Source: Weill Cornell Medical College
Date: September 19, 2007
Summary:
Easily accessed and plentiful, adult stem cells found in a male patient's testicles might someday be used to create a wide range of tissue types to help him fight disease -- getting around the need for more controversial embryonic stem cells. Using spermatogonial progenitor stem cells (SPCs) obtained from the mouse's testes, the researchers were able to redirect the cells' development in the lab to form so-called "multi-potent adult spermatogonial-derived stem cells" (MASCs). It was these cells that went on to develop into working blood vessel (endothelial) cells and tissue, as well as cardiac cells, brain cells and a host of other cell types.
