Unlimited Blood Bank?
Posted on: Wednesday, 20 August 2008, 09:10 CDT
U.S. researchers said embryonic stem cells could be used in the future to grow red blood cells that might one day provide limitless sources of blood.
Researchers at Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology want to save the struggling company which is desperately seeking investors to keep it afloat.
"I think it's really a big break for us," said Dr. Robert Lanza, scientific director of the company.
Advanced Cell Technology is one of a few commercial ventures trying to make a business out of the emerging stem cell field.
Scientists say stem cells are the body's master cells; they replenish various cells and tissues as they die.
Stem cells removed from days-old embryos are especially powerful, with the ability to produce any cell type.
Doctors want to use them to provide tailor-made transplants for patients, and to study disease.
One obstacle is that the immune system may reject tissues grown from someone else's stem cells.
Lanza and colleagues at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Mayo Clinic reported that red blood cells may be an exception to this, because they do not have a nucleus.
"You don't have to worry about the DNA going haywire," he said.
Lanza envisions growing batches of cells from human embryos possessing all the different blood types: A, B, O and AB, as well as negative and positive Rh versions of each.
"The ability to, on-demand, make as much as you want is obviously very, very attractive," Lanza said.
Researchers first turned embryonic stem cells into blood precursor cells. They then found a way to get them to go down the road of becoming erythrocytes, which are defined as the red blood cells that carry oxygen through the body.
"We can currently generate up to a 100 billion red blood cells from a single six-well plate of stem cells," Lanza said.
Due to controversies over the use of human embryos, the federal government strictly limits its funding of embryonic stem cell research.
Researchers are also trying to make blood cells using induced pluripotent stem cells. It’s a new source of stem cells made from ordinary skin cells and genes that turn them back to an embryonic-like state.
Lanza said finding funding is the biggest challenge.
"Right now, it's tough," said Lanza, whose company is down to 12 employees. "For a while we had the phones off. It's tough going but the people who are here, we believe in this and we are riding it out."
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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