Study Links Stem Cells in Marrow to Fertility

[HuckleB]

Study Links Stem Cells in Marrow to Fertility

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/health/28cell.html

"Women may possess a hidden cache of stem cells in the bone marrow that constantly replenish the ovaries with new eggs, a new study suggests.

The idea contradicts long-established scientific dogma that holds that a woman is born with a complement of eggs that must last throughout her reproductive life.

The theory, proposed by researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital, would, if confirmed, have major implications for fertility treatments, but at present it has many critics.

The researchers, led by Jonathan Tilly, report in this week's issue of Cell that the cache of germ-line stem cells in the bone marrow send cells via the blood stream, to the ovaries, which signal to the marrow when new supplies are needed.


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I love this article. The researchers are going after each other in public. It's almost as good as listening to them go after each on the bus up to Oregon Health & Science U.

:)

[Another Bill C.]

1. A different twist to

"what is bred in the bone will out."

[Igel]

2. Here's a thought:

"Their work depends mostly on experiments with mice but they also cite cases where women have received bone marrow transplants after chemotherapy and unexpectedly conceived - the result, the researchers suggest, of receiving a new supply of oocyte-making cells from the new bone marrow."

Wouldn't that mean that the women's kids weren't genetically their kids?

And do we have cross-gender bone-marrow donations?