Sheep and Human Chimera's For Potential Organ Transplant Candidates?
Related News: Stem Cell Research"They're sheep still," says Dr. Esmail Zanjani with the University of Nevada. "But they have significant amounts of human cells in their different organs."
Dr. Zanjani creates the sheep that contain human cells at the University of Nevada's agricultural research station outside Reno. The goal is to produce organs, especially livers, for future transplant into humans.
"By putting these organs back into the human, we may be able to allow the humanized portion to regenerate into a full-functioning organ," says Zanjani......
To make these "chimeras", Zanjani's team of researchers used stem cells taken from the bone marrow of human adults. They then inserted these cells into the sheep while the animals are forming in the womb. When the sheep are finally born, millions of human cells are in all of their organs. These cells that are genetically identical to the person who donated the bone marrow.
In theory, if a patient needed a liver, doctors would take some of the patient’s cells from their bone marrow and use a sheep to grow a new liver for that patient.
"Your body will vigorously reject the sheep part of the liver, but allow the human part to remain, because it's your own cells," says Zanjani....
Posted on April 26, 2005 06:34 PM