Cloning To Develop Stem Cells In An Effort To Cure Blood Diseases
Related News: Cloning News, Stem Cells and Cancer, Stem Cells and SkinIn the fight to turn back the fatal blood diseases like leukemia, the most powerful tool thusfar has been the bone-marrow transplant. However, many patients are unable to find a donor who is a close-enough match to limit the risk of rejection.
Even in the instance when there is a good match, the overall treatment procedure is still quite risky. The Children's Hospital in Boston is considered one of the best program is considered one of the world's bes. Nevertheless, 8 percent of its transplant patients die within approximately one year, as indicated by last year's statistics....
Nearby however, scientists are working on an ambitious effort to radically improve the bone-marrow transplant procedure by making it safer and available to a much larger number of patients. Their goal is to literally clone the skin cells of the patients themselves and then to derive blood stem cells from them. These stem cells would then be a perfectly matched transplant, and if all goes well, with no risk of rejection.
This team of of researchers at Children's Hospital is one of only five academic teams in the world with plans to clone human cells. However, unlike other groups, whose goals are for medical applications in the future and are focused towards basic science, this team at Children's is focused on making cells specifically to cure patients.
In pursuit of this highly ambitious and soon to be much watched goal, Dr. Leonard Zon and his colleague, Dr. George Q. Daley, have been drawn fast-moving area of science that is looking for a precise answer to a seemingly simple question: Where does blood come from?...
Posted on May 17, 2005 02:07 PM