Spurring Stem Cells to Action
A potential alternative to first generation (often autologous) stem cell therapies based on extraction and transplantation would be to guide stem cells already present in the body into actions they would not otherwise have taken. From Yahoo! News: researchers "injected a natural protein from the body - leukemia inhibitory factor, or LIF - into a part of the brain of adult mice where stem cells reside. This fostered the production of up to six times the usual count of adult neural stem cells. ... While this study involved mice, the researchers noted that human adults also harbor neural stem cells in their brains. The brains of neurodegenerative disease patients appear to try to marshal their own neural stem cells to replace dying cells, but not in the numbers sufficient to do the job. ... The adult brain does try to repair itself by stimulating its own neural stem cells. But obviously it's not enough. So what we're trying to do here is kick it in the pants and increase the number of neural stem cells."
Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061115/sc_nm/stemcells_dc_3