A set of lab-grown stem cells could hold the secret to a game-changing cancer treatment. So far, the cells have only been tested in mice, but when infused into the rodents, scientists say the stem cells were able to become functional bone marrow at levels similar to that seen after traditional umbilical cord cell transplants.
This is excellent news because it could make getting stem cells for this kind of treatment much more accessible. One of the biggest issues surrounding the treatment of cancers like lymphoma and leukemia is that radiation and chemotherapy drugs can destroy the cells in your bone marrow.
However, with lab-grown stem cells, we’d be able to easily replace those missing cells without having to wait on traditional stem cell transplants. While umbilical cords are very rich in these cells, they also come with the risk of being rejected by the body. However, producing stem cells in the lab from the patient themselves could reduce that risk drastically.
That’s what the scientists hope to eventually accomplish with their plans to create stem cells and possibly turn them into a cancer treatment. To start with, they have to take the human blood or skin cells and then turn them into what they call pluripotent stem cells. This is done with a reprogramming process.
All of this also relies on basically resetting the cells to an early stage of development. Otherwise, being able to make lab-grown stem cells just wouldn’t be viable. Once the cells have been completely changed through the two-stage process, they are then injected into the affected mice to see how they respond to them.
So far, the results seem to be pretty promising, though it’s unclear how long it may take to move on to human trials. The researchers have published all of their findings in the journal Nature Biotechnology, and say that the treatment hasn’t exactly been consistent just yet. So they’ll need to address that first.
Scientists have also been working to use stem cells to restore sight in blind patients, with some promising results.
