Research on Using Umbilical Cord Blood to Repair Heart Tissue
Research on Using Umbilical Cord Blood to Repair Heart Tissue
According to an article on the Israel21C website, researchers in Israel are developing ways to use umbilical cord blood as a source for stem cells that could be injected into an injured heart. Jonathon Leor, of the Neufeld Cardiac Research Institute, affiliated with Tel Aviv University, said that one of the biggest challenges with stem cell therapy has been to make enough cells. He cited the potential for embryonic stem cells to differentiate into tumors and the scarcity of adult stem cells in the patient as the main difficulties. Umbilical cord blood (UCB), on the other hand, is easily available.
Leor’s research shows that the risk of rejection of UCB cells is reduced. The cells can regenerate quickly and have the potential to help with the healing of damaged hearts in several ways: creating new heart cells, creating new blood vessel cells, and releasing molecules or hormones that aid in healing.
He performed a study by injecting UCB cells into pigs who had had heart attacks. The cells were injected via catheter and survived in the infracted myocardium. He plans to do pre-clinical trials on pigs later this year.
1 Comments:
I feel so bad for all those people that are waiting for a heart transplant but are unable to receive one because they have a low chance of recovery. I hope in a few years stem cells will make heart transplants obsolete and that these stem cells will be able to repair existing hearts so all these people with damaged hearts don't have to die.
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