Non-Embryonic Stem Cells
An Indian biotech firm, TriStem, is featured in a New Scientist story this week for its discovery of a technique making embryos unnecessary to make stem cells or for stem cell therapy. All they need is the patient’s own blood, which they treat with an antibody called CR3/43 that is made by a Danish firm, DakoCytomation.
The discovery was made by accident when the new firm’s founder, working as a lab researcher in a military hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, forgot to add complement to a mixture of CR3/43 which was supposed to destroy anything bound to the antibodies (like the leukemia virus being treated). The journal is comparing this discovery to Fleming’s pencillin; and others are saying that textbooks will have to be rewritten when this is over. And yes, it is also Nobel prize winning stuff. But it is early yet. The firm, has successfully treated only 4 patients so far with aplastic anemia.
They have had no failures as these were the only 4 cases they have treated.
They do it by taking a sample of the patient’s own blood , treating their immune cells with the antibody for a few hours and then giving it back to them.
The technique causes what is considered a biological heresy to occur: the blood cells “retrodifferentiated†back to bone marrow stem cells. But the firm has also discovered the technique not only causes retro-differentiation back to bone marrow stem cells, but farther than that, to cells with properties identical to embryonic stem cells.
A George Washington University researcher has been the recipient of his own beating muscle heart cells which he is researching after the TriStem founder drew some of his blood and incubated his blood cells with the antibody and the growth factor that makes heart muscle cells. A few hours later she invited GU scientist Tim McCaffrey to look at his cells under a microscope. He could not believe his eyes: his blood cells were now beating like heart muscle.
New Scientist October 9-15, 2004.
pp. 36-40.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?
Maverick researchers claim to be saving people's lives with a stem cell therapy that medical text books say can't exist. New Scientist went to investigate p.36
http://www.newscientist.com/inprint/;jsessionid=HBEPCBKCDHKD
Note: Unfortunately the story is NOT online; I have my hard copy of this issue from which I summarized the details above. However TriStem has a website now and has details of this research on it:
http://www.tristemcorp.com/
An Indian biotech firm, TriStem, is featured in a New Scientist story this week for its discovery of a technique making embryos unnecessary to make stem cells or for stem cell therapy. All they need is the patient’s own blood, which they treat with an antibody called CR3/43 that is made by a Danish firm, DakoCytomation.
The discovery was made by accident when the new firm’s founder, working as a lab researcher in a military hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, forgot to add complement to a mixture of CR3/43 which was supposed to destroy anything bound to the antibodies (like the leukemia virus being treated). The journal is comparing this discovery to Fleming’s pencillin; and others are saying that textbooks will have to be rewritten when this is over. And yes, it is also Nobel prize winning stuff. But it is early yet. The firm, has successfully treated only 4 patients so far with aplastic anemia.
They have had no failures as these were the only 4 cases they have treated.
They do it by taking a sample of the patient’s own blood , treating their immune cells with the antibody for a few hours and then giving it back to them.
The technique causes what is considered a biological heresy to occur: the blood cells “retrodifferentiated†back to bone marrow stem cells. But the firm has also discovered the technique not only causes retro-differentiation back to bone marrow stem cells, but farther than that, to cells with properties identical to embryonic stem cells.
A George Washington University researcher has been the recipient of his own beating muscle heart cells which he is researching after the TriStem founder drew some of his blood and incubated his blood cells with the antibody and the growth factor that makes heart muscle cells. A few hours later she invited GU scientist Tim McCaffrey to look at his cells under a microscope. He could not believe his eyes: his blood cells were now beating like heart muscle.
New Scientist October 9-15, 2004.
pp. 36-40.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?
Maverick researchers claim to be saving people's lives with a stem cell therapy that medical text books say can't exist. New Scientist went to investigate p.36
http://www.newscientist.com/inprint/;jsessionid=HBEPCBKCDHKD
Note: Unfortunately the story is NOT online; I have my hard copy of this issue from which I summarized the details above. However TriStem has a website now and has details of this research on it:
http://www.tristemcorp.com/
