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http://news.sympatico.ctv.ca/home/canadian_scientists_find_way_to_turn_skin_into_blood/e4007dc5
Canadian scientists find way to turn skin into blood
07/11/2010 1:03:24 PM
CTV.ca News Staff
Scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., say they have made an exciting discovery, devising a way to make human blood with just a sample of skin.
The discovery, published in the science journal Nature, is still preliminary. But the find could mean that one day, people undergoing treatment for cancers of the blood or other blood disorders won't have to rely on blood and bone marrow donations from others but could use blood created from their own skin.
Mick Bhatia, scientific director of McMaster's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute, helped quietly develop the technique over the last two years along with his research team.
He explains that the method involves harvesting stem cells from a skin biopsy, and then growing the cells in a lab.
Through trial and error, Bhatia's team found that by adding a particular transcription factor – a protein that signals genes to turn "on" -- they were able to reprogram the skin cells into blood progenitor cells -- the "mother" cells that can multiply to produce other blood cells -- as well as mature blood cells. [etc]
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Canadian scientists find way to turn skin into blood
07/11/2010 1:03:24 PM
CTV.ca News Staff
Scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., say they have made an exciting discovery, devising a way to make human blood with just a sample of skin.
The discovery, published in the science journal Nature, is still preliminary. But the find could mean that one day, people undergoing treatment for cancers of the blood or other blood disorders won't have to rely on blood and bone marrow donations from others but could use blood created from their own skin.
Mick Bhatia, scientific director of McMaster's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute, helped quietly develop the technique over the last two years along with his research team.
He explains that the method involves harvesting stem cells from a skin biopsy, and then growing the cells in a lab.
Through trial and error, Bhatia's team found that by adding a particular transcription factor – a protein that signals genes to turn "on" -- they were able to reprogram the skin cells into blood progenitor cells -- the "mother" cells that can multiply to produce other blood cells -- as well as mature blood cells. [etc]
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