UCLA-led team creates first comprehensive map of human blood stem cell development

UCLA scientistsand colleagues have created a first-of-its-kind roadmap that traces each step in the development of blood stem cells in the human embryo, providing scientists with a blueprint for producing fully functional blood stem cells in the lab.The research,published todayin the journal Nature, could help expand treatment options for blood cancers like leukemia and inherited blood disorders such as sickle cell disease, saidDr. Hanna Mikkolaof theEli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA, who led the study.Blood stem cells, also called hematopoietic stem cells, have the ability to make unlimited copies of themselves and to differentiate into every type of blood cell in the human body. For decades, doctors have used blood stem cells from the bone marrow of donors and the umbilical cords of newborns in life-saving transplant treatments for blood and immune diseases. However, these treatments are limited by a shortage of matched donors and hampered by the low number of stem cells in cord blood.Researchers have sought to overcome these limitations by attempting to create blood stem cells in the lab from human pluripotent stem cells, which can potentially give rise to any cell type in the body. But success has been elusive, in part because scientists have lacked the instructions to make lab-grown cells differentiate into self-renewing blood stem cells rather than short-lived blood progenitor cells, which can only produce limited blood...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news