'Bionic' Nerve To Repair Damaged Limbs and Organs

University of Manchester researchers have transformed fat tissue stem cells into nerve cells -- and now plan to develop an artificial nerve that will bring damaged limbs and organs back to life. In a study published in October's Experimental Neurology, Dr Paul Kingham and his team at the UK Centre for Tissue Regeneration (UKCTR) isolated the stem cells from the fat tissue of adult animals and differentiated them into nerve cells to be used for repair and regeneration of injured nerves. They are now about to start a trial extracting stem cells from fat tissue of volunteer adult patients, in order to compare in the laboratory human and animal stem cells.

Comments

Re:Embryonic vs. adult stem cells

[Ranten_N_Raven]

Everything they can now try with this *still limited* stem-cell, they could have been doing years ago with embryonic-stem-cells.

Except that they seem to have better luck getting adult stem cells to actually do what they want them to do.

We right-to-life types tire of being accused of being against stem cell research. We object to sacrificing those we consider to be baby humans for the purpose. Think of our attitudes as that of the many who see the death penalty for murder as immoral: "It deters crime? So? It's immoral!"

On this we can all agree: Stuff like this is GREAT! Add more funding!