File this away for remembering. - Here is further evidence that adult stem cells hold greater promise than embryonic stem cells.
A stem cell researcher was ‘beyond shock’ at how easily stem cells taken from eyes reproduced in the lab. “Within seven days, they go from one cell to 7,000 to 10,000 cells,” says Brenda Coles of the University of Toronto, lead author of a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers from Toronto and Lausanne, Switzerland discovered that retinal cells were easy to obtain and the results of the tests on mice and chickens offer hope for curing certain types of blindness.
The cells were transplanted into the eyes of mice and embryonic chick eyes. The cells reproduced and were able to survive, migrate, integrate, and differentiate into all seven types of retinal tissue, especially as photoreceptors.
The research goes on to say that these adult stem cells did not cause tumors to form or reproduce themselves uncontrollably, something that has plagued experiments with embryo stem cells.
