Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Advances on Stem Cell Research
I was watching a segment on the news about stem cell diseases and saving cord blood, a concept that I have always found repulsive. Imagining saving that blood from such a gorey site... gasp! But anyway, it was supposed to be almost like an insurance policy to save the stem cells from your babies' umbilical cord so in the case they were to have some stem cell issue in the future, they'd be protected or something. But come to find out, its recently been shown that if they do have most of the diseases listed on those "Save their Stem Cells- Save your Baby" brochures, if they are genetic diseases- most of them are- they cannot use their own cord blood. Amazing right? They spend all this money to cryogenically freeze and protect these cells in private xpensive cord banks and when it comes down to saving their lives, they have to use some body else's cord blood from a free public Cord Bank.
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When you use someone else's blood that is called allogenic and there are problems with that. Your body can reject the cells (just like in an organ transplant) so you have to get a perfect match...but there is an alternative.
ReplyDeleteThey can take the patient's own stem cells (autologous) from their bone marrow, their fat, their nose...depending on the type of cells they need. No rejection, no problems.
I'm just saying...