Stem cell therapy wasn’t unfair help for baseball star
A pitcher for the New York Yankees, is at the centre of a Major League Baseball investigation after he opted for stem cell therapy to treat an elbow and shoulder injury.
New Scientist: 8 June 2011
Stem cells can repair a broken heart
Scientists have identified a protein in mice that induces stem cells to repair an injured heart. This could lead to a treatment able to repair injured heart muscle in humans.
Nature, 8 June 2011
Cord blood – private of public?
ABC radio’s program PM last aired a story last night about ongoing controversy of the merits of private cord blood banking. That is, where parents choose to store the stem cells found in their child’s umbilical cord in a private cord blood bank for the exclusive use of that child should they ever get a disease that could be treated with those stem cells. It costs a few thousand dollars to do this as opposed to the free service provided by the public cord blood banks. Of course, via the public system should your child need a cord blood donation you cannot be sure of finding a genetically suitable donor.
The controversy lies largely with how the private cord blood banks are promoting themselves to parents. Some are calling it deceptive marketing by promising stuff that cord blood is unlikely to be able to deliver. One could argue that most marketing does this, but you would hope in such a crucial decision as this parents have also discussed the options with their own doctors and are making a decision with at least some clues.
One things that wasn’t raised in last night’s story was that the amount of stem cells in one umbilical cord is tiny meaning in a lot of cases patients requiring stem cells from cord blood need cells from more than one cord, which means they will have to dip into the public banks anyway.
More info
The Australian Stem Cell Centre has a good fact sheet with links to further info on the use of cord blood and the private and public cord blood banks
Perfectly formed nanoparticle target cancer
Scientists have designed a nanoparticle that can deliver light-sensitive molecules to cancer cells and kill them.
University of Hull: 6 June 2011
Stem cell treatment for broken bones that don’t heal
Animal studies show that transplantation of adult stem cells enriched with a bone-regenerating hormone can help mend bone fractures that are not healing properly.
Science Daily: 5 June 2011
Safety of nanoparticles in food crops is still unclear
Scientists report a huge gap in knowledge about the effects of nanoparticles on food crops.
American Chemical Society: 1 June 2011
Reference
Cyren M. Rico, et al. Interaction of Nanoparticles with Edible Plants and Their Possible Implications in the Food Chain. J. Agric. Food Chem., 2011, 59 (8), pp 3485–3498
The Internet and mapping genetic disease
Opinion: Thanks to the genetic revolution and the internet, we can now see a way to map genetic diseases and reduce the burden of inherited conditions.