this discovery because it provides additional insight into how stem cells can restore function in the brain after injury," said Walter Low, Ph.D., senior investigator of the study, and professor of Neurosurgery and the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota.

This research was published in the latest issue of the journal Stem Cells and Development.

Transplantation of these human cord blood stem cells into laboratory rodents with experimental strokes resulted in significant reductions in the size of brain lesion, and improved these animals' use of their limbs.

Some of the transplanted stem cells developed into "neuron-like" cells that are typically found in the brain. In addition, the transplanted cells also induced an unanticipated reorganization of host nerve fibers within the brain, which may explain why the rats regained function, Low said.

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So many of the articles prove that cord blood and bone stem cells are much more humane than embryonic stem cells. WHY the push to use embryos? You can harvest stem cells from everything from liposuctioned fat to rats' whiskers!

The new findings, however, identify a small population of cord blood
cells with the characteristics of more primitive stem cells that
have the potential to produce a greater variety of cell types.

The staff at The Los Angeles Times won't be happy about this.

They ran a Sunday Edition, front-page HIT-piece on cord blood banking
last year.
It included the name and city of an attorney that was wailing about
not being able to drum up enough clients to file a class-action suit
against cord blood banks (I suppose because the lawyer thinks the
operators of the banks make the storage of cord blood sound like
a fall-back position to those ESC therapies that are 5, 10, 50 years
down the road).

It'll be a hoot if this lawyer destroys some cord blood banks...
and all the "depositers" find they can't get the cord blood cells
that will save them.

Before workable ESC therapies arrive.

In such a case, it would be interesting to see them sue the lawyer
for their wrongful deaths, thanks to the lawyer's ambulance chasing.

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