DEAD BRAINS BECOME SOURCE FOR NEW CELLS
WebPosted Mon Nov  6 15:04:26 2000

NEW ORLEANS--Scientists have discovered even cadavers can supply the 
incredibly versatile brain stem cells once thought to be available only 
from fetal tissue. 

 Brain stem cells are master cells that can turn into different kinds of 
brain and nerve cells. 

 Dr. Fred H. Gage of the Salk Institute at LaJolla, Calif., worked on the 
cadavers. His research used bits of tissue taken soon after death from 
children and young adults who had died of various neurological diseases. 

 His lab got the tissue 10 hours to three days after death. In every 
case, as well as with cells from a man who died at 72, researcher Theo 
Palmer was able to get some of the cells to divide and reproduce 
themselves, and to grow into different kinds of nervous system cells, 
Gage said. 

 Several other reports to the Society for Neuroscience are opening the 
field of stem cell research, and helping researchers bypass the ethical 
dilemmas involved with using human fetal tissues. 

 Another research team has shown skin can also supply brain stem cells, 
and with a bit of tweaking, so can bones. 

 Ira Black of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, 
grew brain cells from cells taken from bone marrow, where they 
ordinarily would have created bone, cartilage, muscle, tendon and fat 
cells. 

 He previously reported he and his colleagues turned 80 per cent of bone 
marrow cells taken from rats and humans into nerve cells. Additional 
work has brought that up to more than 99 percent, Black said. 

 But while Dr. Ronald D.G. McKay of the National Institute of 
Neurological Disorders and Stroke calls the finds 'exciting,' he warns 
his findings are not yet solutions and may never be. 

 McKay and two colleagues warned there are big differences between stem 
cells from embryos, and those from adult tissue. They also said 
scientists don't yet know much about those differences. 

 
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