The new cells..."will be the workhorses that carry out the new tissue-transplant therapies"
The scientists at Johns Hopkins who, in 1998, showed that human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) humans earliest, undifferentiated "full potential" cells could develop into all the basic types of embryonic tissues that make up human beings, have now "engineered" hPSCs to form a new type of cell that not only holds the potential to develop into different tissues but also overcomes great drawbacks that have limited the use of hPSCs for disease therapy.
The new cells, called embryoid body derived cells (EBDs), "will be the workhorses that carry out the new tissue-transplant therapies," says John D. Gearhart, Ph.D., the Hopkins team leader.
"The first applications of these cells will likely be in Lou Gehrigs disease (ALS), Type I diabetes, stroke and Parkinsons disease," says Gearhart. Researchers in other Hopkins labs have already begun testing EBDs on animal models of Lou Gehrigs and other neurodegenerative diseases, as well as on animal spinal injuries.
EBDs reproduce readily and are easily maintained, Gearhart said, and thus eliminate the need to use fetal tissues each time as a source a step that should quell many of the political and ethical concerns that swirl around stem cell studies.
"We thought from the first that problems would arise using hPSCs to make replacement tissues," says molecular biologist Michael Shamblott, Ph.D. The early-stage stem cells are both difficult and slow to grow. "More important," says Shamblott, "theres a risk of tumors.
If youre not very careful when coaxing these early cells to differentiate to form nerve cells and the like you risk contaminating the newly differentiated cells with the stem cells. Injected into the body, stem cells can produce tumors. The EBDs bypass all this."
EBDs readily divide for up to 70 generations, producing millions of cells without any appare
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Contact: Marjorie Centofanti
mcentofanti@jhmi.edu
410-955-8725
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
25-Dec-2000