Friday, August 22, 2008

Body May Reject Transplanted Human Embryonic Stem Cells

August 19, 2008
By Nikhil Swaminathan

The much-ballyhooed human embryonic stem cell apparently may share a problem with transplanted organs: a high probability of rejection.

Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine found that mice mounted an immune response after being injected with human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). The result: all the transplanted stem cells—which hold the promise of maturing into several different types of tissue—were dead within a week.

Wu says that the fact that the hESCs could not survive in the mouse, coupled with previous work showing that the animals also reject mice ESCs, suggests that if human stem cells were transplanted to a patient, they would very likely provoke an immune response. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, has not approved the injection of hESCs into patients because the raw cells have the potential to become cancerous. the rest image

1 Comments:

At 1:17 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, has not approved the injection of hESCs into patients because the raw cells have the potential to become cancerous.
That is an understatement. Anybody who would inject ESCs into their brainstem to cure Parkinson's (e.g., Michael J Fox) is an idiot. A teratoma in the brainstem would be a very ugly death.

 

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