Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Grow Human Thymus From Stem Cells
knight_23 writes: "The Herald
Sun reports
that Australian researchers have grown a functioning thymus from stem cells. The
thymus is a small organ that is critical to the immune system. Human trials could
begin within two years."
gross
Cool! Maybe I'll live long enough to get my own new heart!
-- Cheers!
one of the parts that is affected by HIV? also, if this can be done..think of all those "bubble boys" that have reduced immune systems. This could be a VERY good thing.
RoundTop
teleportation!!!!
article
dmarien
Will that new liver/lungs I wanted for christmas be plug and play compliant?
Linux is dead.
LU
it's sad.... all the resrictions imposed upon advancements of science are a result of conseratives fearful of playing god, the uneducated massess control the politicians with their ideas, or lack of rather. a preist says it's wrong, they say it's wrong, politicians say it's wrong, so it is wrong, right? wrong! i'm for any medical advancement that saves the lives of people, but i guess my $0.02 is worth the same as the twits i disagree with...
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
gee... controversy at its worst... a Thymus!
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Grow John Bobbitt a replacement penis?
This is truly amazing. I don't understand how people can be so against a technology which is so obviously going to save many many lives. Perhaps the pro-life anti-stem cell people should be the ones we call baby killers, as without these new technologies so many lives will be lost. A new Thymus! Who'd of thunk?
Can anyone explain why this is? In my basic understanding of the immune system, I thought the body needed T-cells to hunt down and bind themselves to unwanted invaders so that macrophages could gobble them up. Does our body contain a set amount of T-cells for a lifetime? Or is there some other process that creates them?
There is no spork.
Some of you might be interested in a related study (published in Nature ) which made headlines last summer.
Summary: Dr Freda Miller and colleagues at the Centre for Neuronal Survival and the Brain Tumour Research Centre at the Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, have isolated stem cells from the dermis of adult rodents that will proliferate and differentiate in culture to produce very different cell types- neurons, glia, smooth muscle cells, and fat cells. These novel stem cells, SKPs, were isolated from the skin of juvenile and adult rodents -- an accessible on-embryonic source. Human studies have indicated that similar cells are present inadult human skin. "We believe our discovery is important as we have identified an exciting new stem cell from a non-controversial source that holds considerable promise for scientific and therapeutic research," says Dr Freda Miller.
This process is probably a lot quicker that cloning myself and waiting for my other self to grow old enough for it to become an organ doner.
The functions of the thymus were not well understood until the early 1960s, when its role in the development of the body's system of immunity was discovered. Beginning during fetal development, the thymus processes many of the body's lymphocytes, which migrate throughout the body via the bloodstream, seeding lymph nodes and other lymphatic tissue. The main cells undergoing this processing are the T cells, a heterogeneous groups of cells essential in protecting the body against invasions by foreign organisms. If the thymus fails to develop or is removed early in fetal life, the immune system cannot develop completely. Normally, by the time the infant is a few months old, the immune system has sufficiently formed so as to function throughout life. However, further growth and development of lymphoid tissue still depends on intervention by the thymic cells. After the initial seeding process, the thymus releases a hormonal substance that stimulates further growth of lymphoidal tissue, although such a substance has not yet been isolated.
dam()
Useless sig.
Try stem cells.
It is too bad that more hospitals aren't allowing the donation of umbilical stem cells (stem cells collected from cord blood). They are largely an untapped resource and are usually considered PC even in the most conservative camps.
I think I misplaced mine! I hope they don't take too long to grow because I'm really starting to miss it, and my friends are making fun of me.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
How much cash do you think they would pay to let them grow a couple test thymus' in me?
Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. I just hope we don't end up with giant killer thymuses (thymi? nah) rampaging through downtown Cleveland. Again.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
My thymus got lopped off five years ago in a boating accident. Way to tease me.
wtf is CLiT ?
That was funny. I disagree with the mod there. Damn Aussie's. Next they'll start making claims about some kind of animal with a pouch or something.
"Professor Boyd referred to the thymus as the fountain of youth."
So does this mean that within a few more studies of stem cell research we can make ourselves immortal? If theres a way we cant get sick and everything by enhancing stem cells and cloning them..then isnt there a way we can use stem cells to slow down the aging process or something like that.....
gimme some of that Thymus magical juice...bottoms up!! Ahhhh.....Thymus the immortal maker! (cheesy smile and hearty laugh...knowing i'm not going to get paid for advertising somethin that wont exist....or will it?)
