isisbiomed

zeenews.india.com

Thursday, June 21, 2012,10:15

A PIONEERING stem cell treatment in which tissue can be created from fat cells has been hailed by ­scientists as “a new dawn” in regenerative medicine.

The technique, initially used to produce bone, could eliminate the need for painful and sometimes damaging bone grafts, helping patients needing spinal surgery or victims of the brittle bone disease osteoporosis.

The breakthrough will be especially welcomed by two members of the Royal Family, the Duchess of Cornwall and Princess Eugenie.

Camilla, who lost her mother and grandmother to osteoporosis, is president of the National Osteo- porosis Society while Eugenie is a supporter of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, where as a child she underwent surgery to stop her developing a curved spine.

Experts say the new procedure can also be applied to produce other tissue, including heart, skin and cartilage. It is hoped the work, jointly carried out by Dr Bruno Peault, a stem cell specialist at Edinburgh University, and Professor Chia Soo, who specialises in reconstructive surgery at the University of California, will be tested on humans within two years.

Professor Soo said: “We are extremely excited. This is opening up a new dawn in personalised regenerative medicine in which people can isolate stem cells from their fat for repairing damaged bone, muscle, skin or cartilage.

“Fat has a large number of tissue-growing stem cells and most people have fat cells to spare. People could go for a liposuction as a cosmetic procedure and save their fat cells for future use, or they can use the fat cells immediately.

The technique, published in the journal Stem Cell Translational Medicine, involves isolating the stem cells found in body fat that can form bone. These are then cultured to produce more stem cells which are then mixed with a growth factor to vecome bone stem cells.

Full Article:

http://zeenews.india.com/news/health/health-news/stem-cell-treatment-to-rebuild-lost-tissue-from-fat-cells_17514.html