Our bodies’ cells didn’t evolve to flourish in a petri dish. Even fast-growing skin cells stop dividing and turn thin and ragged after a few weeks outside the body. This natural obstacle limited the therapeutic potential of lab-grown cells – if you can’t grow the cells, you can’t use them to heal damaged tissue.
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[E]ven as scientists devise new ways to grow heart muscle or neurons from iPSCs and other stem cells, financial constraints could put a personal stock of iPSCs out of reach for all but the wealthiest patients.…
Luckily for the rest of us, there are people whose DNA enables their cells to coexist within the immune systems of people not closely related to them, making them, if not universal donors, at least super donors. These donors’ skin cells would be used to create off-the-shelf iPSC banks for use in future clinical trials and, potentially, stem cell therapy….
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To find these super donors, [Japan’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA)] is cooperating with the Japanese Red Cross…A similar endeavor is underway in the United States.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Wanted: Stem Cell Super Donors
