(Catholic Culture) Harvard scientists have announced what appears to be a breakthrough in research on the treatment of cystic fibrosis.
Using stem cells taken from the skin of cystic-fibrosis victims, the researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have produced tissues that reproduce the lung tissues of the disease’s victims. These tissues can now be used to test drugs that attack the disease directly—something that had not previously been possible.
This latest important advance—like virtually every important advance to date in the medical use of stem cells—involved the use of cells taken from adult donors.
Praise God! ~Using adult stem cells - Big advance against cystic fibrosis: "Beginning with the skin cells of patients with CF, Jayaraj Rajagopal and colleagues first created induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, and then used those cells to create human disease-specific functioning lung epithelium, the tissue that lines the airways and is the site of the most lethal aspect of CF, where the genes cause irreversible lung disease and inexorable respiratory failure." Source: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/04/big-advance-against-cystic-fibrosis/
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