-Alicia
Can they grow one of these?
Come back and tell me when they can grow a Shakey's Pizza
Help the scientists free the world from the evil curse of the dracula
Are you stupid? Mozilla 1.0 rendered this page in less than a second on my PIII-733. You sure that's not 4MB of ram you fucking troll?
YOU DARE SPEAK OF CLIT AS AN AC?
You will die a thousand deaths by way of tubgirl
Linux is dead.
LU
this IS definitely more impressive than growing a Thymallus thymallus from a single cell.
(P.S. Thymallus thymallus is the scientific name for the salmon related fish species Grayling which occurs in the cold waters of Europe and elsewhere.)
This is a really interesting post. There's no reason for it to be modded down.
What kind of crack are the mods smoking today?
It seems that the Herald Sun's article is focusing on how great the thymus is, and all the nifty things it can do -- when the real breakthrough is the fact that they GREW A FRICKIN' FUNCTIONING ORGAN FROM STEM CELLS. Jesus Christ! Move this tech over to the heart, liver, kidneys, whatever, and NOW you've got the "holy grail of immunology". Yeah, I realize it's a lot of work to do something like this, and requires specialized effort and development for different organs, but if the basic technology works... ay caramba.
Maybe I'm missing something, and this isn't as big a deal as I think it is... but if it is...
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
taste great
less filling
taste great
less filling
IN a world first, Melbourne scientists have successfully grown an organ from stem cells.
A team from Monash Medical School grew a functioning thymus, a small organ that is critical to the immune system. Human trials could begin within two years.
Stem cells are the body's building blocks and have unlimited capacity to grow and replace all the cells within a particular tissue or organ.
"When I realised what we had finally done after 15 years of research, I went weak at the knees," Professor Richard Boyd said.
He said understanding the thymus, located near the heart, was the holy grail of immunology.
Professor Boyd believes the discovery will be an important part of a cure for many diseases of the immune system such as cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and diabetes. It should also help prevent rejection in people who have an organ transplant.
Professor Boyd referred to the thymus as the fountain of youth.
"Without a functioning immune system you get a disease called death,"he said.
"This organ, along with bone marrow, is the engine room of the immune system.
"It is the key to good health because without it, the body has no protection against any viruses."
Professor Boyd said despite its importance for immunity, the thymus went into hibernation naturally once humans reach puberty.
"This may be why many auto-immune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and cancers and infections increase in adults."
Professor Boyd said his team, led by Dr Jason Gill, was working on rebuilding the immune system by "rebooting" the thymus into action.
The Monash scientists put thymus stem cells into the kidney cavity of a mouse.
"To see the thymus grow, complete and working, was exciting," Professor Boyd said.
"We were looking at the missing link, that final piece of the jigsaw."
Professor Boyd said the mouse immune system was similar to a human's.
"The clinical trials indicate that the human thymus responds in the same way as a mouse, which is why we are confident this will translate very easily to humans," he said.
The thymus produces, educates and distributes special white cells called T lymphocytes (T-cells) which help to controlthe immune system and fight infection.
But T-cells are destroyed when cancer patients undergo chemotherapy and also by the AIDS virus. The cellsare also suppressed in people who have had organ transplants.
There has been limited success with thymus transplants, which are usually rejected by recipients. Stem cell therapy may offer a more reliable alternative.
Professor Boyd said he was confident the transition from animal to human clinical trials would be quick - "because it has to be".
He said the discovery fits "beautifully" with the global picture of Melbourne as a world leader in stem cell research.
"This really is a Melbourne story. It was created by Melbourne scientists and its international commercial capabilities are being explored by Norwood Abbey, a Melbourne-based biotechnology company that has exclusive rights to the science."
Professor Boyd said the international science journal Nature Immunology would publish details of the research today.
From science fiction, the impression I always got was that the way handle the failure of a heart was either going to be transplant from a donor or the use of synthetic organs (e.g. artificial hearts). This seems like a more impressive technology, allowing the body to grow its own replacement, and a more natural one, by eliminating the risk of rejection of artificial substances or organs grown in a different body.
