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Scientist touts potential of umbilical cord stem cells

Stem cells found in umbilical cord blood are useful not only for transplants, but also for drug-testing by the pharmaceutical industry, according to research presented yesterday in Taipei.

“Over 130 million children are born each year, making umbilical cord blood the largest stem cell source available on the planet,” said Colin McGuckin, a professor at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Newcastle University in England.

McGuckin’s findings were presented yesterday at the 2008 Taiwan International Somatic Stem Cell Symposium, attended by about 200 doctors and experts from Taiwan, the US and the UK.

“There are 85 diseases which are treatable with cord blood ... and over 10,000 people have already been successfully treated with cord blood,” he said.

McGuckin listed several advantages of cord blood over other sources of stem cells, including that collecting cord blood is non-invasive and ethically acceptable to almost every religion.

His research found that defined neural, hepatic, epithelial and pancreatic tissues could be produced from cord blood.

Stem cells derived from cord blood not only have potential for tissue-engineering for transplants, but also for differentiating human cord blood cells into liver cells, he said. This could be useful to the pharmaceutical industry, he said.

“Umbilical cord blood can be of use ... for the development of defined tissues for making drugs and for toxicity testing, which is increasingly important for the creation of humanized drugs,” McGuckin said.

“A majority of normal drugs are tested first on animals ... but animal cells are not exactly like human cells,” McGuckin said.

He recalled the TeGenero disaster of 2006, when clinical trials of the drug TGN1412 resulted in near-fatal side effects on its test subjects.

Similar cases can be averted in the future with the development of liver cells that have been produced from human cord blood stem cells, McGuckin said.

McGuckin also called for establishing public cord blood banks worldwide, because “if no cord blood gets stored, then no one gets treated,” he said.
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