Scientists identify a new sustainable approach to make more stem cell cord blood -
The international scientific community of stem cells, co-led in Canada by Dr. John Dick and the Netherlands by Dr. Gerald de Haan, discovered the switch to leverage the power of cord blood and potentially increase the supply of stem cells for cancer patients requiring transplantation therapy to fight against their disease.
conclusions proof of concept, published online today in Cell Stem Cell (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.stem.2016.06.008) provide a viable new approach to make more stem cells from cord blood, which is available through public cord blood bank, said the co-principal investigator John Dick, Senior scientist, Cancer Centre Princess Margaret, University Health Network (UHN). Dr. Dick is also a Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto and holds a Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Biology. The co-principal investigator on the cells was scientific Gerald Haan strains, Co-Scientific Director, European Institute of Biology of Aging, University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands. Dr. Dick talks about their common search https://youtu.be/cpEmKnjkb9s.
"Stem cells are rare in cord blood and often there is not enough present in a typical collection to be useful for human transplantation. the aim is to find ways to make more of them and allow more patients to make use of the therapy of blood stem cells, "says Dr. Dick." Our discovery shows a method that could be exploited over the long term in a clinical therapy and we took advantage of cord blood is collected in various public banks that are now growing across the country. "
Currently, patients need a stem cell transplant are paired with an adult donor immune system is compatible with services of international registry. But around the world, thousands of patients are unable to get stem cell needed to fight against blood cancers like leukemia because there is no donor match.
"About 40,000 people receive stem cell transplants every year, but this represents only about a third of patients who need this therapy," says Dr. Dick. "That's why there is a big push in research to explore the cord blood as a source because it is readily available and increases the possibility of finding tissue matches. the key is to develop cells from cord blood stem for many more samples available answer this need. And we're making progress. "
Although there is much research on the expansion of the few stem cells in cord blood, Dick de Haan teams took a different approach. When a stem cell divides it makes a lot of progenitor cells immediately downstream that retain key properties to be able to develop in each of the 10 types of mature blood cells, but they lost the critical capacity for self-renewal (keep on the replenishment of stem cell pool) that all true stem cells possess.
in the laboratory, analysis of mouse and human models of blood development, the teams discovered that microRNA (TRIM-125a) is a genetic switch that is normally in the cells stem and control self-renewal ; it normally goes off in progenitor cells.
"Our work shows that if we throw artificially switch in these cells downstream, we can equip them with stemness and they essentially become stem cells can be maintained in the long term," says Dr. Dick
in 2011, Dr. isolated Dick a human blood stem cell in its purest form. - as a single stem cell capable of regenerating the entire blood system, providing a more detailed system roadmap development of human blood, and opening the door to capture the power of these life-producing cells to treat cancer and other debilitating diseases more effectively.
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