I did find some of the quotes from Professor Boyd somewhat melodramatic, though: "Without a functioning immune system you get a disease called death,"he said.
Still, an amazing discovery. Good luck to those doing cutting edge medical research.
Before we get 100 posts telling us that stem cell research is being held up by whacko Chrisitian right wing bible thumpers...
May I remind you that there are hundreds of Sci-Fi stories (books, TV, movies, etc...) debating the creation of an UNDERCLASS! Whether this be robots, animals, races or CLONES!!!
Space - Above and Beyond (FOX TV) "Tanks," human clones and "AIs"
Star Trek TNG: Data/Lor. And those stupid mouse looking robots that could synthesis their own tools.
Asimov I, Robot: self-explanatory
Max Headroom: body harvesters
Brave New World: alphas.
Any others? Feel free to add a few if you can think of them... I don't have time (I'm at work) to list all of the ones that I can think of, so please help out.
Anyway, I hate the idea of stem cell research. And I'm a self-proclaimed atheist. It's only a matter of time before somebody connects "test tube baby" technology with "cloning" technologies and grows their own stem cells from human fetuses.
Isn't this the creation of an underclass of humans whos purpose it is to serve the higher classes?
quote:
"The thymus produces, educates and distributes special white cells called T lymphocytes (T-cells) which help to control the immune system and fight infection.
But T-cells are destroyed when cancer patients undergo chemotherapy and also by the AIDS virus. The cells are also suppressed in people who have had organ transplants."
this is a significant problem that is one of the biggest factors leading to disease in immunocompromised patients. the reason why they're also suppressed in patients with organ transplants is that they require immunosuppresant therapy, so that they own body doesn't reject the donor organ.
in a nutshell, your body doesn't like non-self things. if there's a non-self thing in your system, say, someone else's liver, your immune system will flip out and demonstrate Real Ultimate Power.
what's needed is some sort of component that can be introduced into the body that can aid the immune system intelligently. something that resists destruction by chemotherapy, and something that is "smart" enough to know what to attack, and what to leave alone. T-cells don't do this.
nanotechnology offers this. i know it's going to be years from now, but i hope that scientists will be able to shrink Mr. T into an injectable form. These Mr. T-cells will seek out and berate questionable cells and foreign bodies and beat them down, if necessary.
some genetic work may be needed to strengthen its intelligence such that the Mr. T-cells don't kill everything in sight.
"what's all this jibba-jabba bout chemo?"
"i pity the immune system who ain't got no T."
if they were using adult or embryonic stem cells? I would assume that they used embryonic as adult stem cells might just bond with the cells but it doesn't say anyting in the article. This is great news though, hopefully it will get objecters to see the huge benifits to stem cell research.
This is only the first of innumerable successes to come... congratulations to the U.S. government for working tirelessly to push this sort of amazing work out of the country. Though this sort of research isn't completely impossible to undertake here in the U.S. (yet), the current administration has tried its hardest to make it impossible. I hope the same sort of knee-jerk conservative behavior isn't going on elsewhere around the globe.
The sweetest day will be when George W. Bush is the one who needs a new thymus (or any other organ which will follow this breakthrough). I hope he chokes on it... in a figurative sense, I guess.
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Spiral out... keep going.
Some EntWives for TreeBeard !
Imagine blank pre-formatted brain with just a lilo in an MBR :)
3.243F6A8885A308D313
God is suing them, claiming they are copyrighting his derivative works, citing the DMCA. (deity Millenium Copyright act)
I am the lord of the pun. Dance Knave!
Does someone want to let Bush know about this or is he stuck pandering to the "moral majority" that he must hold back the greatest achievements in human health that will come from stem cells in the next few decades?
Was that a good sentence?
I can get this system to grow me a new steak whenever I want. Mm-mm - fresh biotech in the oven!
(Yes, I know it probably wouldn't taste as good as range grown cow, thank you Mr/Ms. "I don't get sarcasm".)
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
lost his stem for the good of science?
Apparently the guy who modded this up either can't read, or has the attention span of a 4 year old.
PLEASE, for the love of GOD, read the whole post before moderating!
Great troll, by the way.
