Stem cell research carries hope for spinal cord injury patientsRSS Feed

Spinal cord injury sufferers could be among groups of patients to benefit from new stem cell research.

Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have developed a new rapid purifying process for human embryonic stem cells.

Researchers have claimed the process, which avoids the need to genetically alter the cells, is a "key advance" for isolating the necessary cells to repair certain types of damaged tissue, such as a spinal injury.

The technique, known as "high throughput" processing, is the first time that scientists have been able to identify and then sort out particular types of stem cells.

“Here we were able to purify one specific cell type without resorting to genetically engineering the stem cells themselves, a process that can introduce unwanted traits into the cells," explained senior author of the paper Dr Harold Bernstein.

"This approach could quickly build up a large reservoir of desired cells.”

Recently, biopharmaceutical firm Geron was granted approval to proceed with human clinical trials of stem cell therapy.

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Posted by Matthew Heap
 

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