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Biologists Find Stem-Cell-Like Functions In Ordinary Cells

Posted by Soulskill on from the anything-you-can-do-i-can-do-better dept.

mattrandy123 writes with news that scientists from NYU and Utrecht University have discovered ordinary plant cells can fulfill some of the same regenerative functions previously attributed to stem cells. Quoting: "In the study, the researchers cut off the plant's root tip, thereby excising the stem cell niche, and examined the return of cell identities by measuring all gene activity. The results suggested that stem cells returned quite late in regeneration after other cells were already replaced. The researchers then used mutant plants in which the stem cell niche no longer functions to confirm their initial observations. Despite the absence of the stem cell niche, the plant's ordinary cells worked to regenerate all the major tissues constituting the root tip — a process that began hours after it had been removed. However, researchers found that plants without functional stem cell niches could not resume normal growth, showing that other cells did not replace all functions of stem cells."

3 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. No medical need to cannibalize human babies by Iowan41 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    And every single cure found to date has come from adult stem cells. Not a one from butchered babies. There has never been a medical or scientific need to create a slave race of babies to cannibalize and experiment on.

  2. Re:Pre-emptive troll-bait thread here... by repapetilto · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    If you ever have an argument to make, and it involved dividing people up into liberals and conservatives, democrats and republicans, anything like that... Just keep it to yourself because its probably stupid. Also only other people who like "us vs them" arguments will bother addressing your points and, as a result, noone will understand the issue any better in the end but will be angrier than when they started.

  3. On The Other Hand... by mangu · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It's great that GWB coerced researchers to find alternate sources of stem cells, otherwise every walk-in clinic in the country would be blending embryos in the back room by now.

    Of course, if embryonic stem cell research had not faced such resistance, then we might have had more results helping humans instead of plants by now.

    That many plants can be cloned simply by cutting parts of them I have known since I was a small child. Now what we would like to know is how to make parts of human bodies regenerate in a similar way.