"Take death, for example. A great deal of our effort goes into avoiding it. We make extraordinary efforts to delay it, and indeed often consider its intrusion a tragic event. Yet we would find it hard to live without it. Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it. If death were indefinitely put off, the human psyche would end up, well, like the gambler in The Twilight Zone episode."
- Ray Kurzweil
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
Do I have to cut other immortals heads off with a sword? If so, can I use a light saber? They make way cooler sounds.
"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."
No, but with a few of these in vitro-grown thymuses (thymii?) implanted in your body, you'll develop a Wolverine-like super immune system and live to be a bitter, violent 150-year old amnesiac super hero.
Freedom: "I won't!"
You should see the size of my pineal gland!
It is definitely a greate advance in the biological science. But it will take at least 5-10 years to make it practically useful. And all the claims about prospectives sound like a story about a PhD student who wanted to prove the applicability of his puerly theoretical thesis on descrete maths: -The present thesis is on descrete maths. Descrete maths is applied in synthesis of conatat element schemes. The latter are a model of relay circuits. And relays are used in various agricaltural machines, which are of a great use.
The next thing you know, scientists will be able to grow any part of the body in factories. Companies will compete on the speed of delivery. If you get sent to the hospital with a broken heart or something, they'll hook you up to a plastic one in the meantime, and within 24 hours, your replacement heart will arrive, UPS next day air.
Once that's perfected, people will order a bunch of spare parts beforehand and store them in their garage refrigerators. Suppose you're in the garage cutting some two-by-fours and you accidently cut your arm off. A quick call to the paramedics and they'll be at your place within a few minutes to thaw and install your spare arm on-site, while you look the other way and enjoy a Negra Modelo.
It's about time men grew organs for themselves. It is just then next logical step.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
I'm waiting for a new pancreas... or atleast some new islet cells.
Oh, and of course a way to stop my own body from killing off those insulin making cells yet again. Way to go my body! Way to go!
Its a major news publication, and I had no problem reading it. How odd eh?
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
I, for one, certainly hope we are doing the right thing and using unborn humans for this research. Why? Because it makes goofy red-faced religious people apoplectic with rage...rage borne of repressed self-loathing caused by the relentless fondlings of their trusted local clergy when they were but innocent youths.
Go science!
Think of the commercal uses, Pineal gland extract sales to Vegas Gamblers and cheap pure adrenochrome. man, just think now we don't have to kill people just for some. ****
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Am I the only one that started laughing after the first three words in that article?
Cheesy movie trailers have ruined me forever.
...but doesn't it the article say that they did this with a mouse--not a human? The article does say that human trials might begin within two years, but the thymus that they produced was implanted into a mouse. (Not that I would criticize a Slashdot headline's accuracy)
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
God bless my mighty American penis, that I may smite the whores of Babylon with the coming of the LORD!
Amen!
"You're just scared like a little white pussy. I'll fuck you till you love me, you faggot!"
it's a bumcorking thymus! gee... it's not too hard to get people worked up in here
but you're right
GOD bless america
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I don't know about this. The immune system is a complicated beast. It involves tens of organs, hundreds of enzymes, and thousands of cells, all acting in harmony to maintain the health of the whole. You can't just throw thymuses at the problem and expect it to go away. We need to look for a more holistic solution, attacking the root problem rather than patching the symptoms.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
There's more to clinical immortality than the immune system. Telomeres (chains on the ends of strands of DNA) that break down a little with each copy are a much bigger hurdle on the road to immortality. There have been studies that claim that injecting fetal mice (?) with telomerase, an enzyme that builds up the telomeres, causes their telomeres to be extraordinarily long, allowing thier DNA, and therefore their cells, to reproduce many more times than is normal. This results in a not only a longer lifespan, but a longer time before the effects of aging become apparent.
All Your Memory Are Belong To Java
The US could drop some nukes on afghanistan and save US lives by obliterating every last afghan, but people are against it... Why? Because it comes at a tremendous cost.
We must proceed with caution with such powerful technology as cloing and stem cell projects.
It's not necessary to allow companies to harvest babies for stem-cells when they're doing fine with what they've got. If we don't put limitations on people they'll abuse their power. It's human nature.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Hmm. Does this mean that in 2004 they'll put the thymus inside someone to see if it works, or that in 2004 they'll start trying to grow a whole human?
