Posted on 10/11/2012 5:03:43 PM PDT by neverdem
Hormone-producing gland can be created from (mouse) embryonic stem cells.
A series of achievements have stoked excitement about the potential of regenerative medicine, which aims to tackle diseases by replacing or regenerating damaged cells, tissues and organs. A paper in Nature today1 reports another step towards this goal: the generation of working thyroid cells from stem cells.
Sabine Costagliola, a molecular embryologist at the Free University of Brussels, and her team study the development of the thyroid gland, which regulates how the body uses energy and affects sensitivity to other hormones. Their research shows that thyroid function can be re-established even after the gland has been destroyed — at least in mice. If the same technique could be applied to humans, it would help the roughly 1 in 3,000 babies born with deficient thyroid activity, or hypothyroidism, which can result in stunted physical and mental development.
The thyroid is the latest in a growing list of body parts that can now be ‘fixed’ in mice, with the potential to treat diseases from diabetes to Parkinson’s (see 'We can rebuild him'). “Progress has...,”
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As with much recent work in regenerative medicine, the next challenge is to translate this to humans, says ffrench-Constant. This prospect has been made easier in recent years by research that was recognized this week with a Nobel prize: the demonstration by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan that adult skin cells can be reprogrammed to form stem cells capable of differentiating into a wide range of cell types (see 'Cell rewind wins medicine Nobel').
Francesco Antonica, a molecular embryologist in Costagliola's lab and a co-author of the latest paper, says that the team plans to use such induced pluripotent stem cells, derived from patients with hypothyroidism, to try to replicate the mouse results in humans.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
ping
ping
We are on the verge of an amazing time for medicine.
neverdem, did I read somewhere that you have a ping list for Health/Science?
FReepmail me if you want on or off my stem cell ping list.
Interesting study.
Did you know that there are two entries for you near the start and the end?
I’m no doctor, but this is the most exciting and fascinating thing going on in medicine right now. The idea that pretty soon they’re going to be able to grow perhaps onsite, in your body, any organ you need to replace aging or diseased ones, with no rejection issues because it’s your own stem cells making them, is just . . . WOW, WOW, WOW!!!
This is excellent news for me personally. I haven’t had a thyroid for 35 years. I could definitely use a new one.
BTTT
Mine quit about 17 years ago, it’s exciting to me, too!
Somehow the awarding of this year’s Nobel Prize to two scientists responsible for early and more recent breakthroughs in adult stem-cell research hardly made the news. Again President GW Bush is vindicated though the left will probably continue to call him, and all Republicans, anti-science. The topic was one of the biggest in the 2004 election.
Too late for us Levothroid pill poppers, I’m afraid.
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