Source: Stanford University Medical Center
Date: July 15, 2010
Summary:
STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a technique they believe will help scientists overcome a major hurdle to the use of adult stem cells for treating muscular dystrophy and other muscle-wasting disorders that accompany aging or disease: They've found that growing muscle stem cells on a specially developed synthetic matrix that mimics the elasticity of real muscle allows them to maintain their self-renewing properties.
Adult stem cells already exist in the body, and are important in regenerating tissues like blood, muscles and neurons in the brain. But scientists have struggled to produce them in quantities needed for therapies because the cells differentiate and lose their "stemness" as soon as they're placed in a tissue culture dish. This new method of growing the cells creates a way to study the behavior of many types of adult stem cells in culture and may revolutionize the ability to produce these cells for future therapies, say the researchers. The research will be published online July 15 in Science Express.