Maybe medical technology will progress to the point where the spam mail and web pop-ups relating to "Ancient Sudanese Techniques" to "enhance your masculinity" will actually no longer be spam, merely factual advertisment.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
Don't even get me started on some of the innane comments and obvious flaebaits I've seen that are modded +5 interesting.
You people really need to get your shit together!
Attack of the Cloned Thymii?
All Your Memory Are Belong To Java
You do mean pineal fluid, don't you?
As with everything, patchwork systems don't seem to ever run as well as the origional. You can go out and buy a beat-up 73 station wagon and restore it, but when you are done can you ever honestly say you fixed _everything_ broken on it and _every_ system has been restored to factory-fresh capasity?
- Sig
Why not skip the stem cell bullshit and just harvest these organs straight from aborted babies. Or bums in the streets. Or criminals. Or terrorists. Or Zionists. Or Anti-Semites. Or...
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
Once again life imitates art.
You seem to be making fun of it. However, it is exactly where the science is going. Only compatible (that is grown from the patient's own cells) implants are good enough to allow one to live with them for years. The progress in this direction will take a good while, but it is extremely likely that scientists will be able to grow a replacement organs. Skin for the burnt is grown quite widely at the moment (it takes weeks to grow a good patch) and more sophysticated parts of body are to follow.
The thymus is a small organ that is critical to the immune system. Human trials could begin within two years.
Human trials of what? An immune system? So the un-authorized trials of billions of people over the last hundred thousand years are invalid (pun intended)?
In any case, I definitely agree; this "immune system" scientists have been proposing definitely needs more clinical research before we can allow one to be used on real people.
By the way, exactly who owns the patent on it?
I dissagree with you. I am by no means against technology (after all why would I read slashdot all of the time?) but that doesn't mean that I believe that we humans should dive into every technology that we develop.
The problem with technology and humans is that humans have a knack for doing more harm with a technology than good. To say that genetic engineering is only good is being very ignorant of humans' knack for doing harm. Don't get me wrong, not everybody is going to use these technologies for evil, but all it takes is another Hitler (who did plenty of expirements with genetics himself) to come along and figure out how to use genetic engineering to control many people.
Bill Joy (the chief computer scientist at Sun Microsystems) wrote an article in Wired Magazine that opened my eyes to the dangers of tecnology. I believe that every person who believes that genetic engineering is good (which it is in some cases, such as saving lives) should read this article. It can be found here.
...interesting if true.
Check the record of his administration - they've consistently pushed for the banning of ALL types of cloning, tissue or otherwise, which would include stem cells of all types. They don't want any genetic replicas of any human tissues, which is a completely unwarranted request. I never suggested that the stem cells in the article were embryonic.
Who sounds stupid now? Don't be such a troll.
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until they can grow my wife larger breasts.
I modded this post down. Blatant plagarism, as others in this thread have stated, - no reference to source (copyright notice clearly stated at the bottom of that page).
He banned public money because it was the only thing he had control over, and thus the only area where he had to straddle the fence in a vain attempt to appease his constituency on both sides. He actually appeased neither side - and if you follow the response of both sides of the debate after that announcement, you'll see that there were a great many stem cell proponents who were still very worried, and many opponents of the research who thought that GW had betrayed them.
His administration, however, has continued to fight, through congressional channels, to ban all kinds of cloning - tissue cloning included. As organs grown from ANY stem cells are the products of cloning, it would seem that Bush has continued working to undermine stem cell research, despite his apparent limited support of it. It's not a question of public funding - it's much more extreme than that.
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If you should pick one body part to concentrate on in order to maximize return on investment, what do you think that organ would be?
They'll be selling "designer private parts" not just for John Bobbitt but every Tom, Harry, and of course, Dick.
Just a word of prophetic warning: do not even consider having your spanking-new organically grown appendage attached in a cheap clinic in any area like California which tends to affected by rolling blackouts, not unless you don't mind joining the Eunuch Geek Movement anyway.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
A number of Larry Niven's stories in his future history "Known Space" cycle touch on this point, but arrived at a reverse conclusion in some cases: because people lived longer, they took fewer chances.
Even Hollywood will give you examples of this, although usually they look at it from the other end: "I've only got to live, so I'll go do something heroic which will probably result in my death, but big friggin' deal because I'm about to die."
