Stem cell researchers have found a way to turn a person’s skin into blood, a process that could be used to treat cancer and other ailments, according to a Canadian study published on Sunday.
The method uses cells from a patch of a person’s skin and transforms them into blood that is a genetic match, without using human embryonic stem cells, the study in the journal Nature said.
By avoiding the controversial and more complicated processes involved with using human embryonic stem cells to create blood, this approach simplifies the process, researchers said.
“What we believe we can do in the future is generate blood in a much more efficient manner,” said study author Mick Bhatia of the McMaster’s Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.
With the ability to create blood for transfusion from a person’s own skin, the advance means someday patients needing blood for surgery or to treat anemia could bypass the blood bank and derive the necessary supply from themselves.
The breakthrough could also see future uses such as allowing patients undergoing chemotherapy to endure a longer regime of treatment without the breaks currently needed to rejuvenate the body. Researchers have been able to perform the skin-to-blood -transformation in the past, but while using human pluripotent stem cells, widely known as embryonic stem cells.
Stem cells that are derived from human embryos hold significant promise for medical breakthroughs, but also carry risks, such as the potential to create tumors. However, researchers say their new method can create enough blood for a transfusion from a 4cm by 3cm patch of adult human skin and can avoid those potential hurdles.
“So we don’t need to take skin cells and put it into a pluripotent stem cell. That is inefficient in terms of time,” Bhatia said. “There are also concerns that they might form a tumor, and the fact that we bypass that makes it more feasible for transplants.”
Those needing bone marrow transplants could be particularly aided by the breakthrough, according to John Kelton, dean of health sciences for McMaster University.
“For all physicians, but especially for the patients and their families, the illness became more frustrating when we were prevented from giving a bone marrow transplant because we could not find a perfect donor match in the family or the community,” Kelton said. “Dr Bhatia’s discovery could permit us to help this important group of patients.”
Clinical trials could start as soon as 2012, the study said.
Cynthia Dunbar, head of the molecular hematopoiesis section of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health in the US, said she was eager to try out the Canadian team’s approach.
“I think there are exciting aspects in terms of this potentially being a much safer approach than going back through embryonic stem cells,” said Dunbar, who estimated it would be five to 10 years before the technique reaches the general public.
“I work for the US federal government, and whether or not we can work with embryonic stem cells is up in the air,” she said. “I’m very excited to try this.”
Bhatia said researchers would next begin experiments to see what other kinds of human cells can be derived from adult skin. The research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, the Stem Cell Network and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion