The Raelian Movement
for those who are not afraid of the future : http://www.rael.org
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Scientists Turn Skin Cells Directly Into Blood Cells, Bypassing Middle
Pluripotent Step
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101107202144.htm
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2010) — In an important breakthrough, scientists
at McMaster University have discovered how to make human blood from
adult human skin.
The discovery, published Nov. 7 in the journal Nature, could mean that
in the foreseeable future people needing blood for surgery, cancer
treatment or treatment of other blood conditions like anemia will be
able to have blood created from a patch of their own skin to provide
transfusions. Clinical trials could begin as soon as 2012.
Mick Bhatia, scientific director of McMaster's Stem Cell and Cancer
Research Institute in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, and
his team of researchers have also shown that the conversion is direct.
Making blood from skin does not require the middle step of changing a
skin stem cell into a pluripotent stem cell that could make many other
types of human cells, then turning it into a blood stem cell.
"We have shown this works using human skin. We know how it works and
believe we can even improve on the process," said Bhatia. "We'll now
go on to work on developing other types of human cell types from skin,
as we already have encouraging evidence."
The discovery was replicated several times over two years using human
skin from both young and old people to prove it works for any age of
person.
John Kelton, hematologist and dean and vice-president of health
sciences for McMaster University said: "I find this discovery
personally gratifying for professional reasons. During my 30 years as
a practicing blood specialist, my colleagues and I have been pleased
to help care for cancer patients whose lives were saved by bone marrow
transplants. For all physicians, but especially for the patients and
their families, the illness became more frustrating when we were
prevented from giving a bone marrow transplant because we could not
find a perfect donor match in the family or the community. "Dr.
Bhatia's discovery could permit us to help this important group of
patients."
"The Bhatia research effort is building on significant findings in
recent years, which have shown that human skin cells can be
reprogrammed into pluripotent cells that have the potential to become
all cell types.
"The pioneering findings published today are the first to demonstrate
that human skin cells can be directly converted into blood cells, via
a programming process that bypasses the pluripotent stage. Producing
blood from a patient's own skin cells, has the potential of making
bone marrow transplant HLA matching and paucity of donors a thing of
the past."
"Bhatia's convincing demonstration that skin cells can be directly
converted to hematopoietic progenitor cells is exciting and will
immediately change the paradigms regarding the best way forward for
production of hematopoietic cells to be used in regenerative medicine
and in the study of human blood diseases," said Cynthia Dunbar, head
of the molecular hematopoiesis section of the National Heart, Lung and
Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health in the U.S.
"Bhatia's approach detours around the pluripotent stem cell stage and
thus avoids many safety issues, increases efficiency, and also has the
major benefit of producing adult-type l blood cells instead of fetal
blood cells, a major advantage compared to the thus far disappointing
attempts to produce blood cells from human ESCs or IPSCs."
This research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health
Research, the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, the Stem
Cell Network and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation.
Editor's Note: This article is not intended to provide medical advice,
diagnosis or treatment.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by
ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by McMaster University.
Journal Reference:
1. Eva Szabo, Shravanti Rampalli, Ruth M. Risueño, Angelique
Schnerch, Ryan Mitchell, Aline Fiebig-Comyn, Marilyne Levadoux-Martin,
Mickie Bhatia. Direct conversion of human fibroblasts to multilineage
blood progenitors. Nature, 2010; DOI: 10.1038/nature09591
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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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