Canadian researchers have discovered a type of adult stem cell found in bone marrow that they believe could repair damaged organs and tissue when transplanted, with no chance of being rejected by a recipient’s immune system.
The stem cells, called mesenchymal stem cells, or MSCs, don’t carry markers on their surfaces that lead to rejection, according to a December report in the magazine New Scientist.
Researchers have been trying to perfect cloned stem cells as a way to overcome the rejection problem but have been unsuccessful.
Ray Chiu of McGill University in Montreal said he even was able to transplant MSCs from pigs to rats, adding that the cells only seemed to migrate towards damaged tissues once injected.
“They turned into heart muscle, blood vessels and fibrous tissue,” he said.
Abortion foes say if research holds up regarding the potential of MSCs, there could be no further need to pursue the controversial technique of harvesting stem cells from embryonic tissues.
The new research “does go against our common understanding of the immune system,” said Annemarie Moseley of Osiris Therapeutics in Baltimore.
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WND Staff