Source: University of California - Irvine
Date: June 1, 2010
Summary:
— Irvine, Calif., — By discovering how adult neural stem cells navigate to injury sites in the central nervous system, UC Irvine researchers have helped solve a puzzle in the creation of stem cell-based treatments: How do these cells know where to go?
Tom Lane and Kevin Carbajal of the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center found the answer with the body’s immune system.
Their study not only identifies an important targeting mechanism in transplanted stem cells but also provides a blueprint for engineering stem cell-based therapies for multiple sclerosis and other chronic neurological diseases in which inflammation occurs. Results appear in this week’s early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
