Stem cells restore hearing, vision in animals

[pinto]

Source: Reuters

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Stem cells from tiny embryos can be used to restore lost hearing and vision in animals, researchers said Tuesday in what they believe is a first step toward helping people.

One team repaired hearing in guinea pigs using human bone marrow stem cells, while another grew functioning eyes in tadpoles using frog cells.

While there are no immediate uses for humans, they said their findings help describe some of the most basic biological processes underlying the development of hearing and sight, and may help in the development of the new field of regenerative medicine.

"These discoveries illustrate stem cell research's continuing extraordinary potential to treat a wide range of deadly and disabling diseases that affect millions," said Anand Swaroop, a stem cell researcher at the National Eye Institute, one of the National Institutes of Health.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4AI02220081119?feedType=nl&feedName=ustopnewsearly

[trudyco]

1. Wonderful - wish we'd spend more basic research money in this area. nt

[The2ndWheel]

2. "to restore hearing in guinea pigs whose hearing had been destroyed using chemicals"

It's amazing what we can do.

[nc4bo]

3. A story on CNN(?) this morning about a woman whose windpipe was destroyed by TB

They used a donor windpipe from a cadavar, removed all live cells from it and then used the woman's own adult stem cells to coat the donor windpipe essentially tricking her body into thinking the donor windpipe was her own.

Successful transplant, no immuno-suppressant therapy needed.

Miraculous!!

Story here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aUt7D6FD2bRE&refer=latin_america

Stem Cells Spawn First Drug-Free Windpipe Transplant (Update1)

By Michelle Fay Cortez

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Doctors operating on a 30-year-old Colombian woman restored her ability to breathe freely with the world's first transplanted windpipe specially treated to prevent organ rejection.

The airway connecting Claudia Castillo Sanchez's left lung to her windpipe collapsed after a persistent tuberculosis infection, leaving her short of breath and unable to perform routine daily activities. Efforts to prop it open failed, leaving Spanish doctors two options: remove the lung or replace the airway using an experimental technique tried only in animals.

The donor windpipe, or trachea, was washed 25 times to strip away all vestiges of live tissue, which could trigger rejection, then coated with cartilage cells grown from Castillo's own adult stem cells to trick her body into accepting the transplant, the doctors said in The Lancet. She was released from the hospital 10 days after the June operation and isn't taking drugs to suppress her immune system, a standard approach to prevent the body from rejecting transplanted organs.

ETA: I saw the story on CNN but found out more at the above website.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Roll on the day

we can have stem implants for hair and teeth too.

[harmonicon]

5. what do they mean "no immediate uses for humans"?

Guinea pig ears, and frog eyes, here I come! I'm going to be a totally awesome super hero.

[Javaman]

6. Just think where we would be today if moron* didn't cut funding. nt

[OhioChick]

8. Exactly. n/t

[Igel]

7. Odd that the story contradicts its own first line.

Cells from adult humans were used in the guinea pigs.

The story doesn't say where the frog stem cells came from. Perhaps they were "stem cells from tiny embryos". Dunno. Would be nice to know.

And she's the editor?