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Two reports on new stem cell research caught my eye today. Neither promises immediate leaps forward in regenerative medicine this week or next, but both should be of interest to those who follow the underlying science.
Neural Stem Cells Are Long-lived:
New studies in mice have shown that immature stem cells that proliferate to form brain tissues can function for at least a year — most of the life span of a mouse — and give rise to multiple types of neural cells, not just neurons. The discovery may bode well for the use of these neural stem cells to regenerate brain tissue lost to injury or disease.
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In terms of using neural stem cells for therapeutic purposes and to regenerate tissue, it's important that they can continue to proliferate, and that these stem cells can make different cell types. ... If these stem cells do produce cells that contribute to injury repair, it is fairly easy to infuse growth factors to coax these stem cells to do more in repairing injury.
Researchers have been making real progress of late in identifying, manipulating and culturing neural stem cells. Robust brain regeneration is high on my personal laundry list of things I'd like to be solved well before I'll have need of it - we can envisage many ways of dealing with a failing heart, up to and including cloning and transplanting a replacement organ or building mechanical substitutes, but the options for the aging brain are much more limited.
Stem Cell Subtype Aids Lung Patients:
High levels of a stem cell subtype called endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) in the blood may improve the survival rate of people with acute lung injury, a deadly form of lung failure.
A study of 45 patients with acute lung injury by researchers at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta found that patients with higher levels of EPCs had better survival rates. Patients with an EPC colony count of 35 or more had a death rate of 30 percent, compared with 61 percent for patients with an EPC colony count of less than 35.
That's a pretty impressive demonstration of the degree to which your survival depends on the effectiveness of your stem cells. Different people have more or less effective personal regenerative toolkits, but all those toolkits become steadily less effective with advancing age and accumulated cellular damage. How much of a difference will it make to the onset of age-related conditions when medical science can rejuvenate your stem cells?
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Posted by Reason
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