This news story from early this year is amazing. A man's own stem cells from his bone marrow was harvested, prepped and then re-inserted back into his heart to help grow blood vessels around his heart to treat his coronary artery disease. But the most amazing part is that his stem cells were harvested during surgery giving him results that were almost seen immediately. See the attached link for a more detail read...
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/health/your_health&id=7938808
More people should know about stem cell treatments such as this. When you bring up the topic of stem cells, the majority of individuals automatically think about the controversy of embryonic stem cells. If more people knew about the stem cells in our own bodies I think we would see a major shift towards the advancement of stem cell disease treatment.
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome. I have always wanted to be a surgeon and I also have a passion for cardiology. I am so glad that we are coming to the day when we can save and heal more people and with better and better results.
ReplyDeleteI know that University of Buffalo is also working with stem cell derived from heart tissue biopsies that are being placed back in to the heart of mice to help the growth of ischaemic regions of the heart. So much potential there for the many americans and people around the world that suffer from heart diseases.
I am sure that many people have heard of stem cells, but like Tim said they oversee the positive of stem cell research. This is an amazing story to know we can use our own body to cure other parts of it. I wonder if there are any small side effects if any to compromise for this?
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting article, and I agree with Tim & Karen that the problem with exciting research that could potially lead to cures for devastating diseases is how we present the information to the public. Scientists are not often the best orators when it comes to explaining biological processes to people who do not have a background in science. We should not assume everyone knows about the "hot" topics within the field and we should devote as much attention to explaining new discoveries as we do to further experimenting. Most people are afraid of what they do not understand, instead, we should focus on the explanation portion of science.
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