Embryonic Stem Cell Progress

Fight Aging!

Do you want to live a longer life in good health? Simple practices can make some difference, such as exercise or calorie restriction. But over the long haul all that really matters is progress in medicine: building new classes of therapy to repair and reverse the known root causes of aging. The sooner these treatments arrive, the more lives will be saved. Find out how to help »

(From ScienceDaily). By applying new techniques to control embryonic stem (ES) cell differentiation, researchers have succeeded in reversing hemophilia - a genetic defect of the liver - in mice. "In the study, ES cells were treated with fibroblast growth factor for seven days prior to injection. As expected, this resulted in ES cells differentiating into early endoderm like precursors, which the researchers named 'putative endoderm precursors,' or PEPs. Endoderm refers to the inner layer of early embryonic cells that develops into the digestive and respiratory systems. Not only do ES cells differentiate into PEPs, they also engraft, persist, differentiate further and then function following injection ... the PEP cells robustly engraft within the liver and were not recognized by the immune system as foreign."

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050222194021.htm