All About Identification
(From Newswise). This is an interesting juncture in the advance of biotechnology: scientists can accomplish a great deal with the latest tools, but learning to identify specific cells is still somewhat harder than taking action with the cells in hand. We should therefore be following the advance of identification strategies with some interest: "A sugar molecule present on embryonic stem cells also has been found on the surface of a type of adult stem cell, a discovery that may help researchers isolate and purify adult stem cells for use in therapies aimed at bone healing, tendon repair and cartilage regeneration ... With a purer cell population, you should have a more effective therapy ... Is the expression of this marker elevated in a tumor? If so, perhaps it might be useful to identify cancer stem cells."