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Vein Grown From Her Own Stem Cells Saves 10-Year-Old
An anonymous reader writes in with a story about a milestone in stem cell medicine. "A ten year old girl became the first person in the world to get a major blood vessel replaced by one grown using her own stem cells. The 10-year-old from Sweden had a blockage of a vein from her liver. The doctors decided to give her a new vein instead of a liver transplant or giving her a vein from her own body, Associated Press reported. The team from University of Gothenburg first took 9 cm vein segment from a dead man and stripped all living cells from it, leaving behind only a protein structure. They later reconstructed the vein by using cells from the girl's own bone marrow. The new graft was then put in the girl's body two weeks later."
I am more interested in the fact that her cells were harvested from her bone marrow, rather than gathered from umbilical cord blood and cryogenically stored at several thousand dollars a pop.
Although it can't be a good news article for their business, it gives the rest of us oldies a bit more hope that we can benefit from stem cells.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
There's a ranch in California that provides medical grade collagen from their cattle. Their "slaughterhouse" is comparable with a high-end operating room. They need to take extreme precautions in raising the cattle to produce the absolutely best product possible - totally organic, no contact with cattle not under the control of the ranch (they actually lease all surrounding lands and leave them unused to ensure that), etc. It's very expensive to raise cattle this way. But it is very lucrative. Lucrative enough that the meat is a by-product and only adds marginally to the bottom line. I imagine if this were to become common place, similar ranches could be set up. Granted, it moves away from the local slaughterhouse diverting part of their cull, but it's do-able.