Issue (Who cares and why?)
You have just discovered that you are in need of an organ transplant, but the chances of finding a compatible donor are very small. Your doctor aspirates cells from your bone marrow, grows them in culture in the laboratory and then transplants them into the organ that is diseased. Miraculously, the cells from your bone marrow give rise to new healthy cells in your diseased organ, allowing it to regenerate and heal you. The groundwork for this apparent miracle has already been laid by researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno.
What has been done?
The UNR researchers’ overall goal is to examine whether it is possible for stem cells from one adult tissue to adopt alternate fates upon transplantation in vivo, giving rise to cells within tissues other than their tissue of origin. They reasoned that the ideal way to examine this hidden potential was to transplant the cells into the fetus at a time when all the organs had begun to differentiate, but the need for exponential growth and differentiation could still permit the possibility of reprogramming of cellular fate through a bombardment of proliferative/differentiative stimuli without forcing the transplanted cells to adopt a specific fate by damaging/inducing regeneration within a particular organ. Thus far, the results have shown that it is possible to use adult stem cells from the bone marrow to produce human cells within the liver, brain, heart, and pancreas of recipient sheep, opening the door to the exciting possibility of treating a host of human diseases for which there are currently no cures.
Impact
Once the optimal cell type has been determined for generating each desired tissue, it will ultimately become possible to treat a wide range of human diseases including such candidates as myocardial infarction, hemophilia, and diabetes, using stem cells from the patient to generate the cells necessary to repair/replace the damaged/defective organ within the patient.
Contact
Graça Almeida-Porada
Animal Biotechnology/ MS202
University of Nevada, Reno
Reno, NV 89557-0104
galmeida@cabnr.unr.edu