The extension of that line of thought predicted by many SF authors is, "I've got three centuries of good livin' in front of me if I don't fuck it up, so why risk it all doing something possibly dangerous, like mountain climbing, deep-sea diving, or attempting to cross the street in downtown Chicago."
(The SF-aspect of the stories usually involves activities that we would think of as typical being perceived, in the brave new world, as "something possibly dangerous".)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Cloning is technically not equal to stem cell research - this is true. HOWEVER, constructing an organ, or even just a tissue, from ANY type of human stem cells IS cloning - it's known as therapeutic tissue cloning. That's what was done here. Language to ban therapeutic tissue cloning has been (and probably still is) in at least one bill that's somewhere in the legislative system. I haven't followed it for a while, but I read plenty about it a couple months ago. Look it up.
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These people probably are trying to raise research money. Personally, I think I'll get excited when they figure out how to take an individual's cells and clone an organ directly from them. Seems as if "stem-cell" created organs will suffer all of the rejection problems of a transplant, and it would be such a pity to receive a spanking new thymus only to contract and die from viral pnuemonia as the result of the drugs you must take to beat down your immune system so that the alien tissue won't be rejected/absorbed by your body.
Grow John Bobbitt a replacement penis?
Okay, I'll bite. (Actually, I don't bite.)
Forget about replacements. How about spares? Or extras? You know, redundancy. Or maybe just additional size?
Or maybe now all those SPAM messages will come true!
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
There is no role for the thymus in the adult human. I wonder who they are going to do trials in - DiGeorge patients (22q11 deletion - often athymic). I can't imagine many parents allowing someone to install a new thymus in their kid...but I guess some people are desperate. I doubt that this will work at all.
What about...say...the large intestine? Could something that is more complex such as that also be done in the near future?
I ask because...well, I don't have a colon anymore (ileostomy -- if you don't know what it is, look it up on Google). I would dearly love to be rid of the ostomy. I have had the ostomy for over 10 years now, and while I can live with it, it is just not that wonderful to have in comparison to the "real thing".
If there was a way to not only grow a new large intestine, but also implant it so that it's fully functional (which would be non-trivial, given that large amounts of peristaltic muscles would have to be reattached)...hey, I'd be first in line.
Cheers,
An AC in Europe
I doubt any other medical wonder will fascinate more
Is that like "big tabacco"?
Anyway, the important thing here should be how to improve peoples lives. You're not a doctor, so shut up. I say let people do research to determine what's actualy better.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
There are at least three types of T cells: Th cells (helper T cells), Tc cells (cytotoxic T cells), and TDTH cells (delayed-type hypersensitivity T cells). The existence of Ts cells (suppressor T cells) has been postulated but is apparently still controversial. In addition, Th cells are further subdivided into Th1 cells necesary for cell-mediated immunity (primarily targeting viral infections and tumors) and Th2 cells necessary for antibody production. T cells and B cells are both lymphocytes, which are a different lineage of white blood cells than macrophages.
A question: What does that say about God?
What I wish the article had discussed is how thymic transplants would actually help in treating HIV infection or in preventing transplant rejection.
Since T cells are initially generated in the bone marrow, a new thymus wouldn't have much of an effect with increasing T cell populations. Furthermore, even if you could somehow boost T cell numbers, what's to prevent the virus from infecting these new cells?
With organ transplantation, reject happens most rapidly when HLA haplotypes between donor and recipient aren't perfectly matched, and a new thymus wouldn't really do much to solve this mismatch.
On the other hand, I can easily see how this new development can help children with SCIDs or congenital thymic hypoplasia/aplasia.
fat's full of stem cells
That's quite an extraordinary claim. Would you please back that up with a reference of some kind?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The article doesn't say what kind of stem cells they used for their research... embryonic? adult-derived? cord blood? From a scientific standpoint, it doesn't much matter, but from an ethical standpoint, it makes all the difference in the world.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
This is a troll? Jesus. I haven't been reading slashdot really regularly for awhile, is this what the site has come to? Random modding?
Gah. What I typed was "I've only got <some short period of time> to live," but I typed the angle characters directly instead of < so they got interpreted as an HTML tag and dropped.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)