There will be more cord blood stem cells
Cord blood will become more available for transplantation
Anna Govorova, Infox.ru based on the materials of the Universite de Montreal:
World breakthrough: a new molecule allows for an increase in stem cell transplantsScientists from the University of Montreal have found a molecule that helps to increase the number of stem cells in umbilical cord blood many times.
It is possible that in the future this discovery will save the lives of many patients with oncological and other serious blood diseases.
Umbilical cord blood is a unique material. It contains stem cells, mainly hematopoietic – i.e. cells that are precursors of blood cells. In the body, they develop into erythrocytes, leukocytes and platelets. Cord blood transplantation is used to treat many serious diseases of the circulatory system – leukemia, myeloma and lymphoma.
This method is an alternative to bone marrow transplantation. According to experts, cord blood transplantation is more affordable than bone marrow transplantation. Its advantage lies in the fact that it is already available in the bank, unlike donor bone marrow. In addition, the procedure for cord blood sampling is much simpler than bone marrow sampling. To carry it out, blood from the umbilical cord is taken during childbirth and stored frozen in a cord blood bank. There are already about a hundred cord blood stem cell banks operating in the world.
However, the amount of cord blood itself and the number of stem cells in it is so small that most transplants in the world are done to children and adolescents, and adults often lack this amount.
This problem is solved in several ways. For example, cells can be cultured before transplantation to increase their number. Canadian scientists have just managed to achieve this with the help of the newly discovered UM171 molecule.
According to the lead author of the study, Dr. Sauvageau (Guy Sauvageau), the molecule that they were able to detect and which was named UM171, allows for a 10-fold increase in the number of stem cells in umbilical cord blood. In addition to the UM171 molecule, scientists used a specially designed bioreactor to increase the number of stem cells.
"We hope that the discovery of a new molecule will allow thousands of patients around the world to perform cord blood transplantation. Given how many people cannot get help simply because of the lack of the right donors, this study gives great hope in the treatment of oncological and other severe forms of blood disease," says Dr. Sovasho.
Clinical trials of this method will be held in December 2014, and the results will be received in 2015, the authors say.
An article by Canadian scientists (Iman Fares et al., Pyrimidoindole derivatives are agonists of human hematopoietic stem cell self-renewal) was published in the latest issue of the journal Science.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru19.09.2014