Possible spinal injury advance with new stem cell methodRSS Feed

The effective treatment of spinal cord injury with stem cells could be one step closer, after scientist developed a more efficient way to generate human stem cells.

Stem cells have huge potential to be used to replace diseased or damaged tissues such as nerve cells, but the technology is being hampered by existing methods used to generate human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).

"Perhaps even more importantly, safe and effective means of directing the fate of patient-specific iPS cells towards clinically useful cell types are lacking," explained senior study author Dr Derrick Rossi.

The new technique, which uses so-called modified RNA molecules, reprogrammed mature skin cells that were then converted into iPSCs with "startling efficiency".

California-based biopharmaceutical firm Geron recently got the all clear from the US Food and Drug Administration to start conducting human clinical trials of stem cell therapy on patients with acute spinal injuries.

News from Serious Law, specialist spinal injury solicitors

Posted by Matthew Heap
 

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